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Sorry for how short this is! I wanted to only include things I genuinely find useful. p>
Summary: the one where Sidney wants to knock you up
Warnings: 18+ content
Series Masterlist
Sidney Crosby has a problem.
The problem is twenty-three years old, brilliant, currently writing her dissertation on social inequality in youth sports access, and sound asleep in his bed wearing nothing but his old Team Canada t-shirt.
The problem is that he’s thirty-nine years old and having thoughts that would probably get him canceled if anyone could read his mind.
The problem is that he wants to get you pregnant.
He’s lying awake at three in the morning having this realization, and it’s not sitting well. You’re in the middle of your PhD program. You’ve got at least eighteen months left before you defend. You’ve explicitly told him that kids are “someday, maybe, when I’m done with school and have established my career.”
He respects that. He does. He would never actually try to derail your education or pressure you into something you’re not ready for.
But god, he thinks about it.
He thinks about it when you’re curled up reading journal articles with your reading glasses on, looking adorably academic. He thinks about it when you present at conferences and he watches you command a room with your intelligence. He thinks about it when you cook dinner together and you laugh at his terrible jokes and he imagines a little girl with your laugh sitting in the kitchen with you.
He thinks about it most when you’re underneath him, when you look up at him with those eyes and say things like “yours” and “please” and “daddy,” and every caveman instinct he has screams “mine, keep, breed.”
It’s primitive and probably problematic and he’s never going to say it out loud because you would rightfully point out that you are not, in fact, a broodmare, and he’s supposed to be a modern enlightened man who respects his partner’s autonomy.
But he thinks it.
Fuck, does he think it.
You shift in your sleep, the t-shirt riding up, and Sidney very deliberately thinks about hockey statistics instead of the curve of your hip. Corsi percentages. Fenwick close. Expected goals. Anything but the image of you pregnant, round with his child, glowing and beautiful and his his his-
“Nope,” he mutters to himself. “Not doing this.”
He gets out of bed carefully, heads downstairs, and does what he always does when his brain won’t shut off: he watches game film. Pulls up last night’s game against the Panthers and starts analyzing his shifts, looking for areas to improve.
He’s twenty minutes into a particularly sloppy line change when you appear in the doorway, sleepy and rumpled and so fucking beautiful it hurts.
“Can’t sleep?” You ask, padding over to the couch.
“Just restless,” he says, which isn’t a lie. “Sorry if I woke you.”
“You didn’t,” you assure him, curling up against his side. “I just reached for you and you weren’t there.”
He wraps an arm around you, pulling you close. You smell like his body wash and sleep and something uniquely you, and he’s struck by how perfectly you fit against him.
“What’s wrong?” You ask, because of course you can tell something’s off.
“Nothing’s wrong,” he says.
“Sidney,” you say patiently. “You only watch game film at three in the morning when something’s bothering you. What is it?”
He considers lying, but you’ll see through it. You always do.
“Just thinking about the future,” he says carefully.
“What about it?”
“What we want. What our timeline looks like.” He pauses. “Kids, specifically.”
You’re quiet for a moment. “Okay. What about kids?”
“I know you want to finish your PhD first,” he says. “And I respect that. I do. I’m not trying to pressure you or anything.”
“But?” You prompt.
“But I’m thirty-nine,” he admits. “And I’m not getting any younger. And sometimes I think about it … and I want it. A lot.”
“I want it too,” you say softly. “Just not right now. I need to finish school first. Establish myself. I can’t do that with a baby.”
“I know,” he says quickly. “And I’m not asking you to. I promise. Your education comes first. Always.”
“Then what’s bothering you?”
He sighs. “Honestly? I think I’m having some kind of early midlife crisis where all I want to do is knock you up and keep you barefoot and pregnant, and I know that’s incredibly sexist and regressive and not at all in line with my actual values, but apparently my lizard brain didn’t get the memo.”
You’re quiet for a long moment, and he’s worried he’s just irreparably weirded you out, but then you start laughing.
“It’s not funny,” he protests.
“It’s a little funny,” you counter. “Sidney Crosby, feminist ally and supporter of women’s hockey, having caveman breeding urges.”
“I’m aware of the irony,” he says drily.
“You know I’m on the pill, right?” You point out. “Very effective birth control. We could …” You trail off, and he can feel the shift in the air.
“Could what?”
“Pretend,” you say simply. “You could stop using condoms. Fill me up as much as you want. Talk about it. Get it out of your system.”
Sidney’s brain short-circuits. “What?”
“I’m saying,” you continue, shifting to straddle his lap, “that maybe I’m a little into the idea too. Of you being possessive and primal and wanting to breed me. As long as we’re both clear it’s fantasy right now.”
“You’re into it,” he repeats, his hands automatically going to your hips.
“Yeah,” you say, and he can see the flush creeping up your neck. “I like the idea of you being so into me that you want to … you know. Claim me like that. Mark me as yours.”
“Jesus,” he breathes.
“So maybe,” you continue, rolling your hips against him, “we could explore that. The fantasy of it. You could fuck me raw, come inside me, tell me all about how you’re going to knock me up. And we both know it’s not actually going to happen because I take my pill every morning at eight AM like clockwork.”
“That’s-” He swallows hard. “Are you sure?”
“Very sure,” you say. “I’ve been thinking about it too, actually. About what it would be like. About you being so desperate to breed me that you can’t help yourself.”
Something snaps in Sidney’s carefully maintained control.
“Bedroom,” he says, his voice rough. “Right now.”
You grin, clearly pleased with his reaction, and climb off his lap. He follows you upstairs, his mind already racing with possibilities.
Once you’re in the bedroom, he strips off his clothes while you watch, then reaches for the hem of your t-shirt.
“Can I?” He asks.
“Please,” you say, raising your arms.
He pulls it off, revealing all of you to him, and takes a moment just to look. You’re so beautiful it makes his chest ache sometimes.
“On the bed,” he directs. “On your back. Legs spread.”
You obey, and he kneels between your legs, running his hands up your thighs.
“We’re going to try something,” he says. “And you’re going to tell me immediately if anything feels wrong or if you want to stop. Understood?”
“Yes, daddy,” you breathe.
“Good girl,” he praises. “Now, here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to fuck you. No condom. Just me inside you, bare, the way it’s supposed to be. And I’m going to fill you up with my come. Over and over. Until you’re dripping with it.”
Your breathing has already picked up, your pupils dilating.
“And while I do that,” he continues, “I’m going to tell you exactly what I’m thinking about. About getting you pregnant. About seeing you round with my baby. About everyone knowing you’re mine because you’re carrying my child.”
“Yes,” you gasp. “Yes, please-”
“Is that what you want?” He asks, letting his fingers trail teasingly close to where you need them. “You want daddy to breed you? Want me to knock you up?”
“Yes,” you admit. “Want it so much-”
“Even though you’re supposed to be focusing on your PhD?” He teases. “Even though you’re a smart, independent woman with career goals?”
“Don’t care,” you whimper. “Just want you-”
“That’s my girl,” he murmurs approvingly. He positions himself at your entrance, the head of his cock just barely pressing against you. “Ready?”
“Please,” you beg.
He pushes in slowly, and the sensation of being inside you with nothing between you is overwhelming. He’s used condoms with you for the entire time you’ve been together, and this is … different. This is intimate in a way that makes his breath catch.
“Fuck,” he groans. “You feel so good. So perfect.”
“You too,” you gasp. “So deep-”
“I’m going to get deeper,” he promises, starting to move. “Going to bury myself so far inside you that you feel me for days. Going to fill you up so much it leaks out of you.”
“Please,” you moan. “Want it, want you-”
“You’re going to take all of it,” he continues, his pace increasing. “Every drop. Going to pump you so full of my come that there’s no way you don’t get pregnant.”
“Yes,” you cry out. “Yes, knock me up, make me yours-”
The words shoot straight through him. He adjusts the angle, hitting that spot inside you that makes you arch off the bed.
“That’s it,” he encourages. “Take it. Take all of me. This is what you were made for — taking my cock, carrying my babies.”
He knows he should probably feel guilty about the sexism inherent in that statement, but you’re moaning and clinging to him, so clearly you’re on board with the fantasy.
“I think about it all the time,” he admits, his rhythm getting harder, more desperate. “About you pregnant. About your belly growing round. About your tits getting fuller, your body changing because of what I did to you.”
“Tell me more,” you gasp. “Tell me everything-”
“I think about everyone knowing,” he continues. “Everyone seeing you and knowing that I knocked you up. That you’re mine. That you let me breed you like a good girl.”
“Yours,” you agree breathlessly. “All yours-”
“I think about you in the stands,” he says, “pregnant with my baby, watching me play. Everyone knowing that the captain of the Pittsburgh Penguins went home and fucked his girl so well she ended up barefoot and pregnant.”
“Oh god,” you moan. “Sidney-”
“Think about you staying home,” he continues, knowing he’s getting filthier but unable to stop. “Taking care of our baby. Waiting for me to come home so I can fuck another one into you. Keeping you constantly pregnant and full of me.”
“That’s so-” you gasp. “That’s so wrong-”
“I know,” he admits. “I know it’s backwards and problematic and you’re going to have an amazing career. But right now, when I’m inside you like this? All I can think about is breeding you. Making you mine in every possible way.”
“I am yours,” you promise. “Already yours-”
“But not pregnant yet,” he says. “Not full of my baby. Not showing the world that you belong to me.”
His hand slides between your bodies, finding your clit, and you cry out at the additional stimulation.
“Going to make you come on my cock,” he tells you. “Then I’m going to fill you up. Going to pump so much come into you that it has to take. You’re going to be so full of me.”
“Please,” you sob. “Please, daddy, I need-”
“I know what you need,” he assures you. “Need me to breed you properly. Need me to knock you up. Need everyone to see you’re mine.”
“Yes,” you cry. “Yes, all of that-”
“Come for me,” he commands. “Come on my cock and I’ll give you what you need. I’ll fill you up. I’ll breed you like you’re begging me to.”
You fall apart with a broken scream, your whole body trembling, and the feeling of you clenching around him with no barrier between you pushes him over the edge. He buries himself as deep as possible and comes, and it feels different like this, more intense, more primal.
“That’s it,” he groans. “Take it all. Every drop. Going to knock you up for sure.”
He stays buried inside you as you both come down, breathing hard, and some rational part of his brain is screaming that he just said some absolutely unhinged things.
“Holy shit,” you finally say, your voice rough.
“Yeah,” he agrees. “Was that—was that okay? I got a little carried away.”
“A little?” You laugh breathlessly. “You basically wrote a manifesto about keeping me barefoot and pregnant.”
“I know,” he says, mortified now that the moment has passed. “I’m sorry. That was-”
“So fucking hot,” you interrupt. “Oh my god, Sidney. That was incredible.”
He blinks. “Really?”
“Really,” you confirm. “I’ve never—I didn’t know I was into that, but apparently I very much am.”
“The breeding thing?”
“The whole thing,” you say. “You being possessive and primal. The dirty talk about knocking me up. All of it.”
“Even the sexist parts about keeping you home and pregnant?” He asks carefully.
“Even those parts,” you admit. “I know it’s not what I actually want in real life. I have career goals and ambitions and I’m going to finish my PhD and probably become a professor. But in the moment, when you’re talking about claiming me like that? It’s absurdly hot.”
“Okay,” he says, relief flooding through him. “Good. Because I was worried I just revealed some deeply problematic kinks.”
“Oh, they’re definitely problematic,” you say. “But they’re also hot. And since we both know it’s fantasy and I’m religiously taking my birth control, we can indulge in the fantasy without any actual consequences.”
He’s still inside you, and he can feel his come starting to leak out. Without thinking, he reaches down and pushes it back in with his fingers.
“Can’t waste it,” he murmurs. “Need to make sure it all stays inside. Need to make sure it takes.”
You moan, your hips shifting. “Again?”
“You want more already?” He asks, but he can feel himself starting to harden again inside you.
“Want you to breed me properly,” you say, echoing his earlier words. “Want you to fill me up so much there’s no doubt.”
Something possessive and primal roars through him. “Yeah? Want daddy to knock you up? Want me to fuck baby after baby into you?”
“Yes,” you gasp as he starts to move again. “Want everyone to know I’m yours. Want to be round with your baby. Want to give you everything.”
“Fuck,” he groans, his pace already picking up. “You’re going to kill me. Talking like that when you know how much I want it.”
“Good,” you say breathlessly. “Want you obsessed with it. Want you thinking about it every time you look at me.”
“I already am,” he admits. “Can’t stop thinking about you pregnant. About your body changing. About your tits getting bigger-”
His hand moves to your breast, thumbing your nipple, and you arch into the touch.
“They’re going to be so full,” he continues. “So sensitive. And I’m going to spend hours just playing with them, making you squirm.”
“Sidney,” you whimper.
“And your belly,” he goes on, his other hand splaying across your stomach. “Going to grow so round. Going to see my baby in there, moving around. Going to know I did that to you. That I knocked you up.”
“Want it,” you moan. “Want you to see me like that-”
“Everyone’s going to see you like that,” he says. “Going to see you pregnant and know that I fucked you. That I bred you. That you let me.”
“Let you?” You gasp. “I begged you for it-”
“That’s right,” he agrees. “You begged daddy to knock you up. Begged me to fill you with my come. Such a good girl, taking everything I give you.”
He angles his hips, hitting deeper, and you cry out.
“I’m going to keep you full of come,” he promises. “Every single day. Multiple times a day. Going to make sure there’s never a moment when you’re not dripping with it.”
“Yes,” you sob. “Yes, please, I want that-”
“Want me to breed you constantly?” He asks. “Want me to use this perfect body whenever I want? Want to be my good girl who’s always ready for me?”
“Always ready,” you promise. “Always want you-”
“Even when you’re pregnant,” he continues. “Especially when you’re pregnant. Going to fuck you every day, keep you satisfied, make sure you know how beautiful you are carrying my baby.”
“I’m close,” you gasp. “Daddy, I’m so close-”
“Come for me,” he commands. “Come on my cock and I’ll fill you up again. I’ll give you another load. I’ll breed you until it takes.”
You come with a broken cry, and he follows immediately after, burying himself deep and filling you again.
This time when you both collapse, he pulls you against his chest, still inside you, not ready to separate yet.
“I think I might have a problem,” he admits.
“What kind of problem?”
“The ‘I’m a thirty-nine-year-old man with an apparently massive breeding kink’ kind of problem,” he says.
You laugh, the sound breathless and satisfied. “I think it’s hot.”
“You would,” he says fondly. “You’re a menace.”
“You love it,” you counter.
“I do,” he admits. “Even when it makes me realize I’m apparently a dirty old man.”
“You’re not old,” you protest. “You’re experienced. There’s a difference.”
“I’m fifteen years older than you and I just spent twenty minutes talking about breeding you,” he points out. “That’s textbook dirty old man behavior.”
“Only if I’m not into it,” you say. “Which I very much am. So it’s just hot.”
He presses a kiss to your shoulder. “You’re very generous with your definitions.”
“I’m very into my boyfriend,” you correct. “All of him. Including the parts that want to knock me up and keep me pregnant.”
“Even though it’s not happening for at least eighteen months,” he confirms.
“Even though,” you agree. “We can fantasize all we want. And when I’m done with my PhD, if we both still want it, we can make it real.”
“I’m going to want it,” he says with certainty.
“I know,” you say. “I’m probably going to want it too. But right now, we get to have all the fun of the fantasy without any of the actual consequences.”
“Best of both worlds,” he murmurs.
“Exactly,” you say. “Now stop having an existential crisis about being a dirty old man and get some sleep. You have practice in the morning.”
“Yes ma’am,” he says, finally slipping out of you. He immediately feels his come start to leak out and has to resist the urge to push it back in.
You seem to read his mind. “Tomorrow,” you promise. “You can do it again tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that.”
“You’re going to spoil me,” he warns.
“Good,” you say. “You deserve to be spoiled.”
He pulls you close, your back to his chest, and tries to ignore the voice in his head that’s already planning exactly how he’s going to breed you tomorrow.
“Sidney?” You murmur sleepily.
“Hmm?”
“Thank you for telling me. About what you’ve been thinking.”
“Thank you for not running away screaming,” he says.
“Never,” you promise. “You’re stuck with me. Breeding kink and all.”
“Good,” he says, and means it. “Because I’m not letting you go.”
“Possessive,” you tease.
“Extremely,” he confirms. “You knew what you were signing up for.”
“I did,” you agree. “And I signed up anyway. What does that say about me?”
“That you have excellent taste,” he says, making you laugh.
“Or terrible judgment,” you counter. “The jury’s still out.”
“Go to sleep,” he says, pressing a kiss to your neck. “Before I decide I need to breed you a third time tonight.”
“Promises, promises,” you murmur, but you’re already drifting off.
Sidney lies awake a little longer, holding you, thinking about the future. About finishing your PhD and starting a family and all the things he wants to give you.
But for now, this is enough. You in his arms, satisfied and his, with the promise of tomorrow and all the tomorrows after that.
The thing about Sidney Crosby is that he knows what he wants.
And what he wants is you. In every possible way.
He can wait for the reality. But he’s going to enjoy the fantasy in the meantime.
Currently thinking about having a cute little picnic with Will and him setting up the entire thing (he had grace help). He takes you to his favorite spot hidden from the rest of the city where, when the sun is going down, you can see the entire skyline of the city and it’s so beautiful. He’s holding your hand the entire drive and every once in a while he’ll take his eyes off the rode to glance over at you and squeeze your hand. It’ll make you blush and look out the window, shyly. When he finally pulls up to the spot, he leans over to your side of the car and kisses you before hopping out and coming over to open your door for you. Taking your hand, he helps you out and fixes your dress before grabbing the rest of the things out of the back of the truck.
You watch him as he lays out the blanket and sets the basket of food down, he takes your hand, guiding you to sit with him. The whole time you guys are smiling and he’s feeding you strawberries as you lay your head on your lap and you keep pointing up at different clouds that remind you of silly things. You really just want to hear Will’s laugh so you keep saying outrageous things. He keeps smiling down at you, moving your hair from your face and calling you pretty and telling you how much he loved you. I can see him wanting to talk about the future and how he wants you to move back to Boston with him eventually and how he wants to start a family and have at least two kids, a boy and girl, so they can be as close as him and grace are.
He’s explaining all of this and you’re just smiling at him because he seems so genuine and honest about his confession. You’re imagining your future with him because he has already admitted that he’s going to marry you one day and you’re just waiting patiently for the day he pops the question. You can see your life with him, teaching your children how to skate and the rules of the game all while you cheer them on from the stands or skate right beside them in encouragement.
The whole date just solidifies, to you that you love him and want to spend the rest of your life with him. You’re going to walk down the aisle and meet him for the rest of your life. You’re going to say your vows to him and he’s going to tear up in front of all his friends and family and he won’t even be embarrassed because he loves you way too much to care what others think.
╰ Synopsis You never meant to fall for a younger guy, especially not the one who happened to be your friends younger brother. Will doesn’t waste his time to get to know you and a night after getting jealous, it leads to a night you two will never forget.
tags/contains Will Smith x fem!reader. Fluff, angst, smut. Older!reader, slight age gap (2 years), slow burn, friends to lovers, mutual pining, jealous Will, friends brother, use of y/n, smut, 18+, NSFW, oral (f receiving), p in v, porn with plot, marking, just all of freaky stuff, 3.9k words, requested.
➺ from Sera, to you📨. These new photos and edits of Will got me wet asf 👅
masteerlist ᥫ᭡ please reblog this fic if you enjoyed it!
When you met Gracie on a night out with your friend, you didn’t expect the two of you to grow so close.
It was one of your first nights out as a newly minted 21 year old. You’d only brought your closest friend with you to the club to keep things lowkey. You weaved through the crowded floor, drink in hand, when you accidentally bumped into a pretty blonde girl.
To your surprise and thankful, she laughed instead of getting annoyed, and the two of you ended up chatting at the bar for nearly an hour. By the end of the night, you exchanged numbers with the promise of “we should hang sometime”.
You hadn’t taken it too seriously at first, she was a few years older than you so you were sure she’d grow bored of you. But after a couple of coffee dates, the two of you realised how close you’d gotten and despite the small age gap, it felt like you’d known each other forever.
On midsummer Gracie invited you over to her family’s house for a casual backyard celebration. Saying how there would be only a few people, mostly her family, her parents, her younger brother. Adding the fact that he’s 19 and how you might have to deal with him.
You’d shrugged it off with a laugh. Younger guys had never been your type, especially not your friend’s little brother. The idea barely registered as you agreed, excited more about spending time with Gracie than anything else.
And that’s what you thought too. Until the moment you pulled up to the Smith family’s house that evening. Gracie greeted you at the door with a bright hug, handing you a cold drink before tugging you through the house and out into the sunlit yard. She guided you through the yard, until your eyes landed on the blond.
He was taller than you’d pictured, with messy blond hair catching the golden light, he was shirtless and yes, you didn’t mean to look at how nice his abs were, but you couldn’t help it when your eyes kept looking. He was undeniably attractive but that was it.
The first few times you came over after that, each visit chipped away at your indifference. The way his blue eyes stared at you a second too long, his voice when he asked about your day, how his laugh seemed deeper when it was directed at you.
He was handsome, handsome type that crept up on you until you found yourself noticing every feature of his. The way his shirts stretched across his chest, the flex of muscle in his arms when he reached for something.
And it didn’t take long for Will to make his move. That summer, during yet another gathering, he caught you alone by the side of the house grabbing another drink from the cooler. He leaned against the wall, giving you a smile showing his all 32. “Hey.. since you’re around so much, mind if I get your number?” he asked. “Just in case.”
You smiled and handed it over. The thought of you thinking it was ‘just in case’ crossed Will’s mind of course, but Will knew it wasn’t just that.
Will started texting you like two nights after asking for your number. Firstly he started telling you about training, questions about your favourite songs, what you were doing on the weekends and lastly he soon started texting you good morning messages.
You honestly even kept waiting for the guilt to hit so you’d text Gracie and say, “Hey, your brother won’t stop messaging me” but the time never came because you enjoyed it more than you wanted to admit. Some nights you even caught yourself typing first, heart picking up when his reply popped up within seconds or sometimes when you thought he wouldn’t reply and you’d embarrass yourself.
Gracie had seen the two of you on your phones more than once, eyebrows raised but she never pushed. And you convinced yourself she didn’t suspect anything.
Without Gracie around as a buffer, Will was different. And by the time you were close friends, you started to suspect maybe he was into you.
Will was aware of you being older. He knew from the start the way older guys gravitated toward you like moths to a flame. Confident men in their twenties and beyond, with their careers and effortless charm, lingered at bars or parties whenever you were around.
He couldn’t blame them really, the way you carried yourself with assurance that came from having a few more years of life figured out, and it was magnetic.
Will knew you shut most of them down politely, only letting a guy buy you a drink if it was harmless and your friends were there. Will told himself he could do that too, hell, he wanted to be the one getting you drinks, pulling out your chair, making you laugh until your eyes crinkled at the corners.
But not because he was trying to play catchup, but because he wanted your attention on his terms. As himself. The version of him that lit up when you texted first, the one who remembered your favorite flowers and told you things he wouldn’t really tell anyone else.
Being younger meant he got reminded of the gap constantly. Girls your age were supposed to want someone established, someone who didn’t still get carded at certain bars. Will felt it every time you got approached in public. He started positioning himself behind you at gatherings or nights out, his chest sometimes brushing your back, his hand sometimes ghosting near your waist.
And when he thought his jealousy couldn’t get worse, it hit hardest the night you visited him in San Jose.
The sharks had just pulled off a win, Will had texted you to wait by the side exit where a few players sometimes stopped for quick autographs. As he promised he won’t be too long.
You stood near the door, scrolling on your phone, paying little attention to the thinning crowd. Until a tap on your shoulder made you turn. Celebrini stood there, offering a friendly smile. “Hey, you waiting for Will? You’re his friend, right?”
You nodded, returning the smile. “Yeah, that’s me. Oh, you’re Macklin, great game tonight, by the way. I’ve seen you play pretty much, I think you’re amazing.”
“Thanks,” he chuckled, cheeks slightly reddening at the thought of talking about himself. “Appreciate it. It’s kinda crazy Will left you standing out here alone, though.”
You laughed lightly, shrugging. “No, it’s totally fine. I don’t mind waiting, and now I’m not really alone.” The words were appreciative, your tone warm as you chatted with him.
Will had stepped out just in time to catch the exchange, he froze a few feet away, his bag slung over his shoulder. Macklin’s comment sank deeper than it should have, he knew it wasn’t anything overtly flirty, but to Will it echoed every online comparison he’d seen.
Social media loved pitting them against each other, and in Will’s mind, it always circled back to you. You were stunning, confident, older so why wouldn’t you look at Macklin and see exactly what you were “supposed” to want?
Now that you were 23 and Will had turned 21, the season had ended on a bittersweet note, and you found yourself on yet another visit to San Jose.
By now you were one hundred percent sure Gracie suspected something. Every time you mentioned flying out to see Will, her responses was anything along, “have fun with my brother” or “tell Will I said hi.. and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” She never judged you, and if anything, she seemed supportive.
Will had offered you his place since Macklin was away for the worlds, leaving the apartment empty. He suggested going out for drinks with a few of his friends tonight, and you agreed. Why stay cooped up alone when you could watch him laugh under the lights?
The group was lively at first, but after an hour or so, his friends started peeling off with a smirk. “Oh, we know,” one of them said something along those lines, with a wink as they grabbed their jackets. “We’ll leave you two to it.”
You both kept it light tonight, a couple of well made cocktails sat between you, fruity and refreshing. The conversation flowed easily, until eventually Will excused himself joking about how alcohol pee hits different and quickly went to the bathroom.
He wasn’t gone long, the men’s line moved fast, and he was heading back toward your seats less than three minutes later. But when his eyes found your spot at the bar, his steps faltered.
Some guy was now sitting in his stool. He was leaning in, saying something that made you laugh. A fresh drink sat in front of you, condensation already beading on the glass. You looked entertained, polite but engaged, nodding along as the stranger gestured.
Will’s stomach dropped. He had thought you were past this. Past letting guys buy you drinks just because they could. He believed you were finally enjoying his company enough that you didn’t need the attention from anyone else and apparently he’d been wrong.
The jealousy he’d carried since the start, flared hot and ugly in his chest. Maybe this is it, he thought bitterly. Maybe you really are just Gracie’s friend, and that’s all you’ll ever see me as. The younger brother who’s fun to text but not enough to choose.
But who was he fooling? If you turned around right now and asked him to do something, he’d do it without hesitation like a damn puppy, tail wagging, heart fully invested. That’s how deep he was in this.
Will sighed and made his way back to the bar. His eyes locked on you immediately, and yours found him just as fast. Something changed in your expression but he pushed forward anyway.
“Excuse me,” Will said, voice edged. “Mind if I get my seat back?”
The guy turned, eyebrows raised. “Your seat-?”
“He’s here with me, actually,” you cut in, gesturing toward Will with a small smile. The stranger looked between you two, then shrugged.
“Well, okay then. I’ll see you around.” He slid off the stool and disappeared into the crowd.
Will sat down, but the easy joy from earlier had vanished. Every time you tried to restart the conversation, he answered with short, clipped responses.
You realized quickly that he was annoyed. “Will, do you want to go home?” you asked softly after another one word reply.
He nodded once. “Yeah, let’s go.”
The uber ride back to his apartment was quiet. As soon as you stepped inside, Will headed straight for the kitchen, grabbing a glass of water like he needed something to do with his hands.
You followed, leaning against the counter. “Will, is there something wrong?”
He shrugged, not meeting your eyes. “It’s just funny, I guess. You’re out with me and then some guy buys you a drink right in front of me.”
You stepped closer until you were standing right in front of him, tilting your head up to catch his eyes. “Are you jealous?”
His cheeks flushed. “No, I’m not-”
“You definitely are,” you murmured, a small smile tugging at your lips.
Before he could deny it again, you leaned up slowly, brushing your lips against his in tease. That was all it took, Will’s restraint snapped. He pushed forward, capturing your mouth in a hungry kiss. His hands found your waist, pulling you flush against him as the tension finally broke open between you.
You pushed your body flush against his until your hips met, feeling the hard line of him straining against his jeans. His hands slid slowly down from your waist to your ass, grabbing a generous handful and squeezing hard enough to make you moan into his mouth.
His fingers dug into your thighs next, patting them in a clear signal. You jumped, wrapping your legs around his waist. Will turned, not breaking the kiss and set you down on the kitchen counter. You slid your hands up to the back of his neck, fingers threading through his hair as he pressed forward between your spread legs.
He kissed down your jaw to your neck, sucking a dark love bite just below your ear before soothing the sting with his tongue. You gasped, tugging at his hair, hips rolling instinctively against him.
“Will..” you breathed.
He hummed against your skin, hands roaming greedily under your shirt. But you wanted more than the kitchen counter, so you pushed him back gently and jumped down, taking his hand and tugged him along.
Will followed for only a few steps before his patience broke. He scooped you up bridal style without warning, making you laugh breathlessly as he carried you faster down the short hallway.
Will laid you down gently on the bed, your head sinking into the pillows as he hovered over you, propped up on his elbows. One hand cradled your chin, while the other slipped under your shirt, warm palm gliding over your stomach.
He leaned back in, kissing you deeply. Your tongues meeting hot, the taste of cocktails and pent up longing mixing between you. You sighed into his mouth, fingers tracing the muscles of his back.
Will pulled away just long enough to sit up on his knees and tug his shirt over his head. Your mouth watered at the sight, you’d known he was attractive since the first time you saw it, but this was different. His body had filled out even more from the extra gym work, his tempting v line disappearing into his jeans.
He looked like he belonged on a magazine cover, not in your arms.
You sat up, taking his wrist and guiding his hand to the hem of your shirt. He understood instantly and pulled it over your head, revealing the red lace bra underneath. Will’s eyes widened, his lips parting.
Will swore this was the best thing he’d seen in his life. He skipped everything else because no one compared and now that you were here, looking like this, he knew he didn’t deserve it but he was so fucking grateful.
He asked shyly, “Can I take it off?”
You nodded. His fingers fumbled with the clasp for a moment, his nerves and eagerness making him clumsy until it finally gave way. He tossed the bra aside and eased you back onto the pillows.
His mouth found your neck again, then trailed lower, kissing across your collarbone before reaching your breasts. He took one nipple into his mouth, sucking gently at first, then harder, tongue swirling. The moan that escaped you seemed to encourage him.
“God, you sound so pretty,” he murmured against your skin, and continued downward, lips brushing over your stomach. When he reached the waistband of your jeans, his fingers slipped inside, eyes flicking up to yours for permission.
“Please,” you breathed.
Will didn’t think twice and unbuttoned your jeans and dragged them down slowly, taking your matching red lace panties with them. Once you were bare, he settled between your legs, kissing your inner thighs softly, not wasting his time to work his way higher.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said, voice full with want. “So fucking wet already.. all for me?”
He hooked your legs over his shoulders, strong hands gripping your thighs to hold you open. The first slow lick up your center pulled a sharp gasp from you. Will groaned at your taste, the vibration sending sparks through your body. He licked again, tongue circling your clit before sucking it gently between his lips.
Your hands flew to his hair, fingers tightening as pleasure built. You pushed him closer when he found the perfect rhythm, hips rolling against his mouth. Will hummed in approval, the sound low and filthy.
He slid one finger inside you, then two, curling them just right while his tongue worked your clit faster. The combination had your back arching, moans growing louder. Will’s free hand stayed firm on your thigh, keeping you pressed to him as he devoured you like a man starved.
Will kept going, like he’d been waiting years just to taste you. His tongue circled your clit with perfect pressure while his fingers curled deep inside, hitting that spot that made your thighs shake. You were bucking against his face now, hips chasing the pleasure as it built higher and higher.
“Will- fuck, right there,” you gasped, fingers tightening painfully in his hair.
He groaned against you and used his strength to pin your hips down to the mattress, holding you still so he could devour you exactly how he wanted. The added pressure pushed you over the edge, your orgasm crashed through you hard, back arching off the bed as you cried out his name.
He didn’t stop and licked you through every wave until you were trembling and breathless, thighs clamped around his head.
He finally pulled back, lips shiny and breathing ragged. He sat up, quickly unbuckling his belt and shoving his jeans and boxers down in one impatient motion. His cock sprang free, hard and flushed, the tip already glistening.
Will crawled back over you, hovering close. “Was that good?” he asked, almost shy.
“Fuck yeah,” you laughed breathlessly. “Never had better. Jesus, Will.”
He grinned, pride flashing across his face, and leaned down to kiss you, as you tasted yourself on his tongue. When he pulled back, his eyes searched yours. “Can you take more? I don’t want to push-”
You nodded immediately.
His smile was bright and relieved. Feeling bold, you planted your hands on his chest and flipped both of you over. Will let you take control, moving until his back rested against the headboard and you climbed into his lap, straddling him, knees on either side of his hips.
You wrapped your hand around his cock, stroking him slowly before lining him up. Then you sank down inch by inch, taking him inside you. The stretch was perfect, filling you completely. Will’s head fell back against the headboard with a groan.
“Fuck.. you feel so good,” he breathed, hands gripping your waist tightly. “So tight.. a-and so warm.”
You started moving, rolling your hips in a steady rhythm. When you leaned backward, bracing your hands on his thighs, the angle shifted and hit a new spot that made you moan loudly. Will’s grip tightened, helping guide you, sometimes pulling you down harder onto him with each thrust upward.
“Shit- just like that,” he cursed, eyes locked on where your bodies joined. “You’re going to kill me. What a w-way to die.” He joked, moaning while trying to talk.
A few moments later, you leaned forward again, wrapping your arms around his neck and pressing your chest to his. Your fingers scratched lightly down his back, leaving faint red lines that only seemed to spur him on. Will buried his face in your neck, kissing and biting as you rode him faster.
“I’m so fucking in love with you,” he whispered hotly against your skin, voice breaking with pleasure.
The words, combined with the way he filled you and the friction against your clit, sent you spiraling again. You came hard around his cock, squeezing him rhythmically as waves of pleasure rolled through you. Will groaned loudly, hips stuttering.
“Baby- I’m close,” he warned.
You kept moving through your orgasm until he lifted you just enough to pull out. He stroked himself twice more and came with a deep moan, thick ropes landing across your stomach and lower chest. His head tipped back, breathing heavy, face flushed with satisfaction.
You still sat in his lap, both of you breathing hard as you came down from the high. A lazy smile tugged at your lips when you finally caught your breath. Will looked at you like you’d hung the stars, his hands still gently holding your hips.
He leaned in for one more soft kiss before carefully lifting you off him and laying you back down on the pillows. “Stay right here”.
He disappeared into the bathroom and returned moments later with a warm, damp cloth. With gentle touches, he cleaned his release from your stomach and between your thighs.
Once he was done, he tossed the cloth back into the bathroom and rummaged through his closet. He slipped on a pair of black boxers, then brought you one of his soft t-shirts and another pair of his boxers.
Will climbed back into bed and lifted the sheets. He opened his arms wide in invitation and you didn’t think twice, sliding in and pressing your chest against his as you both lay on your sides. Your arms wrapped around his waist while his circled you, one hand stroking slowly up and down your back. You tangled your legs together, bodies fitting perfectly.
“It was amazing,” you murmured against his skin. “Thank you.”
Will kissed your forehead, lips lingering there. “I know,” he agreed. “Goodnight” Wrapped in each other’s warmth, the steady beat of his heart against yours lulled you.
The next morning you woke up still tangled in each other exactly as you’d fallen asleep. Your legs were intertwined, your face pressed against Will’s chest, and his arm was wrapped securely around your waist.
You shifted slightly, and Will stirred, humming softly as he woke. “How’d you sleep?” Will asked a few minutes after waking up.
“Definitely better than other nights when the bed beside me is empty,” you replied with a small smile.
He laughed softly, the sound vibrating through his chest. Will’s fingers traced lazy circles on your lower back before he spoke again.
“Y/n.. this is honestly so embarrassing, but after last night, what do I have to lose?” He swallowed. “Yesterday made me realize how much I really want to be with you. I’ve known it for a long time of course, because every time I saw you with other guys, letting them buy you drinks, it drove me crazy. But I always felt like I’d just be ‘Gracie’s younger brother’ to you. And I think last night proved I can’t let you go and I don’t want to.”
You opened your mouth to respond, but he continued, the words tumbling out.
“I know you’ve had other options, but I ignore everyone else just for you. I just need to know, was this something real? Or was I just a nightstand for you because-”
You lightly hit his chest. “Okay, first of all, don’t say it like that.” You softened your voice. “And no because it was genuine. Why would I ever hook up with my friend’s brother if I didn’t want you? I’m here in bed with you because I want you. The truth is.. the day I saw you, I thought you were cute. I told myself it was just a first impression and it would fade, but it never did. I’ve never really been into younger guys, but I think I’m really gone for you, Will. Sometimes the best things come when you least expect it.”
Will’s face lit up with a shy, happy smile. He let out a little giggle. “I’m actually into older women, if you didn’t know.”
You laughed. “So.. how are we going to tell my sister about this?” he asked.
“I mean, she’s not stupid. She’s probably suspected for a while but we’re definitely not telling her the details of last night,” you said, grinning.
Will nodded, laughing. “Agreed.” He pulled you closer. “Now tell me.. what was your actual first impression of me that day on midsummers?”
Wet and wild request: summer 3, dialogue 18 with Nate McKinnon
Thank you!
list no.3, summer prompt no.18: stargazing
the grass is still warm from the sun set when nathan spreads the blanket out across the yard for you both—a lilac plaid thing you’ve had since high school that’s due for the dump yard but you can’t quite let go.
the blades aren’t fully warm anymore—summer night air has started cooling everything slowly—but enough that you can still feel traces of heat rising beneath your legs when you sit down beside him.
crickets hum softly in the dark. someone a few houses over in the neighborhood is still laughing around a firepit. the air smells faintly like cut grass and smoke and summertime. all while above you, the sky stretches endlessly black and blue, stars scattered across it in soft silver pinpricks.
nathan leans back onto his elbows beside you with a sigh like he’s a full grown dad. “there,” he says, looking over at you lazily, “perfect.”
you glance over at him with a smile, meeting his gaze. “you say that like you personally arranged the stars.”
a hint of a smirk pulls at his lips, despite the way his eyes flicked upwards in a roll. “I did,” he answers, tone full of teasing.
“oh, obviously.”
he continues, in that usual honey laced, sarcastic tone he does only to annoy it, “took me hours.”
you snort softly, curling your legs beneath yourself on the blanket while he continues to grin over at you, syrupy and warm—just how summer always feels with him.
because summer with nathan always feels softer, somehow.
maybe it’s the way he never rushes anything. the way silence around him never feels awkward. you can spend entire evenings together doing almost nothing and it still somehow becomes one of your favorite memories.
like how tonight started with ice cream from a tiny, family owned shop in ann harbour—your flavour salty caramel, his french vanilla—and a late drive with the windows down, melted ice cream dripping down your hands as you both attempt to lick it off in a giggle filled hurry.
now the night has somehow become this. stargazing in the backyard like some cheesy couple out of an equally as cheesy 90s rom com movie.
nathan shifts slightly beside you before holding an arm out, silently beckoning you into his strong side, and you go without fuss.
you settle against his side, head resting comfortably on his chest while his arm wraps around your shoulders automatically, fingers brushing lazily up and down your arm beneath the oversized hoodie you stole from him earlier—heartbeat is slow and steady under your ear.
honestly, you think you could fall asleep listening to it.
“see that one?” nathan asks quietly after a minute.
you tilt your head back slightly, blinking the sleepiness from your eyes. “which one?”
his soft lips brush the shell of your ear, “the bright one.”
“there are literally thousands of bright ones.”
“the really bright one.”
you snort, absentmindedly playing with his thick fingers, spinning the wedding ring around his middle finger that you’d given him at the beginning of the summer. a small, gentle ceremony with too many flowers and baby blue accents.
it still feels surreal weeks later.
“that narrows it down zero percent.” you murmur.
he laughs softly under you, chest rumbling gently against your cheek before he lifts his free hand, pointing carefully upward in the line of your vision.
“there,” nathan’s voice dips low, vibrating against your ear, “right there.”
squinting—because of course your eyeglasses are inside—you follow his finger through the dark sky until you finally spot it, and you laugh pleasantly.
“see it now?” he hums.
you shrug, feigning nonchalance because you’re a brat. “maybe,” you sing-song.
he smiles at that, turning his head just enough to look down at you. even in the dark, you can still make out the softness in his expression, and you can’t help but to tilt your chin upwards and press a loving kiss to the hinge of his stubbled jaw. which earns you one back against the lips, lazy and lingering.
the two of you fall quiet again after that. not empty quiet, but a comfortable quiet, filled with the distant sounds of loons singing and someone’s tv playing far too loudly.
nathan’s fingers continue tracing slow patterns against your arm while you stare up at the sky together, counting satellites and badly identifying constellations and occasionally pointing out shooting stars that may or may not actually just be airplanes.
at some point, you yawn, loud and unattractive, that small squeaky noise sounding in the back of your throat as you attempt to stifle it.
but your husband notices instantly, squeezing you into his side tighter. “you tired baby?” he asks, lips brushing your temple as he speaks lowly there.
“a little.”
“you wanna go inside?”
you think about it for maybe half a second before shaking your head against his chest, snuggling deeper into the soft, clean cotton of his shirt.
“no.” your voice comes out softer than before. sleepier. “wanna stay here.”
the night air grows cooler as the minutes pass, but nathan stays warm beside you, steady and familiar beneath the stars. eventually, sleep does take you—soft, puffing snores against his peck that have him grinning down at you like the stars hold nothing in comparison.
Your parents were traditionalists. Very much into the idea that you need a man to help you this patriarchal hell. They had let you off the hook during college, letting you focus on your studies. But now it was time to get a guy and maybe start thinking about some kids. That's how they somehow introduce a certain someone to you.
Arranged husband! Sidney Crosby, who deals with wedding planning like a champ. It doesn't matter that you two met a few weeks ago, he is going wedding cake tasting with you. Screening caterers. Curating tables like he's prepping the Met Gala. If this day was a peek into how you'd spend the rest of your lives, then it had to be perfect.
Arranged husband! Sidney Crosby, who secretly drives you out to Vegas a few days before the wedding so you can see that lots of people tie the knot without being a million percent sure about it. Your first kiss is infront of one of the neon signed chapels.
Arranged husband! Sidney Crosby, who introduces you to the WAGS and makes sure that the group of women help you out as much as they can before you are made to be one of them.
Arranged husband! Sidney Crosby, who secretly looks up wedding traditions that you know and he doesn't. He even calls your parents to ask them about how their wedding went, and if they want to try to recreate some of the pictures with you.
Arranged husband! Sidney Crosby, who writes custom vows but doesn't say them infront of everyone. Instead he saves them for you. When you watch this beautiful, older man say that he can't wait to know you and that he's sure loving you will come with, you tear up a little. Maybe your parents were right.
Arranged husband! Sidney Crosby that is so surprised that you're not as experienced as him. It doesn't matter really, but he does get off on how you get for him, needy and wet. It's like you're both virgins again with the way you're all over eachother.
Arranged husband! Sidney Crosby absolutely has to call you his wife in bed. From my gorgeous wife and my perfect wife to my needy wife or his favorite, my wrecked bride. Also refers to himself as your husband, so he'd tell you to come on your husband's cock.
Arranged husband! Sidney Crosby loves your mouth. Whether it's against his neck or his pecs. Wrapped around his cock or tongue against his hole, he needs you. Gets extra loud and whiny too when it's been a while, lets himself fuck your throat a bit as a reward.
Arranged husband! Sidney Crosby secretly likes fucking you without much foreplay before. You're still wet from the way he kisses you and your tits, but you're not getting his fingers. Just his cock. The way you stretch around him, the pleas for more when you're ready, it's everything to him.
( gif credits to the lovely @parktheeshark for this crisp gifset ! )
☤ ─ KINDER SEAS ; Park the Shark
summ. 3 more times the infamous Park the Shark watches over you, & the 1 time you repaid the favour.
w.count. 7.2k (whew!)
tags. More oceanic motifs , mutual pining , Shark being an asshole & a protective gentleman all at once , some law-related inaccuracies probably , not beta-read oops
a/n. Dynamic previously established here in this fic. Finally a part 2 to the Pearls Before Swine fic! Apologies for the long wait, I hope you enjoy!
1.
A CLARION CALL summons God’s cavalry in the dead of the night. Overhead, the PA system booms the dreaded Code Triage across the halls of Departments: An MCI triggered after a structural collapse of a construction site, which had also caused a multi-vehicle pile-up, bringing about a domino effect of lethal casualties.
It tears everyone asunder. 12-hour shift going 14 (and counting) entirely on your feet now with the additional storm surge of emergency traumas; either standing during surgeries or sailing between multiple theatres to assist with crush cases, complex fractures, traumatic amputations. Pulling all the stops possible, going hammer and tongs—
To no avail.
Case after trauma case watching people die on the table only to have to swiftly move on to the next; Or for them to be ferried to the ICU with the knowledge only a miracle or a prayer might save them. You can’t help but feel the swamping weight of guilt on your shoulders; Can’t help but feel like you’re drowning from the literal and metaphorical blood on your hands.
It’s a struggle. Sink or swim—
You just hadn’t expected Park the Shark, of all people, to be the sea-beast that would keep your head above water instead of dragging you under it.
“Precious is looking for you at the Nursing Station,” he informs, which— well, coming from him, is the most courteous way you will ever hear him say Get the fuck back out there and make yourself useful, to someone crying their eyes out in an on-call room.
“Shit. Okay,” you nod, trying for steadiness as you blink back tears. But your voice cracks, and the humiliation only adds to the shame of you having flinched out your skin at being caught weeping by your literal boss, alongside the exhaustion and the weariness and the grie—
“Sorry. Just. Give me a minute.” You sniffle. Wipe your tear-stained cheeks like a child as you palpably feel Park observing (…judging?), silently, before drifting into the room.
He leans against the work table. Crosses his arms. (A shred of consideration, perhaps, if you’re hopeful to read it as such: A 6’2” beast of a man trying his best not to crowd you in a tiny room by keeping distance; keeping your space on the bed yours as much as he’s keeping his own in the corner.)
“Minute’s up,” he bluntly declares, after a beat. And just before you can open your mouth to protest:
“What the hell happened?” he asks.
You look up at him, blindsided.
Park has never been the type for small talk or inanities. A captain of a no-nonsense, streamlined, tight ship who preferred to nip bullshit in the bud. The abrupt gesture of conversation has you haywiring for a moment: He hadn’t asked it in a way that sounded fed up or impatient at all.
You shake your head. Duck your gaze to pick at the soles of your shoes. They’re stained, still, with dried blood.
He just wants to make sure you’re not a liability, you reason to yourself. Quit crying before you ruin your image to him.
“M’fine,” you finally exhale. “Just exhausted.”
“You’ve had shittier days,” he disagrees immediately, as if he’d predicted your reply— which is true, you’ve endured longer hours than today before in your career. Park is simply cutting to the chase, like the problem solver he is; that familiar tone in his voice sparking your reflex into deference. Don’t waste my time, it feels like.
And so you yield. Unlatch the floodgate of your heart.
You tell him about the 15-year-old who could’ve been saved with a clamshell thoracotomy had his sternum and ribs not been pulverised into too many fragments for you to pick out; about the premature twins delivered to the NICU after an 8-month-pregnant mother had suffered an Open Book pelvic crush fracture on the drive back home from their OBGYN check-up with PTMC just an hour before.
You tell Dr. Park about the other trauma patients you watch code and die on the table despite doing everything you could; and about the 12-year-old little girl with the open skull fracture, and the above-the-knee amputation you had to perform on a 17-year-old teen, and the 21-year-old man who you’re sure is going to wind up paralysed from the waist down.
That while most of your patients were stabilised enough to survive and pull through emergency surgery, they still have a long way yet to go in suffering the winding road to recovery; still have to endure the ICU anyway to fight for their life, and we both know how postoperative mortality rates fucking look like, don’t w—?
“Hey,” Park overrides sharply, cutting cleanly through the tempest in your spiralling head.
You suck in through your teeth with a flinch. Fortify yourself. Bring the levees back up around your heart for when he spears you with a barrage of strictures; to tear into you for wallowing in your despair like a child.
Only—
“You just said you did everything you could,” he points out incredulously, brows pinched. “That’s as high as the ceiling goes in trauma cases like these.”
A difficult thing to hear, given his stern cadence as he harshly says it, and an even harder pill to swallow. But it works enough, surprisingly, to steady you back into some semblance of sanity. Anchoring you from going adrift.
“Anything further is the work of God— and I don’t believe in in divine miracles,” he censures, pragmatic. “I believe in Doctors. And the good ones do everything they can.”
(That is to say: you did good. You are good— of which also says: I believe in good. I believe in you.)
It feels like a cold plunge. Shocks you into blinking up at him again, with what you can only imagine is owlish surprise, considering the way he’s looking back at your teary gaze with that same unimpressed expression he gets whenever he states something glaringly obvious: Detached. Clinical.
You bleed out the saturated warmth welling up somewhere beneath your ribcage before it can drown you. Flood it with cerebral rationale instead:
Park the Shark does not hand out compliments, and so you ought not to foolishly consider what he implied as such. This is… charity. That scrap of validation he knows everyone seeks desperately from him. Just an off-hand lifeline thrown to buoy you through rough waters.
(Then again, you’ve never known Park to say something just for the sake of saying it. He’s the taciturn sort, and above all an unapologetically brutally honest one. So maybe—?)
You internally shake your thoughts.
“The rest is just noise,” comes his fierce conclusion. “Tune it out.”
“Did it take long?” you ask, just as the redundancy of the question had hit you. “To tune it out, I mean.”
It should’ve been a blatant no to hear from the cold-blooded Park the Shark of all Doctors— bold and hardhearted and perfectly sensible for someone who’d earned a certified specialty in Ortho-trauma early on in his career. Bone-deep certainty driving his hands and cold data clearing his head that provides infallible, utilitarian disconnect from him and other people.
But it appears, briefly, like he’s considering something as he stares at you. It’s gone into the depths before you can make out the shape of it: A flash of something alive underneath the maritime blue of his eyes.
“Your shift is over,” he settles stiffly, after the pensive moment. “Go home.”
That sits you up straight, diverted by the non sequitur. “What? No, I—” You must have crossed a line; must have failed some unknown test he’d been dishing out to be abruptly dismissed like this, surely? “I can keep going—”
“Go home, pup,” he repeats, in that menacing snap of finality he uses to clinch arguments. Teeth and a scrunched nose in a half-snarl. “I won’t say it again.”
“Two more consults,” you barter pathetically, sliding off the bed before you can stop yourself: You’ve planted yourself stubbornly in front the door where he’s made headway to exit after pushing off his corner. “I have four more patients.”
You unflinchingly meet his leviathan-keen gaze when he stops short in front of you. There’s an exasperated bristle to his expression, as if you’re a pesky little sea urchin insistent in blocking his path back to the shoreline.
“You’ve been on your feet for over 14 hours.” So have you, Shark, you manage to swallow back. “Yeshua volunteered to come in early,” Park continues, visibly growing more annoyed. “You covered for him last time. Scale’s even.”
“Yeshua? He never volunteers for anything,” you scowl, only for it to hit you a moment later. Yeshua never volunteers. Park would have had to put him up to it, essentially giving you an out, and… sparing you a kindness?
Be realistic, you remind yourself. It couldn’t be. He’s probably punishing Yeshua for something while replacing your uselessness. Two birds with one stone. Ever efficient.
“Look, alright? I’m done crying. I got it out my system,” you insist, as patiently as you can. Pointedly taking a deep breath and tucking your hair back in an attempt to back your mettle. “I’m fine. I’m not a liability, Dr. Park—”
A noncommittal scoff. As if to say Is that what this is, pup? “If you were, I’d have told you a long time ago.”
There it is again. A liferaft. The sliver of recognition you can’t help but take to heart as implied approval, like the greedy, self-indulgent girl you are. Clinging hopelessly onto the flimsy fact that his absence of criticism is the closest thing anyone can get as praise.
“Now move, or you will be moved,” he warns, dryly.
You heed him before your imagination runs wild at the idea. Step aside to let him make his way out the door. End the conversation.
But he shifts slightly to pull it wide instead, his hand coming up high against the door and above your head to hold it open for you. An easy, economic motion, stretching him into a looming figure. There’s more than enough space to let you pass if you dip below his arm just a fraction.
Hardly chivalrous. Enough, though, that it’s a dissonance to his otherwise… ungracious character.
Well? An impatient tilt of his head to the threshold. Ladies first.
“Handover after speaking with Precious,” he orders sharply, disregarding your shy, sheepish Thanks once you finally duck past him. “I don’t wanna see you after that.”
It should’ve come across unforgivably offensive with the way he’d delivered the coarse words, but the entire exchange you’d just shared with him since he’d walked in had only served to soften the abrasiveness of his instruction into something achingly endearing in your chest.
“…Yeah,” you mumble, flustered. “Okay.”
2.
The amputation bites you back in the ass within a few months of the MCI: a teen with an athletic scholarship loses his future, an angry father’s threat to sue you comes to fruition, and PTMC’s Legal Department contacts you— and all the medical staff involved in the operating theatre that day, much to everyone’s chagrin— in regards to the case.
Dr. Brendon Park has a decorated career in medicine long enough to have faced his own line of medical malpractice lawsuits against him. You, however, do not.
The email alone sends you spiralling.
“Quit pacing,” Dr. Park scowls. He sets the break room coffee pot down with a frustrated thud that echoes like a gavel. “You’re gonna give me a fucking headache.”
“They’re filthy rich,” you ignore, undoing your surgical cap with an exasperated rake of fingers through your hair. “They could easily take this all the way to court if they wished—”
“Then I’ll testify on your behalf,” Park dismisses, easily. He doesn’t even meet your gaze as he hisses it— delivered so scathingly yet casually; you can’t decipher if there’s any truth to it or if he’s just trying to placate you from wearing a hole through the floor. “Every doctor gets sued at least once in their life.”
You throw your hands up. “Yeah, well, I was sure as shit hoping not to join that statistic.”
“Then go get a fuckin’ job at the VA hospital,” he cuts, brutal. (It’s sensible: any lawsuit there would instead go against the government.) He’s raised his voice now, to bring an end to the discussion. “Or, you can doctor up and deal with this like everybody else has to.”
“It’s a deposition,” he says, in what you can only compare to as a verbal eye-roll. “Not the end of the world.”
Feels like it, you don’t snap back, resorting instead to a huff too deliberate to go unnoticed. Park shoots you a look sharp enough to pierce through your soul at the sound, and you find yourself shrinking back from the eye-contact instinctively.
His pager blips through the tension before he can lash out at you. He assesses it between a sip. Sighs frustratedly.
“They’re going to ask you questions,” he begins— and the coffee must’ve stilled the torrent in his veins, because his voice has shifted to something more relenting; though with no less attitude.
“Yes or no will suffice. If you give anything more, the lawyers will poke holes— and trust me, they will find a way to— so keep it short. Stick to the facts and the data. Don’t overexplain or try to defend yourself, because that’s your attorney's job. D’you understand?”
He takes another swallow of his coffee. Watches you nod stiffly as you absorb the information.
“ED needs consult,” Park announces, lazily. He jerks his chin. “Use the distraction.”
On any other day it might’ve been humiliating to be dismissed this offhandedly and sent away on what’s most certainly going to be a menial case— but for some reason this time feels less like blatant rejection and more like he’s giving you another out; another escape.
Distraction. It’s unusually transparent of him.
The way he’d said it hadn’t been unkind. Not exactly warm, either. Still rough around the edges in a way only Park can manage to deliver an attempt at comfort.
So you do take it.
You know better than to come back from the moment’s reprieve still being a useless worrywart; so you let his cold advice ring through your head across the days like a countdown— All the way up until Park had allowed the hospital attorney to pull you out of a simple arthroscopy procedure, and finally escort you to your deposition, of which you spend the entire time fidgeting in your seat.
“You did excellently,” compliments Attorney Morgan Stiles, in the wake of the aftermath. “You gave me infinitely less trouble than Park did, for what it’s worth.”
In the middle of the elevator ride back down, your attention snaps to the folder in hand being offered to you. Park had completed his deposition yesterday morning. He hadn’t mentioned a peep of it to anyone.
ORAL DEPOSITION TRANSCRIPT, reads the document, once you curiously accept it. You skim the unnecessary information— dates, names, summaries, confidentialities— and jump to a random page:
(Somewhere in the end-half of the deposition, you figure. You can picture it in your mind’s eye; the austere hospital courtroom, with Dr. Park seated sentinel and glacially calm as usual, voice answering steadily throughout the examination in that unabashed impatience and contempt reserved for people taking up his time.)
A: That’s the nature of traumatic cases. What you’re doing is conflating a poor outcome to poor medicine, which isn’t the case, because some of PTMC’s best trauma surgeons were operating on this patient.
Q: And would you agree a different Senior Attending Physician, such as you, Dr. Park, may have altered the outcome for this patient had they been present?
A: No. I’d have done exactly the same thing as my Resident did from bedside to theatre.
Q: And so you maintain your Resident did not err in her decision to amputate above-the-knee?
A: Yes.
Q: Would you classify her decision as a judgement call, given the circumstances of the mass-casualty?
A: Didn’t we just clarify this? [Sighs] No.
Q: Are you confident in your answer, Dr. Park?
A: Confidence is sure as hell what it takes to work as an Orthopaedic Surgeon in a Level-1 Trauma Center, isn’t it?
MS. JENN WALTERS: That’s nonresponsive, Doctor.
A: Jesus christ, yes. I’m certain.
Q: If confidence is needed for an Orthopaedic Surgeon, as you’ve said, why did your Resident reportedly appear distressed following the case?
MS. MORGAN STILES: Objection. Relevance.
Q: It regards to the confidence of the standard of care the physician delivered--
A: Excuse me? No, absolutely not. It regards to her being a Doctor with a fucking conscience.
Q: Be professional, Doctor. You’re on the record.
A: You undermine my Resident, Sir. A trained and capable surgeon who recognised the acuity of the injury, escalated accordingly, and executed it appropriately to standard of care. That’s exactly why I signed off operationally, and that’s why I’m here. If you challenge her decision, you challenge mine--
Q: [crosstalk 00:44:21] --As established, yes--
A: --Her “poor confidence” post-operation doesn’t indicate the level of competence she performed in that OR whatsoever. If you’re gonna try her as guilty for showing a little heart after an evidently difficult case amidst an MCI, then you should be trying me, the entirety of the Surgical Department, and the goddamn rest of PTMC too for every tear we shed on a loss, don’t you think?
Q: Carry on, Doctor.
MS. MORGAN STILES: Objection. Asked and answered. You’re not required to continue, Dr. Park.
A: Yeah? Well, I want it on the record anyway-- Good medicine begins with good character, and hers has never once been in doubt to me. I don’t-- I wouldn’t want to lose her. Any doctor worth their salt wouldn’t want to lose someone like her.
Q: Alright. Well. Shall we say you acknowledge all of what you said, Dr. Park, as your personal opinion?
A: [Pause 3s] It’s a professional one.
You blink, dumbfounded. “Sorry, could you repeat that?”
Attorney Stiles shoots you a discerning look as she studies your flustered expression.
“That page you’re reading,” she repeats slowly, taking the transcript back with a knowing smile as the elevator descends, “I was saying, that for all the times I’ve had to represent Dr. Park, he’s never once failed to acknowledge the competency of his colleagues. He is, for all intents and purposes, a man of honesty.”
That makes you deflate more than you’re willing to allow yourself. Professional opinion, you remind yourself. That’s all it is.
“But,” she continues, and this time you do glance at her with a flash of hope in your eye too bright to ignore, “I’ve never seen him jump to anyone’s defense the way he did for you that day. He took off on a tangent. You can’t gauge the tone in his transcript, but he was angrier than he sounds here. Angry for you.”
Something treacherous flits behind your ribcage. You smother it before it can take flight. “He’d have done it for anyone, I’m sure.”
A snort. “I’ve represented him multiple times across the years. He never has,” she says, brows raising at you. “Dr. Park has always been a man in control of his emotions especially when it matters most— but that deposition was the first I ever witnessed him lose his cool. You must be a pretty good doctor, aren’t you?”
The elevator dings. Sound akin to a lightbulb going off in your head when you decipher the smirk on her face.
“Like he’s mentioned: he was just…” You shrug unconvincingly, laughing it off with an awkward smile as she slips out to her floor. “He was just being professional.”
She winks as the doors shut. “Sure. Whatever floats your boat, Doc.”
3.
“…ith the systems out. Spectralinks are down. Paging departments will be done by the hospital landline or in emergencies by mobile phones,” Park explains, before raising a clipboard with a sticky-note attached. “This is my number. Only contact me if it’s urgent, unless you want an early fucking grave.”
But that’d been over a week ago. Within specific context of a literal cyberattack sending everybody offline and analogue.
Here, now, with your phone in hand and vision swirling after forcibly hurling the contents of your stomach out in the dingy bathroom sink of a bar— You hit send on your text before you can backpedal and wonder if this too could even count as an emergency to Park’s eyes:
Stranded in a bar, your last long island iced tea sweating on a cocktail table had tasted glaringly off; And it must be paranoia kicking you into overdrive, vulnerably surrounded by a posse of drunkards, but you’d decided to empty your stomach just in case before you could talk yourself out of it.
Maybe it’d been a heavy pour, you’d tried to convince yourself, Or just a flat drink, or the fact you’ve been nursing alcohol on a relatively empty stomach after a 6 hour spinal fusion cas—
Your heart stumbles. Notification chirping.
You’d expected him to not open your long-winded, over-explained S.O.S messages from you at all. Maybe leave you on read. Hell, blocking your contact would’ve been less of a surprise than a straightforward reply going:
9:55 | Address and live location.
Straight to the heart of the matter, as usual. You know better than to argue. Too late to take it back without making further a fool out of yourself.
➤ …You started sharing your Location with Park the Shark 🦈.
9:51 | [Live Pin📍631 Suismon St. Pittsburgh, PA 15212.]
9:51 | Its ok rlly i can just call an uber. U can ignore this
He calls you two minutes later, saving you in the nick of time from being inveigled into a game of pool with the ragtag group of strangers you’ve been held socially-hostage to by proxy of your now-missing friend. (You should’ve known better than to thirdwheel her and her partner.)
Ten minutes. Stay on the phone, Park orders, You okay?
The abrupt bound of your heart at the question feels ill-timed given the situation, but you feel the unbidden surge in your gut anyway: Here is Park the Shark, beastly and brutal, asking if you were okay.
“Oh. Yeah, I—”
“Yo,” comes a new voice. It’s the ginger who’d cornered and badgered you into the game, a drunken grin on his face as he leans on his cue stick, eyes obviously wandering. “Who’re y’on that call with? C’mon, join me.”
Your grip tightens around your phone.
“My boyfriend,” you blurt reflexively, anything to throw up a boundary to ward off or deter anyone else from encroaching further into your seemingly-inviting space. “He’s on the way to pick me up.”
A beat.
The lie catches up to you a moment later. Has blood rushing to your face and your ears when you remember, mortifyingly, that Park is overhearing everything over the line.
Fuck. Whatever. It’s done. You’ll deal with the fallout later, you figure. Endure the humiliating consequences he’ll put you through and the inevitable snarl of a lecture. The all-too-familiar trademark wrath of Park the Shark that you’ve survived before—
Park hums. A half-breath that escapes as an… amused huff. (You’re probably mistaken, right?) Makes your pulse rabbit further. “That shake him off?”
You’re caught off guard. Glancing sideways at the group prowling your periphery, half-waiting for you to rejoin them for the night. “Not really,” you admit. “How close are you?”
“Seven minutes. Just keep talking to me. What’d you drink?”
You obey dutifully. Answer whatever he asks: why you’d been out tonight, where your friend had gone, and about the little clique that had invited you into a round of pool with less choice than they made it feel like.
Park doesn’t interrupt you when you make an off-hand lament about your heels digging at your ankles, nor about your addled drink; rattling to him that no, no, I threw it up. I’m a little queasy but I’m fine, really. I can still just call an Uber and power through the hangover tomorrow morning—
His voice keeps you company. Occupied. Distracts you just enough to make the short wait less insufferable; That by the time you’re looking up from where you’ve been picking distractedly at a drink coaster, you witness Park’s leviathan shape slice through the bar and part patrons like water to a prow, not sparing a drop of attention to the turned heads as he sails past the pool table into a dead-reckoning towards you.
Let’s go, is all he snarls. Abrasive. Canine-sharp and a flashing glint of jagged teeth as he delivers his classic shark-stare to your fishy onlookers. And if the inebriated ginger and his shoal of drunkards had any suspicions about Park being with you, it’s promptly dashed by his hovering hand behind your back as he weaves you through the revelling crowd; his leading presence and angling body enough to shoulder and be a proverbial breakwater for you all the way out the door.
It’s drizzling out tonight. Chilly. When you exit the bar, the dark sleek of his car is idled (Read: parked illegally) and waiting at the slick curb. He strides ahead just enough to open the passenger door, hand on the roofline as he guides you to duck into your seat. It’s a welcome warmth of pressure behind your back, and then again when the crown of your head brushes his palm.
A shield from clipping the frame. Startles you more than the touch itself.
“Hey. Eyes on me,” he orders, in that maddeningly level tone of his, once he’s sure you’ve settled properly and clipped your seatbelt on. “If anything changes— you tell me before you decide to throw up in my car, or I’ll leave your ass on the street. Got that?”
“God forbid.” Your smile is tight-lipped and sheepish. “Yeah. Thank you, Dr. Park.”
He doesn’t answer until much later, when he’d put in your address and let the murmuring humdrum of the radio fill in the space, that he stiffly reminds:
“Didn’t I tell you before not to get used to me playing nice?”
Your mouth opens, then shuts in contemplation before you let yourself slur your words. “I know. I’m sorry. This was highly unprofessional and I, I shouldn’t’ve called, but I just figured…”
He’s white-knuckling his steering wheel. You can see the masseter in his jaw flex. “Don’t make it a habit,” he snipes.
“I won’t,” you start, fumbling for your phone in your purse. Your vision is muddling as the seconds fly and your soberness begins to ebb once more. “I’ll delete your contact, if you want—”
“I meant the unsafe drinking,” he amends, pointedly.
You blink. Battle with yourself, fleetingly, on whether he knows what he’s just unintentionally implied; how dumb it would be to ask Does this mean I get to keep your number? as your lockscreen winks back to sleep again. Does this mean you care? Does this mean—
“It was a personal opinion, wasn’t it?” you find yourself blurting out.
The car rolls to a stop at the red light of an intersection. Nothing but the steady, pitter patter of rain threading the silence with a melodic lull. It unwinds you more than you realise, has you unconsciously sinking into the comfort of your seat. There’s no taking back what you’ve asked now. No escaping. In for a penny…
“What you said about me in your deposition, I mean,” you continue. I don’t want to lose her. That’s what he’d stopped himself from saying, hadn’t it?
The traffic light blinks go. Sea-green floods through the windshield and washes over Park. Reveals him in a way you’ve never witnessed before: caught out; a fish out of water. There’s a few loose strands over his forehead that somehow only makes him the most domestic you’ve ever seen him— and frustratingly attractive.
Someone honks. (That hopeful part of you is digging its watery grave again: taking his distracted hesitation as something else that could be entirely different.)
“You’re lucky you’re drunk,” he comments, once he remembers to move. Blank. You can’t read him. Can’t gauge the depth of the ocean-blue in his eyes from where you’ve been metaphorically walking the plank.
“Oh,” you murmur humorously, letting him off the hook for ignoring the question, “you’d know if I was drunk, Park, believe me.”
“Yeah? What the hell are you right now, then?”
“Sleepy?” you offer, before shaking your head. “No. Not that.” Head over heels, you don’t answer, turning to gaze outside the window instead. Watching raindrops race as the city flickers past. “…I’m struck.”
A beat.
You can feel him spare a pensive glance as you let your head tip back into the carseat, eyes fluttering heavily for a moment’s reprieve between your tipsiness; Can feel him like a brand on your skin, gaze searing into your profile. Judging you, perhaps, between the streaks of streetlights passing rhythmically across your face.
You can hear him in your head, even if the words never leave his mouth. The hell’s that supposed to mean?
Silence.
You must have let it stretch too long, though, because something shifts in the tense air that you can reflexively pick up after years of working hand in glove with him in the OR: Stillwater. Doldrums. A calm before the storm.
Park’s attention has sharpened to a scalpel’s point.
Somewhere between the syrup-thickening haze of sleepiness, your thoughts have quietly muted out, and your eyes slowly slip shut into the diaphanous beginnings of a fever drea—
His hand lands on you.
Presses on the inside of your wrist.
(Who knew Park the Shark could be so gentle, comes your candid thought.)
It’s enough to startle you, lazily cracking one eye open to peer at him through the gossamer of exhaustion: Park’s got an arm across the console reaching easily for you, gaze focused— not on you, not quite, but on where his fingers meet your pulsepoint.
He’s… counting your heartbeat.
(You hope he doesn’t notice your pulse skip at the contact; at the dreadful idea he’d discover your girlish fondness over him—)
“You said you threw it up,” he says, evenly, turning from another red light to warily chase your half-lidded gaze. “Hey. How long after?”
“Mh,” you hum, susurrus. “Soon, I think.”
“Pup,” he asserts. Then your proper name. (You take a deep breath in at that, hope he doesn’t feel the goosebumps line your skin at the bass of his voice.) It stirs you awake.
“I’m fine,” you muse drowsily, flattered. “Just… tired. S’been a long night. Had that spinal case today, remember?”
Park glowers. Withdraws his hand back. He doesn’t look reassured or humored when that same sea-green light from traffic bathes him soft again.
“I’m driving you to the ED. Keep your eyes open ‘til we get there,” he orders, already checking his blindspot as he makes a sharp turn when you begin to protest. “And shut up and stop arguing with me.”
That was that.
He’d firmly ceased the conversation from any possible attempts of dispute, and drove you to the ER to hand you over to a rightfully stunned Dr. Shen, while ignoring the prickle on his skin from half the medical staff curiously watching the scene take place.
Then Lena is asking you questions, though your thoughts are a little gummy around the margins. Park answers where he can. Ever the one to make the situation efficient. She called me to pick her up from a bar. I’m worried her drink might’ve been spiked. It’s been roughly twenty minu…
(I’m worried. The words pass so fleetingly it could’ve been imagined by you. It probably had been.)
And then IV lines, and a bed, and the turn of Park disappearing behind the curtains of North-4, and—
Come morning, there’s a white paper bag set at the foot of your bed by your zipped purse. The label and symbol emblazoned below its handles is recognisable: it’s from PTMC’s Gift Shop.
You peer into it to find… slippers.
Slippers? Not the standard-issue hospital ones that are rubber-soled and thin, but the plush ones; meant for visitors or nit-picky patients unexpectedly admitted overnight: Pale blue, absurdly comfier than necessary. There’s neither a purchase receipt nor a tag in sight.
Your heels are tucked neatly by the wall instead of being kicked someplace else. For one disorienting second, you expect to see Park posted by it in that impossibly statuesque stillness of his— nose down, arms crossed and folded, expression predatorily severe in that way it always gets before he launches into a scathing lecture.
…He isn’t there, of course. That would’ve been ridiculous. Park had no reason to stay once you were in capable hands; once you were safe.
(His absence leaves a stubborn hollow in your chest regardless.)
“Oh, hey,” you begin, when Lena checks in on you sometime later. “I’m feeling way better. Thank you. But, uh, can I just ask— Who bought me the slippers?”
Her brows are raised as she peeks at you over her spectacles, half-amused. “Who d’ya think, sweetheart?”
+ 1.
By the (alleged) third HR report that quarter, Gloria does a shakedown in regards to the infamous Park the Shark.
It pisses him off even more than usual. It pisses off everyone in Orthopaedics, in fact. On one hand because an angry Dr. Park means a shorter fuse and more tongue-lashing; And on the other: because everyone in Ortho defends each other’s throats like they were their own.
The in-fighting between departments have never been anything but off-hand retorts and petty remarks; but now that someone who knows a guy who knows a guy who’d bribed a guy managed to catch wind on which specific departments have reported Dr. Park— well. It hadn’t taken long to figure out the names.
“And yet, somehow, not a single peep from any soul in the Ortho Department,” points out Gloria, after she’d stolen you into her Director’s office for a ‘brief conversation’ one Monday morning. You have a feeling you might not have been the first person buttoned into this situation today— let alone the month.
“Oh,” you say, failing to hold back the bubble of laughter at what her tone is setting up. “You think we’ve been Stockholm’d?”
“I think Dr. Park is a six-foot-two white man who has an intimidating presence to match with his terrible reputation and notoriously curt behaviour.”
You make a face. “He went toe-to-toe against Precious and lost.”
(This time Gloria makes a face. She knows well and clear the spitfire of a personality your charge nurse Precious— a four-foot-eleven Filipina who’s been running the Ortho floor like the Navy itself long before you or even Park joined— carries around. )
“Well,” she relents comically, sinking into her office chair. “Precious is an outlier.”
“So you think everyone else is just too afraid to speak up?” you conclude.
“Doctor, I need you to take this seriously.”
Right, you inhale, making a theatrical show of straightening up. Gloria looks expectantly at you as you gather your thoughts with a sigh.
“Do you remember when Dr. Lee lost his youngest daughter back in June?” you begin, glancing at the back of a framed picture on her desk. “It was a car accident. Quick and painless. Common for her age group; Common emergency case for a Level 1 Trauma Center like ours.”
“Funnily enough, after he buried her— Dr. Lee didn’t encounter a single paediatric trauma case for the remainder of the year, you know?” you continue, meeting Gloria’s gaze. “Somebody else was always mysteriously available to take the patient away from Lee’s hands.”
If Gloria got the hint, she didn’t show.
“And on Ramadan, Dr. Arif never worries about whether he’ll faint toughing out an 8-hour operation like he did in his intern year,” comes your next story. She knows this one, surely: Park had infamously kicked him out the theatre for it. “That’s because ever since that day, trauma cases during that month are redirected to somebody else if it overlaps with the only time Arif gets to break his fast.”
“There’s also Suren, one of our best and most senior scrub nurse, who had to step away from work to return to Mongolia and dedicate her time taking care of her dying mother. She left just last month with a collection enough to help her tide over anything: hospice, funeral, even travel.”
Gloria interjects with a finger— “Precious started that fund,” — which only serves to make you snort.
“You really think our nurses here are paid enough to pool together almost, what, ten grand on a week’s notice?”
“Okay, alright, I get it,” she instantly says, sounding unbelievably incredulous. It grinds your gears more than you expect.
“So you think Dr. Park is responsible for all this… charity? You think he goes out of his way to order cases to be rescheduled or redirected for others; That he’s the type of man who would reassign personnel for their benefit— that he’s somebody who’d go the extra mile?”
“I don’t think. I know,” you correct, matter-of-fact. “He’s a good man. He may be an asshole, and the furthest thing from being nice— but that doesn’t mean he’s unkind.”
Gloria’s mouth purses at your defense. The uncharacteristic flash of ferocity and canines you’re baring is, undoubtedly, an unconscious trait of mettle you’ve inherited from the Shark. Protective; territorial.
“When you work with Dr. Park long enough, there are two things you learn quickly. One: is that he values efficiency. Tact to him is for people who have time to waste. If there’s a path of least resistance that gets him the results he desires— that the patient needs, above all— he’ll do it.”
Gloria gives you a stare that looks like, and secondly?
“Second: he’s fair. Consistent. He’ll tear you apart for a shitty postop note, sure, but he also never humiliates people for things outside of their control. He’ll bitch about the circumstances, ofcourse, but doesn’t everybody? He doesn’t care to be liked. He sure as hell doesn’t look for approval.”
There’s a myriad of things you can add on that you curb yourself from saying: My first year of Residency I didn’t have to endure the blatant misogyny for long because he drilled respect into my peers' skulls. In every case where there was an escalation or combative patient he would already be standing ahead of me like a bulwark. Whenever I come home to the blue pair of slippers he bought me because I complained about my heels once in passing, I’m reminded he picked me up when I had no one to call and drove me to the ER.
You shake your head. Draw steel into your voice.
“It’s difficult to tell the difference between whether Dr. Park is inconvenienced or concerned,” comes your conclusion, “until you eventually realize that with him, the two aren’t mutually exclusive.”
Gloria’s office chair squeaks as she sinks back.
“You sound very certain,” she says, after a defeated pause.
The smile you give her is deceivingly sweet. “I am.”
Recognition comes by Thursday evening in the breakroom, thanks to nursing chatter.
“A little birdie told me you stuck your neck out for me,” says a low voice.
You shut the refrigerator door. Turn around to see the broad back of Dr. Park, busying himself with pouring what looks to be his third coffee.
“I’m sure everyone on the floor did,” you answer, leaning to the counter adjacent to him. “Especially Precious, I heard.”
“Little lady chewed Gloria’s ear out over nursing staff shortages and safety measures instead,” he muses. “She was locked in that room with Precious. Not the other way around.”
A punch of a laugh escapes you. “I could never.”
“But you did,” he allows, making you look at him in surprise. “Whatever bullshit you said to Gloria three days ago in that office seemed to convince her I’m worth the HR-trouble of keeping around. I got off with a slap on the wrist.”
(Which roughly means: he’ll keep his head down for awhile until the storm has passed, before he’s back to biting the heads off whoever he deems incompetent again.)
“It wasn’t bullshit,” you deny. “I won’t bore you with the details. But I just told her the truth.”
“That I’m an asshole?”
You shrug at his deadpan expression. “Well, we can’t all be perfect.”
A beat.
And then— Park laughs.
Laughs.
Curling at his lips and dimpling into his cheeks. Slight, brief, but candid. It’s a mellow, breathier sound than you would’ve ever expected. Knocks the air from your lungs in an instant and damn near startles your brain into short-circuiting. He’s never looked more roguishly handsome than he is now:
Privately smiling. Slicked-back hair now boyishly tousled from the surgical cap he must’ve yanked off after that 7 hour scoliosis case, eyes crinkled at the corners and half-weary from exhaustion as his arms lazily uncross to grab his mug. It feels alot like you’d managed to peer behind the drawn curtains; like you’ve just met the glimmer of Brendon Park.
“Don’t expect a thanks,” he scoffs, too tired to deliver it seriously, and you find yourself wishing you could continue memorising his smile when it finally vanishes behind a long sip of his coffee.
“I don’t. I wouldn’t have said what I said professionally if I didn’t believe it all personally,” you dismiss, as if it’s obvious.
His mug eventually lowers. It takes all the willpower in you not to watch the bob of his Adam's apple as he swallows his drink. Again, there’s that curious flash you catch momentarily in the watercolour blue of his eyes, diving away from sight.
“Guess that answers your question, then.”
You blink. What?
Park stares. Waits for it to register. Nothing comes, however; Not until he easily shifts forward, suddenly stepping proximally close into your space, enough you can smell the coffee steaming from his mug as he slightly corners you in an attempt to reach with his other hand—
The drive to the ER, you suddenly remember.
The realisation of it all comes to you in the zip of electricity that travels up from where Park has now (deliberately?) brushed his hand against the skin of your wrist— your pulsepoint: He’d been reaching for his pager left ontop the counter behind you, it appears.
I don’t want to lose her. That’s what he had stopped himself from saying that day. You’re sure. The evidence had been right there; it’d been the furthest thing from being professional. It’d been intimate.
It was a personal opinion, wasn’t it? You remember tipsily asking. A nondescript way of asking if you matter at all in the way he matters to you. If it had been something more— and now: I guess that answers your question, then.
“Oh,” you say, like an idiot, as if his confirmation hadn’t just brought up a thousand other questions in your mind.
His eyes tarry. Always something so jarringly intimate in the way they cut clean into yours. Lets it take up your speechlessness.
You wonder if the there-and-away flicker of his gaze to your lips, just before he’d turned to leave the breakroom, was just a feverish figment of your imagination.
Delusion, you convince yourself, when the door clicks shut. Surely.
⟢ one month into your relationship, quinn finally sees you without makeup for the first time. he falls for you that little bit more. [1.5k words]
becca’s notes… finally.. my fic posting drought has come to an end — super happy to finally write a full length fic for quinn too !!
ONE MONTH. FOR ONE WHOLE MONTH, you’ve had the pleasure of being able to refer to quinn hughes as your boyfriend, and you can’t really fault the experience.
although you’re still navigating that giddy honeymoon phase, that transitional period where you try to work out exactly how affectionate you can be without coming across as too much too soon, quinn has never made you feel anything less than secure in your relationship.
you’re sweet, and earnest, and he’s more than happy to accept each little quirk and affection. you give, and quinn doesn’t merely yield, but reciprocates too. he’s a little smitten. sue him.
it’s a tuesday night, and quinn’s body almost looks out of place in your room, his black sweatshirt standing out against your white fluffy sheets and the eclectic mix of throw pillows strewn across your bed. when he’d initially lay down, he’d taken extra care not to crush the stuffed bear that lives proudly at the head of your bed, nestled in between two plush cushions like a royal guard.
at the start of the evening, the two of you had sat side by side, your knee knocking against quinn’s every now and again in an effort to broach some degree of contact, dipping your toe into the water before diving in head first. immediately catching onto your plans, quinn’s arm had casually slipped around your waist whilst he lamented over an exhausting practice.
by the time the topic of conversation turns to the pottery painting place downtown that you’re desperate to go to, you’re perched comfortably in his lap, thighs bracketing his stomach as his hands rest at your waist. having you on top of him reminds quinn that you’re real, and his, and his fingers twitch against your hip bones.
quinn listens to your aimless rambling as though it’s sacred scripture and he’s your faithful disciple, making a mental note to google this pottery place when he gets home.
there’s something about the way that you speak, the subtle lilts and inflections that your words take, that makes quinn’s heart warm. a little later down the line, he’ll let you in on the secret that little else soothes him like hearing you talk. for now though, quinn’s adoration is wordless, showing itself through the curve of his crooked smile.
quickly, he realises it’s not just your voice that has him mesmerised; it’s your face too.
visually, you’re beautiful, no doubt about it, but he believes that your beauty runs deeper than your mere physical features. to him, your beauty is innate, laced into every fibre of your being and woven into everything you do. a mere smile from you makes his mind go fuzzy, and quinn thinks you’d have the power to stop his heart with a simple blink.
shaking himself out of his daydream, quinn tunes back into the conversation as you turn your focus onto the puppy your best friend had just adopted. he hums thoughtfully, wanting to assure you that he’s listening, when he notices the slight smudging of black collecting below your waterline.
either your mascara or eyeliner has started to migrate a little, and with a gentle touch, he cups your face and tilts your head upwards.
“hold on a second,” he interrupts softly. “you got something–”
before you can ask any questions, two careful thumbs swipe at the runaway makeup beneath your eyes, and your lashes flutter a little at the sudden intrusion.
“easy baby,” quinn soothes, unaware of how his words cause your pulse to stutter. “it’s only a bit of makeup. i got it.”
as if to illustrate his point, quinn holds one of his thumbs up to your eyeline, proudly displaying the grey smudge clinging to his fingertip.
“is it bad?” you ask, unable to see yourself and too far away from your phone or a mirror to check your reflection.
quinn’s answer is instinctual, a shake of the head that leaves no room for any doubt. ‘bad’ is an adjective that would never find a home in quinn’s vocabulary when it comes to you.
“nah,” he assures. “something’s just smudged a little. you still look pretty. promise.”
a quick, fond squeeze to your hips prompts you to let out a squeak of amusement. flattery gets him everywhere if the way that you press a sweet kiss to his lips is anything to go off of. you pull back with a gentle sigh, slumping backwards against his thighs.
“i should probably take it off soon anyways,” you say, suddenly all too aware of the products on your face.
it’s reaching that stage of the evening where they start to feel heavy on your skin, more like a mask than anything else, and the urge to wash your face is a strong one.
only then does it hit you: quinn has never seen you bare-faced before.
though you’re not exactly scared over the idea of quinn seeing you without makeup on, there is a small flicker of nerves at the prospect of the unknown. obviously, you’re not going to look like an entirely new person without the eyeliner and blush, but you’re still going to look a little different.
not sharing your concerns, quinn doesn’t even seem to hesitate at the idea. all he wants is for you to be at your most comfortable, and so he reluctantly releases his hold on your waist so that you can get up.
“just don’t be too long,” he jokes softly. “i might start to miss you.”
“oh be still my beating heart,” you return, clambering clumsily off of his lap.
you give him one final smile over your shoulder before disappearing into the bathroom, setting out to take your makeup off and return to your boyfriend’s arms in record time.
pulling your hair back with a brown, fuzzy headband, complete with two fluffy ears on top, you perform an abridged version of your skincare routine, foregoing a few steps that you hope your skin won’t miss for one night.
several minutes later, the familiar sight of your bare face blinks back at you in the mirror, some stubborn water droplets clinging to your eyelashes. you tilt your head one way, and then another, as though trying to imagine what your face would look like to someone seeing it for the very first time.
when you finally pad out of the bathroom, quinn’s breath catches in his throat, and he sits up a little straighter.
“there she is,” he murmurs, patting his thighs to prompt you to return to your spot in his lap. “c’mere baby. wanna see you.”
you roll your eyes good-naturedly at his words, but your cheeks heat up regardless at the adoration present in his tone. as you slip back into his lap, you drape your arms over his shoulders, meeting his gaze with a soft smile.
for a moment, quinn is rendered speechless, and his eyes roam over your face as he greedily drinks in the sight before him. your face is close enough to his own that he can smell the subtle fragrance of the face wash you’d used, something clean and delicate, and he chokes on a laugh as he finally registers the headband still pushing your hair back.
“cute,” he teases, flicking one of the ears.
almost reverently, one of quinn’s hands comes up to cup your face, and you don’t even wince at the thought of his hands on your freshly moisturised skin. his thumb brushes over the tail of your eyebrow, gently ghosting over the small dusting of acne clinging to your temple, and the sound he produces is awed.
“so this is what you’ve been hiding from me, hm?”
you shrug bashfully, but don’t speak, preferring to take in the way quinn’s expression gradually softens the longer he looks at you. he shakes his head as if he can’t believe what he’s seeing, delicately tracing the line of your jaw before letting his index finger boop your nose.
you nip at the air, feigning an effort at catching his fingertip between your teeth, and quinn chuckles. still, his eyes never stray from your face. when he finally speaks again, his voice is lower, sincere.
“you’re so fucking beautiful.”
the words tumble from his lips like a confession, as though he can’t go another second without letting you know exactly what he thinks about you, what you do to his poor, besotted heart.
with a groan, you bury your warm face into the crook of quinn’s neck, and he laughs, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head as he tries to coax you back out by drawing soothing circles onto your lower back.
even as the conversation eventually turns back to something trivial, quinn can’t quite move on from the way you’ve burrowed yourself even further into his heart.
so yeah, quinn loves the way you look when you’re all dolled up. but with you here, bare-faced and rambling softly in his lap, quinn thinks he likes you all natural way, way more.
pitiful macklin who's utterly distracted following the abrupt change on their will's tiktok account ( that he only found out about from dickie ) who can no longer focus when sidney is trying to have them review tape footage before their upcoming game.
sidney, who presses for an answer and certainly doesn't expect to be greeted with a glassy eyed, wobbly lipped captain who mumbles out something about a name change, and will not answer any of his texts despite responding to sam of all people.
and a distraught captain just won't do. how can they be expected to win worlds when all macklin can think about is what he could've done wrong? sidney, who takes the operation: captain care into his own hands. who settles mack right down on his cock, and with every tape they get through, every comment macklin ads about gameplay results in time mack's actually allowed to move.
mack who bounces pathetically in sidney's lap, sniffling and blubbering as he hears the elder count down the seconds until he's forced to back to simply just cock warming his hero. back to being forced to focus on tape despite only being able to focus on how full he feels. fullness that makes everything hazy and gooey at the ends, pushing away at any anxiety leaking in. mack, who loses time in the next burst everytime he moves so he's trying sooooo hard to sit still.
sweet sweet kid canada who's merely left blubbering and hiccuping in sidney's lap towards the end, so overly sensitive and desperate to cum — cock pink and leaking; that he's making the tiniest little hiccuping sounds in his alternate captain's neck. hands grabbing and fisting into his shirt at the junction of his shoulders.
and who is sidney to deny him after he's been such a good boy? a good boy who'd been such a dutiful captain, now all prepared for the game tomorrow. sidney who finally plants his feet, letting macklin rag doll in his arms as he finally properly thrusts up into him until he's coming with a garbled sob.
macklin, who's the pinnacle of focused the next day. who doesn't even bother to check his phone when a notification from 'willie 🩵' comes through when he's on the bench. who simply watches with starry eyes and silent as sidney removes one of his gloves, fingers moving to swipe away the notification with haste.
always thinking about sid's thighs but especially being on the floor between them.
he's trying so hard to be good and not thrust up into your mouth, but feeling your soft lips wrapped around his cock and your tongue dragging across his shaft is driving him insane. one of his hands is on the back of your head, thick fingers tangling in your hair. the other is gripping the couch cushion like it's the only thing keeping him here on earth.
he's a wreck for you, big strong sid, captain canada, always a leader, all glassy-eyed and pathetic. he's begging for more–more you, more friction, more anything. his breathing is ragged, coming out in huffs rather than breaths. sid practically melts when you look up at him. his expression changing from needy to desperate. "oh my god–OH my..." he's babbling at this point, incoherent mumbles of what sounds like your name as he begs for you.
just as he's on the verge of cumming you pull back, lips sliding off of him with a pop. sidney let's out a sound that's somewhere between a groan and a whimper. "why'd you stop" he questions with a frown, out of breath and staring at you with the biggest puppy-dog eyes you've ever seen. you give him a mocking pout, mirroring his expression back to him. "please i've been s'good...need you so bad..." he pleads as he cups the side of your face, his large hand engulfing you. you look up at him, eyes wide and feigning innocence. "i know you need it, baby, but you have to be patient." at this point, sidney feels helpless, he's putty in your hands and he knows it.
you slide your hands across his muscular thighs before giving him a lazy stroke. sidney moans your name, voice cracking as his hand flies to your shoulder. "please, sweetheart-" he pleads with you pathetically. his eyes grow wide "please, do what baby? what do you need?" you tease as you jerk him off. his breathing picks up as your pace increases on his cock. "please let me cum–I'll–please just..." his voice trails off and he throws his head back in ecstasy. you scan sidney's broken appearance, his heaving chest, the sweat beading at his temples, his entire body is rigid as his muscles tense. "you look so handsome like this, sidney" you remind the broken man before you.
on cue, his hand squeezes your shoulder tighter as he lets out a groan. "please–fuck–please I'm so close" he pleads, eyes scanning over you, searching for any sign of a yes. you pretend to think for a moment, "yeah? cum for me then, baby." he mumbles a string of praises and thank-you's. not a moment later, his thighs tense and milky-white ropes shoot onto your face and chest. sidney's chest heaves as he finishes and starts to come down.
he reaches down to cup your face, and pulls you up to kiss him. "you're so perfect, thank you, sweetheart." he says as he places a gentle kiss on your forehead.
needing a bigger bed because you and beckett and leo fuck so much and your current one is too small
You, Leo, and Beckett had been friends with benefits for a while and the small bed worked at first but now that the offseason is upon them they come over every day and stay all day so the smaller bed is too small for two gigantic hockey players.
So naturally Beckett and Leo have to break the bed before they can convince you to get a bigger one. Once they've broken your old one then they convince you to get king size bed, which they take up all the space when they come over to fuck.
They also enjoy spreading you out on the bigger bed because of how tiny you are compared to them and the bed.
Hey, I saw one of your replies where someone asked you if you write for leo carlsson. Could you write bf headcannons for him? 💖
Pairing: Leo Carlsson x Fem!reader
Warnings: fluff, minorly suggestive.
-Leo is constantly touching you, not in an inappropriate way but always a hand on your back or an arm around your waist even in public.
-Leo is very clingy especially in the mornings, he never wants to get up or you to get up before he's ready so mornings when he has practice are awful because he's almost late every time.
-Leo never shuts up, always talks to you about everything. Beckett told Leo a secret one time and then was embarrassed when he realized that you knew because your bf told on him so no secrets are safe with Leo.
-Leo took you to family skate and taught you to skate now you can skate as well as he can.
-Leo showers with you all the time just because he can, he loves watching you do your hair because your routine is so strict it amazes him.
-Leo knows nothing about makeup but he loves watching you put it on, especially for date nights your nearly late because he refuses to get dressed until your makeup is done just so he can watch.
-Leo's teammates tease him for his constant need to send you updates on the road, he texts you when they leave the hotel, when they arrive at the arena etc. You love it but they tease him like crazy.
-Leo goes feral if you wear his clothes, he will pounce especially if your wearing his shirts. He loses his cool so fast it almost gives you whiplash.
No Thing Defines A Man Like Love That Makes Him Soft ╰┈➤ NM29
summary: everyone knows that nathan mackinnon is a hard ass. monotonous. grumpy. maybe even a little boring to the outside perspective. then there’s you, who’s the complete opposite—giggly, bubbly, loud and cries anytime the titanic soundtrack plays. he should hate you—you’re all that plus cale’s little sister—but he just can’t. so nathan just pretends. but it’s not easy when his teammates start seeing through the facade.
[word count] 14.8k
warnings: MATURE! grumpy x sunshine trope | friends to lovers | obvious pining | humour / crack | cliches | drinking | swearing | mentions of throwing up (from drinking) | the most soft yearning nathan mackinnon you ever did see | a kiss | mentions of smut | timelines that make no sense obviously | mature themes and dialogue | read at your own discretion
pairing: nathan mackinnon x makar!reader
authors note: if you don’t like nate you’re just lying to yourself! kidding, kidding. but in all seriousness, I love writing for him so much and what better way than to do a little brothers teammate/ sunshine x grumpy trope :) title from strawberry wine by noah kahan.
lace dividers from @cursed-carmine
🎶 strawberry wine by noah kahan, bells & whistles by megan moroney and kacey musgraves, fool for you by zayn, wishful dreaming by 5 seconds of summer, staying by lizzy mcalpine, the longest goodbye by role model + kiss it better by rihanna
PART ONE: superman's citrus kryptonite
nathan mackinnon knows you've arrived landy's annual avs pre season afternoon barbecue once he hears your all too familiar laugh echo throughout his perfectly groomed backyard.
in nathan’s defense, it's a very distinctive laugh. loud, bright, and completely unrestrained. and you also usually snort, like a pug, which he would never admit he finds endearing, but he definitely does.
it's spills over the low hum of conversation and the crackle of the grill in front of him, cutting through everything else like it belongs at the center of it all. it bounces off the wooden fence, carries over the clink of bottles and the thud of a cooler lid slamming shut, and somehow manages to shoot right through nathan's chest.
he exhales slowly through his nose and forces himself to not look around like a lost puppy until he can spot you. because that would just be...obvious. the air smells like charcoal and something sweet—barbecue sauce, probably—thick and warm under the late afternoon sun. but when nathan takes a deep breath in, he swear he can only smell your perfume.
fruity, clean, and light. he'd never admit it, but one time he smelt almost 30 bottles in a marshall's, trying to find something that remotely resembled you.
but don't get it twisted, nathan mackinnon isn't a freak—or a pervert or anything else in that realm. he's just...no, he can't think of that right now.
someone's playlist hums in the background, bass low and steady, and just loud enough to fill the quieter moments. if there were anyway. but erik is yelling in the pool as he plays marco polo with the kids, and kadri is going crazy at corn hole. and you're still laughing.
"...and then I tripped," you're saying, voice animated. surely, your hands are moving as much as your words. like windmills. "like fully tripped—no recovery, no saving it—just straight down in front of everyone."
a chorus of reactions follows—laughs, groans, someone who sounds suspiciously like mikko mutters no way.
nathan keeps his composure, smashing some more burgers on landy's black stone like he's not actively yearning to catch even just the smallest glimpse of you. but he doesn't need to look because he can picture it anyway—your expression, the way your eyes go wide, and the inevitable grin that would follow like embarrassment is just another thing you turn into a joke.
he can't help but smile down at his feet just as the thought.
"you're lying," a different voice sounds. definitely ashley kadri, he thinks. it's confirmed when you briefly start cooing at nylah. always easily distracted.
eventually, you continue. "I swear! there was, like, a full second where I thought I could play it off, and then—nope." you clap your hands together once, sharp. "gone. and so was my popcorn, all over the floor of the theatre."
more laughter follows, and nathan's got to press his back molars together. god, who even is he?
it all started on a summer evening the year after their stanley cup winning run. everything smelt like sunscreen and chlorine. ice coffees melting faster than they can be drank. and the team, still high from winning the whole damn thing, decided to have some sort of celebration—a big lunch thing for friends and family at a local denver spot.
cale introduced you in passing. his kid sister, fresh out of college, coming out to denver to live closer with who you called your sibling turned best friend. nathan can relate, he feels that close with sarah as well.
he barley noticed you at first. well, that's technically a lie. because obviously he noticed your yellow sundress, and the way your smile lit up the entire restaurant, and how everyone seemed to gravitate towards you without knowing more than just your name.
but it was just a quick glance, a tight nod and a clipped—hey, nice to meet you—as nathan put out his calloused palm for you to shake. but you didn't shake it. no, you brushed it off with another smile and claimed you were a hugger, before pushing up onto your toes to embrace him.
you should've been his worse nightmare...so why for that entire evening could he not stop looking at you? and it's not like you didn't notice it—he wasn't exactly subtle from across the long table, wedged between EJ and melissa landeskog. how his eyes would keep flicking back to you when he thought you weren't looking, how he went unnaturally still when you laughed—like he was trying to memorize the sound without letting himself react to it.
he didn't ask you questions, didn't lean in, never smiled the way everyone else does—but he listened. it was easy to think he didn't like you. hell, at one point melissa turned to him, voice all hushed and straight up asked what his deal with you was.
but nathan didn't have an answer, which only made him look guiltier. but he was blushing and melissa knew. then landy, and then all of his teammates had this sort of suspicion that even they don't believe half the time.
even to this day, it would be easy to think he doesn't like you—he kind of makes sure of that, all distance and short answers and carefully controlled indifference—but there's something just slightly off about it.
too deliberate and too practiced like he's trying not to give himself away. and over the past few years, it seems to have worked at getting his teammates off his back, but it doesn't change the fact that deep down, ever seen you walked into the restaurant in that yellow dress, nathan has been obsessed with you. adores you. wants you.
wants you in every way he shouldn't want someone that much younger than him. someone who's related to one of his closest teammates. someone who is the complete opposite of himself. but he does—he wants all the late night pillow talks, the arguing over what colour to paint the living room walls, the sweet kisses and babies and everything in between.
but if someone was to ask? deny, deny, deny. sure—he'd say, acting indifferent—y/n is nice but she's just not my cup of tea. nathan mackinnon will lie through his perfect teeth before ever admitting to one of his insufferable friends that he has feelings for you.
the sound of your laughter breaks nathan out of his own thoughts. he curses to himself as one of the burgers starts smoking—blackened and charred. whoops, that's what he gets for thinking about you like that. your laugh, your mannerisms, your scent....no!
he turns away from the grill and grabs a drink from the open cooler by his feet. maybe a little harder than necessary when a few ice cubes shoot up and over the edge. the cold beer can seeps into his palm, a nice distraction from his own racing mind.
nathan exhales as he straightens, slow and measured, willing himself to chill the fuck out.
without wanting to burn anymore food, or get an earful from his captain, nathan turns heel back towards the grill. only, he's momentarily stunned when he sees you making your way over to him.
fuck.
your eyes meet and you're already grinning, expression brightening like seeing him is the best part of your day. maybe it is. and you weave through people with an ease that feels practiced and natural. effortless even.
he straightens slightly without meaning to. he still hasn't blinked by the time you stop in front of him, close enough that he can catch that faint citrusy scent. the long, white sleeves of your top are pushed up, some lacy, frilly thing that probably costs too much. you've paired it with jean cut offs and sandals, looking like a dream.
"hi nate," you say, slightly breathless from the heat and your trek across the yard. you reach up and tuck some of your hair behind your ear, passing your neck.
he gulps, burger press and can of beer still in hand. "y/n, hi."
there's a pause that follows, and in that you take the time to study him. and you're not shy about like he would be. it's open, and curious like you're trying to figure something out.
you hum, light a breezy, stepping impossibly closer. if you shifted an inch to the right, the knuckles that have gone white around his beer can, would brush your boobs. jesus.
"you look like you'd rather be literally anywhere else."
he swallows. puts down the beer. very careful to avoid touching your covered nipples or anything else just as incriminating. "i'm fine."
there's that hum again. unconvinced or something similar sounding at the back of your throat. your eyes dance over his features softly, and nathan has to force them to stay stoic. "scale of one to ten?" you prompt.
of course you're asking him that. it's just so you—so much so that it gets him to crack a smile. a barely there thing, half upturned lip that resembles a smirk more than anything. but a smile nonetheless. because you're the only one who could be asking him to rate his experience on a scale and nathan get all giddy about it.
however, he keeps his composure, getting back to the smokey grill and burgers. "i'm not doing a scale."
"okay," you drawl out, sliding in closer. "but if you were—"
"i'm not." he cuts in, sending you a look over his broad shoulder that says if you ask me one more time i'll totally rate it.
but you don't push. just grin—immediate and unfiltered. like that was exactly the response you wanted.
"landy come tell you how to properly do this yet?" you muse, all mock innocent, looking between nathan's tan face and the darkened, greasy stone.
"what?" he half bristles, stopping mid press. "I am doing it properly."
your grin only widens. "you're not, i've been watching and cringing for like, 10 minutes." it's an exaggeration, because nathan knows you've only been here for maybe 6.
"you're so full of it. there's no wrong way to smash a burger."
your mouth falls like he's just declared something catastrophic. like pineapple belongs on pizza. or that new moon is the worst movie in the twilight franchise. he can't help but roll his eyes at your dramatics, but he's also obsessed with them so he can't help the grin splitting his face again.
if someone was to look over, they'd think he's having a stroke. because there's no way that nathan fucking mackinnon would be having a good time with y/n makar—who is unarguably his complete opposite. if your personalities were powers, yours would be his kryptonite.
"there absolutely is," you tell him, "and you're butchering it." not waiting for a response, you push your way between him and the grill, and nathan is immediately hot with two things. your scent up close, expect now there's also something vanilla-y about it—a shampoo or something. and the second is that your ass is pretty much against his crotch, which is a whole new territory.
he swears lowly, so quiet that you don't hear it. or maybe you don't hear it because you're too busy trying to grab the burger press from his hand.
"i'm serious. let me do it." you say, looking at him over your shoulder. it shouldn't be so sexy because you're surrounded by everyone and there's kids running around with snotty noses and popsicles. but somehow it is.
nathan tries to put some distance between your bodies, but it only ends up with him bumping into a chair, which then sends him jumping back into you.
"you've never even grilled before." his protest is weak, because he can't even fucking concentrate properly.
"that not the point—give me the pressy thing."
and he does. of course he does. and you smile triumphantly like it's more than just a burger press.
with your bodies still an inch from being together in a way that would be indecent, nathan watches over your head as you start pressing against the balls of raw beef, flattening them and all their inter-webbed seasoning against the stone.
"see," you slightly grunt, putting real strength into it. but you're also laughing, joyful and happy. far too much enthusiasm for cooking burgers, but nathan feels proud like you're accomplishing something greater.
grease pops, making you flinch and yelp back into his strong chest. his warm palm settles on your torso—right on the sliver of skin between your shorts and top—meaning to steady you, but as soon as he's touching your bare skin, nathan’s forgotten how to breathe like a normal person.
you laugh at yourself, shaking out your hand. the grease must've made contact.
he blinks, "are you okay?" his eyes then asses you at the speed of lightning. fingers, palm, wrist. then briefly over the rest of your exposed skin, checking for grease related injuries. he finds none.
you spin, still pressed close. a smile on your face. "i'll be better when you let me do the next round as well."
"do I really get a say if you continue?"
"nope." and then you're back at it, grabbing more meat from the blue and white patterned bowl beside the blackstone, dropping it down with a splat (which makes you snort and make some comment about it looking like plankton from spongebob on the bottom of a shoe).
but he forces himself to look away from you. because you're too much in the best, most overwhelming way possible.
thankfully, gabe comes over and immediately starts telling you that your smash burgers are better than nathan's—which has you fucking floating. it's good, because he's sure if he was alone with you and your smell and your pretty lips and annoying laugh a minute longer, he would've done something stupid like kiss the shell of your ear. or tell you how he feels.
but he knows he just...can't.
PART TWO: reel it in
the line to the downtown nightclub curls halfway down the block. a slow moving, impatient thing made up of heels on concrete, low conversations, and the distant thud of bass leaking through the club doors. the night air is warm for september, but in that sticky, city way—perfume and exhaust and something sweet drifting from somewhere nearby.
every few seconds the line shifts forward just enough to make it feel like progress. nonetheless, you're practically vibrating in the spot.
"okay, no, but this was a good idea," you insist for what has to be the third time, turning halfway around to face the group, hands uselessly flailing around as if gesturing to it. the club. the line. who knows. "like, objectively, this is fun already."
you're already tipsy. borderline plastered and already in that state where it's a gamble whether you'll remember from here on out in the morning.
"it's a line," erik mutters behind you, hands tucked into his jacket.
you shoot him a pointed look. "and you're old."
he snorts.
"besides, it's the anticipation," you correct, grinning. "very exciting."
nathan stands just off to the side, adjacent to your bare shoulder. he's close—close enough that if you leaned back even slightly, you'd bump into him. he lets himself think about that for only a second. wrapping you up, forearm around your collarbones.
he hasn't said much since you all got here, which was about 15 minutes ago. actually—he hasn't said much since you told him the plan earlier in the week.
because...clubs aren't his thing. their loud, crowded and unpredictable and everything he tries to avoid. in other words, they're exactly like you. everyone knows that, and when you mentioned wanting to do this for your birthday, you said that you didn't expect him to come because of his hatred for the party lifestyle.
and yet here he is. black button down open to reveal his white t-shirt, sleeves pushed up just enough to show his forearms. jaw tight like he's already over it, eyes scanning the street instead of the line. instead of you.
in all honesty, he hasn't been able to properly look you in the eye without going through an internal crisis since he pulled up to landy's, where you had already been getting ready with mel, tracey and ashley.
he had walked in and could already smell you, which was a whole thing in itself. but then you came waltzing down the stairs, glittery and dressed like that. a tight complicated looking dress that looks painted on—paired with a birthday sash and crown. even though your birthday wasn't technically till midnight.
nathan tried to look unaffected when you hugged him, drunk and loud, but erik had caught on. and nathan knew that he did—so he's been avoiding both erik and your eyes since then to save some face.
it's not until you spin, unsteadily, to face him that nathan looks at you properly again. mostly because he's scared you're going to fall on your face, so he's already got his hands out to steady you.
but you don't fall, only giggle when the crown stars to slip. you shimmy closer to him through the packed line, which hasn't moved since the last time, and blink up at him like a doll.
"you're gonna hate it in there," you say.
he avoids breathing through his nose when he replies, because you smell like fucking heaven. tequila as well, but that's not even a problem.
"I won't." he lies. just then, a couple of drunk frat guys come stumbling out of the club, yelling something about their greek affiliations that make nathan pull a face.
you squint, teasing and accusing all the same. "you already do."
he looks back at you and forces his features back to that unaffected, neutral look that he uses in every interview. "I don't."
"you're scowling."
"i'm not scowling."
you lean in slightly, still peering up at him. like you're inspecting the evidence. the crown slips down again, sitting against your eyebrow, but you don't notice. "you definitely are."
"i'm not."
you hum, unconvinced. "we'll fix that."
nathan not sure who we entails, but his mouth twitches despite that.
just then, erik just has to squeeze between where you're standing and gabe, meaning that you’re forced to shuffle closer into nathan's orbit to make room for the giant defender.
obviously, you don't care. practically snuggling up to nathan and all his warmth. meanwhile, he's freaking out. naturally.
and it's like you know that when you look back up at him, because your grin widens like you've just won something.
he, once again, has to immediately look away. jaw tightening to stone, composure snapping back into place. because maybe if these were different circumstances and nathan wasn't such a weirdo, he'd wrap his arms around you and keep you against his chest. press kisses to your jaw and neck until you're laughing at the feeling of his stubble—attempting to escape his hold but also not trying at all.
"you didn't have to come, you know," you say, nudging his chest lightly with your elbow, snapping him out of his thoughts. he blushes like he's been caught. you continue, "I wouldn't have been offended. I know you don't like all this stuff."
"I know." he shrugs. like...that's that. so simple.
"but you did anyway." you note, already half way back to grinning. the line inches forward. someone up ahead laughs too loudly, the bass inside the club pulsing stronger now every time the door opens. erik is still babbling on about something irrelevant with gabe.
nathan exhales, gaze still fixed somewhere over your shoulder. "it's your birthday...thing," he says eventually, like that's explains why he's like, abandoned his morals. and then like you don't know what he's talking about, he pokes at your lopsided crown.
you raise a brow.
then, ever so timidly and only after making sure all your friends weren't watching him with the eyes of a hawk looking for its dinner, nathan's knuckle hits the bottom of the crown and then pushes it back up. into place.
once he drops his hand, you tilt your head slightly, studying him. "yeah, it is."
he swallows the golf ball sitting in his throat. fingers itching to reach back up and graze your hair. or your forehead. frankly, any part of you would do. a beat passes, before he says anything more, eyes still locked with yours.
"so happy birthday," he adds, quieter.
your smile should be illegal. "thanks nate." then you add, tone almost conspiratorial. "although, it's not my birthday quite yet."
catching that comment behind you, erik makes a noise, now invading your bubble of space. "by the time we get in there it will be."
—
considering that the music sounded loud outside of the club, it shouldn't come as a surprise that when you, nathan and the rest of the group finally get inside, it becomes deafening—loud enough that it stops feeling like sound and starts feeling like something physical. settling in nathan’s chest and rattling his ribs with every beat.
the lights flash in quick bursts—neon blues and pinks and whites—catching on faces, on moving bodies, on raised hands and spilled drinks and everything in between. it's too much for nathan, and he's scowling again.
but all the reason he hates it are the exact reasons why you love it.
you're immediately wrapped up into the crowd with ashley, tracy and melissa. once again, you've all already been drinking and getting pumped up for this, so nobody can blame you. the guys kind of just hover at one of the tall tables that line the floor and bar, looking out for you all while also just…chilling before the season really begins, and nathan stars jumping on their asses for even thinking about beer.
he can't keep his eyes off of you, because of course he can't. and in the dark of the club, nathan isn't worried about being caught, so he lets his eyes roam over your figure freely. your dress, your legs, the glitter sash sitting between your boobs. it's ethereal. and then you smile, laugh, and nathan feels like he's ascending to the clouds.
you're enjoying yourself, that much as clear. and he thinks he's starting too as well.
it's only about 45 minutes after arriving that you seem to remember the guys even came with you, and when you manage to spot them through the crowd and squeeze through dancing sweaty bodies, you're gone. unsteady on your feet, and warm and light and giggly in that way that makes everything feel softer.
"nate!" you beam, appearing in front of him like you've been dropped out of nowhere. you practically fall into him, between the table and his torso. your front to his. "I missed you!"
the drinks you'd been nursing (and spilling) are long gone. nathan is sure you've been sneaking shots that he hasn't noticed, because he can smell them on your breath.
"you okay?" he asks like an idiot, completely ignoring the admission on purpose. gabe snickers at that from beside you, and nathan is sure to shoot his captain a look.
he looks back at you, eyes scanning your face—the too bright smile, the way you're bouncing a little on your toes without realizing it, the glassy, dazed look in your eyes.
"yes," you slur a little. "i'm great. this is the best night ever."
erik and naz snicker from across the table, finding humour in the way you’re drag your words and stumble into nathan's chest without evening meaning to. then, naz the little shit, calls your name with a teasing twinkle. "hey y/n, want another shot?"
and you gasp, like its the best idea you've ever heard. nathan groans like it's the worst. "no," he tells you and his way too amused teammate. "no more shots."
"but i'm thirsty," you all but pout, fisting the material of his shirt in your palm.
once he stops shooting daggers at his friend, he looks back down into your eyes. fuck, that damn pout. nathan keeps his hand at his side uselessly, even though he wants nothing more than the slide the pad of his thumb over your petruding bottom lip.
"that won't help," he tells you, gentle but firm. if nathan was a better man, he'd be embarrassed about how controlling and possessive he sounds over a girl that's not even his. but the other part of his brain, the one that can register the feeling of you pressed against him and the way you’re now playing with the fingers he's got wrapped around his beer bottle, doesn't think about how it looks.
in his moment of distraction (or weakness) you manage to take the bottle right out his hand and press it to your lips. he opens his mouth to protest, but nothing comes out when you begin to promptly down the entire thing without breaking his gaze.
jesus—
"I hate beer," you grimace, then hiccup in a way that almost makes you gag.
he takes the bottle and puts in on the table with an empty clink. "you didn't have to drink it," nathan reminds you, a hint of a grin on his face that you don't catch because he's dropped his head down next to your ear, so you can hear him over the roaring bass.
warm breath fans over your cartilage as he continues. "it was also mine."
you giggle at that, like you know that despite his authoritative tone, he's full of shit. pulling your head back just enough, you look back up at him, full of mischief and something else equally as belly swooping. "come dance with me."
nathan almost hesitates in telling you no. because you're just so beautiful and smiley, peering up at him like he's the best part of your night. but at his core, nathan is anything but submissive. especially when it comes to dancing in public.
"i'm not dancing." he tells you through a laugh.
you stare at him for a second—like you're trying to process that answer. just a second. "please," you say, drawing the word out. even go as far to tip your head back, giving him your most exaggerated, over the top pleading look. "it's my birthday."
and despite himself and all his best efforts, nathan mackinnon lets you drag him onto the dance floor.
—
by the time you all make it back to gabe and mel's place, the night has tipped fully into that blurry, disjointed kind of late. nathan doesn't even want to look at the clock above the fireplace because he knows it's way passed the time he usually sleeps. meaning his routine will be all fucked up tomorrow. but his heart tells him the way you're leaning all your weight onto him makes it worth it.
multiple pairs of heels are kicked off at the front door in uneven piles, erik is laughing too hard in the kitchen all things considering, and ashley is already halfway collapsed on the couch with her arm thrown dramatically over her eyes like she's been personally victimized by the evening.
your groan next to him, now considerably shorter with your shoes discarded. the smell of leftover takeout and sweet caramel candle wax mix together in a nauseating way. because despite nathan's best efforts, you managed to sneak a shot, or three, off of ej and naz when nathan wasn't paying attention.
and to your credit, you held on for a long time, including the ride home in the back of an uber—which is just a pukey nightmare. you had been squished between mel and nathan, gabe yapping away in the front to the driver about the upcoming season—because of course the driver was a fan. that's probably why he let you guys in the car, even though you looked like one stomach roll away from throwing up all over nathan's lap.
you manage to make it two steps into the living room before the level of your alcohol intake finally catches up to you.
you sway, lost of all colour and your grasp on reality. "oh no," you whine, sticky crown falling off your damp head and onto the floor.
cale looks over from the kitchen immediately, pausing his water chug. "what?"
"I don't feel—" you swallow, face scrunching as the room tilts just slightly. "I don't feel good."
that's all it takes. there's a chorus of uh ohs and yep there it is from your friends—minus ashley because she's already snoring on the couch. someone snorts (erik definitely), and someone else mutters something about it being inevitable (melissa probably), and before you can even properly complain, you're being gently yet firmly redirected down the hall.
"bathroom," your brother says, steering you towards the powder room at the front of the house.
"I know where the bathroom is," you mumble half heartedly, deeply offended for no real reason other than being drunk.
cale snorts when you walk into the door frame. "clearly."
you try to glare at him, but it doesn't stick as the bathroom light flickers to life. it reflects off the mirror, making everything feel worse.
you drop to your knees with significantly less grace than you'd like, bracing yourself against the edge of the toilet like it personally wronged you. "this is the worst day of my life," you declare after a violent, spitty dry heave.
the door clicks closed softly, shutting out most of the noise from the rest of the house.
"you're fine," a familiar voice that definitely doesn't belong to your brother says. nathan's voice is low and steady, like he's intentionally keeping things calm.
you don't even bother asking him what he's doing, because it's obvious enough. he's taking care of you, undeterred by your bile or the perspiration lingering by your hairline.
"i'm not fine," you argue immediately. "i'm dying."
he grins behind your back, "you're not dying."
"you don't know that." you whine, cheek dropping to the toilet seat until it's pressed flat. you can’t think about the germs, or else you'd start gagging again.
there's a soft huff—almost a laugh—as he moves closer. a second after he appears as a blur in your line of sight, you feel his hand on the side of your face, fingers gently pushing tangled hair back behind your ear. gently, not tugging.
"stay still," he murmurs.
"I am still," you protest, even though you're shifting and rubbing your hot cheek against his rough palm.
he almost throws up himself at that, simply because the feeling of you nuzzling against his skin is enough to send him on a roller coaster.
"oh my god," you mumble suddenly, voice muffled. "I feel like kat in that scene from 10 things I hate about you."
nathan's hand stills for a half a second against the side of your head. "what's that?"
your head snaps up—almost smacking his nose in the process—enough to look at him, completely scandalized. "you've never seen it?" you gasp, much to his amusement. "oh my god, nate, please watch it with me."
and then you gag over the toilet bowl again. nathan runs his hand up the nape of your neck without thinking, and takes ahold of your hair in a makeshift ponytail as you continue to heave.
"maybe when your head's not in a toilet bowl." he reminds you, firm yet gentle.
you blink at him when you've calmed down, tears in your eyes. then, despite everything—the nausea, the spinning, and the general state of your existence—you laugh.
it comes out a little weak, a little breathless and stinky, but neither of you seem to care. you because you're hammered, and nathan because he fucking, like, loves you.
"you're funny," you muse, like you've just discovered something shocking.
"i'm not." he breathes a laugh of his own.
"you are," you insist, turning your head slightly so you can look at him better. "you just pretend you're not when everyone's around."
he doesn't have a response to that. he just watches you for a second, expression unreadable but softer than it usually is, like the edges have been smoothed down by the privacy of the bathroom. and you. always by you.
"you hate this," you add suddenly, a little quieter now, wiping at your runny nose with the back of your hand. "tonight, I mean."
"I didn’t hate it."
"you hate clubs." you remind him.
he hums, "I do."
"and you came anyway."
he exhales lightly, gaze dropping for a moment before coming back to you. "yeah." his grip on your hair adjusts again, thumb brushing lightly near your temple like he's making sure everything stays out of the way.
and you're looking at him all fuzzy and sweet—nathan doesn't even care that you're all clammy and there's a little bit of puke on the toilet seat, because to him, you're still the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.
it's too much all at once, and he's on the brink of telling you thing he shouldn't—not only because you're drunk and gagging, but because he knows he can't.
"focus on not throwing up," he tells you instead, pushing away all mushy thoughts of kissing you and feelings and confessing out of his head.
"bossy." you mumble, smile faint as your eyes begin to flutter closed. exhaustion slowly creeping its way into your bones.
—
nathan isn't surprised when he walks downstairs and sees that you haven't woken up yet.
it's all decorated, courtesy of melissa who's smile changes when she sees it's him coming into the kitchen and not you. a big glitter birthday banner hags from the ceiling, along with balloons and a matcha drink with a candle on top—because you don't like cake.
the guys and tracy and ashley are scattered around the island, some noticeably worse for wear. erik groans like he's been shot when the toaster pops.
"it's bread," gabe snickers in the direction of his oldest teammate. "relax."
"you relax," erik hisses, heels of his palms pressed so deep into his eye sockets that it must be painful.
nathan sits down on one of the empty bar stools, looking like he didn't even go out last night. to be fair, he only had like two beers. and despite the time on the clock when he finally got you into bed and the went to sleep himself, nathan still managed to get up at the crack of dawn. where he then promptly took an hour in gabe's home gym to get his muscles moving, and then took a long hot shower.
because he kind of smelt like your perfume and your bile, which wasn't the most ideal. neither was staying up an extra hour once all the chaos has died down because he couldn't stop thinking about you. or your tiny dress, or how you looked at him while chugging his beer. or your drunk smile—especially that smile.
the stairs creak, and before he can be chill about the idea of seeing you this morning, nathan's head whips aorund so fast it's a shock that his neck doesn’t snap.
but it's not you, just the dog.
with a sigh, he faces forward again, gaze landing on the ice matcha with the pink candle melissa shoved into the straw opening. he itches to get up and put it in the fridge, because the ice is starting to melt and you hate when it's watery like that.
"you gonna bring that up to her?" gabe suddenly asks, leaning on the island directly across from him.
nathan blinks in suprise. "no?"
"why not?"
"she's probably still asleep." he huffs, and when gabe's knowing and all too pleased smirk starts to grow, nathan can't help but scoff. "don't you have food to cook?"
his captain laughs, bright and too loud, making nathan's scowl deepen. "and?"
his jaw tightens slightly. "and i'm not waking her up."
gabe tilts his head, studying him in that way that feels a little too perceptive. the eggs sizzle un-attended on the stove, and he briefly leaves nathan to flip them.
"you sat with her last night." he notes, looking over his shoulder at him.
nathan stills for half a second.
"cale told me," gabe adds easily. "said you didn't leave until everything settled."
he shrugs, like it's nothing, even though his stomach suddenly feels queasy at the prospect of his friend being able to read him so well. because if gabe knows, then melissa knows and then you'll know.
jesus, he needs to like go home or something.
"she wasn't feeling good." nathan answers like that all there is to it.
"right." gabe can only muse, but its layered. because he knows that nathan doesn't do this kind of shit. go to clubs, take care of drunk girls. fucking hold their hair back while they puke. its easy to see that nathan is down bad for you, no matter how much he tries to hide it from you, his friends, and himself.
thankfully, gabs doesn't add to that, only sliding a mug of decaf coffee across the counter until it sits between nathan's clenched fists.
and all the nova scotia native can do is pick up the mug and takes three scolding gulps.
PART THREE: 99 sonny angels on the wall
the next few months of nathan's life continue the exact same way they have since the moment he met you—switching between watching you from afar with his heart in his ass, and watching you up close, lightheaded from your scent, your smile, your laugh, and everything else about you.
at this point, it's more obvious than it's not. because nathan is almost giving up on try to hide it more so than he is trying to come across indifferent. he just can't with you.
it starts ramping up in the way all good things do, two weeks before the season is supposed to really start. cale and tracy are hosting an intimate engagement party that nathan just so happened to be invited to. and knowing you'd obviously be there—in the wedding party and the sister of the groom—he made sure to dress up as nice as he could with his lack of nice yet casual fashion knowledge, spray on cologne and prepare to spend an unknown amount of hours with you.
you'd been wearing some flowy and butter yellow. that's the first thing nathan noticed when he arrived halfway into the afternoon. you'd also been fluffing about a long desert table, telling one of tracey's college friends all about how the count bites were to die for. he had gravitated towards you without even realizing he was doing so.
up close, he could see that you were a little glassy eyed and flushed. but smiling so wide. always smiling. and the second your eyes landed on him, you gasped and skipped right up to his chest.
"nate!" you had beamed, tugging at the open collar of his linen button down. "I made you something." and nathan let you pull him around the backside of the table, a little dazed and totally not watching the way your hips swayed under your dress.
"cookies." you brightened when his eyebrows raised a fraction. "I looked up your whole, like, superstar diet thing," you explained, waving a hand vaguely. "and I made them with all the stuff you're allowed to have. less sugar, more...whatever it is you eat. they actually turned out really good."
he almost wanted to tell you everything in that very moment—seconds and one half bitten cookie away from dragging you further into the garden to kiss you silly.
but he didn't.
and then the season started, and where nathan should've been completely focused on hockey and his own high performance schedule, he was focused on you.
your name brought up in passing in the locker room? nathan's head was snapping up to listen in. cale mentioning his family coming down to watch a game? nathan's wondering if you'll be with them. a dinner at a teammates house? nathan's all nonchalant (no he's not) wondering if you'll be attending.
then there was that one dinner party at the kadri's, where you were sat next to nathan. he'd been trying not to look at you because he was trying to remain composed, but you laughed at something ej said and put your hand on nathan's thigh—and he almost choked on his steak, leaving him a coughing blubbering mess while you thumped on his spine and ej just laughed at the ordeal.
and he couldn't even be mad about it, because you were so concerned, and so sweet and made some little joke about not choking for you again anytime soon. nathan almost said something back about that, but he bit his tongue.
because it isn't just the fact that you’re cale's sister—though that alone would make things complicated. it's that, in his mind, you and him exist on completely different wave lengths. you're soft where he's sharp. impulsive where he's careful. open in ways nathan's never quite learned how to be. and the thought of trying—of actually letting himself have you, let himself feel what it would like to call you his beyond the walls of his mind—sort of scares him.
because if it falls apart, if the differences between you nathan is so sure will break you actually do, then he doesn't just loose the possibility of you, but he looses you entirely.
and nathan knows, deep down, that once he crosses that line and even has a piece of you, going back to pretending you're nothing to him won't just be hard—it'll be messy and impossible.
so once again, once he just can't. or rather, he's trying really hard not to.
—
nathan's barely out of the locker room post game, still half in that post win haze—adrenaline not fully settled, teammates talking over each other in the background—when he hears your voice mixed in with some of the WAGs and lingering teammates.
you're leaning on a wall next to melissa, baby luke cuddled in your arms like he's yours. you're rambling about something that based on the twinkle in your eye, clearly feels urgent to you and absolutely not to anyone else.
he laughs through his nose at that, a breathy little sound only for his own ears. and the closer he gets, the easier your words are to make out.
"...and it's literally just been on my floor for, like, a week," you huff, exasperated. "because I thought I could build it myself, which—clearly—was a mistake."
nathan glances over, just as tracy snorts. "how hard can a bookshelf be to build?"
the sound of you pressing a loud kiss on the baby’s cheek sounds before you answer your sister-in-law. "you tell me, trac. seriously, damn you ikea and your minimalistic instructions."
truly, nathan meant to just walk past you. swear. sure, if you noticed him and said something, nathan would've obviously said hello. he's trying to be respectful, not an asshole. but that just goes straight down the drain the second your eyes lock.
"nate," you smile, sliding next to him like a magnet. "good game."
he tickles under luke's chin—because how else are you supposed to great a smiley baby?—and then looks back at you. too blinded by your pretty face to form a response that's not stupid, he just mumbles—"you watched?"
then his eyes fall closed because immediately he wants to take it back. obviously you watched the game because here you are, standing in front of him with a family & friends pass hanging from your neck.
but you only laugh and bump your elbow against his arm. "always," you say instead.
nathan is sure you're trying to kill him with that. he watches, a little dazed, as you pull down luke's little jersey, dividing your attention between the baby and your friends who have moved on from the whole book shelf debacle he overheard.
then before he can think better, nathan gently gets your attention, this time by brushing his elbow against your torso. it's subtle, but it works and you peer up at him, pretty.
"I can help," he swallows, then continues, "with your book shelf."
at first, you just blink at him, but as the words register, a big grin splits across your face. "you can?"
he nods. "yes."
you breath a sigh of relief and almost sag into him. "please, yes. a million times yes. there are too many screws and the instructions are like, aggressive but also lacking."
"aggressive?" his smirk is full of amusement, and you mirror it.
"don't judge until you see them."
"alright," he holds up a hand in surrender, "not until I see them."
—
a few days later, nathan mackinnon finds himself standing in your apartment and is instantly overwhelmed. because he's never been in your space before. sure, he's imagined every single corner, but his imagination pales in comparison to the real thing. it's just so...you.
colourful with big open windows, curtains that are nothing but beads. it's cluttered, but not messy. never dirty. and it smells like you, so much so that when you first opened the door for him and the scent wafted out, nathan had to hold himself up on the door frame.
and it didn't help that you looked like a dream. hair pulled back into two twisty braids. wearing a open button down with a paint mark on the cuff, paired with sun coloured dungarees.
even now, sitting on a fuzzy area rug that resembles a cat more than anything else, instruction sheet held in his calloused hands, nathan can't help but to keep stealing quick glances at you.
wood panels are scattered all around like they've been there since you unpacked them. knowing you, they truly have. nathan hums, flipping a page.
"well?" you ask, sitting crossed legged beside him, gesturing to the instruction.
"these are fine."
"they're not fine," you argue, handing him something that may or may not be the right piece. "they skip steps."
he smiles down at the papers. "they don't skip steps."
you frantically move your finger between two of the steps. you definitely think they don't make sense, but they totally do. "see this?" you look at nathan, exasperated. "they imply steps."
he exhales, but there's no real bite to it. instead he puts them down and reaches for two of the wood panels. "hold this."
and you do. for the most part. your attention drifts every few seconds while you loosely attempt to assist nathan in the bookshelf endeavours, bouncing between him, your phone and the pile of things that still haven't been put away—books, yes, but also a concerning number of stuffed animals that have somehow migrated into the construction zone.
it takes less than an hour to build, which is kind of disappointing because nathan doesn't want to leave you in your element so soon. so he lingers purposefully. not that he needs to make an excuse though, because you're grabbing at his wrist like a kid and asking him to help you put everything on the new shelves.
obviously, he tried to play it nonchalant and like, pretended he didn't want to stick around. "I just built it." nathan had reminded you, secretly hoping you'd keep pushing.
"and now you help style it," you replied, like it was obvious and thank jesus.
it started somewhat normal considering he is always one second away from loosing it around you. books get stacked together and sorted by author and series. apparently it's a system, at least that what you told him when you stepped back for the 10th time to admire the aesthetic.
it makes absolutely no sense to nathan, but he doesn't complain. just offers appropriate hums and nods when you ask him if the boys of tommen series looks good next to the chestnut springs series. whatever that means.
it's not until you start asking him where the stuffed coffee cup should go that he raises a brow. "you've got more stuffies than books." it's not true, but he can't resist teasing you in his own, awkward way.
and it works—you gasp, offended but also not at all. "that's just a lie! and they add decorum anyways."
"right," he mutters, clearly unconvinced, picking up a small figure from the pile. he turns it over in his hand, frowning. "are these...naked babies?"
you immediately grab it back. "they're called sonny angels, you wouldn't get it."
"that's doesn't answer anything."
"they're cute." you pout, holding a baby dressed like a strawberry up to your cheek.
nathan has to swallow back his initial reaction. because you look so fucking cute, all pouty and big eyed like the baby figurine you're holding. instead of leaning down and kissing the pout off your mouth though, he just plucks the figurine out of your hand.
"they're weird." he muses, turning it and flipping it over. his frown deepens when he sees it's actually fucking naked.
"they're collectible," you correct, snatching it right back and then placing it carefully on the shelf in front of some brightly coloured books.
for a moment, it's like his body forgets that you're you—the biggest infatuation of his mind, and the blood pumping through his veins. the reason he considers forgetting his entire moral system.
nathan smiles behind your back. before he gets too distracted looking at your pink painted toenails or the exposed nape of your neck, he reaches for another book apart of one of the many stacks sitting on the rug.
you watch him over your shoulder as he flips it, scanning the back. "what are these about?"
"romance."
he glances up. "all of them?"
you shrug and take it from it. "mostly."
there's a pause—one of those quiet, suspended moments where you can practically see the gears turning in his head. his eyes narrow just slightly, like he's trying to piece something together, and then—"...do they have... sex stuff in them?" he asks, the question coming out slower than expected, cautious in a way that almost feels studied.
you freeze. just for a second. and then the realization hits in a blinding flash. a slow, dangerous grin spreads across your face—bright, delighted, a little bit wicked.
nathan sees it happen in real time, and immediately regrets everything.
"oh my god," you breathe, like you've just uncovered something priceless, waving the book between you like a toy.
"what?" he mutters, defensive already, even though he's not entirely sure why.
"you don't know?"
"I didn't say I don't know."
"but you asked."
"I was asking like—generally," he insists, crossing his giant arms like that somehow solidifies his point.
"yeah," you nod, already turning toward the shelf, fingers skimming over the spines like you're browsing for something specific now. "they do."
nathan watches you, dread settling low in his stomach as he clocks the way you're enjoying this. "don't—"
but the protest comes too late because you've already pulled a different book free, flipping it open with an ease that suggests you've done it a million times. your thumb slides along the pages, scanning quickly, eyes darting—and then you stop, whole face lighting up.
"oh, this is a good one," you say, barely containing your excitement.
"don't read it out loud."
you clear your throat dramatically anyway, because of course you're not going to listen. nathan's stomach already feels tightly coiled, and he exhales sharply, dragging a hand down his face. "seriously—"
you start reading, way too happy. "his tongue licks up her dripping folds, lapping up her sweet and sticky arousal," you quote, unaffected as you continue. every word lands clearly, every implication slipping into the space between you, every line getting a little more suggestive, a little more pointed the longer you go.
nathan goes still at first. like if he doesn't react, it won't register to the part of brain that controls his dick. then he stiffens—subtly, but noticeably—because obviously he's getting hard. how can he not when the girl of his dress is reading him porn. her own book with porn!
so he gets busy. very deliberately busy. he reaches for a stack of books beside him, shifts them, straightens them, picks one up just to put it back down again. his movements are controlled, purposeful—but his ears are turning red now.
then quickly the color spreads, creeping down the back of his neck.
and you notice of course, because now you're giggling, making your voice wavers like you're trying not to. you keep going, dragging out a line just a little longer than necessary. "and as he pushes his rock hard length into her tiny entrance, they both let our guttural sounds."
"okay," nathan cuts in finally, sharper than he means it to be.
but you don't stop because that's just not in you're nature. because you're enjoying this.
you push through another sentence, then another, eyes flicking up just in time to catch the exact moment it clicks for him—that you're not stopping.
"you're unbelievable," he mutters, but there's no real bite to it. just tension. something tight and coiled underneath.
you snap the book shut with a soft thud, grinning up at him like you've just won something. you eye his flush. "oh, you loved that."
"I didn't."
"you so did." you move closer, and he swallows. "maybe you've just found your new favourite form of porn."
"I don't..." he stops himself, laughing once. "you're so—"
"you're blushing." you snicker, poking his cheek.
"i'm not."
"you are," you insist, stepping even closer—enough to close some of the space between you. enough that he has to look down slightly to meet your eyes. "it's cute."
and that doesn't something, deep in his stomach. right between his ribs. everywhere. nathan mackinnon feels those two words, and the way you’re gazing up at him, everywhere.
his jaw tightens, shoulders shifting like he's trying to reset himself—like he's trying very hard to stay in control of whatever is happening.
"put the books away," he says instead, voice lower than possible.
you hum, clearly pleased with yourself, turning back to the shelf. your fingers trail along the spines again, slower this time, like you're considering your next move. but you're still smiling.
mostly because you can feel his eyes on you, tracking every step. and he doesn't even care that you're aware. he's not avoiding, or trying to distract himself from your smile or scent. instead, nathan is basking in it all.
he steps towards you without thinking just as you reach for another book with the cartoon cover—how can something so innocent be so filthy, nathan wonders.
you didn't hear him move, but suddenly he's right there, just behind you, close enough that you can feel the warmth of him, the faint brush of his arm near yours. and your breath catches—just slightly.
slowly, you turn your head, and find he's already looking at you. the air has shifted now, and not just because of the smutty words exchanged between you. it's because of your proximity. proximity that for the first time since you've met, he’s initiated.
your hand is still on the book, but you've forgotten about it entirely now.
his gaze drops—just briefly—to your mouth, and then back up again. it's subtle enough, but also not at all because he's physically unable to hold himself accountable anymore.
obviously you catch it, because how could you not? your heart stutters, just once. "what?" you murmur, soft like the teasing edge has slipped into something else entirely.
he doesn't answer right away. instead, his eyes search your face, like he's trying to decide something. like he's right on the edge of it—the edge of really doing it this time.
you don't move. don't breathe. don't dare break whatever this is.
nathan lifts his hand, a little hesitant, then settles it lightly against the shelf beside your head, caging you in without quite touching you.
your lips part slightly, anticipation curling low in your stomach, your pulse loud in your ears as he inches closer. is this it? is the moment that, unbeknownst to everyone else including nate, you've also been wanting. needing.
but then—he huffs out a quiet breath, something almost like a laugh, and shakes his head just slightly as he pulls back. nathan pushes off the shelf, "we should finish up."
you blink, still caught halfway in the moment. your body a step behind your brain. you watch as he turns away, picking up a stack of dark romance books you've never read because they kind of scares you.
you take them from his hands. the knowing look in your gaze shouldn't surprise him, but it does. "you were gonna kiss me," you state, narrowing your eyes at him.
despite the blush that's been adorning his face for the greater part of the evening, nathan pales.
"I wasn't."
"you were."
"I wasn't."
you stare at him for a beat and then grin. and that's when nathan knows he's ultimately screwed. instead of doing what he should—throw those books to the floor, grab your face and kiss you until you're both dizzy—he’s backing down. he's incapable of committing to you. because he can't no matter how badly he wants to.
instead, he scoffs, not looking at you now. he reaches past you to grab the book from your hand and shove it back onto the shelf.
"put. the books. away." nathan reiterates.
you just laugh softly, leaning back just a little. still entirely too close for his hearts sake. "yeah," you murmur. "okay."
you don't let it get awkward. in all honesty, you pretty much allow the space for nathan to forget it even happened. which he can't decide if he hates or not yet. easy conversation flows between you as you finish putting away all your books and trinkets, and soon enough, the red hue leaves his cheeks and everything goes back to how it was.
nathan watching wishfully from a distance and you pretending you don't realize.
—
cale makar
to nathan mackinnon
heard you helped my sister build her bookshelves. and apparently she read to you? whatever that means
cale makar
to nathan mackinnon
bro you're so whipped
PART FOUR: a love like that
by the time 7:30 rolls around, the movie night you planned with your friends seems to be unraveling. on your phone screen, a list of sorry's and babe i'm gunna have to reschedule's sit. ashley can't come cause nylah is running a fever, and when one kid gets sick, so do the others, meaning melissa and gabe are also out. and tracy got her dates mixed up, and she has to be up early for a flight, so there goes that. cale said he'd come, but you waved him off.
now you sit cross legged in the middle of your couch, staring at the wall like it might change everything. you're not mad per say, it's just—you bought all the good snacks and wine and we're gunna order a pizza and just chill.
but now you're alone, lights dimmed just right, throw blankets ready for people who won't be occupying them, and a big glass of wine you've already polished off.
fuck, you even vacuumed. which is crazy.
"i'm so tragic," you groan to yourself as you flop back against the cushions dramatically. the tv glows painterly across from you, sitting on the netflix home page.
you can't help but sigh wistfully and reach for another slug of wine, this time right from the bottle. once again, you're not mad, but you've just been looking forward to it all day and ugh! for the first time ever, you're feeling truly upset you don't have a husband and family like your friends do.
it's just you and your snacks and wine.
you're mid tying your hair back when a knock sounds at the door. and for a moment, you freeze. because who changed there mind? who's kid miraculously got better?
wait.
the sound comes again, softer this time, like whoever's out there knows you're home. and remembering who you invited know, you know there's one person who didn't cancel—one who would never.
you're off the couch in seconds, nearly tripping over one of your carefully placed blankets on the way before you yank the door open—and there he is.
nathan is standing there like he belongs on your doorstop, a soft blush on his cheeks like he's remembering exactly what happened last time he was in your place. you let your eyes briefly wander over his outfit—a dark hoodie and sweats. he looks comfy and ready for a movie. and maybe it's because you thought everything went into the toilet tonight, but the idea that he came prepared makes your heart swell.
you're completely at odds with the way your brain short circuits for a second. "you came," you say after a beat, a little breathless.
and knowing nothing about the evening besides everyone getting together for a movie, he just looks down at you like that's a strange thing to say. "I said I would."
"I know, but—" you wave a hand vaguely, stepping aside to let him in. "everyone else canceled."
"oh." he hums, almost freezing at the revelation that you're about to be alone. together. again. thankfully, he manages to move his cement filled feet and slip off his shoes—without being asked, of course.
and then he's moving like he knows the space, which is a way he does. h nathan walks into the living room, huffing what sounds like a laugh as he looks over your snack filled coffee table.
you follow. "you don't have to stay."
but much to your surprise, he just shrugs, easy, like it's nothing. "It's fine."
something warm and steady settles under your ribs. "okay," you say, breezing past his ridged body to plop back into your favourite spot. middle cushion, duh. you purse your lips and look up at him, "then you're stuck with me."
he glances between you and the cushion next to you warily before settling down beside you. thigh pressing into yours, arm too. it's nice. he's nice. and warm and big and smells like a clean shower.
your grab a blanket to distract yourself from like, grabbing him.
"what are we watching?" he asks.
the grin you give him is involuntary. "it was going to be that new action movie, but know that it's just us...i'm thinking something more, light hearted."
nathan exhales through his nose, already bracing. "what?"
"10 things I hate about you, obviously. you said you've never seen it," you tell him, pointing at him with the remote like you've just caught him in something incriminating. "it's perfect."
"perfect for who?"
"for me," you reply shamelessly.
he snickers under his breath, but there's no real bite. only adoration.
the movie starts, filling the room with familiar dialogue and the soft glow of shifting scenes. instantly, you're locked in—quoting under your breath, reacting before things happen, occasionally glancing over to gauge his response like it's a test.
at first, nathan doesn't give anything away. arms crossed loosely, posture relaxed but not fully sunk into the couch. eyes on the screen in that deliberate, observant way—like he's studying it instead of watching it.
"you're analyzing it," you accuse quietly about 30 minutes in.
he looks over at you, momentarily dazed at how you look under the glow from the tv. "i'm watching it."
you only laugh, nudge him once and then return to your attention back to the screen. but nathan? he lets his gaze linger on your profile for a moment longer than he should.
it's not soon after you pause the movie because you're hungry. nathan's immediate reaction is to make a comment about the food on the table, in which you respond with a almost slurred need for pizza. he orders it on his phone because you get distracted explaining a scene that hasn't even happened yet.
the door bell rings soon after because he paid extra for express delivery. he also gets up before you can even blink, which is just hot for no reason.
when he walks back into your living space, holding a pizza box in just one hand, the smell of warmth and grease and saucy immediately invades your senses.
"ohmygod," you exclaim so quick it all blends together into one word, "smells like sex."
he shoots you an amused look as he puts down the box next to the wine bottle and the untouched popcorn, but you don't notice because you're too busy flipping open the cardboard lid and sniffing like a mad woman.
"dinner," he says before sitting back down.
you grab a slice and it hits your wrist, which only makes your mouth water. nathan raises a brow as your eyes meet, but instead of answering with words you just take a messy bite—grease and sauce smearing on your cheek.
"you having some?" you ask him through a mouthful.
he shrugs, "I don't eat that stuff during the season."
"boooooo!" you chant until he laughs. but you're not done being a slim, because you dance the slice in his direction, as if trying to tempt him. it doesn't. "don't think about it," you tell him, mouth still unattractively full. "just experience joy."
he pushes your hand away. "I experience joy."
"you observe joy from a distance," you correct, eyebrow quirked knowingly. "do it for my shit movie night."
nathan sighs, a little reserved, but when your pleading eyes don't waver, he's already got his mind made up. there's a long second where he just looks at you, but then—like he's making a conscious decision to ruin his own reputation—he reaches forward and grabs a slice.
a slow grin covers your face as you chew, and before you can think otherwise, you grab your phone and start recording. because this is like, unheard of.
"oh my god, is nathan mackinnon about to eat something with grease?" you whisper dramatically, camera pointed at him.
he pauses, looking between your eyes and the lens. "put your phone down." he says, but he's already grinning.
"no, I have to record this for the future. this is gold."
"oh my god."
you grin, unwavering, holding your ground.
nathan takes a bite then, because it'll make you happy. he chews thoughtfully, enjoying the flavour, because let's be honest, it's been so long since he's eaten something this unhealthy.
and you gasp. naturally.
he keeps chews, expression carefully blank, but you can see it—the flicker, and the split second shift when he realizes grease can be good.
"say something," you urge quietly.
"i'm not saying anything."
"you love it."
"I didn't say that."
"you love it." you beam, "admit it. grease is fucking delicious. maybe not for the gut, but for the soul."
nathan exhales something that sounds suspiciously like a laugh as he drags a hand down his face. "you're so stupid." but he says it with so much softness that you want to kiss him.
you eat almost half the pizza, and nathan only manages to polish off one slice. but you'll take it. the movie keeps playing, beating the climax of the plot.
you've shifted closer to him without realizing it—if that was even possible. the blanket you'd been using has somehow started to spill onto his lap, and your shoulder is practically in his armpit. your legs are tucked under you now, angled slightly toward him, like your body's made the decision before your brain has.
and nathan doesn't move because of he wouldn't dream of it.
the sven plays out, and instinctively you turn to look at nathan, wanting to catch his reaction. but when you do, you find him already looking at you.
the moment stretches like molasses. the movie plays on, familiar lines and voices filling the room, but it all fades—background noise to something quieter and fragile. because neither of you look away.
"watch the movie," he says quietly.
"you're not watching it."
"I am."
"you're not." you challenge, voice barley above a whisper.
the only answer he can manage is to look back at the movie, but it says enough.
when the movie ends and the familiar credits roll, it's probably late enough for it to be concerning. you're both completely sunk into the couch, and you've toed the pizz box away so nathan has somewhere to rest his sock covered feet.
"...I want that," you murmur suddenly—wishfully—almost to yourself.
nathan's attention shifts immediately. he lazily looks over at you. "want what?"
you don't meet his gaze right away. for a beat, your attention stays on the screen, following the moment as it unfolds. "love," you clarify, quieter now. "I want a love like that."
you're not sure why you tell him that. but it's the kind of honesty that slips out when you're comfortable. when your guard is down. when you're not thinking about how it sounds. and maybe it's lingering longing from earlier about feeling alone, or maybe it's something else entirely.
it's all the same when you watch nathan go still. it's subtle enough, but you're still pressed together, so even if it was just a hitched breath, you would've felt it.
he holds your gaze. his hand, resting near yours on the couch over the throw, flexes once—like he's about to reach for you but can't quite get there.
"you will."
your voice goes soft. "you think so?"
nathan swallows down the lump in his throat. he could say it then. tell you, right here. right now. tell you that he knows you'll get a love like that, because he already feels that way for you, and whether you know it or not, you have it.
and just for a second, the admission is on the tip of his tongue.
and you can see it. clear as anything. it's in the way his expression changes, and in the way something deeper pushes past the usual control he keeps locked in place.
his gaze drops briefly to your mouth, then back to your eyes, like he's weighing something, like he's standing right on the edge of it.
"I—" but he stops, words hanging in the space between you like a vice.
your heart stutters with disappointment.
nathan exhales as every fear and doubt about telling you how he feels climbs up his throat. no matter how badly he wants to say it, he can't risk it. can't risk the possibility of loosing you.
the moment folds back in on itself, the walls snapping back into place like they were never down to begin with.
"you will," nathan says instead, quieter this time, like he's settling on something safer. "you deserve that."
not knowing what to say without telling him exactly how you feel about another failed kiss, you just study for a moment. and as you do, underneath the shadows cast from the tv and the hard exterior he blankets his face with, you can see there something there. making him hold back.
"okay," you say finally, just as soft.
he doesn't stay much longer after that. muttering I should go while the credits nears the end—because you'd been too dazed to stop them from rolling—already standing from the couch and leaving you feeling cold. and you had just nodded, and instead of asking him a million questions like you want to, you walk him to the door.
there's a moment there—of course there is—where you both linger a second too long. nathan's hand brushes yours as he reaches for his shoes. your breath catches for no good reason. and he looks at you like he's about to say something again. but you already know he won't.
"thanks for coming," you mumbled, leaning against the wall.
he pauses, and then—"goodnight y/n."
the second the door closes behind him, it all hits you. from the moment you met all those summers ago with the season looming around you, to all the barbecues and birthdays and every quiet moment in between.
you stand there for a moment, staring at nothing, back against the door now—the quiet of your apartment pressing in loud.
what the hell was that?
you replay it instantly—the couch, the way nathan looked at you, the almost. the very obvious, very real almost. the way he started to say something and then didn't. the way his eyes dropped to your mouth like—god.
why didn't he kiss you?
It wasn't just in your head, you think you know that much. because It couldn't have been. because if you felt it—he felt it. that kind of moment doesn't just happen for no reason. people don't look at each other like that and then just...leave like it's another day accomplished.
unless you've read everything wrong. because maybe this entire time you thought you've discovered who the enigma that is nathan mackinnon, and what makes him tick. but maybe—just maybe—you've been mistaking every snear for a smile. every awkward laugh as a pleased one.
your stomach twists at the idea that you've been sitting here for years building something up that was never actually there in the first place.
"no," you mutter, grabbing your phone, pacing once across your living room before turning sharply back. "no, i'm not doing this."
it won't be another night of wondering. not another week of overanalyzing every look, every word, every almost until you drive yourself crazy. if you've been wrong, you need to know now.
if he's going to confuse you—whether it was accidental or on purpose or you're just going crazy—he can deal with the consequences.
"okay," you say to yourself, already pulling on your shoes, barely even thinking about it. "fine. great. perfect."
and then you do something any slightly insane girl would do—call and uber and give him nathan's address.
—
by the time you're standing outside his place, your heart is beating so hard it feels ridiculous. because this is insane. you know that. but you also know you're not one to brush this kind of shit under the rug, if there's something that needs to be said, you're ready to hear it. no more pussy footing around.
you knock before you can overthink it. and then you're immediately holding your breath, panicking while your hand is frozen in place mid air.
then the door opens.
nathan blinks in surprise, obviously not expecting to see you all things considered, hair slightly messier than before, hoodie swapped for a t shirt now. he looks soft, but also more off-guard than you've maybe ever seen him.
"y/n? are you okay? what are you doing here?"
his eyes roam over you, looking for injuries or an answer you haven't given him. he steps out into the porch, eliminating a foot of space between you.
you don't give yourself time to hesitate, words coming out firmer than you intended. "do you hate me or something?"
his brows pull together immediately. "what?"
"I mean," you huff a laugh, hands slapping the sides of your thighs as you drop them, "I thought you liked me. I thought that I made you nervous or something—but it's been years and i'm starting to think I got the wrong impression."
he just stares at you for a second, like his brain is trying to catch up to the fact that you're here. now. saying this. because how could you ever think that? sure, nathan thinks, he has never been forthcoming with your about his feelings, but he's sure he's never given the impression that he hates you. right?
"do you...want to come inside?"
you blink. "do you want me to come inside?"
a beat. he swallows, fingers twitching like he's trying not to touch you. "yes. I do."
your chest tightens, even though you're trying to remain neutral. you tilt your chin up, "then yes."
nathan steps back without another word, gesturing for you to go ahead.
you walk past him, heart in your throat, door clicking shut behind you with a finality that makes everything feel suddenly, terrifyingly real.
there's a moment of silence. mostly because you don't have a plan and you're already regretting it.
"I don't hate you, y/n."
you turn to face him, arms crossed like a shield. "no?"
he shakes his head, stepping a little closer, voice quieter now. "never."
the word lands between you, steady and certain, and it does nothing to calm the way your chest is rising and falling like you've just run all the way here instead of taking an uber.
"okay," you breathe, but it comes out thinner than you mean it to. "then you can't just—" you gesture vaguely between the two of you, frustration bleeding through now that you're here, now that you've started, "—do that and then leave."
his brow furrows. "do what?"
"you know what," you insist, stepping closer without really deciding to. "the couch. the looking at me like you were about to—" you cut yourself off, exhaling sharply. "you almost said something."
and based off the look in your gaze, nathan knows you don't just mean tonight. his jaw tightens slightly. "I didn't."
"you did. you do," you push. "and then you just...shut it down. like always."
"that's not—"
"It is," you interrupt, softer now but more certain. "you get right up to the edge of something real and then you just—pull back. like it doesn't even matter."
"It does matter," he says immediately, stepping closer.
"then why have you never kissed me?"
at that, the room goes silent. your breath catches, eyes never leaving his. there's no taking it back. not that you would, but the idea is almost suffocating. alan or as much as the way he's looking at you.
his eyes bore into yours—like the question physically hit him. like he wasn't expecting you to say it out loud even though it's been sitting there for god knows how long now, obvious and unavoidable.
your heart is pounding, loud enough you're sure he can hear it. "well?" you press.
he exhales slowly, dragging a hand through his hair, pacing once like he needs the movement just to think. "it's not that simple."
"then explain it to me," you fire back. "because for me, it is."
the quick pace he'd been doing comes to a stop as his eyes meet yours again. there's something less guarded about his gaze now, but it comes with a rise of concern. "you want me to be honest?" he asks.
your stomach flips and then flips again—because like usual, you're not sure what to expect from him. "yeah," you swallow, nervous, and continue, "I came all the way here, didn't I?"
a beat passes between you, and then he takes a step closer. "I didn't kiss you," nathan says, voice low, and rough around the edges, "because if I did, I wouldn't be able to stop." the air leaves your lungs as he continues, "and I don't trust myself to do that halfway. I can do that with you."
"why not?" your pulse stutters, heat rushing up your neck.
"because it won't be just a kiss for me," he admits. and as he continues, a weight begins to ease off his rigid shoulders. "It wouldn't be something I could just walk away from after. It wouldn't be something I could pretend didn't change everything. because for me it would be more."
you swallow. "and that's a bad thing?"
"yes," nathan says—too quickly and it makes you flinch. at that, his expression shifts immediately—because he doesn't mean it that way. he could never.
"no," he corrects, softer. "not bad. just—" he exhales, frustrated now, searching for words he clearly doesn't like having to say out loud. "complicated."
"complicated how?" you almost whine, defeat weighing on you now. and it hits nathan right in the gut—because how can he make you understand when he barley knows himself.
"you're—" nathan stops himself after a pause, then shakes his head once like he's trying to recalibrate. "you matter too much."
"that doesn't make any sense."
he moves towards you, stopping so close that you're almost pressed together. "It does to me." he admits, voice so quiet it's almost impossible to register.
"then help me understand," you say, meeting his gaze as you take that final sliver of space and crush it. chest to chest. "because right now it just sounds like you're scared of something that hasn't even happened."
"I'm not scared," he snaps, automatic, that media trained side of the best atheist in the world coming to the surface. it makes your raise almost a playful yet knowing brow. nathan huffs, quieter this time. "okay. maybe I am."
you soften, just a little. "of me?"
his gaze drops to your mouth again—quicker this time, like he doesn't mean to, like it's instinct. maybe it is. "of what happens if I let myself have you."
that does it. you can't help the laugh that bubbles out of your mouth. because hearing that has everything in your chest just—clicking into place.
"nate," you start, placing your palm on his stomach. "the only things what happen is that i'd let you."
nathan blinks at you like he's fighting something—like every instinct he has is telling him to hold the line, to keep things where they are, safe and controlled and unchanged. but he's losing. you can see it.
"y/n—"
"tell me you don't want to kiss me," you interrupt him gently.
there's a choking, thick beat before he closes the small distance left between you, one hand coming up—hesitant for only a fraction of a second before it settles at your jaw, thumb brushing lightly along your cheek like he's testing something fragile.
"I can't tell you that because it wouldn't be true."
your nose brushes his, a smile beginning to take its way over your face. "so maybe you should stop lying to yourself...and just let this happen."
"yeah," he says, voice dipping lower as he finally closes that distance and kisses you. it's not tentative, or unsure. it's everything he's been holding back all this time. yet it's controlled, but only barely, like he's still trying to keep a grip on it even as it slips.
nathan's hand tightens just slightly against your jaw, tilting your head as he pulls you closer—he's been thinking about this for a long time, and he's finally giving himself permission.
your hands bunches in his shirt without thinking, gripping, grounding, and pulling him in like you're afraid he might disappear if you don't.
but he doesn't, because of course he doesn't.
if anything, he deepens it—just a fraction. just enough to make your head spin. just enough to prove his point of you being more to him than just this.
when nathan pulls back, it's only far enough to properly peer down at you. breathing uneven, and forehead almost brushing yours.
"that's why," he says quietly.
and you don't have to ask him to explain.
PART FIVE: the kat stratford ending
1 year later
you're wedged into the corner of cale's sectional that's definitely too small for the number of bodies currently occupying it, one of nathan's hoodies swallowing your hands, socked feet tucked under his thigh like it's second nature.
because now, it is.
the tv is on, but no one's really watching it. someone—probably mikko—has the remote, flipping channels with zero commitment while a half finished debate about something stupid unfolds in the background.
nathan's barley paying attention, to be honest. he's beside you, an arm slung across the back of the couch, fingers idly tracing patterns against your shoulder like he doesn't even realize he's doing it. every so often, his thumb will hook into the fabric of your sleeve, tugging you just a little closer without looking.
this close, he can smell that citrusy sweetness that used to haunt him. now, he craves it more than anything. nose brushing against your head as if trying to find the source.
a year ago, this would've short circuited his brain. you lean deeper into him, humming contently as you drop your head back to look at him.
"you're not even listening," you murmur, smiling.
"I am," he says automatically, but there's a familiar twinkle in his eyes that tells you he's totally lying.
"you're not."
"I know exactly what's happening," he insists.
"okay," you hum, amused. "then what are they arguing about?"
that has him pausing before taking a very educated guess. "hockey?" you just stare at him, brow quirked, and nathan shrugs, pressing his lips to your temple. not a kiss, just an absentminded brush. tender.
"that's usually a safe option." nathan says.
you huff a laugh and nudge him with your shoulder. his hand slides down your arm in response, settling warm and steady at your elbow.
across the room, your brother is watching. which is never a good sign because he likes to annoy you at the best of time. he leans back in his chair, eyes moving between the two of you with the kind of slow, knowing look that immediately makes you suspicious.
"what?" you ask in a way only a sibling could, narrowing your eyes.
he shrugs, way too casual. "nothing."
"that's not a nothing face."
he almost scoffs, "it's absolutely a nothing face."
"It's not," you say flatly. "you're about to say something annoying."
"I'm just saying," he starts, already grinning and you groan out a here we go. cale continues, "this is exactly how I pictured it."
nathan's hand stills slightly against your arm as he listens in.
you blink. "what is?"
"this," he repeats, gesturing vaguely between the two of you. "you. him. the whole—" he waves again, like the concept is too obvious to need words. "being in love thing."
in the past year, your relationship with nathan grew into something he used to have doubts about. being with each other has been easy and undeniable. he's still steady and guarded, while you're definitely still too bubbly to digest. but instead of how he feared that would pull you apart, it's made you both blossom.
whatever the odds felt like at the start, the two of you were always going to make sense. thinking about it now, nathan almost feels stupid for thinking your lack in similarities would be your demise.
mikko, from the other end of the couch, snorts. "took you guys long enough anyways."
now it's nathan turning to look. "excuse me?"
"I'm just being honest," the finland native muses, holding his hands up like he's not about to stir the pot anyway. "we all knew."
"you did not all know," nathan argues immediately.
gabe raises a brow from where he's sprawled out on the rug, luke between his thighs playing with a toy. "we absolutely did."
"no, you didn't," you say now, looking between all of them—which now includes mel, tracy and susanna who are nodding along knowingly. traitors. you practically squawk, "because if you did, someone could've maybe said something instead of letting me think I was insane for—" you cut yourself off, gesturing vaguely. "—for years."
"you were just as bad as each other," your sister in law speaks up, sending you a sheepish smile when you send her a baffled look. "we were just letting you two figure it out."
gabe hums, "don't lie tracy," the blonde directs his attention towards you then, "if it's any consolation, y/n, nathan was like immensely worse."
your boyfriend sits up. "hey, I wasn't that bad."
"you used to run away when she walked into a room."
melissa snorts, "one time you texted me trying to figure out what perfume she wears."
"you held her hair back when she puked."
"you built her a bookshelf dude."
"alright," nathan grumbles, cutting of his friends attack. but there's no bite there.
across the room, someone says something else because they can't help themselves from bugging you. mikko argues, cale throws a cushion at him, and the tv keeps playing something no one's watching—
But here, in this small space carved out between all of it nathan leans down just enough to press another quick kiss to your temple.
absentminded and certain. like it was always going to end up this way.
𝙒𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨: dark, dubcon, misogynistic rhetoric, classist rhetoric (in the context of kooks, pogues etc), daddy kink, innocence kink, loss of virginity, smut (oral + p in v), condescension, babying, dirty talk, swearing, very unbalanced power dynamic, college au, reader is a freshman and rafe is a senior, more warnings to come. 18+ only, mdni.
𝙎𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙮: Rafe bets his friends he can fuck you in one week.
𝘼/𝙉: This is just a sneak peak of a new Rafe fic I’m working on— I just want to see if anyone would be interested if I was to post it! Do let me know if it’s any good and tag any Rafe blogs you think might enjoy this! (as I suspect I don’t have many Rafe fans following me haha)
“Her.”
Rafe looks over to the Pogue girl Topper’s nodding at and smirks. “Been there, done that. Pick a different one.”
Topper scoffs, “She literally moved here last week.”
“And?”
“OK… What about her?” He brazenly points at a leggy blonde that stands out in her group of Pogues.
“Last weekend at the beach party you threw. She gives good head.”
“Jesus Christ dude, is there anyone left??”
Rafe chuckles, leaning back and stretching his legs out while his friends gape at him in disbelief like a bunch of gormless losers. He often wonders if they know how stupid they look. Like followers. His followers. Hanging on to his every word, oohing and aahing at whatever he did. Making him feel like he was a God among men. Which he may as well be, considering that’s how most people at this college looked at him.
That’s why he loved fucking the Pogue girls. Almost exclusively. There was something about the power imbalance. Most of them came from poor families, looked at Rafe like he was a God. It didn’t take much for them to spread their legs for him, impressed by his power, turned on by his wealth. Hell, even the Kook girls were the same. But Rafe hardly ever took them home. They were spoiled sluts who hung around the country club wasting their lives and spending their daddies’ money. Yeah, they didn’t peak his interest at all. Not as much as the Pogue girls who worked at the country club. In their little housekeeping outfits, deliberately teasing him in the hopes he’d take one of them home.
Yeah. It was safe to say Rafe Cameron had a type.
“Well, what about that one?”
Rafe rolls his eyes, about to say that yes, he had indeed fucked whatever girl Topper was pointing at this time. Because he’d fucked all of them. Because of who he was. Because of what he was capable of. Because of the family he came from. Because of what being a mere notch on Rafe Cameron’s bedpost meant to every single sorry slut he’d ran through.
Except he doesn’t. Because Topper is pointing at you. And he’s never seen you before in his life.
You look so out of place, despite the fact you’re with a group of Pogues. And he knows you’re a Pogue. Like a shark with blood and a predator with its prey, he can always tell. And yet you stand awkwardly on the outskirts of the group, smiling yet not quite participating in whatever conversation is going on. You push your glasses up, straighten your skirt, pretend to look for something in your book bag. You’re shy. Self conscious. Insecure. Rafe smiles.
“Who is she?”
“Aha! You haven’t slept with her!” Topper cheers like he’s won the fucking lottery. Sometimes Rafe wonders why he’s friends with him.
“Who is she?” He repeats like he hasn’t even heard him.
“She’s the new chick,” Kelce says, “except she’s not exactly new in town.”
“I heard she was homeschooled,” Topper snickers, “That’s why she’s fucking weird and has no friends. Even the Pogues don’t want her.”
Rafe observes you some more. Watches the bright smile on your face, how you try to chime in to whatever conversation the girls around you are having. They nod at you politely yet dismissively. They’re not your friends. As Topper said, you don’t have any.
Insecure. Weak. Vulnerable.
He licks his lips.
“How long?”
“Huh?”
He runs a hand through his hair impatiently, “How long do you wanna bet it takes me to get her into bed?”
Topper raises an eyebrow.
“You can’t be serious, man. She looks like she doesn’t even know what sex means.”
Kelce laughs, “She looks like she can’t even say it. Like she spells it out every time, s-e-x.”
They’re right. You look very innocent, but all that does is incense him. Rafe’s used to easy sluts who spread their legs after one drink or a ride on his motorbike. But you. He can tell you’d be harder to crack. But there’s something so fucking hot about how naive you look. How shy and sweet he can tell you are. How ruined he could leave you. Splayed out on his bike, legs quivering, all sweaty limbs and shy pants after he’s done having his way with you—
“How long?” He repeats, not in the mood to waste time and already getting hard picturing innocent little you with your tiny skirt flipped up and his head buried between those soft thighs, your sweet little confused cries because no one’s ever touched you like that, and—
“A week.”
“Mm?”
“A week to fuck her. With proof.”
Rafe stands up and stretches, licking his lips as he watches you retreat to a small bench, getting your little book out and burying your nose in it.
“That’s too easy. What do I get when I do it?”
“If you do it, you can decide what you get then. But as I said before, we’d need proof.” Kelce says.
“Yeah, proof,” Topper echoes, a glint in his eye as he looks over at you, “Pictures.”
Rafe shrugs, already kind of bored, “Sure.” He’d taken plenty of pictures of his conquests in the past. Him and his boys had a group chat where they shared that kind of shit. And the idea of taking pictures of you in such a vulnerable position gets him harder than anything. Sweet little college freshman baby fucked dumb by the big bad senior, posing for pictures afterwards all teary-eyed but submissive. They all got submissive for him, even after he was done using them.
You flip a page, completely engrossed in your book and looking every bit the naive baby he’s imagining you as. A little lamb who has no idea she was in the presence of a fucking lion. And he bets you’re a virgin. Homeschooled with no friends? Forget virgin, you probably haven’t even had your first kiss yet. And that gets him so fucking horny, right there in the middle of the campus courtyard. The idea that you’re so pure, so untouched. So happy, so unassuming. A little fucking baby.
He’d have fun ruining you.
AGAIN, this is just a sneak peak! let me know what you think!! i’m not quite sure if i want to post a rafe fic since my followers/blog are not really rafe centric but i thought i’d give it a try if there’s enough interest!!!
hi! i’m absolutely obsessed with your writing and could just spend hours reading it! could i request smut prompt 16 from list 1 with nathan mackinnon? thank you!!!
list no.1, smut prompt no.16: the classic “oh, let me help you put some sunscreen on” but then the little massage turns into something more
SMUT 18+
your hands are oily, and laced with the organic sunscreen nate insists on buying, because according to him banana boat doesn’t do shit. but you’re not going to argue with him on that, mostly because it would get you nowhere—also because this one smells like coconut and summer, which is oddly sweet.
slick palms slip over the hard ripples of his chest, grazing his pink nipples until they’re pebbled despite the heat lingering all around—sun beating down on your bodies like an angelic, burning light—as you ride him like your life depends on it.
both you and nathan are nude in the comfort of your too big nova scotia backyard, surrounded by nothing by trees and the far away scent of ocean.
it didn’t start like this. in fact, it was only innocent until you started to rub him down with sunscreen because he was starting to turn a little pink. but that ended with the ties of your string bikini getting pulled apart, and nathan’s semi hard dick straining against his swimsuit.
so yeah, what started as tanning has now turned into a low-grade porno, because the two of you can’t help yourselves.
you’re bouncing on his lap, his damp, hairy thighs tickling your bare ones in a way that feels too good to be true. nathan’s got his hands under you for leverage, helping you slide up and down because your hands keep slipping, and you had started whining with sexual frustration.
“shh,” nathan lets out a laugh, abs flexing when you drop down in a particularly sharp way. “you’re okay, stop whining babe.”
at that, you whine again. mostly because you’re so close to the finish line, but also because you’re a little bit of a brat and live for pissing off your naturally pissy man.
it earns you a harsh slap to the ass—all sunscreeny and sexy. enough to make the fat jiggle just the way he likes. god, nathan can’t even see the recoil and he’s fucking grunting about it.
“I can’t,” you say, chest heaving in a way that makes your tits move deliciously. the blue bikini top that you’d once been covered with long joining the rest of the abandoned swimsuit pieces on the deck beside the lounge chair.
you continue without missing a beat, “I need it so bad, nate.”
he curses, all low and grumbly in a way that shoots right down to your clit. “and you’ll get it baby.” one of the hands that hand been under your thigh supportively, trails up your ribs to give you tit a squeeze—your spine arches appreciatively. a long, drawn out moan falling from your lips.
then nathan trails his fingers down your ribs, almost tickling, before they fall over your stomach, past your belly button and finding your puffy, wet mound.
“just keeping fucking yourself like that,” he smirks, watching through his tinted sunglasses as your mouth falls open, too wound up to even sigh with pleasure.
because oh my fucking god.
he’s delivering tight, sharp circles to your clit. the perfect pace that never fails to bring you right to the very edge.
you’re already making a mess where you’re connected. leaking and squirting each time you drop back down and nathan’s mushroom tip nudges that spongy spot inside you. and god it’s so fucking hot—and you’re right there.
you want to speed up—need to speed up. chase that building high that’s warming between your legs. but your hands keep slipping against the expensive sunscreen you’d been massaging hinto his pale skin.
“I can’t,” you cry, figuratively and almost literally, briefly slowing your movements. your thighs are burning now, and you can only roll your hips against his in desperation—trying to keep some sort of stimulation while also wanting to cum.
and that’s all it takes for nathan to move. in one swift movement, he grabs under both thighs again and uses that leverage to pick you up until you’re both standing.
the deck burns his bare feet, oily chest slippery against one another. but that doesn’t stop him for showing you just how athletic he can be.
