hmmm i really want to write something Pitt related but im genuinely stumped on ideas. If anyone has any requests my anons are open! can’t guarantee it will be out fast or be v long, but i need to flex my writing muscles 🙏
part one | part two | part three | part four | masterlist | ao3
michael robinavitch x reader
summary: You're Robby's favorite reward. When his staff earns it, he doesn't hesitate to offer you up. But after you admit to your mistake, you're not entirely sure where you stand with the attending.
|| smut MDNI 18+, please read all kink tags thoroughly, angst, free use kink, upset!robby, injury to reader (minimal), medical jargon, hurt/delayed comfort, possessive behavior, heavy dom & sub dynamics!!!!, if u r not a freak like me do not read, bdsm themes, dom!robby, sub!reader, cuckholding, breath play, bicep choking (light), dirty talk, praise kink, m!receiving oral, sloppy oral, f!recieving oral, dom sub negotiations, obedience, sub space & some intense subspace moments, anal, orgasm denial, edging, aftercare, lifestyle dom/sub dynamic, sugarbaby!reader briefly mentioned, RACK compliant, pet names like honey / sweetheart / baby / pretty girl, one tiny moment of spanking, no use of y/n, descriptions of clothes but no physical descriptions of reader except for enough hair to put up / braid / grab, robby is still a cuck, he also sucks at communicating (canon), I do not condone this dynamic unless spoken between two respectful consenting partners ||
a/n: the crazy thing is im not even that into robby. but this... this was a fun one. links in tags are for info
The closer 7PM rolled around, the more you could barely keep yourself still.
You tried that yoga routine you'd wanted to try a hundred times, but kept missing whatever the instructor was saying. You tried reading but couldn't make any of the words stick to your brain, reading the same sentences three times over before putting it down on the coffee table. You made yourself some tea, took a shower—your everything shower—your entire skin care routine, and did a hair mask. Nothing could keep your mind from running through the guiltiest thoughts, how Robby might react when he got back from the hospital. You couldn't even keep dinner down. The leftovers sat mostly untouched in the bowl beside you, the sauce going cold while the clock on the stove clicked closer and closer toward shift change.
At 7:45PM, the front door opened.
You'd heard his long, tired sigh before you saw him, and placed yourself casually on the couch, flipping a page in the same book you'd barely absorbed earlier that day, legs tucked beneath you.
Robby appeared in the archway a second later, shrugging his backpack off onto the upholstered bench by the door before toeing off his shoes. He peeled the navy Figs top over his head as he walked, leaving himself in his gray long sleeve and those cargo pants he always wore to work. He looked exhausted.
He didn't say anything when he came over to the couch. He just dropped down beside you and pulled you into him immediately, one arm wrapping around your waist before he buried his face against your shoulder and let out another long exhale.
"Hey," you said softly, arms sliding around his shoulders as you leaned into him automatically. You kissed his temple. His hand tightened on you a little before tugging you over fully into his lap.
The position had the nerves in your stomach fluttering, remembering this exact seating in a Ford F-150 less than twelve hours ago.
Your hands moved to Robby’s face, thumbs brushing along his scruffy jaw as you looked down at him. He looked so tired that for a second you considered waiting until tomorrow. Maybe you'd let him shower or eat first. Get a good nights sleep first. But you promised, and you also just knew better.
"Michael…" you whispered, "I have to tell you something."
"So it's Michael today, hm?" he murmured, tilting his head up to kiss you gently on the mouth. One hand moved up your back slowly, resting there.
You sighed into his gentle kiss, hoping to god it wasn't your last. When you pulled away, about to bring your hands off his neck, his own hands reached up quickly, catching your wrists before you could get too far. He held them against his chest, brows pulling together immediately.
"What is it?" he asked very seriously. His brown eyes were fully focused on you now, all the exhaustion from a second ago suddenly honed onto your face, his hands warm around the boney joints of your wrists.
"I—" you started, and then stopped, pushing your lips together, thinking of the right words. "I got a ride home from Jack today…and…we…"
His head flinched back, blinking quickly like his brain was filling in the rest before you could even finish the confession.
"You and Jack what?" he asked, but there was already a steady drip of venom in the words. His jaw clenched hard beneath the beard, mouth pulling tight under his mustache as he stared up at you. You could practically see him piecing it together already, his eyes flicking over your face waiting for you to deny whatever conclusion he'd jumped to.
"I'm sorry, Michael." you said, clenching your fists uselessly, "we were just talking—and then—he kissed me and we—" you shut your eyes tightly, "I slept with him."
Robby slowly released your wrists from his hold, and your hands felt cold from the sudden loss of his touch. He leaned his head back onto the couch, staring at the ceiling. Your hands went to his shoulders, pawing at him, fisting the gray undershirt in your fingers.
"I'm sorry—" you pleaded again, hearing your voice start to shake. "I'm so sorry, I should've asked you, I know but—"
He sat up suddenly, forcing you off his lap in the process. The movement wasn't rough exactly, but there was nothing gentle in it either. Barely any touch at all.
Then he stood, and started pacing the room.
You watched him walk past the coffee table, one hand dragging over his mouth, then the back of his neck, then down to his hip before he turned again. His socks made almost no sound against the hardwood, the TV reflecting every move faintly across the dark windows behind him. He paced around in front of you for a few minutes. You felt helpless, just watching, waiting.
"Michael—"
He shook his head, lifting his finger to silence you, eyes squeezing shut as he kept walking around.
He came to an abrupt halt, finally turning toward you. His hands came together in front of his mouth almost like he was praying, thumbs pressed hard against his lips before he dragged them downward and pointed them vaguely in your direction, like he was trying to force words out in the correct order and couldn't manage it.
"What exactly did you think was gonna happen here?" he asked.
"I—I don't know." you answered honestly, "I thought he was just going to take me home, and then he started talking about the arrangement, why he never gave in and then, it was just a fucking mess and—god, Michael, I'm so—"
"So you fucked him? He started saying sweet words and you slept with him? Where?"
You swallowed dryly. "It wasn't like that—"
"Where?" he snapped.
"Parking lot."
His eyes crinkled in a sort of sarcastic smile as he nodded, bringing his hands up to his face to drag down, sucking in a deep breath.
"Jesus Christ," he muttered under his breath. "Jack."
"I didn't mean for it to happen."
"Not really the point," he snapped.
You flinched at the tone.
He noticed immediately too. You saw it in the way his eyes squeezed shut for a second before he brought his hands to his neck, pulling at his shoulders before dropping them again—restless, agitated.
"Look at me and tell me honestly you thought this was okay."
You opened your mouth, then closed it again.
Robby gave another short nod to himself, humorless. "Yeah."
"I know I crossed a line, and I'm so—"
"A line?" he repeated, finally looking at you fully now. "Honey, this whole thing only works because there are lines. Rules! Trust!"
You could tell he was trying very hard not to let his voice rise in octave, a sharpness to it, a forced quiet.
"I let a lot slide. Probably too much lately." He pointed vaguely toward you, frustrated. "Flirting, teasing, picking favorites. But this arrangement works because I know what's going on. I know who's touching you. I know you're safe. I know nobody's getting weird ideas in their fucking heads."
"He doesn't have weird ideas—"
"How the hell would you know?" he shot back immediately. "You think I haven't watched people in that department getting a little too attached lately?"
Robby laughed once through his nose and shook his head, walking again. "And him. Of all people."
"He was upset."
"Oh, don't do that." Robby pointed at you sharply. "Do not start defending Jack Abbot to me right now, because I swear to god that is gonna make this so much worse."
You looked down at your hands instantly. He stood there staring at you for a long second before speaking again, quieter this time.
"You know what the really shitty part is?" he asked, voice threaded with anguish and almost humor, as if it was laughable. "I came home just wanting you. That's it. Whole fucking day went to hell, a patient died on me because I didn't insist on getting her checked while her husband coded. We had more West Bridge reroutes, one of my interns passed out during a trauma, and all I wanted was to come home and hold onto you for five goddamn minutes, even after the conversation this morning."
Your eyes burned immediately.
"And instead I walk in here and find out you've been sneaking around behind my back."
"Michael—"
"Enough." His jaw tightened again. He looked at you then, tired more than angry now, which somehow hurt worse.
"You are the one good thing I had," he said plainly. "And now I just… how am I supposed to trust you?"
Your tears had begun to fall in earnest streaks down your face now, your voice barely above a whisper. "I'm sorry."
He sighed, shaking his head, before turning away.
And one word rang in your head as the bedroom door slammed shut.
Had.
You were the one good thing he had.
The rest of the night, the following days… were some of your worst in a very long time.
Robby hadn't said much to you at all, his silence unbearable. That night, after the argument, he just said he needed some time to think, and the following days only gave you more time to think too. More time for your brain to chew itself apart.
He even started picking up extra shifts at the hospital, offering to take some of Al-Hashimi's workload, which left you alone in the house most of the time. You didn't go out much either. Part of it was because you barely wanted to be seen. Another part was because every dollar spent felt wrong now. It was Robby's money. Robby's house. Robby's groceries in the fridge. Robby's money that bought the expensive shampoo in the shower that needed a refill.
You felt awful— guilty. You didn't know what to do. You felt like you'd ruined something so good. Something built on the things you'd broken. Trust, understanding, connection. You didn't know what Robby was going to say, if he'd ever say anything, if things would ever go back to normal. If you'd have to move out and find somewhere to live, a job, make new friends. It was so overwhelming.
Your brain just wouldn't stop running.
You'd sit on the couch with an untouched coffee in your hands, staring through the sliding glass doors into the backyard while the steam slowly disappeared from the mug. The TV would be on and you wouldn't realize three episodes had passed because your mind had wandered somewhere else entirely. You'd wonder where you'd even put your clothes if he told you to leave. Whether you'd need boxes. Whether you still had your old suitcase somewhere. You'd wonder if you'd have to call somebody and then remember there really wasn't anybody to call.
Sometimes you thought about what Jack was up to. If maybe you should call him. But you also knew better. You wondered what it was like when the two of them saw each other when the shifts changed at the start and end of the day. Jack was one of Robby's closest people. He often said he didn't have friends, but that was a lie. Because Jack was one of his best friends. And you'd probably ruined that for him.
One morning a week later, you woke up to an empty bed again, and stared at the ceiling for an hour.
Your eyes burned as you thought about what your life had turned into. You'd woven it into Robby's in ways you hadn't even realized until he wasn't here. You used to walk into the kitchen and find him drinking his black coffee out of his I ❤️ Pittsburgh mug, hair a mess and plaid boxers askew as he read the morning paper. And now you'd wake up and reach your hand over the mattress, searching for his warmth before remembering he was sleeping in the guest room. You'd find yourself wanting to text him a funny part of the show you'd been binging, thinking he'd like it, wanting to save an episode til he got home, before remembering he probably didn't want to hear from you.
It hurt so badly.
Robby usually made things feel quieter in your head when things were hard. You never had to wonder where you stood with him before this. You never had to question if he wanted you. And when you weren't sure about something, he'd be there. He'd tell you where to sit for your evening binge of The Office, tell you what to add to the Instacart order while you sat beside him scrolling through recipes for the week, his hand rubbing slow circles against your thigh. Always soothing and sweet.
Half the time you didn't even realize there was anything other than this. You and him. How he was your assurance, your guide. How he knew what you needed even if you didn't. You remembered when he'd wander into the kitchen while you cooked and steal bites from the cutting board before nudging your hip with his and pointing toward the island stools because he'd already decided you'd done enough for the night. He'd slide a glass of water beside you because he'd noticed you hadn't touched yours in hours. He'd hand you one of his coziest, old collegiate sweatshirts before you even registered you were cold. He'd pull you into his lap when your leg started bouncing too much, fingers threading through your hair while he read over charts in the evenings, kissing the top of your head absentmindedly.
Tiny things that built and built until they became routine, until they became normal, until they settled into every corner of your life so completely that you'd stopped noticing them one by one.
And he wasn't even your boyfriend.
You needed to get out of bed. You needed to do something with yourself. All this moping, waiting, hoping, crying— it was getting to be too much. You were a grown fucking woman, after all. You'd made a mistake. You needed to get yourself together.
Because this was getting ridiculous.
You'd spent the last week moving between the bed and the couch and the kitchen and then back again, carrying your sadness around the house so much your body felt sluggish now. Heavy. Your eyes still had that swollen feeling from crying too much, your head dull from sleeping at weird hours and barely eating enough to count as meals.
You sat up and shoved the duvet off of yourself.
Pulling open your dresser and digging out some workout clothes, you threw on your cutest set. One you knew you'd feel good in. Or at least one you'd bought because Robby said you looked good in it and right now that felt close enough. You went into the bathroom, did your skincare, tied your hair back, brushed concealer beneath your eyes because you were tired of looking sad every time you caught yourself in the mirror. You threw on mascara, tinted lip balm, brushed your ornery eyebrows as best you could before heading back into the bedroom.
Looking around, you finally saw it all for what it was.
The water glass still sitting on the nightstand from three nights ago. One of Robby's sweatshirts hanging half off the dresser chair. Clothes piled on the floor. Moisturizer and makeup sitting open on the bedside table with a pile of tissues. The duvet was twisted up from days of crawling back into bed halfway through the afternoon.
You stared for a few seconds, and then turned and grabbed the hamper.
You pulled the sheets off and wrestled the duvet cover from the insert, getting tangled in the stupid thing halfway through and swearing under your breath before finally shoving it all into the washer. Then you got out your basket of cleaning supplies and kept going.
You swept. Scrubbed. Wiped down counters. Lit one of the candles sitting forgotten in the cabinet beneath the sink. You cleaned every inch of the apartment for the next few hours, your playlist blasting from your phone as you moved from room to room. The smell of lemon cleaner and laundry detergent slowly replaced the stale, shut in feeling that had settled over everything this past week.
And it helped.
A lot, actually.
For the first time in days your brain wasn't sprinting ahead of you. It only cared about what was directly in front of you: fold this towel, wipe down this counter, put this away. It felt like one of those corny montages in a movie where the girl finally gets her shit together.
Once the bedroom was looking refreshed with clean sheets and the comforter pulled smooth across the mattress, you blew out the candle you'd lit and headed out of the apartment.
And started to run.
Your lungs were burning by the time you'd made it a few blocks from the house.
God, it had been a while.
Not just the last week while you'd spent your time curled up on couches and under blankets feeling sorry for yourself. A long while. Before the accident, probably. Before your ex had started making little comments like: You really wear that out for a jog? Don't you think those shorts are a little much? You like people looking at you or something? Which then turned into him not wanting you to run at all.
Funny how things happened like that, how things changed so slowly you barely noticed them happening at all. Funny how easy it was to change yourself little by little until you looked up one day and realized you'd stopped doing things you used to love.
Robby had been the opposite.
Hell, the set you had on right now had been his choice. The memory flooded your minds' eye, of you standing in front of one of those giant Lululemon mirrors when he'd taken you shopping for a weekend away. You remembered tugging at the waistband and shifting your weight from foot to foot while you stared at yourself a little too hard. You remembered pulling lightly at the sports bra, uncertain about the way it sat against your chest, turning sideways and then back again.
Robby had been sitting outside the fitting room on one of those little upholstered benches, his arm extended across the back. He'd looked so pleased with himself as you walked out. Blushing and eyes alight with mirth. You missed that look on his face, it made you realize as your chest pulled tight. The way he'd look at you like that, all warm and entertained, like he'd stumbled into something good and still couldn't quite believe it was his. How he'd made you put on a fashion show in the hotel room when you'd gotten back of all the things he'd gotten you that day. The bliss of when all clothes were forgotten for the hours that followed.
Your sneakers slapped the pavement of the sidewalk while the late morning air filled your chest and scraped your throat. Your old running playlist that you never deleted blasted in your ears, the sky a pretty clear blue. Everything was so pretty today, even if you didn't feel the same. You looked around at the tall buildings reflecting the light of the sun, people bustling around on their lunch break, the world moving even if you felt like you'd been motionless for days.
You slowed a little as you approached the crosswalk ahead, coming to a stop at the corner and pressing the little crossing button with the heel of your hand. Your chest rose and fell hard now, sweat gathering beneath the band of your sports bra and sliding slowly down your spine.
You suddenly felt your phone vibrate in a quick, succinct alert in the waistband of your bottoms. With two fingers, you slid it from between your skin and the fabric, pulling it up to your face. You had to lift your other hand to shield the screen from the glare blinding your view.
Your stomach dropped. A text message appeared on your lock screen.
Jack Abbot: I think we should talk.
The little speaker beside you crackled to life. "Grant Street. Walk sign is on to cross Grant Street."
You barely heard it.
You didn't look up from your phone, staring at the text.
What the fuck was he thinking?
Your eyes stayed locked on the message while your brain immediately started spiraling ahead of you again, filling in spaces that didn't have answers yet. Had he talked to Robby? Did something happen?
You stepped out into the street to cross, and heard someone shout behind you through the muffle of your music in your ears. At first, you hardly registered it, filing it away as background noise of the city, until they were really shouting louder, close behind you.
"Watch out!"
Your head jerked up, and for a split second you didn't fully understand what you were looking at, but as you turned to the left, your eyes widened.
A bicyclist was coming straight toward you, moving fast enough that you could hear the tires humming against the pavement. His eyes had gone wide beneath his helmet, panic written all over his face as his hands yanked hard at the handlebars, trying to turn away from you.
Trying and…failing.
Because before you could react, the front tire slammed into your leg with enough force to knock your balance off its axis, something hard—a handlebar—driving sharply into your side and stealing the air from your lungs. Your phone went flying out of your hand as you fell, stomach lurching into your throat.
The sky tilted, world spinning as concrete rushed to meet you.
Fuck, that hurt.
You heard yourself groaning somewhere through the ringing in your ears while the world slowly blinked back into focus, sunlight too bright when your eyes finally cracked open. Your cheek was pressed against rough pavement, tiny grains digging into your skin.
As you brought your hand up to the bump forming on your head, you saw bright red staining your fingertips.
"Miss, are you okay?"
"What?" you murmured thickly.
You blinked hard and looked up. It was a man standing over you in a suit and tie, young, slicked back hair and clean shaved face, his brows pinched together while he crouched beside you.
"Let me take you to the emergency room, we're very close—"
"No—no, I'm fine!" you nearly shouted, syllables jumbling and coming out too fast as his words finally reached you.
But the second you tried sitting up, pain shot through your head so hard your face twisted and you sucked in a breath.
Hands were suddenly under your arms.
"Easy," the man said. "Easy."
Another pedestrian had come over now too, helping pull you up carefully while your feet tried finding solid ground beneath you.
Everything around you felt too loud. You could hear the bicyclist cursing somewhere nearby, people talking over one another, tires hissing over pavement, a car horn farther down the street. The bike itself sat twisted awkwardly near the curb.
As things slowly came back to you, you remembered his face right before impact, eyes wide beneath his helmet. Now he just looked furious. His arms were thrown out while he pointed at somebody nearby, shouting over everyone else.
Your head was splitting.
And suddenly you realized you were being walked quickly down the block by two sets of worried hands, the red Emergency Room looming ahead.
Oh, fuck.
"Promise you won't tell him?" you pleaded, gaze boring into Samira's brown worried eyes.
She was perched on the rolling stool beside you, one foot hooked around its base, hands folded loosely in her lap. The curtain of the triage bay swayed faintly in the draft of someone rushing past outside. Voices overlapped in the hallway: patients, doctors, Lupe's voice on the loudspeaker in the waiting room.
She frowned, clearly debating it over in her head, but nodded anyway. "Yeah, okay. Okay."
She looked over her shoulder toward Santos at the computer as she typed into your chart. Something passed silently between them before she turned back to you.
She slipped back into doctor mode while pulling gloves on. "Let's get neuro checks going. Did you black out at all?"
You frowned.
"I...don't know." you said, memory a little cloudy. "I think so?"
“Okay.” Samira nodded once, calm and focused, her penlight flicking briefly across your pupils again before she instructed you to follow her finger. “Any nausea? Neck pain? Dizziness?”
You shook your head slowly, though even that made your skull ache a little.
“And we’re gonna get a CT just to rule out any bleeding,” she continued. “Probably draw some blood too.”
"Woa, Samira—" your stomach twisted instantly. "I don't need all that, if I go back there he's gonna see I'm here—"
Around your finger, the pulse ox clipped tighter every time your heart rate climbed, the monitor beside you already chirping intermittently over nothing more than nerves. Leads had been stuck to your chest at some point while you'd still been dazed on the way in, wires trailing down beneath the thin blanket over your lap. The whole thing felt wildly overblown now that you were sitting upright in a bed.
Samira's expression softened as she leaned forward. "We'll keep you hidden," she said softly before looking over at Santos again, knowingly. The resident nodded back, and quietly went out into the hall.
Samira rolled the stool closer, sneakers squeaking faintly against the tile. "Do you wanna tell me what's going on?"
You actually didn't.
Your eyes dropped to your hands instead, fingers picking at the edge of the thin hospital blanket spread over your lap. You tried figuring out how to phrase it right, how to explain something so humiliating without sounding ridiculous. Spoiled. Childish. You felt like a little like the dog that bit the hand feeding it.
"He and I are just..." You swallowed. "Having some issues."
Samira's brows pulled together slightly. Her warm brown eyes studied you intently, flickering over your expression that you tried to keep hidden.
"I was..." your voice got smaller, "I was bad."
"Bad?" she echoed carefully.
You shook your head a little, frustrated with yourself already. "No, I just—I did something stupid and now things are weird and—"
The curtain suddenly got yanked open so hard the metal rings shrieked across the track.
Dana stood there holding it wide, chest rising fast like she’d run the whole way from the desk. Behind her, Robby barreled in so quickly he nearly clipped the stainless steel side tray with his hip, already yanking the stethoscope from around his neck as he moved toward you.
"What happened?" he demanded immediately.
"I'm fine—"
"What happened?" he repeated sharply, already reaching for your face. Dana stayed at the mouth of the curtain, a flat look of disappointment written across her features. You knew she was biting her tongue from chirping Thought you could hide or somethin' angel?
"Head strike from bicycle versus pedestrian. Witness said she didn't get up right away." Samira reported, looking at Robby. "CT head's already ordered. Neuro checks too."
"Jesus." He breathed as his hand brushed carefully through your hair near the tender spot along your hairline, fingertips searching around the injury.
"Deep breath for me, honey." he said.
You did, heart skipping at the pet name but as soon as you felt the glimmer of hope, it was wiped away when pain shot through your side, making your face twist in a grimace.
"Okay." His eyes closed briefly. "Okay. Let's add a rib series too."
You felt sick suddenly. Not physically sick—though your stomach was still flipping on itself, your head still throbbed…but…you felt sick like that thick, churning guilt that had been with you all week.
Because he looked so scared.
There were still faint marks pressed into the bridge of his nose from his glasses. His dark hair was flattened in strange directions, probably from one of the scrub caps used in surgical procedures. He smelled like coffee and hospital sanitizer and the stale air of the ED, like he'd probably barely sat down all day before getting called in here to deal with you too.
Samira squeezed your knee once before backing toward the computer. "I'll be back."
Dana gave you one more long look before following her out, and the curtain fell shut again.
The bay got quieter after that. Not quite silent, it was never truly silent in the emergency department.
Robby was still staring at your face, and you realized he had put his gloved hand on yours where it rested on the bed.
You'd missed the simple touch of his hands. When one would rest at the back of your neck steering you through crowded hallways, or when his fingers tapped absentmindedly against your thigh during movies, the way his hand would slip beneath your shirt when he was feeling cheeky. You missed finding him within the walls of this hospital, the strange comfort of him existing in an entirely different world when you came into the orbit of the ED. The way you could pull him out of the darkness for a while.
"I'm sorry," you whispered finally.
His eyes flicked to yours immediately.
"What?"
Your throat burned. Like you'd swallowed a hot coal down it, tightening around the lump. "I'm sorry," you repeated, pulling your hand away and twisting it into the other in your lap now. "I didn't mean to come here and make things worse and I know you're busy and after everything already I just—"
Robby's hands wrapped around yours once again, "Don't be sorry, honey."
You looked up at him, blinking a little, "You're not mad?"
"About you getting hit by a bicycle?" he said, huffing a little disbelieving breath, "Why would I be? I just care that you're safe."
Your chin began to wobble in earnest.
"Oh, honey—"
"I thought you hated me now."
"Honey—"
You couldn't help the wracking sob that came from your chest, his hand reaching for yours again even when you tried to pull away, but he held fast. Your face dropped, chin ducking until it almost hit your chest.
Finally he let go of your hand only to wrap his arms around you, kissing the side of your neck as he held you close, "Why would you ever think that?" he whispered into your hair.
"I was bad. We haven't spoken in days."
It felt so childish, so stupid when you said it. Especially when it came out like that—weak, wobbly and wet with tears.
He pulled away just to look at you.
"You are not a bad person, honey," he murmured softly. "You maybe behaved badly, but that does not make you bad. I'm sorry I haven't been very good at this either." He lifted his hand, and you leaned into it as it cupped your face, brushing beneath your eyes and collecting a tear there before it could run. "Hey, listen to me."
He lifted your face, making you look at him straight on. Your face felt hot and swollen, cheeks wet with streaks. You sniffled as you looked at him now. His eyes were so kind, so worried and sweet. You felt like you didn't deserve any of it.
"You are my best girl, I will never ever think you are a bad person." he said. "Things got confusing, and I've been… avoiding it, avoiding you...and I'm sorry."
Your hands reached for him automatically then, gathering the black sleeve beneath his scrubs in your fists and holding on. You'd spent days sleeping without him, sitting across rooms from him, pretending not to notice every place where he wasn't anymore, and now that he was here your body seemed to remember him before your brain did.
"How is your head, honey?" he asked, tilting his own while he looked at you.
"Hurts." you whined a little, your voice meek and small.
"Yeah?" it came out hoarse and sweet, and so gentle. You'd heard his voice go soft like that before, late at night with his mouth close to your ear, and the memory flushed through you for a second before disappearing again beneath the throbbing ache in your skull and the warmth of his hands still holding your face.
He moved to rest his knuckles against the top of your forehead, sliding down your cheek, feeling your temperature.
"You're alright, honey." he said. He pulled away then and immediately shifted back into work, reaching for his stethoscope and slipping the earpieces in before pressing the bell lightly against your chest, listening to your lungs, your heart, checking you over all over again with that same focus he'd walked in carrying.
When he leaned back again in front of you, he threaded his fingers together in his lap, and looked up at you.
"Stay here for a few tests, okay?"
You nodded.
"Hey."
You looked up.
"You're my best girl. Always. Nothing has changed between you and me. I just... I needed some time, is all."
Your eyes burned all over again. Wiping your face with the back of your hand, your voice came out like a croak: "Promise?"
He came in close then, inches away, and whispered, "Promise."
Then he kissed you gently.
It felt so warm that it almost hurt. Your skin tingled beneath it, his mustache rough against your face, and his breath smelled like coffee, like the coffee from home, like mornings in the kitchen and evenings on the couch and every little thing you'd spent the last week missing.
When he pulled away, there was an odd look on his face. Fluttering your eyes to look at him better, you watched a sad smile pull his lips, his eyes ful of something you weren't quite sure how to read. But before you could try, he was turning away and standing, heading for the curtain opening.
"Dana is going to bring you back here, okay? I'll be close by."
You nodded, your lips still tingling a little from his touch.
Rolling through the ED surrounded by people who recognized you at every turn was a form of torture. Dana did her best to bat people away whenever they'd come jogging up beside the hospital bed she insisted on keeping you in— asking questions, peering over shoulders, trying to get a look at you. She actually let Langdon walk alongside you for a few steps, checking in, fingertips grazing your cheek in a quiet assessment as he asked if you were okay before someone called his name from across the department and he was pulled off toward an incoming trauma. Samira kept a quick pace on the opposite side of Dana, answering for you when others pressed in too close.
Your exam room must have been on the exact opposite side of triage with how long it took to get there, the route stretching on past curtained bays and supply carts and past the central station where screens flickered with patient lists and tracking boards.
“South 7, straight ahead, almost there angel,” Dana said on your right, and you let yourself sink back against the thin mattress, the metal frame cool against your shoulder as the hallway finally began to narrow.
"Woah, woah, woah, what happened here?"
His voice alone was enough to send your heart rate spiking, the monitor clipped to your forefinger breaking into an erratic rhythm that filled the space between you. You saw Samira glance up at the numbers, then back at your face, and then her gaze shifted forward to Jack Abbott standing directly in front of the bed in full camo SWAT gear, vest strapped across his chest, radio at his shoulder.
"Abbot— move it or lose it." Dana barked.
He must've known better than to fight her on it, because he slid to the left of the gurney, holding onto the metal bars as your eyes widened at him.
"What's going on, sweetheart?"
"I—um—well—I—"
“Bicyclist versus pedestrian,” Dana cut in, already steering you through the doorway into South 7. You heard Jack let out a baffled huff of breath.
"I'm fine—really—"
“She hit her head on the way down,” Samira added as she reached for the wall computer and woke the screen with her badge. “Passerby reported she didn’t get up right away. GCS fifteen on arrival here. No active vomiting, no seizure activity, no focal neuro.”
She glanced at Abbott while her fingers moved over the keyboard. “We’ve got a non-contrast CT head ordered. She’s got a frontal scalp laceration at the hairline and localized tenderness.”
You lifted your hand without thought, not even realizing you’d hit your head that hard. Your fingertips pressed into the sore skin and came away tacky, faintly red.
Dana locked the gurney into place while Samira continued, voice clipped and clinical. “However, she had some left lateral chest wall pain with palpation. Robby added a rib series and chest X-ray to rule out nondisplaced fractures or pneumothorax. CBC and CMP are pending. We’ll repeat labs if needed.”
Jack exhaled slowly beside the bed, jaw working before he looked at you again. “You feel okay?”
You nodded, but it was small and unconvincing, your knees drawing up toward your chest.
He glanced back up at the resident. "I want to be updated on every change or test result.”
Samira’s brows lifted slightly. “Robby is already on—”
“Appreciate it,” Jack cut in, voice tight. "Go see if she can skip the line for X-ray."
Samira gave him a flat look that said she understood exactly what he was doing and didn’t approve, but Dana nudged her toward the door anyway, and a second later the room emptied, leaving the hum of the monitor and the faint rattle of the vent overhead.
"You shouldn't be in here, Jack," you started, "this is all so insane, I didn't even mean to come in, I was out for a run and—"
“Is your heart rate always in the one twenties,” he asked lightly, “or is that just when I walk into a room?”
You stared at him. He gave you the smallest tilt of his mouth, trying for easy, trying for normal.
“Sinus tachycardia,” he added, nodding toward the monitor. “Very dramatic. Don't tell me you do it just for the attention."
You rolled your eyes, but couldn't help the little tilt of your mouth. "Why are you here, Jack?"
"I go into the field in case of any injuries."
“You and your weird hobbies.” You shook your head, teeth catching on your lower lip. Then, you asked: “Have you talked to Robby?”
Jack’s hands tightened on the metal guardrails before he clipped them down, the sound loud in the otherwise quieted room. “He doesn’t really seem to want to.”
“I’m not surprised,” you said, voice thinning.
“Are you two—” He stopped himself, cleared his throat and stuffing his hands into his cargo pockets. When he spoke again, his voice was low. “How did the talk go?”
You looked at him then, “How do you think?”
He pressed his lips together, his weight shifting back and forth on his feet.
You sighed, shoulders folding in. “I’m sorry. It’s been… it’s been really hard. Today was the first day he’s even spoken to me since.”
“Jesus,” Jack muttered, eyes flickering to the door for a second. “If I’d known…”
You shook your head again. “It’s what I deserve.”
He looked up sharply at that, anger flickering across his face. “No, it is not. He should talk to you. He should—” He cut himself off, jaw tightening.
“You should go,” you said quietly, not meeting his eyes. “I’ll be here a while. And you shouldn’t be in here with me right now.”
Jack whispered your name.
“It’s okay,” you said gently, even though your fingers were twisting the edge of the blanket. “I’m okay. Just… go, please.”
He nodded, and as if he didn't trust himself to say anything else as back himself away until he was leaning against the door for a second, steadying himself.
Then he pushed back into it to leave, and Robby appeared.
Your stomach twisted on itself.
You watched as the glass exam room door had barely opened halfway before the two of them met eyes. Robby’s expression tightening immediately, brown eyes lifted toward Jack with something flat and hard sitting behind them. Jack, meanwhile, didn't seem bothered at all. He looked up at the other attending and paused.
"Labs back yet?" Jack asked easily.
You wanted the bed to swallow you whole. Heat crawled into your face while your fingers hooked around your legs, palms damp against your shins. You couldn't even bring yourself to look at either of them for long.
Robby nodded only once, stiffly, "Everything is good."
“That was quick,” Jack said.
Robby didn’t answer.
Jack let the silence sit a second before adding, “Glad to see the lab actually listens to some of us.”
Robby just looked at him, expression still flat, then pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped past him without another word.
He moved automatically, slipping his stethoscope from his neck once again while checking the monitor above your head, fingers brushing your wrist before he listened over your lungs, then your heart. Familiar, routine motions. You lowered your eyes to your lap because Jack was still standing there, still in the doorway, and now he was letting the door swing shut behind him instead of leaving.
Nobody said anything, and it made your heart leap into your throat even harder.
The cool metal of the stethoscope touched your chest and Robby's eyes lifted briefly to your face before he pulled it away.
“Not really helping my exam, Jack,” he said, voice clipped.
From the corner of your eye, you saw Jack shrug.
“Can't help it.” The corner of his mouth lifted. “I'm distractingly handsome.”
Robby scoffed under his breath and shook his head.
"I think the three of us need to talk." Jack said seriously.
“Not now,” Robby snapped immediately. “I've got patients to worry about, and you should go get that looked at. Make yourself a chart.”
Your head turned toward Jack so fast your neck protested.
“Nah, don't need the paperwork,” he said casually. His eyes found yours and softened just a little. “I'm fine,” he said, tilting his head toward his shoulder. “Just a graze, sweetheart.”
He turned a bit so you could see it—the back of his camo jacket at the top of his left shoulder had gone dark red and splotched, fabric torn open in a thin line.
"You were shot?" you gasped.
"Shot at." he corrected, "I'm alright."
Before you could say anything else, Robby's fingers tipped your chin upward.
You knew exactly what he was doing, you knew this routine. Penlight already in his hand, checking your pupils again, watching for nystagmus, for delayed reaction, for anything off.
Still, your body reacted before your brain did.
Maybe it was because he'd barely touched you all week. Or because he'd spent days keeping distance between you like there was a line painted on the floor. Maybe it was because suddenly today he'd touched your face, your wrist, your shoulders, your hair, all under the excuse of medicine, and your stupid brain wasn't separating any of it anymore.
Your heart rate climbed again, the monitor immediately tattling on you. Its beeping rose in rhythm, its oxygen levels warning for over activity.
“And here I thought I was special,” Jack sighed dramatically.
Robby clicked off the penlight, and said flatly: “Go home, Jack. We're good here.”
"Not so fast," Jack said, dragging the syllables.
Both you and Robby paused, looking over at him. His face had gone serious, the graying curls a bit of a mess as he looked between the two of you, swaying on his feet like he always did.
"I have a proposition to make."
Robby stood a little straighter, folding his arms over his chest. "What the hell does that mean?"
"It means… " Jack looked between the two of you, and your eyes were wide, worried, nervous for whatever came next. "I want to make an offer."
"An offer?" Robby echoed flatly.
Jack nodded. Your brows pulled together, uncertainty clouding your brain.
“No,” Robby said immediately.
“You haven't even heard what I have to say." Jack rebutted, "Why don’t we ask her?”
“Because she’s concussed, Jack.”
“Sweetheart—” Jack started, smile sliding back into place like armor as he looked down at you.
Robby moved before he could finish. He stepped up to the foot of your bed, placing himself squarely in front of you, cutting off Jack’s line of sight entirely.
“This is not the god damn time for this, Jack,” Robby said evenly, “Whatever it is you have to offer, it can wait."
The monitor hummed behind you.
“She’s going to X-ray,” Robby continued, thumb hooking over his shoulder at you. “If you want to talk, we can talk outside."
His voice wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be.
You couldn’t see Jack anymore, just Robby’s back, broad and immovable between you. Whatever expression crossed Jack’s face, it was enough that Robby gave a short nod and stepped forward, hand landing briefly on Jack’s shoulder as he guided him toward the door.
Through the glass you watched them, close enough to read the tension in their posture even if you couldn’t hear a word. Robby rigid, jaw tight. Jack leaning in, saying something low and serious. It felt strange watching two grown men argue about you like you weren’t ten feet away. Part of you burned with humiliation, feeling like a child. Another part was too tired to care. Your head throbbed, your ribs ached every time you shifted, the room too bright.
You laid back in the bed, closing your eyes.
Eventually, when the door opened again, it was only Robby. He was pushing a wheelchair through the frame, his expression set into neutral nothingness, but you could see the downturn of his mouth, the frown he wore as he came to the bedside.
"Everything okay?" you murmured as he helped you into the chair.
“Yeah, honey,” he exhaled. “That man’s got some nerve.”
“S’probably why he likes getting shot at on the weekends.”
Robby chuckled a little at that, and your heart warmed as he said: "Yeah, probably."
After all the tests, all the re-checking and the overdramatic X-rays and CT scan, you were finally getting into the car with Robby after what had turned into a very long shift for him and an even longer day for you.
He shut the door of his steel gray BMW with more care than usual. He didn’t often take it to work, preferring the bike whenever he could, but tonight the car felt quieter, contained, easier. The hospital parking lot lights hummed overhead as he started the engine.
“That all felt… kind of silly,” you said gently, trying to keep your tone light, though the thought of going home and slipping back into the routine of the past week made your chest tighten in a way that had nothing to do with bruised ribs.
Robby glanced over at you as he pulled out of the lot, the evening sky behind him pale blue, the sun already dropped behind the buildings. In the height of summer the light lingered without color, stretched thin across the horizon. He wore that tired smile he often did after a long shift, soft but worn.
“Just had to make sure you’re okay,” he said quietly, his voice a deep rasp of exhaustion. “What do you want to listen to?”
You reached for the screen and put on one of your favorite playlists, hesitating only a second before you did. It felt like a small olive branch. On any other night it would have meant takeout on the couch, his arms around you while you watched more reruns. It felt almost normal. He drove mostly in silence, eyes forward, one hand resting loose at the bottom of the wheel, deep in thought in that way he often was after work, and you told yourself that this, at least, was something steady.
Halfway home, stopped at a red light, he turned toward you.
“Honey, are you happy?”
You blinked at him and reached up to lower the music until the car fell quiet except for the hum of the engine and the distant sound of another car passing through the intersection.
“What do you mean?” you asked softly.
His eyes shifted back to the light and then to you again, as if he was weighing the words before he let them out. “I want you to be happy.”
You opened your mouth and then closed it again.
What you had with Robby, before the mess of this past week, had been the only steady, good thing in your life. Every road you’d taken had led you here. There had never been a clean formula for you, no simple checklist of school, job, marriage, children. But life had shown that that was never for you, no matter how much people said it like it guaranteed anything. They never talked about this— finding someone who felt like home without needing the rest of it. They never explained the peace of being taken care of and trusted and guided, about wanting the safety of his control and the way he made decisions with you in mind, the way he steadied you without diminishing you. After everything—your parents, the accident, your ex—this had been the thing that made sense. It had been everything.
You let your shoulders sink back into the leather seat, your gaze resting somewhere beyond the windshield, the quiet answering him before you did.
When he looked over again, something vulnerable in his expression forced you to speak.
“Nothing in my life has ever compared to what I have with you,” you said gently. “I’ve been upset this past week because it felt like that was slipping away.”
He nodded once as the light turned green and eased the car forward.
“I am happy with you,” you added after a moment, your voice steadier now. “I’ve never felt so taken care of, so seen and understood. I made a mistake, and I know I’m paying for that. It’s just…”
He leaned over slightly, eyes still on the road, and took your hand in his. His thumb pressed into your knuckles in a slow, grounding squeeze.
“You really scared me this week, Michael,” you said.
He brought your hand up and pressed his mouth to the tops of your knuckles. “I know.”
"You've never been like this before, avoiding me, barely talking. We live in the same house but it felt like… you were… like a ghost."
He looked over at you briefly, "I felt a little like one."
Your brows pulled together at that, a different kind of ache settling in your chest, not biting like your ribs or throbbing like your head, but heavy all the same. Worse than the guilt, the shame of everything. You dipped your head, your voice barely above a whisper when you spoke:
"I'm so sorry I did this to us."
He shook his head, more firmly this time, coming to another red light and finally turning fully toward you.
“We are a team,” he said, his voice low but steady. “As long as you want to be one, it’s you and me. I shouldn’t have shut you out. What happened…it caught me off guard. It made me scared for things I didn't realize I was afraid of. It made me realize how much I’ve invested in you— in us. Made me see how much I care.”
You reached up with your free hand and cupped his face, your fingers sliding into his dark hair, scratching lightly behind his ear the way you knew he liked.
“Me too,” you whispered.
His hand moved up and down your arm slowly, reassuring, until the light turned and he eased the car forward again, the quiet between you no longer sharp but thoughtful, settled, waiting.
When you pulled into the driveway a little while later, neither of you moved right away. The engine hummed beneath you while the headlights washed over the garage door and the shrubs along the front walk, throwing long shadows across the siding of the house.
But when you reached for the door, he stopped you. Your eyes lifted immediately towards him, a question between your brows, but something on his face made your skin rise in goosebumps. The crease that had lived between his brows all week had disappeared. There was no tension pulling at his mouth anymore, none of that exhaustion sitting around his eyes. His face had gone still, settled into something calmer. His arm rested across the center console between you, stopping your movement without effort, his brown eyes holding yours from only a few inches away.
“I want you to go inside and take a shower,” he said quietly, his voice low beneath the softened music and the idle hum of the car.
Your pulse gave a hard thud against your ribcage.
“I want you to use your special body wash. The perfume we picked out together.” His head tilted slightly. “Do you know the one I mean, honey?”
You swallowed. “Yes, Robby.”
His gaze stayed on your face for another moment, watching you carefully, and something curious moved through his expression at your answer, at the way you were already sitting a little straighter without realizing it.
“I’ll be back in about thirty minutes, okay?” he said. “I’m gonna grab us dinner.”
You nodded.
“Give me a kiss.”
The request was gentle, and yet, your stomach dipped.
You leaned over automatically, pressing your mouth to his. He made a soft sound against your lips and his beard brushed warm and prickly against your skin.
“Okay,” he murmured after he pulled back. “Go on.”
You nodded again and reached for the handle, suddenly far too aware of your own body, of your heartbeat, of your hands, hoping desperately that he couldn't see the way nerves had started jittering all through you as you climbed out of the car.
A long, hot shower later with your rose-scented body wash, your Maison Francis perfume misted along your neck and the skin of your inner wrists, you sat very still in the living room.
Your hands worked slowly through your hair, gathering it and plaiting it down your neck before coming to rest against your bare knees. Your brain felt a little fuzzy now, close to the way it felt after sitting in warm water too long, sleepy and a little hazy. It always started like this. The feeling of cotton slowly gathering in your head before you finally stopped fighting it. The smell always started it— pulling at the quiet place inside of your head, unraveling all your busiest thoughts, your deepest worries.
When the front door opened, you didn't even flinch. You just waited, your eyes heavy lidded and chin tilted down. Through your lashes, you saw the tips of his socks appear in front of your knees.
And then a thick, broad hand came down beneath your chin and lifted your face.
His eyes found yours immediately. Deep brown, those little lines around them digging in at the corners--crows feet people called them. You never thought they looked like that. They looked like years of laughing, of smiling, of joy worn into skin.
You smiled up at him.
"Hi, pretty girl." Robby said softly.
"Hi."
"How are you doing?"
You hummed softly. "Really good."
"That's good." He smiled. "I'm gonna go put these away and I'll be back, okay?"
You nodded. His thumb brushed lightly over your cheekbone before he let you go again, and your shoulders lowered with a quiet exhale you hadn't realized you'd been holding.
You watched him from where you sat as he moved into the kitchen and unpacked the reusable grocery bag. You caught a glimpse of jar of pasta sauce, a box of noodles and vegetables laid across the counter one by one. But you didn't move towards him, didn't bother trying to help. You knew what he wanted from you right now, what he needed. And you'd give it to him. Because it felt right-- to be here, to be in your place with your knees buried in the rug, your body bare and exposed for him.
When he finished, he poured himself a glass of scotch and walked over to the couch. He sat with a long exhale sinking from his chest. The coffee table had been moved, just like always on nights like this, pushed off against the wall so he had a clear view of where you sat.
He settled deeper into the cushions, taking a sip of his drink before setting the glass down with a soft click against the coaster.
"Come here, honey."
You crawled, very slowly, until you were just in front of him. No touching, no reaching for him. Just… in wait.
He leaned forward, taking one finger and letting it graze down your face.
"You are so pretty, my best girl." he whispered. You smiled at that, your brain melting down little by little. "Are you going to be good for me?"
"Yes, Robby," you murmured back.
He smiled a little at that, before leaning away again, and taking another sip of his drink.
"Safeword?"
You licked your lips, "Pickleback."
"And when you can't talk?" he asked, voice muffled in the top of his glass.
"Two snaps."
He smiled, exhaling with bared teeth as the drink went down his throat, "That's a good girl."
When he leaned forward again, you could smell the whiskey on his breath as he said: "We have some things to go over, honey."
Your eyes lifted to him, and he nodded reassuringly.
"It's okay, just need to adjust some rules going forward. You know why?"
You nodded.
"Go ahead, tell me."
"Because I was a—" You stopped when his head tilted slightly, that tiny shift enough for you to catch the correction. "I acted badly."
"That's right." he said, and his hand returned to your face, tracing slowly along your cheek, your jaw. It felt good, this touch, this connection, as he drew lines in the sand and on your face.
"We've been a little confused lately, both of us, huh?" he murmured, "we're going to fix that tonight."
"Yes, Robby."
When he leaned away, he tilted his hips up a bit, and you could just make out the bulge within his cargos.
"Show me that you want this—you and me, this thing we've created together. Show me that you want me."
You hesitated.
"You can touch," he murmured, giving a small nod before lifting his glass again.
Your hands lifted to his legs, a little shaky now. You cupped his knees first, almost testing it, feeling the warmth of him beneath the fabric of his cargos. He inhaled deeply, head tipping back against the couch for only a moment, though his eyes never left yours. Slowly, you let your hands slide higher, fingers tracing up his thighs until they reached his lap, and you carefully began undoing his belt, pulling down the zipper before easing the fabric lower.
Your hand slipped beneath the waistband of his briefs, finally cupping his growing length as he shifted beneath your touch. He hissed a breath through his teeth, knees widening slightly to make room for you.
Pulling him from the confines of the briefs, your fingers moved with care, wanting him to feel every gentle tug of your hand, wanting him to understand what you were trying so desperately to say without saying it. You watched his face as you bent down, lips brushing a soft kiss against the tip, and his shoulders lowered with a heavier exhale, though his hips gave the slightest movement toward you.
The hand not holding the scotch lifted and tucked a nonexistent strand of hair behind your ear, fingers settling against your jaw as his thumb brushed your cheek.
“You make me fucking crazy,” he whispered, voice rough around the edges now. “Do you understand?”
You nodded.
His hand tightened slightly against your face and your fingers twitched where they held him. “Words.”
“Yes, Robby,” you murmured. “I understand.”
"Do you understand that I like to share you, but under my terms?" he asked quietly, eyes holding yours. “That you and I—this—we—come first?"
Your hands traveled up and down his cock, feeling it twitch and harden and warm to your touch like velvet.
You nodded again, 'Y-yes, Robby."
"So why did you do it?"
Your brain was a little too foggy to make out a real answer, so all you said was: “He has pretty eyes.”
“Yeah?” Robby chuckled softly, already knowing there was more to that answer. “I’ll bet he was a good kisser too, huh?”
You nodded, "Yes,"
You knew where this was heading, and even though you knew you might not like every part of it, you let him keep leading you forward. Because you trusted him.
"Did he feel good inside you, baby?"
You bit your lip, wriggling as your pulse jumped, but you nodded. Your hands had begun working faster, twisting and reaching down to fondle his heavy balls.
His lip curled, "Words."
“Yes."
And then he moaned a little when you used a little bit of his precome, slathering it over his tip.
"Can I please use my mouth, Robby?"
"Not yet—tell me how he felt—did you come?"
The pulse that had been hammering in your chest was traveling south, blood surging in humiliation, in want, nearly painful between your legs.
“He felt big,” you admitted quietly. “And... yes.”
“How many times?”
“Once.”
He smiled at that. "Aw, only once? So he didn't get to see you whining and begging, did he?" his tone was proud, knowing, even though his voice was threaded with hunger, "When you beg for me to stop making you come over and over?"
"No, Robby."
You were leaning in, mouth agape, nearly drooling at how much you wanted him in your mouth— needed him. Needed to show him how much you wanted him. How it didn't matter what you'd done with Jack, didn't matter right now because all you wanted was him, the man in front of you, who knew you better than any of them. All you wanted was Robby's closeness, his attention, his praise.
"Go on, you can use your mouth now," he said gently, letting go of your face, "good girl answering my questions."
You moved down onto him immediately, your mouth already warm and waiting, and both of you let out helpless sounds at the contact of it around the smooth, velvety tip of his cock. Something rough cracked out of his chest at the feeling of your lips gliding down his member, your own noises swallowed as you glanced up at him through your lashes. He had leaned back into the couch now, mouth parted, eyes closed.
"Oh, fuck," he moaned.
You moved eagerly, bobbing your head to chase more of those sounds, his praise. Your jaw unhinged to accommodate the wide breadth of him, nose never really reaching his belly that was covered in wiry hair where his shirt had ridden up. Your fingers curled into the fabric and pushed it higher. He let out a breathless little laugh at that, understanding immediately before pulling the shirt over his head and tossing it somewhere beside him.
When he looked back down at you, his breathing had gone uneven. He gathered your hair into his fist, just guiding your rhythm. “Easy, easy,” he murmured, steadying your pace. “There you go, honey. There you go. I know you missed me.”
You hummed pleasantly, eyes rolling back at the feeling of the tip of him brushing the back of your throat.
"All the way down now, okay?" he coaxed. Your lashes fluttered a bit, hollowing out your cheeks. "That's it."
You could feel every ridge and vein pushed up against your soft palette, your tongue flat and soothing to the underside as you breathed through your nose.
"Now you listen."
Oh, fuck. You knew that voice. It was like your brain, once ridged with memories and thoughts—wants, needs, fears—had gone smooth and mushy, every sharp edge softening until there was only him. His eyes on you. His voice. His pleasure and wants. When he got like this, voice rough around every syllable, lower and gruffer and cracking just slightly, it fully submerged you into that head space you only ever found with him.
Your eyes, though a little watery, found his as he held you down.
"You are mine." he growled. "I don't care about the title—girlfriend, boyfriend, partner, whatever—you are mine."
His voice was lethal, his lip curling. He held you down on his cock firmly, and you breathed through your nose. This wasn't just bruised pride or irritation from what had happened, but fear, you realized. Fear of losing you, of losing this. And the best way he knew how to face fear was with control. And you'd give him everything every time.
“I’m in charge of who you kiss, who you flirt with, who gets your attention. Who fucks you.”
Your jaw had begun to ache, a deep soreness settling in, but you sat through it, wanted to, welcomed it, because your brain had gone soft and smooth, every thought slipping through your fingers before it could fully form.
"There will be no more playing with anyone else for the next month." he said sternly, pushing you down his cock a little further until your nose pushed into his belly. Your mouth constricted a little at the fat tip of him reaching into your throat now.
"And you will not come for the next month, either." he growled.
Your brows pulled together, and he mirrored the look with a pout, "“Oh, honey.” His thumb traced slowly along your hairline. “I know.”
He gave you a little smile, something gentler finding its way into it. “I know you don’t like hearing that. But it's what you need."
He pulled you up his cock, and when you were free you pulled in a quick breath, chest rising sharply. You felt the spit from your mouth slipping down your chin a little, but then his face lowered, nose brushing against yours before his mouth found you. He kissed you deeply, mouths slotting against one another with growing urgency, both of you breathing unevenly into it as his tongue slid against yours.
When he was done, he used the hand that was in your hair to push you back down into his lap, your lips opening obediently around his cock, pushing it deep into your mouth. He thrusted a few times, letting his balls slap lightly against your chin, and then he was holding you down again. Your mouth watered around him, drool pooling over your tongue, onto your lips as your eyes fluttering shut. The pulse between your legs had climbed to a throbbing, but you did nothing for it. You knew better.
"Everything we have—everything you've let me build with you…" he groaned, and then reached down, fingers brushing your face before his thumb and forefinger found your nose, and held it closed. "…is because of me. Because we chose it."
"Even this—" he breathed, and your eyes widened a bit as your head became fuzzier, your lungs began to beg for release. It only lasted a second before he was pulling his hand away, easing you from his slick coated member. You heaved in deep breaths when he brought his face down to yours, kissing you again before he demanded: "Say thank you—"
"—Thank you—" you gasped.
"Fucking hell that's so good—" he moaned. The kiss was breathless, wet, urgent as you let him have it, your mouth open, tongue awaiting his.
"More—" you moaned the next time he pulled away.
"Yeah?"
You nodded.
"Not too much," he whispered, but there was a smile on his face, so soft and warm you almost could feel tears coming. He obliged your request, pushing you back down onto his throbbing cock, fucking your throat in earnest until he held you down once more, holding your nose for a little longer than the first time, until you were spluttering around him.
"Fuuckkkk," he groaned even louder, and finally pulled you off entirely, his hand cupping your face, your chin held in the crux of his palm as he squeezed your cheeks. Your tongue dipped out to collect the drool that had been slipping from your open mouth, and you could feel your pulse jumping, your inner thighs sliding together with the amount of arousal you'd created for him.
“Okay, okay,” he cooed, petting your head with his other hand, “deep breaths. Deep breaths, honey. How are you doing?”
You hummed, breath still uneven and quick, chest rising against him while you tried pulling air back into your lungs. You nodded.
“Good,” you murmured.
"What a good girl you are," he murmured, pressing a fat, wet peck to your lips before his hands were tucking under your arms, and you rose with him from the couch.
Your legs automatically wrapped around him, and you couldn't help the way your hips undulated against his belly, as your body moved on something like instinct, all want and need and nothing else. The sensitive, slick skin of your core brushed up against the thick tuft of wiry hair at the base of his member, making you moan. Your mouth found his neck, suckling just above the jugular. And your hands felt disconnected from you entirely, wandering over him without thought, fingers curling into his hair and scratching lightly against his scalp as you held onto him. You could hear him chuckling fondly under his breath at your desperation, one arm circled around your middle while the other hand kept smoothing over your hair, down your back, petting and reassuring. He just kept whispering I know, I know.
Soon, you were being laid onto the bed, his groans about his back rumbling warmly against your ear as he lowered you down onto the soft duvet. He stayed over you for a moment, his weight pressing you pleasantly into the mattress, chest warm against yours, the heat of his skin making your limbs feel loose and floaty.
"You with me, huh?" he cooed, smiling down at you. His hand still hadn’t left your hair, fingers combing through it in slow strokes that kept your thoughts soft and drifting like clouds. You nodded, tilting your face to kiss him again, your lips lingering against his while he stayed laid over you.
“Why don't you turn over for me?” he murmured eventually, sitting back.
You obeyed without thought, rolling onto your stomach over the comforter. Your sore muscles pulled as you stretched your arms over your head, a little whine slipping from your throat before you folded your arms beneath your cheek so you could look back at him over your shoulder.
He was looking down at you with open affection, completely bare, peppered hair dusting his chest and stomach, thick around the base of his length. The sight of him sent another pulse of warmth through your body, your hips wiggling restlessly against the mattress before you could stop yourself. As if in answer, his cock jutted out in excitement for you too.
Robby let out a low breath through his nose, gaze dropping to your ass as his hands spread over you, kneading slowly, thumbs pressing into the soft flesh before he pulled you open. Your moans filled the room along with the sticky, embarrassing shlick of your lower folds being spread and opened as he looked at you.
"What a mess you've made, honey," he said softly.
“Please…” you whimpered, pushing your hips back into his palms without thinking.
“Please what?” he asked, and you could hear the smile in his voice even before you looked back at him.
"Touch me, please," you whispered.
"I am touching you." he teased back.
Then, while he held you open, you heard the wet gather of spit in his mouth. Your eyes opened wider just in time to see it fall, warm and thick against your skin above your slit before it slid downward through your folds and over your clit. You mewled at the feeling, your body jerking, the neediness and desperation no longer able to hide. Your mind felt smooth and fuzzy, your body begging for some form of release, hanging onto every brush of his thumb, the feeling of his cock twitching against you too.
"You'll take what I give you, and what will you say?" he asked, and finally, his thumb swept over your pussy, tracing the trail of spit down to your clit.
The sound you let out could've been heard by the neighbors.
"Thank you!" you moaned.
He nodded, his thumb still tracing you, your folds so sensitive it had your hips moving, rolling back, searching for more.
"You're welcome, honey," he said, and then moved off the bed, his hands finding your hips and yanking them up so your face was pushed down into the bed, your knees propping you up.
You gasped at the first feeling of his mouth on you. Flat tongue, prickly beard—it was wet and hungry and needy as he cupped his tongue against your clit, flicking the tip of the wet muscle until he was flattening it again and licking all the way up to the skin between your openings. Every lick and kiss sent shocks through your spine, and you moaned loudly into the duvet, fists clutching at it desperately. Your eyes had rolled to the back of your skull, mouth hanging open at the pleasure of it.
Without thinking, your knees spread wider for him, toes curling at the feeling of his tongue working deeper between your folds, licking until his lips closed around your clit. The gentle suction made your stomach jump violently.
"Taste so fucking good, honey," he murmured against you, voice vibrating directly through your body while his hands spread your ass even wider. “Did Jack eat you out, baby? Did he get a taste?”
Your brain lagged badly behind the question, and all you could do was moan. But a quick whack! to your thigh had you jumping, remembering he had asked a question.
"No!"
He hummed low in satisfaction before diving back in, mouth wrapping around you again while his tongue flattened and dragged upward. You couldn't stop moving against him now. Your hips rolled helplessly into his face, chasing the pressure every time he eased away even a little.
"Oh—oh, fuck—Robby, please—" you begged, hips wildly chasing the friction. His tongue moved with you, moving between long strokes and suckling your clit, his hand coming up to just gently prod into your pussy, the teasing of the pad of his thick finger enough to make that cresting wave of an orgasm roll closer and closer. Your moans had turned into cries, like a cat in heat just mewling his name, begging and begging for more, even if it sounded more like gibberish with the state your hazy brain was in.
"Mmmm—Robbyyy— right there—"
And just as you were about to crash into the wave, orgasm swelling, thighs shaking, ready to scream out in pleasure—
He stopped.
He pulled away, his hands going back to grip your ass. The loss of it had you crying out loudly, hips bucking uselessly while you petulantly kicked at the bed.
He tsk'd his tongue at you, and when you peered over your shoulder, you saw him shaking his head, "Don't you remember what I said, pretty girl?"
You whined miserably, thrashing on the bed, earning another smack high against your thigh that left heat blooming under your skin.
"No coming for a month." he said very sternly.
And then, to your dismay, he went back in. His tongue flattened, tracing over your swollen skin in lazy strokes while he slurped softly at the arousal gathered like a basin of nectar, obscene wet noises filling the room. Your whole body clenched around nothing, orgasm trapped inside you now, throbbing painfully close without ever breaking.
You whined again, but stopped your thrashing, burying your face into the bed.
"Remind me why you're not allowed to come, baby," he said softly, kissing your clit gently.
You jumped at the contact, voice muffled in the bedspread: "M-bad girl."
When you peeked an eye over your shoulder, he was shaking his head gently at that. "Not a bad girl," he said, and licked a stripe up your pussy again, and you felt your walls constrict, begging for something, anything.
The ache inside you deepened. Every slow drag of Robby's tongue pushed you right back toward the edge again until your stomach felt tight and shaky.
And then he pulled away again.
You wailed in protest, dropping your hips to the bed, and kicked your feet. Your body felt tense with the need of release, muscles tightening and loosening and tightening again.
He climbed over you then, mattress dipping and you felt his cock rest in the curve of your ass as his mouth came down to your ear.
"You are not a bad girl, honey," he murmured, nipping at the top of your lobe, "you are my best girl, say it now—"
"Mmm…yr…" you sighed weakly, too distracted by the drag of his cock between your cheeks to force the words out properly. He chuckled a little, and pulled back just to look down at his cock wedging itself into the cleft of your ass.
"I'm going to fuck you now, okay, honey?"
You nodded adamantly, and then realized what he meant as his thumb traced down your vertebrae, lower and lower until it pressed gently against the tight ring of muscle there.
Oh god. Oh god, oh god.
“S'alright,” he murmured as if reading your thoughts. “Remember last time? You were so good. Just gotta relax for me, okay?”
You did remember it, in some distant memory your brain was trying to scrounge up now. He had been so gentle, and you'd promised him he was the only one who could have your tight little hole.
His hands flattened along your back, massaging gently until one wrapped around his cock, the other reaching for the lube in the bedside table. The cool slickness made goosebumps break across your skin immediately, a soft hum slipping from your chest with your next breath.
Robby prepped himself, fisting gently along his cock, and he started by just tracing it along the seam of your folds, collected your slick, pooling arousal, making you let out another simpering sigh at the feeling. You knew better than to beg for him to fuck you there—once Robby had something on his mind, he would take it. And you were always so eager to give whatever he wanted.
When his cock pressed ever so gently into your hole, you squeaked a little.
Immediately, he folded himself over your back, pushing his hands so they could come up under your body and flush your spine to his chest and belly. One of them came up under your chin to hold you even closer.
“Breathe in,” he said softly.
You obeyed automatically, lungs filling deep while his weight pressed you down into the mattress.
"Breathe out."
Again, you did as you were bid. Your breath left you shaky and uneven. He hadn't moved yet.
"One more time, honey, deeeep breath—"
He joined you this time, both of you inhaling, chests expanding together, and then—together again—you both exhaled, and he notched the fat tip of his length into you.
"Ah-ah-ah—" you gasped.
"Keep breathing baby," he cooed, his bicep coming closer to your face, your chin tucked into the crook of his elbow.
“Keep breathing, baby,” he cooed against your temple, arm tightening around you while your body strained around the stretch. Your muscles trembled violently at first, trying to resist before slowly, slowly beginning to give. All you could really focus on was his voice, the warmth of him around you, the deep drag of air into your lungs. By the time his hips settled flush against you, your hands were clutching hard at his forearm.
He kissed the side of your head, his breath a little ragged as he moaned at the tight feeling of your muscle around him.
"S'all mine, huh, honey? My pretty girl, my pussy to play with. My ass to take."
All you could manage was a weak whimper.
"Say: im your best girl, Robby, go on now—" he whispered.
“I—mmm…” you moaned when he pulled out barely an inch before easing back in again. "I'm…"
"Mhm, that's it, use your big girl words now." he softly urged as he pushed back in, only gently beginning to saw his hips. He was hardly moving at all, just a soft lull of movement to ease you into it.
"I'm y-your best girl…" you gasped, mouth hanging open, eyes fluttering as he pulled out even further, and pushed back in again.
"That's it, that's a good girl—" he groaned, and like he couldn't help himself, his next thrust in was rougher, and your eyes bulged a little.
He kissed the corner of your open mouth, "Okay?"
You nodded quickly, one hand reaching back blindly for him until your fingers tangled in his hair. He held you tighter in response, his breathing growing rougher against your cheek while his hips started moving in earnest.
"What a good girl, letting me fuck her little ass, huh? Only mine, this is all mine—"
“Yes—yes, yes—” you tried to answer, but every word dissolved into moans because his thrusts were getting harder now, faster, driving deep enough to make your entire body shake with each one. Soon, the room filled with wet slapping sounds and the strained noise of both your breathing. Heat kept building low in your stomach again, strange and different this time, tingling down your spine and making your thighs tremble uncontrollably.
"Robby—"
"Hmmm?"
"I—mmmm ohhhh I feel—"
"What do you feel, honey? Tell me, tell your old man—"
"Might—might come—like this—"
"Is that so?" he asked.
You nodded desperately, licking at your lips, your eyes squeezing shut at the feeling of the pressure. Your fingers tightened into his hair, nails scraping along his scalp.
“Don't you dare,” he growled into your ear, his breath hot as his teeth bared against your cheek. “Hold it.”
"Noooo—"
"Yes."
The firmness in his voice made your stomach clench hard. Even while he kissed your ear gently afterward, his hips kept snapping faster against you, driving you right up against that unbearable pressure again. It felt so odd—a tingling in your spine, though your pussy pulsed so hard it was nearly painful with neglect.
"Robby!"
“I'm gonna come, baby, fuck—hearing you moan my name like that—Jesus you're so fucking tight—my best girl, my good girl—don't you dare come—”
Tears gathered hot in your eyes from the intensity of it, your whole body wound tight around the orgasm he wouldn't let you have. You weren't upset. You just needed. Needed him. Needed something.
Suddenly, he was pulling out from your ass with a quick dip of his hips, and you let go of his hair to heard him letting out the loudest groan, deep and wrecked from his chest, the sound of his fist against his wet cock, the spluttering of ropes of come up your back.
You laid there, pussy throbbing, your orgasm lost, your muscles tight and loose all at once at the loss of him.
A second later he rolled onto his back and pulled you onto his chest immediately, chest heaving in breaths of relief. His thumb brushed gently beneath your eye where a tear had slipped free.
"I know, I know," he cooed, "C'mere."
You curled into him bonelessly, burying your face against his neck while your body slowly came down from everything. His skin was damp and hot beneath your cheek, your limbs still trembling every now and then. Across him, you could hear the soft rustle of tissues when he reached for the box beside the bed and started carefully cleaning your back.
“Here,” he whispered after he was done. You opened your eyes blearily and tilted your chin down to see him holding your water bottle up toward your mouth, thumb already resting against the straw so it wouldn’t wobble.
You hummed in appreciation and took a few small sips, throat still dry, lips swollen and warm.
“There you go,” he murmured.
When you were done, you sighed and let your cheek settle back against his chest. Your fingers wandered lazily over him, tracing little circles into his skin while his heartbeat knocked steadily beneath your ear.
His arm tightened around your shoulders, pulling you closer still before he pressed a careful kiss to your forehead. “How are you doing, honey?”
You hummed sleepily. “M’good.” Your lashes fluttered against the skin of his throat before you tipped your face up just enough to ask quietly, “How’re you?”
"I'm good."
You kissed into his beard once, then again, little absent-minded presses of your mouth along his jaw until your lips brushed softly against his. “Talk to me,” you murmured.
He sighed. "I missed you."
You smiled faintly, lids feeling heavy, your brain still a little fuzzy, "I missed you more."
He grinned fondly, his hand coming up to brush your hair back from your face. "Why don't we watch something for a bit, I'll go make some dinner."
"Okay,"
“Do you wanna come sit with me in the kitchen, or stay here?”
You shook your head immediately against him. “I’ll come.”
“Okay, honey.”
It took you a minute to convince your body to cooperate enough to climb out of bed. Your legs still felt loose and shaky beneath you, and there was a lingering heaviness between your thighs every time you moved, a pulse that kept reminding you of the events of the night. Robby hooked an arm around your waist to steady you while he dressed you in a pair of his boxers and a big sweatshirt. Eventually, he slid on his own shorts and you followed him out towards the kitchen.
The house felt different now in the aftermath, softer in the evening light, the lamps automatically turning on with the darkening hours. You climbed onto one of the barstools of the kitchen island with your water bottle clutched in both hands while Robby moved around the kitchen barefoot.
Your body still felt warm and heavy in a way that made you want to curl up somewhere close to him and stay there. And every now and then he drifted back toward you without seeming to really thinking about it, leaning in to kiss the top of your head or rubbing your neck gently while the pasta boiled behind him. At one point he'd put the kettle on, and handed you a mug of peppermint tea.
Time passed slowly as you sipped at it while he cooked, watching him take care of you. The windows over the sink had gone completely dark, kitchen lights soft against the granite counter tops. Finally, when everything was done, he plated the food and brought it to the small round dining table.
"C'mere," he said again, beckoning you with his fingers, the other hand patting his thigh.
You climbed onto his lap without hesitation, your spine settling against his chest while his arm wrapped loosely around your middle. He fed you slowly between bites of his own food, twirling pasta against the fork before bringing it to your mouth while you sat warm and pliant against him, sipping peppermint tea between bites.
Neither of you spoke much, but it didn't feel necessary. This was exactly what you needed: him, taking care of you, feeling needed and wanted. You, being taken care of and shown how special you were to him.
By the time you'd wiped your mouth and your tea was empty, the ache of your body had softened low and manageable.
Robby had turned on an episode of The Office, settling the two of you back onto the bed beneath the comforter. You tucked yourself against his side, one of his arms beneath your neck so his hand could stroke through your hair. The television light flickered blue across the room, catching against the planes of his face every time you looked up at him.
"Can I ask you something?" you said quietly.
His fingers paused briefly in your hair before starting again. “Of course.”
"What did Jack say today?" you said carefully.
Robby sighed softly through his nose.
“We don’t have to talk about it,” you assured him quickly. “I was just curious.”
He shifted then, turning toward you more fully so he could dip his chin and look directly into your face. His gaze studied your face, flitting over your eyes, your lips, your hair as he continued pushing his fingers through it. And then, landing his soft brown eyes back on you, he said: "He wants something that's a bit more complicated than he thinks."
Oh?
Your eyes brows threaded together in uncertainty.
Robby leaned down and kissed the tip of your nose gently before pulling back again. “Let me just…” He sighed again, dropping his hand from your hair to rub his thumb along your shoulder beneath the blanket. “I need to talk to him again first. Clarify some things before you and I really get into it. Is that okay?”
You nodded slowly, though your teeth had already found your bottom lip. Your eyes drifted back toward the television, but you weren’t really watching anymore, your thoughts beginning to move in circles.
His finger hooked gently beneath your chin and guided your face back toward him.
“Hey,” he whispered.
You looked up at him again.
“We’re good,” he said softly. “More than good.”
Something in his expression tightened, vulnerable in a way he rarely let himself be around anyone.
“You’ve been really patient with me this week,” he continued quietly. “And I appreciate that more than I think I’ve said. I’m sorry again about all of this. About shutting you out. You mean so much to me, honey. I want this, I want you. More than ever before.”
You cut him off before he could keep spiraling, leaning forward to kiss him softly.
“It’s okay, Robby,” you murmured against his mouth. “I’m sorry too. You and me. Always.”
His eyes closed briefly at that. Then, he smiled and breathed deeply into the kiss. He rolled over you slowly until he was hovering above you again, broad shoulders blocking out most of the television light while the muffled sounds of the episode kept playing somewhere behind him.
content tags/warnings: 18+, mdni, porn with no plot, tender morning sex, fingering, piv, cream pie, needy!reader
jack abbot who is so attentive, even after the most grueling shift. his back could be aching, his leg protesting as he takes those final, trudging was steps into your shared flat and dumps his backpack, eyes heavy from all the messed up shit he saw that night—but those are the mornings he especially needs you pressed to his side—to forget, to remind himself that there’s still sweetness in this world… someone who needs him, craves him.
jack abbot who loves it when you lay on your stomach over his lap as he relaxes on the couch, letting him lift your nightgown to toy with your pretty pussy at a sweet, torturous pace while you whimper into a throw pillow. The T.V. drones on in front of you, some random news program you can’t make out in your fuzzy haze. jack’s long, thick fingers curving over your core to rub gentle circles on your swelling clit, his hazel eyes soft and patient as he waits for your syrupy release to coat his palm before pressing his thumb inside and making you jolt.
it’s not deep enough to be satisfying but the stretch is still there, a promise of what’s to come, as his free fingers continue to rub tight little circles over your clit until your legs tremble. And when you’re finally nice and warmed up he’ll slide out and pat your ass gently, and you know your routine sow well by now that you don’t need to be told what he wants. you just wordlessly slip off his lap and stand between his spread legs on shaky knees. the outline of his cock against his cargo’s makes your mouth water as you take off your gown, going as slowly as you can to tease the old man while he huffs out a little laugh and waits. jack’s nothing if not patient, the exact opposite of yourself because your restraint slips as soon as the gown touches the floor and you all but fall onto his lap, your fingers fast as you tug up his tight black shirt and shove down his pants while he gropes and kneads your ass.
You don’t hesitate to slip him inside your fluttering heat, your lips twitching up in satisfaction as his brows furrow, eyes flutter shut, and he groans in that deep, satisfied way. you can practically feel the tension in his body releasing, his body properly melting into the couch as you gently roll your hips. you press soft kisses to his neck and jaw, your other hand not around his shoulders coming up to scratch his morning stubble. when you get to his lips they still taste like the bitter coffee they serve in the er break room, a comforting contrast against what lingers beneath the stale sterility that clings to him. it’s so undeniably him that you can’t help but whimper into the kiss, and jack takes the opportunity to slip his tongue past your lips and tickle the roof of your mouth, the sensation making your pussy clamp down tight around him. he has to ease back just to groan, and you’re back to grinning sweetly as you ease into a slow place, bouncing up and down and taking him deeper.
he’s matching your smile soon enough, his hands on the curve of your ass as he helps balance your weight and ease your movements. “good, good girl….” he coos, with that pleased little rumble that’s reserved just for you. “so good to me…” he says, bending low to suckle your pert nipple and smiling wider when you gasp.
“missed you all night…” you mewled, your cheeks flushing at the admission, never mind the fact that he was balls deep into you, the plap, plap, plap, of skin meeting skin filling the room.
He pulled back, his chin lifted as he looked up at you, a smug smile on his lips. “yeah?” He whispered, moving some of you hair away from your face as he cupped your cheek. “missed you too, baby.”
the sincerity in his voice makes your stomach do a happy little flip, your rhythm gaining speed as you smiled wider, and his fingers curl up into the hair at the nape of your neck. He tugged ever so gently, making your head fall back so he could nibble and suck at your throat, the scratch of his stubble making you groan. it was prickly and rough, especially against the sensitive skin at your neck, but it only served to make you wetter.
you knew Jack was close when you heard him curse under his breath, that raspy “fuck” that made your pride flare. you didn’t dare stop, not even as your breaths became shaky and your thighs began to ache, your own sweet release just out of reach as your body thrummed with heat. instead, you went harder, faster, right at the tempo you knew he loved best when you rode him, his pants and murmured encouragement’s keeping you going until his body tensed—his hands gripping you in a vice as his head fell back and he moaned. It wasn’t until then that you let yourself ease to a stop, your hips grinding down desperately as you felt his cock twitch and your core fill with his cum. you milked every last drop, your body a whimpering and shaking mess as you tilted over the edge as his cock filled you up.
you held one another tightly, your breaths mingling as you both panted and swallowed down sweet air, the thin sheen of sweat on you both glimmering in the sunlight. After a few tender moments, you pecked his lips before sliding off, sprawling out on your back to give your shaky knees some reprieve. Jack watched, his eyes tender, then satisfied as he saw a pearl of cum begin to seep from between your glistening folds. he wanted to fuck you into the couch properly right then and there, but he did the reasonable thing and went through the motions of aftercare. he tucked himself away into his pants and left for a minute before returning with a damp towelette, pressing a kiss to your blissed-out face while he wiped you clean, the fabric soft and cool against your flushed skin.
“I’ll get started on breakfast,” he murmured against your lips before pulling away, his steps lighter, his muscles at ease.
thinking about a robby x reader x langdon dynamic where the reader and langdon downright loathe each other and only tolerate the other’s presence because of robby. both of you constantly competing for your attending's attention, which really just depended on whether he wanted langdons ass bent or your plump tits in his mouth that night.
robby found it cute at first, the way you two swatted at one another as he strung the pair of you along. It made you work harder, even though you both wouldn’t admit to the rivalry between the two of you openly. to unknowing eyes, it was just a typical spat between student doctors trying to one-up one another and robby was content at leaving it at that. but when the bickering reached a point where it began to interfere with patients and the er running optimally, he realized that something absolutely had to be done about you two brats.
that’s how you end up sprawled atop robby’s lap one night, his massive hands keeping your knees pressed to your chest and your thighs parted. langdon, obedient as ever, following his attending’s orders and eating you out with a punishing vengeance. it was torturously good, your stomach clenching and your pussy dripping, your breath catching every time langdon shot you a look of utter disdain from between your legs.
“robby…” you squeaked, looking back up at him for reassurance. you didn’t know what to say, or even if you wanted langdon to stop. you just clung to robby’s arms, your nails scraping at his forearms as you sought any kind of support from the onslaught on your traitorous pussy.
but robby—the asshole—just chuckled and spread you wider, making sure you felt the stretch in your legs before bending low to whisper. “you like that, don’t you? langdons tongue? you’re such a sweet little thing, i bet he’s loving this too.”
his honeyed words dripped into your ear, soft and sweet, making you squirm in his hold and your throat go dry as your desperation for langdon to keep on going, to make you cum, peaked. you glanced down just in time to meet langdons icy stare as his broad, hot tongue pushed into your fluttering heat. your thoughts going fuzzy as your core clamped down while his skillful lips sucked hard, making you wail pitifully.
you were hanging by a thread when langdon growled and surged up, pulling out of you abruptly as his hands fumbled with his scrubs while muttering something along the lines about how ‘he was not going to be doing all the fucking work.’
you bit back a whimper when his cock sprang free, already hard and with pre pooling at his flushed pink tip. robby only grinned at the sight, satisfied to see the pair of you getting along. “see, not hard to be cordial, is it?” he drawled at you both.
“if i had known a few kitten licks were all i needed to do to make her behave, i would have done it a long fucking while ago,” langdon grunted, a cool palm sliding up your stomach before roughly shoving your shirt and bra up.
your breasts tumbled free, your nipples hardening as the cool air of robbys apartment hit them. langdon aligned himself at your entrance, his hands replacing robby’s at your thighs. his grip was rougher, his strength palpable as he easily yanked you closer until your ass was perched right at the edge of the bed.
you scoffed as his words processed in your mind, but it was cut off as a gasp tore through you from being so easily manhandled. Laying there, properly sprawled out for frank and seeing the smug little smirk back on his shiny lips, your hate for him that had been softly simmering in your gut flared. before you could think better of it you were sitting up and lunging forward to claw at his infuriating face. But before you could even make so much of a scratch, robby swiftly gathered you in his hold once more, his thick cords of muscle wrapping securely around your arms and forcing you back down.
“hey! be good.” michael grunted, one hand grasping you by your jaw and giving your cheeks a gentle squeeze and shake to get your attention back on him. “you remember what to say if you want to back out, don’t ya?”
the question brought you back to your senses, your body going lax and your breathing evening out. you hated when robby looked at you like this, his brown eyes intense, expectant, but kind even as he peeled back through all your bullshit. you could only manage a shaky nod, hating how he was making you all but shout how much you still wanted this—how much you wanted langdon—his perfect little golden boy. thankfully, he did not force you to admit anything out loud. he gave a satisfied little nod before turning back to your peer—who had watched the interaction unfold with a hungry, impatient gaze—and signaled for him to continue. and langdon was not one to hesitate when it came to robby’s orders.
he huffed as his cock slid between your folds, coating himself in a mixture of his spit and your juices. you bit down hard on your lips, muffling any sound that threatened to spill. you didn’t want to give him any more satisfaction. and so you bit down, fingers held fast around robby’s arms that were now wrapped securely around the top of your chest. it was a comforting, grounding weight, but you were acutely aware of how he was pinning you in place, a silent command to be good for langdon after he had been good for you.
langdon thrust into you then with little to no warning, hips snapping forward and his head falling onto robby’s shoulder.
you hissed, cursing under your breath and ready to complain to robby until you looked up and noticed that langdon was downright buckling above you, his knees weak from how tight and warm you were around his twitching cock. he huffed, his face scrunched as he leaned back to get control of himself. but his ego got the better of him as he tried to set a punishing pace through your hiccuping gasps, only to completely unravel the moment you made eye contact again before slamming in and filling you to the brink with cum. the warmth pooled warm and heavy in your belly, making you crest right after him, your toes curling and your head falling back on robby’s lap.
there was a tense, shivering minute where the pair of you simply gasped for air and recovered from your highs, langdon slipping out with a lewd squelch and bending low close to your lips, your breaths intermingling. with a soft push on the back of his head from robbys hand, he let himself be guided to your lips. the kiss was hot, messy, the taste of your release just barely registering on his tongue as you caught robby's heated, proud gaze above you. happiness flared in your chest and you kissed langdon back like you meant it, your mewls and his needy grunts making robby smile.
he was definitely going to use this for conflict resolution between you two going forward. "Knew you two brats could get along..."
a/n: sorry for how rushed this was!! one day I’ll sit down and properly write some good smut for the pitt 😭💔
//tw: 18+ content, jack abbot smut, quick blurb i wrote in the haze between sleep/consciousness. just a humble offering for fellow abbot enjoyers..
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thinking about jack abbot with a hand around your waist, keeping you perched on his thigh as he has you fuck yourself on his fingers after a long shift. making his pretty girl do the work of stretching herself open and making herself warm and wet for his cock that’s already straining against his scrubs.
your blissed out expression and your warm body is a balm to his nerves after all the shit he saw that night, his eyes tracking every quiver of your lip and happy sigh that falls from them, the way your hips rock and chest heaves. his scratchy stubble sending electric sparks as he whispers about how you’re just what he needed, and how you’re so fucking pretty. the white sterile walls and coldness of the er is worlds away.
summary: two weeks have passed since that fateful night in the barn, but the dream that had consumed your senses that night continues to haunt you. Little did you know that it would do so in more ways than one.
tags/cws: 18+ content, dubious consent, oral fem!receiving, p in v, size difference, very slight choking, mutual masturbation, praise, stalking, victor is also there? But unconscious so cucking??, hopefully that's right, slightly needy! creature, dark!creature but this ended up being a lot more tender as it went on.
author's note: once again, i apologize for how long it took for this to come out. 3-4 months is an insane wait time and I genuinely deserve to be whooped. But thank you to everyone who kept in touch because they wanted another part. I love you all!! thank you so much for your patience!
read part one here, but this can also be read as a standalone
Large, steady hands at your waist, the scorching warmth of another body pressed to yours… Though it had been more than a fortnight since you had left the sanctuary of the barn, the memory of the dream still clung to you, its tendrils rooted deep into your very being. But what had once seemed like a sweet illusion soon turned sickly and cloying to your senses, the intensity of your reaction that morning spurring flutterings of heat that eventually dampened into nauseating shame.
The light of day was of little solace, even as you plunged yourself into your work as a lady's maid to Elizabeth Lavenza. Labor that had once felt so monotonous–even vexing–now served as a lifeline as you ironed, sewed, and polished buttons until your eyes strained themselves in the low light of dying embers. And when your own work was done, you sought even more from the rest of the household staff, who were more than willing to parcel out their chores. There was always something extra to do on the expansive grounds of the Frankenstein estate, even if it meant staying up late to sweep the fireplaces of their cinders.
And yet, no matter how hard you worked your body, your bones aching every night when you finally allowed yourself the reprieve of sleep, the dream would return, and so would a more persistent ache between your legs. You were no stranger to pleasure, to be sure, but what had transpired in the barn had felt too real, and the reaction your body had to it made you feel as though you had no real control of it.
It was more than maddening–it frightened you. Night after torturous night, you tossed and turned, your body tangling in your sheets and your limbs shivering as a cold sweat blanketed the gooseflesh that would erupt all over your body. You would wake with a start, your rabbiting heart refusing to slow until you had extracted yourself from bed and soaked your face at the metal basin tucked in the corner of your room. Only then would your breath return to you, your mind regaining enough control to drive away the dream and ignore your pulsing core begging for something, anything, to ease its ache.
It had affected your sleep so much that one night, as you went through the familiar motions of unpinning Elizabeth's glorious red hair, your hand twitched rather abruptly, and you pricked your mistress's scalp. You both jumped and gasped–Elizabeth from the sudden jolt of pain, and you from the utter shock that your body had convulsed so and hurt your lady. You immediately dropped the pin on the vanity and stepped to stand beside her, your eyes frantic as you searched Elizabeth's delicate features to see if she was in much pain.
“I am so sorry, my lady! I do not know what came over me. I assure you, it was not intentional,” you exclaimed, your hands wringing together frantically.
Elizabeth rubbed the sore spot on her head, her face momentarily scrunched, but the pinprick of discomfort quickly ebbed away. Then she thankfully, graciously, laughed. She shook her head at your reaction, her eyes kind. “At ease, y/n. I shall survive this, I think.”
But that did not stop your fretting. Noting this, Elizabeth reached out to clasp your hand and, in a more gentle tone, continued. “I hope I am not prying,” she started slowly, “but I have noted how you have grown rather anxious as of late… It worries me. Is there something troubling you?”
You held her gaze for a moment, but you swivelled your eyes to the ground as the truth as to why you have been so ill-rested resurfaced in your mind. “It is nothing, my lady. Just some nightmares,” you assured her, your voice barely audible as the lie clawed up your throat.
A half-truth. You thought, hoping it'd be explanation enough. You should have known better.
Elizabeth, clever and astute as ever, did not look convinced. She studied your shifting gaze, the tension deeply set in your shoulders, and her brow furrowed with apprehension. She squeezed your hand, “I can tell that you are weary, at the very least. Promise me you will take the following day off.”
That made you look up. You had just begun to shake your head, an excuse at the tip of your tongue, when Elizabeth patted your hand and said, with finality, that she insisted upon the matter.
Your only recourse left was to nod. To beg for more work simply to escape dreams would have marked you as a madwoman. And while Elizabeth was kind, you had less faith in the men of the household she would soon join. Especially the elder Frankenstein with his fascination with anatomy.
Suppressing a shiver at the thought, you replied. “Thank you, my lady,” you said softly, dipping into a shallow courtesy in deference before moving back into place and unravelling the rest of her locks with greater care.
Victor…
The name was like the lash of a whip, scorching and punishing, and yet it was the one thing that had sustained the Wretch in the months it had taken to track down his creator. The name kindled his rage, his sole companion as he braced himself against the harsh elements of the mountains and untamed forests he traveled through. Nature was harsh, but it was not offended by his monstrous form, which was more than what could be said of his attempts to travel freely on the well-worn paths carved out by humans.
He had learned long ago not to expect decency from them. He had received nothing from humanity save the bitter coldness of abandonment and the sharp stings of their beatings. No, he had devised a better plan: He would find his creator and compel him to make him an equal, a companion. And then they would shun mankind together.
It was a decent plan. A logical one, even, in a certain light–but things had changed. That night in the barn had disrupted his purpose in the course of a few hours. He knew now that an equal would not satisfy him any longer; he sought only her. To taste. To hold. To have.
He was beyond all reason on this matter. He did not care if she found him repulsive, if she screamed or beat at him as everyone else had. He would have her, properly, even if he had to abscond with her into the wilderness beyond the grasp of humanity. She would have no choice but to accept his company then. The image of it swam sweetly in his mind, a comforting token he tucked close to his accursed heart.
It took him four days to track her down, his progress stunted as he could only roam freely when night could cloak his movements. There were moments when he had believed he had lost her trail entirely, and fear would seize his senses, but fate seemed to have entwined you closer than he had originally thought. Desperation forced him to continue his search discreetly during the day, and it was in the brightness of a spring afternoon that he properly beheld her for the second time.
He had begun to skirt the edges of the forests that nestled around the great country estates, keeping to the shadows cast by the dappled light of leaves when, of all things, a laugh interrupted the usual cacophony of birds and insects. He paused, mid shamble, his breath stilling and his ears straining. A muffled voice mingled in the air, then two, and then three. All bright and bubbling like the stream running to his side. Careful not to make a sound, he shuffled as close to the treeline as he dared, and was rewarded by the sight of her face.
She looked different, more severe than the slumbering beauty that had carelessly tossed herself in a pile of hay. She was dressed in black from her throat to her feet, her hair pinned down neatly, and her hands folded before her. And she was not alone. He had to stifle a snarl as he processed the scene before his eyes: you, standing by sweet Elizabeth's side, and none other than Viktor Frankenstein lounging in a whicker chair on the other. Food was served on a pristine tablecloth; a basket of scones, berries, and clotted cream was arranged in a neat formation. And yet his beauty remained standing, to the side, a hovering figure blending into the foreground. It was strange to see another be so blatantly excluded, but he recognized the dynamic all the same: Viktor was your master as well.
As if on cue, the grating voice of his creator cut through the din of the soft clinks of silverware with a request. It was enough for you to step from the foreground into action, your movements stiff but practiced as you turned to another table to retrieve a bottle of milk to pour into Viktor's waiting glass.
He learned your name then.
“Thank you, y/n.” came from Viktor's lips, careless words tossed in an uninterested tone. He had not even glanced at her, and yet she had nodded with an air of demureness before returning the bottle to its ice-chilled bath.
Y/n… the name soothed the burning jealousy in his chest. His breathing slowed and came easier.
Y/n…. he spoke it out loud, savoring the sound and the way it felt on his lips.
Y/n… he repeated it, not like a prayer—he had convinced himself long ago that he was too monstrous to pray—but as though he could possess the very name. And he intended to.
He spent ten nights thereafter watching, observing. Learning your routines and following your movements as best he could through silhouettes. It was only at night when he dared to come closer, pressing to the glass to simply watch. His eyes caressing you, his heart aching. He was stalling; he had taken so freely before, but now he was biding his time.
Let the night hold the secret of my desires a little while longer, he thought.
Rain had begun to pelt against the glass windows as you slowly wandered through the halls of the Frankenstein estate. Elizabeth had long tucked herself into bed, signaling that your own duties for the day were concluded, and yet your feet did not make the familiar trek to the servants' quarters. You didn't go upstairs, where the lot of you were tucked into neat little rooms in the attic. No, your feet moved to the bottom floor instead, to the sitting room where your employers had spent their evening.
It was not an inviting room, contrary to its intended nature. It was decorated in heavy blacks and reds, casting sinister shadows when the fire burned low, as it did when you stepped inside. Books and cards lay scattered about, the faint odor of spilled liquor mingling with the smell of smoke from the marble chimney. You had come with the intention to tidy the room, but your attention was immediately seized by the cold sweep of air blowing in from a glass door that had been left ajar. You inhaled sharply and rushed forward, praying that nothing had gotten soaked, and shut the door with a sharp snap. For a moment–a brief, sweet moment–the world was quiet again. The sounds of rain were muted, the crackle of the fire your only companion. And then-
A grunt, followed by a grugle.
You had refrained from gasping before, but now you did. Your body seized up, your nerves bound tight as though someone had dumped a bucket of frigid water onto your back. When you swiveled around, you were shocked by the sight before you: Victor, slumped across a chaise, his clothes disheveled and a crystal glass sloshing in his hand with the remnants of some amber liquor. His eyes were bloodshot, his movements jerky and unnatural as he pushed himself upright. “I was hoping to get some air,” he complained, his speech–usually so cold and precise–slurred.
You pressed a hand to your heaving chest, a soothing gesture as you battled for your wits to return in between choking breaths and nervous laughter. “I apologize, sir. I did not realize that I was intruding.” You said quickly, dropping into an ungraceful curtsey. “I will leave you at present. The tidying will be done in the morning.”
“No, no. It doesn't matter now,” he said, wincing as he stood, a hand going to his brow where a nerve jumped. “Where are my manners? Please, sit,” he said, waving to a chair beside you.
Your brow furrowed with confusion, but you did not question your employer. Awkwardly, as though the chair was made of spikes, you sat on its edge, your back straight as you watched Viktor lurch to the cellarette. He refilled his own cup and then sloshed some more in a second, which he offered to you. His gaze was intense, expectant despite the cloudy glaze that kept it from being perfectly fixed. You took the cup, your cheeks flushing with discomfort as Viktor polished off his own whilst standing right in front of you. His throat bobbed greedily, a droplet skirting down his neck. A nagging voice told you to set aside your glass and leave, immediately, and you were just about to heed it when a warm hand pressed down on your shoulder with considerable weight. You looked up, eyes wide, only to be face-to-face with Viktor. You had found him handsome before, but tonight he looked anything but. He looked cruel, the swipe of his tongue over his lips like a wolf that had caught an easy meal.
“I… I should go. Lady Elizabeth is expecting me…” You began, your voice soft to control how it threatened to waver. He noticed that, even in his inebriated state, his pupils constricting as he caught the lie.
“I insist you stay. Elizabeth will understand.” He said, playing along with your lame excuse. “You know, you really are quite pretty,” he observed. It is a shame I never noticed before… so much time wasted on Elizabeth…”
He leaned in as he spoke, the potent alcohol on his breath making your eyes water even as you leaned back. You reached up and grasped the hand on your shoulder, firmer this time as you tried to stand. “I must go.”
But he only returned with more of his own weight, the sudden struggle knocking him off balance and forcing his drunken weight to collapse above you. What happened next was a blur–a glass shattered by your ear, your breath knocked from your chest as you tumbled to the floor, the crushing weight of Victor above you, then a sudden bang, and the roar of wind filling the room.
And then there was freedom, the weight on you lifting in one fell swoop that allowed you to swallow down sweet, cold air. The sounds of your gasping were only interrupted by a sickening smack from somewhere afar in the darkness. You scrambled up despite the burning in your lungs, palms sweaty and limbs trembling as the adrenaline continued to spike in your bloodstream. You whipped around, trying to make sense of what had happened, but what you saw made you question your sanity: a dark, looming shape, standing over Victor's now limp form on the ground. Thick layers of fur draped its form, soaked and dripping rainwater onto the carpet where it stood.
It took a moment for your mind to catch up with your senses, slowly putting together the scene; the door to the grounds that you had closed only moments before was now swinging on its hinges, the thick black curtains whipping wildly as the storm blew in. You took a swift step backwards, wincing as your feet crunched shattered glass.
The figure reacted to the sound, swiveling sharply, but its features remained obscured in the shadow cast by its hood. Who or what stood eerily still, save the way its chest heaved as a low and penetrating rumble emanated from its throat. You felt pinned, afraid that any movement would set the shadow upon you, the same way predators were only goaded by a chase. But after a petrifying beat, it simply turned and picked up your employer as though he were but a wee child in its arms.
Your voice came to you then, cracked and raw: “good lord, is he dead??”
You weren't expecting the figure to respond, but it did, its voice a low grumble, gentler than anything you could have ever imagined. “No, just sleeping… did… did he harm you?”
You blinked, then glanced down to assess yourself. You shifted your weight, flexed your fingers, but there was no pain other than the dull ache in your chest from having your wind forced from you and the trembling of your hands. You shook your head, your fingers fisting into the fabric of your skirts to ease their jittering. “I am alright.”
You could not see the person's features, but you felt his gaze as he looked you over himself—saw his shadow shift when he nodded and readjusted Victor in his grasp. “Show me to his rooms; it will seem as though he drank himself into exhaustion.”
The plan took a while to register; you felt as though your mind and body were split in two. With any luck, Victor would forget, and the aching in his skull could be easily explained away due to his drinking. It made sense. Perfect sense. A logical way to escape the repercussions that could come of this. “T-this way,” you stuttered, your feet carrying you forwards as if on autopilot.
You moved through the long halls in near-darkness, your fear of being discovered keeping you from lighting the way. You knew the place well enough not to need a candle to guide you, and your dark companion seemed to do fine without it as well. You paused before every turn, straining your ears for any noise first before trusting your feet to go forward. Victor's bedroom was only two flights up in the manor, but the journey took longer than it normally would have for the sake of caution. Sweat streaked your brow, and a chill had seeped into your bones by the time you reached the room. You counted your blessings when you did, a quiet sigh of relief escaping you when you locked it with a ‘click.’ When you turned, your companion had already unceremoniously dumped your employer into his bed, his limp frame landing in an uncomfortable position amongst rumpled sheets of red satin.
Your solace quickly evaporated as you noticed how still the figure hovered over Victor, the air thick with a tension you couldn't quite understand. Hoping to ease it, you inched forward and grasped you savors hand. An animal-like growl emanated from its bundled throat, its body flinching from your sudden actions.
“Please, sir, what is your name?” you asked, trembling fingers tracing over the scarred hand in your grasp. The wounds and his sounds shocked you, but you refused to flinch, though you feared you had offended your towering companion regardless when no ready response came.
Eventually, he spoke, his voice tentative, almost shy. “I am a wretch without a name.”
Your brow furrowed slightly before you could mask your expression, your smile becoming tight upon your lips as you sought a glimpse of his face. You were on the verge of saying something clever, something like, ‘what do you mean?’ when the figure turned to face you in the light of the fire, his hand withdrawing from yours to peel back the hood.
Your heart simply halted, your pounding blood skittering to a stop and turning to ice water in your veins.
It was not the face streaked with grooves, its skin bruised and pale, that terrified you. It was his eye, yellow and glowing from within, and the way the pair of them traced your form in a similar way that Victors had. But the towering creature before you was not drunk; he was alert, his desire burning with a suffocating vehemence that you felt as though it pressed against your chest and sought to steal your breath once more.
You backed away–he let you.
“What are you???” you gasped. Whatever you could have said, that was definitely the wrong thing to say. The creature's breathing stilled, his hands flexing at his sides, his face scrunching.
“Not a what, but who.” He corrected, “and I have already answered that question… I am a wrech, a creature…” and then, as if he had debated to say it at all, he added: “I have come to claim what is my own.” As he spoke, he stalked forward, quiet and steady for his size.
“You … you are not familiar to me. You have no claim here,” you belatedly stuttered. You should have run, at the very least moved, but your feet felt as though they had been replaced by lead. You stood, helpless, as you watched the creature… the wretch… prowl ever closer.
“But you are wrong…” he refuted easily, his expression cool. A calloused palm, warm to the touch, reached out and traced the curve of your cheek in a way that felt adoring.
You inhaled sharply, but you did not push back, not even when the pad of his thumb swept across your lower lip as if it could ease the way it trembled.
“I have a claim on thee,” he explained. He pressed close then, his body warm, comforting… familiar.
Realization choked you, slamming just as violently as Victor had surely struck the wall. “It is you. The one from my dream…and the barn… I am sure of it.”
A low, pleased hum left the creature, his lips tugging into a gentle smile because you had remembered. Your body had remembered. “Are you frightened, little one?” He bent low, the tip of his nose trailing down what little of your neck was exposed, and inhaled. “I will not harm thee. Your body knows this. It knew it even then, when it opened for me that night.”
Shock slammed through you, your knees buckling from the force. His hands surged forward to prop you up, to steady you, for another excuse to pull you even closer so you basically rested on his thigh. He immediately sought your eyes again, to see how you were processing his words.
The blood had left you, your face pale and clammy. “Is this a dream?” you asked, your voice thick as though your throat had been stuffed with cotton. “Surely, this is a dream…” You tried again, speaking into the air for no reason other than to soothe yourself.
“Would you be comforted if I said it was?” The creature asked gently after a while, his furrowed brows betraying an inkling of hurt and disappointment.
He urged you up, drawing to his full height. He dipped down and kissed you then—soft, wet little things, his tongue sweeping over your lips as if to taste, to coax. It was sickeningly tender, given the context.
You were trembling already when he paused, your hands reaching out unsteadily to grasp at his fur coat. It was cold, wet from the rain that had soaked through, but when you trailed your hand to the exposed skin at his collar, solid warmth greeted your palm. Alive. Real. For a moment, you were mesmerized–here walked the man who had haunted your dreams, your desires given flesh–and yet a part of you pushed you away, still frightened, your fingers wiping at your mouth as if you could erase the temptation he stirred.
Once again, he made no attempt to keep you still, his eyes simply tracking you as you went to go lean against the cool wood of the bedpost. Your fingers dug into the intricate carvings there, your forehead seeking the coolness. Eventually, you sat down, giving your wobbly knees a reprieve as you took deep, calming breaths.
A hand on your knee broke you from the rushing thoughts clouding your mind, everything coming to a halt as the touch grew firmer, more intent. When you glanced up, he was there, his face cool but intense. With your eyes locked, he lowered himself to his knees, now eye level with you. His hand on your knee traveled up to rest on your hip, his second following suit, both of them bunching up your skirts slightly as they moved into place.
You shuddered, your own hands reflexively coming to rest above his, tugging away but lacking the conviction you had before when it was Victor. “Please…,” you croaked, though you were unsure of what exactly it was you were pleading with him for.
“Please,” he parroted, his pronunciation slow and yet penetrating, his brows furrowed with need and determination all in one. Your skirts, which had been at your knees, were now properly hiked to your hips. He slotted himself there, forcing your knees to open to accommodate his size. He nuzzled close between your thighs, his nose brushing against your sex through the cotton of your bloomers. It tickled at the same time it made sparks of want dance across your body, a sudden gasp forced from you as you squirmed. But his hands were firm now, locking you in place as he parted the seam in your bloomers, the hot, broad pad of his tongue dipping low to lick a stripe up your pussy. He hummed, the reverberations going straight to your core, the vibrations only deepening when your fingers flew to his unkept hair and tried to push him away. But he was shifting, moving, hooking your legs over his shoulders and making you fall onto your back against the red silk sheets. Your thighs parted more readily at this angle, granting him better access, especially once he grasped your hips and tugged you forcefully to the edge of the bed, and towards the onslaught of his lapping tongue.
You cried out, the back of your free hand pressing to your lips to muffle all of your subsequent whimpers. Your gaze became fixed on the ceiling, your eyes watering as you felt the tip of his tongue circle your core, prodding your entrance teasingly before swiping up to caress your clit only to take it in his mouth to suckle gently. Your hips jerked up into his mouth, a muffled, pitiful groan falling from you as your brows furrowed in desperation.
You were still unsure if this was a dream or not, but at some point you had thrown caution to the wind because your fingers were in his hair, tugging him closer. Your hips began to roll, your body using his thick, warm tongue to get off. Every scrap of shame, every modicum of composure, instantly vanished under his relentless hold that urged you to surrender—to submit to the pleasure. He wanted this, he wanted you, his large hands squeezing and massaging your thighs as if you threatened to slip away.
Your hand covering your lips now flew and tangled itself in the sheets, your breathy moans becoming sharp and loud as you felt a delicious warmth pool low in your belly, your thighs squeezing around the creature's head.
You were close, frustratingly so, when a loud groan caused the wretch to pause abruptly, his dark, glittering eyes blown wide as he leaned back to drink in your flushed cheeks and trembling lips. You audibly whined as you sat up, confused and trembling.
“Why’d you stop?” You wish you hadn't been so straightforward or sounded so needy, but he was simply staring and the tension was making you squirm. That’s when he stood, and the next thing you processed was a flurry of movement as he hauled you upright by the arms, his eyes dark with intent as he spun you around, forcing you to seek purchase on the mattress.
“I wish to see this off of you,” he explained, his voice gruff in your ear as he grasped a handful of fabric.
A soft little ‘oh” of realization was the best you could muster, your core pulsing wantonly as you felt the heat of him against your thighs and the curve of your ass, his strong hands all but forcing open the ribbons at your back. The sound of a rip and the sight of Viktor still knocked unconscious on the other side of the bed snapped you out of your daze of lust, your blood running cold as you felt the fabric slip down your arms. You attempted to stand, but his hands at your hips stilled you and kept you pressed to his chest. “W-wait, my uniform….and he is still…” you stuttered, cupping the spilling fabric at your front.
The creature's eyes flicked over your shoulder to look at Victor, a soft huff of amusement tickling the back of your neck before he began to kiss the newly exposed flesh.
“This dress doesn't matter, he doesn't matter…” he whispered, his hands tugging at the fabric and making it fall to your hips before wrapping you closer, his kisses dotting your jaw.
As if to emphasize this point, he turned you to face him once more, a gentle hand cupping your jaw and tilting your face just so to pull you into a fierce kiss, deep with meaning. You kissed back, though your brow furrowed with confusion, not only about his words, but by your own complacency. Why were you allowing this stranger, this creature, to do this? You were surely rushing into ruin, but your thoughts were swiftly distracted when he bent low to tug your corset down, not even bothering to undo the lace. His lips caught your nipple in his mouth as it spilled free, suckling just as he had done before between your legs. You felt that familiar tug reaching all the way down to your core, your stomach flipping with anticipation.
A string of breathy “ah’s” spilled from you, your back arching and your fingers tangling in his hair. If he wasn't holding you up by your waist, your knees would have surely failed you entirely.
He pulled back with a soft pop, his broad tongue swirling around your pebbled peak before he pulled back to help you wriggle out in what fabric remained. When you stood in just your stockings, he rumbled appreciatively, a broad hand trailing from your lower belly and up the valley for your breasts, before settling gently on your throat. Your breath hitched, your eyes widening, but he didn’t tighten his hold; he just guided you back against the bedpost, his thumb moving from your throat to stroke the underside of your jaw.
“Soft, so, so smooth… so… different, from me…” His eyes grew dark, his face contorting with visible pain you were sure stemmed from something beyond what was physical, and yet probably interconnected. Your heart twinged, enough to be felt beyond the daze this creature had plunged you into.
“Come,” you said softly, reaching out for him. You tugged at the fur coat at his shoulders, your eyes fixed on his dampened expression. His eyes, which were staring off into the darkness, softened when they landed back on you.
Slowly, he stripped himself of his wet fur coat, then his tattered rags of a shirt. He unveiled himself to your kind gaze, his own tracking for any hint of disgust, only to find none in yours. And yet he stood stiffly, his movements suddenly jerky — a complete departure from the gruff authority that had commanded and stripped you. He stopped when only his trousers remained, his hands loose at his sides. He was waiting, no, he wanted you to move first.
The fire cast a soft, warm hue to his skin, and yet you could still see how the lines that traversed his form varied in tone–bruised in one section and his veins stretching like cobwebs over the other. Your throat had gone dry, but you kept your gaze soft. You knew not what to make of the being before you; he frightened in the same capacity as he stoked your curiosity. When your eyes followed the lines down his chest, dipping below to where his trousers slung low, you accepted that he stoked something else, something darker, needier, even after he had revealed his full form to you.
You reached out then, your eyes cast demurely downward as your hand trailed his abdomen. You circled him, slowly, taking in the scars at his back, the power in his shoulders. Only when you stood before him once more did you let your fingers toy with the knot at his waist. A low, penetrating growl snapped your eyes up to his face, that intensity once again overtaking his features, his eye catching the light just right, flashing yellow as the fabric slipped away. You should have stopped, should have run while you still had your wits about you, but the fabric had already fallen to his feet, and you both stood bare before the other.
Your attention was only diverted by the press of his bobbing length against your stomach, half hard and streaking pre against your skin. A needy little groan fell from you, your teeth sinking into your kiss-swollen lips as you caught his cock in your hands. The weight of him in your palms shocked you, and even then, he was still swelling under the heat of your attention. Your cheeks flushed, your weeping core clenching down on nothing, already anticipating the burn he’d create as he stretched your fluttering walls. Rubbing your thighs together only made your imagination run wilder. You wanted him buried deep inside, and yet you doubted you could take it.
You were still thinking about the practicalities of everything when his hand gently brushed yours away, his own wrapping securely around his member while his other guided you by the shoulder to sit back on the bed. At this angle, it bobbed at eye level, his practiced fingers dragging down before flicking up to the tip, showing you exactly how he pleased himself.
You watched with a watering mouth as pearls of cum glittered on his pale blue tip, before his fingers caught them and spread them out across his cock.
You couldn’t help it. You really couldn't. You scooted backwards and leaned back onto your elbows, your feet perched at the edge of the bed, thighs parting. Your own fingers slipped between your folds, invoking a purr of delight from the creature's throat, his eyes fixed on your delicate touches and the glistening slick already soaking your digits. You moaned as your fingers gently circled your clit, the tight bundle of nerves pulsing and sending out wild sparks of pleasure that you felt all over–from your pebbled breasts to the tip of your toes. Soft pants and grunts filled the air, sweet music intermingled with the muted pelts of rain against glass and the lewd squelches coming from his hand around his cock and your fingers in your pussy. Eventually, you slipped one finger inside of you, then two, and then three, your eyes fixed on his girth as you mimicked the rhythm of his strokes, mewling as you stretched yourself and imagined the sweet ache the creature would leave you with once he had his way.
You cupped a breast with your free hand, your eyes sliding shut momentarily as you pinched and rolled its peak and thought of how his tongue had suckled the other. When you glanced up, the sight of him alone almost tipped you over the edge. The glow of the fire accentuated his toned chest and abdomen, every clench of his stomach, every roll of his hips as he loomed over you with his hair wild and dangling, his free hand grasping the bedpost for balance.
You could feel your climax building, every pump of your digits and brush against your clit gently coaxing more warmth to pool between your legs, the pressure low in your belly building with every second. You eventually come with a choking wail, your fingers curled and still as your walls squeezed around them, your back arching from the sheets as pulsating waves of bliss crashed over your senses. You fall back with a soft groan, your body limp as the last throbs of pleasure eke out of you.
That’s when you notice that the creature had halted his own ministrations, his shoulders tense and his cock still stiff and leaking in his palm, his dark eyes fixed on you with simmering intent. You flush, harder than before, your fingers slipping free with an obscene squelching sound. “S-sorry…” you mumbled, though you were unsure why you were apologizing.
You were about to wipe the slick from your fingers when the creature shot out and caught your hand, making you inhale sharply. Slowly, he climbed onto the bed, his knees making the bed dip as he caged you in and brought your trembling fingers to his lips. His hot breath tickled their tips before the pad of his tongue lapped them clean, his low growl of satisfaction vibrating straight through you and down to your core when he brought them into his mouth to suck. The sight was so indecent it made your whole body flush, your brow furrowing, and your lips parting as you began to pant. Subconsciously, you wrapped your thighs about the creature's waist, urging him lower, to settle properly between your thighs.
That made him grunt abruptly, your fingers falling from his mouth to tangle in his hair instead, the other about his shoulders. It was you who reached up to kiss him this time, fervent and fast and needy, the pair of you moaning into each other's mouths. He began a pace of shallow thrusts, his cock nestled sweetly between your warm folds, his weeping tip rubbing gloriously against your clit and making you slicker. And yet, when his cock caught your entrance, the stretch was still enough to make you gasp loudly and halt, your fingers digging into his lined back and scalp. He stilled instantly, the look in his dark eyes so tender for a being come to claim you.
“Are… are you alright? Does it hurt?”
You noted, wide-eyed, that his body was shaking, his need palpable in the thick air surrounding you both. You knew nothing of how sweetly your warm pussy squeezed down on his tip, of how desperate he was to see you fully stuffed with him. You breathed in deeply before nodding, your mind willing your body to calm, to adjust. He sank in an inch more, another grunt dropping from his lips. He kept still for a moment longer before he began to push, his eyes flicking from your expression and to where your pretty pussy swallowed him in, his mouth falling open with pleasure and wonder. Tears sprang in your eyes when he was fully sheathed, your back arching and your toes curling as you felt his girth split you open, the intensity of it all making you keen. You held on tight to him, refusing to let him move an inch until your muscles softened and your breathing steadied. In the meantime, he peppered you with soft, reverent kisses between every panting breath, utterances of “so sweet, so perfect” falling into your ear and warming your heart.
The sting ebbed away after a moment, only to be replaced with a pleasant ache that dipped and weaved with a heat that flared every time his cock rubbed against that spongey, sweet spot deep inside of you. You thrust up slowly, testing your comfort, only to find sweet, sweet pleasure when your clit rubbed deliciously against his navel. Instantly, his hands caught your hips as he rested back on his knees, a needy moan catching in his throat. He held your hips aloft but made no move to use you; he only eased your movements, carrying your weight so you could roll your hips and fuck him as you wished, your hands drifting to his arms for even more leverage. He grunted with every one of your thrusts, his mouth watering as your breasts bounced and your lovely face eased with bliss.
It was only when you grew weary, your thighs trembling, that you let yourself fall back to the bed, your arms pulling him atop you once more. “Please,” you all but whined, burying him deeper. “Move… fuck me, please.”
“Yes…” he whispered, his eyes glittering in the dark. You had caught him in a daze–so mesmerized and awash with bliss that it took him a while to realize what you were asking for, but it didn't last for long. He grasped your smaller frame and repositioned you with ease, laying your head to rest properly on a pillow, which also meant you were now side by side with Victor. You shot the young master a look, your stomach clenching from apprehension, but your attention immediately snapped back to the creature when you felt him pull out quickly. You gasped, your eyes shooting up at him, any words you wished to say dying in your throat when you saw how quickly his demeanor had shifted. His grip on your hips tightened, his eyes dark with a simmering jealousy. He positioned his dribbling tip against your pulsing core, your body buzzing and disjointed from the sudden change.
“Look at me…” he commanded, a pale blue hand coming up to your face to hold your chin.
And obeyed you did, watching as he pressed back inside, making you feel how he filled you, inch by inch, once more. Except he did not pause this time, he pulled back, then sank back down. His pace was soft, slow, like waves lapping on the shore of a lake–gentle and loving. The hand on your chin drifted down to the swell of a bouncing breast, dwarfing it in his large, calloused palm. You were moaning, writhing, your body stilled only when he pressed down and settled some of his weight on your soft body. He groaned in your ear before enticing you into a kiss, his hips never once missing a beat.
You grasped at his wide shoulders, your fingers clutching his rolling muscles as he undulated above you, your cunt greedily sucking him in. But you wanted more, and so you let your tongue swipe across his lips, making his hips stutter and his pupils dilate as he tried to decipher your intentions. You suckled and bit at his lips, your thighs squeezing in time with his thrusts and making them go faster, harder. He got the message instantly, his tempo hastening with a wicked little grin. Your pulse jumped as that first hard, rough thrust rocked through you, your cries swallowed by his lips. And he did it again, and again, and again–the culmination of fourteen nights of dreams being fulfilled with every thrust of his cock and slap of his heavy balls against your pert ass. You fell apart around cock this time, his tip buried in your quivering depths as your cunt clamped down, your fingers pressing crescent marks on his back as your release rolled through you.
But it wasn't over, not yet. He continued to pump into you, the thrusts riding you through your orgasm until he became sloppy, his movements no longer just determined, but frantic.
“y/n…” he grunted, “y/n, y/n, y/n.” Your name became his mantra as he thrust, the sweetness like honey on his tongue as he fucked you thoroughly. One, two, three more pumps were all he needed for him to unravel, his cock jumping before he stuffed you full with proof of his claim, the warmth trickling from where you two remained joined.
You could feel his length softening within you, a comforting weight between your legs, keeping you full and content. Even though he was surely sensitive, he kept himself buried, his lips just as frantic as when you began, his kisses following the curve of your cheeks, jaw, and neck. Your hands, which had been securely bound in his hair and shoulders, slowly relaxed and fell onto the pillow above your head, limp and spent as you gasped for sweet air. Eyes that had been fixed ot the ceiling now flicked to your lover, your cheeks flushing as he pulled back enough to meet your gaze. A possessive rumble left his dark lips, and he thrust forward–just once–to pin himself closer to you and press his forehead to yours. You squealed, squirming in his grasp as the movement made more of his copious seed slip from you. That earned you a soft twitch of his lips, a small smile sliding into place as his dark eyes glimmered with what you recognized as quiet pride.
He dipped closer, his lips caressing yours as he spoke: “Mine…”
He sealed the word with another kiss, all-consuming and leaving no room for refusal. But a part of you recognized the truth of his words immediately, the knot of shame still nestled deep in the pits of your stomach unfurling.
“Yes,” you breathed when he let you up for air, nodding. “yours…”
an: and then he shoves off Victor from the bed and you guys cuddle till you fall asleep, lol. THANK YOU MY LOVES FOR READING MY WORK AND BEING SO SO PATIENT WITH ME. I’m a new fic writer and I learned sm from this experience!! Especially about pacing even though I failed tremendously in that respect for this fic 😭
just want to start off with an apology. when i published part one, i never thought that part two would take me this long to finish! But it makes me so happy that there are people still waiting. thank you for your patience! two months is an absurd amount of time for a fic to come out but school is really whipping my butt 😭💔
as for an update, I can confidently say that I am 70% done and so far I have around 3k words. I’m aiming for it to be released properly in a week or two!
here’s a little bit of the intro, which is subject to change:
Large, steady hands at your waist, the scorching warmth of another body pressed to yours… Though it had been more than a fortnight since you had left the sanctuary of the barn, the memory of the dream still clung to you, its tendrils rooted deep into your very being. But what had once seemed like a sweet illusion soon turned sickly and cloying to your senses, the intensity of your reaction that morning spurring flutterings of heat that eventually dampened into nauseating shame.
The light of day was of little solace, even as you plunged yourself into your work as a lady's maid to Elizabeth Lavenza. Labor that had once felt so monotonous–even vexing–now served as a lifeline as you ironed, sewed, and polished buttons until your eyes strained themselves in the low light of dying embers. And when your own work was done, you sought even more from the rest of the household staff, who were more than willing to parcel out their chores. There was always something extra to do on the expansive grounds of the Frankenstein estate, even if it meant staying up late to sweep the fireplaces of their cinders.
And yet, no matter how hard you worked your body, your bones aching every night when you finally allowed yourself the reprieve of sleep, the dream would return, and so would a more persistent ache between your legs. You were no stranger to pleasure, to be sure, but what had transpired in the barn had felt too real, and the reaction your body had to it made you feel as though you had no real control of it.
It was more than maddening–it frightened you. Night after torturous night, you tossed and turned, your body tangling in your sheets and your limbs shivering as a cold sweat blanketed the gooseflesh that would erupt all over your body. You would wake with a start, your rabbiting heart refusing to slow until you had extracted yourself from bed and soaked your face at the metal basin tucked in the corner of your room. Only then would your breath return to you, your mind regaining enough control to drive away the dream and ignore your pulsing core begging for something, anything, to ease its ache.
➳ 𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 | Na’vi instincts were different, more primal and direct. Jake could handle them, he had to handle them. And maybe he actually could've, but there you were. He never was very good at denying himself where you were concerned.
➳ 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 | 11,034
➳ 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 | Mature Content-Explicit Descriptions Of Sex | Inter-species relationship, Primal/instinctual behavior, Possessive undertones, Slight power imbalance, Forbidden romance themes, Smut: Size Kink, Biting/marking, Dirty talk, PIV sex, Oral(fem! receiving), Glowing cum(Cuz you know...alien), Slight manhandling.
➳ 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞 | Nobody look at me! Just read it okay?🫣 Can Na’vi breathe the same air as humans? They can in this fic! Set during the first movie.
masterlist
THE QUIET HUM OF THE LAB HAD ALWAYS BEEN STRANGELY COMFORTING. Fans whirring, terminals blinking, and the faint hiss of the air filtration system cycling in a steady rhythm. You’d grown up in that soundscape, more familiar with recycled air and humming machinery than with the fickle music of wind through leaves. Still, you learned to love the glimpses of Pandora outside the thick glass of Hell’s Gate. The way the forest seemed to pulse with a soul all its own.
The microscope's lens glinted under the lab’s sterile lights as you adjusted it, tracing the intricate network of veins in the sample you’d been left to catalog. A small, satisfied sound hummed from your throat as the image swam into perfect focus. The kind of pleased noise that came when everything finally aligned after so much squinting.
There’s a sudden sigh of the hydraulic door that pulls you out of the work induced trance.
Jake filled the doorway like a shadow born of blue light. His broad shoulders bowed just enough to clear the frame, azure skin beaded with the sheen of Pandora’s humidity. The refined air shifted with his entrance, bringing with it the green-sharp scent of wet leaves and the loamy breath of the forest floor. In one of his hands, a specimen bag dangled by its strings.
“Hey, little Augustine," he greeted, voice pitched deep enough that it seemed to hum through your ribs. “Got that flower you wanted.”
You looked up, eyes wide, and your lips broke into a grin. “You actually found it?”
Of course he had. Jake had this habit, this annoyingly thoughtful habit, of bringing you little pieces of Pandora whenever he came back from the forest. Sometimes it was a rock with strange mineral striations, sometimes a leaf with colors you’d never seen before. You’d jokingly asked him about fetching you a particular flower called a Sun Lily, or tsawksyul to the natives, for your project. You half-expected him to forget. But he didn’t.
“You bet,” he answered, ears tipping back, angled with some emotion you couldn’t decipher. He stepped forward in that calm, rolling gait, setting the bag down on your workstation with an ease that disagreed with the restless sway of his tail behind him.
You looked away from his studying gaze to open the bag. Inside, the plant’s leaves shimmered faintly. The iridescent purple hue glowing like threads of moonlight.
“Where’s your mom?” He asked, trying to sound nonchalant as he glanced around the lab.
“In the greenhouse,” you said, still focused on the delicate patterns of the flower. “Why?”
Jake’s mouth quirked up like he had a secret he was dying to tell you. “Not exactly supposed to be in here like this,” he admitted, gesturing vaguely to the long length of himself. “She catches me, I’m in for it.”
You glance up again, meaning to tease him, but the look in his eyes makes you pause. He was watching you in that honed in, too-quiet way, as though you were something both dangerous and delicate. Something he wasn’t meant to touch, but he wanted to anyway.
You couldn’t decide if you were imagining it or not. You and Jake messed with each other, sure. Teasing, stealing one another’s snacks, occasionally incurring your mom’s wrath when she caught you both slacking off. That was normal; something friends did. But lately… lately things have changed. You’d been finding yourself noticing the slope of his shoulders in his avatar body, the way he moved with the kind of grace taught by the forest. More than once you had tried counting the little bioluminescent freckles on his face.
So when he looked at you like that? Definitely was not helping.
Human Jake was somewhat closed off, hard to analyze the way your scientist’s brain begged to. But avatar Jake was easier to read by a landslide. There was the flick of his ears, pulling back before angling forward again. The restless curl and uncurl of his tail. The slow sweep of his tongue along his teeth, catching slightly on the sharper points of his canines.
Truthfully, you were thankful that avatar Jake was hardly around. You’d never get any work done if all you did was stare at him.
“You’re… fidgety,” you said, curiosity outweighing caution.
His gaze sharpened for a heartbeat, then softened. “Just got a lotta energy right now. Neytiri’s been putting me through the ringer.”
You were about to press him—to ask what that meant—when he cleared his throat. His golden eyes darted to the side as if to shake off whatever was wrong with him. You didn’t quite believe the excuse, but before you could question him, his hands landed suddenly on the neck of your microscope.
“Jake!” The word burst out of you as he slid it across the table toward himself, the metal feet scraping faintly against the counter. Your gloved hands shot forward to stop him, but he brushed them aside with a light, almost teasing flick of his wrist.
“Whatcha working on,” he said, not a question so much as a quiet command to know.
You jumped as you felt the brush of his tail on the backs of your thighs as he bent, closing the space between you in small, deliberate increments. There was something creeping in the movements, like a predator hunting prey.
That’s sort of what he was now, in this body, a hunter. Na’vi were skilled huntsmen and women, and Jake’s avatar possessed all the attributes that made the Na’vi formidable. That fact made your chest tighten in a way that had nothing to do with fear.
Your eyes followed him carefully, and still, a sharp inhale escaped you when his palms pressed to the counter, caging you between the table and his towering form. Your shoulders hovered dangerously close to brushing the firm line of his navel.
Then came the curve of his tail again, sweeping down until it hooked lightly around your ankle. The pressure of it was gentle but inescapable. As if he had every right to do it, and he thought—knew—you wouldn’t protest.
“Hey—” You admonished him, though your voice came out thinner than you’d intended. You wiggled around as best you could, trying to find his face. “What is with you today?”
Jake grinned at your question, the kind of lopsided smirk that said he had no intention of answering it honestly. “C’mon,” he coaxed, leaning in so his shadow spilled over you and the counter. “Teach me something about all this science you lock yourself up with all day.”
You let out a shaky laugh, not quite able to disguise the edge of nerves. “I’m not a teacher, Jake. I’m a student,” you reminded him. “I’m still learning myself.”
“Then show me what you’ve learned,” he pressed, his voice low and warm in a way that seemed to bypass your ears and settle somewhere in your chest.
You duck your head, fussing with the microscope as if that could break the intensity of his gaze. “You wouldn’t find it interesting,” you insisted. “It’s just cataloging leaf vein patterns and pigmentation analysis. It’s very boring.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” he said, leaning closer until you could feel the faint heat radiating off him, the scent of rain-soaked foliage clinging to his skin. His tail loosened around your ankle only to curl there again, a slow, deliberate movement that made your stomach flip.
Friends didn’t act like this. You didn’t stand there with your pulse racing over some guy you traded sarcastic jabs with in the mess hall. But it was Jake. Which meant the rule you’d made for yourself about keeping things simple didn’t seem to matter much anymore.
Your laugh this time was softer, a little breathless. “Jake…” You shook your head, your smile faltering, but your pulse was thrumming. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”
His grin widened. “You’re extra grouchy today.”
You scoffed, though your voice wavered under the weight of his nearness. “That’s because my mom dumped a mountain of work on me this morning.” You gave the microscope a pointed little nudge, as though the sheer existence of your task list might physically push him back. “And, in case you forgot, you’re not even supposed to be in here like this.”
His ears flicked at that, but he didn’t move away. “So? You gonna kick me out, pretty?”
“I should,” you shot back with words that lacked enough bite. It was hard to sound authoritative when he spoke to you like that; called you things like that. Especially with the shadow of his hands draped over yours, dwarfing them with their sheer size. And when every exhale of his smelled faintly of sun-warmed leaves and damp bark.
Jake tilted his head, gaze sliding over your face in a way that made you feel like the one under a microscope. “Then do it,” he challenged softly.
You opened your mouth—ready to tell him to knock it off—but the hiss of the hydraulic door split the air before you could.
The shift in air pressure was immediate; the sterile current of the lab was replaced with the faint tang of greenhouse humidity. You didn’t have to turn to know who it was. The crisp, purposeful cadence of your mother’s boots on the metal floor was unmistakable.
Jake straightened a fraction, but not enough to put any respectable distance between the two of you. His hands stayed planted on the counter, his tail still loosely coiled at your ankle like he was daring her to notice.
“Well, isn’t this interesting.” Grace Augustine’s voice carried the kind of dry amusement that meant you were both in trouble. She strode into view, the lab’s fluorescent lights glaring down on her as she glared at you and Jake. “Sully, remind me, what’s the rule about you being in here when you’re all blue?”
He raised his hands in surrender, the barest flash of guilt breaking through his grin. “Just visiting, doc. Dropped something off.”
Your mom arched an eyebrow, glancing between you and the suspiciously close wall of blue muscle boxing you in. “Uh-huh, I’m sure.”
You opened your mouth to explain, but your voice felt lodged somewhere in your throat. Jake just smirked like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar.
Grace sighed, shaking her head as she moved past you, her hand reaching toward the specimen bag. “You’ve got five seconds to stop distracting my kid, marine. Then I start yelling.”
Jake finally stepped back, slow and reluctant, his tail unwinding from your ankle in one last intentional stroke. “Fine, fine. I’m going.”
You gazed after him even when the door hissed shut behind him. Your mom cleared her throat loudly, an obvious signal.
“Eyes on your work, kiddo.” She said without looking up from the bag, but the faint curl at the edge of her mouth told you she’d noticed far more than she was letting on.
You turned back to the microscope, but the image swam uselessly in and out of focus. All you could think about was the phantom weight around your ankle and the heat of a blue shadow.
FOLLOWING YOUR MOM’S INSTRUCTIONS WAS HARDLY EVER A CHALLENGE. The lists, the schedule, the specific directions helped you keep track of day to day tasks. Having a strict plan was beneficial to not losing your mind in the never ending biorhythm you called life on Pandora. You barely ever argued against what she wanted you to do. But there were times when you got a bit stir crazy.
So when your mom finally allowed you to tag along on a field run, you tried not to look too eager.
The rover rattled over root-knotted ground until at last the forest opened its jaws and swallowed you. You stepped down into it with a reverent excitement, boots sinking into moss that exhaled under your weight. The light filtered through the canopy of the trees in fractured beams, each one a column of green-gold fire, alive with drifting motes of pollen. The air pressed in, humid and thick, humming with an orchestra of fluttering wings, distant calls, and the groaning creak of ancient trunks shifting with their age.
Through the glass of your Exopack, you tried to drink it in all at once. Every shade of green, blue, purple, and orange seemed exaggerated, as if the forest had been painted with too-bold strokes. Leaves the size of your torso arched above, beaded with pearls of recent rain. When the droplets fell, they hit the undergrowth with a sound like soft percussion.
You trailed behind your mom’s and Norm’s avatars, trying to keep up with the long-legged ease of their alternative bodies. You, by contrast, were painfully aware of every uneven patch, every rock that threatened to attack your footing.
Still, it was worth it. You barely ever got the chance to come out here. One of the disadvantages of not having an avatar of your own. For once to have no metal walls separating you from Pandora’s living pulse was well worth the tricky terrain.
For a while you managed just fine. Keeping your steps careful, a case of sample containers in one hand. A few times your eyes were drawn to the flora and fauna around you. Your attention on blooms and buds rather than the path ahead. The scientist in you wanted to stop and take a sample from whatever looked interesting, if only to take them back to the lab and catalog the inner workings of them. But field missions weren’t sightseeing expeditions. You were out here to collect root samples from the cycad trees, not stop every few seconds to gawk at the native plants.
You passed by a cluster of Helicoradian, their glowing orange spirals tempting you to tap them just to see how they retreated into the earth.
“Eyes up, kiddo!” Your mom’s voice called you back, always seeming to know when your head was wandering.
Up ahead the path spilled into a clearing where the cycad trees rose in congregation. They looked ancient, like everything else on this planet. Older than the metal bones of Hell’s Gate and older than the hands that built it. Their trunks were armored with anemonoid in rough spiraling plates. On the top of each column flared a crown of rigid fronds, green spears edged with faint luminescence, as though the trees had stored away slivers of starlight. The clearing smelled sharp and resinous, a tang that traveled through your Exopack and clung to your nose.
You were still a bit behind, but your mom was already at the base of the nearest tree. Her avatar’s queue swung as she tilted her head back, scanning the fronds of each cycad to determine which to take samples from first.
Norm was off to the side of you, busying himself pulling out instruments from his field kit, muttering something under his breath about contamination protocols.
“Make sure you watch the roots!” Your mom called over her shoulder, voice carrying easily through the clearing.
But her warning came too late.
The ground around the cycads was a living thing in its own right. Roots coiled and knotted together like the misshapen ribs of some buried giant, slick with moss and threaded through with thin vines that turned slippery underfoot. You adjusted your grip on your supplies, shifted your weight to step around a thick arch, and—
Felt your boot slide.
The world tipped as your ankle rolled with a sharp twist, pain flaring white-hot and immediate. A breath tore itself from your throat as you pitched forward, the forest lurching sideways in a blur of green. The sample case knocked hard against your knee as you stumbled, feet skidding uselessly on damp bark.
You hit the ground on one knee with a soft, ugly sound, moss cushioning the impact but doing nothing to dull the fire blooming in your ankle. Heat pulsed there, deep in the muscles, each throb sending a fresh wave of ache up your leg. You sucked in a breath through clenched teeth, more startled than anything.
Your mom’s head snapped towards you, braid swinging, and eyes widening as concern dawned across her face. “Don’t move, hun,” she said sharply, already striding over to you. Norm followed suit, instruments clattering softly back into his kit.
You tried to wave them off, more out of instinct than sense. “I- I’m fine,” you managed, though the words wobbled around the throbbing, growing more persistent by the second. When you shifted even a fraction, pain lanced up your leg, sharp enough to steal your breath. You hissed, half from the ache and half from sheer humiliation, before going still again.
Your mom crouched in front of you, her movements brisk but careful. Her large hands hovered just short of touching you. “Where’s it hurt?” She asked softly, golden eyes already assessing.
“My ankle,” you admitted. “I… slipped.”
“No kidding,” she muttered, gaze flicking to the treacherous lattice of roots beneath you. She gently nudged your boot off your foot, revealing the redness already blooming along the skin. She rotated your ankle just slightly, testing. You flinched despite yourself, a grunt of pain escaping you.
“That looks pretty bad,” Norm said quietly, stepping closer. His usual awkward humor vanished.
Exhaling through her nose, your mom fixed you with a stern look. “Field run’s over for you, hun.”
“No arguing,” she added, because she knew you too well.
You opened your mouth anyway, stubbornness flaring even in the face of being hurt. But the words died in your throat as another pulse of pain waved through your ankle. The limb throbbed with its own ugly rhythm, a hot, insistent reminder that Pandora did not care how badly you wanted to prove yourself capable.
“I can carry her,” Norm offered as he crouched beside you, glancing between you and your mom. “It’s not far back to the rover.”
Your mom took only a moment to think before nodding. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”
Embarrassment prickled at the back of your neck. “I can hop,” you said weakly, as if that might somehow make this better.
Norm gave you a look somewhere between apologetic and clumsy firmness. “You’re not hopping anywhere,” he said, trying for humor and missing it entirely. “Not unless you want to make it worse.”
He moved carefully, one arm sliding behind your back, the other under your knees. The world shifted again as he lifted you, the new height making your head swim for a split second. You instinctively grabbed onto his shoulders, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt. Norm was all steady awkwardness, extremely aware of where his hands were and how he was touching you.
“Sorry,” you murmured, mortified.
“Don’t be,” he said quickly, adjusting his grip. “I’ve had my share of stumbles out here too.”
Despite yourself, a breathy laugh slipped out of you, dissolving into a wince once he began to walk. He was being as careful as he could, but each step sent a slight tremor through you as the motion jarred. The forest moved around you as Norm navigated the roots with exaggerated caution, his long legs stepping easily where yours had failed.
From this height, Pandora felt different, and you were once again caught by the disappointment of not having your own avatar to navigate the remarkable planet. It was more overwhelming at this high advantage somehow. The canopy loomed closer, tall leaves able to brush your shoulders as Norm passed beneath them. Somewhere nearby, a creature chirred sharply, answered by a distant, echoing call that reverberated through the clearing.
Your lingering embarrassment said they were mocking you.
BY THE TIME YOU MADE IT BACK TO HELL’S GATE, THE ACHE IN YOUR ANKLE HAD SETTLED INTO A DEEP, SULLEN THROB. No longer sharp, but still insistent. Med Bay had wrapped it snugly, a careful lattice of white and compression, and sent you off with strict instructions to ice it and stay off your feet.
So that’s what you did.
Your quarters were dim; the only light on was the amber strip along the ceiling. The faint spill of Pandora’s nighttime glow added a calm overcast as it came through the narrow window. You lay propped on your bunk, one leg stretched out before you, the other tucked in close. A thin towel lay between your skin and the ice pack pressed to your ankle, the chill seeping in cold and biting. But it was welcome.
You exhaled, letting your head fall back against the wall. The day had wrung you out more than you’d expected. Between the adrenaline of the fall and the humiliation of being carried back like a wounded animal, exhaustion had crept in quick and heavy.
It was because of this fatigue that you realized at the last second that someone rapped a knock at your door before opening it.
“Hello…” you started, then stopped all within the same moment. You froze halfway pushing yourself upright. Jake filled the doorway; avatar Jake.
For half a beat you didn’t say anything. He stood too tall for the narrow frame, shoulders barely brushing the metal, his tail swishing behind him still out in the hall. Blue skin caught the amber light in soft gradients, freckles glowing faintly like silver embers in the slight darkness. His queue hung loose over one shoulder, threaded with tiny bits of leaves. Like he had been in a hurry on his way here.
Your room was built for humans. For narrow shoulders and shorter frames, not for Na’vi or avatars. Their tall stature and long tails weren’t meant to navigate such tight spaces. But there was Jake, ducking so he didn’t bang his head on the ceiling.
You blinked hard, then stared at him for another second, incredulous. “Jake!” You finally gasp as his tail sweeps across the desk, taking a few books with it. “What are you doing?”
His ears flick, angling forward like they always did when he was caught off guard. “Hey.”
Your mouth fell open before snapping shut. Then opening again. “How the hell did you even get in here like that?”
He huffed a deep laugh, one shoulder rolling in a half shrug that brushed dangerously close to a shelf holding some preserved samples. “Carefully,” he said, grinning.
“That’s not an answer,” you said, the shock bleeding into exasperation. But under it, hidden in the far corner of your chest, a familiar warmth began to spread like it always did in his presence. You dragged your eyes over him despite yourself, taking in the sheer scale of him cramped in your small room. “You're not supposed to be wandering around Hell’s Gate in your avatar.”
“I know,” he said quickly as if to fight off the lecture he knew you’d give him. “I- hey what happened, pretty?” he asked then, gold eyes zeroing in on your leg.
Your gaze dropped automatically to your ankle, still wrapped and propped up, the ice pack starting to melt, making the towel damp. When you looked back up, Jake was watching you with a focus that sent a delirious shiver down your spine. His gaze wasn’t edged with the playfulness from seconds before. This was sharper, fervent almost. Concern, stripped down to its barest form.
“It’s just a sprain,” you promised, suddenly feeling the need to downplay it. “It’ll be fine in a week or two.”
He took a step closer, crouching down to where he was more level with you. Then he seemed to stop himself from shuffling even nearer, shoulders pulling back, spine stiffening like he’d hit some invisible line.
“You’re back early tonight,” you pointed out, desperate to fill the sudden space of dense silence.
“Got let off,” he answered absently. “Neytiri said I was distracted.”
You laugh quietly. “Imagine that.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, but the smile didn’t fully form.
With him this close, the room felt smaller, if at all possible. Crowded was more like it. His presence filled the space in a way that human Jake never did. Not because he was less than in that body, but because he was always so closed off. He was more confident in his avatar, but even if he tried to hide it, he hated himself. It always made your heart ache for him.
You liked human Jake just as much as avatar Jake. If you were braver, you might even say you loved him, but that was a disaster waiting to happen. So you kept those confusing feelings to yourself even as the lines of your friendship began to blur on both sides.
He inhaled, deep enough that you could hear the intake of breath. His brow immediately furrowed, nose wrinkling as if he’d tasted something sour. His ears flicked back, pinned to the side of his head.
“You smell like Norm.” His face scrunched up in disgust, which you would have found funny had it not been for the equally repulsed tone in his voice.
“I- what?” A startled laugh slipped out of you before you could stop it. “That’s a weird thing to say, Jake.”
He dragged an azure hand down his face, his fangs peeking out behind the cage of his fingers almost like he was fighting off the urge to bare them.
“I couldn’t walk, so he carried me to the rover,” you said, feeling the urge to explain the situation. “It’s not a big deal,” you insisted.
Something dark flashed across his vision at that. Not anger, but something closer to offence. Like instinct bristled as reason lagged. His jaw tightened, and the way he looked at you… possessive wasn’t quite the right word. Protective didn’t cover the total breadth of it either. It was territorial in its raw, unfiltered reach.
You saw it in the way his pupils narrowed, in the subtle flare of his nostrils as he breathed you in again. Deeper this time, slower. Like he was trying to catalog every note of you and finding something there that did not belong.
His tail lashed once behind him before he pounced.
The space between you vanished in a single step. Too fast for you to react, too sudden for your mind to catch up. His thigh clipped the edge of your nightstand as he closed in, the impact sending it skidding sideways with a sharp clatter as a few loose items toppled to the floor.
“Jake-” you squealed, startled.
He didn’t answer as his arms came around you instead, broad and warm and impossibly solid, drawing you carefully off the bunk and against him. Not rough. Always gentle. One arm braced firmly behind your back, the other sliding under your thighs just enough to shift you without jarring your injured ankle. His movements were instinctive, precise, like even now some part of him was cataloguing your fragility and adjusting accordingly.
You gasped softly as your body was pressed flush to his, your good foot barely finding purchase against the floor. Your hands hovered uselessly for a moment before landing on his chest, fingers splayed over the unfamiliar warmth of his skin.
His breathing was harder now. Not really frantic, more controlled, but strained at the same time. Like someone holding a door closed against a rising storm.
“Jake?” Your voice came out smaller than you meant it to. A mix of both confusion and hopefulness.
He dipped his head without answering, burying his face into the curve of your neck.
The sensation of him being so close was overwhelming. A big mass of blue muscle and heat. The brush of his cheek, the warmth of his breath ghosting over your skin, the faint rasp of his inhale as he drew you in again and again. His nose pressed hard into the hollow beneath your ear. His braid lying over his shoulder brushes your chest.
You went still. Not because you were afraid, you could never be afraid of him, but because you were stunned. Because your body hadn’t decided yet what this meant, and your mind was scrambling to catch up. To make sense of it. You didn’t push him away, but you didn’t lean into him either. You simply stood there, caught in the gravity of him. And some part of you wanted to stay trapped in that pull forever. You wanted to get lost in him and never find your way out again.
Jake’s hands flexed against you, tightening just enough to be felt.
Possessive.
Anchoring.
His breathing, still heavy, turned uneven. A rough sound that vibrated through his chest and into yours. He inhaled once more, deeper this time, almost desperate in a way. Like he was trying to overwrite something, drown it out with sheer force of will.
Norm’s scent and your scent. Together.
A low sound slipped from his throat, whether he meant it to or not. Something between a growl and a frustrated sigh. His grip adjusted to pull you closer, his body curving around yours as if to shield you from everything else. To claim the space you occupied as his too.
As if to remind himself, and the world, that this was his. His woman. Even if he hadn’t said it. Even if he hadn’t let himself so much as believe it yet.
Mine.
The thought burned through him, unfiltered by logic or consequence.
His mouth brushed your skin, not quite a kiss, just the barest deliberate press of his lips and breath and scent against your neck. He lingered, his mouth resting there, breathing you in until the tension in his shoulders began to tremble.
You swallowed hard. “Jake,” you whispered, confusion threading through the sound. “What are you doing?”
Your voice finally reached him.
He froze, not pulling away yet, but stilling completely, as though the words had cut through the fog clouding his mind. His breath hitched once against your skin. His arms remained locked around you, but you felt the fight return to his posture. The conscious effort to rein himself back in.
For a long moment neither of you moved. Then, slowly, reluctantly, he lifted his head.
His eyes were blown wide, gold rimmed with black, something feral he looked almost ashamed of. His ears were pinned back, tail twitching once before going still.
“I-” His voice was rough, scraped raw. He swallowed. “I’m sorry.”
He loosened his hold, just enough to give you space, though he didn’t let go completely. As if he were afraid that if he did, something worse might spill out in its place. You were still pressed close enough to feel his heart hammering against your palms.
And suddenly, with his pulse so close to your skin paired with his intense gaze, you realized this moment had changed something irrevocably.
Whatever line you’d been dancing around? Jake had just crushed it underfoot as soon as he stepped into your room. And you had let him, all but welcoming its destruction. And neither of you could pretend otherwise anymore.
IT WAS STRANGE HOW SOMETHING SO SMALL AS ABSENCE COULD FEEL SO LOUD.
Jake’s absence was deafening, and you noticed it everywhere. The last week he’d been avoiding you; you heard it in the lack of his wheelchair rolling up to your lab station. At the doorways that never darkened with a too-tall blue silhouette. In the quiet moments when you caught yourself listening for footsteps or rolling wheels that never came. He avoided you with an efficiency that hurt more than if he’d done it clumsily.
No teasing jokes in the mess hall.
No poorly cut samples on your lab table.
No Jake, human or avatar, hovering just close enough to be distracting.
At first, you told yourself it was a coincidence. He was training to become one of the Omatikaya, after all. Schedules change, and your lab hours were probably just overlapping. Life on Pandora moved fast.
By the fourth day, the lie stopped holding much truth. And by the seventh, when even your mom asked where Sully had been, it burned.
You stayed late in the lab tonight. Not because you needed to, but because going back to your quarters meant too much time alone with your thoughts. Too much time to remember how it felt to have Jake’s arms around you, his broad chest under your palms, his breath ghosting over the skin of your neck. The overhead lights were dimmed to their lowest setting, most of the room lit only by bright screens and the soft bioluminescent glow of the forest beyond the reinforced glass.
You sat hunched over your workstation, ankle tucked carefully beneath the chair, data scrolling past your unfocused eyes. A half empty mug of tea rested near your elbow.
The lab was quiet enough that the sound of the hydraulic door opening echoed.
You didn’t look up even when the blue shadow you’d been yearning for came to view in your peripheral. Your shoulders tightened, though, a dull flare of irritation following close on its heels.
“Hey,” Jake said.
You let his greeting rot in the air a moment before finally lifting your gaze slowly.
He stood just inside the doorway, avatar body filling the frame like always. But once where he looked curious and sometimes restless, now he looked wrong. Out of place like never before. He was too still. His ears were angled carefully neutral, tail held intentionally calm behind him. Even his stance felt too measured, like he’d rehearsed it.
He looked like someone stepping back into something he abandoned for the first time again.
“Hey,” you echoed flatly.
He smiled, or tried to, but it didn’t quite land.
“Thought you might be in here,” he said, forcing his voice to sound light. “Figured I’d check in.”
You turned back to your screen without comment, fingers tapping a few keys harder than necessary. The silence stretched, taut and uncomfortable.
Jake shifted his weight. “How’s the ankle?”
“Still attached,” you said.
There was another pause as he took a step further into the lab. “Norm mentioned you’ve been pulling late hours.”
You looked at him then, something sharp and exhausted twisting in your chest. A week of unanswered questions pressed against your ribs, all of them demanding space.
“Oh,” you said coolly. “So it takes Norm telling you that I’ve been staying up late to bring you around?”
His brows furrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” you reply, voice tight, “that you disappear for a week without a word, and now you just show up. Like nothing happened.”
Jake opened his mouth, then closed it again. Something flickered behind his eyes; guilt, frustration, things he didn’t seem ready to voice.
You didn’t give him the chance to recover. “If you’re here to make yourself feel better, or to just check a box, you can go,” you said, turning back to your work. “I’m busy.”
The words landed harder than you meant them to, but you didn’t take them back. You never spoke to Jake with any real anger, mild annoyance maybe, but never had you been this mad at him.
For a moment, he simply stared at you. Then, before he could stop himself-
“Why?” he asked, sharp and bitter. “Your new boyfriend on his way?”
The lab seemed to go very, very quiet. You slowly turned to face him again; you stared at him for a few heartbeats. Then you laughed. A short, incredulous sound that scraped its way up your throat before you could stop it.
“What the fuck does that mean?” you asked.
Jake stiffened like he hadn’t expected that response from you at all. His ears flicked back, tail giving a sharp, irritated twitch behind him. He shifted his weight again, growing more restless, that forced calm beginning to crack at the seams.
“Norm also mentioned,” he said, voice tight, “some RDA asshat’s been coming around here. Talking to you. Getting a little too familiar.”
It took you a full minute to even place who he meant. The RDA tech, the one who’s hovered near your station a few times, asked too many questions about your work, lingered around in a way that had registered as mildly annoying at best. He was forgettable, irrelevant, so you hadn’t spared him a second thought.
“That’s-” you cut yourself off, shaking your head as disbelief bled into frustration. “That’s what this is about?”
Jake’s jaw flexed. “I don’t like it.”
“And why would it matter to you?” you shot back, something in you finally snapping; a clean, sharp break. “You act like I don’t exist after whatever the hell happened the other night, and now you’re worried about me with another guy?”
The words tumbled out faster the longer you spoke, the hurt you’d been swallowing all week at last finding its voice.
“You don’t talk to me. You won’t look at me. And now you just show up out of nowhere acting like you get to be territorial?” Your laugh this time was filled with brittle humor. “You don’t get to do that, Jake.”
He opened his mouth before snapping it closed again.
You watched something struggle behind his eyes, like he was weighing half a dozen answers and finding none of them safe enough to say. Your anger faltered just a fraction, leaving a raw, open wound in its wake as something dawned on you.
“Is the only reason you’re here really because you’re jealous?” you asked quietly, your voice filled with the realization that this all might have been one big game to him. That he’d just been toying with you the whole time, using the advantage of his avatar to play you.
The belief that you were right became more real the longer he was silent. But then you watched as his shoulders sagged a little, the fight draining out of his posture. His gaze dropped to the floor between you, then lifted again, gold eyes darkened with something heavier than jealousy alone.
“No,” he admitted hoarsely.
One word; simple, honest, and unprotected by any ulterior motive.
He came a few steps closer, then stopped himself just short of being able to reach out and touch you. His hands curled slowly into fists at his sides like he didn’t trust them to behave.
“I’ve been trying to stay away from you,” he admitted, the words sounding like they physically hurt him to say. “Because I don’t trust myself right now.”
Your breath caught despite your continued vexation.
“Jake-”
“I scared myself,” he continued, cutting in gently, finally meeting your eyes. “What happened in your room… the way I lost my head. That wasn’t how I wanted to be with you.”
Silence pressed in again, thick and intimate and unbearable.
“I thought if I stayed away,” he went on, voice low and roughed around the edges, “I could get myself under control. I thought it’d be better for you.”
“Turns out it just made me an asshole.” His jaw tightened as the admission hung between you, fragile and aching and real.
For a moment you didn’t know what to do with anything he just told you. Your anger had nowhere clean to go now. It dulled at the edges, turning inward, becoming something heavier. Confusion and a tenderness you hadn’t asked for.
Jake stood there like a man braced for impact, shoulders rigid beneath the soft glow of the lab’s screens. His tail had gone still behind him, but the rest of him was wound taut like a cable pulled too tight, trembling with the effort not to snap.
You stared up at him, searching his face for anything that made sense.
“What is wrong with you here lately?” You asked finally, voice hushed with the lack of clarity.
His breath hitched, and you thought he might retreat again. Shut down and swallow it back, turning into that closed off marine. Instead, his jaw clenched so hard you saw the muscle jump.
His hands flexed at his sides before he seemed to make a decision. He closed the distance left between you, crouching down in front of your chair to meet your eyes fully.
When he spoke, it was like something raw and bleeding was being torn out of him. “It’s this body.”
You blinked, and his ear flicked back in shame. “The avatar… it’s not just some suit I climb into.” His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “It’s got its own instincts. Its own needs.”
The words sounded bitter on his tongue. “I thought I could handle it,” he confessed. “I thought I was in control.” His eyes bore into yours, the gold heated like molten fire.
Your pulse thudded once, heavy, as he reached a blue hand up to skim along your throat.
Jake let out a shaky breath mixed with an amazed laugh. “Out there with Neytiri, she keeps telling me to listen. To let my body teach me.”
His lips curled, frustrated. “And it is.” His gaze dropped down to your lips, then snapped back up, intense. “It’s teaching me things I don’t wanna know about myself.”
The lab suddenly felt too small. You could hear the hum of the terminals, the faint distant throb of Hell’s Gate machinery, but underneath it all was Jake’s voice, threadbare with restraint.
“I can smell everything,” he said. “Hear everything. Feel everything.”
His hands came to rest on the arms of your chair, fingers wrapping tightly around as his skin spread taut over his knuckles.
“And when it comes to you…” He stopped like the rest of the sentence was too dangerous to let loose.
Your chest constricted.
“I’ve been trying to be respectful,” he said hoarsely. “Trying to be your friend. To be the guy who jokes around and brings you flowers and doesn’t-” His voice broke sharply. “Doesn’t look at you like I wanna take you apart.”
Silence slammed down so deafening you could hear the blood rushing through your ears. Your lips parted, but no sound would come.
“That night in your room when I smelled him on you…” His nostrils flared, like even the memory set something off in him. “It wasn’t rational,” he said, almost pleading with you to understand. “I know it wasn’t, but something in me just-”
One hand lifted from the chair arm, he pressed it hard against your chest like he wanted to brand you with his touch.
“Mine,” he whispered, the word stripped bare. “Everything screamed that you were mine.”
The word lingered between you, a hot, dangerous, trembling thing. You could feel where his palm rested against your chest, broad and warm and shaking faintly with the effort it took not to curl his fingers into you. His touch wasn’t rough, but it wasn’t neutral either. It was claiming and terrified all at once.
Jake’s breath was coming harder now, brushing over your mouth in uneven bursts. His pupils had blown wide, swallowing the gold of his irises until only a thin ring remained.
“That’s what scared me,” he said, voice breaking at the edges. “Not that I wanted you. I’ve wanted you for a long time.”
Your heart stumbled.
“But that it didn’t feel like a choice anymore.” His jaw clenched.
His hand slid from your chest to your waist, slowly. Deliberately giving you time and space to say no. Every inch he closed was measured, like he was walking through a minefield and waiting for you to shatter him into a million pieces.
Your breath had gone shallow. Your fingers tightened on the edge of your chair, but you didn’t push him away. You didn’t recoil or tell him no, because you wanted this just as much as he did.
He watched your face the entire time, searching for hesitation. When he found none, something in him gave. He rose from his crouch, towering over you again, and then—as careful as ever—he drew you up from the seat.
He sat you back down on the lab table, hands sliding around you, one settling at your lower back, the other bracing just under your ribs. He pulled you toward him inch by inch, waiting for resistance that never came.
Your palms landed on his chest as he paused there. Foreheads nearly touching, your breaths mingling. “Tell me to stop,” he murmured. “And I will.”
You said nothing.
The last thread of restraint snapped. Jake lowered his head to your neck, but this time there was no frantic desperation, only an insatiable, aching hunger he was unable to pretend didn’t exist. He nuzzled into the curve of your throat, slow and reverent and quivering. His nose dragged along your skin as he inhaled deeply, like he was memorizing you. Like he was replacing every trace of doubt with himself.
His lips ghosted over your pulse point. Not quite with a kiss, just the softest brush of his mouth. There was another and then another. Half-kisses that were barely there.
His breath fanned hot across your skin as he moved with the line of your throat, up beneath your jaw, and back down again. The scrape of his fangs grazed lightly over you without breaking skin, a sensation that made you gasp as your stomach flipped.
“I care about you,” he said into your neck, voice cracking like something tearing at the seams. “And that’s the problem.”
His arms tightened around you, shaking. “You deserve better than me losing my damn mind every time I’m around you.”
His mouth pressed more firmly now, still not fully kissing you, just heat and intent and possession. His fingers splayed at your back like he was anchoring himself to you. Like without you he would float away, lost to his worries.
“I don’t wanna hurt you,” he whispered, the words playing over your skin. “But I want you so fucking bad it hurts.”
The confession vibrated through you. His control was fraying; you could feel it in the tremor of his arms, in the way his breath stuttered when you shifted even slightly against him.
But he was still holding back, still waiting for you to reject him.
For all your anger at him this past week, you had missed him.
“If you think that I don’t want you nearly as bad,” you whispered, voice bordering on painful desire, “then you haven’t been paying attention.”
Jake froze, the words hitting him like an arrow. His mouth hovered over your sink, breath still fanning hot against it, but his body went rigid as if the confession had rotted him in place.
Slowly, he lifted his head. “What?” he rasped.
You swallowed, throat tight. You could feel your heartbeat everywhere. Under your flesh, behind your ribs, in the space between you where the air itself felt charged.
“I said,” you repeated softly, “that you haven’t been paying attention.”
His ears flicked forward, then back again, torn between hope and panic. His hands remained at your waist like he didn’t know what else to do with them. Like letting go would kill him.
“I’ve been pining after you for months,” you continued. “It’s kind of pathetic how much I want you.”
Your fingers lifted, hesitant for only a moment before you touched him. Just the edge of his jaw, the warm blue skin trembling under your fingertips.
Jake’s breath shuddered.
“You don’t think I haven’t played that night in my room over and over again in my head until it made me crazy?” You asked, eyes burning.
His throat bobbed. The restraint in him was a living thing, shaking and cracking.
“I missed you, Jake,” you admitted, voice breaking. “This entire week all I wanted was for you to show up and not to apologize.”
You leaned forward, close enough that your lips almost brushed his. “I wanted you because it’s you.”
He let out a sound, low and absolutely wrecked, like something inside him finally broke clean in two. His hands gripped your waist, not bruising but enough to convey the frenzy boiling under his flesh.
“You don’t know what you're saying,” he whispered, as if he needed all of this to be a misunderstanding just to survive it.
“I do,” you assured immediately. “I know exactly what I’m saying.” You drew in a breath, forcing the words past the constriction in your chest. “I want you, Jake.”
His name sounded like a plea falling from your lips.
“Fuck,” he breathed as his eyes fluttered shut.
Then he was tugging you forward, mouth capturing yours with a force that was born from his incessant need for you. A low groan tore from his chest and slithered down your throat as his teeth nipped your lower lip, his pupils blown wide as the black eclipsed the sun of his eyes.
There’s no hesitation anymore; he doesn’t pause to second guess or soften. He just took as he anchored you to him with all the intention to never let you go again. He swallowed your startled sound, claiming it for himself, tucking it away in the treasure chest he meant to fill with more like it. It was ravenous, the way he kissed you, matching the hunger festering in his ribs.
His hands were everywhere and nowhere at once. Gripping your waist and sliding up your spine. His touch was devout in its desperation, the kind of worship that came from wanting something too much to treat it carelessly.
He broke from your mouth only to drag his lips down your jaw, pressing open-mouthed kisses under your ear. His breath was hot, uneven, his voice nothing more than a fractured exhale.
“Christ,” he muttered.
You shivered, fingers clutching at his shoulders. “Jake,” you whispered, your voice ending his name with a whine.
“This what y’wanted?” he breathed, settling you farther back on the lab table. He nudged your head back, giving him more of your throat. His plush lips trail down your neck, leading to your collarbone.
You nod frantically, not trusting your voice. Your hands clamber to hold on to something, moving from his shoulders to his biceps.
He raises his head and looks at you like you were something sacred and ruinous all at once. “Yeah?” he asked, a playful grin pulling at his mouth. He slots himself between your thighs, your legs spreading wide to accommodate his sheer size. You don’t want to think too hard about how everything would possibly fit together.
Thankfully you don’t have time to. A gasp flies past your lips as Jake licks a line from the top of your covered breasts up to the curve of your jaw. “Yeah y’do,” he chuckles. “I can taste it on your skin, baby.”
Your entire body jerks when he all but tears your shirt over your head. The cool sterile air of the lab hits you, and goosebumps erupt along your flesh. Jake’s warmth is right there, though, as his hands extend across the full expanse of your ribcage, thumbs digging in to keep you in place.
“Look at you,” he breathes out a sigh of wonder. He bends farther, taking his expedition of kisses to the tops of your breasts, where they spill out of your bra. His tongue darted out here and there to taste.
“Oh god,” you mewl, throat bobbing as you try to swallow back more cries. You bring yourself closer to him, pressing forward on the strong planes of his striped chest. You feel his hands snake behind you, and then your bra is being slipped off your shoulders.
The little whimpers you’re letting out, all for his tongue and lips mapping your skin, send throbs of pleasure straight down to his cock. He can feel it begin to strain against his tewng. It clouds his judgement even more: your scent, your heat, the softness of your helplessly small body against his own. He’s all but thrown common sense out the window.
Restlessness courses through you as his onslaughts of affection overwhelm your senses. A rough sigh snags in your throat when his fangs tease over one of your nipples. Your hands, still clinging to his biceps, roam down until one wraps around his braid. It just sits there, not pulling or tugging, but it's enough to pry a growl from him.
A shiver races up your spine as he guides you to lie back against the table. The cold metal biting into your bare skin. A blue shadow hovers over you, the starvation that he’s held waiting pouring out of his fathomless eyes. You feel hot to the touch as he lavishes you with kisses, his lips memorizing the plush of your belly, the stuttering breath weeping behind the cage of your ribs.
“Jake,” you whine again, wiggling your hips.
“Okay, okay,” he chuckles. His hands hook into the belt loops of your jeans as you lift your hips for him. One smooth tug is all it takes for him to have them off, leaving them in a pile on the lab’s floor.
He traces a finger down the front of your panties, pressing firmly on your clit as he does so. Your pulse jumps, your need growing frantic and you wonder how he’s so calm all of a sudden.
“So pretty,” he drawls. He’s shaking from the inside out, but he’s trying really damn hard not to let his restraint fry. He doesn’t want to scare you. “So fucking wet… all f’me.”
He sinks to his knees, sliding your panties off before spreading your thighs as far as they’d go until they rested flat on the tabletop. He inches further and further to your core, stamping kisses every few inches to the inside of your thighs as he goes.
His chest heaves as he takes in the sight of you bare. You really are the prettiest woman he’s ever seen. Even prettier when you're all laid out for him. His eyes meet yours before he’s lowering his mouth to your center. Not breaking your gaze as he flattens his tongue over your cunt.
You jolt at the first feeling of it rolling over you, coarse and warm and wet. He licks into the quivering depths of you, reaching so deep inside it hurts. You moan outright, fingers scratching at his shoulders. He hums between your legs, the sound skipping through your core up to your ears.
“Jake,” you sob, eyes snapping close as if cutting off your sight would make the pleasure a little less overwhelming. Even his tongue felt huge against you—so, so good, but big.
Jake watched you with a predator’s focus, gaze sharp as your face twisted with rapture. Your hips roll upwards on their own accord, chasing his mouth. His arms wrapped around your thighs to hold you still, to keep you at the mercy of what he’s willing to give you. He sucks your clit into his mouth, earning a squeal from your already raw throat.
“Oh- oh god-”
Hearing your teary voice crying out for him has the single thread of butchered control tying him together all but burning away. Your cunt is so warm and tight around his tongue he shudders to imagine what it would feel like trapping his cock inside you. “Fuck, pretty, can barely take my tongue. How’re you gonna fit my dick inside you?”
You can’t answer; you can’t think around the haze of heat between your legs.
He moves his mouth to replace it with one of his fingers, the tip making light circles around your entrance. “Gonna stretch you a little, baby,” he says before slipping the digit inside.
You gasp around a moan, the stretch of his long finger strange but good. His thumb rubs patterns on your clit in time to each exploratory movement of his finger. He adds a second a few minutes later, spreading your cunt open in the hopes of his cock being allowed entrance.
“Need you to cum first, honey,” he mumbles. Tears gather at your waterline as he works his fingers in and out. “Can’t fuck you if you don’t.”
He lowers his head back to your center, his lips taking your clit between them again. He sucks and nibbles on it as his fingers climb you higher and higher. A wave of heat flushes through you, spreading from your core going all the way through your nervous system. Your thighs yearn to close around him, but one strong arm still keeps you wide open for him. He curls both tips of his fingers up, tapping against your g-spot with a speed that makes your back arch and a yelp of pleasure-pain echo into the lab.
“There again,” you gasp, hips writhing and bucking trapped in his hold. “God, Jake…”
He happily obliges, digits and mouth working you towards your peak with a wild determination. He needed to fuck you, all his instincts roaring at him to take you, but he needed you ready for him. His ears flick towards the sound of a faltering whine, and then you’re breaking apart for him.
He thinks you might actually be crying as you sob around the moans slipping from your mouth. Your fingers dig into his skin while your chest heaves, your release dripping down his hand and chin.
Soothing your live wire of a body, he repositions himself above you. Trailing his lips along your neck, he breathes in the heady scent of your climax clinging to your skin. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he rasps.
“Really?” You wish your voice didn’t sound so small, but the magnitude of a moment like this was profuse.
He mindlessly ruts his hips into yours, dragging his hard length along your thigh. His breath hitches at your surprise, the sweet doubt you still held about yourself being important to him. He had a long list of damage he now needed to fix after his stunt this week.
“Course you are, pretty.” The indigo blush heating his face had everything to do his with need to fuck you and from baring his feelings out like this. “Missed you so much this week while I was being a skxawng. Could hardly focus on my lessons with Neytiri with you on my mind.”
With one hand pulling you down further on the table, his other went to the strings of his tewng. He plucks the strings undone and the fabric falls to the floor.
You’re lying flat on your back so you can’t see what’s about to be placed inside you. And that just won’t do. “Can I see?” You ask timidly, already sitting up with your weight rested on your elbows.
Jake chuckles but indulges you, stepping back so you can get a full look. Oh. Is the only thing you can think once you’ve got your eyes on him. The long length is a darker blue than the rest of his body, splattered with those same bioluminescent freckles. The tip glows with pre-cum, and the scientist in you can’t help but be intrigued by that.
He seems to be able to read your mind because he crowds back into you. “Alright, my little scientist,” he teases, “there’s plenty of time for you to study it later.”
He nudges the tip into your entrance, coating it with your slick. You whimper at the sensation, and he glances up at you. “It’ll hurt a bit,” he warned, no maybes or possibilities; it was gonna be a tight fit. But he needed you like an Ikran needs the open air, and he knew you could take it.
His arms shake with the weight of both holding himself up and back from rutting his entire length into you like a wild animal. A deep groan rumbles in his chest as he lines the head up with your entrance; he ever so slightly pushes it in.
“Oh my god, Jake!” You shriek, your mouth drops open, and a blend of pleasured and pained sounds spills out. You were dizzy with desire as the aching feel of him effectively split you open. And it was only the tip so far. “S-slow please,” you stammer, hands reaching for purchase before landing on his chest. A burning need throbbed inside you to take more of him.
And he appeases that by languidly sinking his cock within you. Little by little until the first inch has disappeared inside your cunt. You tense, walls clutching at him; the intrusion hurts, but that doesn’t stop you from arching your back just to feel him better.
“Easy, that’s it,” he coaches, “let me in, baby.” Harsh pants ghost over your face; his length seems to pulse impatiently. You can tell he’s fighting his urges, the base instincts that scratch at him. He’s trembling with the effort to not hurt you. That thought alone makes you whimper; he really is so good.
He pushes a bit more inside you, but this time something sharp shoots through you. “Wait,” you exclaim. “Just a minute.”
“I’m sorry, pretty, sorry,” he sputters, stilling his hips. He busies himself placing kisses to your neck again, whispering encouragement in your ear. “Breathe for me,” he orders softly.
“Okay, you can move,” you whisper, once the pain subsided and all that was left was the dull ache of him.
“Yeah?” he asked, a smirk playing on his lips. “Y’want me to fuck you?” Upon seeing you nod, his hips resume their movement. Tracing back to the leisurely rhythm to work more of his cock into you.
Sometime between breathless whines and small thrusts of Jake’s hips, his cock sinks almost all the way inside your cunt. Only the last inch or so remains, and that’s good enough for him. He gives no warning when he draws completely out before ramming back in.
“Jake!” You keened, going nearly limp in his arms. The press of him was all but seared into your muscles, your bones, even the pores of your flesh. Your stomach flips with bottomless pleasure that only expands with every drag of his cock. Tears tracked down your cheeks, your emotions having nowhere else to go with him taking up any and all room.
His hands are on your waist, pulling you to meet his thrusts. You hear him moan, the low sound vibrating between you. You’ve never felt so full before as he retreats and then pushes back in. The bad pain is gone, replaced by this deafening wave of ecstasy that seemed like it would never crest.
“Please, please, Jake,” you babbled as he slightly picked up his pace. His fingers dig deeper into the skin at your waist as he continues to haul you down. He meets you halfway with a sharp thrust that finally lets him bottom out. Your vision goes bright white for a moment, a watery sob ripping its way from your parted lips, as he hits your cervix.
Your cunt clenches so tight around him he outright cries out. His head falls to your sternum, his hips continuing their assault. Then he’s growling, his fangs scraping across your flesh. It starts as little nips and then graduates into him taking a group of skin between his teeth and biting. You yelp as he smooths over each mark with his tongue.
Being entirely inside you now has him turning ravenous. He can’t be careful; what little control over himself he had left vanished. His hips roll into yours, branding each and every ruinous thrust through your cunt. His cock making a permanent home for him inside you that would welcome him back each time. The mounting feeling of white-hot heat bubbling in your lower stomach came on quickly. It caught you off guard as you threw your arms over Jake’s shoulders.
He steals your keening wail as his mouth comes over yours again. He sneaks a hand between your bodies, finding the sensitive pearl of your clit. He times his thrusts with his finger’s circles, coaxing you closer and closer to that peak.
“Oh fuck yeah,” he moans, shuddering as your core flutters around him. The hand at your clit speeds up, and you claw and scratch at the back of his neck.
“J-Jake, gonna… oh god!” You’re scrambling for your sanity as you're tightening around him. “Please,” you beg, “I need… Jake, can I?”
You’re asking him for permission? It makes his brain go a tad fuzzy around the edges, you asking him if you can cum. His hips falter as he growls into your neck, the sound beguiling another needy whine from you.
“You go right ahead, baby,” he manages to groan out. “You can cum.”
You feel his cock twitch as his movements quicken. A gasp of his name sounds as your warmth clenches around him. Your back arches off the table while you cry out in pure relief, your nails leaving indents on the skin of his neck.
Jake isn’t far behind you after he watched your quivering cunt climax on his dick. His jaw goes slack as he chases his own. “My pretty girl,” he coos, face nuzzling the crook of your neck. You can hear him mumbling sweet nonsense. “Fuck me, baby, so good f’me. My girl, mine.”
The knot at the base of his spine unravels, spreading through his stomach. He gives you one, two more thrusts before he’s moaning your name and filling you with wave after wave of heat.
“God,” he whispered after a stretch of silence, shaking his head like he was overwhelmed by the sheer fact of you. “You’re unbelievable, you know that?”
There was some whincing as he pulled out of you and some rustling of clothes as he helped you dress. You felt like a limp doll in his hands as he moved you this way and that way. He took good care of you, giving the fact that it was him that had put you in such a stupor.
He lifted you easily into his arms, settling your limbs to wrap around him. You laid your head on his shoulder as he exited the lab. The halls leading to the personal quarters flashed by before you closed your eyes and drifted off to sleep.
I'm still getting use to writing for Avatar and Jake, so this might be a bit rough around the edges. I hope you all enjoyed, though!
After Quaritch's colossal fuck up that led to General Ardmore's death, you've been promoted to—by proxy—the new general of RDA's scattered forces. While Varang mourns Quaritch who is left comatose, you naturally become a foil to his character. Happy, genuinely good, and most of all—a reliable leader. Like a spark to a flame—or a ring leaders final defeat—Varang and Quaritch both realize they've met their match.
A/N- In honor of all my followers and readers who are always so patient and so loving. Please enjoy!
Part Two Coming Soon
Duties were one thing.
When you signed on with the RDA's militia—some glorified grunt work on a moon nobody back home could pronounce—you hadn't really known what you were walking into. Tall, beautiful Na'vi women? Hell yeah. Six-legged nightmare creatures that'd chew through cartilage and spit out your bones?
Nah. Not so much.
You'd died about seven months in—a damn monkey of all the stupid ways to go. Prolemuris, the scientist had said. Supposedly non-violent. Yours had other ideas. Chewed through cheek and jaw until the only thing left recognizable was your dog tag, still tangled in what used to be your throat.
But there was a silver lining to bleeding out in alien dirt.
The avatar.
"Y/N!" One of the guys tossed up a hand for a high-five. You met it, remembered at the last second to pull your strength, and still nearly sent him stumbling. Avatar strength was something else. Na'vi strength, really. Even a greeting could break bones if you forgot yourself.
"Hey, did you finish those files I sent?" You sipped from your bowl-sized mug, the ceramic warm and almost delicate in your oversized palm. You glanced back over your shoulder. Samuel. That was his name. Good guy. Decent work ethic. He grimaced.
Right.
The bags under his eyes told you it wasn't laziness keeping him from the paperwork—it was exhaustion. The kind that came from holding together the infrastructure that kept Bridgehead from becoming a glorified camping trip with guns.
He shifted his weight and rubbed the back of his neck, fingers digging into the knot of stress there. Good man. Tired man. "Sorry, Y/n... Half the admin team's gone."
You sighed through your nose, ears flicking back.
Of course he hadn't finished. Half of everything was gone now, the resources, the men. Half the point, if you let yourself think about it too long.
You didn't.
After Quaritch's colossal screw-up—the one that left Ardmore in a body bag and scattered the RDA forces like buckshot, you'd been the unlucky bastard promoted to pick up the pieces. Shovel the shit and smile while doing it.
All because Quaritch couldn't keep his dick in his pants and his vendettas in check. All because Ardmore got herself killed trying to clean up his mess.
Most days it felt like holding water in your fists.
"Think of your families," you'd told them, exhausted. "Back on Earth, dealing with all that other bullshit. Make them a home here. You're the pathfinders. The originals.They'll give you land, titles, the whole fucking package when this pays off." You'd leaned in, let your height—this body's height—loom just enough. "Focus on the job."
It had worked. Mostly. People liked being told their suffering had a purpose.
"Thanks, ma'am." Samuel's hand twitched toward a salute before he caught himself, an old habit. "I'll get it to you."
"Yeah." You took another sip,and let the bitter cut of coffee settle on your tongue. It tasted different in this body, everything did. "You do that."
You were easy. That's what set you apart from Ardmore
She was military—came from military—and it showed in every clipped tone, all that rigidity she'd dragged from Earth still locked in her shoulders.
You weren't like that. You knew what a militia was. Knew it stayed a militia no matter how many star-generals they pinned to their chests or how crisp they wanted the salutes. The force was stitched together from ex-cops, ex-military, ex-something—people who'd left their last lives behind and came here looking for a new one. Or running from an old one, same difference.
You wouldn't force order where it didn't fit, nor would you pretend this was anything other than what it was. That slack in the leash earned you something close to loyalty. Or at least, it kept the grumbling to a manageable pitch.
"Any word from Quaritch?"
You glanced at Wainfleet beside you. Head bald, skin smoothed to a shine. You remembered him paying the sci-ops guys to keep it that way—some chemical treatment so the hair wouldn't grow back. Couldn't stand the thought of stubble creeping back—Didn't see the appeal in the constant shaving, he said.
"Nope." He didn't even look up.
You clicked your tongue. "Fucking figures."
Lyle's grin split wide—an actual grin, the kind that pushed against his eyes. “You’re gonna beat him blue, ma’am?”
You muffled a slow smile. “Nah—purple.”
He laughed again and his hand came up like he might touch your shoulder—hovered there for half a second—then dropped back to his rifle strap instead.
The guy was well-liked across the sector, a proper Pandora veteran, the kind with stories that kept circling back in mess halls and smoke breaks. Everyone knew his name and his face—and you knew well enough that having him at your side lent you borrowed credibility.
Because to put it plainly: You weren't one of them.
You hadn't crawled through boot camp or earned your scars in some dusty colonial firefight. You weren’t a grunt, never bled in some Earth-side military operation. You never even held a rifle except in the training sims they'd made you run through.
The RDA didn't hire you to shoot blue savages or burn forests. They hired you because you understood how people worked.
That was it.
That was the whole trick.
You'd spent most of your life watching a political science and communications degree gather dust on your wall, and the one time you did use it, you applied it in different ways. Like organizing. Like getting people to listen. Like—eventually—striking against the RDA for fair wages.
You'd been good at it. Too good, maybe.
You'd managed to fuck over their operations back on Europa, enlisted over twenty thousand workers to strike—which sparked others, simultaneously, across three colonies. A domino effect. Beautiful, at least you thought so.
The suits gave you two choices: a bullet or a badge.
You took the badge.
You really should have taken the bullet.
You rounded the hall and stopped.
Varang. Quaritch's girl.
She'd agreed to stay after you'd laid out the terms—RDA would compromise, let her operate with autonomy, provide resources, turn a blind eye to whatever the hell she wanted, so long as she delivered bodies and intelligence. You'd even let her keep Quaritch, despite the fact that the bastard deserved a firing squad for his third catastrophic overreach of authority.
"Shit, forgive me Varang.” The Na'vi left your mouth in textbook precision, the overly formal dialect you'd drilled into yourself. Because barely anyone cared enough to understand na’vi.
Varang stood directly in your path. A head shorter, which meant she had to tilt her face up to meet your eyes. Strange, considering her kinds usual advantage.
"You are pardoned," she murmured.
The usual smirk was gone. In its place sat something harder to place—a grimace, but you thought it was something uglier.
She didn't hiss, which was what you'd braced for, honestly. The woman had this quality that made your skin prickle between fascination and the goosebumps of hair standing up on your neck. Unsettling and magnetic in equal measure—thats what it was—like watching something beautiful rot slowly.
You glanced at the queue hung against her shoulder.
You heard about how she lost in the battle, and that loss had carved her face into the youth it was, hidden in some faux confidence. But you could tell, always. Varang didn't say much these days.
Still.
You shifted aside to let her pass, but caught it—the flicker of her eyes tracking down, then up again, and where they dragged, they lingered before leaving.
"I think someone sees somethin' they like." Wainfleet's elbowed you. You cocked a brow, the corner of your mouth twitching despite yourself.
“She looks like she wants to eat me.”
"Two girls eating each other out, count me—"
"Oh, shut the fuck up, Wainfleet."
"Yes ma'am."
.
.
.
You'd see Varang a few more times after that—mostly in the infirmary, where Quaritch was still recovering from his burns. Which, had left him looking wrong. The flesh puckered and raw, wrinkled kinda like an old prune. You watched her trace those marks sometimes, fingers following the scars with a focus that left no interpretation of tenderness and more apathy.
You watched him settle uneasily, even in sleep. Sometimes she'd dig in hard, pressing until the marks flared red and violent again. You wondered what the purpose was. To harm? To feel?
You came upon one of those instances again.
You were just visiting—making rounds through the injured, playing the role expected of you and trying to lift morale by playing the usual smiles, the usual compliments, sprinkled with a few well-placed words. The song and dance you got good at. You liked to think that since you were nicer than Ardmore and more reliable than Selfridge or Quaritch, they responded to you better.
Technically, they did.
"Y/N!" One of the amputees lifted his nub in greeting, waving it like a flag. "You come to visit us again?"
You nodded. Had to crane your neck down, but you settled your weight into a crouch, shimmying forward until you were eye level. "Yes, sir."
A gesture over your shoulder brought the cafeteria workers forward, arms laden with slices of pie and bottles of cheap booze.
"Shit, are we dying?" one said.
Those who could manage it shuffled upright, reaching for the offerings with eager hands.
"It's Thanksgiving on Earth," you lied. Not that they'd know. You helped distribute the forks, metal clinking softly against plastic trays. "And you men deserve some pleasures, yeah? What do you think?"
Several cheers.
You chuckled, folding yourself up again. Your ear twitched at the sound of a muffled gasp, and you glanced back toward the movement. Still had to get used to it—you'd even tied your tail to your calf since it kept hitting people in the face.
And there she was, the witch of the RDA.
Quaritch was deep in sleep, bandaged to the nines, heart monitor beeping its steady rhythm. Varang's fingers pressed into his skin again, nails finding the seams of scar tissue, digging until his breath hitched even in unconsciousness. You frowned. The nurses didn't intervene anymore. The doctors couldn't, really.
What would they do? Threaten her? The eight-foot Na'vi warrior?
"Fuckin' bitch."
You glanced back at the man who muttered it—Corporal Hayes, both legs gone below the knee—his eyes fixed on the glass partition. One of them shook his head, mouth twisted in disgust. "One of their ikrans ate Ted. She hissed at me when I got too close, and Quaritch just scolded her. Like she was a goddamn pet."
Murmurs of agreement rippled through the beds.
Varang and Quaritch were separated into another glass sector. The men wanted nothing to do with him anymore. Three times he'd led good men to their deaths. The first time, he was a martyr. The second time, the men still believed—though murmurs started coming up. The third time?
Three strikes and you’re out.
"Don't call her that." Your voice was firm, already cutting through the low grumbles. "I don't want that language, alright? Not from any of you."
You sighed, moving among them now, to rest a hand on Hayes's shoulder. Gentle, you reminded yourself. Not too much force. They huffed, sullen but obedient like children.
"I know you're all tired. I know you're angry." You paused, and shifted your weight. "Don't have to be in the field to see it written all over you. But we can't let those natives sow discord, yeah? See what happens when you focus too much on those blue monkeys?" You jerked your chin toward the glass partition, where Varang's silhouette loomed over Quaritch's prone form. "That's what happens. So just keep it distant. Impersonal. Shoot them if you have to, but don't make it personal. I don’t want love stories or vendettas. Just the mission."
They nodded, glancing back at the Na'vi woman and her pruned-up man. A few clicked their tongue.
You frowned, shifting your gaze to Wainfleet. He caught it immediately, giving a subtle nod as if he'd already known what you were thinking. He stepped forward, voice low and easy as he picked up the conversation, drawing their attention back.
You grabbed the last slice of pumpkin pie and the remaining bottle of booze, then turned toward the glass separator.
The door hissed open.
Varang's fingers were bloody when you entered, although the door shut behind you, sealing the sterile air of blood inside. She sat hunched beside Quaritch's cot, hands knotted together, tail draped lifeless across the floor. You saw even from your location that her knuckles were split, and underneath the beds, her nails were rimmed dark.
Blood or paint, or just as likely—both.
"Varang,"
You said it the real way. Na'vi on your tongue instead of the clumsy English shape most defaulted to. Ardmore didn’t like using the language, and selfridge couldn’t be bother to know it.
She didn't turn, but her ears flicked. She knew.
“Brought you something.” Her gaze slid sideways and tracked your approach as you settled beside her, weight shifting until you found your spot.
"Y/n."
Your brows lifted. "You know my name?"
Her lips twitched—something that wasn't quite a smile. She looked back at Quaritch's motionless form. "They say it fondly."
…Strange.
You pushed the pie closer, insistent. "You gonna eat? Not as good as the real stuff on Earth. The spices are genuine enough, but the pumpkin…" The words flattened, You tried again. "It's artificial. But it tastes right."
She accepted it slowly, eyes narrowing. "Why give this to me?"
You shrugged. "You haven't eaten, not since you and him came back." A pause. Your voice dropped. "Come on, let me see you try it."
She went very, very still.
Her pupils dilated.
"You bite first."
Ah. There it was.
You almost laughed. Would've, if her hand hadn't drifted—so casual toward the blade strapped to her thigh. "It's not poisoned. Jesus, Varang. If I wanted you dead, I'd gun you down. Not waste precious chemicals on pastry." You reached beneath her hands and took a generous bite, chewed deliberately, swallowed. Opened your mouth, then stuck out your tongue. "There. Proof. M’ not convulsing. Not even foaming at the mouth. I'm pretty alive, don’t you think?"
Varang frowned. Her eyes traced the baby canines you had—blunt things, rounded at the tips. Nothing like a true Na'vi's.
Cute.
She leaned forward and sniffed, nose wrinkling before she took a cautious bite.
The chewing is what got you. She didn’t seem to like the texture, at least you thought so at first. Her brow furrowed, ears swiveling back as she worked it over her tongue, testing, a hint suspicious. But then she took another bite, and then another. Her tail began to sway, just slightly, or until she noticed you watching and went rigid.
"You stare."
Her ears went flat against her skull.
"It's nice is all."
"Why?"
Quick now—she finished in four more bites then licked her fingers clean. You watched the pink of her tongue catch the flakes of crust, the smear of filling at her knuckle.”
"Well..." You blinked. "Hunger's pretty common on Earth. You see fat humans here 'cause the RDA feeds 'em well. Or well enough. They eat as much as they can. But on Earth? Just about everyone's skin and bones." A whisper now. "It's nice seeing people eat when you’re used to hunger."
Your eyes glazed over, seeing some memory you didn’t voice. Varang saw it, and her tense shoulders slowly relaxed.
Quaritch's monitor beeped.
Beeped again.
That took you out of your stupor. Great. Way to be emotional in front of the woman who probably wants you dead. You stood, knees cracking faintly. "I uh, I gotta leave." You grumbled it in apology. "Enjoy the booze. Grab more if you'd like." You patted her back—and you were moving toward the door when she finally spoke.
"It was like that for my people as well."
You lingered, and although it did not show in your face you felt a jutting bout of empathy, likened by your restrictive trail that wished to sway.
"When the fires came we didn't have anything to eat." Her spine curved inward. You just listened, gave her that space. "I remember the hunters tried, really tried..." She said it slowly, and she too slipped somewhere terrible and unvoiced. "My father did nothing."
Now that—that was pure hate. Her hands became fists. You heard the wet sound of it, the fresh blood welling.
"He prayed," she continued, her voice suddenly became flat. "Prayed to Eywa while we starved. While my mother—" She stopped. "He said it was Her will. That we must accept that balance required sacrifice. As if he was Tsahik and knew the ways." Her laugh became skidded. "The Balance."
You bumped her shoulder.
It startled her—you saw the flinch, but she rolled her expression back defensively. "You did what you did, Varang.” You said simply. "Kept your people alive. Kept them fed. That's what matters." You rose again, and offered something that might've been a smile. You understood, of course you did. Heavy was the head that wore the crown… or something like that. "Good job. I'll check on you and your lover boy, okay?"
Varang just watched.
For a moment—just one—confusion crossed her face. Shadows over clouds. Then she replaced it, smoothing it over with apathy, with that blankness.
But you'd already seen it.
You left her there with the empty plate and the unopened bottle, the door hissing close.
Good job.
When had anyone ever said that to her?
You let the door shut behind you, Wainfleet was already there.
shirtless.
Because of course he was.
He balanced a shot glass on the flat plane of his blue chest—abs flexed, skin gleaming with rampant bioluminescent freckles. The other men had formed a semi-circle around him. God. It was like you were back in college and had just stumbled into aa frat boy ritual.
"Wainfleet! Wainfleet! Wainfleet!"
Fists pounding rhythm against bedrails, IV stands, anything that would make noise. The chant built and stupid and somehow exactly right for this moment. Someone whistled. You caught sight of one soldier half-hanging off his cot.
Lyle arched until his spine curved like some drawn bow. The glass tipped, amber liquid spilled down the valleys of his chest, pooled in his collarbone, tracing the line of his throat. He opened his mouth and caught it, head thrown back, Adam's apple working.
The room exploded.
"YEAHHHHHH! BOOYAH!"
He snapped upright, arms spread wide, the empty glass held high and empty. His grin was feral. "Who's the dog?! Who!?" He turned in a circle, showing off to his audience. "Come on people! Who?! Who's the fuckin' dog!"
You couldn't help it. A smile tugged at your mouth despite yourself. Stupid. So stupid. But— "You are, Wainfleet. You're a dog."
He spun, ears swiveling toward your voice before the rest of him caught up. His grin went lopsided and sheepish, still riding the high of whatever testosterone-fueled madness this was. "Aw, shit. Teacher's here, boys." He snagged his shirt from where it hung off a chair back, fumbling with the buttons. "Gotta bounce."
Groans erupted around the room.
"Already?" Someone groaned from the back. Martinez, you thought. Hard to tell when they were all piled together like this.
"C'mon, Corp. Just one more round—"
"Turn on the TV at least!" Another voice. Yep, definitely Martinez, whiny as ever. "Nurse keeps shutting the damn thing off."
You folded your arms, leveling them with a look. "Yeah, 'cause you guys fight over it." Your trapped tail flickered, but the tape held it from doing so. "And I do not want to get yelled at by Miss Donna. Again."
Grumbling. Pouting. Grown men reduced to children because they couldn't share a remote. As if they weren't here recovering from a gunfight.
Wainfleet had managed to get his shirt halfway buttoned, though it sat crooked across his chest. He caught your eye and winked. "She yelled at you once and you never recovered."
You rolled your eyes. "She's terrifying."
"She's five-foot-two."
"And she could kill you with a look."
He laughed, the sound low and easy. “Yeah, yeah.” He turned to the men. "Enjoy the pies, guys. Rest well and recover."
You waved. A few waved back, half-hearted. Wainfleet smoothed his shirt down, face settling back into something neutral and military.
He jerked his chin toward the door.
You followed, falling into step beside him as the door swung shut. The earlier sounds of the men were now painfully replaced by the silence, with only the boots of either bodies echoing throughout the hall.
Wainfleet glanced over—rifle shifting against his shoulder. "How is he?"
"Recovering." The word left breezy, lighter than it had any right to. "Wounds keep reopening, but no infections." You kept your gaze forward, tracking the endless grey of RDA hallways. All fucking identical.
I should thank Varang. Any moment when Quaritch is disposed of is a moment I don’t have to worry for his sorry-ass.
"Hm."
He was staring. You felt it crawl up the side of your face, settle behind your ear like an itch you couldn't scratch. There was something he clearly wanted to say. A question, you’d think. But his jaw was kept tight, and his tongue licked his bottom lip only.
You sighed. "I'm not going to kill Quaritch."
He stopped mid-stride, boots scuffing metal, then jogged to catch up. "Never said that."
"You're very expressive."
His ears flicked. "Am I?"
"Devastatingly."
Your footsteps echoed down the corridor—his heavy, yours clipped. The fluorescent lights overhead hummed. One had gone out entirely. Budget cuts, the RDA loved those and you had nothing to replace them with.
"...I don't think Quaritch remembers what team he plays for."
He glanced over his shoulder, voice dropping lower, like someone might be listening. Someone probably was.
"And the men wouldn't care. Probably celebrate, you know. Bring up morale." A pause. "Teach them a lesson."
Your own words used against you.
You looked up at Wainfleet, keeping the flicker of surprise buried deep. Smart boy. Dangerous, if you hadn't caught it so quickly.
"Wainfleet." You stopped walking.
He stopped too.
The hallway stretched behind him. Grey against blue, identical as the previous hallway you just passed—again.
"We're limited in everything right now. We start killing each other, what does that say?" You met his eyes. "’You could be next. Fall in order. This is a lesson.’"
He shifted his weight, towering over you properly now. His gaze dropped to meet yours, and you watched his pupils dilate just slightly. "Is that so bad? They like you enough to know it'd be a one-time thing." His tongue clicked against his teeth.
His eyes fell to your lips.
"Who doesn't like you...?"
Softer, that last part.
Oh.
Well, that was new.
You kept your expression blank, turning your attention toward the bridge door at the corridor's end. Beyond that lay the outside. Nighttime now, though on Pandora it was never really night, not like Earth.
"Look." You reached up and took his wrists, lifting them between you. "We're blue. We're Na'vi now, whether we like it or not." You held his gaze. "Kill someone like Quaritch—someone who vehemently hated the Na'vi, then turned to their side—what does that say about us?"
His frown deepened. "We're just as likely to turn."
"Exactly."
You released him. He didn't release you. He caught your hands again before they could fall, fingers threading through yours instead, five against five, and for a moment you felt genuinely surprised. You looked up at him, uncertain.
His voice dropped lower—really low. "...You know I wouldn't let anything happen to you, right, ma'am?" The swallow was visible in his throat. Not cocky confidence now. "You don't gotta worry about a mutiny, not from me or anybody." He squeezed your hands gently. "I'd handle it."
He thought this meant something.
"Careful, Wainfleet." Your voice came out quieter than intended. You pulled away. He let you, though you felt the reluctance with it "I don't fraternize with those below me."
"Ouch." The smile returned—strained, forced back into place like armor. He gave you space, then cocked his head, trying for lightness. "What if I make movements, huh? Go up the food chain, play my cards right?"
"As if." You snorted. "You think The Chairman is handing out promotions? We're lucky if they hand out rations."
He grinned at that—genuine this time. "Yeah, well. Gotta have dreams, right?"
The two of you started walking again. You caught them then—yellow eyes peering around the corner. Watching. Hiding. Like an Owl. You found yourself close to acknowledgment, but stayed silent instead, letting your gaze slide past as if you'd seen nothing at all.
Cute. Varang was stalking.
You preferred to let her think she was being clever.
"Hey," you said, forcing your attention back to Wainfleet. "Where'd you learn that trick back in the infirmary, anyway? The—" You gestured vaguely. "Rib thing."
“College.”
You blinked. "College."
"Yup." He popped the 'p', looking far too pleased with himself. "Why do you sound so surprised?" He shot you a look, mock-offended. "I'm educated. I got credentials."
"Hm." You filed that away too. Another piece of the puzzle that was Lyle Wainfleet. "Surprising."
"I'm full of surprises, ma'am."
You didn't know whether to laugh or sigh. "You're telling me you went from actual college to—" You gestured at him, at the blue skin and the rifle and the sheer absurdity of it all. "This?"
"Life's funny that way." He grinned. "Besides, pays better. And the benefits—" He tapped his temple. "Can't beat immortality."
"It's not immortality if they can still shoot you."
"Pessimist."
"Realist."
The bridge door slid open with a hiss. Cool air rushed in, carrying the scent of wet earth with it. By proxy, the jungle too. Pandora at night—alive in ways Earth would no longer be.
.
.
.
“Exports are down—” Crackle. “---40% this quarter, L/n!”
Your hand found the bridge of your nose. Fifty shareholders or maybe more, all screaming through the comm link, each one convinced their panic mattered most.
It'd been like this for weeks now. Regular calls to dead rocks. They didn't even give you the benefit of a middle man—some random guy who'd understand your exhaustion, who'd roll his eyes when you did and maybe share a drink over the stupidity of your shared employers.
Nah.
They gave you this instead. Bypassed every buffer, every assistant, every carefully constructed layer of don't fucking call me directly just to scream into your ear at 0600 hours.
"Look, I need to focus on recorporating what was lost," you muttered, keeping your voice level despite the tightness creeping up your spine. "Can't run the machines without people fixing them, defending them, operating them. Send more personnel, then we'll talk numbers."
Static crackled. "Send more people!?"
You were grateful for the audio-only call.
Your head tipped back, fingers pressing into your eye sockets until those strange squigly patterns bloomed behind your lids.
"It takes billions of dollars to send one convoy of people. We sent thousands last time!"
What did you expect? you wanted to say. Think it's so easy? Come over here yourself.
"The indigenous population—"
"The savages, you mean." Another voice cut in, sharper. "Those uncivilized blue aliens—we're losing to what? Sticks and stones? We offered them education, offered peace, and—"
The groan tore out of you before you could stop it. You shoved yourself upright and your skull cracked against the ceiling.
Ngh.
You dropped back into the seat, hissing.
"You blew up their goddamn trees!" The words came louder than you meant them to, hot and jagged. "What did you expect!?" One hand rubbed the tender spot where your head met the popcorn cieling. "You send people with a few nuts rattling in their head and a strange affliction to violence. Course they're gonna retaliate."
Silence stretched across the transmission. You had said the wrong thing—or rather the right thing to the wrong people. You already knew what came next.
"Why did they—"
"That is completely—"
"We should have her removed—"
"You care about your job, L/n?"
That one cut through clean. More measured and calm, and for it, much worse. The Chairman.
"You want to return to Earth?" He continued into a pleasant tone. You could picture him: leaned back in some leather chair worth more than your yearly salary, fingers steepled. Smiling. "See your family again? Your mother's still on Mars, isn't she? Or was it—ah, yes. The Belt now. Lovely this time of year, I hear."
Your throat closed.
"...Yes."
"Good." He made his point. “And I’m guessing, of course, that you want to breathe air that doesn't taste like recycled piss?"
Your jaw clenched. Don't give him anything.
"You make do with what you have," he continued. "I don't care if you have to train the indigenous population yourself. I don't care if you have to build the machines with your bare hands. Those numbers go up, or your supplies get cut by half. Let's see how hard it is then."
The line went dead.
Your tail cracked against the faux leather seat, a whip-snap of pure frustration. The sound echoed in the cramped office—if you could even call it that. More like a glorified storage closet with a desk shoved in.
Dumb motherfuckers.
You let your head fall back, gaze drifting to the ceiling. Eye level—you could see every dent, every pockmark in the textured surface. Eye level. Always eye level now. Eye level. Eye level, Eye—
Your face went lopsided, you caught on the door.
The library.
The library with its neat rows of datapads and archival texts, mostly untouched. The library that sat quiet and unbothered—collecting dust because most RDA personnel couldn't be bothered. Civilians didn't read. Workers didn't have time.
But you did.
Your hands settled on the armrests, fingers tapping now.
The library that probably contained something useful. Some precedent, some case study, some fragment of institutional memory that might help you navigate the ignorance above and the resistance below.
Yeah. That Library.
.
.
.
The walk had been quiet.
Quiet in the way things only got nowadays. The RDA compound—anyone with eyes could see it—stood emptier than it had any right to. You wouldn't say you missed the machinery's constant beeping, or the fresh-faced trainees still shaking off Earth's gravity as they drilled in formation.
There was plenty you didn't miss, honestly. But noise was the thread that stitched Earth to Pandora, and for any human nursing nostalgia, that sound meant beeps and barked orders, the occasional honk from some idiot driver.
You'd overheard a few guys talking about it—the ones who ran excursions to the outer walls, who ventured into the actual jungle.
Too quiet.
Humans didn't do quiet. You didn't either.
Now you saw drunks. Grunts. Maybe a few civilians if they had some problem that needed a higher-up's signature or a second glance. Not that they'd get anywhere. Everything here moved like shit.
You almost tripped over a pothole.
Another thing to goddamn fix.
The list was biblical. You were drowning here—but dorwning would’ve been easier, at least you’d know which way was up.
You sighed and kicked at the loose gravel.
When they'd handed you the title—Administrator of Pandora—it wasn't like you'd wanted it. But it was either you or Selfridge, and that nepo-baby with his chairman daddy could go to hell.
You weren't the best choice for this job, but hell if you were the worst.
And Selfridge? Goddamn worst.
A pair of engineers ambled past, one raised a lazy hand. "Where you headed, Y/N?"
You smiled politely. "Library."
"Nerd," the taller one grinned. "You coming to watch the fireworks? It's Fourth of July back in the States."
You shrugged. "Nah. I'll send provisions. Just clean up after, yeah?"
They whooped and kept walking. You already knew it'd be a mess come morning. That was fine. Meant they weren't too disquiet.
Hm, disquiet.
You wondered if Jake Sully felt it too—this suffocating stillness. The stalemate had bled both sides dry. His people, his adopted people, had lost warriors to violence. Yours to poor leadership, which was just about worse. Shameful, really, that a jarhead with a god complex had outmaneuvered a trained colonel.
But Quaritch's real weapon had never been strategy. It was charm. And the bastard had been a loose cannon from the start.
Still.
He knew how to smile.
You looked at the empty buildings coming forward. The heart of Bridgehead lay here—shops, apartments, the half-constructed buildings that came to a halt. Concrete walls, piles of dirt. A civilization being built. The sound of emptiness.
Did Jake Sully hear it too? Seen it? Empty villages, the silence? You were certain his people were weeping somewhere beyond the perimeter. Could already picture the rituals they'd perform, prayers lifted to that goddess of theirs—benevolent, kind.
Stop. You closed your eyes, fingers curling into fists. They are not the aggressors.
And that was the truth of it, wasn't it? The RDA were the scumbags. Your people—humanity, Earth, whatever the fuck you wanted to call the collective responsibility—had let them. Funded them. Staffed them. The Na'vi were innocents in all of this, fighting for their homes the way anyone would. The way you would.
So why hate them?
Bitterness. You tasted it on your tongue. I feel bitterness for what they have naturally, and what we don't.
Shame followed, swift and equal, until you buried it beneath something sweet and honeyed and charming.
You turned the corner.
Fire came first—the smell of it, the familiar scent. But the ash was what marked Mangkwan territory. Living space, if you wanted to be gentle about it. Though it was full of dead things. Bodies skinned for whatever rituals they gave their dead and dying.
Ash drifted against your skin, leaving behind haze and the black smear of soot. You'd grown used to it. Another thing to endure. Another problem added to the long, long list that Quaritch just coincidentally happened to be responsible for.
Fucking asshole. Goddamn, selfish—
"Morning." You didn't smile—you'd learned the Mangkwan didn't like that, thought it was a threat display or maybe just found it disturbing on your flat human features—so instead you softened your voice to something gentler. You were sure they read it as weakness, but you allowed the assumption. At least for now.
They just stared.
Didn't blink, didn't hiss or snarl. Just stared with the widest yellow eyes you'd ever seen. Reminded you of something—what was it called again? An owl. The owl. Yeah, you'd seen one once in an old show. Biggest, strangest eyes.
"L/n."
The whisper came soft. Unusual enough to make you glance back.
They gonna eat me or something…? You just looked forward again. Fuckin' weirdos.
A few more faces peeked out from doorways, from behind hanging cloth. Then you turned another corner and heard it.
Soft footsteps.
Your ears swiveled first. Then your eyes. Then your head—in that order—as the footsteps grew closer, closer, until you met the yellow eyes of Varang.
Owl.
You shook the thought away. She didn't stop, just kept walking. She wore brighter colors today—bright for the Mangkwan, anyway. Purples and whites with the faintest touch of blue and red. Varang looked good. You had to give her that much. Chick had style.
“Varang?” It was hard to keep your surprise in check. She'd stopped mid-stride, and when she did, it was directly in front of you—close enough that you caught the dilation of her iris.
"L/n." Her voice was flat. "You walk loud."
You followed her gaze as it flicked sideways. Three Mangkwan warriors lingered near the cookfire, pretending not to watch. The moment her eyes found them, they scattered.
Her smile returned when she looked back at you.
Tsahik and Olo'eykte. You knew—somewhere in the back of your mind where thoughts were intuitive—that tyrants always fell the same way. You'd seen how she moved through her people—reverence laced with fear, the kind of devotion that always badly. Somewhere down the line, someone would try to kill her, for all tyrants ended in blood.
Grief for Varang, then. Inevitable grief.
"What?"
"Like a palulukan cub." She tilted her head, hands folding behind her back with unsettling ease. Her hum was carefully musical. "Stomping."
She drove her foot down, so suddenly, and you flinched.
"I'm not—" You caught yourself. Swallowed the irritation before it could shape itself into something she'd remember. You wouldn’t give her that. "I wasn't stomping."
"No?" One brow lifted. She stepped closer, and everything inside of you told you to step back. You didn't. Her gaze dragged down your frame, then back up—slow enough to leave you squirming and heated. "You breathe loud, too."
"Jesus Christ." The laugh came out rougher than intended, formed somewhere between a scoff. This damn woman. "Did you need something, or are you just here to critique my—my fucking breathing?"
Her fingers found a strand of your hair before you could stop her. She rubbed it between thumb and forefinger, testing its texture.
"Soft," she murmured.
Your question hung unanswered in the air between you. With Varang, you were learning, that was standard.
You yanked your hair back. "Really touchy, huh."
"Sensitive." Her lips curled just enough to flash the edge of a canine. "Is this why the Colonel keeps you?"
You paused.
Keeps me?
"Look, lady.” You straightened your spine, met her stare head-on even though your heart was doing that stupid rabbit-kick thing against your ribs. “Quaritch is lucky I'm keeping him. Dude does not keep me."
"Mm." She released your hair, but her hand didn't drop. It hovered, then shifted—fingers curling beneath your jaw, tilting your face up with a grip that was firm without crossing into cruelty. Her thumb traced the curve of your cheekbone, thoughtful. "You are... pretty. For a demon."
"Gee. Thanks. Really know how to make a girl feel special, don't you?"
Her head tilted the other direction now, reptilian. Studying you from a new angle. "Do you want to feel special, L/n?" She whispered it so softly.
"I—"
"Varang."
You both turned.
Lyle stood at the mouth of the alley, arms crossed, expression unreadable behind those sunglasses. A wad of pink bubblegum worked between his molars. He popped it before his attention settled on Varang.
"What did I say about you getting too close to the workers." His voice came easy with that pitched-too-high, dripping charisma. The smile naturally followed—all white teeth biting against perfect baby pink gum. "Soldiers, fine. White collars—that's for me to deal with."
He sauntered forward, his boots crushed ash. "Hm, dolly?"
Varang's frown lasted longer than you’d think, but the smile came soon enough. She released your face with a theatrical little pat. "Lyle." She dipped her head, mockery threaded through the gesture. "Your pet wanders."
You flinched at that. Pet.
Lyle's grin widened. He tilted his head, considering her. "Our Administrator was running an errand." His eyes cut to you. Even through the dark lenses, you knew his eyes were pinned to you. "You done?"
You lifted a brow. Nodded.
"Good." He patted the side of his thigh, whistling. "Come here."
You didn't need to be told twice.
You slipped past Varang, shoulder brushing hers, and felt her fingers ghost across your wrist as you passed.
"There you are. Been looking for you."
Usually he kept a respectable distance. Now, with Varang watching, he slung an arm around your shoulders and hauled you close. "What did I tell you about cutting through the Mangkwan? Not safe, dummy." The affection in his voice was performative, but his grip on your shoulder was real. He popped another bubble.
"Alright, alright. Get off." You shrugged him loose, steering back toward the road that led to the library. He yielded easy, grinning.
“Rude.”
"Yeah, well." You didn't look back. If you did, you'd see her still standing there, watching.
Lyle fell into step beside you, a solid wall at your flank. He didn't speak until you'd cleared Mangkwan territory, until the ash thinned and the smell of smoke gave way to Bridgehead's sterile concrete.
"She touch you?"
"What? No. I mean—" You exhaled through your teeth. "She grabbed my hair. It's fine."
"Uh-huh." His jaw worked. He didn't look at you. "And you let her."
"What was I supposed to do, deck her?"
"Wouldn't be the worst idea."
You shot him a look. "You're the one who helped Quaritch ally with them."
"Yeah." His mouth twisted. "I'm aware."
Then he glanced back at you, sunglasses sliding down just enough to catch your eyes. "Where you going anyway?"
"Library."
"Nerd."
You reached the entrance together, but where you climbed the steps, Lyle stayed below. His hand drifted to the rail, fingers drumming.
"Hey."
You turned.
"Be careful around her," he said quietly. His voice had lost its edge, gone soft in a way that you knew meant feelings you had to ignore. "You know? She's... well." He trailed off. Shrugged. "We both know what good comes from the Na'vi."
"Nothing." You met his eyes—or where you imagined them to be, behind the tint of those glasses. "I know, Lyle. Thank you."
His mouth did something complicated. "Don't make me come drag your ass out of trouble again. I got better shit to do."
Then he turned and disappeared back into Bridgehead's maze, leaving you alone.
You went in.
The library wasn't exactly open—not in the traditional sense. There was a hall first, narrow, that funneled into the actual collection, and before that, a living space.
Comfortable, if you were generous with the word. Meant for mingling or resting or just killing time before the next deployment. The couches were relatively pristine, as new looking as they’d been when they were first assembled.
You had just crossed the unmanned desk when the doors behind you hissed open. You didn't think much of it. Not until you felt the sudden pull of your tail, yanked free from the terrible adhesive tape.
"Lyle, what the—" You spun, and there she was. Varang again, this time with that unsettling hum building in her throat, a giggle half-formed. Your breath caught. You forced your face smooth, narrowing your eyes. "Jesus—what now, Varang?"
“I wished to follow.” She said innocently. “L/n.”
You squinted at her, exhaling through your teeth.
"Don't call me that—geeze, really don't. I'm Y/n. I told you, didn't I?" The grumble came out rougher than you meant. You glanced toward the doors. Just a few steps and you'd be through, would already be inside if not for the dangerously sexy pyromaniac nearby.
She didn't answer. Just stood there, thinking, wearing that strange smile that set your nerves humming. And there it was again—that no-good prickle crawling up your spine.
She waited.
Oh. She was waiting for you to talk.
"...Uh." You shifted your weight. Damn it. "Everything okay? You accommodated? Got a complaint or something?"
Varang hummed low in her chest, then grinned—the kind full of teeth. She shook her head and began to circle you. "No…" she said softly. She stopped in front of you, fingers finding the linen of your shirt, toying with a loose button before plucking it free with one sharp tug.
She inspected it, tilting her head with the idle curiosity of a child examining a beetle. Then her eyes flicked back to yours.
You noticed, with some concern, that she didn't discard it. Instead, she slipped the button into her satchel.
"I am just curious to know what the false skin is doing."
"False skin?" A laugh escaped you. "Come on. Really?" You shook your head, grinning despite yourself. You glanced to the side, where the entrance to the library sat. Huge metal doors framed by old paper notices listing events no one read anymore. "Somewhere I doubt would be of use to you."
The Sangrur Dux Library.
"I haven't been," she said, following your gaze. "What is it?"
For a moment you stopped. You could describe it in words—written language etched into the remains of trees, symbols meant to capture sound, to hold the thoughts of the writer long after they'd gone. But that felt melodramatic, overly poetic for a woman who found it fun to burn things.
Instead, you jerked your head toward the entrance. "Want to see?" Simple, as all things should be.
You didn't expect her to follow, but she did. She walked beside you in fact.
"A library is a place where humans archive knowledge. Physically," you murmured as the two of you approached. Several workers lifted their hands in greeting, then froze mid-wave when they registered Varang beside you.
She only shrugged, leaning forward and peering up at you through dark lashes with an expression that might've been innocent if you didn't know better. "Strange place for a false skin."
You stopped. Exhaled through your nose. "False skin. Why do you keep saying that?"
"Well." she hummed, one finger tracing the edge of your sleeve. "Quaritch does not wake from his body."
"Neither do I."
"And yet…" She tilted closer until her breath ghosted your jawline. "I believe you keep your humanity far closer than he ever has."
The smile you'd worn moments before collapsed. Your expression flattened into something hard, and different—a face you hadn't shown in years. "That so." The words came slow, measured. You angled your neck until you were level with her eyes, yellow and unblinking. "Calling him Na'vi?"
"Quaritch speaks highly of you," she said, pivoting so smoothly you almost didn't catch the deflection.
You blinked. "Does he."
"He says you are useful." Another step brought her closer; bone clicked faintly against bone where her ornaments met. The sound made you think of wind chimes. "That you understand things. See patterns others miss."
Oh, Miles, you absolute fucking idiot.
"I just do my job," you said, pointedly plain.
"Hm." She stopped at a doorway, one hand resting on the frame. Ash smudged her fingertips. "And what is your job, exactly?"
You met her stare.
"Whatever keeps me breathing."
The smile you gave her was charming—practiced and empty. You opened the door and extended one hand in invitation. "After you." You had your own deflection.
Varang didn’t voice a single thought, but her eyes never left yours. She didn’t take the opportunity, she waited for you instead, and you sighed at her suspicions.
"A library is much like the Tree of Voices, if it helps." You kept your voice coaxing. "We read the voices of our ancestors. Collect their knowledge, their viewpoints." You paused. "Poetic, in its way."
You moved past her into the dim interior.
She lingered in the doorway, and you caught the exact moment her eyes widened. The space opened up before her, taller from the inside than it had any right to be. A chandelier hung suspended in the center, casting warm yellow light across rows and rows of tables. The ceiling stretched up through multiple floors, each one lined with books
Still, it was nothing like the ones on Earth.
"I don't understand," she said quietly, glancing back at you. Funny, you never heard her sound like that before.
You nudged her forward with two fingers against her shoulder blade. "You'll see."
"But the—"
You pressed one finger to your lips, cutting her off mid-breath. Your whisper barely carried. "It's quiet in here." You leaned close, pointing toward the scattered readers—mostly civilians, heads bowed over open pages. "Like prayer. You don't distract them. They're immersed."
Her gaze followed where you pointed, tracking the stillness, the adoration of the books. She nodded slow.
"I do not pray."
"I know.”
You drifted toward the General Management aisle.
"But it's not prayer to Eywa or any deity," you murmur, half to yourself. "More like… prayer to the person who wrote it. And to yourself."
The top shelf loomed—tall as you were. You crouched low, knees folding, squinting at faded titles.
From the jaws of victory the RDA were thrown out, and now I'm hunting for a book on resource allocation.
Varang's tail swept past the gap between shelves, a dark ribbon disappearing into the next aisle over. You heard her pause. The soft scrape of a book falling, then several more. Then nothing.
Minutes passed, you counted five minutes—but time was always a tricky thing in libraries. It passed by too quickly when distracted by the quiet reading.
You kept searching. You kept searching. Your fingers found a promising spine—Principles of Sustainable—
Something tugged at your tail.
"Jesus Christ, what—"
You froze.
Varang stood there, holding Alice in Wonderland pressed against her chest like a child with a prize. Her eyes were wide—enormous, really—golden and unblinking over the book's weathered cover.
"…You want to read that?"
A pause. Her head tilted. "Read? I wished for you to tell me how to connect my queue to it."
Something softened in your chest. You couldn't help it—the smile came on its own. You took the book from her hands, gentle with the spine, and opened it. Pages fanned beneath your thumb. "Humans don't connect like you do," you said gently. "We use written language. See?"
Your finger traced the lines. She leaned in.
"'Presently she began again. I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it'll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downwards! The Antipathies, I think—'"
You stop. She was staring, transfixed.
"A book to read," she said slowly. "And it is exactly as it says? What your ancestors say?"
You nodded. "Not my ancestors, but someone's." Your gaze flicked to the front desk, the bored-looking librarian scrolling her tablet, completely oblivious to the two seven-foot Na'vi woman standing between the stacks. "I'll help you check this out. Okay?" You looked back at her. "I'll read it to you. Maybe teach you English while we're at it."
She touched a page, frowning, then pinched the corner between two fingers.
Your eyes go wide. "Hey—hey, careful." You catch her hand before the paper tears, laughing awkwardly. "It's just paper."
She tugged harder instead of releasing. Her eyes lifted to yours. "Paper?"
"Comes from trees."
Her face became scrunched up. You just chuckled and pinched her cheek, she hissed.
"It's a long process," you add quickly, "but yeah, trees. On Earth we mostly use digital formats now—there's barely any left. The original texts are locked in vaults somewhere."
She studied the page again. Her thumb smoothed over it. "Trees. Pandora trees?"
"Yeah."
"Sky-people make this—" she held up the book, "—from trees?"
"I mean, most times. But yes."
Another laugh. This one louder, freer. She pressed the book back to her chest and spun in a small circle, nearly knocking over a display of outdated management theory.
You grabbed her elbow. "Okay, okay—come on. Let's check it out before you destroy the place."
She followed you to the front desk, steps lighter than you'd ever seen them.
The librarian barely glanced up, she scanned the book. Looked at you, then Varang, then back at her screen. "Two weeks. Late fees are five credits per day."
"Got it." You took the book, and tucked your own under your arm, walking with her toward the exit, reading aloud as you go.
"'Are you content now?' said the Caterpillar.
'Well, I should like to be a little larger, sir, if you wouldn't mind,' said Alice: 'three inches is such a wretched height to be.'
'It is a very good height indeed!' said the Caterpillar angrily, rearing itself upright as it spoke.
You glanced at her.
“(it was exactly three inches high)."
Varang giggled.
You smiled back and kept reading.
.
.
.
Varang was everywhere now.
At first, you'd convinced yourself it was coincidence. Of course she'd be at the medbay—half her clan bore fresh wounds that needed tending. Of course she'd patrol the perimeter. That was her duty, wasn't it? Tsahìk and war leader both.
You could justify those crossings without paranoia creeping in.
But the offices? The cafeteria at odd hours when no one else ate?
Yeah…. No.
Still, she'd softened. Somewhere between the first wary glances and now, you’d done something right, because now you two were—if you dared to voice it—sort of… companionable.
Most visits ended with her pressing a book into your hands—not always stories, though she'd listened raptly to Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, Willy Wonka.
You noted, very hesitantly, that she seemed to enjoy children's books. A fact you absolutely did not mention to her face.
Sometimes she'd drag over manuals instead. How to Assess the Gears of a Working Car: 101. Five hundred fucking pages. Font size four. Hell, it could act as a damn sedative yet she'd settle cross-legged on the library floor, chin propped on one fist, and listen to your voice for hours. The cadence mattered more than the content, you suspected.
The rhythm of English filling the library's quiet corners while hours dissolved unnoticed.
So you taught her to read.
She learned quickly. A natural reader, once you showed her the structure. "This is a period," you'd whispered, finger tracing the punctuation. "It means to stop."
The surprise was that she'd listened at all.
During that time—which must have been a month or so—you'd sent Wainfleet to handle the opposition. Scattered factions, mostly. Fleeing traitors who'd holed up in abandoned RDA installations, setting their own camps which was a big no-no to the conglomerate.
“I want you to fucking destroy them.” One of the shareholders said. “Take their damn head and put it on a spike.”
Yikes. You didn’t, you had Lyle offer either amnesty or death. The same offer given to you years ago. The badge or the bullet.
Contact with the bald-headed demon remained constant, just not physical.
"What are you wearing?"
"Perv." You pressed the com closer to your throat, knife moving in steady rhythm against the cutting board. Potatoes. Rice. The day's ration plus a little soy sauce if you were feeling indulgent. "Truly, Lyle. You're a class act."
His chuckle crackled through static. Fabric rustled on his end. "Nah, c'mon. Tell me."
"I'm wearing none-of-your-damn-business." The blade clicked against the cutting board. "Happy?"
"Yes."
More shuffling. Then—
Gunfire.
You froze, blade hovering mid-chop.
"...Are you shooting right now?"
"Mhm." Another crack split the air. Rapid fire now, automatic weapons chewing through ammunition. Lyle's voice, low and cursing somewhere in the background. "Told you I'd make sure nothing bad happens to you. Remember Carl?"
"Carl with the missing finger?"
"Nah. Carl with the gout." A grunt. Something heavy hit the ground on his end. "Found him. Killed him." His voice softened, to fond shyness. "I'll see you soon. Just wanted to hear your voice."
You paused. "Wainfleet, I already told you—"
The link went dead.
The soldier way of affection, you supposed. You wanted to ask Quaritch if Lyle had always been this way—serviceable in the manner of men who'd only learned tenderness through violence. But you already knew the answer would arrive in two opposing pieces: a resounding yes and a confused no, and neither would satisfy.
The same, you figured, went for Varang.
"Another one."
Your hand closed around the queue. The braid sat heavy in your palm, heavier than anyone who’d never held one would guess.
You glanced back at her, and managed something approximating a smile. It felt stiff on your face. Your wall was already crowded with them. Not by choice, mind you.
If any Na'vi saw it, they'd think me a damn psycho.
"For you, Y/n." She dipped her head. Around her, the clan whispered in their quick dialect, syllables blurring together until you could barely parse what was happening. She'd never done this publicly before. That had to mean something.
"Thank you, Varang."
Her eyes rose slowly, and when they met yours she smiled—unusually giddy, a tad girlish. "This one was the Anpak Olo'eyktan. Strong and fast. He was hard to kill, but I managed." She was pleased. Proud in the way a child might be, presenting a dead bird to a parent. "Another leader less for JakeSulli."
Your brow arched. You matched her smile for just a moment before it faltered.
"You gotta be careful, Varang." The words came out rougher than intended. You set a hand on her shoulder, felt the heat of her skin through your palm. "All these missions you're giving yourself… you really don't have to. No use anyway. We're kinda at a stalemate." You rubbed circles around a scar.
But she wasn't listening.
Her gaze had dropped to your hand where it rested against her. "Yes, Y/n." Her voice came dreamy. "But I am not weak." She blinked, slower than necessary. "I prove myself to you with this anger."
"Peace can be good too, you know." You squeezed once, then let go. "It's enough."
You turned before she could respond, the braid dangling from your grip like some grim pendulum. You glanced at it, felt its weight pull at your wrist.
…Where to hang you…?
.
.
.
The day Quaritch awoke you remembered it very well.
It was gloomy and sad. Rain fell harder than usual, and there was a certain chill in the air that marked the slight turning in the seasons, not that winter existed on Pandora.
And on that particular day, a nurse found you. "He's awake."
You had looked at the time then. It’d been just a few minutes after three PM, and you had another meeting with Earth scheduled for five.
I’ll need to be quick. Quaritch always had a way of timing these things.
If you could, you’d likely have enlisted Wainfleet to handle it instead. But the man was still gone on his mission, so you convinced a random scientist, one who still had their avatar body. They were a nervous bunch, but you told them to hold a weapon and look threatening while doing it.
That, at least, they could do.
…hopefully.
The infirmary door hissed open.
Quaritch was already sitting up when you entered—looking ugly and mean with bandages wrapped around his torso. Burn scars rippled across his shoulders, down his arms, puckered and angry. He didn't flinch when he moved.
He just watched you, then saw his gaze flick to the scientist behind you—linger on the rifle—then return to your face.
"Well, well." His voice came out rough from underused. He rolled his shoulders, but looked to have immediately regretted it. "Look who came crawlin' outta the woodwork."
You stopped a few feet from the bed, hands clasped behind your back. You’d be professional.
"Quaritch."
"L/n." He dragged your name out slow with that funky country accent he had. You never did like it. Coarse and sloppy, like all of him.
His head tilted. "You here to fluff my pillows? Bring me flowers?" His lips pulled into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Or you finally gonna tell me what the hell's goin' on?"
"I'm going to be frank, Quaritch." You reached up and flicked off the overhead light. The room dimmed, leaving only the ambient glow from the hallway and the bioluminescent freckles scattered across his skin.
He didn't thank you, not that you wished for it.
"Frank? I’m so damn worried I think I might cry." He snorted, then swung his legs over the side of the bed, bare feet hitting the floor. "A'right then, Frank. Let's hear it."
You held his gaze and slowly exhaled through teeth.
Here it comes…
"You've been demoted from Colonel to civilian. All military access has been restricted. You may keep the avatar body, but the RDA has sent an official invoice detailing the cost of such an asset." You paused. "You will work in whatever capacity they assign you in order to pay it off."
Silence, which was something you expected.
He stared at you.
Then he laughed—and that too you expected. "Demoted." He shook his head, still grinning. "To civilian." He stood now, and even hunched with pain, he had presence, a physicality that made the room feel smaller just so your focus could be on him. "And who exactly signed off on that, darlin'? Parker? Or some spineless little shit still back on Earth with a thumb up his ass."
"The Chairman."
"The Chairman." He repeated it, mocking the syllables until it became bastardized. His tongue clicked against his teeth. "Right. The Chairman. A man I ain't ever met suddenly got opinions about my career." He took a step closer. You didn't move. "You got paperwork for that, sweetheart? Or you just makin' shit up as you go?"
You kept your expression flat. "It's already been processed."
Another step. He was close now. “You know what I think?" His voice dropped, quieter now. "I think you're playin' dress-up in Ardmore's office. Pretendin' you got authority you ain't earned."
"Ardmore's dead."
"Yeah." He smiled. "She is."
No remorse. Not even a flicker. Somehow that angered you more than anything. Such carelessness of life, the goddamn psychopath.
Professional. I must remain…
You glanced past him toward the window—the glass partition separating his room from the hallway. Varang's silhouette lingered there, barely visible in the dim light. You didn’t show that you saw her, but your lips did thin. When had she heard? Or had she been listening since the nurse? With Varang, it was possible.
Quaritch followed your eyes, and when he saw her, his fingers twitched.
"You threatenin' me in front of my girl?" He turned back to you, arms crossing over his chest. "That's cold, Y/n. Real cold." He snorted. Of course he deflected with humor.
You just about rolled your eyes, eyeing him again. "I'm not threatening you, Quaritch. I'm informing you. There's a difference."
"Is there now?"
"Yes." You stepped forward, closing the distance he'd created, you’d match his energy. "You killed Ardmore. You led three consecutive failed operations that cost us men, resources, and credibility. The RDA doesn't trust you anymore. I don't trust you." You tilted your head. "But they're letting you live. That's generous, considering."
He barked another laugh.
"That what they're calling it now? Christ." He glanced at the scientist by the door—took in the rifle, the shaking hands, the way they wouldn't meet his eyes. "You really think he's gonna stop me?"
The scientist flinched.
Quaritch's grin widened, he looked back at you. "You and the limp-dick scientist? That's your play?"
"Quaritch—"
"What're you gonna do, talk me to death?" He stepped closer, invading your space now, forcing you to either hold your ground or retreat.
You let him finish. Let him get it all out. The man could talk death to death.
"Sit. Down."
He blinked.
"I am not a soldier, Quaritch. You won't die by my hands." You took a single step forward, closing the gap he'd tried to create. "But you will die by my words. And that is enough to kill any man."
"Oh, spare me the fortune cookie wis—"
"Sit. Down."
The scientist raised the rifle slightly—shaking still, yes, but obedient. The barrel angled toward Quaritch's chest.
Quaritch's eyes flicked to the gun. Then back to you. Something shifted in his expression—just for a second. The sneer faltered. His shoulders went rigid.
He didn't sit.
But he didn't move forward either.
"You were a union organizer, right?" His voice was quieter now, but no less venomous. "You organized some workers, got 'em to throw tantrums, and now you're playing a proper leader?" He looked you up and down. "You're in over your head, L/n. This isn't some boardroom negotiation. This is Pandora."
You smiled—the sweet one you used for injured soldiers. "And yet here you are. Taking orders from me."
His jaw worked. Teeth grinding together so hard you heard it. His hands curled into fists at his sides, knuckles white.
"So here's how this works," you continued. "You stay within Bridgehead. You work whatever job they assign you—maintenance, logistics, I don't care. You keep your head down, and you stay the fuck out of my way." You paused. "Do that, and you get to keep breathing. Don't, and I'll have you executed."
He stared at you for a long moment.
Then the smile was back, wider than before. "You got some steel in you after all." He sat back down on the edge of the bed, wincing slightly as the burns pulled. "A'right. Fine. I'll play along." He waved a hand dismissively. "For now."
You turned toward the door.
You left him there, the door hissing shut behind you.
Varang was waiting in the hallway.
Her eyes were wide, glassy. She looked like she wanted to say something—ask something—but the words wouldn't come.
You walked past her without stopping.
"He's awake," you said simply. "Do what you want."
Behind you, you heard the door open again.
Heard her footsteps.
Heard Quaritch's voice, low and rough: "C'mere, baby girl."
You kept walking.
.
.
.
You heard about Wainfleet's return through passing conversation. He hadn't announced it—at least not to you. You guessed he wanted to keep it a surprise, not that the grunts could ever keep a secret.
A month and sixteen days. Settlement to settlement, killing some factions, absorbing others. Now the charismatic bastard was back at Bridgehead.
Reasonable and deadly. The perfect mix.
The doors shuttled open. The entire sector had their backs to you, bodies pressed close, voices raised in celebration. They surrounded him—the blue giant, purple now from sunburns. Skinnier. Cuts and scars you didn't recognize marked his arms, his face. But it was still stupid Lyle, still wearing those cracked sunglasses.
"There's that bald son of a bitch!" One of the men slapped his back, he was right on top of the skel suit. "Knew there was a reason I was being blinded! Your bald head shined the hell outta my eyes."
"Ah, screw off."
Wainfleet hadn't noticed you yet. Good. The men had pooled their scraps together weeks ago, asked you to present the gift on their behalf. It had seemed reasonable at the time. Now, standing at the edge of the crowd with the package in hand you felt a bit uneasy.
You really didn’t belong here.
The closer you got, the more you heard him. Some shootout or another, pretty gals, acts of comradery. Someone had put a party hat on his head. A banner stretched across the cafeteria entrance with his name written in neat block letters.
You settled the present down. Colored parchment paper. Rope acting as the bow.
His eyes flickered up—or you assumed they did. Hard to tell with the glasses. "Holy shit, ma'am." He grinned, tongue dragging across his teeth. "Aren't you a sight for sore eyes."
You rolled your eyes and jerked your chin toward the package. "Just open it, Wainfleet. It's from all of us. Took a while to get."
He grinned, jutting his lip. "Huh, so you guys love me, huh?"
"Oh, shut it—"
"Open it, baldy!"
"Don't make us kick your ass!"
You waited as he tore through the wrapping, watching his tail wag—something you'd definitely tease him about later.
He finally tore through the wrapping, and there it was: a new .22 classic with a wood finish, his name engraved along the barrel beside a tiny pair of sunglasses.
He went still. Then he smiled—really smiled, the kind that softened the edges of him. "No fucking way." He lifted it and aimed at the ground, peering down the scope and bit his lip like a kid on Christmas morning. "How the hell did you—?"
You shrugged. "We found an old 3D printer, remade the parts. Even got some leftover oak wood from Earth. None of that Pandora tree bullshit."
He smiled.
Then he hugged you.
"The hell, man? We all pitched in!"
He grinned, released you, and grabbed Michael instead to squeeze him until the man wheezed. "S-Shit, man!"
Lyle kissed his cheek, loud and wet. "What, you wanted this! Right? Wanted a big fat kiss and some—"
"Lyle?"
Everyone froze.
Quaritch and Varang stood in the doorway. Quaritch had been forced out of his recom clothes into a civilian sweater, boxers. He glared at the scene, expression tight.
Lyle dropped Michael mid-sentence, his gaze snagging on Quaritch. His frown came first—automatic, a reflex—then his head canted. "Miles." The name fell flat. "Didn't think you were allowed in here."
The room didn't fall silent—not exactly. Conversations continued in pockets, but quieter now, fractured. Men tracked the exchange from the corners of their eyes while pretending interest in their trays of cake and rations.
The room leaned, you felt it, toward Lyle.
"Yeah well." Quaritch scratched at his neck, fingers digging too hard. "Varang has access and I wanted to speak to you."
"Now?" Lyle's smile slipped out crooked, teeth bared in something that wasn't quite friendly. "Just got my ass out of the jungle."
Quaritch frowned. “Yeah. Yeah… sorry.” He pocketed his hands, glancing up before eyeing you. His eyes never left yours.
“You are welcome to eat Quaritch.” You said. Lyle shot you a look, and your ears twitched in mild annoyance. “Lyle has accomplished a lot while you were away.” You pat his back. “Always good when a soldier does.”
You watched the muscle in Quaritch's jaw work, grinding teeth hidden behind that false smile he'd put on. He looked different in civilian clothes—and it didn’t fit him. Somehow comfortability was a thing Quaritch wasn’t capable of, and the civilian clothes only seemed to emphasize everything he'd lost. His weight, his authority.
"A soldier," Quaritch repeated, voice flat. His eyes looked between you and him, his lips quirked up. "That what we're callin' it now?"
Lyle shifted his weight, the new gun still cradled in his hands. His tail had gone still—you noticed that immediately. The excited swaying from moments before had frozen into rigid alertness.
"Miles—" Lyle started.
"Nah, it's fine." Quaritch's smile widened, showing too many teeth. He looked around the cafeteria, taking in the decorations, the men clustered around Lyle, the banner with his name. "Big welcome party. Real touchin'." His gaze slid back to you. "Funny how that works. Man goes off on your orders, comes back a hero. I lead three ops, suddenly I'm the asshole."
You drew breath slowly, let it out the same way. "You led three ops that got good men killed, Quaritch. Lyle led one that brought men home. That's the difference."
There it was, ugly and hateful. Everyone knew that look.
"This shithole, home? That what you're sellin' 'em now?" He stepped closer, you watched as Varang glanced at him, then at you. Her tail coiled just slightly, as if she was uncomfortable.
"You know what your problem is, L/n?" His voice dropped lower, more dangerous. "You think if you smile pretty enough, make 'em feel special enough, they'll forget what this really is." Another step. "But I know what it is. A meatgrinder. And you're throwin' bodies into it just like Ardmore did, just like Parker did. Only difference is you got 'em convinced it's for their own good."
Lyle moved then—subtle, but you caught it. He'd angled himself slightly between you and Quaritch, the gun held, finger not on the trigger but just below the curve of it.
"That's enough, Miles." Lyle's voice was quiet, placating. "Not the time or place."
Quaritch's eyes snapped to him. In his eyes, in those pupils of his were the marks of hurt and betrayal. It was gone in an instant, buried under that sneer.
"Right. 'Cause you're a soldier now. Takin' orders from—" He cut himself off, jaw working again. His hands had curled into fists at his sides.
You could end this. Should end this. One word and the men would remove him, forcibly if necessary. They were waiting for it—you saw it in their postures, the way they'd positioned themselves without even realizing it. Between Quaritch and their celebration. Quaritch was the invader here.
But Varang was watching. And so was Lyle.
He turned toward the door, then paused. He glanced back at Lyle.
"Good work out there, Corporal." The title sounded wrong in his mouth. "Glad you made it back."
Lyle's expression didn't change, but his tail twitched. "Thanks, Colonel."
"Mister Quaritch," you corrected softly. "He's not a colonel anymore."
The look Quaritch gave you could have stripped paint.
Then Varang was there, her hand gentle on his shoulder. She didn't say anything—didn't need to. Just that light touch, a tether pulling him back from whatever edge he'd been walking toward.
He let her guide him out.
The door hissed shut.
Nbody moved. Then someone cleared their throat—Michael, you thought—and the ambient noise of the party slowly resumed. Quieter now, due to the drama of Quaritch’s interruption.
"You good, ma'am?" His voice was low, meant just for you.
Lyle was still standing too close, the gun now holstered against his hip. He'd taken off the sunglasses at some point, and you could see his eyes now.
"Yeah." You rolled your shoulders, trying to shake off the tension. "You?"
He didn't answer right away. Just looked at the door Quaritch had left through, jaw tight.
"He was my CO for more then a decade," Lyle said finally. "Saved my ass more times than I can count." He looked down. "But he ain't that guy anymore."
You reached up and squeezed his shoulder. "You did good out there, Lyle. Really."
His gaze snapped back to yours, and his hand came up to cover yours where it rested on his shoulder, fingers wrapping around your wrist.
"Missed you," he said quietly, too quiet to hear over the resumed chatter of the party. "Several months, couldn't stop thinkin'—"
"Wainfleet." You cut him off gently, pulling your hand back. His fingers tightened for just a second before releasing. "Not now."
"Right." He stepped back, that usual grin sliding back into place. Looser now, easier. "Not now. Got it. But you and I… we gotta… you know, catch up.” He whispered.
But he was still looking at you like—
"Lyle! Tell us about the Cascade settlement!" One of the men called out, breaking the moment.
He turned away, and you let yourself breathe.
This was going to be a problem.
Both of them were going to be problems.
But one problem seemed sweeter.
A/N- Please remember to reblog or like! Much appreciated!!!
I have so much beef with the way characters like Eloise are written. How convenient is it that the ONE character that questions the predetermined expectations placed upon women is also constantly being shamed and ridiculed by a pseudo-righteous narrative that ultimately hypes up CONFORMITY. Of course Eloise is the slouching, rude, and selfish character in comparison to her poised, perfect, and gentle sisters who care about home and hearth.
Feels like characters like this are purposefully crafted to serve as one big humiliation ritual for outspoken women, never mind the fact that characters like Hyacinth and Daphne already represent the majority of the representation women get and depict a version of femininity that is demanded by society. I’d hate it less if the writing wasn’t structured to make it seem like they’re oppressed for wanting to be mothers and homemakers and that standing up to Eloise is something revolutionary.
quaritch and varang genuinely like one another so much that it legitimately makes me jealous. I live for damaged, but intense souls finally finding reprieve in one another but I also NEED to get in between them asap and be their third (i don’t think id survive too long in such a crazy dynamic but i’d die happy at least).
snowghoul
tangentwithtanner
dededos
2087
theartofmadeline
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turnnoffyourmind
