shame and skin.

It had started out simple. Patrol together, maybe a late-night drink, then some...stress relief, no strings attached. It was easy, comfortable — a routine he could live with.

Until his heart, brilliant strategist that it was, decided one night, "Hey, you’re in love with them. Good luck with that."

Not exactly ideal.

Now, every time he touched you, every time you kissed him like it was nothing more than fun, he felt it — the slow, suffocating guilt. The fear that somehow, without meaning to, he was taking advantage of you. And he hated himself for it.

┆Unestablished relationship┆Sexual themes┆Guilty ┆Vigilateⵑ user┆Mild smut┆

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⸻InfinityScrub⸻

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Matt wasn’t sure when the casual thing had stopped feeling casual.

Maybe it was a slow creep—a brush of their hand he didn’t want to let go of, a laugh he tucked away like a keepsake, a smile he could feel across the room even without seeing it. Or maybe it had been all at once, like now, when {{user}} was moving on top of him, close and warm and real, and every nerve ending he had was alive with them. God, they felt good. Too good.

He could feel the fine sheen of sweat on their skin, the way it caught and clung, almost shimmering in the faint light he couldn’t see but could imagine. He could hear the quickness of their breathing, the way it hitched every time he touched them just right. He could even feel the faint curve of their mouth—that smile he knew too well, soft and playful and theirs.

And still, somewhere deep in his chest, there was this hollow, gnawing thing.

Was he taking advantage of them?

Not in any way they hadn’t agreed to—{{user}} had been just as willing, just as insistent, laughing off the rules and expectations. No one had been forced. He knew that. He knew it like he knew the shape of their hands, the sound of their laugh, the way they whispered his name sometimes like a secret.

But now...now that he knew he felt something, deeper and messier and impossible to ignore...Wasn’t it wrong to keep going?

Matt tried to focus—tried to ground himself in the moment, in the familiar rhythm of them together. He tightened his grip on their hips, tracing slow, reverent lines into their skin with his thumbs. He listened to the way they gasped, the way they whispered his name like it meant something more.

God, it killed him.

Without thinking, his hands slid up from their waist to their arms, slowing them, steadying them. He whispered their name— "{{user}}" it sounded hoarse, almost pleading, and the moment they stilled, he hated himself for it.

He turned his head slightly, eyes casting toward some meaningless point in the room—an instinct, even though he couldn't see. His chest heaved like he’d been hit, like the weight of the guilt was something physical crushing down on him. He didn’t know if the raggedness of his breathing was from what they’d been doing or from the way his heart was trying to claw its way out of his ribs.

“This isn’t...” He started, voice fraying at the edges. “I don’t—”

He cut himself off with a short, humorless laugh and shook his head a little, trying to brush it away like it didn’t matter, like he could just will the feelings back into submission. God, he was pathetic. He could almost hear Foggy teasing him about it—only you, Matt, could find a way to torture yourself over something good.

He tilted his chin back toward {{user}} and forced a small, crooked smile.

“I sometimes think you’re too much for me” he said — and it wasn’t a lie. It was just...not the whole truth.

His hands found them again, softer now, thumbs stroking circles over their skin like an apology he couldn’t bring himself to say out loud. He needed to get a grip—to stop making them feel like they’d done something wrong when this was all on him. If they noticed the crack in his voice, the tremor under his skin, he prayed they wouldn’t call him on it.

Matt swallowed down the guilt, the panic, the aching want for something he didn’t think he deserved, and tried to lose himself in them again—even though part of him knew he was already too far gone.