A/N: Just a one shot between my beloved Finn and Beck ship (OTP? OTP.) but kind of digging the background concept, so if you're into it too let me know and I might turn it into a chapter fic where we get to see how their relationship came about. Got a little smuttier than usual, because I need some time to build to the moment (obviously the only reason, can't think of any other reason). Mature content ahead.

A/N 2: Repost. Formatting fixed! Thanks for pointing that out. Does that happen to anyone else? I feel like it happens at least once a story. This one just would not go right no matter how many times I replaced it.

XXX

"Becky pulled up to the little apartment and breathed a sigh of relief seeing an unfamiliar car in the driveway. This was the right thing to do, but it wasn't easy to be alone with him. She'd half considered calling up any number of the NXT gang to come visit him with her, but worried about overwhelming him this early on. So instead, she had gotten into the car this evening after dropping her bags off at her place, and headed across Orlando to see Finn. Her heart beat a little faster as she rang the doorbell. An middle aged woman answered it, smiling.

""Becky!" she said as she embraced her in a hug, "it's so good to see you."

""Hi Mrs. Devitt, is Finn awake? I just got in, didn' have a chance to call."

"Yeah, he's in the den, come in," they walked along a narrow hallway of the one bedroom shack. Finn preferred to live beneath his means. Years of sleeping on couches had instilled that in him, no matter how much he was making.

He was stretched out on a large leather recliner, his arm in a heavy brace and sling. Though hazy, his eyes lit up when he saw her.

"Hey," he said in a slightly drowsy voice, trying to pull himself up a bit, "I was hopin' to see you,"

"It's…been crazy at work," she sat down on the couch next to his chair, "did you get my card?"

"Oh, the one that sang?" he asked with a grin. "Couldn't miss it."

"That's the one."

"He laughed, it was good to see him smile.

"Well, ya better be bringin' that fancy new title home for Ireland, we already lost the one."

"I dunno…" she sighed, it was still a work in progress.

"You will," he said quietly, "I know it."

Their eyes met and she felt her heart skip a beat. His affect on her was unprecedented.

"Becky, I loved watchin' your match at the show," his mom chimed in, "Can't remember the last time I saw you wrestle."

"Oh thank you, it woulda been Bray, wouldn' it?"

"Finn nodded, "a very long time ago."

"Hopefully I've gotten better since then,"

"It was a wonderful match, I know you girls get frustrated sometimes with the time constraints. But you did a great job."

"Thank you,"

"You were great even back then," he said, looking at her with those big blue eyes. "I'm tellin' ya, that is nothin' new."

She felt the heat rise between them as she met his gaze, but tried to shake it off. He was looking at her in a way that he hadn't in a while, and it made the hair on her neck stand up. Mrs. Devitt came to the rescue.

"Are you staying for dinner?" she asked, looking at Becky.

"Oh, uh, sure. Do you have somethin' in mind? There's a pizza place down by the performance center."

"I have to keep to my meal plan," he protested. She rolled her eyes at him.

"Pizza sounds great, just plain for me. Fergal what do you want?"

"He sighed, "fine, meat lovers, 2 slices?"

"And a coke?" Becky asked, she knew his cheat day order."

"At least make it a diet," he said with a groan.

"Got it, I can go get it." She picked her satchel bag off of the floor and crossed it over her body. "I'll be back in like 30 minutes."

"Thanks dear, I'll make a salad too, how about that?"

"Yay," he said half-heartedly, watching Becky walk out the front door.

He followed his mom into the kitchen, stretching his aching legs.

"You should leave the door unlocked for her," she reminded him as she searched the fridge for the ingredients they'd bought.

"It's aiight, she has a key."

"She has a key?"

"Yeah, I mean," he started to stumble on the words, "for emergencies, and cat sittin'."

"You don't have a cat."

"Right, but, " he took a head of lettuce from her and started ripping it off with his left hand, "if I did it would be helpful to have someone who had a key to my place."

"Uh huh." She took a cutting board out from his cabinets and began slicing the vegetables. "So,"

"So?"

"So what's happenin' there?"

He cleared his throat nervously, "nothin'.span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanYou know Becky, we go way back. It's good to have people like that around. She's a great friend."

"Right, a friend."

"You really don't believe me?"

"I really don't," she said with a laugh.

He sighed, "aiight, okay. Since I moved here we've been sorta…on and off."

"On and off, what does that mean?"

He shrugged, "we date when we want to, we don't when we don't. An' we don't bother tellin' anyone 'cause it's not worth the drama."

"An' right now you're…"

"Off. Have been for a while. She got called up and we barely saw each other. It sorta simmered out, ya know?" He looked over at her, trying to read her expression, "I didn't… I didn't ever touch her back then, when we first met. When she was just a teenager? I wouldn't-"

"Oh, honey I know. I wasn't worried about that."

"So what's that look for?" He leaned against the counter, having used up his usefulness.

"I just don' understand why you'd play that game."

"Our business is tough Ma, it's not easy to date while in it."

"But plenty o' people do, don't they? Weren't you just at your friend's weddin' the other week?"

"Sasha's, yeah, but-"

"So seems to me, if you really wanted to you could make it work."

"Well maybe we don't really want to."

She laughed, "I don't believe that for a second. Love like that is hard to find, you shouldn't squander it."

"Hold up, I never said anything about love."

"You didn't have to. The look on your face when she walked in said it all. You have a bowl for this?"/p

"Over here," he said reaching up with his left hand and bringing a blue glass bowl down to her. "I'm not in love with Becky. An' she sure isn't in love with me."

"Well if you were, hypothetically, you should tell her. You might be surprised."

XXX

A while later, he sat eating his slice of pizza, watching as Becky laughed hysterically, telling his mom a story from back in NXT. She was always so beautiful when she laughed. There were days he'd do just about anything to get her eyes to light up and her head to tip back like that.

"Alright, I'm gonna head back to the hotel and see if I can't get in touch with Dad," Mrs. Devitt said, cleaning up her paper plate. "It was good seeing you, Becky,"

"Oh you too, how long are you in town?"

"Friday," Finn chimed in sternly from the recliner.

They looked over at him, "right, Friday. Have a good night."

The door shut behind her, and they were left alone. Finn felt his heart rate rising just watching Becky play with her hair and absentmindedly watch the television.

"Are you ever gonna come over here and let me hold you?"

She glanced over at him, slightly pink in the cheeks.

"C'mon, you know I don' bite. Unless ya ask nicely."

"That little flirtation earned him a glare, but the pink had turned to red, and she was biting her lip. She wordlessly joined him on the recliner, curling up to him as he draped an arm around her shoulder. In that moment, nothing felt as good as having her in his arms, her legs folded across his lap, her hair tickling his skin.

"I'm sorry," she said after a moment.

"For what?"

"For not calling when you got out of surgery," she looked up at him style="mso-spacerun: yes;" "/spanFor not texting you after Raw. For not being there when you came through the curtain on Sunday."

"Oh Bex," he shook his head.

"It's not because I didn' care, and it's not because I wasn' proud of ya."

"You don' have to apologize. We both made our choices."

"I wasn't tryin' to choose to stop bein' your friend."/p

"You haven'." He held her as tightly as he could with his one arm. "But I missed this."

"Yeah," she said, snuggling into him more, "me too."

"It's been a while," he could hear his voice getting husky, and he knew the desire was slipping out. She'd hear it too, she knew him too well./

"Yeah…when was the last one? Brooklyn last year?"

He chuckled, "Ya forgettin' the WWE holiday party,"

"Ohh," she turned red, looking up at him, "that's right."

"That dress…ah," he leaned back on the recliner, "it still gives me goosebumps. Ya still have it? You should wear again it some time."

"Somebody's playful today."

"Yeah I jus'…" He blushed a little bit, "Bex, will you do somethin' for me?"

"Anythin'."

"Anythin'?" he smirked, to which she shot him a look. "Okay, okay. No, really, will you jus'…jus' kiss me and let me forget this is happenin'?"

She sighed with a small smile, "why?"

"Nothin' else matters when I kiss you, nothin' else exists."

It must've been a good enough answer. Her lips touched his, and for a moment, it was truly like nothing else existed. His mind was pulled away from the constant pain in his shoulder, and focused just on the warmth of her breath. Had it really been 7 months since the last time he'd felt this? That seemed impossible, she was so familiar to him.

"Did that work?" she asked, pulling away.

"Yes, keep doing it," he pushed her into his lips gently with his good hand, kissing her harder this time, hungrier.

The kiss deepened, he couldn't tell which of them had pushed it there. Suddenly it was passionate and raw, her hands running over his neck and him entangled in her hair. He teased her lightly with his tongue, and not to be outdone, she retorted. She could never be outdone, but he tried anyway, bobbing in and out quickly. A breathy moan escaped her mouth into his.

God he had missed that sound. He pulled away, hot and bothered, and she smiled shyly at him as her cheeks turned pink./p

"Do you fancy another go at this?" he asked quietly, looking her in the eye. "If not, I think we ought to stop."

She bit her lip and said, "this is… a lot,"

"I know."

"Let's pause."

"Okay." He ran his fingers down the length of her hair to get them out. "I should get settled in the other room, ya mind?"

"Sure," she slipped off of him, "what d'ya need?"

He groaned a bit as he stood up, the pain in his shoulder back to the forefront of his mind.

"There's the pillbox in the bathroom, can you grab it?" he called over his shoulder as he made his way into the bedroom.

She found the box on his counter top, and looked up at herself in the mirror. Her hair was a wild mess from his enthusiasm, she tried to tame it down to no avail, and tied it back in a braid quickly. Her face was still flushed, had it really been 7 months since he'd touched her like that? She shook it off quickly. Pause, Bex, pause.

Returning to his bedroom, a room she knew quite well, she laughed as he attempted to pull of his tshirt with the one hand.

"You want help with that?" she asked, putting down the pillbox on his bedside table next to the remote and a bottle of water.

"Yeah…" he said defeated.

His eyes were locked on her as she pulled it off of him slowly. She was careful when she got to his right shoulder, slipping it over his tapped incision and angry red skin.

"You're always such a tease," he said with a little smile.

"I'm tryin' not to hurt you."

"You're alright," he said as she wiggled past the swollen shoulder and down his bicep. "Thank you."

His smile was soft, but his eyes were still wanting. She could tell he was flexing the muscles he still had control over, daring her to run her hands up and down his torso. Pausing was never their strong suit, they were off or they were on. Or, they were pretending to be off when they were very, very much on.

"You wanna stay a little while?" he positioned himself back on his pillows and started flipping through the DVR on the screen. "I'd enjoy the company. There's a whole season of Arrow I haven't started yet."

"I thought you were supposed to get rest."

He shrugged, "it's early. Oh, and I have that garbage ya put on here a year ago, never took it off."

"Embrace the trash," she said, settling in next to him, "but we can watch your show. It's your house."

He bit his lip. She hadn't meant it like that. That should be water under the bridge, him asking her to move in nearly two years ago, it was history. It had never been a serious offer anyway, just an impulsive comeback in a heated fight. They'd settled it with sex instead, like always, and it was over. But tonight, that comment stung him, she could see it.

The opener was playing on the screen, but her eyes kept getting pulled back to him. The incision on his shoulder was ugly, it ran long, and she couldn't imagine how much it hurt. There was medical tape over it to protect it while it healed, but the stitches were visible through it. It'd make one hell of a scar once this was over. He'd probably adjust his paint to highlight it when he played the demon, show off how tough he was.

"Go on," he said softly, she looked up to realize he was watching her too, "if you wanna touch it,"

"She blushed, "sorry, I-"

"We all do it, I know that morbid curiosity. Don't worry."

Her fingertips touched his bare skin lightly, moving up to the edge of the tape. She slowly ran over the top of raised slice, looking up at him

"Does that hurt?"

"No more than a second ago."

"So a lot?" she asked, making her way up it ever so slowly, afraid she'd accidentally push to hard.

"Yeah," he said closing his eyes, "a lot."

"D'ya want to talk about it?"

"No, Becky," he shook his head, pushing away whatever he was feeling and just locked eyes on her fingers moving up his shoulder.

"This aiight?"

"He chuckled, "actually, I'm a bit more concerned about your other hand."

"It was positioned absentmindedly on his muscular chest, and she blushed when she realized how close her thumb was to his nipple. But the moment was there, so she ran over it lightly.

"That's cheating," he said through a gasp.

She smiled slyly, removing her hands from his body. "It made you smile."

"Sure, but that's not your job," he said with a stoic tone.

"It is, actually. I worry about you,"

"Don't."

"Don' worry about you? You're kiddin', right?"

"I'm fine."

"Finn."

"Becky." His eyes were glimmering with tears. "What d'ya want from me?"

"You've been avoiding it all night. You can say it."

"Say what, that I'm in agony 'round the clock?" he asked quietly, swallowing hard. "or that… giving up the title hurt more than all of the physical pain combined?"

He licked his lips, blinking the tears away while his breathing became heavy.

"Hey, it's okay." She rubbed his cheek with her thumb.

"He shook his head, "I don't like being like this, least of all in front of you."

"Me? Finn, I've seen ya naked."

"Exactly," he laughed, his voice shaking, "have to maintain my status as a stud."

She pushed him playfully, laughing, and he pulled her in. His lips were right above hers, and she could feel his breath against them.

"Can we unpause? Please?"

Wiping an escaped tear from the corner of his eye, she nodded. He brought her into another soft kiss.

"This your plan all along?" she challenged, lightly grazing the bulge in his shorts.

"Oh definitely," he said sarcastically, "figured if you saw me feelin' bad for myself, maybe I'd get a sympathy blowjob out of the deal."

"You know my soft spot," she teased.

"No, love, your soft spot is right here," he rolled over, half on top of her, and nuzzled into the crook of her neck.

She let out a moan, and he trailed his hand down her stomach and under the waistband of her patterned shorts. "An' there's another one down here."/p

Laughing, she pulled him into a kiss./p

"You know I was just joking, right?" he asked, pulling away.

"I know, but I wasn't."

His face turned very red all of a sudden. "Oh,"

"It's not out of sympathy," she said pushing him down on his back. "but I know what I'm doin'."

"What are you doin'?"

"Makin' you give up that perfect control of yours." She tugged down his shorts and boxers, her gaze lingering for a second.

"Becky…" he bit his lip, he clearly knew exactly where this was going.

Finn wasn't a stone cold brute. He'd let her, and everyone else, see glimpses of vulnerability, but only what he wanted them to see. He held on tightly to anything else, especially tears. That's where the facepaint came in, he told her that once a while ago. He did it to hide how nervous he was before a big match. His control was his armor, and sometimes he couldn't see how much it was weighing him down. This was one of those days.

"Oh relax."

She leaned down, and heard him catch his breath as she made contact with her lips. As she moved along he started squirming, and soon he was panting. She went to work with her tongue, that was his weakness.

"Oh Bex…" he moaned. "You love havin' me wrapped around your finger, don' ya?"

That question didn't require an answer, a quickening of her pace said it all. He groaned and collapsed into the bed. She spent a few minutes messing with him, pulling back on the tongue until he wined, changing her pace, surprising him. He grabbed a handful of her hair with the good hand, his eyes tightly shut. The last time he protested when she pulled back on the tongue again.

"C'mon love, don' torture me."

She smiled, he was losing it quickly. Letting her tongue run circles around him, she lifted up slowly, working just on the end. He started shaking beneath her, panting and moaning her name.

"Fair warning," he gasped, letting go of her hair in exchange for the bedspread. She kept on him until he arched his back and let out a heavy moan as he finished.

Trying not to think about it, she swallowed and let go of him. Curling up on his side and kissing his cheek, she saw he was breathing heavily with his eyes shut. He wrapped his arm around her and held her closer. Those bright blue eyes opened and met her gaze.

"Becky…" his voice was shaking. "I failed."

The armor was gone and the tears started. She held his head running her hands over his hair as he let it style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanThey were heavy, and went on for a few minutes, like he hadn't cried at all since last Sunday. She didn't say anything. He didn't want to hear it would be okay, and he didn't want to hear he would get better. So she just kissed his forehead and rubbed his shoulder until after several minutes, he seemed to run out of them. He guided her head to his chest and ran his fingers through her hair.

"Aiight," he admitted through a sniffle, "I needed to do that,"

She leaned up and kissed him. "There's nothin' wrong with that."

"I wanna be strong for e'ryone. My parents, the fans… you."

"Finn, you are. That's got nothin' to do with not cryin'."

"I know," he said quietly.

"You don' need to hold on so tight all the time, especially with me."

He laughed with a shaky voice, "yeah especially when ya have no problem gettin' me to loosen my grip."

"I have my ways. That one's my favorite," she said raising an eyebrow flirtatiously.

"Oh mine too."He leaned back sighing. "I'll be alright to go again in a few minutes, if you want somethin' yourself."

"It's gettin' late, I should-"

"Stay, you should stay."/p

"Finn,"

"I miss you."

"Ya jus' had me," she scoffed, sitting up.

"An' I want you here tomorrow, and I wanna take you to dinner next week, and I wanna send you dirty texts when we shouldn't. Please, stay."

She sighed, "you really want another go?"

"I want a proper go."

"Proper? You and me?"

He gulped and nodded, "It's worth a shot."

She looked at him for a moment, biting her lip. The silence must've been excruciating, because his brow broke out in a sweat. Eventually she nodded and said,

"Pass me your shirt."

Finn smiled, at least for tonight, she was his./p