⌞The Distance 𐀪 Between 𐀪 Letters⌝
ᯓ Content: Michael x fem!humanitarian worker!reader, established relationship, fiancé!Michael, Neverland Setting (Lebanese civil war and Afghanistan setting), situational angst, hurt/comfort, SICKFIC, FLUFF!!SUPER FLUFFYY!, SOFT SMUT 18+ MINORS DNI (oral-fem receiving & p-in-d) separation, mutual devotion, protective Michael, war and displacement, mentions of death and injury, blood, emotional distress, flashbacks, eventual happy ending, NO MENTION OF Y/N
ᯓ Summary: You’re a humanitarian communications delegate for the International Committee of the Red Cross, working on the front lines of international conflicts. Your return from the hospital is painful for a number of reasons. Michael helps you realize you’re safe within his arms, gradually helping you reclaim yourself.
A/n: This chapter contains such a weird arrangement of emotions—you’re kinda in for a ride (just off the top of my head sadness, guilt, fear, comfort, humor, ʰᵒʳⁿʸ, joy). I may have went overboard with the smut but I tried to portray how reader is learning to reclaim her body after devoting herself to others for so long— sexuality is human and it’s a step in reader’s growth (but if you don’t care for it I did mark where it starts and ends). This is kinda the most unordinary piece of literature I’ve ever written (or read for that matter), but it’s my baby and I got so attached to these characters and their relationship.
Tags: @memyselfandmikey @amazegumballz @mino99jksn @nimblejuggernauthorizon @iheartpizzamyheart @sssshahadddd @slavetotherhythmofluv @crystallineforestslayer
For a moment, all Michael can hear is a pounding within his cranium.
“Hello, I am calling from Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara. We have your fiancée here with us.”
His grip tightens around the receiver.
“She was brought in following a medical transfer from Lebanon. She was located alive after a structural collapse and stabilized there before she was cleared for transport back to California.”
His mind picks up ‘alive’, and the rest is just noise.
“Yes, sir. She sustained fractures to her lower leg, along with several lacerations and extensive bruising. She’s stable.”
The grip around the telephone loosens just enough that the color in his knuckles reclaims its place.
“She’s asleep, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t care— I mean— I just wanna hear her. Could you put the phone near her?”
His voice breaks from the lump in his throat.
“Please— I just need to hear her.”
Movement crackles- muffled voices, the creaking of a door hinge, then—
Michael sinks into his seat, pressing the receiver so far into his face he leaves a mark.
You respond with nothing but breathing.
A soft laugh escapes him.
You swallow, then continue breathing.
He beholds the bracelet in his palm.
“Even this ugly thing— you shouldn’t have taken it off.”
His eyelids flutter closed to the sound of you.
He listens until someone gently takes the telephone away.
For once, that is enough.
By the time Michael reaches the hospital, the sun has disappeared behind Santa Barbara, leaving only streaks of contrails bouncing off darkened plush clouds over a pigeon-gray backdrop.
He barely remembers the drive.
He does remember the elevator taking too long.
He also remembers asking the nurse your room number twice despite hearing it perfectly well the first time.
Then he remembers nothing but you.
The worst of the dust had been washed away, but the damage beneath it remains.
One side of your face carries a fading bruise. Your eyes appear drowned in swollen eyelids. Several shallow cuts disappear beneath little strips of gauze. Your leg rests stiffly beneath thick plaster while the rest of you seems almost swallowed by the hospital bed.
Michael takes the chair beside you.
He is content watching just your chest rise and fall until your eyes flutter open.
They roll around the room before they find Michael.
The excitement has you wheeze a short cough.
“Careful,” he puts a hand on your chest and another under your head.
You smile faintly as you drop your head back to the pillow.
You stare for a moment, then your lips tremble to form words, “Sorry.”
His eyebrows pull together.
“I don’t think I can wear heels to our wedding.”
Of all the things he imagined hearing you say again, that certainly wasn’t one of them.
A laugh breaks through his tears.
You start laughing too, only to immediately clutch your ribs.
“Stop making me laugh,” you complain with a contradicting smile.
He shakes his head into another laugh as he inches closer.
“I don’t care if you wear slippers to our wedding.”
Your smile that remained lopsided slipped a puff of humored air.
“Slippers? What do you take me for?”
He holds your hand from across the bed.
“I don’t care— as long as you’re there, honest to god, I couldn’t care less.”
The humor disappears from his voice.
His thumb brushes carefully beneath your eye.
He moves immediately, bending enough for your arms to loop around his neck.
The first hug hurts- your ribs complain, your shoulder pulls. Still, neither of you let go.
He smells familiar in a way that makes your eyes water— clean cotton, faint cologne, and something underneath that belongs only to him.
Your face sinks into his neck.
His hand cups the back of your head.
“I thought you were gone,” he whispers.
“Don’t ever do that again.”
A tired smile presses into his skin.
“Right, I’ll try not to get crushed by another building.”
Home doesn’t feel safe immediately upon arrival. You expected the familiarity to fix something within you. It didn’t.
The quiet should have been comforting after months of engines, radios, distant shelling, canvas walls flapping through the night.
Instead, silence gives your mind too much room.
Your first nightmare comes three nights after you return. You wake violently enough to pull at your injured leg.
A scream tears itself from your throat before you even realize you’re awake.
Michael springs upright beside you.
Your lungs pull uselessly at the air while your hands clutch the blanket.
You can still taste the dust in your mouth.
You can still feel the weight over your leg.
You still feel hopelessly trapped beneath the cinder blocks that swallowed you like quicksand.
Michael reaches for you, then stops himself from touching.
His hand gradually reaches for your shoulder and rests it gently.
He opens his arms and waits.
Your sob comes ugly and immediate.
Your forehead digs into his chest as his palm cradles the back of your head.
His cheek rests against your hair.
You squeeze your eyes shut.
His hand finds yours beneath the blanket.
Then, almost unconsciously, his thumb settles at the inside of your wrist.
Your pulse beats beneath it.
His lips press into your hair.
You cry into him until exhaustion wins again.
This time, when you fall asleep, his thumb remains against your pulse.
Michael wraps your cast as you await a bath, layering plastic around it with enough concentration to suggest your leg is hiding secrets.
The corner of your mouth lifts at his comical meticulousness.
“Baby, I think that’s enough.”
“This corner’s not tight enough.”
He smooths another strip of tape over it.
“You’re welcome,” he bites his lips into a smile.
You watch him test the water with his wrist before helping you toward the edge of the tub.
His smile disappears as soon as he touches your injured leg. Instead, the tip of his tongue peeks through the corner of thinned lips.
One hand slides beneath your calf and the other supports your heel.
He lifts it slowly and carefully, watching your face rather than what he’s doing.
“Tell me if anything hurts.”
He lowers your cast onto a stool kept beside the water. Then, his arm circles your waist.
You lean into him as you lower yourself into the bath, muscles stiffening at the unfamiliar stretch.
Michael stops immediately.
“You made the pain sound.”
He rubs his temples at your poor attempt at a lie.
“You’re supposed to tell me when it hurts.”
He waits another second before trusting you.
Warm water climbs around your body.
Your shoulders drop almost instantly.
For the first time since the collapse, your skin feels like yours again— not some spectacle for nurses.
Michael kneels beside the tub and rolls his sleeves higher.
“My arms work just fine.”
“Why are you still here?”
He dips your loofah under the water.
His beautiful puppy-dog eyes strike a persuasive tenderness.
You surrender, because who can argue with that?
He starts with your shoulders— nothing more than slow and warm passes over skin, very carefully avoiding healing scars.
He pauses just long enough for you to notice.
These are the same hands that trembled with anticipation for your first kiss, the same hands that tirelessly delivered jugs of water and supplies to villages, and the same hands that have endured unimaginable suffering.
They’re clean— a bit scared, but still yours.
He brings one to his mouth and kisses the center of your palm.
Michael shifts towards you.
You catch his face between wet hands and kiss him.
At first, he barely returns it.
His hand braces against the edge of the tub as though touching you anywhere else might hurt.
“Why are you kissing me like that?”
“Like I’m an old lady or something?”
“I don’t wanna hurt you.”
“My leg is hurt. Just my leg. You’re hurting me more by doing all that.”
“My lips are fine, though.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
You tug lightly at his shirt.
The kiss lasts longer, with your smiles bouncing off of it.
His fingers finally settle beneath your jaw while yours travel into his hair.
He keeps his body angled away from your injured side, a knee against the floor with a hand planted securely beside you in case you shift.
You inch in closer anyway.
He immediately adjusts, sliding an arm around your back to support you.
“Wait, careful,” he pulls back.
You pull him back in by his cheekbones.
You whisper against his mouth, “I just need you not to be so careful for once, please?”
Your forehead falls against his once again, and for a moment, you simply breathe together.
Then your mouth finds his again.
His kisses wander slowly from your lips to your cheek, and along the clean skin beneath your ear.
Nothing too frantic or careless— just gentle and deliberate.
Everytime you shift, his hands follow— supporting your hips, keeping any pressure away from your bruises, and reading your expression before continuing.
He searches your face before his warm breath fogs your persistent smile.
“I want you touching me.”
Something soft breaks across his expression.
You respond by pulling him back by the collar and into a kiss.
This time, something in you refuses to let it end there.
Your wet fingers disappear into his hair, keeping him close when he instinctively tries to give you room. His hand finds your waist, carefully avoiding the bruising along your ribs.
For months, every hand on your body had meant urgency.
It has been long— too long since anyone has felt your skin with loving intentions. You had missed the soft and tender type of touch only Michael has been able to offer. A human being can only abstain from that sort of contact for so long without breaking.
However, still, he hesitates.
“Please don’t pull away.”
You catch his hand and guide it back to your waist.
You don't want it to end. This is unlike what you’ve felt these past few months— nothing is wrong; nobody is trying to save you or check you. You’re safe.
Suddenly, he seems to remember that you are sitting half-submerged in cooling bathwater with a cast balanced outside of it.
He bites back his own smile before reaching for the towel.
He drains the water and helps you upright, one arm secured around your waist while the other keeps your injured leg exactly where it needs to be.
The second you’re steady, he wraps the towel around you with almost ridiculous urgency.
He pats you dry, mindful of every healing cut and bruise. Your shoulders first, then your arms, your back—quick enough that you can tell he wants you warm, gentle enough that nothing stings.
When he reaches the plastic around your cast, he lingers to inspect it.
You roll your eyes at the interruption. If it were up to you, you would’ve gone ahead right then and there in the tub.
You gasp dramatically and bite his sassing lip.
He slips an arm behind you and lifts you from the tub as your only able leg wraps around his torso.
You giggle with your head in the nape of his neck and arms embracing it.
Your tongue has already found his before he even reached the bed.
He lowers you onto the mattress, settling your cast safely beside you before following.
A muffled laugh escapes from you as he peels the covering away.
He breathes you in while your body arches in reach for his warmth.
You’ve spent months missing his touch.
Now, nothing stands between you and it.
One of your hands abandons his hair and reaches below for your crying bud. You get yourself started with fingers moving in desperate, frantic motions that make you forget any pain.
A string of saliva pulls as he lifts his head slightly to see why your hand left him.
His hand shortly joins yours, with a revolving thumb pressed against your delicate bundle of nerves, and his other digits remembering their way around the folds they’ve missed.
You moan into his mouth with your hand making room for his that knew your most pleasurable spots better than you did.
He breaks out of the kiss, leaving your lips desperately moist and plump.
He shifted back just far enough that you couldn’t follow.
You grab his wrist, speaking softly and desperately, “Where do you think you’re going?
He responds with a peck on your tender lips, and continues it into a trail of pecks.
He lingers around your collarbones, then breasts, then stomach— and finally, your puffy and yearning flower.
His tongue first teases by sliding up your slit.
Then, he gives your clt two long and yearning sucks before inviting his tongue once more.
Your breaths hiss into hitched gasps and release into a moan loud enough to send a shockwave down his pants.
Your uncasted foot rests just behind his head to grip as it twitches.
Two digits remain below his mouth to bend inside you.
His forceful tongue creates a system of circling around your clt and switching to rapid movement.
His mouth works with such vigor that it makes your head roll with your eyes in the back of your head.
The sound of his slurping and the warmth of his sticky saliva against your own wetness sent your back arching and foot bending to grip onto something.
You bite your lip to try to silence your noises in case house staff hear.
He mistakes it for a lack of sensation, so he picks up the pace. Now thrusting two fingers in and out, his luscious lips embrace your bundle of nerves and suck with a force far from gentle.
The clenching of walls against his fingers made his own tip leak tears of desperation.
“Baby,” you continue to unleash a cry, “I’m already so close.”
“Mmh?” The vibration of his lips against your heat sends you over the edge, arching and fluttering everything below your abdomen.
He waits until the pulses finish to reach back to you.
With his thumb, he wipes your stray fluids off his face and admires your wasted self.
“You don’t know how much I’ve missed your sound.”
He traps you between two elbows that prop him over you.
“Let them all go. Don’t hold them back.”
Your smile pressed your blushed face with a cheeky lip bite failing to conceal it.
Even after your high, you’re still far from satisfied. You wrap your arms tighter around him.
You nearly swallow his mouth whole, tasting yourself on his tongue.
He mumbles against your lips, “But if I’m hurting you— please.”
“Mm,” you muffle a yes with a faint smile.
Your arms shuffle to unbutton his shirt and unzip his fly.
You moan at the sight of his bulge hovering over a wet spot in his boxers where he leaked.
Your clingy hands slide them off in no time.
He teases your moist folds with the tip, leaving a vibrating thumb over your clt.
He inches in gradually as your hands grip the sheets at the stretch.
You cut him off with a strained voice,”—No—please don’t stop!”
He continues until you consume the shaft just halfway.
He falls over you as soon as it’s adjusted, with your foreheads touching and his necklace swinging over your collarbone.
His lips pull you into a deeper kiss as he travels inside and out of you gradually.
He swallows whatever moans manage out of your vulnerable body at whatever longing act he does for you.
You smile against his lips.
“You could go a little faster.”
An amused huff escapes him, and he does just that.
Your finish washes over you just seconds after, sending a shock wave of hormones and flutters as your lower back lifts to close any gap between you two.
His followed not long after yours, milking him dry after months of being deprived of it.
He plants a kiss against your panting lips before joining you shoulder-to-shoulder.
For a moment, you watch as your breaths align, with your chests rising and falling at the same pace.
His forehead never leaves yours, with a gaze focused only on your eyes and lips.
He inches above you to rest your precious head onto his chest for his lazy fingers to strum your damp hair.
Your eyes drift around the room.
They drift onto your journal on the armoire.
Your chest aches in guilt for the people you’ve left behind— those whose stories you took with the promise to share with the world.
But here you lay comfortably in a privileged room and under a stable roof.
“You were looking at it.”
“You were thinking about work again.”
You press your lips together and rest your cheek back against his chest.
Your eyes detour to a framed photo somewhere beside you, being held in his arms like newlyweds, wearing crowns the children made of branches and wildflowers during your time in Ethiopia.
Finally, they drift back to your cast, suddenly realizing that your leg had been suffocated by your weight and the weight of Michael's leg curled over yours.
You burst into laughter as he scrambles off of it.
“I did not forget your leg.”
He carefully props it back onto the pillow, visibly offended by the accusation.
“You weren’t complaining five minutes ago.”
He immediately disappears beneath the blanket before you can smack him with a pillow.
His muffled laughter shakes the entire mattress.
He teases with a smirk on his face, “You love me.”
You melt into his chest with a smile.
The next few weeks are especially bothersome to you because you are forced to sit and do absolutely nothing— no helping, no playing, no socializing.
Michael loves it. Not your broken leg— of course— but the fact that you can no longer disappear the second you decide somebody needs help.
Despite your unfortunate situation, you are stubborn about being independent.
One time, for example, he finds you sitting on the kitchen counter because you had successfully gotten up there but hadn’t considered how you were going to get back down.
He doesn’t even ask. Situations like these have happened too often for it to surprise him anymore.
He simply walks over, lifts you beneath your arms, and places you on the floor.
“I almost had it— y’know?”
“Oh, I’m telling everyone.”
Despite your complaints, you heal well over the span of a few weeks.
Between follow-up appointments, fresh bandages, and Michael confiscating anything heavier than a dinner plate from your hands, you often think about what comes next.
You couldn’t deploy again, you gave him your word.
The realization hurts more than you expected.
You spent years believing that you could best understand narratives in the eye of the storm.
Your deployments taught you how much life continues inside places the world reduces to a battleground.
Your recent deployment, however, taught you there’s a difference between standing beside people and believing you must suffer to earn the right to tell their stories.
You don’t have to be underneath the rubble to care about the person trapped beneath it.
And nearly becoming another person who needed rescuing didn’t help anybody.
One afternoon, you finally open your journal again.
Michael is stretched across the opposite end of the couch— reading something of his own. Your cast rests between you, now covered in signatures, doodles, and a horribly drawn heart he insists looks perfectly fine.
You flip through the pages on Lebanon— pages of names, interviews, stories, sketches, recipes.
You run your finger through the edge of the page.
“I still wanna write. About them— ‘bout all of it.”
“But I don’t think I need to be in the middle of it anymore.”
Something softens in his face, but he doesn’t interrupt.
“I can work with people who are there— local journalists, field teams, relief workers. I can interview people after they’re somewhere safe. And I can write about rebuilding, too.”
He holds your hand as his thumb sways over your knuckles.
“I’m thinking putting myself in immediate danger probably isn’t the best way to help.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying.”
He fails to conceal his smile.
You shut the journal and rest it over your stomach.
“I’ll figure something out.”
You glance at him with the corners of your mouth threatening to raise.
“You’re very agreeable today.”
“I’m trying to keep you from leaving me again.”
That earns a chuckle from you.
Michael reaches across the cast and pulls your hand toward him, pressing a kiss against your knuckles.
“Just— please. Whatever you do,” another kiss, “just come home after.”
He seems satisfied by that answer, giving a relaxed sigh.
You reopen the journal and settle it against your good leg.
Michael returns to his book—well, at least he tries. He doesn’t get much reading done.
Every few minutes, his eyes wander back to you— your brows pinched in concentration, teeth occasionally catching your bottom lip as your pen flies across the page.
Without drifting your eyes from your journal, you murmur, “I’m marrying a creep.”
“No, I’m reading,” he raises his open book as if it disproves your argument.
“I like watching you. Is that a crime?”
You roll your eyes while your cheesing lips sell you out.
His hand finds yours beside the journal and brings it to his lips.
The same hands that willingly suffered in the face of cruel politics. The hands that have saved and helped countless lives. The hands attached to a body whose heart is worth twice its weight in gold.
That was the very thing he loved about you in the first place— not that you were willing to get hurt for people— but that you cared enough to remember them.
You squeeze his hand before returning to the page.
Michael rests his head against your shoulder, nosily reading along.
“Are you going to be doing this the whole time?”
You smile and continue writing anyway.
You still intended to devote yourself to the world— just not every last piece Michael loved.
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