elly!

i like writing n shi

[aastroopheel]

𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐲'𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐬

Hi!!

here's all i written for now ˖ ݁♬⋆.˚𝄞

James Cook -cookie monster (,,> .<,,)!

Chaos Theory

Get up girl

Hot mess (literally)

Headcanons

Vampire Cook

Good parties and hard words

Gojo Satoru (≧∇≦)

Nerdjo

Katsuki Bakugo -my man ( ◺˰◿ )

drabble

birthday cake

James / Zhao Yufan-JAMIE RAAAH ᕙ( ᗒᗣᗕ )ᕗ

Texting 1

Texting 2

Texting 3

Texting 4

Texting 5

YAAY that's all for now, but i will be editing this as i post

I look more professional now lol

[ramenoil]

7 star cigarettes — James

🎱 guitarist!james x f!reader, ib nana, profanity, mildly suggestive, addiction, underaged(?) smoking, underaged drinking, toxic relationship, arguments, toxic parents, possessiveness, angst, fluff, loads of making out

w.c: 9k

synopsis: Trauma bonded—that’s what you and James were. Whatever existed between you lived in the spaces between late-night practices, hangovers, shared cigarettes, and the quiet comfort of each other’s company. It was built on sleepless nights, unspoken feelings, and two people too damaged to love properly. Was it healthy? Not even close. Did either of you care? Well, not enough to stop.

playlist: come as you are by nirvana // smells like teen spirit by nirvana // cherry waves by deftones // why'd you only call me when your high? by arctic monkeys // all i wanted by paramore // r u mine? by arctic monkeys // join me by HIM // how deep is your love? mitski cover

iro's notes: JAMES ANGST AHAHA JAMES JAMES JAMESSS I LOVE THIS MANN SMMM

It was all because of Riki. 

At least, that’s what you like to believe. Blaming other people for the mistakes you made yourself has always been your favorite coping mechanism. A bad one, sure—but easier than admitting fault.

It started back in high school. You were seventeen, so was Riki. So was James. You met James through Riki on a random Tuesday afternoon, when you went over to his house for the sake of his grades. It was supposed to be a normal study session. Instead, it became the day you met the rest of his band—James and Maki, and the day your life quietly began to rot. 

You didn’t realise it at first, you never read in between the lines. What you and James were about to become was always going to be destructive. More than friends, less than lovers—nothing more nothing less. 

You arrived with two textbooks in hand to get Riki through calculus. The moment you stepped into his room, you realised it wasn’t just Riki there. Three boys were scattered around the floor in various states of uselessness, instruments leaned against the wall, empty drink cans near the desk, cigarette smoke hanging in the air.

Your eyes landed on James for only a second before turning back to Riki. “What is this?” you asked.

Riki, crouched beside the ashtray, crushed the end of his cigarette into it with two fingers and grinned. “Minor change of plans…no calc today, uh sit down.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Please?” You sighed like someone already regretting their own life and dropped to the floor anyway.

Maki leaned forward first. “We need a female member.”

“For what?”

“The band.”

You stared at them. “I can’t sing.”

“You don’t know that,” Riki said.

“I do know that.”

While they argued with you, James said nothing. He only watched. Later, you’d learn he’d decided the second you walked in that you were the coolest girl he’d ever seen—your hair, your clothes, the way you looked annoyed without trying. At the time, all you knew was that his silence was strangely loud.

Ten minutes later, with no calculus in sight, you stood up. “I’m leaving if none of you are doing derivatives.”

Riki laughed, Maki told you to relax. You were already halfway down the hall when footsteps came after you.

You ran purely on instinct.

“Why are you running?” a voice shouted behind you.

“Why are you chasing me?” you shouted back.

By the time James caught up, both of you were breathless. He bent forward, hands on his knees, trying to breathe.

Then he looked up and said, “Join our band.”

That was the first time you met him. The problem with people, though, is that they are not possessions. You can never keep someone entirely to yourself. Sadly, you learned that the hard way. 

You joined the band, you learned how to sing, you did it because James asked you to. That was how easy you were when it came to him. Somewhere between vocal lessons, late-night practices, and getting to know everyone besides Riki, something between you and James began to blur. 

It started simply. After one normal late-night practice, James asked if you were free. You were. So he asked you to come over. No strange intentions—he just wanted company while he drank.

Problem one: two people alone with too much time and not enough boundaries. Problem two: neither of you were very good at pretending nothing was there.

His apartment was small in the way all first apartments are—barely furnished, faintly cold, smelling like smoke and vodka. A lamp in the corner lit the room badly, leaving most of it in shadow.

You sat beside James on the couch, one knee tucked beneath you, drink balanced carefully in your hand. Music played low from somewhere behind you, half drowned by the sound of your own laughter.

“I’m serious,” you said. “Maki had three weeks to learn that chord.”

James smiled into his glass. “Three weeks isn’t enough for him. Give him a year.”

“You’re a terrible friend.”

“I’m an honest one.”

You laughed again, louder this time, head tipping back against the couch. When you looked at him next, he was already looking at you. That should have embarrassed you. Instead, it made the room quieter. Somewhere in the middle of another joke, he leaned closer without either of you acknowledging it. Not enough to touch, but just enough to notice.

You could smell alcohol on his breath, something mischievous in his eyes. “What?” you asked, though your voice came out smaller than intended.

James didn’t answer right away. His gaze flicked once to your lips, then back up again. “May I?” he asked softly.

You should have asked him to clarify, you should have laughed it off and fuck, you should have remembered every reason for why this was a bad idea.

Instead, you nodded and…he kissed you like he’d already thought about it too many times. Slow at first, very careful, just testing the waters.And then, there was intention in it. When he pulled away, neither of you said anything for a moment.

“Well,” you said finally, staring straight ahead. “That's…uh complicated.”

James laughed quietly beside you. “You think too much.”

That was true, but never true enough for James to care. Things became strange after that. Not dramatically, not all at once—just in small ways that were easy to ignore if you wanted to.

You started slipping away after practice together, he began asking if you were free more often. You learned the walk to his house so well you could’ve done it half asleep. He learned which window of yours to throw pebbles at when you stopped answering your phone.

And the kissing happened again, then again, then often enough that it stopped feeling shocking and started feeling routine. Nothing changed, officially, no confessions, no conversations, no labels.

He still introduced you as his friend, you still pretended that word didn’t sting. It was only kissing—against kitchen counters, in dark hallways, on his couch while some terrible movie played untouched in the background. Nothing more.

Which was convenient, because “nothing more” meant neither of you had to explain yourselves. You were just friends…friends who knew each other’s schedules, friends who got jealous for no reason, friends who belonged to each other in every way except the honest one. Right?

So that was…what you were. You and James got along well—clearly. Talking more about James, one thing that man never doubted was your voice. But you? Oh, you doubted it enough for the both of you. You still remember the first day all of you performed live, in front of real people who would give you real reactions.

It had sounded exciting when Riki first said it. A real gig. He’d announced it like it was the best news ever—which it was. Maki had nearly thrown a drumstick at the ceiling in celebration. James had only smiled that small, private smile of his, the one that suggested he expected success as naturally as weather.

You had smiled too. That was your first mistake.

Because smiling made it look like you agreed, smiling made it look like you were excited, smiling made it look like you hadn’t spent the entire car ride there imagining every possible way you could humiliate yourself with a microphone in your hand. What if you forget the lyrics? What if your voice cracks? What if you freeze up?

The venue was smaller than you expected and worse than you feared. Sticky floors—similar to those you see in dance practice rooms, very high ceilings, multiple wires running across the ground like traps—all connected to huge speakers. A stage so close to the audience it felt less like performing and more like one wrong move and your crowd surfing. There were already people there, which felt unnecessary and rude.

You had always imagined failure happening somewhere grander.

At rehearsal, mistakes were private things, missed notes disappeared into the loud bass and drums, forgotten lyrics could be restarted and racked voices could be blamed on lack of sleep, dry throats, cheap microphones, too much smoke in the air—whatever excuse seemed funniest at the time. Practice was forgiving, but the crowd? Fuck no. 

People you didn’t know had begun filing in, carrying drinks and…well, opinions. They stood in loose groups near the front, talking loudly, glancing toward the stage now and then. Some of them looked older than you, some looked cooler than you.You suddenly became aware of everything wrong with yourself.

Your outfit looked stupid, your shoes were wrong, your hair was too flat., your lipgloss felt too sticky, your hands looked awkward and your face felt unfamiliar. Your voice—your voice, the thing everyone had praised all month felt like something rented, not owned.

“What if nobody claps?” you asked no one in particular.

Riki was tuning his bass nearby. “Then we clap for ourselves.”

“That’s pathetic.”

“It’s knowing we’re good enough,” he corrected.

“It’s sad.”

“Stop being miserable.”

Usually, that would have made you laugh, but it didn’t now. You were sitting on the worn leather sofa in the green room, elbows on knees, staring at your hands as if they belonged to someone else. Around you, the room moved in casual chaos. Maki tapped rhythms against the arm of a chair. Riki kept retuning strings no one else could hear problems with and James stood by the mirror adjusting nothing, cigarette balanced between his fingers, perfectly calm in the infuriating way only he could be.

You hated him for it briefly. “How are you not nervous?” you asked.

He glanced at you in the mirror. “Who says I’m not?”

“You look like you’re used to it, used to performing, like–like this is routine.”

“Im just good at staying composed?”

“Ugh shut up.”

He smiled, you looked away first. The minutes felt like seconds, time began collapsing in on itself. Every sound sharpened unpleasantly—the buzz of the amp, footsteps in the hallway, laughter outside the door, the scrape of Maki’s shoe against the floor. Someone from staff poked their head in and said, “Five minutes.”

Five minutes. Fuck, such a small amount of time to contain a breakdown. You stood up too fast, the room was bending in unusual ways. Fuck, not now. You sat back down immediately, hoping no one noticed.

No one did, thank God.

You swallowed, your throat felt tight, you took a deep breath and it snagged halfway down. You tried again, it was worse this time, your hands felt sweaty, your vision was blurry, you couldn’t even breathe properly. Fuck this was ridiculous.

You knew what anxiety was, you knew panic attacks existed. You had, in fact, once described them confidently to someone else despite never having had one yourself. Shortness of breath, dizziness, racing thoughts. You sounded almost like a therapist.

Turns out knowledge was useless when your body decided to act up against you. You took another breath, too shallow. Another, faster. The room seemed hotter now, the air thicker–harder to inhale. Your chest tightened with the malicious efficiency of something practiced, you could hear your heartbeat in strange places—your ears, your wrists, behind your eyes.

Not now.

You stared at the floorboards. If you could just focus, if you could just count. One, two, three—the numbers kept moving, but nothing distracted you from the breaths you were unable to take.

“Yn?” Riki’s voice sounded farther away than it should have. You didn’t answer. “Yn?” Louder now. Closer. “Hey.”

A hand waved briefly in front of your face. You blinked at it, but said nothing. Your breaths came fast and shallow now, each one worse than the last. No matter how much air you dragged in, none of it felt real, none of it felt like it was going in—it was almost as if it got stuck midway and just escaped without really reaching your lungs. You felt lightheaded.

Riki crouched in front of you, concern replacing his usual grin so quickly it made him look older. “Hey… hey, look at me.” You tried, but your eyes dropped straight back to the floor. Your hands had locked around the edge of the couch so tightly your knuckles hurt.

“James.”

You hadn’t realized James was already moving until he was suddenly there beside Riki. The cigarette was gone now, left burning out alone in the ashtray. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. She just—look at her.”

James crouched in front of you. “Yn.” You couldn’t answer. “Look at me.” Your vision blurred when you tried. His face came in and out of focus, the room tilting strangely around him. “Slow breath in,” he said. “Through your nose.” You tried. It caught halfway, breaking into another sharp gasp. “Again.” You shook your head hard, panic rising faster now. Tears burned unexpectedly at the corners of your eyes. “Hey.” His voice sharpened. “Look at me.”

Another breath, too quick, too thin—it didn’t work, you couldn't breathe. Your chest felt caged, your fingers were trembling. You couldn’t even hear James anymore. His lips were moving, he was saying something. You tried. You really did—you tried to focus on him. You couldn’t. Your whole body felt numb, you were shaking, your lips trembling, you felt sweat drip down your forehead.

James stood abruptly and grabbed your wrist. “Come on.”

Before you could even try to process what was happening, he took your wrist and pulled you to your feet. The sudden movement made everything tilt again. He steadied you without comment and guided—dragged you through the green room door and into the hall.

Behind you, silence lasted half a second. Then Riki muttered, “Ah.” Maki made a noise of understanding. Neither followed.

By the time James shoved open the bathroom door, you were too busy failing at oxygen to care about the fact that  it was the men’s room. He dragged you into a stall, locking it behind you both, fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. You braced both hands on his shoulder bending forward, dragging air into lungs that rejected the offer.

“Hey.” You shook your head. “Hey.” Closer now. “Look at me.” You tried, but your eyes only fluttered uselessly before dropping again. Your breaths were still jagged, fast, painful things—coming in sharp pulls that gave you nothing back. Your hands trembled where they gripped his shoulders, fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt like it was the only stable thing left in the room.

James didn’t tell you to calm down, He didn’t ask questions, He didn’t waste time with words that would’ve bounced right off the panic anyway. Instead, his hands came up to hold your face. Firm, steady, warm. “Look at me,” he said again, softer this time. Your eyes found him for half a second. Long enough for him to know you were still there somewhere beneath it all.

Then he kissed you.

It wasn’t dramatic, It wasn’t greedy, It wasn’t even particularly slow. It was deliberate—the kind of kiss meant to interrupt something spiraling out of control. For one startled second, your mind blanked completely.

No fear, no noise, no crowd waiting outside, no lungs refusing to work. Your brain just stopped working.  It was just him. You and him. When he pulled back, you sucked in another breath. It still shook, but it reached deeper this time.

“There you are,” he murmured.

You blinked at him, dazed, chest still rising too fast, took another breath. Still uneven of sorts. He kissed you again. Shorter this time. A press of lips that felt less like affection and more like being anchored. One hand stayed at your jaw, thumb brushing absently beneath your eye where tears had gathered without permission.

By the time he leaned away, your breathing had slowed enough to count. You stared at him like he’d performed witchcraft. He smiled. “Better.”

You tried to answer, but only a weak exhale came out.

“That’s fine,” he said. “Talking’s overrated.”

Your forehead dropped against his shoulder, equal parts exhaustion and surrender. He let you stay there, one hand rubbing slowly up and down your lower back while the fluorescent and cold lights hummed overhead. Outside the stall, muffled through the bathroom door, the venue carried on without you—voices, footsteps, someone laughing too loudly.

Inside, there was only the sound of your breathing learning how to be normal again. After a moment, James tipped your chin up gently until you looked at him. “When we go out there,” he said quietly, “I want you to sing to me.”

You frowned weakly, still catching up to consciousness. “What?”

“Don’t sing to them.” He nodded vaguely toward the walls, toward the crowd beyond them, toward every stranger waiting outside. “Don’t sing to the room, don’t sing to the lights, not even the crowd. Look at me..” His thumb brushed once across your cheek. “Sing to me.”

And because your pulse had finally steadied, because your lungs had stopped trying to betray you, because it was James asking—and so, you nodded.

When you stepped out of the bathroom, the hallway felt colder than before. Or maybe that was just the sweat drying against your skin. Your breathing had steadied, though not completely. It still came a little too carefully, like your lungs no longer trusted themselves. James walked beside you as if none of what had just happened required acknowledgment. As if dragging you into the men’s bathroom and kissing the panic out of you was an ordinary part of pre-show routine.

Across the hall, Riki and Maki were exactly where you’d left them, leaning against the wall with matching expressions of suspicious innocence. A cigar moved lazily between. Riki looked at you first, then at James, then back at you. His grin widened with the kind of joy only a person uninvolved in disaster can feel.

“You alive?” he asked.

“Unfortunately,” you muttered.

“Good enough.” Maki held out a half crushed bottle of water. “Try not to collapse on stage. It’s bad for our reputation.”

You took it. “Thank you for caring so much.”

“I’m famously warm.”

Riki tilted his head toward the bathroom door. “Everything sorted?”

Before you could answer, James walked past him and pushed open the green room door. “We’re on in one minute.” That was all.Riki watched him go, then turned back to you with exaggerated seriousness. “Interesting.”

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to.”

He smiled. “True.”

Inside the green room, everything was suddenly too fast. Someone from staff was speaking in rushed sentences no one listened to. Maki was checking drumsticks like they were sacred objects. Riki retuned strings he’d already tuned three times. James stood near the door adjusting the strap of his guitar, calm in that infuriating way he always managed to be.

You hated him briefly for being composed. Then he looked at you. Only for a second. Long enough to ask a silent question, you answered with the smallest nod.

I’m okay. Or close enough.

The stage manager shoved the door open. “Now.” No one moved immediately, then everyone did at once. It was getting realer now. The walk to the stage felt longer than it should have. The corridor narrowed around you, packed with cables, stacked speakers, peeling posters from bands no one remembered anymore. The closer you got, the louder the room became. Voices layered over one another. Anticipation from strangers who had no idea they were about to witness the most humiliating moment of your life or maybe the best?.

Your hands started trembling again, you flexed them once and then twice. Useless. The microphone was already set up when you stepped onto the stage. The lights hit first—white and blinding, hot enough to erase the edges of the room. Beyond them was only shadow and movement. For one awful second, your chest tightened again.

Not now.

Riki counted beats under his breath, Maki adjusted his stuff, someone in the crowd whistled, someone else laughed, you wrapped both hands around the microphone stand because it was the only solid thing available.

Then you remembered. Sing to me. You turned your head, James stood a few feet away, guitar slung low, fingers resting over the strings. The stage lights caught in his hair, he was already looking at you.

He gave one small nod. That was it. No grand gesture, no smile, no fucking speech about believing in yourself. Just a nod, like the rest of the room had ceased to matter. Then Riki started playing. The opening bassline rolled through the speakers, Maki came in a beat later. James followed, guitar sliding neatly into place. The song you’d rehearsed a hundred times suddenly sounded larger, sharper, alive in a way practice had never allowed.

Your cue arrived, you opened your mouth…and nothing terrible happened.

No cracked notes, no forgotten lyrics, no public collapse. Just your voice, clear and stronger than it ever sounded in cramped bedrooms and dusty practice rooms. It moved out into the crowd like it belonged there. You kept your eyes on James through the first verse. When nerves threatened to rise again, you looked at him harder. He played without missing a beat, watching you with the faintest trace of satisfaction, like this had always been inevitable.

The second verse was easier. By the chorus, you almost forgot to be afraid.

The crowd changed shape as you sang. They stopped being people with opinions and became noise, heat, movement—background to the private world you’d accidentally built at center stage. There were dozens of strangers in the room, yet it felt suspiciously like being alone with him.

You hated how much power that gave him. You loved it too.

Somewhere near the bridge, Riki grinned at you mid play, delighted you hadn’t combusted. A girl near the front began moving with the rhythm. Someone cheered when the chorus returned.

Real reactions.

You almost laughed. You’d spent hours fearing mockery only to discover people mostly wanted a good time. How embarrassing. The final note came sooner than expected. Your voice held it cleanly, then let go. Instruments rang out behind you before cutting into sudden silence.

For half a breath, no one moved. Then applause hit the room all at once. Loud, messy, genuine. You stared out at the crowd, stunned. They were clapping for you. For all of you, yes—but also for you. The girl who’d nearly died in a bathroom ten minutes ago.

Riki whoo-ed like he’d won in life, Maki screamed obnoxiously, you turned toward James before you could stop yourself. He stepped closer under the cover of noise, close enough that only you could hear him.

“Told you.”

“That’s all you have to say?”

“It’s enough.”

He reached past you to adjust the microphone height for the next song, fingers brushing lightly against your wrist in the process. Casual enough to deny, intentional enough to remember forever.

Then he glanced sideways at you, mouth curving faintly. “You think too much.”

And with the crowd still cheering around you, with adrenaline still burning bright in your blood, you realized something deeply inconvenient. You would have sung anything he asked for.

That was your first gig together, just you and them. 

The band was supposed to be permanent. At seventeen, everything was. Friendships were forever, cities were temporary, and the future was something that happened to other people. You never looked at the three boys in that room and thought one day this would end. Why would you? Back then, endings only existed in songs.

The band was never just a band either. It was where all of you kept yourselves. In between school, parents, deadlines, report cards, and every adult asking what you planned to do with your life, there was this small, loud thing that belonged only to you. A room full of amps, cheap cigarettes, tangled wires, sometimes bottles of alcohol and people who understood you better than they should have.

Some nights rehearsal was useless. Riki would play too loud on purpose, Maki would forget the same part three times and swear it was experimental, James would smoke by the window and act like none of it concerned him until he suddenly stood up, rewrote half the song, and made everyone follow.

Then there were nights when everything worked.

Those were dangerous nights. Because on nights like that, it felt impossible to imagine ever becoming anything else. The songs sounded bigger than the rooms they were trapped in. You remember how James would glance at you halfway through the song, and suddenly your voice would become something bolder than it was five seconds ago.

You lived for those glances more than you should have.

Before every performance, he always looked for you first. It was such a small thing you nearly missed it. Rooms full of people, cables snapping under shoes, strangers shouting for drinks, staff yelling nonsense—and still, somehow, his eyes found you before the lights came on.

Sometimes he’d nod once, sometimes smirk, sometimes just stare long enough—with eyes too full of adoration for your stomach to ruin your concentration. Then he’d step onstage like the room belonged to him, you used to think James loved music most. Later, you realized he loved being wanted by it.

There is a difference.

He wrote songs the way some people start fights—quickly, recklessly, and expecting everyone else to deal with the aftermath. He’d bring in half-finished lyrics on crumpled paper, melodies hummed under his breath, chord progressions he refused to explain. Then he’d hand them to the room like gifts.

But there were songs he only ever handed to you. A chorus lowered because your voice sounded warmer there. A bridge repeated because he liked the way you breathed before the third line. Notes he insisted you hold longer because “it hurts better that way.”

“What does that even mean?” you asked once.

He shrugged, cigarette hanging from his mouth. “Means do it again.”

So you did.

You always did.

No one said anything about the two of you, not directly. That was the strange kindness everyone offered. Riki would raise an eyebrow when James disappeared after rehearsal and you vanished five minutes later. Maki would sigh whenever one of you snapped at the other over something that was clearly not about music. But no one asked questions.

Maybe they knew some things died when named too early. You fought often, mostly over songs…and then made up by making out but no one has to know about that part.

He’d cut your verse and call it weak, you’d accuse him of being impossible, he’d say you were too sensitive, you’d say he was arrogant. Riki would quietly unplug his bass and wait for the stormy weather to pass.

Then an hour later you’d be sitting beside James on the floor, sharing convenience store noodles, knees touching like nothing happened.

That was the problem with the two of you—nothing ever happened, everything just continued. You never confessed. He never asked. No one drew lines. No one crossed them either. You just kept slipping further into something neither of you respected enough to define. And because of that, it started to feel endless.

That is what youth does best—it makes temporary things feel permanent. You thought the band would last because how could something built from so much wanting possibly disappear? You thought James would stay because he was always there, leaning against doorframes, smoking out windows, calling you late, asking if you were free. You thought there would always be another rehearsal, another show, another song he’d look at you through.

You thought wrong in the ordinary way young people do.

Looking back, the signs were embarrassing.

Talking more about James always felt a little useless. He was the kind of person who made sense only in fragments.. You could know him for years and still feel like you were piecing together someone from smoke, late night hang(make)outs , and things he never finished saying.

He loved cigarettes first, seven star cigarettes especially—he put you on those too. He was 14 when he started and by eighteen he had preferences. He’d talk nonsense about flavor, filter quality, as if any of it mattered when all of it still ended in ash. He liked the ritual of it more than the smoking itself—you noticed that early, the flick of the lighter, the pause before the inhale and the way he’d tap the end over an ashtray with absent precision. 

Sometimes you thought he only smoked because it gave his hands something to do when he didn’t know how to be touched.

He never spoke much about his parents, which told you enough. Some people describe family in detail because they love them. Others avoid the topic because language would be too complicated for others to learn—sort of like putting a child who only spoke English in Russia, the child wouldn't understand shit. James belonged to those who avoided the topic. You learned in scraps: a father who existed mostly financially, a mother who was easier to disappoint than to know, dinners eaten alone, birthdays forgotten with such consistency they no longer counted as betrayal.

He said it all casually, which made it worse.

Once, while looking for clean glasses in his kitchen, you asked if anyone was coming home. He laughed and said, “To which house?”

That was how he treated pain—like a joke told too dryly for anyone to interrupt.

He didn’t have many friends either. Not real ones. There was the band, of course—Riki, Maki, you. A few names from Seoul he texted at odd hours, people who seemed to exist in stories more than real life. Mainly musicians—you remember hearing about some guy named Martin. Mostly, though, he kept his life narrow. Intimacy required maintenance, and James disliked owing people anything.

He slept badly—insomniac basically.

You discovered that long before he admitted it. He’d message at three in the morning asking if you were awake, then pretend it was accidental when you answered. He’d arrive to practice with the exhaustion of someone who had closed his eyes but never rested. Sometimes you’d find him lying on the studio floor after rehearsal, arm over his face, claiming he was “just thinking.”

He was always thinking. That was the problem.

At night, when the mask wore off and the room got quiet, you could see it on him—the restlessness, the dread, the strange irritation. He was terrified of wasting himself, terrified of becoming ordinary, terrified of being the kind of man who never left the city he was born in and spent the rest of his life explaining why. Maybe that's why he had to get drunk to sleep, it was a coping mechanism—a bad one but at least it helped him get sleep.

Failure haunted him in ways success never did. That was why he drank too young and too often. Not enough to become a cautionary tale, just enough to keep edges blurred. Beer after rehearsal, whiskey someone older bought him, vodka in plastic cups because it was cheap and efficient. He drank like he did everything else to relax first and deal with the consequences later.

You hated it until you understood it.

Alcohol quieted the voice in him that kept asking if he was enough. Cigarettes occupied the hands that didn’t know where to put themselves. Music gave shape to feelings he couldn’t say plainly. And you—well. You were what he reached for when none of the others worked.

That should have frightened you more than it did. The two of you were never healthy. You knew that even then, though youth has a way of renaming damage as passion. You mistook intensity for depth, confusion for mystery, dependency for love. So did he. You were drawn together by matching fractures. Both of you knew abandonment too well, both of you knew what it was to become useful so people might keep you, both of you confused being needed with being cherished.

He wanted someone who would stay no matter how badly he behaved. You wanted someone who would choose you without being asked. Neither of you knew how to request those things honestly—you both were trauma bonded.

So instead, you built a language made of almosts, almost dating, almost confessing, almost staying over, almost saying I need you and almost asking what are we?

He’d kiss you like certainty, then disappear emotionally for three days. You’d punish him with silence, then show up the second he asked if you were free. He’d write songs no one could mistake as being about you, then introduce you publicly as “my friend.” You’d laugh it off, then cry about it alone where pride could survive.

It was ugly sometimes, tender too. Usually both at once. There were nights he’d hold you like the world was ending and mornings he’d act like nothing had happened. There were fights that began over setlists and ended with old wounds neither of you had named. There were apologies delivered through acts of service because neither of you trusted direct language.

If you were sick, he’d appear with medicine and no explanation. If he was spiraling, he’d ask if you were free. That was your entire relationship in two sentences. And yet, it would be dishonest to call it worthless just because it was unhealthy. There was love there, real love, even if poorly handled. You understood each other in the places other people rarely reached. He saw through your sarcasm to the girl terrified of being forgettable. You saw through his arrogance to the boy convinced love was temporary.

The tragedy was not that you loved each other. The tragedy was that you loved each other at the wrong time. A phase full of substances, hurt and just fucked up stuff. Back then though, it felt romantic that he needed you so much. Later, you’d realize people can drown while holding each other.

Still, when James looked at you from the stage, cigarette smell still clinging to his jacket, eyes tired from another sleepless night, guitar hanging low like it belonged there, it was easy to believe love alone could save two broken people.

Youth believes many beautiful lies.

You weren’t innocent either. That would have been easier—if James had been the damage and you had simply received it. But people rarely come to each other whole.

Your mother left early enough that memory could not make her real. She existed more as an outline than a person—old stories, half kept photos, the kind of absence that sits quietly in a room for years. Your father was worse in some ways. Still alive, still somewhere, still technically yours, yet distant enough to feel fictional.

So you were raised by your grandmother, who loved you the way some older women do: through food, rules, sharp words, and sacrifices never spoken aloud. She kept you alive, kept you decent, kept a roof over your head. You learned early not to need much. Need made people leave. Need made you a burden. Better to be useful, easy, amusing. Better to become the girl who laughed first, who helped everyone else, who acted like nothing touched her deeply enough to matter.

You knew how to be wanted. Helpful girls are always wanted. You had no idea how to be loved. That was why James got under your skin so badly. He was damaged in familiar ways, distant in familiar ways, hungry in familiar ways. Loving him felt less like falling and more like repeating something old.

And fuck, did you love him. 

Just never enough to admit it aloud.

Somehow, without discussion and with no real decision made by either of you, you began living together. That was how most things happened between you and James—gradually enough to deny, seriously enough to matter.

At first it was practical. You stayed over because practice ended late and the trains had stopped. Then you stayed because you already had clothes there. Then because your charger lived beside his bed. Then because his kitchen had tea you liked and your grandmother had begun asking too many careful questions.

One morning you realized your toothbrush was in his bathroom cup beside his. Another morning you realized half your sweaters were hanging in his closet. By the time anyone else pointed it out, you had been living there for months. Neither of you mentioned it. Naming things made them vulnerable.

His apartment was still small and badly heated, still smelled faintly of smoke and whatever cheap alcohol he’d bought last. But it changed around you. There were books stacked by the bed now, hair ties on the sink, your rings beside his ashtray, groceries that hinted someone actually cared whether nutrients were consumed, blankets folded properly and plants you insisted would survive and he insisted would not.

You turned his place into something survivable. He turned it into yours. Mornings became their own private addiction. You’d wake first sometimes, half tangled in sheets, the pale light coming through the curtains in weak stripes across the room. James slept badly even in sleep—restless, shifting, brow faintly furrowed like he was arguing with dreams. But when he felt you moving, he’d reach without opening his eyes and drag you back against him with sleepy entitlement.

“Five more minutes,” he’d mumble.

“You said that twenty minutes ago.”

“Then clearly I mean ten.”

You’d laugh, and he’d kiss you before the sound fully left your mouth. Slow, warm, lazy kisses that belonged only to mornings. Nothing dramatic. No hunger, no performance. Just familiarity. Lips meeting because they had learned to begin the day that way.

Sometimes he’d tuck his face into your neck after, breathing you in like something medicinal. Sometimes he’d keep one hand at your waist while scrolling through messages with the other. Sometimes he’d refuse to let you get up at all until you threatened to walk out.

It was domestic in the most dangerous sense. Because it felt normal. You cooked badly together, he smoked out the kitchen window while pretending to help, you stole his shirts, he complained when you reorganized drawers, then asked where everything was after, you fought over whose turn it was to buy toilet paper with the intensity of a married couple, you waited for him after late studio nights and pretended you had only stayed awake accidentally, he learned which tea to make when your moods turned sour, you learned how to tell, from the way he unlocked the door, whether the day had been harsh on him.

People who visited assumed you were together—a reasonable mistake.

You sat in each other’s laps during rehearsals. He kissed your forehead absentmindedly while tuning his guitar. You fixed his collar before interviews. He carried your bag without asking. In public, he reached for your hand the way some people check their pockets for keys—pure instinct.

After shows, he’d pull you into him backstage like applause belonged to both of you. At bars, he’d rest his chin on your shoulder while talking to other people. When strangers flirted with him, his eyes searched the room for your reaction before he answered. When men tried their luck with you, he became cold in a way only you recognized.

Even your little audience noticed.

Two thousand listeners online, maybe less in person on good nights, and still they noticed. Fans made edits of glances caught on camera, comment sections argued whether the chemistry was real, people slowed down videos of him looking at you during choruses like they were studying evidence. Someone once uploaded a compilation titled James forgetting real life exists whenever Yn sings.

Riki laughed for ten straight minutes.

“What?” you said. “It’s weird.”

“It’s accurate,” he replied.

Whenever anyone asked, though, the answer never changed. “We’re just friends.”

Sometimes you said it. Sometimes James did. Sometimes both of you in the same interview, with matching expressions too practiced to be innocent.

Just friends.

Friends who shared rent, friends who slept in the same bed, friends who madeout in elevators, friend who kissed like lovers, friends who fought like spouses and reconciled like lovers, friends who knew each other’s passwords, scars, tempers, and pulse points.

The lie became so routine it almost felt true.

Almost.

Because underneath all that devotion lived resentment neither of you knew how to bury properly. James resented being hidden. He would never say it plainly, but it came out elsewhere. In the way he went silent after interviews, in the harshness of his jokes when someone called you single and in how hard he kissed you after public denials, as if trying to recover something stolen.

He resented that he was good enough to come home to, but never important enough to name, he resented being emotionally useful while remaining officially nothing, he resented always being almost chosen.

You saw it most on nights after events, when you’d both come home dressed too well and too tired. He’d loosen his tie, light a cigarette, and stand by the window in that dangerous quiet of his.

“What?” you’d ask.

“Nothing.”

“James.”

He’d exhale smoke. “Do you enjoy it?”

“Enjoy what?”

“Acting surprised every time people think you’re available.”

Then the fight would begin somewhere small and end somewhere ancient.

You resented him too, deeply and often. You resented his unpredictability—the way one week he was tender and attentive, the next unreachable inside the same apartment. You resented how moods ruled the room. How everyone adjusted around him when he was dark, tired, angry, distant. You resented that his pain always arrived louder than yours.

Most of all, you resented how much power he had over you.

How a text from him could change your day? How one withdrawn glance could ruin your appetite and how praise from strangers meant less than approval from the man currently ignoring you on the couch.

Loving him often felt like losing arguments you never agreed to have.

There were nights you’d watch him sleeping beside you and feel such tenderness it hurt, there were mornings you’d hear him humming in the kitchen and want to marry him, there were afternoons you’d consider leaving forever because he’d said “fine” in the wrong tone.

That was the shape of your life together: adoration interrupted by emotional warfare and the fear of commitment. And yet, it was not miserable. That was the confusing part.

For every ugly fight, there were ten moments so soft they made you doubt your own complaints. He still kissed you every morning, still saved the last bite of food he knew you liked, still rewrote songs around your voice, still remembered the date your mother left though you’d only mentioned it once, still sat outside the bathroom door when sadness locked you inside it.

For every time he hurt you through cowardice, he loved you through instinct. Which made leaving impossible.

One summer evening, after a rooftop show, the two of you walked home through streets still warm from daylight. You were carrying flowers some fan had handed you. He was carrying your heels because you’d complained for six blocks.

“We look pathetic,” you said.

“We look married,” he corrected.

You laughed. “That’s worse.”

He stopped walking. “Would it be?”

You turned to him, waiting for the joke that would save you both. It never came. Traffic moved below. Somewhere nearby someone was singing badly through an open window. James’s face was unreadable in the streetlight.

Then he shrugged and kept walking. “Forget it.”

You hated him for that for weeks. Because that was another thing he did—opened doors emotionally only to leave you standing outside them.

Still, you followed him home. Still, you slept in his bed. Still, the next morning he kissed you awake like nothing in the world was broken.

Your listeners continued to speculate, friends continued not to ask, the band continued rising in slow, uneven steps. And through all of it, the two of you remained suspended in that ridiculous unnamed state—more intimate than most marriages, less honest than most affairs. More than friends but less than lovers but also too much like lovers to not be lovers—doesn’t make sense right? exactly.

People think disaster arrives with noise. Usually it arrives quietly, disguised as routine. By the time Seoul entered the conversation, you and James had already built a whole life on top of things neither of you were brave enough to say.

So when the whole Seoul thing arrived, it arrived as betrayal.

You noticed it first in the details. James started taking calls in the hallway with the door half shut, started showering before meetings he never mentioned, started wearing the black coat you liked because it made him look put together and started smoking at the window instead of beside you in bed—almost as if it hurt to look at you while smoking to get his mind off of things.

He slept less, smiled less and surprisingly thought more. That was always dangerous. James only ever became soft right before he was about to do something cruel.

The band felt it too. Rehearsals ended in silences instead of laughter. Cigarettes burned quicker, songs sounded sharper…everyone knew a storm was coming. No one wanted to be the first to name it.

It happened on a Thursday after practice. Riki had stormed outside after fighting with James over tempo, Maki followed because someone had to keep him from setting something on fire.

You were left alone in the studio with James. You were coiling cables with unnecessary violence. He was pretending to tune a guitar that was already in tune.

“Yn.” You ignored him. “Yn.”

“What?”

“I need to tell you something.”

You laughed once. “That sentence has never improved anyone’s life.”

He did not laugh back.

Your hands slowed.

“I got offered a contract.”

You looked at him. “Okay.”

“In Seoul.”

The cable slipped from your hands and hit the floor with a flat sound, silence flooded the room. “For what?”

“A new band, with real connections.”

“Connections.”

“Real ones.”

You blinked. “Real ones.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No,” you said quietly. “Say it properly.”

His jaw tightened the way it always did when feelings demanded precision. “I mean chances that aren’t trapped in this city.”

You stared at him like he had become a stranger in your favorite jacket. The couch was the same, the posters were the same, the ashtray you hated was still full beside the amp, his coffee cup was still on the windowsill with your lipstick mark on it from that morning. Yet somehow the whole room had moved one inch to the left. Enough to make you dizzy. “So you’re leaving.”

“I’m considering it.”

“You’re leaving.”

“I have to think about my future.”

The cruelty of that sentence was how fair it sounded. You laughed again, and this time it broke halfway through. “Your future.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Act like I’m evil because I don’t want to rot here.”

There he was. That version of James who struck first whenever fear cornered him. “Rot here?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No,” you said. “Apparently I only know what you mean when it helps you.”

He swore under his breath and stood up.

“Riki thinks this band lasts forever because he needs something to believe in. Maki’s going to law school and barely pretends otherwise. This was never permanent.”

“And me?”

He hesitated…that hurt more than words. “And me?” you repeated.

He dragged a hand through his hair. “yn , I-.”

The room went still, because that was not just about the band.

You nodded slowly. “What I am to you?”

“You’re well, a friend…I-.” He hesitated more, “I don't mean that..”

“It’s what you really mean.”

“No.” He stepped closer, frustration and panic fighting in his face. “I meant whatever this is between us was never enough to hold everything together.”

Your chest tightened. “This?”

He looked away. Coward. You laughed, then started crying in the middle of it. Not elegantly, not one cinematic tear sliding down your cheek. Real crying, ugly crying. The kind of crying that makes your heart physically hurt.  You hated him for seeing it. His face changed instantly. The hesitation gone so fast it almost looked like panic. 

“Hey.”

You turned away.

“Baby.”

“Don’t.”

He crossed the room anyway. When you stepped back, he caught your wrists, then pulled you into him with the same certainty he used for everything that mattered. Your forehead hit his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into your hair. “I’m sorry, baby.”

That word nearly killed you. Then he said the one thing he had denied both of you for years. “I love you.”

You froze. Then cried harder than before, because how dare he? How dare he spend years calling you friend, years touching you like devotion and speaking of you like convenience, years building a home with you out of unnamed things—only to become honest at the exact moment honesty could do nothing. How deep was his love?

How dare he love you and still go. “I really do,” he said, voice shaking now. “I just—” He stopped there. Because there was nothing after I just that could save either of you.

You cried into him until your ribs hurt. He held you all night on the studio couch. Neither of you went home. Sometimes he kissed your forehead, sometimes he brushed tears from your face with trembling thumbs. Once, around four in the morning, you felt his chest jerk once under your cheek, sharp and silent. Even crying had to happen secretly for him.

No plan was made, no promises helped. Morning came anyway and when he woke, you were gone.

You took your toothbrush, two sweaters, your notebook, and whatever pride fit into a canvas tote from his apartment.

He called seven times, you answered none.

The next time you saw him was at the station. Of course Maki came. He already knew about it. He always knew about James and Seoul. He never told anyone. Riki came too, he had too, he accepted it—he had to.

You came because not coming would have confessed too much.

The station was loud. Announcements overhead as James stood near the platform edge with a duffel bag and his guitar case over one shoulder.

He looked like every dream he had ever had. He looked like every problem you had ever loved.

When he saw the three of you, he smiled automatically. It died the second his eyes found yours. Riki hugged him first, hard enough to count as violence. “Don’t become annoying,” he muttered into his shoulder. Maki shook his hand, then hugged him too quickly to be commented on.

Then it was your turn, neither of you moved.

The train doors slid open with a soft chime, passengers stepped out, others stepped in around you, annoyed by your tragedy.

Finally he said your name. Not loudly though, more like a prayer, like an apology and like a punishment. You followed him inside. Riki and Maki stayed on the platform. 

Inside the carriage, he led you to the space near the connecting door, half hidden from the aisle. For a second neither of you spoke, then he grabbed your face in both hands and kissed you. Hard, desperate and fucking furious. Like he could force memory to survive distance. Like if he kissed you enough now, leaving later might become survivable. His mouth tasted like seven star cigarettes—his favourite and the bitter coffee he drank when he was nervous. Your hands clutched his collars so tightly your fingers hurt. He kissed you until breathing became secondary.

When he pulled back, both of you were shaking. “Come with me,” he said.

You almost laughed. “To what?” you whispered. “To become what? Your secret in another country?”

Pain crossed his face so quickly it was almost beautiful. “I would’ve made it right.”

“You had 2 years.”

That silenced him, the warning chime sounded. Doors closing soon.

He pulled you into one last hug so tight it bordered on cruelty. Your cheek pressed against his chest. His heart was racing.

“I love you,” he said again, smaller this time.

You shut your eyes. “I know.”

Then you pushed away first. Because if he let go first again, it would destroy whatever was left of you. You stepped onto the platform just as the doors slid shut between you. For one suspended second, you were separated only by glass.

He lifted a hand, You couldn’t move yours. The train began to pull away. You walked beside it for two steps and then stopped. He remained visible through passing windows until distance turned him into shape, then shadow, then nothing.

Your legs gave out beside a pillar, you sank to the ground, knees pulled to your chest, forehead buried against them, sobbing so hard no sound came out properly. Your shoulders shook. Your hands clawed uselessly at denim.

People passed around you in practiced arcs. Cities are merciful that way—they let strangers break privately in public. Down the platform, Riki stood rigid with his jaw clenched. Maki looked away to give you dignity. As the last carriage curved out of sight, they caught one final glimpse through the rear window.

James had collapsed into a seat, elbows on knees, face buried in both hands. He was leaving, and he was crying where no one could hold him.

perm tags: @amb4rluvs / @beatbymarzz / @sailuvsu / @lcvehyeon / @frizzyyo / @09zpzkeonns / @yunjiiin / @hyuneskkami / @one-chance-pls / @rickyshensgirlfriend / @snowzxki / @yuu-kizx / @myen2rude / @meowchness / @jjuhyeons / @6rei-ji / @luffyloving / @w0narchy

[rr-after-dark]

Hooked - Dr. Brendon “The Shark” Park x Reader

Summary: After transferring to the Pitt in the middle of your fellowship, you manage to impress PTMC's meanest surgeon with your bubbly confidence, leading to you both catching feelings.

Tags/Notes: fluffy fluff, silly trope time, idiots in love, grumpy/sunshine, misunderstanding trope, kiss cam trope, getting together, cutesy feminine reader, kind of an airhead outside of medicine, also described as short sorry tall baddies, praise kink, oral (m), fingering (f), size kink, piv, riding/cowgirl, mini hitachi, doggy style, headlock during sex uwu, biting, dacryphilia, multiple orgasms, creampie, D/s if you squint, aftercare

Content: medical (and hockey) inaccuracies out the wazoo, canon-typical

A/N:  that mean doctor has bewitched me and i actually had so much fucking fun writing this fic

Word Count: 14.2k

While you finish preparing your patient presentation for the incoming orthopedic surgeon consult on the case you’ve been working all day, Dennis Whitaker, who’s been assisting you, groans under his breath as he catches an imposing figure approaching. “Fuck, our consult’s the Shark.”

“Of course it is.” Shen, who’s been in the corner half-supervising you since he completely trusts your work as a fellow, tells Whitaker, “This kind of damage? He eats up cases like this. The Shark’s never gonna let someone else-”

You turn to both of them, hold up a hand to shut them up, and ask, “Who?”

“Dr. Brendon Park,” Shen explains like he’s telling you about an upcoming horror movie. “He’s the head orthopedic surgeon.”

“Haven’t met him yet,” you reply. Drawbacks of circumstances forcing you to change hospitals in the middle of your fellowship; you don’t know the whole team like you did back in your residency. With a final few glances through your day’s meticulous work, you wrinkle your brows and check, “I thought Torres was head of orthopedic surgery.”

“No, she’s the nice orthopedic surgeon. The Shark only deigns to come to what he calls ‘the butcher shop’ for juicy cases.” Shen shakes his head and says, “I’m gonna dip before he gets down here. I’ll grab Robby to supervise.”

“You’re leaving? Why?”

“Park can actually stand Robby.” Shen shrugs and tosses his gloves in the trash. “I made the mistake of suggesting an amputation when it was possible to salvage a limb and the Shark’s always down my throat when we work together now.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Three years.” Shen pushes the door open and says before heading over to the hub to grab Robby, “That thing you’ve heard about sharks having three-second memories? Not accurate. PTMC’s Shark never forgets. Don’t fuck up your first impression.”

Your wide eyes turn to Whitaker. “Well, that was comforting.”

Jesse, who’s been supporting you on and off when you needed more hands than just Whitaker’s, tries to offer, “Park’s not so bad.”

“Yeah, because you’re a nurse,” Whitaker replies. “He likes nurses. Respects them. It’s other doctors he thinks are stupid.”

You screw up your face with confidence and nod sharply. “Then I won’t be stupid.”

“Good luck with that,” a deep, clear voice says behind you. You turn and nearly bump into the center of a very broad chest. Very broad. With matching biceps and traps threatening at the fabric of his blue scrubs. He’s easily a whole head taller than you. And his face. Oh. Good face. Lots of masculine, rugged angles. It’s not that the ED is lacking in arm candy, but most of the doctors down here aren’t so…biteable. You’re fighting not to ogle as his voice draws your eyes back up to his mouth. Which is a nice mouth. Under a nice nose. And a heavy brow with pretty blue eyes so sharp you feel a little light-headed under their intensity. “You’re new.”

Robby slips into the room behind him and hugs the wall, posture much straighter than you’ve seen. He doesn’t look scared the way Whitaker does, but there’s a clear expectation about what the interaction’s going to be: Efficient, intense, clear. Robby says bluntly, “New fellow. Recent relocation.”

Park’s eyes narrow, taking in your pink shoelaces, perfectly applied makeup (including shimmery gloss) despite being elbows deep in the shift, and the pastel-heart-patterned long sleeve beneath your scrubs. “We haven’t met.”

You take one quick, deep breath and remind yourself there’s no reason to be scared. You don’t play hospital politics like the residents. You’re a fellow, a real goddamn doctor. This is your case. Your save. You’ve got it. So you introduce yourself with a friendly smile and explain, “I started here last month. Just haven’t had a big sexy skeletal trauma to dangle in front of you until today.”

Park cracks what almost appears to be a smirk. Committing your name and your pretty face to memory, he says, “Welcome to the team, pipsqueak. Try not to butcher any bones and we’ll get along fine.”

“No problem.” You bounce slightly on your feet. “Shall we get started here?”

His chin cocks slightly to one side. You’re not shrinking. Not bashful. You’re smiling. That’s rare. He doesn’t mind. Arms crossed over that massive chest, he orders, eyes sweeping the room, “Tell me what we’ve got.”

Whitaker looks to Robby. Robby looks to you. You nod and list off, “Mr. Jacob Westman, thirty-seven-year-old green energy tower technician, brought in by ambulance after falling from an electrical tower. Freak accident. Alert and responsive on arrival but no sensation in lower extremities. Lead doctor on the case – that’s me; I’ve been point for Mr. Westman all day – chose to sedate for pain management and stabilization once significant spinal injuries were identified. The most severe salvageable damage is in the cervical and thoracic, but I don’t necessarily agree with the interpretation from the ortho radiologist that-” Robby clears his throat to stop you there. Sheepishly, you finish, “Vitals are within safe range for operation to correct cervical and thoracic fractures and dislocations."

Robby offers, “So essentially, the approach is-”

“Hold on.” Park looks up from the chart and focuses squarely on you. “What did the radiologist say? Why did you stop there?”

You glance over at Robby, who’s shaking his head with pleading eyes. But it’s your case. You’re the one who gave up your lunch break to pore over the imaging. So you let your eyes rove back to Dr. Park’s and tell him firmly, “Your radiologist feels that the lumbar injuries causing Mr. Westman’s paralysis are completely inoperable through traditional methods. I was advised to defer to his opinion.”

Brows furrowed, he eyes you seriously. Almost…amused. Like he’s watching a puppy try a new trick. “What’s your opinion, doctor?”

Behind Park, you see Whitaker shake his head and grimace like you’ve just signed your own death certificate. Even Jesse is gripping his clipboard a little more tightly.

“I suggested that, even though it may be riskier, a series of nerve grafts and transfers could return the patient’s ability to walk.” Your voice lowers a bit and you try not to let your wobbly ‘bleeding heart baby doctor’ voice come out. “Mr. Westman is a highly-trained, highly-educated specialist in a type of engineering only a handful of people in the country can do. Work that’s absolutely critical for the development of renewable energy sources. When I was going over everything with his wife, Jenna, she told me that he loves his job more than life itself. That he would risk everything to regain use of his legs.” You swallow hard and pinch back tears. It’s something that always annoys you; whenever you really, really care about something, you start to cry. Eyes averted, you wrap up, “I know that the kind of procedure I’m suggesting would be much longer and much riskier on several levels and that it’s not at all my place to-”

Park shakes his head and cuts you off, “Show me the scans.”

You quickly brush past him to the nearby screen and blow up the images.

Dr. Park lets out a low whistle as he flips through the X-Rays, head tilted slightly as he gives the scans his full attention. He asks you a handful of questions and you answer them as best you can, all the eyes in the room burning the back of your head. You watch the wheels turning behind Park’s eyes; this is his passion, his favorite thing, his reason to wake up. You love seeing people in that state where all they’re thinking about is what they do best.

Finally, he turns to you and says, “I don’t care what your title at this hospital is. If a goddamn janitor can propose a valid surgical approach for an ‘inoperable’ injury, I want to hear it. Complex spinal reconstruction with multiple fusions, laminectomy, discectomy…fuck, ‘just-about-everything-ectomy.’ Plus nerve transfer. Now that’s sexy. I like it.” Before Robby can thank him for taking over, Park looks you up and down – just a little slow to be completely professional – and asks, “Pipsqueak, you wanna assist?”

You stand up straighter and turn your attention to Robby with wide, hopeful eyes. Looking nothing short of shocked, he nods and does a ‘sure, why not?’ type of gesture. You give a big, adorable grin and say, “Yeah, that would be awesome. I’ve always wanted to see autograft harvesting and transfer firsthand.”

Whitaker shakes his head and mutters, “Freak.”

“Go to the bathroom, eat a snack, and scrub for OR three,” Park tells you, ignoring everyone else. As you nod eagerly and excuse yourself, he slaps Robby on the back hard enough to make him stagger and mutters, “Congrats, Mike, you finally matched a competent fellow.”

Dumbfounded, Robby just says, “Ah, thanks.”

Coming out of the surgery thirteen hours later, you’re glowing like you haven’t been awake for thirty-four hours in a row. Following tight on his heels, you’re practically skipping as you beam, “Dr. Park, that was so amazing. I can’t thank you enough for the opportunity.”

“You’re good,” he says simply, walking through the halls of the surgical wing like he owns the place. “Great calls like that deserve great rewards. Would’ve given you a gold star sticker, but I’m not as soft as Robinavitch.”

“I wish Robby gave out stickers,” you reply wistfully. “That might actually convince me to stay here after my fellowship is up.”

You’re about to say something else when Park turns around and puts one baseball-glove-sized hand on your shoulder. “Unless you want to see my dick on our first day working together, you should probably stay on that side of this particular door.”

You startle backwards as you realize he’s pushing into the men’s room. “Oh my god. I’m so sorry; I sometimes kinda space out when I’m excited.”

Park lets out a laugh. An honest-to-god laugh.

He has a handsome smile.

Even though your face is now about a thousand degrees, you still nibble your lower lip, grin, and call through the door, “By the way, it’s technically our second day working together since that was an overnight surgery.”

Park’s amused, loud voice hollers back, “Go home and get some sleep, pipsqueak.”

When you clock in for your next shift two days later, Dana waves you over right after you’re done putting your things away. She says, “There’s something in your mailbox, if you’d believe it.”

“Really?” You worry a hangnail on your thumb. “Don’t tell me I’m getting served or something.”

“You? Come on, you’re Miss Bedside Manner USA.” She nods over to the doctor’s lounge and explains, “It’s from ortho. Something about that surgery you sat in on last week.”

“Huh, okay. Thanks for letting me know.”

You scurry off to your mailbox, which you’ve only even looked at once, the day you started. They’re a relic from the days of fax machines and printers. Inside your cubby is a blank, hospital-issue envelope. Upper left corner: Brendon Park, MD, FAAOS. In the middle, in his scratchy handwriting: Pipsqueak. With your lips pursed in curiosity, you rip the top of the envelope and remove the contents.

Inside a folded piece of notebook paper, there’s a card-sized sticker sheet with eight big, cutesy stickers on it. A happy sun, baby ducks, a strawberry, a stuffed bunny. All things sweet and girly. The theme is white, baby pink, sky blue, and light yellow, the same colors as the heart-patterned shirt you’d been wearing under your scrubs. In between the big stickers, a few pastel stars serve as filler.

With a little squeal, you unfold the note and read. Couldn’t find one with a gold star. Close enough. Good job. Happy you’re here.

Underneath, he’s drawn a tiny shark in lieu of a signature.

You melt – just a little.

Riding the elevator up after your lunch break, it’s kind of embarrassing how much your heart is pounding. You’re really not supposed to be doing this. It’s a total violation of protocol – not the sort that would get you in real HR trouble, but definitely the kind that could permanently piss someone off.

But you do it anyway. You gently knock on Dr. Park’s door after checking with the ortho receptionist that he’s in. He makes a sort of grunting sound that you interpret as ‘yes, what?’ Pushing the door open just enough to slip into the opening, you say, “Hi, Dr. Park. Robby asked me to page ortho down for a follow-up on the Westman case, but I thought it would be nice to ask you directly so that they could have consistency of-” When Park doesn’t even look at you, eyes staring intently at the file on his computer, you shrink into the doorway and shake your head. “Sorry; that’s silly. I’ll get back downstairs and send a page like I should’ve to stop annoying you.”

His eyes flick to yours for half a second. His eyebrows go together almost imperceptibly. “You’re not annoying me.”

“Oh. Thanks.” You bite your lower lip and stare at your shoes for a moment. Purple sneakers today, Park notices. Matching the lavender polka dots on your long sleeves. “So, yeah, if you have time today to come down and check his repeat images with me, that would be really amazing. I’m working until six, so no rush. No pressure. I know you’re really busy. And I can definitely just ask Torres if you-”

“I’ll do it,” he interrupts urgently. “Don’t ask Torres. Or anyone else. I’ve got it.” Then he adds, hasty, “Patient outcomes improve when they have a consistent care team. You’re right about that. You can come get me about Mr. Westman whenever you need to.”

At that, you absolutely beam. His eyes go to your lips. Your cupid’s bow and the way it stretches when you smile. A pretty smile, he thinks. Really pretty. You glow, “Okay, perfect, I will. Thank you.”

You linger for a second, one hand on the doorknob as you debate whether or not to say something. He hasn’t returned to his computer screen, eyes just roaming around the room and occasionally spending a second on you, so you take it as an invitation.

“I also wanted to, um, to say thanks for the stickers, by the way.” You lift your water bottle and show him the doodle-style pink star you’d picked out to grace it among your collection. “I really like them.”

“Good.” He’s tempted to lie, say it was someone else’s idea, act like he found them somewhere in the hospital, but he can’t when he’s looking at your delighted schoolgirl smile. “Saw them at Target and thought of you. It was nice to work with someone so…competent.” You swear there’s a slight blush in his cheeks, but it must be a trick of the light. It must be. Then he clears his throat and adds, “I’ll come down to see you- for Mr. Westman’s follow-up in an hour, alright? I have to finish this report and my dyslexia’s fucking killing me today.”

Physically unable to stop yourself from being helpful, you offer, “I could type it up for you, if you want.”

“I didn’t mean to tell you that,” he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You have this disarming thing about you. It’s jarring.”

“Um, thanks?” You tilt your head like a puppy. “Are you not supposed to talk about it or something?”

He shrugs, definitely blushing now and pretending not to be, and replies, “People hear their doctor has a learning disability and get a little antsy. So if you don’t mind, keep that to yourself.”

“No problem, Dr. Park, I’m the picture of discretion,” you assure him seriously. But then you keep spilling out, “But, y’know, I actually read this study from the Royal College of Surgeons that showed people with dyslexia make better surgeons than their peers because of their well-developed spatial reasoning skills, attention to detail, and problem-solving ability – not to mention the resilience and creativity that inherently come from- Aaaand I’m word vomiting. Shoot. Sorry. It’s- it’s chronic, my word vomit. I see a specialist.”

He raises an eyebrow in amusement. “Do you now?”

“Yup. My likelihood of remission is incredibly low. Lifelong struggle, really.” You swallow hard and tell him gently, “Um, I had this undergrad student I tutored. He was in biology – pre-med – but he didn’t think he could do it because he was dyslexic. So I did a bunch of research and presented it to him. I’m not, like, one of those cool photographic memory people who remember every study on earth or something.”

“People with photographic memories freak me out,” he says with a chuckle. You wonder if you’re the only person in the ED who’s heard him laugh. More than once, even. Then he says something that actually does manage to shock you: “I’d love the help, if you have time.”

“Yay!” You do this little bouncing thing that makes his head spin. “I’m still on my lunch, so I have a few minutes.”

Voice sounding almost protective, he checks, “Did you eat?”

“Yeah, of course. But I get bored if I don’t have anything to do after my leftovers.” You scooch around his desk and slide between him and the computer, your perky ass directly in his face. With your fingers hovering over his keyboard, you lilt, “Alright, big man, what are we writing?”

It takes Park fifteen seconds to recalibrate, ten of those seconds spent memorizing the way he can see the outline of your tiny thong when you lean forward slightly, the fabric of your scrubs taut over your ass. Then he hastily stands up and puts himself behind the chair, his nosy dick safe from being seen, and says, “Why don’t you take my spot? You’ll be more comfortable.”

You shrug and sit down, throwing your head way back to look up at him with perfect, sweet blowjob eyes. “Whatever you say, Shark.”

The next time Park’s in the ED, his crush on you is completely and totally solidified. It’s horrifying, the way the feeling swirls around his stomach and makes his cheeks hot. It’s not a feeling that’s ever dared encounter him in the workplace and, honestly, not in a hell of a long time outside of it, either.

It’s because you’ve got Ogilvie backed up against a wall, your pointed finger in the center of his chest. He’s a head taller than you, even slouching, but you’re dwarfing him with your energy. Park’s never seen you so brutally animated, eyebrows knitted together and posture perfectly straight. He lingers a bit too close, hugging the corner so he can listen and watch.

Ogilvie’s hands are up in the air, waving, frustrated. “I didn’t do anything wrong! All I did was-”

“Oh my god, how many times do I have to tell you to shut up and listen to me?” With your feet planted firmly in your white sneakers with red laces and your arms crossed in your cherry-printed sleeves, you go on, “I get that I’m a woman. I get that I’m short and cute and girly. I get that you think you’re god’s gift to medicine.”

“I don’t think I’m-”

“I wasn’t done. I get that you struggle to respect me. Idiotic men often do. But let me make one thing abundantly clear: You are a slug of a man-child, James. You leave a trail of slime behind yourself in the form of problems everyone else needs to clean up, you hide whenever things get hard, and you need to blot the oil from your T-zone so you’re less shiny. And invest in a frizz-control shampoo.” While Park stifles a snorting laugh, you go on with the most pointed, cruel voice he’s ever heard from a woman so painfully adorable, “If you ever speak to me like that again, you will envy the corpses you practice on. All you will do clinically is change infected necrotic dressings and disimpact bowels and every other moment of your day will be dedicated to administrative scut so monotonous it makes your vision blurry. I will ask to have you on my service every day just so I can torture you until you question your entire career path. Do we have an understanding?”

Ogilvie is too stunned to speak for thirty seconds straight. Then he swallows and stammers out, “Yes, doctor. I- I understand.”

You nod tightly and add, “I’d like an apology now.”

“I’m sorry,” he says right away. It sounds more afraid than earnest, but that’ll get the job done. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you the way I did.”

“Good. I forgive you.” Then you give him a warm, friendly smile and a pat on the head that you have to rock up onto your toes to execute fully. “Now let’s get back to Mrs. Andrews so you can get another lumbar puncture under your belt before your next evaluation, alright?”

Ogilvie manages to get out, “Thanks,” before you turn around and lead him back to the ED. He looks like a scolded toddler, lip pouted and cheeks red, while you have that familiar unshakeable pep in your step.

And Brendon Park is smitten.

The next week, as you’re sending off a list of prescriptions, you hear Langdon’s voice from the other side of the ED. “Sharkbait, get over here!”

You turn toward Langdon and point at yourself. “Me?”

His eyes are big and begging. “Yeah, c’mon, I need you.”

“I have work to do, Frank.”

“Please?” He clasps his hands in front of his chest like a prayer. “Park’s going to kill me when he sees the state of these ribs.”

Exasperated, you cut back, “What the hell does that have to do with me?”

“You’re Sharkbait,” he replies, mimicking your expression. “When you’re in the room, he’s less of a dick.”

Several craving any time with Brendon, you roll your eyes and stomp over, telling him, “I’ll give you five minutes. Get me up to speed.”

He runs through the patient history with you while you gently palpate the chest.

“Jesus Christ,” you breathe as you feel the myriad of fractures all over the ribcage and sternum. “LUCAS?”

“On an elderly osteoporosis patient. Dumbass firefighter meatheads.” He shakes his head and mutters, “It’s basically a bag of bone soup in there.”

“Sounds promising,” Park announces, always knowing when to cut into a conversation. When he sees you, he sighs in relief, “Pipsqueak, thank god you’re on this, too. I don’t have the patience for dealing with Ken on my own today.”

As Langdon talks to Park with you just sort of standing there as an emotion diffuser, Santos and Whitaker watch in wonder from the hub.

Trinity, whose last interaction with the Shark ended with him saying she should switch to a career with no skeletons involved, scoffs and murmurs, “Why hasn’t he ripped her head off? She’s brand new; she doesn’t know how to placate him.”

“Her aura powers are unknown to us,” Whitaker mutters back. “She has some kind of sorcery ability incomprehensible to the masses.”

“I mean, she has nice tits,” Trinity reasons. “She’s smart. Made some good calls in front of him.”

Whitaker argues, “Baran’s brilliant and has great tits. He called her an imbecile last week.”

Amused, Trinity raises her eyebrows. “You think Dr. Al-Hashimi has great tits?”

“Not the point.” A minute later, Park leaves the room with a smile in your direction. You swish over to the hub to grab a new chart and Dennis asks, “What’s the deal with you and the Shark?”

Humming gently, you ask him absently, “What do you mean?”

Trinity cuts in to reply for them both, “Well, I mean, he likes you. Are you two fucking?”

Your eyes startle wide at the idea – tantalizing but impossibly far away. Park is so wildly out of your league you can barely entertain the thought. “What? No! Of course not. Brendon’s not as bad as you guys think. You just have to get to know him.”

Trinity mouths to Whitaker, Brendon?

Whitaker shrugs, baffled, and then muses as the three of you watch Park head toward the OR, “I didn’t realize that was a possibility.”

You chuckle and tease, “Maybe try being a better doctor next time?”

“Brutal, Sharkbait. Brutal.”

That weekend, the Pittsburgh Penguins hosts its annual Medical Worker Appreciation Night. Because Dana’s been nominated as a spotlighted nurse, the hospital sprung for discounted tickets in the name of staff morale.

Robby shepherds you and the other newer ED staff who’d gotten their hands on a ticket down to the PTMC section. When he checks seats, pointing everyone in the right direction, he frowns at yours. “Kid, do you wanna trade spots with me?”

Your brows furrow. “What? Why?”

“Look.”

Your eyes follow Robby’s pointing chin. At the end of the long row, Park’s perched on the edge of his seat, staring down the players doing warmups. He’s wearing a black Penguins hoodie, a black Penguins hat, and a pair of jeans that his meaty thighs battle for dominance with. You’ve never seen him outside of scrubs and it’s becoming a problem very quickly. You shrug and tell Robby, “I don’t mind.”

“You sure?”

“We get along great, actually.”

“That explains the new nickname,” he chuckles under his breath. “I figured it was because you’re a sacrificial lamb.”

Park catches your eyes and waves you over, his lips flirting with the concept of a smile. He can’t bear to say it out loud, can barely even tolerate the thought in his own head, but he’d looked over the seating chart on the HR receptionist’s computer and basically threatened Ogilvie’s life to switch with him (and then swore him to secrecy on similar conditions).

You plop down next to him and nudge him in the bicep. “Hi, Bren, I didn’t think you came to things like this.”

Bren. Nobody’s used a nickname besides ‘Shark’ for him in decades. He shrugs like his heart rate isn’t picking up at the way your arm has to touch his because of how broad he is. “It’s hockey.”

“It’s team bonding,” you tease. “You hate bonding. And teams that aren’t sports.”

“But I like free Pens tickets,” he replies simply. Then he notices your outfit. You’re wearing pants, at least – leggings, because fuck him, he figures – but your arms are agonizingly bare from the elbows down, your yellow tee not doing much to protect your skin. He frowns and asks, “Did you bring a jacket or something? You’re gonna freeze to death in here.”

You shake your head. “It’s not that cold; I’ll be okay.”

“Give it a period.”

“I’m not on my- Oh. They’re called periods in hockey?”

Biting back a mean joke because of your sweet, innocent eyes, he says, “Yeah. Periods. Three twenty-minute periods with intermissions between.

“You’re gonna have to explain everything to me,” you say as you stare at the different parts of the stadium. “I’m not from a hockey town.”

“I don’t mind,” he admits after a second. He adds carefully, “I never get to talk hockey outside of work.”

“No gym buddies to gab with?”

“No gym buddies,” he confirms.

“That’s shocking, considering the biceps of it all.” And the pecs you would honestly motorboat. And the big veiny hands. And the thick thighs you could bounce on for hours. You swallow hard, thankful you don’t have a dick to give away your thoughts. “Are you one of those douchey guys who puts in his AirPods and focuses on his form in the mirror? Oh my god, do you film yourself so you can make sure you-”

“Okay, okay, that’s enough,” he laughs, raising his hands in defeat. “You’ve got me pegged, sweetheart. I have to be strong because I crack femurs all day. And you have to focus on form if you want to get strong and don’t want to get hurt.”

“So no time for gym buddies.” You lilt, sweet and easy, “Maybe you can show me some time. I could use a little more muscle and a little less-”

“No, you definitely don’t need ‘less’ anything,” he protests way too quickly as his mouth goes dry. He can barely tolerate the sight of you in leggings this close to him; he’d burst a blood vessel if you were in bike shorts and a sports bra like his brain immediately supplies. With his neck going splotchy pink, he course corrects, “Lifting isn’t about losing weight or visible muscle. It’s about building practical strength.”

And your body is fucking perfect. If you wanted to change it out of insecurity, he’d drop to his knees and kiss your feet until you realized you shouldn’t change a thing. Your thighs are just the right thickness, your ass downright juicy, your stomach spectacularly soft, your breasts-

Park sucks in a sharp, deep breath and shakes out the thoughts. “I’m gonna grab something to eat before the game starts. Can I get you anything?”

After a second of thinking, you ask sweetly, “Do they have cheese fries?”

“They have every disgusting, greasy sports food you could ever want,” he confirms. “I’ll be right back with some goodies.”

You occupy yourself by playing social butterfly, introducing yourself to everyone you haven’t had a chance to meet yet. When Park returns, he takes a second to admire you running around spreading your sunshine. Then you return to his side and squeal when you see a mountain of loaded cheese fries that make your mouth water in the best way.

Before sitting down to share them with you, Park shoves a folded garment into your arms. “Put this on. I won’t be able to focus on the game if you’re shivering next to me the whole time.”

“Aw, Bren, thank you.” Your voice borders on a whimper as you unfold the classic lacer pullover, black with yellow and tan bars around the lower hem and arms, the iconic penguin himself at the center of the chest. “Just let me know how much I owe you for it – at least for half.”

He rolls his eyes. “Shut up; it’s a gift.”

“Okay, thank you so much, that’s so sweet, but the suggestion to shut up is incredibly offensive given I disclosed my word vomit diagnosis to you,” you reply seriously, glaring at him.

Park clutches his chest and tells you, “I apologize for making light of your vulnerability with me.”

“I forgive you because of the cheese fries.” You examine the back of the thick, cozy hoodie and observe, “Crosby. Is he your favorite? Or just the cheapest sweater?”

Park smirks (it’s the most expensive sweater) and replies, “Sid the Kid. Best player Pittsburgh’s ever had. Best player in the league, if you ask anyone with a brain. Rumor has it he’s retiring soon; I think that’ll be my first true heartbreak.”

You balk at the idea. “You’ve never had your heart broken? I get my heart broken ten times a month.”

He raises his eyebrows. “You go on that many dates?”

“No, no, no, no dates,” you quickly reply. Too quickly. A little desperately. “But it breaks my heart when I see sad puppy commercials or old people eating alone at restaurants or trailers for romantic dramas at the movies. One time I cried because I could only find one of my favorite socks. I tried and I tried but the second one was just…gone. I couldn’t look at the single one without getting so sad it was hard to-”

“Team introduction’s starting, then the national anthem,” he interrupts gently. Reluctantly. Like he’s actually invested in your rambling. “Put a lid on the word vomit for ten minutes and I’m all yours for a full sock eulogy.”

You giggle and salute as the whole stadium stands. “Yes, sir.”

He rolls his shoulders and pretends that doesn’t go straight to his dick. When you cheer extra loud for Sidney Crosby as he skates to center, jumping a tiny bit like your smile is too big to hold in your body, Park damn near swoons. He wants to sling his arm around your waist and pull you into him, to kiss the top of your head, to, fuck, put you on his shoulders and parade you around or something. He can’t even name everything he wants to do with and to and for you. It’s agony.

Once the game starts, Park takes care to make sure you understand what’s going on. “That’s Ovechkin. You’re gonna see one hell of a game. He’s Crosby’s biggest rival.”

“So we hate him,” you reply obediently. “Got it.”

He smiles at you and confirms, “Yeah, we hate him. Mostly because he’s really fucking good.”

You nudge him with your shoulder and tease, “That’s why people hate you, so it’s good company.”

He barks out a laugh. “Is that why?”

“That or because you never show off that handsome smile.”

With a pout, he counters, “I smile plenty.”

“He said, frowning.”

“I’ll smile when the Pens win,” he promises.

But, despite his best efforts, he does, actually, get caught smiling before the end of the game. In a big, obnoxious way. After the end of the second period, with the game tied 1-1, you watch the kiss cam flying around the arena with dopey heart eyes so precious Brendon can’t rip his eyes away from you. It’s too cute of an expression not to memorize.

You don’t notice he’s staring, too wrapped up in loving to see people in love, until his face lights up the big screen. You’re so shocked that you don’t process just how bright and intent his eyes are, his lips soft and slightly upturned, everything about his expression and posture screaming ‘god, she’s beautiful, isn’t she?’ It’s the kind of expression kiss cam operators gravitate toward; only men who adore their girls look like that.

Before he can even truly realize that it’s you and him on screen, his eyes widening, you grab him and plant a big fat shimmery lip gloss kiss on his cheek. Then you grin, following it up by blowing a kiss and winking to the camera.

And Brendon Park smiles wide enough to power the whole arena, the apples of his cheek glowing neon pink and he drops his eyes and shakes his head in delight.

The video is immediately saved and sent to the ED group chat by none other than Trinity Santos, naturally. One of the nurses proceeds to forward it to the nurses chat, where it makes its way to the ortho chat. By the time the camera even pans away, the moment has been forever cemented in PTMC history as the first time Park the Shark has smiled earnestly – innocently, even – in front of his coworkers.

Only the whoops, cheers, and laughs from your nearby ED coworkers drops him back onto earth from cloud nine. Park frowns as he rubs his cheek with a napkin, pouting, “You got lipgloss on my face.”

“What was I supposed to do?” You gesture to Trinity and Whitaker, who are pumping their fists in their air victoriously. “Leave my adoring fans hanging?”

With a sheepish wave in their direction to get them to fuck off, he mutters, “I think you’ve permanently damaged my tough guy reputation.”

But you just reply in a sing-sony voice, “You didn’t have to blush.”

“Involuntary response to relevant stimulus.”

“Whatever you say, big guy.”

If he’s honest with himself, his smile isn’t half as bright when the Penguins win an hour later. It only warms back up to critical heat when you wrap him in a hug, gleefully jumping up and down as the puck hits the net right as the buzzer goes off. He’d kiss you for real if you weren’t surrounded by the PTMC staff.

Still, with your arms around the back of his neck, he can’t resist doing something. So he keeps it simple and asks, “It’s been a while since those cheese fries; want to grab dinner with me?”

When you say yes, his heart sings.

After the hockey game, there’s a definite shift in your friendship with Brendon. It’s more playful. Less guarded. The two of you grab dinner together after your shifts whenever Park doesn’t have a late surgery and, if you miss out on dinner, he insists on coffee in the morning. He tells you about his personal life and you do the same, not that it’s hard on your end. Gradually, you start to notice the differences that everyone else in the ED picked up on months and months ago. The way his face goes from hardened to soft when he sees you entering a room. The way his texts have emojis instead of periods. The way he accepts your hugs instead of turning them into handshakes.

Right when you’ve gotten up your confidence to actually ask him out, you overhear him and Robby talking in hushed tones inside Park’s office. The door’s cracked and you’d come up specifically to ask him to go out with you in a few days on Saturday because you both actually have a weekend off.

With an X-Ray in hand, Robby pushes, “Are you sure you can’t do the revision yourself on Sunday? I know you’re not scheduled to be here, but the family trusts you now, and it might be-”

“I told you, man, I’m surprising my girlfriend on Sunday. I’ve been sitting on these ballet tickets for weeks already and I don’t do shit like that,” Park tells him sternly. No room for argument. “You’re in good hands with Torres; she’s as good as me any day – maybe better since people actually like her.”

You don’t wait for Robby’s response. Losing your ability to breathe, you scamper to the nearby staircase and start stamping your way down to the ED. Your heart shatters into a thousand pieces. No, a million. They fall down the stairs like glass, so heavy you’re surprised you can’t hear them echoing.

Stopping just shy of the ED entrance, you tuck yourself away underneath the staircase to catch your breath, trying not to let yourself cry. Park’s just one of those guys, you figure. Guys with ultra-secure girlfriends who don’t care if they have female friends who drool all over their biceps. Guys who don’t mention their ultra-secure girlfriends because they know what they have at home and they probably don’t even realize you’re flirting because they’re so enamored with their great, successful, probably gorgeous girlfriend who knows exactly what she’s doing in bed and always satisfies him and-

There are the tears.

Feelings of inadequacy and sadness well up and spill over. It’s hard to keep your sniffles and sobs quiet enough not to draw attention when all you want is to ugly sob over a tub of ice cream and your favorite movie. Only one more hour in your shift. You can make it. Right?

Upstairs, you hear the door squeak open and heavy footsteps traipse down toward you. Familiar footsteps. Of course. He probably saw you running away from his office and is coming to find you because you have the luck of a worm after a rainstorm.

When Park comes closer, he spots your elbow sticking out from behind the staircase. Hiding. You’re still crying, unable to stop yourself until you get it all out. Silently, yes, but with puffy eyes and tiny whimpers and sniffles that escape every once in a while. Tucked up underneath the staircase, you blot at your cheeks with the sleeve of your daisy-patterned turtleneck.

Rage devours Brendon’s insides. He beelines for you and demands with a level of anger in his eyes you’ve never seen before, “What’s wrong? Did someone make you cry?”

“No, no, I’m fine.” You try a shaky smile and wipe your face again even though more tears just fall in their wake. “Just, um, I’m on my period and I’m emotional.”

Which isn’t not true. It’s the last day or two and you are emotional. It’s definitely not helping the situation. Park’s a little taken aback you admitted that so freely, but he’s a doctor, dammit, so he doesn’t let it faze him. Instead he offers, “Okay, well, um, do you, ah, do you need anything? I have some ibuprofen in my office if-”

You start crying harder, ugly sobs now at how nice he’s being when he just unintentionally and unknowingly turned you into a 12-year-old girl having her first heartbreak.

Park stammers, unsure how to deal with this situation. “Okay, ah, maybe just a hug, then?”

You nod ardently and he pulls you close with his strong arms. You nestle your face in his chest and breathe deep. If this is the closest you’re gonna get to having him, you’re gonna milk it for all it’s worth. With your nose pressed to his muscles as you start to calm down, you whimper, “You smell really good.”

Still tentative, Brendon murmurs, “It’s Dior. My mom bought it for me.”

Then you start crying even more.

That night, after making some lazy excuse to Brendon for why you can’t get dinner like usual, you curl up on your couch and vow to set some darn boundaries with the guy. You’re only going to get yourself hurt if you indulge in dinners and coffees and stolen gazes and elevator conversations. So you put his messages on silent, only returning them when you actually have a second instead of carving out time. You make a point of ducking into other rooms when you know he’s coming down for a consult, ignoring the desperate calls for Sharkbait from your hapless coworkers.

And by the time you’re clocked out on Friday night, you almost feel better about the situation. Well, that’s a lie. You actually don’t feel better at all. If anything, you feel much, much worse because you don’t have your best friend to hang out with anymore. You’re going to have to resort to drinks with the Pittlings if you don’t find another attending soon.

But at least you have the weekend to wallow.

Walking to your bus stop with Celine Dion blasting in your ears, you try to focus on the pretty sunset and the wins of the shift instead of letting your brain drift to-

Fuck.

Brendon’s standing at your bus stop with his stance wide and his arms crossed like a bodyguard, forearms looking extra delectable in the sunset. He’s not a hallucination from your lovesick mind nor a hologram designed to trip you up on the way home.

You scurry up to him with averted eyes and ask, “What are you doing here? You drive a Rolls-Royce.”

“Yeah, and that Spectre is my damn baby, but you take the bus when you’re ignoring my offer for rides. So here I am.” His eyes drill through your forehead and your resolve. “Can we talk now?”

Weakly, you mutter back, “My bus is in five minutes.”

“You’re not taking the bus. I’m driving you.” The firmness of his voice makes your knees wobble. He nods over his shoulder toward the small park next to the hospital. “We’re talking. Come on.”

Then he takes your hand – you want to throw up – and leads you through the park entrance to a shaded spot under a tree where the light makes his chiseled features agonizingly beautiful. Like a fucking Roman marble sculpture. He doesn’t wait for you to say anything, instead taking charge and launching in, “What’s going on with you? Why have you been ignoring me the last few days? If I did something to hurt you, tell me and I’ll fix it. I know I’m a dumbass about the feelings stuff sometimes, a lot of the time, but I’m not going to mess shit up with you, so you have to let me know what I need to do better.”

“You haven’t done anything wrong,” you whimper. You hate how pathetic you sound. How downtrodden and heartbroken. But Brendon looks hurt, too, which makes you feel ten times as bad. So you rush out a hasty version of the truth, “I came up to your office on Wednesday to ask you on a date this weekend, but then- then I heard you telling Robby about your girlfriend who you’re surprising on Sunday and it just, like, crushed me so bad even though I know it was so silly for me to think I’d ever have a chance with someone like you in the first place since you’re this sexy strong surgeon and I’m so not but I thought maybe in the last couple months-”

“Woah, pipsqueak, hey.” Brendon cups your cheek in his hand to cut you off once the shock of your words wears off. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Unable to meet his eyes, you start to feel the tears coming. Dammit. You stare at your pink sneakers – the same ones you were wearing when the two of you met, you realize – and let them fall to the ground. After a minute, you manage to admit, “I just- I don’t think I can be this close to you if you have a girlfriend. It’s great that she’s so cool about you having female friends, but I’m just so sensitive and I know that’s not your fault but-”

“Hold on.” Brendon places both hands on your shoulders, staring at you like you’re an alien making first contact. Baffled beyond his wildest dreams, he explains slowly, “You’re my girlfriend.”

Between sniffles and shaky breaths, you whimper out, unable to process anything, “Huh?”

“My girlfriend. Who I’m surprising on Sunday. That would be you.”

Now it’s your turn to go catatonic, eyes wide and shimmery. “What are you talking about?”

“I asked you out to dinner after the hockey game,” he tells you, exasperated in the cutest way you’ve ever seen. Like you’re dumb but like maybe he’s also dumb. “I paid for your dinner. I insisted you get dessert. The whole thing. And we- Sweetheart, what do you think all the dinners we eat together are? Why else would I always be inviting you for coffee? Why would I always pay? I don’t just dump a couple hundred bucks a week on casual coworkers.”

Starting to feel silly instead of sad, you cover your laugh and protest, “I don’t know; I thought you were being friendly! You make $500,000 a year; you should be paying for all your friends’ coffees!”

“$650,000, actually, I have a sub-specialty in pediatric surgery,” he replies as though you wouldn’t drop your panties right here in the park. “More importantly, I am the least friendly person in the entire hospital. Maybe the entire city.” He runs a hand through his hair and replies a bit bashfully, “I kind of figured you like that about me or we wouldn’t be dating.”

The last two months recontextualize in your head in rapid succession. Little moments appear lit up by neon lights that blare, HEY DUMBASS! Brendon tied your shoes last week instead of telling you they were loose, dropping down on his knees right outside the ED where anyone could see just to make sure you wouldn’t trip. He always takes your backpack from your shoulders before walking you to the parking garage and opening the door of his gorgeous navy blue sedan for you. Even the way he looked at you at the hockey game.

God, you’re an idiot.

With your lips parted and your eyes rapidly blinking, you come up with a new protest: “You’ve never even tried to kiss me, Brendon. What the fuck? You should be kissing me all the time! You could’ve been jumping my bones ever since the hockey game; that would’ve made things pretty clear to me!”

“Jumping your bones?” He suppresses a laugh since you’re still flustered. He just kind of scoffs and explains with a shrug, “I guess I’m still old-school about that. A gentleman. I wasn’t picking up signals that you wanted me to, y’know, make a big move. Figured we should take it slow. I mean, you’re new to Pittsburgh, you’ve had some big life changes. And I have a history of being too, ah, too intense for some women. I didn’t want to mess that up with you.”

“That’s actually really sweet, Bren,” you reply, sniffling back tears. Waving a hand in front of your face to cool down your burning cheeks, you pinch your eyebrows together and point out, “Okay, well, then we never did, like, a ‘what are we?’ talk.”

“That’s because I’m 38 years old,” he replies bluntly. “When I’m with my woman, she has my full attention. My devotion. Everything. I don’t need to have that talk.”

My woman. The phrase makes you feel kinda bubbly like soda. You smack him on the chest and poke him, “Clearly you do, dummy!”

After you nudge him, Park catches your hand in his, fingers enveloping yours. Fuck, his hands are so big and sturdy. Then his eyes soften and he kisses your fingers. He leans down slightly to make better eye contact. “Okay, I’ll have that talk if you want it.” Crystal clear, blue eyes positively sparkling with amusement and adoration, he asks, “Would you like to be my very, very official girlfriend?”

You let out an absolute squeal. It’s delighted and silly and so cute his stomach turns. God, how did a girl like you get your claws in him? When you throw your arms around his neck and he spins you around, he doesn’t care why or how. He just cares that the first words out of your mouth are, “Yes, of course, obviously.” You nuzzle into the crook of his shoulder, feet barely touching the ground, and murmur against his ear, “This is my favorite night ever.”

“You’ve got me wrapped around your finger, princess,” he assures as he sets you down on your own balance. Then he holds your face in his palm and finally bends down to kiss you properly.

But you stop him with your pointer finger in his lips, his eyes widening. “No, no, no, I can’t have our first kiss be when I’m all puffy and snotty from crying.”

He gives a pretend growl but concedes, “Fair enough. Whatever you want. C’mon, let’s get you home.”

Before he turns away, though, you step on your very tippy toes (and then some) and kiss his forehead before asking so sweetly, “How about you come over tomorrow? I know we already have plans Sunday – by the way, I really love the ballet, so good job – but maybe we should have a first date that I know is a first date beforehand?”

“Yeah, of course,” he replies wistfully, still feeling your lips on his skin. On his thick fucking skull. “I’ll go anywhere you ask me.”

Like you asked, Brendon knocks on your door at 3PM sharp. You promised to entertain him and make him dinner and he could absolutely care less about any of the details beyond getting to be with you like he craves. He’d agonized over what to wear to an embarrassing extent, nearly caving and texting his mother for her approval. But that would be a fate worse than death, so he settles on dark jeans rolled at the ankle and a black tee because a little old lady told him he looked hunky when he wore them to the pharmacy a few weeks ago.

You answer the door wearing nothing but the oversized Penguins sweater he bought you, a pair of panties he can barely see under it, and knee-high socks.

Park’s pupils dilate.

In that one look, you can finally see why they call him Shark. He’s a predator latching onto you, ready to devour you alive. You take a step back and he steps forward like you’re pulling him by a string attached to his gut. He doesn’t even notice himself closing and locking the door, too fixated on the expanse of your legs and the Pittsburgh Penguins logo on your chest. He tentatively puts one hand on your waist and sighs reverently, “Yup, this is the singular sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

You look away from him, bashful under his praise: “Well, y’know, I wanted to surprise my boyfriend since he’s planning on surprising me tomorrow.” Then your attempt at a sultry voice goes away and is replaced by your usual glittery one when you see that he’s carrying a bouquet of pastel pink, soft orange, and angel white gerberas in the hand not touching you. “Brenny, did you get me flowers?”

‘Brenny’ might be too far, but he can’t bear to tell you that. You could call him anything and he’d accept it. He lifts the flowers up and offers them to you. “Um, yes. Is that still romantic or is it really, really lame now?”

“Still romantic,” you assure him with misty eyes, taking the bouquet and skipping away toward the kitchen.

Brendon toes off his shoes and follows you into the house, not surprised to find the place decked out in pastel colors and soft fabrics and dreamy artwork. You dig through your cabinets to find a porcelain vase you thrifted years ago and arrange the flowers inside of it.

As you place them on the windowsill, you give him a soft gaze, softer than any he’s been on the receiving side of. “This is the sweetest thing any man’s ever done for me.”

Brendon pulls you into a warm embrace, holding your chin with his thumb and forefinger, and says, “Baby, you’re about to have your bar raised, because flowers are the least you deserve.” When your lips part into a shy smile, he asks, “Can I kiss you now?”

You nod eagerly and rock up onto your toes, tilting your chin to get as close to him as possible. Brendon’s gentle, boyish smile makes your heart pound in your throat in the moments before he closes the gap. He takes a second to admire the slopes of your face when you’re gazing up at him like he means something.

And then he kisses you.

It’s eager and bright, the way you kiss after prom night. You have to fight not to smile when he holds your face between both hands, so much desire in his touch that you can feel his resolve to take it slow with you melting away.

Suddenly, at the sound of you giggling for only a second, Brendon’s arms loop around your back. Before you know it, he’s lifting you off your feet and spinning you around. You hop up, knowing he’ll catch you, and lock your legs around his hips. When you feel his smooth, cold belt buckle against your panties, you gasp out a moan at the contact.

Brendon chuckles and buries his forehead in the crook of your neck. He groans quietly, “Baby, you can’t make all those little sounds or you’re gonna kill me.”

Breathless, you tease back, “Then you definitely can’t call me baby.”

He smirks, kisses you again, and asks in a lower and more pointed voice, “Where’s your bedroom, baby?”

“It’s right upstairs; if you wanna put me down, I can-”

He shakes his head and keeps you balanced firmly in his arms, walking back toward the staircase. “No point in having these muscles if my girl ever has to touch the ground again.”

As he carries you up the stairs so easily that you’re turning into a person made more of giggles than anything else, you ask him, “Are you gonna carry me around from patient to patient forever?”

“If that’s what you want,” he replies with a laugh as he pushes through your bedroom door. Guiding you down onto the bed, which you’ve meticulously made, Brendon murmurs against the pulse point just beneath your ear, “I’ll give you everything you want, kitten.”

At the tender pet name, you can’t help but moan, encouraging him to touch you as he pins you to the bed just by virtue of how big his body is. He pulls back and gazes down at you so gently. Your heartbeat is slow again, comfortable, safe, but the heat between your legs is undeniable.

Brendon lowers himself down to kiss you once more. The energy between you shifts in that kiss, like he’s become painfully aware of being in your bedroom, your body pliant beneath him, your eyes full of trust and adoration he hasn’t experienced in years. His kiss is slow and sweet and simple. He shifts onto his side so one of his hands can cradle your cheek while the other gingerly takes your waist. You can tell he’s being painfully careful with you, his gentle touch revealing a certain level of fear – that he’ll hurt you or break you or scare you off.

So you reach forward and twine your fingers in the short hair at the base of his neck, gently scratching his scalp, and press your body against his. One leg thrown over his hip so that he can feel the heat of your barely clothed cunt. You arch your back and wiggle a tiny bit so that his hand almost has to move to your ass. He chuckles into the kiss and that makes you whimper. But he doesn’t do more, doesn’t grab or push or demand.

You pull back an inch, stare at him seriously, and murmur, “You’re not gonna break me, Bren.”

Mischief flickers in his blue eyes. He knows perfectly well what you’re asking, even if he’s tentative to give it to you. “What are you trying to say, sweetheart? Use your words.”

Mimicking his own voice, you bat your lashes and offer, “What’s the point in having those muscles if you don’t throw your girl around a little? C’mon, Shark, I know you’re not a shy lover.” You sit up just enough to reach down and lift the hockey sweater up and over your head. Underneath, you’ve got a black lace unlined bra, filled out only by the weight of your breasts, and it’s absolutely sinful. “Touch me like you mean it.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, this is one hell of a surprise,” he rasps as he grabs your tits through the fabric, a rough sting buzzing through your body. The sight of his hands against the lace flips the switch in his mind and he’s hunting for blood in the water. “I didn’t know you owned anything black.”

As he pinches your nipples, mean and certain, the fabric of the lace adding a scratchy friction, you gasp, “It’s a special occasion.”

“Yeah?” His hands run down toward your thighs, kneading the thickness of your waist and hips with a greed that approaches true obsession. You lose the ability to think when he bends down and bites the side of your waist, his teeth quickly becoming less and less gentle as your moans get louder and louder. “What’s so special?”

You can only whimper as he roughly manhandles you upwards so that he can unhook your bra, using only one hand. Fucking surgeons. All you can think about is what else those hands of his can do. You’ve noticed how thick his fingers are a million times and now you might actually get to feel them the way you want.

Brendon can see the lust laid bare over you, chest rising and falling faster, eyes wide and waiting, skin prickled with goosebumps. Hooking his fingers beneath the edges of your panties and pulling them down, he teases, “Out of words now, pretty girl?”

You take five seconds to breathe, swallow hard, and order, “Take your clothes off.”

He throws his head back and grins. “Good choice of words.”

While you prop yourself on your elbows for a better view, Brendon steps off the bed and tugs his shirt off first. He even does that thing buff guys do where he pulls it off by the back, his arm muscles offensively large as he reveals his abs. His muscles are less defined than they are sturdy, built less like an Abercrombie model and more like a lumberjack or, y’know, a fridge. The way his obliques cut down into his hips is downright pornographic.

You let out a long breath. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

Perfectly and completely aware, he gives you a hunky grin. “What? Something wrong?”

You bite your lower lip and physically try to stop yourself from staring, but you just keep failing. Because he’s your boyfriend. Sitting on the edge of the bed now, gradually drawing closer to him like a magnet, you attempt to tease, “Are you always this much of a cocky bastard about your hot bod?”

“My hot bod?” His hands go to his belt and he slowly removes it. Then, once he’s stepped out of his jeans and you’re blinded by the outline of his, yes, proportionally long and thick cock against his black boxer briefs, he says, “Yeah, I always am.”

Eyes greedily drinking down every inch of his body and imagining all the ways you could play with it, you manage to mumble out, “You should be.”

God, he even makes taking off his underwear hot. It must be those damn thighs. Or the everything else. With your eyes trained squarely on his fat cock, mouth actually watering, Brendon steps toward and lifts your chin. “Like what you see, princess?”

With that same confident smirk on his lips, he takes your small hand and wraps it around his shaft. Suddenly you get the whole ‘beer-can-sized-dick’ thing you’ve read in way too much erotica because you can’t close your hand around his girth. “Oh.”

“What? Bigger than you thought? You intimidated?”

“Honey, I think everyone you’ve ever met knows you have a big dick.” Your eyes flick up to his playfully. “And I’m definitely not intimidated.”

“Really?”

“You’ve never intimidated me. Not like you do everyone else.”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m so into you.” As you smile coyly, Brendon thrusts between your fingers, watching every miniscule change in your expression – which is rapidly growing less patient. He cups your cheek with his hand and asks, “Want a taste?”

You open your mouth. Obedient, immediate. When his tip touches your tongue, you eagerly lap up the sticky drop of precum and then take him between your lips. Brendon has to grip your headboard hard to tolerate the sight of you sucking him with such a precious, adoring, sweet look in your eyes. It feels like you’re thanking him with your mouth, making the prettiest damn noises for him to memorize and play on repeat.

When you lift your hand to gently tug and roll his balls, Brendon hangs his head and groans, loud and low, gravelly in a way that tickles the back of your mind. “Fuck, baby, that’s- that’s perfect.” Your happy hum in reply makes his toes curl into the carpet. “Jesus, you drive me crazy, you know that? I’ve never been this obsessed with someone.”

You pull off him and beam, lips shiny and slightly swollen now. “Really?”

Brendon pushes you back on the bed and crawls on top of you, easily maneuvering you so that your head’s back on the pillows and his hands are on either side of your face. He kisses you hard, claiming, and says, “It’s actually become a huge problem for me. You’re all I can think about.”

You giggle breathlessly and ask, “Is that a complaint?”

“Mmm. There’s that little laugh of yours. That’s how you got me,” he groans before kissing you again. “I made some stupid goddamn joke during surgery and the whole team was exhausted but you laughed. Just like that. And I was done for.”

You cover your face, embarrassed and delighted all at once, and remember, “Then I said you have a cutting-edge sense of humor.”

“And I thought that was funny,” he goes on with a fond chuckle. His hands have never stopped roaming over your body, playing with your breasts or digging into your hips. “You’re so gorgeous and perfect I thought that was funny. You don’t even realize how deep you’ve got your hooks in me, baby.”

Biting your lip, you try to come up with something to say to match his sudden deep sweetness, but he stops you from being able to think at all. His lips drag down your neck, biting and kissing in equal measure until you’re squirming and bucking beneath him. Then, just beneath your ear, he growls, “Can I leave marks?”

The sound you make is nothing short of pathetic. You clutch the back of his head, tugging his hair a bit to push his teeth against your neck, and whine, “Please.”

“Yeah?” He’s grinning, now, but he can’t bear to let you see. “Want the whole world to know you’re mine now?” You whimper and nod, tilting your head to the side to give him better access.  He murmurs, “Good girl.”

Fuck, you’re soaked.

As Brendon sucks hard over your pulse, branding you with the dark shape of his kiss, his right hand goes between your legs, pushing them apart. Two of his thick fingers dip between your folds to collect your wetness before smearing it over your clit. “All this for me? You’re easy to work up.”

You laugh and tuck your forehead into his bicep. “Are you surprised?”

“Not even a little,” he chuckles. Making sure to kiss you and hold you as his fingers work firm circles around your clit, Brendon purrs, “I’ve thought about all the sounds you must make a thousand times. How you must be so enthusiastic to be a good girl. You’re so easy for me to read; I knew I could get you off better than anyone else.”

You nod against his arm and moan when he finds just the right tempo on your clit, his fingers ridiculously skilled. “Just like that.”

“Whatever you need, sweet girl,” he assures, listening to you and keeping his fingers exactly the way they are. Methodical.

“Brendon,” you gasp as your pussy pulses wantingly around nothing, “I really need you to fuck me.”

“I love the enthusiasm, kitten, but I’m not gonna hurt you,” he replies simply. Reluctantly. There’s a tenderness to his voice that shouldn’t fit with his harsh attitude and masculine features, but it does. It’s him, beneath everything he shows the rest of the world. He drops down between your legs and nuzzles loving kisses over your sensitive inner thighs, worshipping into your skin, “If I’m gonna fuck you to sleep tonight, then I can’t leave you sore from the first time. Let me make you cum before I’m inside you, kitten. Can you be good and do that?”

With your eyebrows knitted together and sweat on your brow, you nod and whine, “I’ll try.”

“That’s all I ask,” he tells you. It’s insane that a man being offensively cocky with all those smirks and chuckles is so hot. He leans back, sitting between your legs, and begins to plunge his fingers inside of you. Just his two middle fingers have to be as thick as any dildo you’ve used before. He bends at the waist so he can keep biting and sucking on your body, the most brutal on your nipples but sure to get ample coverage over your waist and stomach and hips. When he feels you clamping down tight around him, the pleasure so much you can’t come up with any response besides your body’s natural reactions, he teases lightly, “Careful, baby, my hands are my livelihood.”

Eyes large and glassy, you breathe, “Sorry about that.”

Brendon’s thumb goes to your clit and your walls tighten again. This time, he doesn’t tease you. He works your clit intently, trying to find what he’d found before, and doesn’t rest until he’s right there. Your delicious gasp gives him all the cue he needs. With his thumb flat and firm, he rubs your clit in time with his fingers curling back toward himself. His eyes focus on your expression, each detail, and he’s addicted to your every sound and twitch.

“There you go,” he praises while your pussy tightens up slowly, threatening to snap into sparkles. “That’s right. Just trust me. All I want is to make you feel good.

Your orgasm bursts like waves against a hull, building and building until it crashes over you, rocking your gravity and stealing your breath. Brendon’s there with you through it, his blue eyes a lighthouse, his stupid smirk your shore. His free hand holds you down by the hip as he lets you enjoy the fluttery aftershocks, not quite forcing you into overstimulation but not letting up until you’ve had as much as you can take.

When you’re finally completely breathless and satiated, Brendon slowly withdraws his fingers and then licks them clean. He leans down for a moment and laps at your inner thighs, tasting your tart juices and salty skin. Your hips buck instinctively when he presses one tiny kiss to your clit and then laughs at your reaction, breath ghosting down your hot cunt. With his slick-wet hand, he fists his cock and asks, “How do you want me, sweetheart?”

You take a few seconds to think and admire the view before asking, “Can I ride you? Whenever I’ve fantasized about us having sex, that’s what I’m doing.”

“You can do literally whatever you want to me, baby,” he reminds you as he reclines on the bed next to you. He steals one more kiss from you before you start moving to your knees, collecting your balance. “What exactly do you fantasize about?”

“Well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” you reply as you climb into his lap, hands going straight to grabbing his pecs with your nails digging deliciously into the flesh, “but you have these giant fucking tits I’d like to fondle.” Then, as he laughs, you rub your sloppy cunt up and down his shaft, watching his eyes close and hearing his breath go shaky with lust. “I wanna see your arms when you hold onto my hips and thrust up into me. Wanna feel how strong your thighs are underneath me.”

Brendon shakes his head and snickers, “Wow, I had no idea how much you were going to objectify my muscles.”

“Shut up; yes, you did.”

You roll your eyes and sink down on him, nice and slow, savoring the way he has to resist slamming up to meet you.

He groans, hands finding purchase on the curve of your waist, “Yeah, you’re right.”

You’re completely forgotten how to talk. The stretch of him is divine. Everything you’d imagined and then some. You have to be careful not to get too eager too fast because his length is definitely enough to bruise your cervix if you aren’t gentle with yourself while your pussy adjusts to him. Which is sad, considering the only thing you’ve ever wanted in life all of a sudden is to bounce on Park the Shark’s huge cock until you pass out.

Instead, you slowly rock back and forth, your hands flush on his pecs, with your eyes pinched shut and your mouth falling open. Brendon reaches up to hold your chin, forcing you to open your eyes, and checks softly, “Too much? We can slow down and-”

“Shut up,” you order breathily. He smiles, puts his hands behind his head a moment, and enjoys the view of you being a tiny bit bossy. “Feels so fucking good, I promise. Not too much. Just- just- Jesus.”

“Well, they do say he was hung.”

Your laugh is addictively adorable, sounding almost sleepy from the enormous effort of acclimating to him. “You’re so awful.”

Dragging his hands down and resting them on your ass, he coos back, “And you’re sooooo into it.”

When he gives you a quick upward thrust, your response turns into a squeak, “Yeah.”

From there, Brendon helps you out. He knows he’s not exactly an easy man to take in this position – beyond the size of his cock, his thighs and glutes are so well-developed that your knees don’t even reach the mattress on either side of his hips – so he holds you in place and rolls his hips up into yours, slow and precise.

Once he can tell you’re getting comfortable, breaths easy and moans tumbling out again, he murmurs, “How about you touch yourself?”

Eyebrows knitted together, you sigh, “Already so much, Bren.”

Purposefully missing the point, he sighs back, “I guess I can do it for you, princess.”

When his thumb goes to your clit, your nails dig into his chest. Mean pink half moons rise in their wake, but you can’t stop yourself – and he doesn’t mind. So stretched out, your pussy pulses more than it clamps down, each contraction a fluttery thing that’s somehow more intense than the last. He’s grinning to himself as he feels your orgasm approaching fast. You’re so relaxed with him that he can control your pleasure with the ease of a decades-long lover. He’s going to have to teach you to be less trusting, maybe teach you to fight, but right now all he wants is for you to yield to him completely.

You cum with a long, drawn-out whine, sweat shiny on your hairline, and Brendon has to take over completely as your thighs twitch and falter. It’s impossible to hold yourself up through the roiling pleasure that overtakes you in a deluge. Your wetness drips down his balls and onto your bed and you’re not sure you’ve ever been this soaked from how much a partner’s turned you on and worked you up.

“Aw, my sweet baby,” he purrs as you fight hard to stay upright, your thighs burning for relief in the wake of your second orgasm, “trying so hard to keep up.”

While you let out tiny, cute whimpers, Brendon pulls out slowly and stands up, ignoring your complaining whine at the lack of contact. He goes to your bedside table and muses, “Let’s see what we have here.” Your cheeks burn as he thumbs through your admittedly maybe-too-ample sex toy collection. Taking out your baby blue silicone mini wand, Brendon grins. “Hot, young, single doctor – knew I’d find some goodies in here.”

You’re totally gone by now, anything but your desire to be with him gone out the window, and he can tell. It’s his favorite thing in the world. When he says, “get on your knees for me,” your brain is so mush for him that you do it without a single thought or word, presenting your ass beautifully with a placid smile on your lips.

Brendon yanks your hips back so that he can stand at the foot of your bed – which means he can use all his strength to handle you. Lining up the thick, angry red tip, he tenderly rubs your ass and says, “Tell me if you want more.”

All you can do is nod. Usually he’d press you for words just to hear you beg, but the eye contact you make is full of so much pleading that there’s no need for further clarity. You really are so sensitive; there are tears of pleasure and need brimming at your waterline.

“Don’t worry that sweet little head of yours,” he practically growls as his cock slowly fills you deeper than he’d been able to get without being in total control, “I’m gonna take care of you, princess. Gonna keep this pretty pussy stuffed. Gonna make sure you get everything you need. I promise.”

Gripping your pillow tight as you once again adjust to his thickness, you nod and sniffle, “Thank you, Bren.”

“There she is,” he teases as he starts to slam into you. Each time he bottoms out, it comes with a weak, needy cry. “That’s my sensitive girl. Love that about you.”

“That I’m a crybaby?”

He picks up speed at the word and all it means to him. You’re never prettier than with tears running down your cheeks, making your eyes shiny and your lips wobbly. “You know how much of a confidence boost it is making you cry because of how good you feel?”

“Really?”

“Yeah, princess, I fucking love it.” Brendon flicks the vibrating wand onto its lowest setting and reaching one huge arm around your body to press it to your clit. Your corresponding moan turns into a screaming sob, loud and messy and violently sexy. It’s completely overwhelming and consuming. The way your face contorts from the intensity sends Brendon’s thrusts into overdrive, almost putting all his force into it now. As sweat falls from his forehead onto your back, he urges, “Let it out. Let it all out for me. I wanna hear how good I’m making you feel.”

And you weep.

The catharsis of his cock christening you takes over. You’ve cried during sex before, yeah (of course), but this is different. It feels like pure relief and connection. Your mind is totally present in your body, feeling every single place of contact where Brendon’s sweating skin slides against yours. The vibrator between your legs is making you shake in his arms, but you trust him to hold you up, to give you what you need, to take you through exactly what he wants to give you.

“C’mon, honey, focus, you can do one more, I promise,” Brendon grunts when he starts to feel your pussy weakly squeezing him again. He didn’t think he could get you to this point your first time together, but, if he can, he’s not going to stop.

He leans over your body, mounting you now, primal and animalistic, and wraps his elbow around your neck. The gesture pulls your cunt tight to him and snaps your head back, forcing you to take a deep breath that lights your brain up. Tears slip constantly out of your eyes and Brendon’s drunk on the sniffles and whimpers and moans that choke out of your thickened throat. You drunkenly kiss his arm as it muffles over his mouth.

Then you bite him.

Brendon’s hips stutter and his balls tighten up. You bite him again and again. And you’re not screwing around with it. Your teeth are ravenous on his flush, cutting in nearly enough to draw blood. You’re so thoughtless that you’re just going for whatever’s been put in front of your mouth; it’s irrelevant that it’s your boyfriend’s flesh.

“There it is,” Brendon groans, the pain of your bites sending him spiraling out into a new height of pleasure. “I can feel it coming on. Don’t you dare hold back, baby. Show me how much you can take. Give me another one and I’ll fill you up. I know what’s what you want, isn’t it?”

You nod without releasing his arm from your mouth. Drool spills from the sides of your lips, mixing with your tears, and you’re hurtling into the orgasm more than it’s welling up within you. The thought that really does it, though, isn’t Brendon’s encouragement or the vibrator unrelentingly stimulating your clit. No. It’s the idea that Brendon’s going to cum inside of you. Even on birth control, it’s a sign that he’s claiming you completely, making you his, being totally naked with you in every sense.

Bliss blows your brains out like a volcano finally giving into the pressure. Brendon holds you tight against him with his free hand, so tight that his thrusts are short and deep. The final few, he grinds into you, totally enveloped in your cunt, letting himself feel each millimeter as it grabs down on him and milks it out. When his cum coats your walls, both of you collapse onto the bed into gasping breaths.

Brendon kisses and kisses your shoulders while he goes soft inside of your pussy, gently pulling your chew toy away and shaking it out because it fucking kills in the most satisfying way possible. He makes a mental note to buy himself a long-sleeve to wear to work as he admires the egregious display of total horny thoughtlessness from the cutesy, angelic doctor.

He sits up and then murmurs, rubbing your back softly, “I’m gonna carry you to the bathroom to get you cleaned up, okay?”

You nod lazily, eyes half-lidded. You make no effort to help him, which only makes him smile to himself and shake his head. He’d do anything for you already. Cradling you like a baby, he pushes open the bathroom door with his foot and hits the light with his elbow. He’s absolutely done for. Setting you down on the toilet, he orders, “Go pee, baby. No UTIs allowed.”

Under normal circumstances, you definitely wouldn’t be able to pee in front of your boyfriend and you would definitely be mortified by the mere thought. But you’re so relaxed. Your whole brain is like a nice cozy hot tub, warm and bubbly and nothing to worry about. So you do as he instructs without question, some part of your brain acknowledging that he’s correct.

Brendon leans down on his knees, a posture that would be condescending in most situations but is nothing but adoring right now, and suggests, “Now, you said you were gonna cook, but how does delivery on my tab sound? We can get pizza.”

You give a hazy smile and nod. “That’s so nice, Brenny.”

“We’re gonna have to talk about that nickname,” he chuckles, booping the tip of your nose.

You pout out your lower lip. “I’m gonna call you whatever I want.”

“Yeah, alright, tough guy.”

“Mmm.” You lean up to kiss him. “Good boy.”

Brendon laughs and then stands up to fiddle with the handles of your shower until he’s happy with the temperature. Then he guides you to your feet and brings you under the water, not too hot or too cold on your over-sensitive skin. You’re glad you went for the house with the rain shower when you moved, both of you fitting comfortably beneath the stream at the same time. For a while, he just holds you, hands roaming up and down your back, as he kisses the top of your head.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs quietly, barely audible above the running water. “You’re gonna turn me into such a softie.”

You giggle, “Or you’re gonna make me a big mean gym bro.”

Brendon shakes his head and reaches for your shampoo. “Maybe we stick to our current roles.”

“I think they suit us,” you agree as he squirts some into his palm and orders you to turn around. With his fingers working devotion into your scalp, you hum gently under your breath and trust him to hold you up. During the course of the shower, you gradually come back to life. Once you’re sudsing his abs with your lufah, maybe being a touch too thorough by going over every spot with your hands, you lilt,  “You fucked my brains out. I didn’t know that was actually a thing.”

“I did set a high bar for myself,” he concedes with a self-satisfied laugh, “but I’m guessing it’s only gonna get better from here.”

You stand on your toes and kiss him. “Does this mean we’re doing paperwork when we go back to the hospital?”

“I love paperwork,” he tells you, mock serious. He chuckles and whistles, “My first time to HR for something besides another doctor filing a complaint because I hurt their precious feelings by ensuring my patients get the highest quality care possible.”

“Big bad scary Park the Shark,” you agree as you turn off the water. You gently brush his cheek and coo, “My softie.”

Brendon rolls his eyes affectionately, shakes out his hair, and steps out, grabbing a towel and wrapping you up in it before taking one for himself. With a towel hanging low on his hips, he’s scrumptious enough to have your mind wandering toward round two even though your body wouldn’t even consider cooperating for a few more hours.

You head over to the mirror for your moisturizer and catch a glimpse of yourself with clear eyes for the first time since your sex brain turned off. Looking at the myriad of bite marks littered over your body, the flesh swollen and indented, you laugh, “Jesus, now I know why they call you Shark.”

“Yeah?” Park bares his left forearm to you, the one that had been in your face while he destroyed your cunt, to show off an absolute minefield of neon pink bites, some deep enough that they’re bruising already. Your eyes widen with guilt, but he quickly yanks you close and kisses you hard, nothing but lust and gratitude on his lips. He nips your neck and teases, “They’re gonna have to start calling you Sharkette.”

Support me on ko-fi if you'd like!

[deathvalleyqueen]

People crashing out about mohbbot or rabbot...

Me... over here just living my best life in Jack x reader land:

I have never been so happy to never partake in shipping bullshit.

[pandemonini]

I need the self-shipper girlies to stop glamorising aerion and treating him like he's hot shit that boy is pathetic and embarrassing, everything is wrong with him and he has two (2) good qualities: being really pretty and an adequately good swordsman.

[aastroopheel]

TEXTING JAMES but you're also an actress and in a secret relationship pt5

Previous 🎬🫀🦅

hi people this series won't be too much longer :'( or maybe yes, but not so continuous (??)

[aastroopheel]

I'm so obsessed with Single's Inferno rn that I was thinking about doing a James (cortis) inspired one shot

Should I?????

[aastroopheel]

TEXTING JAMES but you're also an actress and in a secret relationship pt 4

Previous🫀🦅🎬

[aastroopheel]

TEXTING JAMES but you're an actress and also dating him secretly PT 3

Previous🫀🎬🦅Next

[aastroopheel]

Texting James but you two have a secret relationship (and you're an actress) pt2

previous🫀🎬🧚next

Hi this is fun

[aastroopheel]

Texting James but you're an actress and you two have a secret relationship pt.1

🦅🫀🎬 Part 2 Part 3

y'all tell me if I should do a part 2 or write about how u two met

[aastroopheel]

Just another day being real sighs

[ang3l-abyss]

i need katsuki bakugou

[aastroopheel]

Hey so how about I do this open requests thingy as a HUGE THANK YOU to all of you!!!!

Like go ahead and send me requests!!

James Cook

Bakugo

Gojo

Geto

Uhhh

Derek Hale?

Even Billy Hargrove (I'm kinda into him rn)

BUT YEAAAH GO AHEAD I'LL DO IT

[aastroopheel]

DUDE WHAT????

THANKS FOR 100 FOLLOWERS WHAAAAAT??!?!?!

I will post more James Cook I promisssssse

[aastroopheel]

Katsuki makes you a birthday cake

hi it's my bday so this is for me lol, but go ahead and read it pls

Everyone in Class 1-A had already congratulated you. You smiled and laughed as you received hugs and high fives.

Wait, did I say everyone congratulated you? I lied—oops!

Bakugo hasn't congratulated you yet, and he's your...what's the word? Situationship? Something like that. He goes to sleep early and wakes up early to train, so you haven't seen him today. He really focuses and pays attention in class, so he definitely didn't send you a cute love note. He just stared at you and nodded, saluting you as he always does.

Did he—

Did he forget it was your birthday?

Nah, he wouldn't forget, would he?

Never mind. Maybe he was just being nonchalant.

He'd better remember, or else you'll block him.

By the time classes ended, you had given up on the idea of Bakugo saying anything.

Everyone else made a fuss, which you loved. Honestly, you liked your birthday. You liked the attention, the hugs, and the loud energy.

So it was even weirder that the one person whose attention you wanted gave you nothing.

No text.

No annoyed "Happy birthday."

Not even a scowl with more eye contact than usual.

When you finally pushed open your dorm room door that evening, you didn't expect anything.

But you stopped dead in your tracks.

Your desk lamp was on, casting a low, warm, soft glow. It was the kind of lighting you used when you actually wanted to relax.

There was a small gift bag sitting neatly on your chair.

Next to it was a single plate covered by an upside-down bowl.

Before you could process this, a voice spoke from behind your door, "Don't freak out."

You spun around, your heart jumping. "Jesus!"

Bakugo leaned on the doorframe with his hands in his pockets. He looked like he hadn't broken into your room with precision and planning.

Your brows lifted. "Did you do all this?"

"Tch." He looked away, his jaw tight. "You said you liked your birthday."

Your heart did something stupid and inconvenient.

You walked over to the desk and lifted the bowl.

A cake.

Small, clean, and unfussy. It was frosted smoothly and decorated with Oreo cookies around the edges and a single, neat swirl of whipped cream in the center. It wasn't big and dramatic; it was pretty. Really pretty!

"Katsuki, this looks amazing."

His ears turned red.

"Of course it does. I don't do things halfway."

You smiled warmly and genuinely. "You didn't have to do this just because it's my birthday," you said, though you were jumping and screaming inside.

He scoffed. "I didn't do it because of that."

You blinked and turned to him. He refused to meet your gaze.

"Then why?"

He shifted, barely, but you saw it. That crack in his armor.

That tiny hesitation.

"You like your birthday," he said slowly. "But you didn't get something that was actually for you." You got noise. Crowds. Stupid shit." He glanced at the cake, then back at the floor. "So I figured you’d want something… I dunno. Real."

Your chest tightened in the best way.

"And," he added suddenly and harshly, "we're not together. So I wasn’t gonna make a big thing out of it in front of everyone."

The room went quiet.

You stepped closer, studying his face, the way his eyes flicked away, the tension in his shoulders, and the faint red on his cheeks.

"I like it."

His eyes snapped to yours.

Something softened. Just for a second.

"Good," he muttered. "Now eat the damn cake before it gets warm."

You laughed and picked up the fork he’d left waiting for you. “Will you have some with me?”

Bakugo hesitated, then shrugged, trying and failing to hide the small, pleased flicker in his expression.

"Yeah. Whatever. Move over."

He sat down beside you.

Close. Not accidental.

For the first time all day, your birthday felt exactly right.

[aastroopheel]

omg I'm 19 hello it's my birthday

For my birthday I want either Jack O'Connell, Jason Todd and Kyle Gallner all together

OR

me being the one and only official Katsuki Bakugo girlfriend on the internet

Thanks bye