Chapter Text
"Y'know, I really like you in buttondowns." Bram playfully runs his hands down my back over the starchy material of the short-sleeve dress shirt I'm currently wearing. I flinch a little at the sensation and twist my head to frown at him. I'm leading the way into my house, him following slightly behind since I had to unlock the door.
"I hate them though," I complain, but any umbrage I take to the whole thing dissolves when I see that half-smile on his face. My voice is softer when I continue. "It's....I dunno, I sweat in them 'cause I overheat."
"Don't you swear by hoodies?" he asks teasingly.
"They're not scratchy. I don't know, I don't sweat so bad."
That's not really true; hoodies can make you sweat, just it's not, like, gross armpit sweat. Generic body sweat. Much more bearable and ignorable. Plus staying inside in AC. Duh.
"That's why you wear an undershirt with them." Bram rolls his eyes at me as he toes off his shoes and puts them in one of the little cubbies next to the door. I mirror him, sliding off my somewhat-scuffed-up dress shoes. I honestly love getting to do stuff with Bram's family, even if that means scratchy, easy-to-sweat-in shirts, so we'd spent the afternoon at one of his, like, third-cousins's (is that how you say that? cousinses? sounds like Gollum) baht mitzvahs. Lots of family asking lots of questions, but ultimately not too bad. After an hour, I even managed to feel like we weren't on display as the conspicuously-gay cousin and his boyfriend. Bram had given me a yarmulke to wear in the ceremony; I'd balked before he'd explained that it was just respectful regardless of religion. It slipped down my hair a couple times, but no one seemed to notice.
"Yeah, but then I overheat and sweat worse." I rapidly whip off my tie and undo the top button, shaking my head side-to-side to stretch, relieved to have the fabric off my neck. Bram, by contrast, had totally cheated at the whole semi-formal thing, opting for a form-fitting turtleneck and a sport jacket over it. He'd even double-cheated by going with black jeans instead of proper dress or half-dress pants.
(Bram hadn't told him, but one of his cousins had gone in for a hug and deviously whispered "the black jeans are fooling no one" in his ear right when they arrived)
I'd had to just suck it up - and, literally, suck it in - to put on my slightly-too-small khakis that morning. I think I'd last worn these to my aunt's wedding in 9th grade, and my stomach (and probably ass, as embarrassing as that is to ponder) have gained some, uh, girth since then.
Girth sounds gross as a word, but it's better than, like 'fat' or 'pudge' or 'flab' or whatever. I don't think too hard about my weight if I can avoid it. And, I guess luckily, I'm just kinda chubby all over, so it's evenly distributed. I don't hate my body, but sometimes next to my wiry, too-perfect, awesome soccer player boyfriend, the contrasts are kinda dramatic.
Leah's way more confident about weight stuff. Hopefully it'll start rubbing off on me someday, but I'm not betting on it anytime soon.
Bram has reminded me like a gazillion times that he doesn't care; doing even better, that he loves how cuddly and warm and snugglable I am. Whatever.
Unfortunately, Sunday afternoon baht mitzvahs don't grant exceptions to Sunday almost-evening homework. God, how it I'm always doing fucking homework? Is that just what junior year's all about? Homework?
Apparently.
Bram slings on his backpack - left on the hook by my front door when he'd picked me up this morning, the better to not cook his laptop by leaving it in the car in the Georgian April sun - and snatches my hand to lead me upstairs.
"C'mon, study time."
I groan, but squeeze his hand back hungrily.
Sure, homework sucks, but I'm holding hands with my boyfriend as I trudge up the stairs to my room. Can't suck that much with such company.
For-fucking-once, we're actually getting work done.
I kinda hate it.
I'm like 70% of the way through my math sheet when Bram closes his book.
"Done?" I ask, already knowing the answer.
"Yep. You?"
I gesture pathetically with my pencil. It's been at least an hour. Or a millennium. Algebra II's dumb like that.
"Study break?" he asks with crooked, devious smile.
I know what that means; best part of studying, hands-fucking DOWN. Or I guess not-studying, technically.
I'm sitting at my desk, he's been stretched out on the bed, back propped up on a quadruple stack of pillows. Apparently just to torture me, he'd pulled off his turtleneck when we'd settled in, leaving just his sleeveless undershirt underneath. How in the hell am I supposed to care about math with that to look at?
Distracted by my stupid brain, I hadn't bothered to take off my stupid dress shirt. Part Simon-brain not thinking things through (this had abso-fucking-lutely made my homework-ridden misery worse and scratchier) and partially feeling kinda too embarrassed for casual shirtlessness in front of Bram.
Which is stupid, 'cause he's seen me shirtless plenty of times. It's not like it's a surprise.
But stupid insecurities sometimes don't bother to know the difference.
But all this has meant I'm overthinking, wasting precious study-break seconds before clambering over and on top of him.
"Let me put my laptop down," he chuckles, worming his way past me to softly put it on the floor. I'm crouched over him, tiger-like, feeling like I'm gonna blow up if I don't get to kiss him ASAP.
Fortunately, I'm spared such explosive measures. He scintillatingly (SAT word, bitches!) runs a fingertip under my soft chin and tilts my head forward, then sweetly brings our lips together.
"Mmmm, strawberries." He lightly giggles against my lips, and I feel like I'm gonna vibrate through the atmosphere.
"Shut up...." I roll my eyes, thinking of the cough drops I'd haplessly crunched through over the course of math homework. Stupid allergies....and why'd they make cough drops so candy-crunchable, if you're apparently supposed to suck them? I've seriously been fighting this battle every spring with allergies (aren't you supposed to, like, get immune to those?) and every winter with a cold.
But, to be fair, Bram likes strawberries.
"I like strawberries," he responds, as if reading my mind, playfully running his tongue tip over my lips. "And I really like you."
"You have a crush on me? That's embarrassing." I kinda hate Chris Pratt, but sometimes Parks and Rec lines just make too much sense not to throw into conversation. Or study break makeouts.
"I wanna crush you," he replies deviously, suddenly pulling both arms up around my middle and causing me to flop down, bear-hugging my squishy torso tight.
"Bram, I'm gonna crush you."
"Nah you're not. You're like a weighted *kiss* blanket * Si *kiss*." He pops tiny kisses on my left cheek, then nose, then right cheek as he says that.
I roll my eyes. Again. That's just kinda what I do. 'Weighted' is certainly an apt adjective for all this.
Bram nuzzles our noses together, an incredibly-effective distraction as he suddenly flexes and swaps our positions, so I'm laying flat on my back with him on top of me.
Great. Demoted from weighted blanket to body pillow.
"You don't like this shirt, do ya?" he asks, fiddling with my collar.
"N-no?" It sounds like a question, even though he knows the answer. My hear thumps fast in my chest.
"Well, lemme help with that."
I hold my breath as he unbuttons the second button, then the third, then spreads it out. My whole-ass pasty sternum on display, nipples threatening to poke through on the sides. I'm about to throw in a sarcastic and probably self-deprecating comment, but he cuts me off, voice smooth and low.
"You're like a 70s disco guy." Not waiting for more commentary on my comically-open shirt, he leans down and softly kisses right below the points of my collarbone.
Mortifyingly, I let out a moan.
"You like that?" he teases again.
"MmmmgrMmmm..." is about all I can manage.
Without further talk, he does it again. And again. And he's working his way down, soft presses on my sternum, then my inter-nipple spot, before exploring his way sideways, gently tugging my shirt to the side and exposing my left nipple.
"Second base," he croons....then I literally quiver as he fucking sucks my dorky-pink nipple. It gets all pointy and hard and I'm grateful for my too-tight pants as other things get pointy and hard as I arch my back involuntarily. He flutters his tongue tip over it....
....and that prompts the spasmodic (second SAT word!) giggle. Bram lets up, drawing back to smolderingly stare me down. He's pushup-position, hands next to my shoulders, a cocky grin spreading on his face.
"Oh, did that tickle, perchance, Mr. Spier?"
No point in lying. I nod bashfully.
He's only done it a few brief, sometimes even accidental times, but Bram's confessed he loves my surprised, dorky laugh that pops out when I get tickled. And I'm such a wuss that I fucking melt every time.
My family's laid off the practice since I was 13, and a particularly-long bout of my dad and Alice ganging up on me at the beach had caused an incredibly-embarrassing basically asthma attack. And I don't even have asthma.
Consequences of getting buried in the sand with my feet sticking out and armpits accessible, I guess.
But now with the way Bram is looking at me - and the way he's undoing a couple more shirt buttons, almost all the way to my belly button - I find myself a little less apprehensive. God, I'm so far gone for him - he can touch me all over any way he wants.
Tantalizingly, he draws the tip of his nose up my stomach and back to my chest, stopping at the bottom of my sternum, right in the middle of my ribs. Eyes giving me a Kubrick-stare, he pops a quick, pointy kiss on the little bit of chub.
Brain absolutely firing on all nervous cylinders, I squeak out a laugh.
"Oh, I'm opening this up all the way," he adds with a gleeful smile....
....and I feel immediately crestfallen.
He undoes the last buttons, and spreads the shirt to expose my round belly...with all the stupid stretch marks on the sides. Without a word, I start to do a wimpy curl-up, moment fading fast.
"What's the rush?" he asks, frowning slightly.
"You...you don't wanna see all that."
"Uh, yeah I do?" Bram sounds incredulous, like I'd just suggested the sky was purple or something.
"All this?" I drop my hands and pathetically jiggle my stomach. "All this stretch-marked bullshit?"
"Simon, I've told you what I think of you." He's frowning for real now, and it just about breaks my heart. I'm getting ready to retort, but he cuts me off.
"I love all of you. All of you." He gently pushes aside my hands, exposing the stretch marks again. "I-if you're cool with it...I wanna kiss all of you."
Well, my dumb 17 year old brain can't resist a good innuendo. "All of me?"
Bram might've caught it, but he's being serious. "Yeah." As if to prove his point, he gently pushes me back down onto the pillows and lowers his face to the top of my stomach, planting another soft kiss.
Then another. Then another, working his way down.
God. His voice was so earnest, and his lips are so soft, and honestly, I'm getting super fucking turned on again.
He's reaching where I'm really soft, about 8 inches above my belly button, when I giggle again.
"Sorry, is something funny?" he asks, looking up at me.
I urgently shake my head, heart fluttering at where this is going.
I'm pretty sure I don't, like, have a fetish for this or anything. But I'm so turned on right now that Bram can do whatever he wants, and I'm gonna find it hot, like it or not.
He gives me a knowing, devious look as he starts again, but now it's clear what he's doing.
Another kiss, and I giggle again like a dork. Another, and he teasingly is running his nose over my soft, pasty belly, still headed downward.
And that asshole - that beautiful asshole - dares to nibble the chubby rim of my stupid, apparently-incredibly-fucking-ticklish belly button. I let out a ridiculously undignified squawk of a real laugh, whole body jerking up to arch my back, then flopping back down flat under him.
"HAhee!" It ends with a fizzling giggle.
So Bram does it again, torturously biting with just his lips on that same spot, then teasingly with the tips of his teeth, then back to lips.
"Bra-ah-HA-am!" I try to stammer out, laughs coming more and more.
Instead of letting up - OK, I get it, this is weird as fuck but whatever - he proceeds to stick his tongue in there. Then flick, then swirl it around, chuckling to himself dastardly at the way this is absolutely wrecking me.
This boy is fucking making out with my belly button and I, being a fucking weirdo, absolutely love it.
Despite the fact that this also amounts to absolutely insane-tier tickle torture.
I'm laughing hard now, struggling to keep my hands by my sides as I pathetically squirm, but Bram just keeps going, and going, and I can't help it, I reflexively dart my hands up to push his stupid adorable face away...
...damn his sports guy reflexes. He catches my wrists mid-motion and plants them back down to my sides.
OK, if I thought it was weird and hot and torturous to have my belly button tickle-made-out-with to begin with, being literally held down for that, like, tripled the sensation.
God, I don't even know how long it's been, but he keeps going, and I keep laughing harder and harder and I can feel my eyes getting wet, chest gasping up and down.....I'm not quite beach-asthma-attack levels yet, but some sliver of self-preservation left in my stupidly-turned-on, laugh-adrenaline-flooded brain suggests this is maybe getting to be too much.
Maybe Bram's a mind reader. A sexy, sexy mind reader. He stops, leaning up to look at me, and lets my wrists go.
"Fuck," I moan, laying back on the pillows, bringing my hands to my very-red face in embarrassment. Bram playfully runs a fingertip in a circle around my belly button, snickering at the way it's all wet now.
I told you. Weird and vaguely gross, but it's Bram, so I'm into it.
"You like that?"
God, he's gonna make me say it.
I can't even look - just keep my face hidden, smiling like a dumbass.
But he's some sort of mind reader, I think. 'Cause he moves closer, voice teasing and optimistic.
"Simon...." he draws out the syllables as he sidles closer, now straddling my waist.
God, he can probably feel how hard I am now. I swear, I'm going to melt in embarrassment.
"Can you look at me?" he asks, gently trying to pull my elbows apart.
"Mm-mm." I shake my head, stubbornly staying hidden, heart racing.
And then he says the absolute worst and absolute best suggestion he could right now.
"Fine. I'll make you."
"SHIT!" I squawk, my hands flying away from my face, arms clenching down uselessly - all that achieves is locking his hands in place. See, like an idiot, I'd basically been lying mostly-shirtless, pinned under my enthusiastic-to-tickle-me boyfriend, with my arms basically over my head.
So naturally, his long, pointy fingers are currently wiggling and scratching and pinching in my stupid chubby incredibly-sensitive armpits.
And there's no signs up letting up.
And despite starting to hopelessly thrash around and mumble swears and protests between the dorky, squeaky laughs, I don't mind at all.
"Somebody's trapped." He brings his face closer to mine, carefully avoiding the way I'm slightly shaking my head with dizzy laughs. "You're not goin' anywhere, are you? Huh?"
God damn it. Now that he's not using his tongue, this gorgeous asshole is gonna tease me on top of the torture?
I hate it. I love it.
Really, I don't have a fetish for this. Probably.
"You're so cute," he adds, upping the intensity with his fingers, adding some kneads over my moobs with his thumbs and settling a little higher as I try to buck him off. "Is this your worst spot?"
"I -HEaeeh-doN'T-KNowhaahaahwwa!" I choke out.
To be fair, I literally don't. I don't think I really have tickle spots, so much as I just am a tickle spot.
"Cool. Well, I'm gonna help you find out."
Somehow, amid the laughs and shakes and squirms, I manage a gulp in there. Find out?
That sexy mind reading asshole is still mercilessly tickling my armpits as he lowers his face, and starts kissing me. Hard, passionate, working his lips over mine as much as possible, given that I'm still laughing myself stupid.
- OK. I can take this. I can take being shirtless and trapped and tickled and kissed all at the same time. I can, seriously.
I'm not about to explode with how turned on I am. Probably.
I, fortunately, am not going to have to endure that hypothesis, because he pulls back, then stops torturing my armpits, easing to a stop. He doesn't take his hands out though, like he's just taking a pause.
He smiles down at me, and I know I look ridiculous with my cheeks red, hair messed up, glasses crooked.
"You good?" he asks, nuzzling our noses together.
"You're so mean to me."
"Awwww, no I'm not." He kisses the tip of my nose once, snickering at the way my face scrunches up. "I'm even gonna help you find out your worst tickle spot, how's that mean? That's educational."
"Educational?" I try for sarcasm, but it comes out like trepidation (THIRD SAT word!!!).
"Mhm." He starts circling his thumbs over the chubby spot where my armpits meet my shoulders - not enough to tickle, just tease, for now. "So we're gonna test your armpits, then your neck, then your ribs, then your stomach - "
"You already did my stoma-a-ach!" I'm starting to laugh now. Pre-laugh, just at this stupid, devious list.
"But I have to, Si, for science." Aaaand now I'm being tickled again, right as he says 'science.'
I pathetically start laughing, trying to jerk away, but he's basically laying on top of me now. Fortunately, he stops after only a couple seconds.
"....and then your thighs, and your knees, and your feet." He finishes, satisfied, bumping our noses together again.
I'm so fucked. I'm so stupidly in love.
"Are...are you sure?" I whimper, already smiling.
"Well, first, we gotta take all this semi-formal stuff off. No point not testing on bare skin."
I'm gonna explode. I'm gonna explode, because he slides down me, then starts undoing my belt.
I'm so fucked.
He undoes my pants button, then my fly, then starts tugging them down. Bram makes a teasing snickering noise, eyes falling on the rather-hard-to-miss feature happening in my boxers, but that sexy asshole ignores it.
Great. My thighs are out. More stretch marks.
Shut up, I tell myself. Bram loves you.
God, what an awesome sentence.
I'm gonna explode, 'cause he's now taken my pants all the way off. He throws them somewhere in the corner of my room, missing he laundry hamper entirely, then scootches all the way down to the foot of the bed, next to my somewhat-gross-sweaty dress socks. Without further comment, he simultaneously slips a finger under each ankle-band and pulls them off.
I'm so fucked.
"Now that you're prepared..." he says dangerously, running his fingertips over my left sole. I twitch my foot away with a nervous giggle.
Bram eagerly and suddenly re-straddles me, sitting over my waist and pinning my arms to the sides. "....let's take it from the top."