[cosmic-reads]

Hello everyone! @cosmic-whispers here, and this is my sideblog for fic recs.

This blog is 18+ only!! Please read the warnings for each individual fic.

Feel free to send recommendations!

[starlord-s]

robby’s confession comes at the worst possible time. he’s chewing you out for putting yourself in danger with a patient who had a gun, who you managed to talk down before he did anything he’d later regret. robby’s yelling can be heard around the ER, and he doesn’t bother to have the conversation in private. he’s so frustrated with you, scared out of his mind, which is why he ends up screaming at you that he loves you before his brain can catch up with his mouth.

silence falls around the room as everyone takes in the weight of his words. dana pretends like she’s busying herself with paperwork, but the look on her face says otherwise.

robby runs a hand down his face and lets out a sigh, “well, cat’s outta the bag.”

he goes to leave, but your words stop him, “you can’t just walk away after saying something like that. what the fuck?”

“forget i said anything—“

“i can’t just forget! you said you love me!” you exclaim, heart racing.

“i…” he nods, grounding himself. “i do. and that’s why when you stood between that patient and the gun, i almost lost my fucking mind.”

“robby—“

“you don’t have to—“

“robby,” you laugh gently. “have you ever thought i might love you too?”

[sweetpeaaquarius]

hey, wanted to start by saying i love your fics!! finally worked up the courage to request 😂

just wanted to ask if you’d be interested in an azriel x f!virgin!reader fic? not in an “omg im so innocent” way, but in an “im nervous and don’t know what to do” way lmfaoo! if possible, was thinking a friends to lovers type scenario, with maybe some forced proximity to lead up (thinking some kind of mission?). maybe some hurt/comfort slight injury stuff thrown in if you’re feeling angsty…

honestly open to anything your creative mind can come up with. just looking for some sweet fluffy smut with az 😆

thank you and no worries if not interested!

Warmed by the Fire

Pairing: Azriel x f!virgin!reader

Summary: The mission seemed simple enough, but with Azreil, nothing is ever straightforward. After years of working side by side, the stolen glances grow longer, the touches linger closer, and the feelings between them become impossible to ignore.

Warnings: nsfw, smut, unprotected sex, foreplay/oral female receiving, friends to lovers, emotional vulnerability, insecurity, jealousy, injury, minor hurt-comfort, forced proximity, tension, fluff

Word count: 13,000

Author’s Note: I needed this, fluffy tension, a mission setting, some lowkey oblivious longing, and a reader who’s just trying her best. As you can probably tell, I had a lot of fun with the plot for this mission. Please feel free to message me; don’t be nervous about sending a request. I genuinely love writing them, and while I’m slowly making my way through my inbox, I do see you! I promise!

I was already at the meeting point, sitting on a fallen tree, eyes scanning the file in my hand. Reports of increasing thefts, villages and camps losing supplies, some more than others. Rhysand asked me to review the findings and investigate the area, hoping my ability to track residual magic might reveal something useful.

The map was spread across my lap, with red dots scattered along the eastern coast. Most items reported stolen were ordinary, including food, clothing, and weapons. Some were more concerning, such as large shipments destined for Illyrian camps, high-grade weaponry, and a cargo ship bound for Velaris that had been cleared out overnight. Jewels, enchanted artifacts, and rare books disappeared without a trace.

I’d been thinking about possible tracking spells for days, but I needed to be near the scene. Feel the magic in the earth, the trees, the air. Reading it off parchment only took me so far.

I was nibbling on the end of my pen when the ground beneath me trembled slightly, a gust of wind rustling the leaves overhead. I looked up just in time to see an Illyrian warrior descend from the sky, wings flaring then folding neatly behind him.

Azriel.

He glanced at me, the file in my hands, and my bag leaning against the tree.

“I could’ve flown you,” he said, shaking his head as he walked over and lifted my bag from the ground with ease.

“I’ve been stuck in that office for what feels like months. I needed the walk,” I replied, jotting down a quick charm idea before closing the file.

Azriel raised a brow. “This walk would’ve taken you hours.”

“Fine, I lied,” I huffed, pulling my hood against the chill. “I winnowed most of the way.”

A ghost of a laugh tugged at his mouth, but he said nothing more. We started walking, me leading him a few steps behind, as the path narrowed into a winding trail shaded by dense forest.

We made our way through a ravine into a valley, with silence settling comfortably between us. Azriel carried my pack without saying a word. He offered his hand when I needed assistance over a fallen tree, touch light and brief, his hands never staying longer than necessary.

We’d worked together before, training, reports, and the occasional shared mission. The thought twisted something in my stomach. Not fear, exactly. Nerves. Anticipation. The kind of fluttering unease that came with the unknown.

As the valley began to open up, I pulled to a stop and turned to scan the land. 

“I think here would be a good spot to set up camp,” I said, nodding toward the cluster of trees near a mossy rock outcrop. 

The village was just a head, an easy flight if needed, and this area was tucked far enough from the main paths to avoid unwanted attention.

Azriel nodded silently and dropped our packs near the largest tree, an ancient thing, gnarled and towering, its thick roots curling into the moss-covered earth. We were nestled in a hollow surrounded by stones and a soft, leaf-littered floor. The kind of place that could vanish entirely under shadow.

He began setting up camp without being asked. I lingered nearby, fingers tugging idly at the hem of my cloak, trying to ignore how fast my heart was beating.

It was just a mission, just a few nights in the woods with the spymaster of the Night Court.

“I’m going to go and scope the area,” I said, scanning the treeline.

Azriel, crouched near the base of the tree as he unrolled the bedrolls, looked up and gave a simple nod, then returned to setting up the tent.

I slipped into the trees, moving carefully through the undergrowth. My fingers brushed over bark and moss, the occasional stone, trying to pick up even the faintest magical trace. I cast a few low-level detection spells, quiet things meant to stir the air, reveal residue.

This would have been the easiest way to leave the village without being seen. The thieves would have had to pass through these woods, but still, there was nothing. No sparks. No hums. Not even the trees held a memory of the magic that might’ve been here, and the trees remembered everything.

If spellwork had been used, it was subtle, or cloaked by someone who knew how to cover their tracks.

An hour passed before I circled back to camp. The sun hung low now, spilling golden light through the canopy in soft, slanted beams.

Azriel had finished setting up. A small tent stood beneath the tree, with the fire pit already laid out in a neat ring of stones and kindling arranged. He’d unpacked supplies, canteens, utensils, and a cloth-wrapped bundle of dried food.

He glanced up as I stepped into the clearing. “Anything?”

“Not much,” I admitted, brushing a leaf from my shoulder. “If magic was used, it’s faint, or very well hidden.”

He nodded, unsurprised, and returned his attention to the small stack of papers he’d begun to sort.

I stepped into the tent to drop my satchel and froze briefly. My pack was tucked to one side, but the bedrolls were laid out side by side, blankets neatly folded, pillows set just far enough apart to pretend there was space between us.

The tent was small. Very small.

I let out a quiet breath through my nose, just a mission. Grabbing the empty sack bundled with our gear, I stepped back out.

“I’m going to gather some firewood and some water. There’s a stream nearby.”

“I’ll come with—”

“No, it’s okay,” I cut in, a little too quickly. I waved a hand. “You’ve done enough setting up. I’ll be fine.”

Azriel gave me a long look, unreadable, as always. Without a word, he held out a small black dagger.

The blade was the length of my hand, wickedly sharp. I could feel the enchantment humming through the hilt. This blade would cut through muscle and bone like silk.

I rolled my eyes, a small smile tugging at my mouth as I tucked it into my belt.

I turned and disappeared into the trees, moving slower this time, letting the forest breathe around me. I bundled fallen branches, dried twigs, and thicker logs under one arm. On my way back, I stopped by the stream and filled the canteens with icy water, the cold biting into my skin.

By the time I returned, the forest had dipped into twilight. The clearing glowed gold and blue, fading fast into shadows.

Azriel was seated against a tree now, sorting through maps and files, his shadows curling softly around him like a second skin, always watching, always listening.

I dropped the firewood beside the pit and began stacking it into a tidy pyramid.

“The essentials,” I said lightly, lifting the canteens like trophies.

His mouth twitched. Barely.

God help me, that was enough to make my chest flutter.

“I’ll start the fire,” he said, rising to his full height. He gathered the wood I’d collected, his movements precise and silent, and began placing it into the fire pit.

I sat in the spot he’d vacated and began sorting through the food packed: bread, dried meat, cheese, a few apples, and some dried fruit. I cut and tore pieces of bread, laying them out neatly on a cloth as Azriel finished building the fire.

With a wave of my hand, the fire lit, flames crawling up the wood, warming the circle of our camp. Another flick of my wrist and a ward shimmered over the camp, cloaking us from view. Azriel followed without a word, shadows pooling outward like fog, cloaking the flames from any distant onlooker. Outside, it would look like nothing more than another pocket of darkness.

I hummed softly to myself as he filled a small pot with water, setting it on a flat stone to warm by the fire. We worked in an easy rhythm, no instructions needed, just the quiet understanding of two people who didn’t need many words.

The sun sank fully behind the trees, and the firelight became our only source of warmth. I began to shiver despite the flames licking at the air. Without saying anything, Azriel pulled a blanket from the tent and draped it gently over my shoulders. He sat beside me on the log, close but not too close.

“Thank you,” I said softly, fingers gripping the worn fabric.

“You’re too cold,” he said, tone unreadable, eyes trained on the fire.

“I’ll warm up,” I murmured, nodding toward the food I’d laid out.

We ate in comfortable silence, the sounds of the fire and distant night creatures wrapping around us. It was simple: bread, dried meat, and fruit, but somehow satisfying.

Afterwards, I curled closer to the fire, choosing one of the smooth stones around it as a makeshift seat. I unrolled a piece of parchment and set it across my knees, flipping through the notes I’d brought.

My fingers moved absently as I scribbled a variation of a detection charm, eyes flicking between the fire and the trees. I tried to feel something, anything, but the forest was still muted. It didn’t hum, with magic. It was like whatever had passed through had scraped all the magic clean.

“Do you feel anything?” Azriel asked, voice low.

I shook my head. 

“Not yet, but something feels wrong. I don’t like how quiet it is.” I looked around. “It’s like... the forest has forgotten.”

That earned me a glance. He tilted his head, a flicker of curiosity passing over his face. “The forest forgot?”

I met his eyes. “Trees usually remember. Spellwork. Blood. Grief. It lingers, but here, it’s just blank.”

Azriel leaned back against the tree behind him, arms crossed. “Someone erased it.”

“Or used something that doesn’t leave a trace,” I murmured. “But even that should cause a ripple.”

We sat in silence, the fire casting golden light across his face. His shadows didn’t rise, didn’t seem alarmed, but I knew he was thinking it over, cataloguing possibilities.

“You always talk like that?” he asked suddenly, a thread of quiet amusement in his voice.

“Like what?”

“Like the trees are old friends.”

“They kind of are,” I said with a shrug. “They talk more than most people.”

He huffed a soft laugh, barely audible, but it made my stomach twist in the best kind of way.

The quiet settled again.

I felt his gaze, lingering for a second too long, and when I finally looked up from my notes, his eyes didn’t move away fast enough.

Eventually, I pushed myself to my feet and slipped into the tent. The temperature was dropping quickly, and my cloak and blanket weren’t doing much to stop the chill anymore.

I changed into warmer layers, soft leggings and a wool-knit jumper. Cozy. Plain. I tugged thick socks over my feet and wrapped my cloak around my shoulders again before curling up on the edge of my bedroll. Notes settled in my lap, and I tried to warm my fingers enough to finish scribbling down the last of my thoughts before sleep took over.

A moment later, the tent flap rustled.

Azriel ducked inside, careful not to let the cold air follow him. In his hands, he carried a small cup, steam rising in gentle curls.

“I thought you might be colder than you let on,” he said simply, holding it out.

I blinked up at him, then at the cup. I reached for it, the mug was warm in my palms, filled with lightly spiced tea.

“Thank you,” I murmured, softer than I intended. “You didn’t have to.”

“I know,” he said.

I sipped, the heat blooming in my chest. I wasn’t sure if it was the tea or the way he was watching me, unguarded, but suddenly, the tent felt much smaller.

I turned toward the tent wall, giving him privacy as I heard the soft clink of leather buckles, followed by the rustle of tight fabric peeling off skin. My cheeks warmed.

God.

The zip of his pants made me bite my lip. I shut my eyes hard and tried not to imagine the sharp planes of his torso, the way his tattoos might catch the light, or how far down they trailed—

“You can turn around now.”

His voice cut through the silence, shattering the image my traitorous brain had conjured. I inhaled and slowly shifted, placing my notes beneath the lantern hanging from the tent pole.

Azriel was now dressed in loose sleep pants, his chest bare. His Illyrian tattoos shimmered faintly in the low light, inked over golden-tan skin. My eyes skimmed across them before flicking, too late, up to his face.

He was watching me, amused.

“You don’t mind?” he asked, raising a brow.

I shook my head quickly. “No. As long as you’re not cold.”

He huffed a quiet laugh. “I’m used to mountain weather. This feels like home.”

“I’m sure,” I said, forcing a polite smile and turning back to my writing. I didn’t look at him again, not with him stretched out across from me, bare-chested and terrifyingly relaxed.

He slid beneath his blankets, the furs muffling his movements. Quiet as always, he pulled out a small, worn book. I didn’t catch the title. I was too aware of how close he was. His wings half-spilled onto my bedroll. His knees nearly brushed mine, despite my legs being crossed.

Occasionally, I felt his gaze flick toward me, subtle, so subtle I convinced myself I was imagining it.

I focused on my notes, letting the silence settle thick between us. It wasn’t uncomfortable; it never was with Azriel. His silence was grounding, his breath even and slow. His shadows hovered, soft and calm, resting at the edges of the tent like smoke.

I sipped the tea slowly, until the cup was empty, and my eyes kept drifting shut as I reread the same line over and over again.

My parchment was gently lifted from my lap.

I blinked up to find Azriel kneeling beside me, his fingers brushing mine as he took the empty cup from my hand.

“You need to sleep,” he murmured, voice low and quiet in the tent’s stillness. With one hand, he fluffed my pillow; with the other, he tugged back the blankets.

I was too tired to argue. I nodded and slipped beneath the covers, turning onto my side, facing away from him. The tent was small, barely wide enough to fit both our bedrolls. Not touching required intentional, careful space.

His wings brushed my back as he lay down behind me, a ghosting touch I knew hadn’t been intentional; he always kept them tucked in tight. Every breath he took seemed to echo through the narrow space between us. I closed my eyes and focused on the faint, distant crackle of the fire outside the warded tent.

The warmth of the tea, the travel, the weight of magic that still clung to the woods like morning mist, everything dragged me under.

Sleep took me fast.

Morning crept in slowly, the kind of soft grey light that barely filtered through the canvas walls. I stirred when something shifted beneath my cheek, something warm and solid. Definitely not a pillow.

A chest.

A slow, steady heartbeat thudded beneath my ear.

I blinked, my face resting on bare, warm, tattooed skin.

Azriel’s arm was wrapped securely around me, his hand resting at my waist. Not possessive. Not inappropriate. Protective. Natural.

His wings were folded around both of us like a shield, the leathery warmth cocooning us from the morning chill.

I shifted slightly, trying to pull away, but the movement only made his arm tighten, his wings curling in again on instinct.

I let out a soft breath. Reluctantly, I rested my head back against his chest. It was easier than pretending I didn’t want to stay.

A low groan rumbled through him, then he shifted slightly, his grip loosening just enough to let me breathe.

“Morning,” he mumbled, voice rough, sleep-heavy.

His wings slowly uncurled, letting the cold brush my skin again.

“Sorry,” he added after a beat. His eyes cracked open, meeting mine. “You were shivering in your sleep.”

“Oh,” I said, my throat suddenly dry. “Thanks.”

We were quiet for a long moment, a heartbeat too long.

Too long to pretend nothing had happened.

Eventually, I sat up, the blankets slipping from my shoulders. I didn’t look at him as I smoothed my leggings and reached for the edge of my satchel. My hands moved with quiet purpose, a way to break the moment without having to name it.

“I should head to the village,” I said, voice low but steady. “See if I can find any lingering traces of magic. A trail.”

Azriel was fully awake now, propped up on one elbow, eyes sharpening from sleep-soft to warrior-clear. “Do you want backup?”

“I’ll be more likely to catch subtle traces if I’m alone,” I said, tugging out fresh clothes: fitted trousers, a navy tunic, thick socks, and a wool-lined cloak.

He stood without a word, grabbing a black tunic from his own bag. “I’ll get the fire going. So you can dress in peace.”

He pulled the tunic over his head and shoved his feet into his boots. His shadows stirred, stretching outward like tendrils tasting the morning air.

I changed quickly, then stepped out of the tent to lace up my boots. I could feel him watching me. Those hazel eyes scanned over me, never leaving. He was already crouched by the fire, coaxing a flame from the kindling.

Laid out neatly beside him on a small cloth was a piece of bread, still warm from the flame, with a thin slice of cheese melted on top. A steaming cup of tea sat beside it. He was already eating, his eyes flicking from me to the food, a silent invitation.

I blinked at it, then at him. “You really didn’t have to.”

His only response was a small shrug and a muttered, “Didn’t want you passing out on the trail.”

The tea was warm and citrusy, creating a calming effect. The bread melted on my tongue, and as I ate, it seemed to warm something in my chest.

“I won’t go far,” I said again, tugging on my gloves. “Just enough to get a sense of the village’s edges. Maybe whatever passed through left a thread it couldn’t quite bury.”

Azriel nodded once, slowly. His expression was unreadable, but his gaze never left mine. “You’ll let me know if something feels off.”

I met his gaze, steady. “I will.”

He didn’t reply, just watched as I buckled the dagger to my belt once more, tucking it beneath my heavy woollen cloak. His shadows circled his boots in slow, curling ribbons, restless, a silent guard detail of smoke and silk.

I turned and left the camp. The walk down the valley wasn’t as long as it had seemed from above. The village came into view just beyond the trees, a scattering of stone and timber cottages, smoke curling from their chimneys into the pale morning air. It was quiet. 

I moved cautiously, my cloak brushing damp earth and frost-covered grass as I went through the outer fence, giving quiet nods to the few early risers working. Most looked at me, curious but polite. Guarded. I was unknown, harmless, maybe. A traveller. A woman on her own. Not worth stopping for.

The baker was the first to speak.

“You’re not from around here,” he said, squinting at me as he pulled a tray of flatbread from the oven.

“No,” I replied with a light smile. “Just passing through. I heard about the missing supplies in a nearby village. They mentioned this place too.”

His face darkened slightly. The warmth drained from his expression. “Us and the rest of the villages, I imagine.”

I nodded, agreeing.

He frowned. “I’m sure you’ve felt it,” he murmured, quieter this time. “It’s not just things disappearing anymore. It’s the air. It feels off. Wrong.”

I asked how long it had been. He answered with weary eyes, and I listened. Thanked him, then moved on.

One by one, I spoke to the blacksmith, the stable hand, and two elderly women knitting outside under woollen blankets. Their fingers trembled in the cold, but their voices remained steady. The stories repeated like a broken record: missing items, misplaced tools, lights flickering without a breeze, whispers no one could explain.

Still, I couldn’t feel anything in the breeze. No spark, no hum.

I wandered to the far edge of the village. A small gate stood ajar, leading into the forest, denser and wilder here. Beyond the trees, the cliffs loomed, jagged against the pale blue sky. The moment I stepped past the gate, I felt it.

Magic. Faint. Fleeing.

I paused.

The forest ahead was darker than it should’ve been. Sunlight tried to filter through the canopy but was swallowed by thick branches and shadow. I glanced back at the village behind me, then further up the ridge, toward where Azriel still waited at our camp.

The trace was faint, and by the time I returned with him, it would be gone.

I hesitated, then stepped into the forest.

The undergrowth was thick and uneven. The path we had taken yesterday was gentle by comparison; this one was tangled, slick with moss and frost. Stones shifted beneath my boots. A vine caught my ankle, nearly sending me tumbling. I caught myself against the bark of a tree, breath puffing in the cold air.

Far below, I could hear water, not a stream, but the roar of a river crashing into stone. The sound added to the eerie silence pressing in around me.

I whispered tracking charms as I moved, my fingers trailing bark and brush. Most faded into nothing, but one, rare and old, clung to the air like silver smoke. It unfurled before me, illuminating a trail of handprints, bent branches, and disturbed earth, unmistakable.

They had come this way. Two or three.

I should’ve gone back to Azreil. Instead, I followed the trail, deeper and lower into the valley.

It was as if time had bent beneath the trees. The light dimmed. The air thickened.

Eventually, the trail came to an end, vanishing into silence.

I stood there, heart thudding, listening to the strange stillness. Then I heard voices. Distant. Muffled. I crept forward and found them: three men pacing a makeshift camp, with tents, crates, and burnt coals.

A smuggler’s nest.

I couldn’t make out their faces, cloaked in shadow, but I could feel the magic clinging to the camp. Dull. Compressed. As though something was snuffing it out.

I tried to winnow back to camp and failed.

My magic didn’t just falter. It was gone.

I turned back, climbing, struggling through thick undergrowth. I whispered spell after spell, but the forest swallowed them all. I had stayed too long and gone too far.

I was completely lost.

The climb back was brutal. Vines tore at my hands. Mud sucked at my boots. At one point, I slipped and had to claw my way up on hands and knees, heart pounding, lungs burning.

Snap.

The vine I gripped broke, and I tumbled hard into a bed of jagged stone. My breath vanished. Pain radiated through my ribs, legs, and palms. I groaned and rolled onto my back, staring up through the tangled branches above.

The sun was dipping low; it was already late afternoon.

I had been gone far, far too long.

Crawling up the embankment, I pushed in the direction I hoped led to the village, or at least to our camp. Another hour passed, maybe more. My limbs ached. My body throbbed. I was soaked in sweat and grime, stumbling alone through a too-quiet forest.

God, this was stupid.

Eventually, I saw it, a patch of golden light spilling through the trees. I dragged myself toward it, breaking through the edge of the forest and into the clearing. 

Wings.

A dark shadow cut through the sun. I looked up.

Azriel landed hard. His boots slammed into the earth. His wings flared wide, his shadows whipping around him like a silent, fraying storm. His jaw clenched, eyes wild with fury, no, not just fury.

Fear.

“Where were you? What on earth were you thinking?”

His voice cracked across the glade. I blinked up at him, covered head to toe in mud and blood, pointing vaguely toward the ditch I’d just climbed.

“I found something—”

“I’ve been flying this goddamned ridge for hours,” he snapped, stepping forward, eyes dragging across every inch of me like he was searching for broken bones. “I thought—”

He cut himself off, breath ragged. His chest heaved like he’d run the length of the mountains.

I opened my mouth to speak, but he didn’t wait.

“You’re filthy. You’re bleeding.”

“It’s just bruises,” I muttered. “I slipped. I’m—”

“You disappeared,” he growled, his voice low and frayed.

“I had to follow the trail. I found a camp, Azriel. There’s something down there suppressing magic. I couldn’t winnow out. I could barely breathe in it.”

“I don’t care about the camp,” he said, his voice raw. “I care if you’re alive.”

Something sharp cracked in his expression, and before I could answer, he grabbed my wrist. “Come on.”

He began to pull me toward him, wings lifting to take flight.

“No, Az,” I said, pulling back. “It’s easier to track if we walk.”

I looked up at the sun. “It’s southeast.”

“We aren’t going to the camp,” he said flatly.

“Where are we—?”

“To the river,” he said. “You’re covered in mud, and you need to clean those cuts. I can’t—” He stopped, voice catching. “I can’t look at you like this.”

I started to argue, but the moment I opened my mouth, he pulled me against his chest. His warmth wrapped around me, shadows curling instinctively to hold me as he launched into the air.

We landed minutes later beside the river, not far from camp. I recognised it, the same river I’d gathered water from yesterday. Roaring, clear, ice-cold. He led me to a pool nestled between two boulders.

“I know you can warm it.”

“But Az—”

“Don’t argue with me,” he said, more sternly than I’d ever heard. “Bathe. I’ll bring fresh clothes and something for those wounds.”

I stared at him, at the storm still burning behind his eyes, and nodded.

“Okay.”

He gave a clipped nod, then vanished with a rush of wings.

I exhaled. Stripped off my cloak, now stiff with dried mud and torn along the hem.

It was my favourite.

Piece by piece, I peeled off the rest, boots, tunic, trousers, hissing as cold air met bloodied, bruised skin. A sharp sting pulsed from my ribs. Another cut throbbed along my thigh.

I whispered a warming charm and gestured over the pool between the boulders. The water’s surface shimmered, and steam curled into the cold air.

I stepped in slowly.

Pain prickled up my legs, tiny fires flaring across every scrape, but the warmth helped. I sank into the water, my arms floated beside me, and my head tipped back onto a smooth stone lip as I sighed, the breath shuddering from me.

God, I was tired.

Grime and blood loosened from my skin, the water swirling pink around me as I reached to scrub lightly at the worst of it. I flinched when my fingers brushed the jagged edge of the cut near my ribs.

I let my eyes fall shut.

I should have taken Azriel up on those training sessions.

Climbing that ridge, tumbling down it, and now sitting here bruised and bleeding, it was humiliating.

I let my eyes close again, the warmth of the water easing the worst of the ache as memory slipped in, soft as breath.

All our missions. Late nights elbow-deep in paperwork, heated debates over war strategies. The last assignment had been two days straight in the war room, maps and reports strewn everywhere, ink staining both our fingers.

We’d started on opposite sides of the table. We’d ended with me perched on its edge, Azriel between my knees, one hand beside my hip, the other gesturing over parchment I wasn’t even pretending to read anymore. I’d watched his mouth when he leaned in close. I hadn’t pulled away.

He hadn’t noticed, or maybe he had and just hadn’t acted. Maybe he didn’t mean it that way. Maybe I misunderstood.

The stones beside the pool shifted.

My eyes snapped open just as Azriel landed, shadows curling in behind him. A satchel hung from one hand. His expression was unreadable, but his jaw was tight, brows still drawn.

He crouched by the edge, laying out two bundles of clean clothes and an array of balms, wraps, and salves. 

“You’re not exactly subtle,” he said at last, tone dry. “I could hear you cursing the water from the ridge.”

I groaned and sank lower into the pool. “You could’ve waited another minute.”

“You could’ve screamed less.”

“I didn’t scream.”

“You did when you hit the river.”

“Well, the air is cold.”

He exhaled a breath that could have been a laugh. Some of the tension in his shoulders eased, just a little. He studied me again, not just looking, assessing. His gaze flicked over every bruise, every scrape.

“You can bathe too. If you want.” I tried to keep my voice light and casual, but it came out softer than I meant it to. “I don’t mind.”

His brows arched. “Are you sure?”

I nodded. “Only if you want.”

A pause.

Without a word, he stood and began to unbuckle his leathers. I turned slightly, keeping my eyes on the steam rising from the water. When he entered the pool, everything was silent, just the gentle ripple of water and a faint breath as he lowered himself in, feeling the heat on his old bruises.

“You’re hurt,” I murmured.

“So are you.”

I glanced at him, careful not to linger, but god, he was beautiful like this. His wings tucked close to his back, his muscles taut beneath wet skin, dark hair curling slightly from the river mist. He scrubbed a hand over his face and neck, then leaned back against a boulder across from mine.

We sat in silence for a while, only the sound of the river falling over rocks. 

His voice broke the quiet. “You scared me.”

“I got carried away,” I said, voice low. “Once I felt the magic, I just followed it, but I promise it was worth the risk. There’s something in that forest—”

“I don’t care what you found,” he cut in sharply. Water lapped gently between us, but his tone cut straight through it. “You could have been taken, or worse, and I wouldn’t have known.”

“I didn’t think—”

“You should’ve come back; we could’ve gone together, but you didn’t, and seeing you like this—” He stopped, exhaling sharply. “If you’d been more than hurt…”

He ran a hand through his wet hair, and the fury in his face had softened into something more vulnerable, fear and concern. 

“I’m sorry I scared you,” I said, shifting forward slightly.

He didn’t answer right away.

“I was more than scared,” he said eventually, his voice low. 

I swallowed. 

The heat in the water suddenly had nothing on the heat crawling up my spine. Those hazel eyes, darker in the fading light, studied my face with an intensity that made my chest tighten.

He inched closer, not much, but enough for me to notice.

His gaze swept over my cheek, to my mouth, then back to my eyes. 

“Tell me what you found,” he murmured, voice rough. 

“I think the thieves are using an artifact. One that suppresses magic.” I didn’t realise I’d moved closer, or maybe he had. We were close, now far too close to be professional.

My voice went quiet. “The forest felt like it was suffocating.”

He nodded, eyes flicking to my lips again. “And you didn’t think to come get me.”

“I didn’t want to lose the trail, and…” I hesitated. “I didn’t want to be wrong.”

His lips curved faintly. “Did you think I’d be mad?”

“No,” I breathed. “I just don’t like being wrong.”

That smile, small and devastating.

He reached forward slowly, and his hand brushed the water’s surface before settling gently on my waist beneath it. The contact was light, barely there, but I sucked in a breath, and then I hissed.

Pain shot up my side.

I stumbled back instinctively, covering my bare chest as I glanced down. Blood was trailing in the water, blooming softly from a deeper wound near my ribs.

“Shit,” Azriel said, instantly alert.

He turned, striding to the edge of the pool in one fluid motion. A towel was wrapped around his waist as he reached for the supplies. Without turning, he tossed me another towel, giving me privacy as I climbed out. The fabric clung to my skin, soaked red where the wound still bled.

“Sit,” Azriel said, already kneeling.

I obeyed, wrapping the towel tightly around me and sitting on a flat rock. The sun had dipped below the trees, leaving only the hush of river and wind around us. I held the top of the towel to my chest, clutching it as he gently pulled the edge away from my side to expose the wound.

“This will sting,” he said, dipping a cloth into a salve. His hands were steady as he cleaned the watery blood from my skin. His fingers brushed lightly along my ribs, heat blooming beneath his touch.

I watched him work, eyes tracing the hard lines of his jaw, the faint furrow of concentration in his brow.

“You’ve done this before,” I murmured.

He nodded. “Too many times.”

When the wound was clean, he began wrapping gauze around my ribs. His knuckles brushed the underside of my breast as he reached behind me to tie it off, hands lingering just a breath too long.

“You’ll bruise,” he said softly.

Neither of us moved, we were both wrapped only in towels, our skin still damp and glowing from the heat of the pool. That earlier moment, whatever it had been, hung between us tight.

He pulled away first, reaching for the clean shirt in the bundle. He held it out without a word, and I dressed slowly. So did he. We turned our backs to each other, the soft sounds of fabric, the stream, and the wind the only sound.

Azriel flew us back in silence, his wings tense beneath the twilight sky. They twitched when we landed, like they were still ready to carry him off again if something went wrong.

By the time we returned to camp, the sun had vanished behind the ridge.

The fire crackled as we entered the clearing. A jug of water rested on a flat stone. I lowered myself onto a log, flinching slightly as pain lanced through my sore ribs. The fresh shirt hung loose, but the bandage beneath pulled tight with every breath.

Azriel crouched by the fire, feeding it another stick of wood. The flames lit his face in shifting gold and shadow.

“I’ll need to look over your wounds again tonight,” he said, not looking up. “Especially your back. It’s bruised worse than I thought.”

“I fell down an embankment,” I whispered, cheeks heating.

“You fell down an embankment?” Azriel’s voice laced with dry amusement.

“The vine snapped,” I muttered defensively.

He huffed a laugh and rose, beginning to brew tea. When it was ready, he handed me a mug and sat beside me. Not quite touching, but close. His warmth radiated through the narrow space between us like a second fire.

I tried to focus on the flames rather than the memory of his hands on my skin. 

I took a sip of the tea, letting it soothe my throat. Silence stretched between us, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was heavy.

“Did you really fly over the whole ridge looking for me?” I asked.

He gave a quiet, humourless laugh. “Yes. Three times.”

I blinked.

“I couldn’t find your scent. The forest’s magic was too thick. I thought maybe...” He trailed off, eyes fixed on the flames. “Doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me,” I said softly.

His jaw flexed, something unreadable tightening in his expression. He turned to me, slow and deliberate. “Don’t scare me like that again.”

It wasn’t a command; it was something raw and personal.

“I won’t,” I whispered.

His hand rested on the log between us, close to mine. Our fingers brushed. My heart stuttered. 

I pulled back, uncertain, and murmured, “I’ll make something to eat.” 

Before I could rise, his hand reached gently to rest on my knee.

“I stopped in the village,” he said. “Didn’t get much out of them; they thought I was hunting you down. So I bought supplies and paid far more than I needed to.”

He pulled out a small parcel. Pastries. Dried meats. Goat cheese. Fruit.

His hand left my knee as he laid the food out between us. We ate in silence. Knees brushing, gazes lingering. A slow-building tension wrapped around us like the smoke from the fire.

When we’d finished, and exhaustion crept in, we retreated to the tent. My pain had worsened as the night wore on, and soon enough, Azriel had me lying down, fretting over me like I was made of glass.

He refused to let me read the notes I’d brought, much less write anything. 

“You’re supposed to be resting,” he said. “Not thinking.”

Of course, that sparked an argument, which led to me dictating, and him writing furiously with one of my pens.

“This is ridiculous,” I grumbled, trying to sit up. “Let me—”

I flinched, biting back a groan. He raised an eyebrow in smug satisfaction.

“See? Told you.”

I huffed in pain.

He knelt beside me. “Can I check them?”

I hesitated, then nodded.

I lifted my shirt just enough to reveal the bandages. The bruising had deepened, a bloom of violet and blue beneath pale skin. His hands hovered for a second, then touched.

He pressed along my ribs, firm but careful. A soft groan escaped me, and he stilled.

“Azriel,” I hissed through gritted teeth.

His hands gentled. I heard it then, his breath hitching.

“Roll over,” he said, voice lower. Rougher. “Let me see your back.”

I winced but obeyed, turning slowly. Azriel lifted my shirt higher and began working the balm into my spine. His touch was tender, but the pain struck like lightning. I cried out once, curling forward as tears pricked the corners of my eyes.

“Breathe,” he whispered. “I’ve got you.”

He moved slowly, carefully, his hands trailing over the curve of my back as he finished. Gentle. Steady. Present.

“It’s over,” he murmured. “Tomorrow, I’ll follow your trail into the forest. See what I can find.”

I shifted, propping myself up on one elbow. “We should go early. If we’re lucky, they might still be there.”

“You’re not coming,” he said, voice leaving no room for argument.

My brows furrowed. “What? Why?”

“You’re injured.”

“I’ll be better by morning.”

“I’ll go first. If it’s clear, I’ll come back for you.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but then, with the faintest flick of his wings, the candle blew out. Darkness wrapped around us, thick and quiet.

“Mature, Az,” I muttered.

I was still shivering when I slipped beneath the blankets. The silence between us now heavier than the cold. He didn’t touch me, didn’t speak, but I felt him there. Present. Watching.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

He didn’t answer.

Minutes passed. I turned onto my side and found him already facing me. His face was shadowed, unreadable, but his voice, when it came, was low and rough.

“Don’t do that again.”

I blinked. “What?”

“Disappear. Run off like that. You scared me.”

I opened my mouth, but he cut me off.

“I don’t care about the camp. I care if you’re alive.”

My breath caught. “I didn’t mean to—”

“I know.” He exhaled hard, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I know you didn’t, but if something had happened to you out there—”

He didn’t finish the sentence; he didn’t have to.

I shifted closer, barely an inch between us now. “I’m sorry.”

Azriel didn’t speak. Instead, he reached out, brushing a strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers lingered, just for a moment, and then dropped to the blankets between us.

“Sleep,” he murmured.

I didn’t, not for a long time, not with his scent surrounding me, not with the weight of his words curling around my heart.

I woke alone.

The tent was quiet, the fire outside faintly crackling in the early morning light. My body ached, stiff from injury and sleep, and the space beside me was cold.

Azriel was gone.

On his pillow, laid neatly where his head had rested, was a folded piece of parchment.

I reached for it, unfolding it slowly.

Food’s by the fire. Didn’t want to wake you. Going to scope out the camp from yesterday. I’ll be back soon. —Az.

A faint smile tugged at my lips, even as worry tightened in my chest.

Azriel returned just after the sun had cleared the treetops. I sat on the log by the fire, wrapped in a blanket, picking at the food he’d left, trying not to think too hard.

He landed without a sound, shadows curling quietly back into him.

“They’re gone,” he said, brushing dirt from his leathers. “The camp’s cold. Tracks heading southeast.”

I stood, slower than I would’ve liked. “Can we still follow?”

Azriel’s eyes flicked over me, lingering on the stiffness in my movements, the pain I couldn’t quite mask.

“You’ll be able to track the magic. The artifact left a trace in the air and slightly tainted the ground. I marked the path. We’ll follow it.”

He turned and began packing the camp in swift, practised motions. I moved to help. This time, he didn’t stop me, but his eyes kept drifting toward me, assessing and noticing every wince. Every falter. Always watching.

By midmorning, we were on the move.

The trail wove down the mountain, steep and slick in places. My ribs protested with every stumble, but I kept going. Azriel didn’t speak about it, just walked beside me in silence. He caught me when I slipped. Lifted me when I couldn’t manage the steeper drops. Even flew us over the rougher terrain when the trees thinned enough to allow it.

Eventually, we reached the abandoned camp. He was right, the earth glowed faintly, residual magic seeping into it like smoke into fabric.

I whispered charms under my breath, trying to identify the thread of power that clung to the place. Whatever had been here, it was suppressing the forest’s natural magic, stifling its breath. The spell felt half-familiar. Like something I’d read once, long ago. Not enough to place, but enough to make my blood hum with quiet anticipation.

We kept moving, further down the mountain.

Hours passed before the trees gave way to a valley and the village came into view.

Larger than the last. Busy even at dusk. Smoke curled from chimneys. Lanterns glowed in crooked windows. The scent of meat and hearthfire thickened the air. It felt almost peaceful. Almost.

Azriel had flown ahead earlier, and he confirmed what we’d suspected: the thieves had set up camp just outside the village limits. Close enough to slip in and out unnoticed.

We checked into a small roadside inn on the edge of town.

The woman behind the desk barely looked at me. Her gaze never strayed from Azriel, like he was something golden and worth worshipping.

She wasn’t the only one.

In five minutes, three different fae women and one man propositioned him with offers that made my stomach twist. Some offered drinks. Some offered themselves. All of it free. One even reached out and traced a nail down his leathers like she had a right to touch him.

He turned them all down with quiet disinterest. His shadows curled just a little tighter, but I saw how they looked at him, like he was something rare. Something to be devoured.

By the time we reached our room, a small, narrow space with a single bed and not much else, I was ready to snap. I dropped my pack and sank onto the mattress, trying not to glare at the door even though the desperate admirers had long since gone.

Azriel set down his pack. He glanced at me once, then hesitated.

“I’m going to scout the camp,” he said finally, his voice level.

I didn’t look up. I just sighed and shifted. “Okay.”

He paused.

I could feel the concern tightening around him. “Are you okay?”

I forced a smile and nodded. “Fine. Just sore from the trip.”

“I’ll recheck your wounds when I come back,” he said gently. “Apply more balm if you need it.”

Something about the thought of his hands on me again twisted in my chest.

“It’s fine,” I murmured. “I’ll bathe. I’ll check them myself. It’s just stiffness.”

His brows knit. “You don’t have to do that alone.”

“I can handle it.”

“I’ll get food while I’m out, then. Something hot.”

“You don’t need to,” I said, too quickly. “There’s a pub on the corner. I’ll grab something.”

“You’re not going to that pub by yourself.”

“Az—”

“No.” His tone sharpened, firm. “You’re not going anywhere. Not like this. Not when I can’t protect you.”

“I’m not helpless,” I snapped softly.

“I know that,” he replied. “But you’re injured, and I can’t lose you because of something stupid. Please.”

That stopped me.

Azriel never asked. Never begged.

I looked up then. His eyes were steady on mine. Soft. A little tired, but unwavering.

“Fine,” I whispered.

He lingered for a second longer, tension hanging between us, quiet and unresolved. Then he turned, and the door clicked shut behind him.

Silence returned.

I sat there for a long moment, heat prickling behind my eyes, not from pain, but from shame. That entire exchange had been ridiculous. I’d acted like some jealous fool, bristling over attention given to a man who wasn’t mine. Who had never been mine.

Azriel hadn’t flirted with them. He hadn’t even smiled. Still, bitterness coiled in my stomach.

Because he could have them, any of them, and me?

I was sore, stiff, and inexperienced. I wasn’t the kind of woman who knew how to touch a man like him. Not the type of woman who could satisfy him, make him stay.

Not the kind he deserved.

I ran my fingers through my hair, sighing quietly. Unclipped my cloak and forced myself into the bathroom. It was small, but warm, and for once, I didn’t have to use magic to keep myself from freezing.

I peeled away the bandages, cleaned the wounds, and let the hot water work its way into my aching bones. Then, dressed in the softest clothing I had, I crawled into bed.

I tried not to think about the way he’d looked when he said please.

Tried not to wonder if someone else had tempted him before he came back. Tried not to care, but I did, and that was the worst part of all.

Azriel returned just after midnight.

The door opened with the softest creak, followed by the near-silent hush of his boots brushing the floorboards. I didn’t turn, just shifted slightly, the candle on the bedside table flickering low, bathing the room in quiet amber light.

I’d been flicking through reports, or pretending to. Mostly, I’d been watching how the moonlight spilled in long strips across the floorboards, more comforted by its glow than by the words I wasn’t taking in.

“I’m sorry, I’m so late,” Azriel said softly. “I brought pastries. We’ll get something hot tomorrow.”

I kept my eyes on the page. “You don’t need to apologise. I’m not your keeper.”

It sounded fair. Dismissive, even, but the sharpness beneath my words gave me away, the same bitterness I hadn’t been able to shake since early evening.

The air shifted as he stepped inside. Wings folding close. The quiet thud of his weapons and boots hitting the floor. I heard the zip of his pack, the crinkle of paper, the unmistakable scent of sugar and cinnamon.

“I’ll bathe while you eat,” he said, already heading for the bathroom. “Then I’ll redress your wounds.”

I hummed in agreement. He hesitated for a breath, then closed the door behind him with a quiet click. A moment later, steam began curling out beneath the crack.

I reached for the pastry, biting into it: warm cinnamon and honey-coated bread. I’d thought about going out for food earlier, then changed my mind. Azriel would’ve hated that, and he was right. On my own, still healing, I wouldn’t have stood a chance if something had happened.

When I’d finished, I laid out the healing supplies and braced myself for the pain.

By the time the bathroom door opened, steam trailing behind him, I was sitting on the bed, report still in hand but long since abandoned.

My eyes flicked up, too fast to stop myself.

Shirtless. Pants low enough to make my breath catch. His damp hair clung to his forehead, and as he ran a hand through it, humming some quiet, unfamiliar tune, I looked away. Quickly.

“Lie down,” he said gently, stepping toward me.

I obeyed without a word, folding the papers and setting them aside. I shifted onto my back, lifting my shirt slowly to expose the bruises across my ribs.

He knelt beside the bed, uncapping the balm with practised ease. His fingers were cool, steady, his first touch stealing the breath right out of my lungs. I sucked in a sharp inhale, my body curling slightly on instinct.

He caught the motion, the wince I tried to hide.

“You’re doing better,” he murmured, voice low. “Barely any yelling this time.”

“Progress,” I muttered through gritted teeth.

He didn’t laugh. I just kept working the balm deeper into my side, my thumbs pressing in slow, practised circles. The muscles in his forearms flexed with each pass.

“Turn over,” he said, and his hands slid gently to my hips, guiding me. Firm, but careful, like he’d done this before. As I shifted onto my stomach, his palms lingered a moment too long.

Then came the balm again, slower now. More deliberate.

His thumbs found a knot low in my spine, and I groaned into the pillow before I could stop myself. The pain was sharp, but good, a necessary ache. One I’d been carrying too long.

“Sensitive,” he said softly, and I could feel the heat of his gaze even as I kept my face buried.

I didn’t answer. Just breathed through the burn, every nerve alight beneath his touch. It hurt, but it felt like my body had been waiting for this kind of hurt.

“You’re tense,” he said, voice lower now. Rougher. That edge was new. Different.

He pressed again, just above my tailbone, and pain flashed up my spine. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. I curled forward with a sharp inhale.

“God, Azriel,” I breathed. It came out softer than I meant. A little desperate.

His hands froze, just for a beat. Then resumed, slower now, moving higher, tracing just beneath my shoulder blades.

“You really do need to start training with me,” he said after a moment, rubbing balm into a deep bruise.

“You just want to take me down,” I mumbled, voice muffled as I bit back another groan.

He huffed a quiet laugh, fingers pressing gently over tense muscle. “No, but that would be a bonus,” he whispered. A breath left me as his hands stilled, then he tugged my shirt down.

I shifted, easing back onto the pillows with a wince. He sat beside me on the edge of the bed. I looked at him. Unfairly handsome, skin golden in the flickering firelight, dark hair still damp. He looked at me like he was on the edge of something, like he couldn’t hold it in any longer.

“You really don’t see it, do you?” he asked.

“See what?”

“How badly I want you.”

The words knocked the breath from my lungs.

He looked away. 

“After our last assignment, when we were stuck in that war room for days, I thought I’d made it obvious. I offered private training. Brought you coffee. Showed up to your office every damn day for two weeks.”

“I thought…” My voice faltered. “I thought you were just being kind. I figured maybe you felt sorry for me or—”

“Why would I ever feel sorry for you?”

His voice was soft but fierce. His brow furrowed, his eyes locked on mine.

“I wasn’t sure if you were... uninterested, or already seeing someone. Rhys told me you were single, married to your work, but I didn’t want to assume,” Azreil said. 

“You asked Rhys about me?”

His cheeks flushed. “I… did.”

“You want me?”

“I do.” The words came out rough. Honest, like he’d been holding them in for far too long.

Something inside me cracked open. Jealousy flared, raw and sudden. I thought of all the women who might’ve touched him, who knew what to do. I thought of how easy it must be for them.

I had never touched a man, never been wanted like this and never had someone like him.

“I’m not the one for you,” I whispered.

His expression shifted, hurt flickering across his face like a spark. “Did I misread this?”

“No!” I said quickly, stumbling over the word. “No. I want you. God, I do. You make my heart race, Az. But I…”

My hands trembled in my lap. I forced the words out.

“I’m not experienced,” I said at last, voice barely above a whisper. “I’ve never—never been with anyone.”

For a moment, he didn’t react, then realisation dawned.

“You’ve never…?” he asked gently.

I shook my head, shame crawling up my neck.

“You’ve never had—?”

“Please,” I whispered, heat flooding my cheeks, “you don’t need to say it again.”

“No,” he said quickly. “I’m not judging. I swear. I just… you’re so beautiful. I thought you’d have a line of men.”

“I never found the one,” I said quietly. “And Rhys was right. I got good at being alone. At pretending it didn’t matter.”

Azriel let out a long, uneven breath. His gaze met mine, soft but flickering with something close to desire.

“Can I finally kiss you now?” he asked, voice hushed. “Or are you still waiting for your ‘one’?”

My breath hitched, and I paused. 

“I want you to be the one.”

His eyes closed for a beat, like the words broke something open inside him.

“I’ll be your one,” he murmured. “Your only one.”

His hand reached for my cheek, thumb brushing along my jaw, and then, his mouth was on mine.

A soft moan slipped from me as our lips met. It was gentle, careful, as if he were learning the shape of me. His hand braced beside my thigh, the other cradling the back of my head, holding me like something precious.

When we finally pulled apart, his breath was uneven.

“Are you okay?” he whispered, brushing a strand of hair from my face.

I nodded, eyes fluttering shut.

He kissed the corner of my mouth, then the hollow of my throat. My body arched instinctively toward him.

“Tell me to stop,” he murmured, lips grazing my skin, “and I will.”

“I don’t want you to stop.”

He kissed me again, deeper, slower. His body lowered gently over mine, every part of him warm and steady. Skin to skin, we tangled together, his weight comforting rather than overwhelming.

When he slipped my shirt off, I shivered, not from the cold, but from the way his eyes devoured me like he’d been waiting a long time. Like I was something sacred.

“I’ll go slow,” he promised, lips brushing over the centre of my chest, then lower. “If you change your mind—”

“I’ll tell you,” I whispered. “I trust you.”

Something shifted in his gaze at that; his expression softened with unspoken emotion. His mouth found mine again, deeper this time, as he eased me back into the mattress. His hands moved over my skin, mapping scars and bruises, cataloguing the places to avoid, and the ones that made me gasp.

His hands settled at my hips, and my legs instinctively wrapped around his waist. I could feel him, solid and hard, pressed against me, his restraint obvious, his every touch reverent.

He waited at the waistband of my pants, silently asking. I lifted my hips in answer. His breath hitched.

He exhaled my name like a prayer. “God, you’re more beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen.”

“Wounds and all?” I whispered, my fingers trailing down his ribs, leaving goosebumps in their wake.

“Wounds and all,” he echoed, voice husky. 

He kissed down my chest, finding my nipple with his mouth. The sensation curled through me like liquid heat. When his tongue swirled over the sensitive bud, a soft moan left my lips. Then his teeth grazed, gentle but purposeful, and my back arched.

His fingers trailed lower, settling between my thighs. I parted them for him instinctively, and the sound of my own wetness meeting his fingers made embarrassment bloom inside me.

I tensed.

His eyes opened, still half-lidded with lust, and found mine. His mouth didn’t stop its worshipful attention on my breast.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, voice small, heat curling in my belly.

“Why are you sorry?” he murmured against my skin, his thumb brushing over my clit, and I gasped, the sound helpless.

“Because I’m so—”

“Wet,” he finished for me, and I could feel his grin against my chest. “Yes, you are.”

I huffed, half-embarrassed. “I—”

“Don’t ever apologise for that,” he said, almost sternly. “It’s perfect. You’re perfect.”

His mouth trailed lower, kissing down my stomach, slower and slower. I arched involuntarily, my fingers sliding into his hair, desperate for something to anchor me.

“Oh, God,” I gasped as his mouth replaced his fingers.

He moaned against me, the vibration rippling through every nerve in my body.

His fingers began to slide inside me, slow, careful, coaxing me open. I saw stars. His tongue and fingers moved together in a rhythm that defied reason, pulling sounds from me I’d never made before, my moans echoing off the walls, the air charged with something feral and raw.

“Azriel,” I moaned, hips rising off the bed. His free hand gripped them, holding me steady as his tongue worked in slow, sinful patterns. He moaned again, as if drunk on the taste of me.

His fingers curled, there, and I arched again, thighs trembling around his head.

He found that spot again, and again. My whole body locked tight.

“Azriel,” I panted, the pressure building fast, too fast. “I—I can’t—”

I did. 

I shattered, falling over something I didn’t know I’d been climbing. The moan that tore from my throat was almost too much for my ears, raw, high, utterly helpless.

Azriel didn’t stop. He kissed me through the aftershocks, slow and reverent, his mouth brushing along my inner thighs as I trembled. 

He finally pulled back. I blinked down at him in a daze, watching as he brought his glistening fingers to his mouth and sucked them clean, eyes never leaving mine. His lips, chin, and jaw gleamed in the candlelight.

“You taste like heaven,” he murmured, crawling back up to settle between my legs.

At some point, his pants had come off, and I hadn’t even noticed. I was only aware of the ache between my thighs and the way his bare body pressed against mine.

My eyes trailed down instinctively. His hand was wrapped around his cock, pumping once, twice. I gasped softly.

He was… huge. Thick and hard, the head flushed and glistening with precum, nestled in dark hair. Beautiful and intimidating.

“Are you sure you want this?” he asked, voice low but sincere.

I nodded, breathless. “I do.”

His hand moved to my thigh, gently parting me. He positioned himself carefully, the tip of him nudging at my entrance.

“I’ll take care of you,” he whispered, leaning in to kiss me. “I’ll go slow.”

“I trust you,” I said again, voice trembling but steady.

He pressed into me, inch by inch. My breath caught, hands clutching his shoulders as I felt my body stretch around him.

His jaw clenched. 

“Fuck—you’re so tight,” he groaned, holding still once he was fully inside, like it took everything in him not to lose control.

I winced, body adjusting. He didn’t move, his thumb brushing soothingly along my side.

“Are you okay?” he whispered again.

I nodded, voice barely audible. “I am.”

Relief flooded his face. He kissed my temple, then slowly, carefully, began to move.

Each thrust was measured, deep and steady. The pain eased into pleasure, and soon I was moaning again, helpless against the rhythm he built between us.

“Oh…” I whimpered, overwhelmed. Every inch of me was alight.

Azriel moaned shamelessly, as if he wanted me to hear how good it felt, like the sounds I made were undoing him.

God… I wanted to keep undoing him.

Azriel’s thrusts deepened, still careful, still measured, but more insistent now, each one dragging a helpless moan from me. The pain had long since melted into something hotter, headier. My body had adjusted to the stretch of him, and now it was only pleasure, sharp, sweet, and building fast.

His hand gripped my thigh, angling my hips just slightly, and then he hit something inside me that made me cry out, my back arching off the bed.

“There,” he groaned, like the sound of me undid him.

“Azriel,” I panted, nails digging into his back. “There, again, please—”

He obeyed. Over and over, that spot, perfectly. I was unravelling, hips rising to meet his, every part of me clenching around him.

“Fuck—god, you feel so good,” he gasped, breath shuddering. “You’re perfect, so perfect—”

The pressure inside me coiled tighter, unbearable in the most exquisite way. I couldn’t breathe. Could barely think.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered, kissing my throat. “Let go for me. Come with me.”

His hand slipped between us, fingers finding my clit in perfect rhythm, rubbing tight, slick circles as he thrust deep once more, and I broke.

My orgasm crashed through me like a tidal wave, my entire body arching beneath him. My cry was loud, unrestrained, his name on my lips like a prayer.

Azriel groaned, low and raw, and then he was following me over the edge. His body tensed, shuddered, his hips pressed deep as he spilled inside me, moaning into the crook of my neck. I felt it, the warmth of him, the pulse of release, the way he clung to me like he might come apart.

For a long moment, neither of us moved. Our bodies tangled, breath coming in gasps, sweat-slicked skin pressed together like we were trying to become one.

Azriel shifted, gently pulling out. I winced, and he immediately stilled, eyes searching mine.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked, voice hoarse with worry.

“No,” I breathed, hand brushing his cheek. “You didn’t.”

Still, he moved quickly, disappearing into the bathroom. I heard the water run, and when he returned, he carried a warm, damp cloth. He cleaned me gently, whispering soft apologies every time I flinched. His brows were drawn, mouth tight with concern.

“I should’ve stopped sooner,” he murmured, as he dabbed at the inside of my thighs. “I pushed too far.”

“You didn’t,” I said quietly, reaching for him. “Azriel, look at me.”

He did. His eyes were glassy, the weight of everything behind them.

“You were perfect,” I said. “You were everything I needed.”

He let out a slow breath, his shoulders easing just a little. Then he tossed the cloth aside, pulled the blankets up, and gathered me into his arms like I was something fragile.

I curled into his chest, our legs tangled, his warmth enveloping me like a second skin.

His thumb stroked lazily along my spine, up and down, again and again.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” he asked softly.

I nodded against him. “I am. I promise.”

He kissed the top of my head. “I was afraid,” he admitted. “Afraid I’d ruin it for you. That I’d mess it up.”

“You didn’t. You couldn’t.”

A beat of silence. 

He whispered, “I’ve never wanted anything this badly before.”

I looked up at him, brushing my fingers through his damp hair. “What? Me?”

He nodded, a little sheepish. “You. Us. This. All of it.”

My heart thudded. “I’ve never had anyone take care of me like that.”

He kissed my forehead. “You deserve to be taken care of. Every time. Every way.”

We lay there in the quiet, heartbeats slowly settling. His shadows danced lazily across the ceiling, like they too had been soothed by the closeness.

“I didn’t think it would feel like that,” I whispered, eyes fluttering shut.

“Like what?”

“Like more. Not just physical, emotional, like it meant something.”

He pulled me tighter to him. “It meant everything.”

We fell into silence, a comfortable quiet. His breathing slowed, deepened. Mine matched it, our bodies pressed together beneath the blankets. My fingers traced idle patterns across his chest, feeling his heartbeat.

Sleep tugged at me, and just like that, we fell asleep curled into each other’s arms. 

That morning, we woke in a silence so soft it felt sacred.

The light was just beginning to slip through the curtains, golden and pale, casting a warm glow over the room. Azriel’s arm was still draped around my waist, his breath steady against the back of my neck. I could feel the rhythm of his heartbeat, slow and sure, pressed into my spine.

My body ached in new places, pleasantly sore. The balm he’d applied the night before had done its work; the worst of the bruises and cuts were fading into nothing more than memory, but that deep, unfamiliar thrum from our night together lingered, intimate, impossible to ignore.

I shifted slightly, and Azriel stirred behind me, groaning softly.

“You okay?” he murmured, voice thick with sleep.

I turned in his arms, meeting his drowsy gaze. “More than okay.”

He smiled, small, private, and leaned forward to press a kiss to my temple. “Good.”

We didn’t speak after that; there was no need. We dressed in the quiet, exchanging soft looks and slower movements, as though neither of us wanted to break the fragile spell of our time together. When we finally stepped outside, the world beyond our room felt stiller, suspended.

Mist clung low to the cobblestone streets of the village, swirling around our feet as we walked. The scent of dew and woodsmoke filled the crisp air, and the first hints of dawn light filtered through the tall pines bordering the edge of town.

Azriel’s hand brushed against mine as we made our way toward the thieves’ camp that he had spotted and monitored the night before. We reached the edge of the ridge overlooking the camp, and Azriel stopped without a word.

Below us, the scene was already unravelling. A small group of men moved quickly between crates and bundles, packing up stolen goods with no urgency, as if no one was watching. I could see gleaming weapons, bolts of cloth, sacks of food, rare books and scrolls, all of it looted from the township that night. It was far more than any of the reports had indicated.

Azriel scanned the area, jaw tight, eyes sharp.

He looked at me. He pointed silently to a twisted tree just beyond the ridge. I nodded and stepped behind it, taking cover beneath its crooked limbs. His shadows slithered around me, cool and watchful, like sentinels.

I waited, listening.

A few heartbeats later, the quiet broke. Grunts, the clash of steel, the thud of bodies hitting the earth. Low swearing. Someone cried out, a brief, pained sound, then nothing. Silence returned as swiftly as it had been shattered.

When I peered back around the tree, Azriel stood alone in the centre of the now-empty camp.

The men were gone, but blood trailed across the stone and dirt, dragged in lines leading away into the trees.

He’d taken them, quite and efficiently, without a single scream.

I didn’t ask where they’d gone. I didn’t need to.

Azriel caught my eye and lifted a hand, beckoning me forward with a single motion.

I stepped into the clearing, my boots crunching over gravel and blood-dried leaves. The air was thick with metallic tang, but his shadows curled softly now, lazily winding around his shoulders like they were settling after a job well done.

“The site’s clear for you to analyse,” he said, his voice low and steady. “I contacted Rhys last night after I found their camp. I’ll send word that he can bring the reinforcements to collect the prisoners.”

I nodded, already turning toward the mess of crates stacked near the centre of the camp, but before I could take a full step, Azriel moved closer.

His hand came up, fingers rough with calluses but impossibly gentle as they brushed my cheek. He leaned down and, without hesitation, pressed a soft kiss to my forehead.

“Stay safe, okay?” he murmured.

Before I could reply, he tilted my chin and kissed me, brief and warm.

“I will,” I whispered.

His eyes lingered on me, concern flickering through them. Then he stepped back, shadows rising around him like a second skin, and vanished into the tree line.

I stood there for a breath longer than I meant to, watching the place he’d disappeared, the warmth of his lips still ghosting over mine. I turned back to the clearing, pushing away the strange ache blooming in my chest.

Something was wrong.

Even with the camp emptied, the trees felt too still. The forest air was thick, almost dense. My own wards were faint, barely registering against the magical resistance that clung to the area like fog. Whatever had been here, it had not wanted to be found.

I whispered detection spells beneath my breath as I moved slowly between the remnants, crates, splintered weapons, scraps of parchment and torn maps. I brushed my fingers over them, searching. Nothing.

Until I felt it.

A thrum, not in the air, but in my chest. Like a second heartbeat, low and steady and pulling.

Drawn by instinct, I moved to the far end of the clearing, where a battered canvas tarp fluttered weakly over a makeshift table, and there it was.

A box.

Small. Black. Ornate. Onyx carved with intricate gold filigree. Its jewelled clasps glinted like eyes in the shadows, watching.

It was beautiful, and wrong.

I didn’t think. I reached out. The moment my fingers grazed the lid, a pulse shot through me. Not painful, cold and knowing.

This wasn’t just magic.

It recognised me.

The box tugged, not physically, but in the space between breath and thought. It wanted me, as if it had been waiting.

Another pulse. Sharper. Hungrier.

My mind reeled back six months to a report Rhysand had handed me, almost dismissively. A list of flagged artifacts from a failed transport manifest. I hadn’t cared at the time, barely skimmed it.

This box was in there. High-risk. Highly unstable. Magical containment takes priority.

My fingers hovered over the lid.

Just a bit more, and I’d lift it, just to see, just to know—

“Stop.”

The voice was velvet over steel.

My hand froze.

I turned, heart leaping into my throat.

Rhysand stood a few feet behind me, silent. His violet eyes were locked on the box, as shadows coiled tightly around his boots, magic shimmered at his fingertips, controlled, but ready.

He wasn’t smiling.

“Don’t touch it,” he said again, his voice a quiet command that cut through the silence like a drawn blade.

I froze. My fingers hovered mere inches above the lid, trembling slightly. The box still pulsed, as if sensing my hesitation, as if pleading.

I slowly pulled my hand back. A tingling remained in my skin, like static, or something deeper, something alive, still curled beneath my fingertips.

“You know what it is,” I said, my breath catching in my throat.

Rhysand’s eyes finally left the box and met mine. “I do.”

He stepped forward, but not too close, stopping a few feet from it as though the thing radiated heat or poison.

“It was onboard one of the cargo ships that sank six months ago,” he said, his voice tight. “We thought it was lost to the sea.”

I stared at the box again. The ornate gold filigree seemed to shimmer, catching the faint light like a smirk in shadow. 

“What is it?” I asked, my voice quieter now, my spine prickling.

Rhysand’s jaw flexed. He exhaled slowly through his nose. “Inside is a suppression crystal, an ancient one. Looks harmless enough, just a polished black stone. It’s a containment artifact. We use stones like it in the prison to nullify magic.”

A chill crept down my back. My eyes flicked to the box again. The lid sat still and silent, but I could feel it pressing against the edges of my awareness, as if it were listening.

“I felt it call to me,” I admitted, barely above a whisper. “Like it recognised me.”

Rhysand’s expression darkened, the corner of his mouth tightening.

“That’s exactly why you shouldn’t open it,” he said, his voice quieter now. “It doesn’t call to you. It feeds off you. It latches onto whatever power it finds and twists it into submission. Devours it. Then buries itself in your mind until you think it belongs to you.”

The silence after his words felt heavy.

The box said nothing, but it knew.

By the time we returned to Velaris, my entire body ached. Between cataloguing stolen goods, reactivating containment wards, and sending magical documentation to tracking teams, I was running on fumes.

Azriel had taken the lead on interrogating the captives, trying to uncover how they’d gotten their hands on the artifact. Whether they’d truly pulled it from the sea, or robbed the ship before sinking it, no one knew, but it would be days before we had the full picture.

I collapsed into my office chair late that night, surrounded by stacks of parchment, half-read manifests, and exhausted magical seals. The smell of old paper and ink made my eyes sting, and the last thing on my mind, though it tugged at the edges, was the memory of Azriel’s hands on my skin.

I hadn’t seen him since the morning at the camp, and I’d told myself not to expect anything more. That it was just one night.

Which is why I froze when the office door creaked open.

Azriel stepped in, a takeout bag balanced in his gloved hands. The scent hit me before anything else, rich spices and warm bread from my favourite Sidra restaurant.

“Az,” I breathed, stunned.

He said nothing at first, just strode forward and began clearing space on my cluttered desk, setting down the bag with careful precision. Steam curled from the containers as he unpacked them, and my stomach growled on cue.

“I promised you hot food,” he said, glancing up, shadows curling lazily around his shoulders. “And I doubted you’d make time to eat with the mountain of paperwork you always bury yourself in.”

He moved around the desk, reaching for me. One arm wrapped around my hips, pulling me close. His other hand gently tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear before leaning down to kiss my forehead, then my lips, slow, reassuring, and familiar.

“You really didn’t have to,” I mumbled as he helped lower me back into my chair. He took the seat across from me without a word.

“I couldn’t let my girl work all night on an empty stomach,” he said simply, opening the first container.

My heart stuttered.

“Your girl?” I asked, voice barely audible over the rustle of parchment and paper.

Azriel looked up, brow raised. “What?”

“You said... your girl.”

He blinked once, then the barest smile touched his lips.

“I thought that was clear after last night.”

A slow grin crept onto my face. My pulse quickened.

“Well,” I teased softly, “I guess I am your girl.”

Azriel shook his head with a low chuckle and passed me a warm container.

“You were always my girl,” he said, voice like velvet, eyes like midnight.

God help me, I believed him.

[cosmic-reads]

Oh I’m OBSESSED with this

[dirtyb1rdy]

house rules

one shot ✮ michael robinavitch x resident!reader ✮ 18+

summary: when robby leaves pittsburgh for a three month sabbatical, you’re left house-sitting his apartment. what starts as the occasional check-in text quickly becomes part of your daily routine, and somewhere between late night phone calls, shared photos and thousands of miles apart, neither of you realise you’re falling until it’s far too late to stop.

tags: age-gap but not mentioned massively, long distance, robby is yearning, friends to lovers, slow burn, texting, photo texts, eventual phone sex, masturbation, dirty talk, happy ending.

wc: 12.8k

a/n: i haven't included any visuals of the reader in place of where selfies are sent bc i want this to be inclusive for anyone who reads. also sorry for some of the gaps / spacing between texts n paragraphs, i hate the tumblr word block limit and ANOTHER sorry if the pics aren't transparent. i reached the end of my tether at this point

✮

"Silver key is lobby, brass is front door." The bunch jingled between his fingers. "This one is for the mailbox, you can just leave anything that comes in on the side."

You stood in front of Robby with your arms folded, letting him run through his spiel even though you were a grown woman and could probably figure out which key got you through which door. Still, you nodded along, even made a joke about taking notes that seemed to fall flat, and then he was pulling a scrap of paper from his pocket with four digits scribbled across it.

"This is the alarm code-”

"Jesus, what neighbourhood do you live in again?"

"You don't have to use it, but a young woman staying alone? I want you to feel safe."

He handed you the note. That felt sweet.

You weren't entirely sure how you'd ended up being the one house-sitting for Robby while he disappeared on a three month sabbatical. You were the newest resident, barely eight months into your time at PTMC, but for whatever reason he seemed to trust you. He liked the way you taught, how patient you were with the med students, how you somehow managed to balance nurturing them without letting them walk all over you.

You'd been a little intimidated by him when you first arrived. Robby didn't take mistakes lightly. If you fucked up, you fucked up. There was no sugar coating it.

But he'd turned out to be a better teacher than you'd expected, taking you under his wing and dragging you into procedures most residents would have had to fight to get near. Sometimes you wanted to call it favouritism but it was probably just him doing his job. Probably.

"Anything else I need to know?" you asked. "Weird neighbours, paranormal activity, stalker exes?"

You tried to keep a straight face, only for the corners of your mouth to betray you.

He shook his head, laughing. "You sure you're okay doing this?"

"Are you kidding? This is gonna be like a vacation for me."

Robby nodded once, seemingly satisfied, and dropped the keys into your palm.

"Good. Call me if you need anything."

He started backing away towards the chaos of the ER. "Hey, remember. No parties, no pets, no boyfriends. Yours or anybody else's."

You scoffed, not quite loud enough for him to hear. Party? Required more than three friends. Pets? Required energy. And boyfriend? Don't even go there.

You didn't see Robby again before he left. Maybe the apartment handover had counted as a goodbye, or maybe the ER had simply done what it always did and swallowed every spare second before anyone got the chance to wave him off into the sunset.

Either way, all you could really focus on right now was three whole months without roommates and a bed bigger than a single. Happy days.

-

You managed to slip off shift without attracting any attention from the nurses or the night shift. Robby had said the only person he'd told about the house-sitting arrangement was Abbot. If you wanted to tell people, you could, but he didn't particularly care either way.

You decided to keep it quiet.

Work wasn't really where you made friends. You had three good ones on the outside but that was mostly it. Everyone was nice enough in the ER, and there had been the occasional invitation for drinks after a shift, but by seven o'clock you were usually too exhausted to be anything but horizontal.

Your circle stayed small, mainly Mckay and Ellis within the hospital.

You worked with Cassie every day and had become close over the months, and Parker had been your person during those brutal night shift rotations when you first arrived in Pittsburgh.

Either way, you made it to Robby's building without interception. Silver key for the lobby and brass for the apartment. Just like he'd said.

The building itself was nice. Clean hallways, warm lighting, planters hanging in the windows. The kind of place that felt looked after without trying too hard about it. The apartment was even nicer. Or maybe it just felt huge compared to the place you shared with four other girls.

"Well, fuck." The words slipped out before you could stop them as you flicked on the light switch.

The front door opened into a small hallway that led into a spacious living room, all exposed brick and worn hardwood floors. A brown leather sofa sat opposite a huge TV, surrounded by shelves packed with books and an almost concerning number of CDs.

You drifted towards them automatically, scanning album titles as you went. Pearl Jam, R.E.M., Jeff Buckley. A laugh escaped you.

"Checks out."

Your finger brushed across the collection before you moved on, abandoning your investigation in favour of something far more important.

Bed.

The guest room had already been made up for you, fresh sheets stretched neatly across the mattress and extra towels folded at the end like you were checking into a hotel instead of crashing in your attending's spare room. It made you smile.

Maybe your standards for grand gestures were embarrassingly low, but between that and the hundred dollars waiting on the kitchen counter with a note that read for anything you need, you couldn't help it.

There was still plenty left to explore. The contents of his fridge, the bookshelves, photo albums (or lack thereof) and most definitely the bedside drawers. But not tonight.

You peeled off your scrubs, barely managing to change before exhaustion caught up with you. Within minutes you were under the covers, eyes heavy, asleep before your head had properly settled into the pillow.

-

Turns out this house-sitting gig was absolute heaven.

Two days in and it was already starting to feel less like a favour and more like a reward.

Today was your day off. You'd actually eaten breakfast instead of inhaling a protein bar, spent the afternoon doing absolutely nothing productive and met up with a couple of friends for drinks that evening. The friends who weren't doctors, nurses or in any way connected to the hospital.

Then you'd come home, changed into something comfortable and settled onto Robby's sofa with your book.

Life was good.

So far, the hundred dollars he'd left behind had contributed to a half-full fridge and a bottle of wine, which felt perfectly reasonable considering Robby had specifically said it was for anything you needed. It was somewhere around chapter twenty-three of your hot romance fantasy novel (not one of Robby's) when your phone buzzed beside you.

Robby:

Hey, hope you're good. Just checking in to make sure everything's okay?

You smiled before you could stop yourself. He was so proper. So formal. Even his texts somehow read like work emails. Still, you appreciated him checking since you honestly hadn't expected to hear from him at all.

The whole point of this trip was supposed to be getting away. You'd heard him say more than once that he wanted to leave Pittsburgh and everyone in it behind for a while. No calls. No emails. As close to no contact as he could realistically get. According to Robby, that was the only way to properly clear your head.

The one exception had always been Abbot, maybe even Dana. Apparently now it was the three of you.

You:

all good! your apartment is insane by the way

and thank u for the money, u didn't have to!

You took a sip of wine as you hit send. A reply came almost immediately.

Robby:

You're doing me a huge favour!

Spend wisely…

A laugh escaped you. You were a little tipsy by now. Not drunk, just pleasantly warm from the two glasses of pinot you'd had at the bar combined with the one currently sitting beside you. Which, admittedly, was a lot considering you barely drank.

Without thinking too hard about it, you snapped a picture of the glass balanced on the coffee table. Then you zoomed in slightly. Mostly to crop out the fact you weren't using a coaster.

You:

wise you say???

The typing bubbles appeared almost instantly. Then disappeared. Then appeared again. You frowned at the screen.

For some reason, a flicker of self-consciousness crept in. Maybe the photo was weird. Maybe the lipstick mark on the rim was weird. Maybe it was weird to be sitting in your attending's apartment drinking wine and texting him on a Friday night.

Before you could overthink it further, another message appeared.

Robby:

Naughty!

Your stomach flipped. It was ridiculous. The word itself wasn't even remotely suggestive. If anything, it was probably about the coaster.

But between the wine and the book currently sitting open beside you, the message seemed to land somewhere deep in your belly. You stared at it for a second longer than necessary.

"Time for bed." You said it out loud, as though hearing it might make it true.

Leaving the glass on the coffee table with a single sip left, you gathered your book and headed for the guest room.

-

Robby stared at the photo for longer than he meant to. Not at the wine or the coffee table and certainly not at the missing coaster.

His attention had landed on the faint lipstick mark circling the rim of the glass and stayed there for a second too long before he caught himself. He sat back against the headboard of the hotel bed, somewhere around Chicago, after a long day on the road.

The room was forgettable. Beige walls. Generic artwork. The low hum of an air conditioner fighting for its life in the corner. Exactly the kind of place he'd expected to find himself in.

He'd only been checking in. That was all.

You were doing him a favour and it seemed polite to make sure everything was going smoothly.

Except now he found himself picturing you in his apartment. Curled up on the couch, feet tucked beneath you. A glass of wine in one hand and whatever book had managed to distract you from answering his text in the other.

His apartment. His couch. His glass.

He exhaled through his nose. It was ridiculous. Of course you were there, that was the entire point. For the next three months you were going to be using his mugs, watching his TV, standing under his shower and sleeping in the guest room.

None of that should have felt strange. And it didn't. Not really. It had just been that split second when the photograph appeared on his screen and his brain had connected the image to a real person rather than the vague idea of someone looking after his place.

Someone he'd see almost every day at work. Someone currently sitting exactly where he usually sat. Robby shook his head once, more at himself than anything else.

Then he typed out the reply.

Naughty!

The second it was sent, he dropped the phone onto the bedside table and turned off the lamp. Tomorrow he'd have another few hours of driving ahead of him. That was what he should be thinking about.

Not a lipstick stain on a wine glass.

-

It was strange how different work felt when you had somewhere peaceful to come home to.

The shifts were still long and the patients exhausting. None of that changed. But when there were no roommate arguments waiting for you at the end of the day, no mountain of dishes that didn't belong to you and no obnoxiously loud sex through the wall at midnight, everything felt a little more manageable.

You had energy again. Energy to come home and shower. Energy to cook. Energy to actually enjoy your evenings instead of collapsing face-first into bed.

You'd always been a good cook. Your mom had made sure of that. While other kids were watching TV, you'd been standing beside her in the kitchen learning how to chop onions without crying and season food without measuring every ingredient.

Your family tree contained exactly zero Italians, but your signature dish was carbonara. Real carbonara. The proper kind. The kind that required ingredients expensive enough to make you wince in the grocery aisle.

Which was exactly why you rarely made it. But with Robby's hundred dollars quietly subsidising your lifestyle, you figured you deserved a treat.

The plan was going perfectly until you tried to turn on the hob.

"Come on."

You twisted the dial until it clicked. Nothing. You tried again.

Another click. Still nothing.

By the fourth attempt, you were staring at the appliance like it had personally offended you.

"Am I losing my mind?"

Getting a burner lit should not have been this difficult. You glanced at your phone sitting on the counter.

No. Absolutely not.

You were not texting Robby because you couldn't operate a stove. You were a doctor, a functioning adult. You could figure this out.

Another click. Nothing. "For fuck's sake." The curse echoed around the kitchen. A few seconds later, you picked up your phone.

You:

i don't want you to think i'm completely incompetent but i cannot work your hob…

Three states away, Robby's phone lit up. He'd spent most of the day hiking through some forest outside Rockford before ending the evening under a shower hot enough to steam up the entire bathroom.

He walked over to the phone, towel slung low around his waist, hair still damp. The text made him laugh.

Robby:

You have to turn and press. It's more of a button than a switch!

Also don't worry, I couldn't work it for the first six months I lived there because of that…

It was strangely comforting to know a physician widely regarded as one of the smartest people in Pittsburgh had also been defeated by a kitchen appliance.

Following his instructions, you pushed the dial inward and a blue flame immediately burst to life.

"Oh thank god."

You set a pot of water on one burner and poured oil into a pan on the other before reaching for your phone again.

You:

life saver. i was about to starve

and the great robby also not knowing how to operate a stove makes me feel better so thank u

Back in his hotel room, Robby laughed quietly at the screen. A small smile lingered as he reread your message.

He'd answered your question, technically the conversation could end there and it probably should. Instead, his thumbs hovered over the keyboard for a second.

Robby:

What are you cooking anyway?

You saw the message while stirring egg and cheese into freshly drained pasta. Not now. Carbonara required concentration and you weren't risking scrambled eggs for anybody.

Five minutes later, when the sauce was silky and clinging perfectly to the noodles, you twisted a generous serving onto a plate and admired your handiwork.

Then you grabbed your phone.

You:

carbonara!

You attached the picture before hitting send.

The photo sat open on his screen for a moment. He wasn't entirely sure what he'd expected, certainly not that. It looked better than anything he'd eaten in the last week.

After a moment he tapped the heart reaction and tossed the phone onto the mattress beside him. He ignored the part of himself that wanted to ask for the recipe.

-

The next two days brought two hellish shifts.

First a mass casualty then a stomach bug that seemed determined to take down half the ER.

Dana did her best to pull people in for extra coverage, Abbot came in early and somehow ended up working a double, but even that barely kept things afloat. It was chaos. The kind that left you running entirely on adrenaline until your body remembered it was human.

You finally made it home just before eleven: a personal record. The worst part was that when you dragged yourself up the stairs, peeled off your scrubs and collapsed into bed, you couldn't sleep.

You were trapped in that miserable state of overtiredness where your body was begging for rest while your brain stubbornly refused to switch off.

You hadn't looked at your phone once during the shift. Not during the mass casualty or the endless stream of patients. Not even while inhaling a granola bar somewhere around hour twelve. It stayed buried in your pocket until you stepped through the apartment door.

It wasn't until you were under the covers that you finally saw the notification waiting for you.

Robby:

I had diner food for the third night in a row tonight, your carbonara is making me look bad…

He'd given you a rough outline of his route before he left and, if you remembered correctly, he should be somewhere near Minneapolis by now. An hour behind. Not too late.

You:

trust me, my carbonara is the least impressive thing about my week

i just survived a mass casualty and half the department trying to die from a stomach bug

diner food sounds peaceful honestly

Robby:

Mass casualty?

You:

three car pile up

and before you ask everyone survived

mostly because abbot worked about seventeen hours straight

Robby:

I leave for one week…

You:

i was waiting for someone to blame

Robby:

Blame Dana…

You:

do you think i have a death wish???

that's not the attending wisdom i was hoping for

Robby:

🤷🏻‍♂️ ️

You stare at the screen. He's using emojis now? Something about that feels strangely significant.

The conversation probably should have ended three messages ago. Instead, another text appears a few seconds later.

Robby:

You okay?

The question catches you off guard. Not because it's particularly personal, just because he seems to actually mean it. You stare at the message for a moment before replying.

You:

yeah

just tired

too tired to sleep which is apparently a thing

Robby:

Been there. Your body's exhausted but the brain's stress response overrides it

Makes for a very restless night

You:

oh good

thought i was dying

Robby:

You're a doctor..

You always think you're dying

A quiet laugh escapes you. You weren't entirely sure why any of this felt comforting.

After one of the worst shifts you'd worked in months, you were lying awake in your attending's apartment, texting your boss from beneath the covers.

On paper, it sounded ridiculous but the knot that had been sitting between your shoulders since this morning was slowly beginning to loosen.

Your eyes felt heavier, your body sank deeper into the mattress and the first time all night, sleep actually seemed possible.

You:

night robby x

You hit send before thinking too hard about it. A second passed. Then two. Then your phone lit up.

Robby:

Sleep well!

You smiled at the screen. By the time you set your phone on the bedside table, your eyes were already closing.

Robby didn't go to sleep straight away.

Instead he sat against the headboard, phone still in his hand, staring at the open conversation. The room was quiet. Outside, somewhere beyond the hotel curtains, a truck rumbled along the interstate.

His thumb drifted across the screen and paused, hovering over the last message.

night robby x

Just one stupid little letter. It probably meant absolutely nothing. For all he knew, you signed every text that way. You were exhausted when you'd sent it, practically half asleep and already drifting off. He knew that. So why was he still looking at it?

With a quiet huff of amusement at himself, Robby locked the screen.

Tomorrow he'd drive another few hundred miles, stay at another hotel, eat another mediocre meal. Continue doing exactly what he'd left Pittsburgh to do.

And yet, as he finally switched off the lamp and settled back against the pillows, he found himself wondering whether you'd text him tomorrow.

The thought stayed with him longer than it should have. Long enough that sleep didn't come quite as quickly as usual.

-

The next few days settled into something that almost resembled normality (or at least as normal as life in the ER ever got).

The stomach bug finally burned its way through the department, leaving a trail of exhaustion and empty electrolyte bottles in its wake. Everyone looked tired and complained constantly. You included.

It was nearing the end of another shift when your phone buzzed in your pocket.

You ignored it only for it to buzz again.

And because every doctor secretly believed they were the most important person in the building, your brain immediately convinced itself it could be an emergency.

You pulled it out while waiting for the elevator.

Robby:

Rode twenty minutes off route for this

You opened it. Then frowned. Then laughed.

You:

what the fuck is that

Robby:

The world's largest prairie chicken

You:

of course it is

you rode twenty minutes out of your way to see a giant chicken?

Robby:

Yes.

You:

no further questions your honour

The elevator doors opened. You stepped inside, still smiling at your phone. Another message appeared.

Robby:

Thought you'd appreciate it!

Your lips curled at the suggestion he had taken the picture with you in mind.

You:

i'm genuinely concerned about how you're spending this sabbatical

Robby:

That's fair

For the record I did also spend six hours riding through some very beautiful countryside today

You:

and yet it was the giant chicken you sent

Robby:

Correct.

You laughed, probably too loud for the setting as others in the lift glanced over before you quickly looked away.

You:

well i'm glad my attending is making good use of his time

Robby:

You laughed didn't you?

You:

immediately

The elevator dinged and people shuffled out around you while you lingered behind, looking down at the conversation. At the completely pointless exchange.

The kind of conversation that served no purpose whatsoever and yet somehow it had made the end of a miserable shift feel lighter.

Robby:

Worth the detour then

You shook your head but the smile wouldn't disappear. It stayed with you all the way to the parking lot.

Across the county, Robby sat on the edge of his hotel bed with the television murmuring quietly in the background.

The hotels he was staying in were nice, he had the money to stay in much nicer but there wasn't much point when only passing through.

The final destination was a cabin in Alberta. That's where he'd spend the rest of the sabbatical when he got there, that he had spared no expense on.

But he didn't find himself thinking of his trip. The conversation still sat open on his phone. Nothing important, just the giant chicken staring back at him amongst a handful of messages and a stupid amount of amusement considering the subject matter.

After a minute, he locked the screen and set the phone aside. Then despite himself, he found his gaze drifting back towards it as though another message might somehow appear.

He'd be crossing into North Dakota soon and if he happened to see anything ridiculous along the way…

Well he knew exactly who he'd send it to.

-

The next few days followed suit. You and Robby started speaking like it was part of your routines without ever actually agreeing to it.

Nothing constant or heavy, just small check-ins threaded through the day. Snapshots from the road. Snapshots from the ER.

Things you'd caught out of the corner of your eye like the giant pigeon on a fire escape outside the hospital that made you stop mid-conversation just to take a picture.

Food also became a kind of currency between you. The home-cooked meals you'd send, still steaming on the plate whilst he'd drop his roadside breakfasts, gas station coffee, or whatever local specialty he'd found himself staring at that day.

You started waiting for the messages without really meaning to. Both of you did.

Robby:

This morning's view

You:

versus my morning's view

—

You:

i'm going old school and listening to your CDs

you have good taste old man

Robby:

I'll ignore those last two words and take it as a compliment...

—

Robby:

Got caught in a thunderstorm on the road today

You:

😭😭😭 😭 😭 omg

just know i'd be laughing if i were there

—

You:

robby

a guy came in today with an action figure up his ass

and dana made whitaker deal with it

Robby:

Nothing says good evening quite like a HIPAA violation

You:

i know you won't tell x

—

Somewhere between shifts and miles, the apartment stopped being the reason you spoke. It just became something that existed in the background, as if you'd both forgotten the house-sitting gig and this was all normal.

An excuse that had quietly turned into a habit. You didn't really notice the shift until one night you didn't text him at all.

Not on purpose, because of pure exhaustion. A shift that ran too long, a body too tired to think in sentences.

And on his end, Robby found himself checking his phone more than he liked to admit. Each time with a little more irritation than the last.

"Stupid." He muttered under his breath, tossing the phone face-down on the bed.

It didn't stay there long since he picked it back up a minute later.

His trip was still everything it was supposed to be. Long stretches of highway and peaceful mornings. Mountains, towns, weather that changed without warning.

It was all the kind of distance he'd been looking for and for the most part, the noise in his head had settled. It wasn't gone, he needed more than a solo road trip to fix that but it was quieter.

It was at its quietest when you text. Or when he took a picture and thought, without really meaning to, that you'd probably laugh at it.

Then his phone buzzed.

You:

sorry

today's been awful

The irritation disappeared immediately and he sat down properly on the edge of the bed.

For a moment, he stared at the message longer than he needed to. His first instinct was practical, to ask what happened and if you were okay. But it was nearly midnight your time and he knew, instinctively, that whatever you needed wasn't a barrage of questions.

Robby:

Do you want to talk about it?

You:

think i just need bed

speak tomorrow

He stared at the screen a moment longer than he meant to, leaving the chat open, your name sitting at the top of it. He didn't reply.

There wasn't anything else to say that wouldn't feel like too much.

-

The next day didn't actually bring a text. Or the day after that.

Shift patterns blurred together in the ER anyway, time measured in admissions and discharge paperwork rather than hours. You were exhausted, that was your excuse for not texting Robby. But by the second night, you were wondering what his excuse was.

It wasn't anything dramatic, just… absent.

No photos from the road or pointless updates about whatever strange thing he'd stopped to look at. There'd been no diner food commentary that made you roll your eyes while smiling at your phone.

You told yourself it made sense. Robby was on a bike somewhere between states and you were drowning in back-to-back shifts. There wasn't always going to be time.

Still, your phone felt heavier in your pocket than usual.

On his end, Robby told himself the same thing.

He'd spent most of the day on the road, miles of open highway stretching out ahead of him, the kind of silence he'd gone looking for. It should have felt good and it did, mostly. But every time he stopped for fuel, or pulled off to check a map, his hand drifted to his phone out of habit.

There he would find no new messages and he told himself that was normal.

It was normal. Until it wasn't.

-

It happened on a night that started like any other.

You'd left the hospital later than you meant to, fatigue settling into your bones in that familiar way that made everything feel slightly delayed.

The apartment was quiet when you got back.

You climbed the stairs and only realised something was wrong when your keys didn't turn properly in the lock. You tried it once, twice, three times and nothing. You paused then tried again but the lock didn't budge.

"Oh come on," you muttered under your breath.

You stared at the door for a second, exhaustion making it harder to think than it should have.

Of course this was happening now.

You pulled your phone out, looking who to burden with your troubles and force to come to your rescue. For a second, you considered calling Mckay but her shift had been just as rough as yours and Ellis' night was only just starting in the ER, suddenly you were out of options.

Your thumb hovered. Then moved.

In some hotel in one of the Dakotas, Robby's phone lit up on the bedside. His brow furrowed slightly, not expecting to see your name across the screen.

"Hello?"

Your voice came through slightly breathless and oh so tired.

"Hi," you said. "I have a problem."

He sat up a little straighter without thinking. "Are you okay?"

You let out a short laugh that didn't quite sound amused. "Your lock hates me." There was a pause.

Then, quieter, "Which one?"

"Front door."

"Right," he said. "Stay there."

"I am there."

"No," he corrected. "I mean don't try anything else. Just- stay."

You leaned back against the wall, sliding down slightly until you were sitting on the floor outside his apartment door.

"Robby," you said, "I am physically incapable of breaking your door at this point. I'm too tired to commit crimes."

That earned a small exhale of something that might have been a laugh.

"Good," he said. "I prefer it that way."

There was movement on his end. Fabric shifting, something being set down.

"Okay," he added. "Walk me through what happened."

-

The locksmith said he'd be there in twenty minutes which, judging by his tone, probably meant thirty. You thanked him anyway before ending the call and letting your head fall back against the apartment door.

"Well," you sighed, stretching your legs out in front of you. "Guess I live here now."

The laugh that came through the speaker was soft. You'd heard Robby laugh a hundred times at work, usually in passing conversations or when Dana pulled it out of him, but hearing it through the phone felt strangely personal.

"Could be worse."

"How?"

He was quiet for a moment.

"I'll let you know when I think of something."

You smiled. For a while, neither of you said anything.

The silence wasn't awkward, which surprised you. You could hear faint traffic somewhere on his end of the line, the distant sound of a television through a hotel wall perhaps.

"Where are you?" you asked eventually.

“Just outside Sioux Falls."

"Fancy..." You shifted against the wall, tucking one knee up towards your chest. "How's the trip?"

There was a pause. Not because he wasn't going to answer, but because he seemed to actually think about it.

"Good." You waited. "Actually, really good."

"Wow."

"What?"

"I don't think I've ever heard you sound that enthusiastic about anything."

"That's not true."

"Robby, I've worked with you for eight months."

"And?"

"The highlight of your emotional range is usually a nod."

That earned a proper laugh. The kind that made you grin before you'd even realised you were doing it. Why were your cheeks getting hot at the idea of making him laugh?

"That's harsh."

"I think you mean accurate."

"I'll have you know I've been having a great time."

“The giant chicken gave it away."

"Don't mock the chicken."

"I'll mock the chicken all I want."

He sighed dramatically. "This is exactly why I send you things."

Your smile lingered, you weren't entirely sure why. Like even if you wanted to get rid of it you couldn't. Maybe because it was nice knowing someone saw something during their day and thought to share it with you. Or maybe because lately, you'd been doing the same thing.

"Seriously though," you said. "I'm glad you're enjoying yourself."

The teasing slipped away a little and you could hear it in his voice when he answered.

"Yeah. I think I needed it more than I realised."

You looked down at the floor. You'd thought that yourself. The difference in him was obvious, even through a screen. The texts were lighter. There was an ease to him that hadn't existed back in Pittsburgh.

"You sound happier."

He didn't answer immediately.

"Maybe."

It wasn't much of a response. Coming from Robby, it felt like a confession.

The conversation drifted after that. Work came up eventually, because it always did. You told him about the latest departmental disaster and he laughed harder than he probably should have at Whitaker's expense. Then somehow you ended up talking about music, and when you admitted you'd been making your way through his CD collection, he spent five minutes defending an album you'd called objectively terrible.

Before either of you realised it, headlights swept across the apartment parking lot. You glanced through the stairwell window to see a white van pulling in.

"Oh."

"What?"

"That's him." You pushed yourself to your feet, brushing imaginary dust from your scrubs. "The locksmith."

"Right."

You checked the time. Nearly forty minutes since you'd spoken to him on the phone.

For a moment, neither of you said anything. Then you laughed softly.

"I don't think we've ever actually spoken like this before."

"Spoken like what?"

"Just…" You searched for the right words. "Talked."

He huffed a laugh. "We talk all the time."

"About work."

"Hmm. True."

You shook your head. "I know more about a giant prairie chicken than I do about you."

"Now that's probably not true."

"It definitely is."

The locksmith was already making his way towards the building entrance. You tightened your grip on the phone.

"Thanks for staying on the phone with me."

The words slipped out before you could think too hard about them and for a second, there was only the sound of his breathing on the other end.

"Of course." Robby said it with such ease, as if there'd never been any question about it. Something in your chest warmed at that.

"I should go."

"Yeah. You should."

Neither of you hung up immediately. You smiled even though he couldn't see.

"Night, Robby."

"Night."

-

Robby eventually made it to Alberta, trading motels and roadside diners for a cabin tucked between trees and more open sky than you'd ever seen in one place. The photos changed after that. It was less giant roadside attractions and more mountains, lakes so still they looked painted. Sunrises taken from a porch with a mug of coffee balanced somewhere just out of frame.

Your own contributions remained considerably less scenic.

You:

this mornings view

Robby:

Stunning!

You:

i know

thinking of getting it framed

Robby:

You should. Really ties a room together

The conversations drifted in and out of your days. Sometimes twenty messages. Sometimes two.

But there was rarely a day that passed without hearing from him. It had become your normal and that probably should have concerned you more than it did.

One afternoon you were halfway through a grocery shop when your phone buzzed.

Robby:

What's for dinner?

You snorted. Most days he was interested in what you were cooking, never quite getting over how good that carbonara looked weeks ago.

You:

demanding aren't we?

Robby:

I've been living off campfire food

Let me live vicariously

You balanced the basket awkwardly on your hip. Typing with one hand was becoming increasingly impossible so after a moment you sighed and held down the microphone button.

"Okay, so technically I haven't decided yet," you said, navigating around a woman studying avocados with suspicious intensity. "But I was thinking maybe chicken, potatoes, something easy because I had a twelve hour shift and Mckay spent most of it arguing with a guy who was convinced Red Bull counts as water."

You stopped recording and sent it, immediately forgetting about it as you continued to shop.

Robby was sitting on the cabin porch when the notification appeared. A voice note.

For a second he just looked at it before pressing play. Your voice spilled through the speaker, lighter than he was used to hearing at work, less hurried.

He could hear the wheels of a shopping cart somewhere in the background, people talking. The automatic doors opening and closing. It felt strangely intimate. Like being invited into a moment he wasn't supposed to be part of.

Before he knew it, the recording had ended and he found himself smiling Then replaying the first few seconds just to hear it again.

Robby:

Red bull absolutely counts as water

You:

you're part of the problem

-

A few days later you sent him a photo of a coffee shop you'd stumbled into before work. The picture was supposed to be of the ridiculous chalkboard menu, pretentious and completely overpriced.

Unfortunately, the reflection in the window caught most of your face and you didn't even notice before pressing send.

But Robby did.

He was halfway through replying when he stopped and stared at the photo. Then stared a little longer.

It wasn't as though he'd forgotten what you looked like, he'd worked beside you for months, seen you almost every day and yet somehow seeing your face appear unexpectedly on his screen felt different. Like it was more personal than bumping into you across an ER.

He zoomed in without meaning to then immediately felt ridiculous.

Robby:

That coffee costs more than my first apartment

You:

i knew you'd focus on the important issue

He didn't mention the photo but it stayed open on his screen longer than necessary.

The next Saturday night, you went out with friends.

The three you socialised with maybe once a month, the ones you'd gone out with on your first week at Robby's.

The evening disappeared beneath cocktails, bad music and stories that got funnier with every retelling. By the time you got home, your shoes were in one hand and your keys were in the other.

Your phone buzzed before you'd even made it upstairs.

Robby:

Survived?

You:

barely

my feet are filing formal complaints

Robby:

Worth it?

You:

yeah

free drinks always help

There was a pause before the typing bubbles appeared then they seemed to disappear before appearing once more.

Robby:

Free drinks?

You:

some guy at the bar bought them

either he was being nice or I looked desperately in need of a margarita

Robby stared at the screen. For reasons he couldn't quite explain, he found himself reading the message twice.

Some guy.

An entirely normal sentence since people bought drinks for each other every day. It meant absolutely nothing. Yet his thumb hovered over the keyboard.

Robby:

Which was it?

The message sent before he could overthink it and he immediately regretted it. Not because it was inappropriate, just because he sounded interested.

And he wasn't sure why he was interested.

You:

definitely the margarita

he started talking about crypto ten minutes in

That pulled a laugh out of him. An actual laugh.

Robby:

My condolences

You:

thank you

it was a difficult time

The conversation moved on after that. But later, after you'd gone to sleep and the cabin had settled into silence around him, Robby found himself thinking about the message again.

Not the drinks. Not the guy. But the fact that he'd wanted to know. And the fact he still wasn't entirely sure why.

-

You hadn't really talked about the house sitting arrangement to anyone at work.

It never seemed relevant and, if you were honest, you quite liked having something that belonged entirely to you. That was until Abbot casually asked how it was going in front of Parker and Shen. Both of them had turned so quickly you would have thought they'd rehearsed it.

John loudly slurped through his straw.

You immediately regretted coming into work.

You'd spent the next five minutes trying to explain that, yes, you were staying at Robby's apartment and no, it wasn't a big deal. At the same time, you were reassuring Abbot that everything was fine and that the place was still standing.

Parker wasn't convinced. She waited until the handover was done and everyone had started drifting away before falling into step beside you as you gathered your things from your locker.

You'd only just pulled your phone out when it buzzed. The smile arrived before you could stop it and Parker saw immediately.

"Message from your boyfriend?"

"Just Robby-”

You stopped and looked up to see her already grinning.

"Oh."

"Oh indeed."

"Haha. Very funny."

"I'm just saying," she replied, holding her hands up in mock surrender. "That man hasn't been here for nearly two months and I've heard his name more than I have some of the attendings who actually work here."

You rolled your eyes. Except the comment lingered because you didn't talk about him that much. Did you?

Sure, you texted most days, you snapped pictures when something made you laugh. You answered when he called and never made a secret of it because, in your mind, there was nothing to hide.

But maybe Parker had a point.

You were always quick to tell people where he was, what he'd been up to, what ridiculous thing he'd sent you that morning. You were also one of maybe three people who actually knew how his sabbatical was going and that felt strangely significant when you stopped to think about it.

Which was exactly why you decided not to think about it. Instead, you bumped your shoulder into Parker's arm.

"Leave me alone."

"Never."

You laughed despite yourself, waved goodbye to everyone and headed out through the main doors.

-

Even without a department full of doctors reminding him, Robby found himself thinking about you more often than he probably should.

Alberta was beautiful, exactly what he'd imagined.

The mountains seemed endless, the lakes impossibly clear and every evening the sky stretched so wide it barely looked real.

He'd come here to breathe. To remember what it felt like to wake up without immediately carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

For the first time in years, it was working and yet every time he stumbled across a view that took his breath away, he caught himself reaching for his phone.

The bear he'd spotted at the edge of a trail or the river he'd nearly slipped into while trying to take a photo. The sunset that turned the entire lake gold. All of it was filed away somewhere in the back of his mind. Something to show you, to tell you later.

He enjoyed those moments for himself, he really did, but there was always a second thought afterwards. A quiet one of she'd like this.

And that was dangerous territory for a man who had left Pittsburgh specifically to be alone.

-

Today had been a bad day for absolutely no reason. Work hadn't been worse than usual. There was no mass casualty or outbreak, no disaster waiting for you.

You'd left almost on time and the handover had been unusually smooth yet, somehow, by the time you found yourself curled up on the sofa with a glass of wine balanced on your knee, you felt like you might burst into tears.

You probably wouldn't but it was comforting to know you could if you wanted to.

The apartment was quiet. A CD hummed softly in the background while the evening light spilled through the windows. You'd been enjoying the solitude for weeks now.

Your phone lit up. A text from Robby. It was just a small update about his day, a picture of a lake with a note underneath telling you there was a viewpoint about a mile from the cabin that you would absolutely love.

You stared at it for a second and then pressed call without thinking.

The phone rang twice.

"Hey, you okay?" He'd answered immediately.

Not because he'd been expecting the call but quite the opposite.

You almost smiled at the concern in his voice.

"Hey. Yeah, I'm good."

"You sure?"

"Yeah." A pause. "Can you talk?"

On the other side of the continent, Robby was sitting on the cabin porch with a beer bottle in hand, watching the sky darken over the mountains.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I can talk."

You exhaled. You weren't entirely sure why. Just hearing his voice had already made something feel lighter.

"Bad day?" he asked gently.

"A little."

"Want to talk about it?"

You considered it.

"Not really."

He laughed quietly. "Fair enough."

You took a sip of wine.

"Does it sound stupid if I say I just wanted to hear your voice?"

The words slipped out before you could stop them.

For a moment, all you could hear was the wind moving through the trees on his end of the line. Then Robby shifted in his chair.

"Well," he said, amusement colouring his voice, "I sure feel special."

You groaned. "Don't make it weird.”

"I'm not making it weird."

"You absolutely are."

His laugh settled something warm in your chest.

"I can tell you about the bear I saw today if you need a distraction."

You smiled. "Yes please."

And he did. He told you about the trail, about spotting movement through the trees and realising it was considerably larger than he'd first thought. Halfway through the story your phone buzzed with a picture he'd sent while still talking.

You put him on speaker to zoom in, immediately informing him that he was insane for getting that close. He disagreed.

You told him he was objectively wrong then somehow you were refilling your wine while he wandered into the kitchen for another beer and the conversation simply kept going.

Hours slipped past unnoticed. The topics changed every few minutes. Canadian wildlife became grocery shopping.

Grocery shopping became work which became Dana. Dana became the night you'd gone out with your friends. It felt effortless.

Like no matter what either of you said, the other would find it interesting, as if there were no rush to end the conversation.

Eventually, somewhere between your third glass and his third beer, Robby circled back to something you'd almost forgotten.

"So," he said casually. "Any more plans to go out and let random men buy you drinks?"

You scoffed. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but that sounds suspiciously like jealousy, Michael."

Using his first name felt deliberate. The kind of thing you couldn't take back once it left your mouth.

For a moment he didn't answer and you could almost hear him thinking.

"I think I'm just curious."

"Curious?"

"You mentioned him." His voice was careful now. "And then I spent an embarrassing amount of time wondering whether you actually liked him."

Your stomach flipped unexpectedly.

"And did you come to a conclusion?"

He laughed quietly. "Yeah."

"Which was?"

"That anyone who talks about crypto for ten minutes straight probably doesn't stand a chance."

The warmth that spread through you had nothing to do with the wine. You sank further into the sofa, smiling into your glass.

"Good answer."

For a second neither of you spoke. The silence felt different now, like an awareness blooming.

On the other end of the line, Robby stared out across the darkening lake, suddenly very conscious of the weight in his chest and the dryness in his mouth. He wasn't entirely sure when the conversation had become the best part of his day.

He was even less sure what that meant.

On your end, the wine bottle was looking considerably emptier than when the call had started.

"How much longer have you got out there anyway?" you asked eventually.

He leaned back in his chair.

"Couple more weeks."

You hummed. "A couple?"

"Three."

You did the maths automatically. Three weeks. For some reason that felt shorter than it should have.

"That's weird."

"What is?"

"You coming back."

Robby laughed softly. “I haven't left forever."

"I know."

You picked absentmindedly at the label on your wine bottle.

"Still weird though."

He understood exactly what you meant. The cabin had become normal, so had the mountains. Waking up and sending you a picture of whatever he'd found that day had become normal too.

The thought settled uncomfortably somewhere in his chest.

"Yeah," he admitted quietly. "It is."

For a moment neither of you spoke. The silence wasn't awkward, if anything, it felt too honest.

"You'll probably be sick of Pittsburgh again within forty-eight hours."

He laughed.

"Probably."

"And I'll have to move back into my shoebox apartment."

He laughed again.

"You laugh, but I've become accustomed to luxury."

"My apartment is not luxury."

"It has an en-suite."

"It does."

You smiled into your glass.

"I'm gonna miss it."

The words came out before you really thought about them and then, after a beat, you added, "The apartment, I mean."

Robby looked out across the lake. The moonlight stretched across the water in silver streaks. He wasn't entirely sure why that qualifier felt necessary.

"Yeah."

Because he was going to miss something too, he just wasn't sure it was the apartment.

"I'm glad I gave you the keys."

The words slipped out naturally.

"Because I've been such an excellent tenant?"

"Questionable."

You laughed. "Rude."

"You locked yourself out and you don't use coasters."

"That happened one time. And yes I do."

"One time that I know about. And, no you don't."

You shook your head, laughing. "So why are you glad?"

The question hung there. For the first time that evening, Robby didn't answer immediately. He could have made a joke and he probably should have but instead he found himself telling the truth.

"Because otherwise…" He trailed off and you waited. "Otherwise I don't think we'd have ever talked like this."

Something in your chest tightened, just enough to make you still. The sounds around you seemed to disappear for a second. The music, hum of the refrigerator, everything.

"Yeah."

It came out quieter than you'd intended. Because he was right.

Without the apartment, he would've stayed your attending, you his resident. You would've chatted during shifts and maybe grabbed a beer with a group after work once or twice.

But this? The hours spent on the phone, the daily messages, knowing what the other person had for dinner. Sharing parts of yourselves that had nothing to do with medicine.

None of that would've happened.

"I guess not."

Robby stared down at the bottle in his hand. His pulse felt oddly loud.

"Would've been a shame."

The words were barely above a murmur. Honest enough that neither of you quite knew what to do with them. You swallowed. Suddenly very aware of the warmth spreading through your stomach.

And not because of the wine.

Another silence settled between you but this one felt different. It felt full. Like there was something sitting quietly between the two of you that hadn't been there before. Or maybe it had and neither of you had looked directly at it until now.

"Yeah," you said softly. "It would've."

For a second, neither of you spoke, neither of you hung up either.

Somewhere between Alberta and Pittsburgh, with a lake outside one window and city lights outside the other, it felt like the conversation had shifted onto unfamiliar ground.

Not enough to turn back yet not enough to move forward. Just enough that both of you knew something had changed.

-

The next morning arrived with a headache.

Not a catastrophic one, just enough of one to remind you that two glasses of wine had somehow become four and how you clearly couldn't handle your booze anymore.

Thank god it was your day off. You'd spent most of the morning moving slowly, making a trip to the store for supplies before returning to the apartment with a bag full of groceries, painkillers and absolutely no intention of leaving the house again.

After a shower, you pulled on an oversized t-shirt, climbed into bed and put something mindless on the TV. You weren't really watching it. Your attention kept drifting back to your phone. In between doom scrolling TikTok, you kept flipping to your messages.

Nothing from Robby.

You told yourself it was normal since he was a couple of hours behind. He could still be asleep or hiking, he could be doing literally anything.

Still, your thumb hovered over the conversation and you found yourself thinking through parts of last night's call. Especially the end.

Would've been a shame.

You groaned and tossed the phone onto the bed beside you. "Get a grip."

The phone buzzed almost immediately.

You grabbed it so fast it was actually embarrassing.

Robby:

Morning

You:

afternoon actually

Robby:

Right

How's the hangover?

You:

presumptuous much?

Robby:

I'll take that as confirmation

You:

i’ve survived worse

Robby:

Doctor approved medical assessment

You:

exactly

The conversation stayed comfortably familiar at first. Small things, nothing important. What he'd done that morning and what you were doing now. The weather in Canada versus Pittsburgh. The coffee he'd burnt.

You laughed quietly at something he'd sent and snapped a quick picture in response.

Mostly intending to show him the disaster of snacks you'd surrounded yourself with on the bed.

You hit send before really looking at it.

A few moments passed, longer than usual. You frowned.

You:

???

The typing bubbles appeared.

Robby:

You know you're in that photo right?

You opened the image again. Your stomach immediately dropped.

Between the blankets and the snacks was a very obvious stretch of bare leg disappearing beneath the hem of your t-shirt. If you zoomed you could definitely see the edge of lace from your panties.

Heat crept into your cheeks.

You:

well

too late now

His reply took a little longer this time.

Robby:

Suppose it is

Something about the message felt different though you couldn't have explained why.

The conversation slowed. Not because either of you wanted it to end but because both of you seemed suddenly aware of it. Aware of each other.

You:

you're being weird

Robby:

I am not

You:

you absolutely are

Robby:

And what if I'm just thinking?

You:

dangerous

Robby:

That's rich coming from you

You laughed and the tension eased for a moment then returned just as quickly. The phone sat warm in your hand. Neither of you quite saying what was on your mind.

Both of you hovering suspiciously close to it.

Then-

A knock sounded at the apartment door. You sat upright.

"Oh for god's sake."

You:

one sec

Robby:

What?

You:

someones here

terrible timing honestly

Robby:

That sounds ominous

You:

don't go anywhere

Robby:

Wasn't planning on it

You tossed the phone onto the bed and headed for the door.

When you pulled it open, Abbot stood on the other side with two coffees in hand, looking entirely too pleased with himself.

"Jack?"

"Good afternoon."

You stared. He stared back.

"Why are you here?"

"Robby asked me to check the place hadn't burned down."

You folded your arms.

"And?"

Jack looked past you.

"Still standing."

By the time Abbot eventually left, the afternoon had slipped away with him. He'd actually brought you coffee because he was passing by, knew Robby cared about you and wanted to check in. Sweet actually.

Your conversation with Robby had fizzled into a couple of harmless messages before disappearing entirely which somehow felt worse. Because now you were thinking about it and judging by the phone call that arrived later that evening, so was he.

You answered on the second ring.

"Hello?"

"I can't believe you left me hanging like that."

You laughed immediately. "Excuse me?"

"We were having a conversation."

"Jack showed up at your apartment."

"And somehow that's my fault?"

"Everything's your fault."

His laugh crackled through the speaker.

"You know," he said, quieter this time, "I did actually spend the next few hours wondering what happened."

Your heart stumbled slightly.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

There was a pause. Comfortable but dangerous.

"Well," you said, settling deeper into the sofa. "Lucky for you, I'm free now."

The silence on the other end lasted just long enough to make your stomach flip. Then Robby laughed softly.

"Good."

The word settled somewhere low and God you hated that it did. Or maybe you loved it. Either way, you found yourself smiling into the darkness of the apartment.

"You sound very pleased with yourself."

"I am."

You laughed softly.

"Because I answered the phone?"

"Because I was beginning to think Abbot had kidnapped you."

"Trust me, if he'd kidnapped me, you'd know about it."

You eased into conversation again, tucking yourself deeper beneath the blanket, listening to him talk about a trail he'd found that morning. He was halfway through describing some impossible view over a lake when he suddenly stopped.

"Can I ask you something?"

You frowned. "Depends."

"That picture earlier."

Your pulse immediately betrayed you. "What about it?"

There was a pause. "Nothing."

You laughed. "That's not how questions work."

"I know."

"So?"

Another pause. You could practically hear him weighing his words.

"I just didn't realise you'd sent it like that."

Heat crept up your neck.

"Like what?"

"You know exactly what I mean."

Unfortunately, you did.

The worst part was how carefully he was speaking. How neither of you was actually saying anything and yet somehow both of you knew exactly what the other was talking about.

"It was an accident."

"I figured."

"You sound disappointed at that."

The silence that followed lasted a fraction too long. Your breath caught, just slightly. Then Robby laughed low and quiet.

"That's a dangerous thing to accuse me of."

You stared at the ceiling. Very aware of the oversized t-shirt you were still wearing and how your nipples were suddenly hard beneath it.

"I think you've become a lot more confident since Alberta."

"Oh yeah? Is that a bad thing?" he asked.

"No, it's kinda sexy actually." You laughed, so did he. Then a second passed and you felt the boldness creep in, so much so it decided your next move. "Do you want me to send another?"

You could practically hear Robby choke on his own breath and in the time he tried to get on top of his words, you'd pulled the blanket away, your phone up high with the front camera on, snapping a pic that showed a lot more than the last.

This time it was the bottom of your face, lips plump and pouty, your t-shirt tugged 'innocently' higher to give way to the band of your panties flashed across your hip. Your legs were crossed, not for the picture but to try and ease the now insatiable ache between them. As for your nipples? There was no denying they were the star of the show.

You sent it before thinking twice.

"Fuck." Robby breathed and you knew he was looking right at you.

"Is that better?"

You heard him take a deep breath and could imagine the blush on his cheeks. "You're gonna be the death of me."

You couldn't help but smile. His voice had gotten lower, a little huskier, almost like he was out of breath.

"Robby?"

"Yeah?" He breathed.

"What are we doing?"

He took a minute to answer. Not sure of what he should say, what he wanted to say. "I don't know." You couldn't see but he rubbed his face over his hand, coming to rest at the base of his neck. "I don't fucking know."

He was sat on the sofa at the cabin. The fire was going, lights dim and warm. Ever since you'd sent that first picture he'd been tight against his jeans but then you sent another and fuck, his hand came to adjust himself over the denim.

"But I'm not sure I can pretend I'm thinking of anything other than that picture right now."

You felt a little smug. That was, after all, why you sent it. It was so nice to feel sexy, for someone to be looking at you the way he was, someone you wanted to see you this way.

"Yeah? What you thinking about?" You knew what you were doing. Knew how it would draw the last breath out of him but you also knew you'd crossed a line and there was no going back. Not that you wanted to.

Your hands trailed over yourself, light touches over the cotton of your t-shirt. Your body jolted when finger tips ghosted the outline of a nipple, trailing left to pay the other as much attention. Fuck, it felt good.

Robby knew the pair of you were in dangerous territory but god, he wanted to be there. His head fell back in disbelief, as if he were mad at himself for what he was about to tell you over the phone.

His resident.

"You touching yourself in my apartment." He paused, waiting to see if he'd taken it too far only to hear a quiet moan from you in response. "Playing with yourself in the guest bedroom..."

"I am." Your hand snaked from your tits slowly to your panties, cupping yourself over the lace and that's when you felt it. "Fuck Robby I'm really wet…”

Jesus Christ. He felt himself jolt against his own hand, the one that was palming the growing outline of his cock.

"Fuck, baby. You're really trying to kill me huh?" He huffed a laugh, shaking his head in disbelief that this was happening. Almost three months of texts, phone calls, voice notes. A camera roll shared, bad days eased by mindless humour and companionship. A relationship built on all of that.

"You want me to go to your bed?" You almost panted down the line as you moved against your hand. "Fuck myself in your sheets?"

"Shit," He exhaled.

"You want that?"

"Yeah…" His reply was too fast and he cursed himself for it. But all he wanted was the image of you, two fingers deep, coming to his voice while soaking his bed spread. "Please baby, do it for me."

And with that, you got up. He heard rustling down the line as you made your way from the guest bed to Robby's. It wasn't a room you'd gone in much. You'd said you were going to snoop through his drawers, his closet just to be nosy but turns out you had too much respect for his privacy. That was months ago. Now you were crawling onto the bed, setting your phone on speaker next to you as you positioned yourself right in the middle.

Robby was waiting patiently. He'd done no more than rub himself a few times over his jeans, grinding a little into his hand but then knowing it'd be too much and he'd end up blowing his load like a teenager. Instead, he waited. For you. To enjoy you.

You laid your head back against his pillows, inhaling him as if he were right next to you. "Mmm, smells like you in here." You said quietly. "It's like you're here."

He wished he was there. You did too. Wished it was his fingers swiping through your wetness, dipping into your panties and feeling how worked up you'd got from sending him one (not even) dirty photo.

"Tell me what you're doing." It felt like an order even though it wasn't and your pussy jumped at the idea. "Wanna hear you."

"Fuck. 'M rubbing myself over my panties." You whispered lightly. "Wanna take them off."

"Take them off baby." He'd hoped you'd throw them to the side and forget, only for him to find them on his return. "Spread your legs, let me hear."

It'd be hard for him not to hear with how soaked you were.

It was amazing how one phone conversation and suddenly this is how you found yourself, legs open for Michael Robinavitch.

With your panties gone, you anchored your legs apart. Fingers sliding through your dripping slit, gathering your arousal to swirl it in tight circles around your clit. The slick sounds filled the room, they filled the cabin too.

Robby couldn't take it anymore. You heard the sound of metal, a belt unbuckling before a zip slid down in haste. He freed himself, pulling his cock from his boxers, thick and hard. He was leaking from the tip, all red and worked up just from listening to you. It felt so fucking good when he finally stroked himself.

"Oh fuck." He tried to bite it back, failing miserably.

That was music to your ears.

"You hard for me Robby?"

"You have no idea. Feels so fuckin good, thinking about you." He fucked his fist nice and slow, wanting this to last and despite his cock not being inside you, he wanted you to cum first.

You decide it wasn't enough. After all this time, the calls and the pictures, you needed to see him. And you wanted him to see you.

"Wanna see you." You picked up your phone, hand still working your pussy. "Can I face- face time you?" Your words faltered a little as your fingers sped up, rubbing your sensitive clit.

Robby froze for a second. He'd got this worked up just by thinking of you in such a state and now, you were actually going to show him?

"Mhmm, yeah."

And within a second you'd pressed the button the change this to a video call. When he accepted, he saw the dark room lit by a single bedside lamp. You'd slowed your motions for a second, to pick up the phone properly and see him for the first time in months.

"Hey." You smiled, like it didn't matter what the pair of you had been doing just seconds ago. You were so happy to see his face. The slight tan he'd caught, his greyed out beard and stubble around the neck.

"Hey." He couldn't help but smile too. Knowing your hands were down your pants but not being able to get past the heat in your cheeks, how your hair had fallen across the bed and despite stating you had a hangover, you were fucking glowing.

He pondered it for a second, how he might have not noticed this before. The way your eyes narrowed when you smiled, how you looked at him.

"You look beautiful."

That might have turned you on more than anything in the last fifteen minutes. You were breathless, a little wrecked, in disbelief at any of this.

Then you set the phone down on the bedside table to free up your hands. That's when you pulled off the t-shirt entirely, leaving your perfect tits in plain view for Robby to see.

His eyes grew wide as he surveyed every inch of your skin before you laid back into the cushions as you were before, shifting to your side facing the phone.

"Is this what you were thinking about?" You snaked your hand back down to your cunt, dipping in but not all the way, just enough for Robby to hear the slick mess.

"Even better." His hand slowly started to work on himself again, matching your rhythm as he held the phone in front of him.

Your mouth parted when you finally sank a finger inside, then another. Two digits curled deep in your pussy, rolling your hips against them and you never took your eyes off him.

"Fuck Robby." You sped your motions a little, so did he. "Wish it was your fingers, wish it was you inside me."

You weren't sure where it came from. The filthy tongue, the boldness. You weren't shy in bed but he was your boss. The boss you were innocently house sitting for until you decided to get attached.

"Christ." He bit back a moan at your obscenity. "Imagine it's me baby." He started fucking his fist faster, wishing it was your pussy. "Imagine it's my cock deep inside you, I'd fuck you so good, make you feel so fucking good."

It dropped from his tongue with little effort. He thought about how much he wanted to be buried inside you, how he'd wanted that for a while and was too scared to admit it.

"Mmmph Robbyyyy." You whined his name, breathing hard, riding your fingers as you felt the coil tighten in your belly. "Let me see you."

He did the same as you, positioning the phone on the side table that sat at the same height as the sofa. It left him in view from the waist up, free hand roaming his covered chest, the other pumping his cock hard.

You watched him intently. Heard the sounds of precum slickening his strokes as his hips drove up with every beat.

"Fuck I'm close-” You worked yourself with both hands, two buried to the knuckle and the other rubbing your clit with such ferocity. "Really fucking close Robby I think I'm gonna cum soon."

"Cum for me angel, let me see. Such a good girl."

Your hands worked even faster and suddenly, the coil snapped with words of praise and you were coming in Robby's bed.

"Oh my god oh my-” Then silence, your body went rigid as you clamped your hands hard, riding out the most intense orgasm you'd had in years.

You were a sight for sore eyes. Mouth wide open, tits bouncing with every movement and all it took was your guttoral moans for Robby to feel himself close to the edge too. He was fucking himself so hard and fast, it was almost a blur on screen until you heard him pant, a strangled "Uh uh uh" and then-

"I'm gonna cum baby oh fuck-”

You watched him spill his load all over his hand. Thick white ropes dripped down his knuckles, marking his jeans as he stroked himself through it, twitching at his now very sensitive cockhead.

You were both left breathless and sweaty, each reaching for your respective phones.

"You-” He was trying so hard to catch his breath. "-are something else."

You both laughed breathlessly. Fuck, this felt good.

You stayed on the phone for hours after until he ordered you to bed. Told you to sleep well, that he'd be thinking of you.

And that night was the best sleep of your life.

-

Everything felt different after that night except it also all stayed the same.

You spoke every day. Called most nights, FaceTimed, voice noted when you were cooking dinner or carrying groceries. But now it seemed like nothing was left unsaid, that you were both being honest with each other. It was amazing.

The only thing eating away at you right before you fell asleep was the idea this might end. When the three weeks crept closer, when the sabbatical would end. Would everything go back to how it was before?

"Hey can I ask you something?" You broke mid conversation.

"Anything."

"When this is over. Your sabbatical I mean. When you come back and I'm not here." You trailed off slightly. "...Will this all go away?"

There was silence on the line for a second.

"Not if I have anything to do with it."

Your smile reached your ears. Good because-” You inhaled deeply. "I don't think I can go back."

-

You worked like a dog over the next four days.

At one point you'd even picked up a double because Lena had practically begged for night shift cover, and despite every intention of saying no, somehow you'd found yourself agreeing anyway.

It meant you barely saw daylight all week and you didn't get to speak to Robby much either. Not in the way either of you would've liked.

You checked in between shifts, during breaks and whenever you made it home with enough energy to keep your eyes open. He'd send the occasional text during the day, but most of your conversations happened at night. Sometimes a quick call, sometimes longer if exhaustion didn't drag you under first.

It was a brutal four days. By the end of it you were running almost entirely on caffeine and stubbornness, convinced you'd briefly developed double vision somewhere around shift three.

When you finally crawled into bed at the end of it all, you slept hard.

Since your FaceTime call, you hadn't stepped foot in the guest room. Every night you ended up in Robby's bed instead, tangled in his sheets and surrounded by things that smelled faintly like him.

He loved knowing that.

Day five arrived with something close to actual rest. You woke around nine and, for the first time all week, didn't feel like death.

After a shower you made coffee, pulled on some loungewear that wasn't technically pyjamas and settled onto the sofa with every intention of finally finishing the book you'd started at the beginning of all this.

You'd texted Robby before getting in the shower. There was still no reply. You assumed he was asleep or hiking or somewhere without signal. Either way, you weren't worried.

Twenty-five minutes later there was a knock at the door. You sighed immediately.

It had to be Jack.

Apparently nobody trusted you to spend three months in an apartment unsupervised.

Already preparing your speech, you marched towards the door and pulled it open.

The words died in your throat.

"Robby."

For a second your brain simply stopped working. Because Robby was supposed to be in Canada. Robby was supposed to be another two thousand miles away. Robby was supposed to be a voice coming through your phone speaker. Not standing in front of you.

"Hey."

His smile spread slowly across his face, tired and genuine all at once. His cheeks were pink from the road and his eyes looked glassy around the edges, like he'd spent too many hours behind the handlebars and not nearly enough sleeping.

You stared. "What are you doing here?"

He laughed softly. "Good to see you too."

"No, seriously." You gestured vaguely at him and the doorway. What are you doing here? You were in Canada. That's like-" Your brain searched desperately for a number. "It's like five thousand miles."

"Not quite."

"Robby-”

He kissed you.

Just stepped across the threshold and kissed you.

His hands came up to cup your face as he guided you backwards into the apartment, the front door swinging shut somewhere behind him.

Every thought disappeared. All the questions and confusion, gone.

Because he was here, after months of messages and phone calls and hearing his voice through a screen, he was finally here. The last four days worked in his favour, you being so busy. He'd hit the road almost immediately, covering far too much mileage to be considered safe. All to make it back to you.

You kissed him back immediately, both hungry and relieved. Like you were making up for every mile that had sat between Alberta and Pittsburgh.

When he finally pulled away, it was only far enough to look at you, forehead resting against yours.

"Two and a half thousand miles," he corrected quietly.

You laughed.

For a moment neither of you spoke.

"You know," you murmured, fingers still wrapped around his wrists, "this is a very dramatic way to get your keys back."

Robby laughed, the sound warm and familiar.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

His thumbs swept across your cheeks.

“Good thing I never came back for the keys”

Your heart squeezed.

And this time, when you kissed him, neither of you had anywhere else to be.

[science-hoes]

THE PITT FANFICTION HALL OF FAME 🏆

[kryptidfiles]

Sugar Rush

Pairing David!Clark Kent x Wife!Reader Summary It started with one strawberry. One chocolate. One kiss. While Clark was called away for Superman duties, you indulged. Now, you’re in the bath aching, breathless, and burning waiting for his return. (Home + Chocolates/Strawberries) Tags 18+, MDNIN Smut p in v (unprotected), Accidental Aphrodisiac, Bathtub Sex, Underwater Oral (f receiving, Clark my celestial munch), Praise Kink, Size kink, Dirty Talk, Reader acting stupid horny as hell WC 4.5k

thank you @maiamore for the gif!

Galentine's # 5 by @/wildflowersandvibranium & @/pinksplace| Mrs. Kent Diaries

The bath started as a distraction. 

Something mindless. Something warm. A way to pull yourself out of your body, out of your head, and away from the pulsing ache that had been growing between your navel since dinner. But now, the water was too high and not hot enough and still somehow everything felt too much.

Clark’s name echoed in your head. Unprompted, but so loud and clear, and your whole body clenched.

What the hell did Kara give you?

Your back stuck faintly to the cool porcelain. Your skin prickled despite the cooler temperature, flushed and oversensitive. Your nipples were stiff, darker than usual, puckered tight. And your thighs, God, your thighs hadn’t stopped pressing together, knees drawn up, trying to trap some kind of friction between them, even if it hurt. Even if it made it worse.

The candles didn’t help. Neither did the low, elegant hum of the classical station drifting in from the living room. Everything felt like it was vibrating.

You reached blindly for another strawberry. Ripe. Cold. It burst between your teeth, and juice dribbled to your chin. You sucked it off with a small, breathless sound, heart hammering, eyes fluttering closed as heat pooled lower.

You hadn’t touched yourself. Hadn’t fantasized or flipped through old photos on your phone or even let your hand wander below the waterline. All you’d done was rest one palm over your stomach, slide it down slowly, tentatively, and whisper his name into the crook of your elbow, cheeks burning imagining his face, his hands, his abs. Sweet, steady, devastating handsome Clark. Your Clark.

And that was enough to light you up.

Okay, so you weren't just horny. Not just restless.

You were needy. Desperate. Aching and wet and floating on the edge of something that didn’t make any sense.

A quiet whimper left your lips, breath catching in your throat. The sound echoed louder than it should have in the tile-lined space. Curling forward, you rested your cheek against the rim of the tub, arms folded, your index finger drawing absent circles over the condensation on the tile. Your other hand trailed down to a piece of chocolate resting on a folded napkin beside the tub. The square was soft now, warm from the heat of the bath. You pressed it to your lips

Again, what the hell did Kara give you?!

Let's review: Dinner had been… normal. Sweet. Ordinary, if not for the way it had ended. The two of you tucked into takeout containers on the couch, hips brushing, laughing at the story Clark told about Jimmy leaving a single red rose on the new intern’s desk. It was 'anonymous', but obviously him.

Kara’s gift had been sitting in the fridge all week.

She’d stopped by the weekend before, dropped the box on your kitchen island with a shit-eating grin:

"Got these for you guys," she beamed. "Very rare. Total mood boosters. Or so I’ve heard!"

You hadn’t thought anything of it. The packaging was heart-shaped, the box glossy and red with little floral foil detailing. Just festive enough to be cute, just foreign enough to be intriguing. You figured they’d be perfect for dessert.

So you’d peeled the lid off, popped one of the rich chocolates into your mouth, followed it with one of the bright red strawberries.

And moaned. Loud. Instinctive.

"Dear God, this is almost better than sex," you’d declared, half-laughing, eyes fluttering closed, licking juice from your fingers with puckered lips. You tilted the box toward the light to read it.

It read: "Eltaea chocolates and Solari strawberries — Assortment!" A heart-shaped sticker was slapped on the center, and just below in Kara’s blocky handwriting: "Happy Valentine’s Day! Enjoy, bitches!"

Clark quirked a brow, arms crossed over his chest in mock protest, smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.

"Here—" you grinned, already crawling into his lap, "—you need to try."

You’d fed him the same pair—one chocolate, one berry—your fingers still sticky, your grin too wide. He’d caught your wrist when you pulled back, kissed your fingertips slowly, then kissed you, just as slow. The taste of him mixing with the sugar still hadn’t left your tongue, even after he was called away.

A collapsed bridge. Gas leak. People trapped in traffic under debris. An emergency. 

He’d kissed your temple, forehead, and mouth again, tapping your ass as he motioned for you to shift off his lap. He whispered, "I’ll be right back, sweetheart. I promise."

That had been… what? Thirty minutes ago?

You blinked up at the ceiling, dazed.

Your thighs squeezed together again, and this time the pressure made your back arch. You felt slick even under the water, hypersensitive everywhere, your skin flushed and buzzing. You weren’t imagining this. This wasn’t nerves. Wasn’t routine desire.

Clark wasn’t even here. You rubbed your burning cheek against the cool tub’s edge and moaned loudly from frustration and ache, thighs twitching, nipples brushing against the cool porcelain.

You needed Clark.

.

The balcony door slid open with a dull, echoing thud ten minutes later.

"Sweetheart?"

A familiar voice carried down the hall. Fractured, pitched too high, like they had been running purely on adrenaline. "Where are you?"

Your throat was bone dry when you answered, voice coming out harsher than you meant it to, breathless and needy even to your own ears.

"In here," you called. "In the bath."

There was a pause. Then his quick footsteps thundered toward you.

He appeared in the doorway a heartbeat later and the sight of him stole the air from your lungs.

Soot streaked his jaw and collarbone. His suit was already peeled down to his waist, the top half hanging loose like he’d barely bothered with it, cape dragging behind him in a dark red spill. His curls were wild, pushed back from his forehead by frantic hands, damp with sweat. His chest rose and fell like he’d just flown through hell and back and hadn’t bothered to slow down once he’d crossed the city line.

And the second he saw you bare, lips caught between your teeth, knees drawn, and an expectant, longing look etched on your face.

"Oh," he breathed, bracing one hand on the doorframe. His jaw dropped just a hair, but his pupils were blown so wide there was almost no blue left. "Oh, baby. There you are. Nothing feels as good as coming home to you."

His voice cracked on the last word.

Crossing the room in two steps, he dropped to his knees beside the tub. His large, warm hands slid into your hair, thumbs pressing gently at your sweat-damp temples, fingers massaging behind your ears the way he always did when he was grounding you.

You leaned into him without thinking, forehead tipping toward his touch, breath shuddering.

"Your heartbeat," he whispered, voice husky. "I heard it. Out there. I felt it the whole time. It kept getting faster and I—" He swallowed hard, gaze flicking helplessly over your face, your throat, your chest, the way your breasts strained with every shallow breath. "Gosh, you’re burning up."

"Yeah," you murmured. "I feel… weird. Hot. And empty. Like something’s missing and it hurts." Your fingers curled weakly around his wrist. "Clark, do you feel weird? Because I think—"

You swallowed hard as another wave of pleasure rolled between your legs.

"B-because I think there was something in those treats Kara gave us."

Lifting a hand, you pointed clumsily at the open box perched on the side of the tub, unmistakably lighter than it had been earlier. 

Clark’s eyes followed the motion. His brow creased.

"How many did you eat?" he asked, frowning.

You blinked, trying to think past the fog. "I—I don’t know. The strawberries would’ve gone bad. And those chocolates are… Clark, they’re the richest damn chocolates ever." A breathy, almost-hysterical laugh slipped out. "I think I’m losing it. Oh, fuck."

He stared at you for a long moment, your pulse pounding loud and erratic in his ears, your sweet, warm, unmistakably you scent, just… amplified. Sharpened.

Then quietly: "I feel like I’m losing my mind, too."

He cupped your cheek, palm broad and steady, thumb brushing just beneath your eye. He leaned in close, nuzzling the side of your face like he couldn’t stand even the inch of space between you.

"You smell like sugar and skin and—" His breath hitched. "Hon, you smell so, so sweet. I could just eat you up."

"Well why don't you eat me out first? See how really sweet I am. My pussy misses you."

Before he could answer, shocked by your brazen vocabulary, your mouth was on his.

The kiss was desperate. Messy. All tongue and teeth and need, like you were trying to breathe him in. His lips dragged away from yours, trailing down your jaw, your cheek, your mouth again and again, chasing the taste of you like it might feed his ache, too.

You whined into the kiss, wet hands scrambling for him, gripping the remains of his suit at his hips, and pawing his growing arousal. You could see him, feel him, hard already, thick and heavy and right in front of you, and proximity made your whole body clench tighter.

"T-take your suit off!" you begged, patience running thin.

Brows furrowed, Clark's worry flashed through the haze. "You sure? If you’re not feeling well, we should—"

"No," you panted sharply, shaking your head, already rocking forward without realizing it. "No, I’m sure. I need you. My pussy needs you. Please, Clark."

Your eyes dropped to his chest, so broad, solid, and familiar, and still somehow devastating every time you saw it. To his large, farm-and-battle hardened hands. To the size of his beautiful cock, even still hidden, even restrained.

"I need you to touch me. Need you to kiss it better." Your pleaded softly. Filthy. Unfiltered. "Fuck me all better, Clark."

For half a second, he stilled.

Not because he didn’t want to. Because he wanted to too much.

His hands tightened at the lip of the tub, his gaze sharpened, listening, measuring, feeling the way your pulse fluttered too fast to his touch. The way your scent clung heavier in the steam. The way your body kept tipping toward him like he was a black hole.

"You’re definitely more affected," he murmured, low and strained.

You nodded helplessly, breath catching.

"Yes, yes, I ate more," you admitted. "I couldn’t stop thinking about you. About how good your tongue feels. How big you feel inside me, especially when you've made me cum and you still fuck me. About how empty I was without you. It kept getting worse."

His eyes flashed dark and devoted and tender all at once.

"Okay," he said quietly, decision settling into his bones. "Then I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving you alone in this."

His thumb brushed over your lower lip, tender. Possessive.

"But if I get in that tub," he warned, voice rough. "I’m going to take care of you first. All the way. I need you to tell me if it’s too much, yeah?"

Your thighs trembled as you nodded, whispering, "It won’t be. It's all I want right now."

Clark exhaled, slow and shaking, started peeling off the rest of his suit. 

You watched his hands first. Big, steady, trembling slightly as he dragged the rest of the suit down his hips, his thighs. The cape fell behind him in a heap of crimson, forgotten. Every motion exposed more of him. Each shift of muscle made your mouth water. His abs flexed and rolled as he knelt, skin streaked with soot and heat, chest still rising like he’d been crossing galaxies to get to you.

Then his cock. Hard already. Thick. Leaking. Dark at the tip and heavy with want.

You whimpered, couldn’t help it, couldn’t hide it. Licked your lips before you even realized. Your thighs rubbed together beneath the water, desperate for friction, slick with want, and suddenly so loney and empty.

His eyes locked on yours, ravenous.

"Gosh, hon," he rasped, dropping back to his knees, stroking his shaft in front of you. "You want this?"

Unable to look away, you nodded frantically. Your mouth parted on instinct, rolling a little onto your knees ready to beg.

"I want you everywhere. I want your mouth—want to ride your tongue, baby—make me cry on your cock, please—"

Cutting off another string of obscene words, he kissed you slow, open-mouthed, heat and tongue and something desperate all over again. Then he pulled back, hands smoothing down your arms, over your hips, into the water.

"I’ve got you," he murmured. "I’ve got you, sweetheart. I'm here. Just let me…"

Clark climbed in. The water shifted around him, flowing up the sides of the tub, rushing over your hips as his weight displaced everything else. Too much man for the narrow porcelain space. Too much of your Clark.

His knees pressed to the porcelain. His chest hovered over yours. And still, he sank lower, fitting between your thighs.

His hands found the back of your knees and liften them up gently, water cascading down his forearms. He peered up at you beneath his lidded gaze, licking his lips.

"My poor girl," he whispered. "You’ve been like this—so needy—for how long? Remind me?"

You almost sobbed.

"A while," you whined, throwing a forarm across your eyes. "Since you left. I’m sorry, Clark—I couldn’t stop I—I tried, but—"

"Shh, honey." He soothed. "It's okay. I'm here now."

You let your head fall back against the tile. Exposed. Thighs wide, trembling. Your fingers wove into his curls without thinking, tugging him closer.

And Clark, sweet, steady, starving Clark, moved his grip from your knees to curve the shape of your ass, lifting you up, mouth hovering over your pubic bone just above the surface of the bathwater.

He sank.

The water shifted again, and then it was silent.

Soundless, thick pressure wrapped around you as his head disappeared beneath the surface. The air left your lungs in a rush. All you could hear was the frantic thud of your own heartbeat, the faint ripple of water against porcelain.

His tongue met your clit.

You gasped, loud, broken, shocked. The sound rang out against the tile, echoed once, twice, then faded into something small and sharp as your hips jolted clean out of the water.

Clark groaned, bubbles rising between your thighs, and held you down.

You clutched at his hair, fingers tangling tight, your body floating, weightless and trembling, as his mouth dragged through your folds again repeatedly.

There was no mercy. No pause.

Just your Clark anchoring you down with strong hands, his broad shoulders forcing your thighs open, his mouth sucking you clit like he’d been starved for this. He licked slow and deep, savoring, then flatter, broader, faster until his nose was nudging your clit and your mouth was falling open with a scream you couldn’t stop.

The sound of your own voice ricocheted off the walls.

"Oohhh fuuuck, right there! It—Ah! Feels—so good!"

He couldn’t answer. Could only hum, moan enough to vibrate through your cunt, lick deeper, faster all beneath the water.

"Clark—fuuuck—baby, please—"

It obscene in how good it felt. Every muscle in your body jerked. The bath splashed over the edge, water trailing down your spine as you thrashed, hips bucking against his face.

You came so hard you nearly sobbed, heat tearing through your stomach and bursting between your legs as your thighs squeezed around his head.

Mouth sealed to your cunt like you were the only thing he’d ever needed to eat again, he kept going. His fingers squeezed your ass, held you while his tongue kept working you through your high.

The next orgasm hit before the first had fully ebbed.

You cried, shaking, floating in the water, your grip in his hair and the tub tight and frantic, head tipped back against the tile as your body seized and sang. It was too much and not enough. You wanted more. You needed him deeper. Harder. Inside.

Finally, he resurfaced.

His face glistened. His lips were swollen and wet. His curls were plastered to his forehead, and his breath was ragged as if resurfacing the Mariana Trench, and his pupils were blown so wide his eyes looked black.

"You taste like heaven," he rasped, water dripping from his nose, his chin, splashing onto your chest. "So soft, so darn sweet. Like the perfect, juicy strawberry."

You were still heaving. Still floating. Your thighs trembled as you barely nodded.

Surging up, he kissed you deep, open-mouthed, tongue dragging against yours until you moaned and rutted against him, clinging to his shoulders like you were about to fall through the tub and through all the apartments below.

"I have to be inside you, sweet girl," he groaned, forehead pressed to yours. "I need to be. I’ll lose my damn mind if I’m not—please, sweetheart—let me have you. Make love to you."

"Y-yeah, make love," you whimpered, pawing at his chest, nodding frantically. "Please, Clark, just—I can't wait any more—"

He cut you off by kissing you hard again, restraint barely there, teeth grazing your lip, tongue pressing deep. Then he leaned back, breath shaking, shifting until his spine met the other end of the tub.

His cock stood hard and heavy between his thighs, the fat head dark and swollen beneath the rippling water, twitching like it already knew what was about to happen.

Your breath hitched.

God, he was big.

You always praised him, worshiped this delightful perk being his wife, but like this, bare and waiting, framed by white porcelain and aromatic candies and steam, it felt insane. Like your body had never felt this hungry wanting all of him before.

He lifted his arms, beckoned you, an invitation.

You crawled into his lap, knees sliding into the water on either side of his waist, skin brushing skin, heat everywhere. Your hands found his shoulders, solid and familiar, your mouth slack with want as you reached between your bodies, guiding him home.

When you sank down on him in one motion, the stretch punched the breath right out of you.

A broken sound tore from your throat as he filled you thick and unyielding and perfect. Your walls clenched around him like your body couldn’t believe he was finally there, like it was terrified he might disappear if you didn’t hold tight enough.

Clark’s head hit the back of the tub with a sharp thud, his hands flying to your hips, fingers digging in hard enough to leave marks.

"O-oh, sweetheart—"

Your moan echoed off the tile, loud and unashamed, your whole body trembling with relief as you sank fully down, hips flush to his thighs.

"Yeah," you panted, dazed. "Yeah, baby—feel—feel good?"

You were soaked, frantic, tight around him, clenching like your body couldn’t bear to be empty another second.

You felt impossibly full. Stretched. Aching in the best way. The drag of him inside you made your spine arch, your nails scrape helplessly across his chest. He filled every inch, pressed deep enough to make your vision blur, like he was holding you open from the inside.

He was saying something. Trying to murmur soft reassurances, gentle pet names, something about taking it slow? But the aphrodisiac heat was roaring now, flooding your veins, making you reckless.

"No, fuck slow," you gasped, riding him hard. "I need you. Fuck, I love—absolutely fucking love your cock—"

Clark groaned, deep. "Honey—baby—slow down—"

"I can’t!" You moaned again, loud, breathless. "I feel like I’m gonna die if you’re not fucking me—harder—"

You slammed down again, the water rippling up your spine as you bounced on him, the edge of the tub creaking beneath you.

You sobbed. 

He touched them again, cupping you, and you rode him harder, whimpering, "That’s it, baby. That’s so good, god—touch me there again—yes—yes—"

His hands trembled as he obeyed, rolling your nipples between his thumbs and forefingers, watching your face break open in pleasure as your pussy clenched down around him.

"You’re incredible," you babbled, barely coherent now. "So deep—so full—I love how you feel inside me—fuck, Clark—you were made to fuck me—ohh, I wanna make love to you—"

His mouth fell open, breath coming in ragged pulls as he let you take him faster, wetter, louder. His hips bucked helplessly beneath you, cock throbbing inside your tight heat, his forehead dropping to your shoulder as his whole body shook.

Your head lolled to your side, lids heavy and unfocused when you saw it. The box of strawberries and chocolates still perched on the edge of the tub. Something sharp and greedy sparked behind your eyes.

You reached for it with shaking hands, water sloshing dangerously as you leaned forward, the movement grinding you down on his cock in a slow, filthy roll.

Clark tried to say your name, tried to ask what you were doing, but you were already plucking another piece of chocolate and popping it into your mouth.

You moaned, loudly.

"Oh fuck," you breathed, eyes rolling to the back of your head. You leaned down and kissed him, chocolate dissolving between your mouths, your tongue sliding against his as you ground down again in one slow filthy circle.

"It tastes even better like this," you whispered. "Like sex and candy."

Clark whimpered—actually whimpered.

You picked up a strawberry next and fed it to him, your voice gone syrupy and twice as needy.

"Eat f’me, baby. You’ve been so good. Such a damn good husband, letting me use you like this—filling me up with your cock—working so hard—taking good fucking care of me—"

He bit into it helplessly, juice ran down his chin, glistening pink against the stubble of his jaw. Your tongue lapped it up, following to suck on his bottom lip.

"Fuuuuck—Claaaark—"

You barely remembered grabbing a piece of soft chocolate. You only knew it was melting between your fingers, sticky and hot from your skin. You were high on the way he filled you, on the way his cock curved inside you like it had been molded for your body, and without thinking, rubbed the piece across your breasts.

Chocolate smeared across your skin, across the curves and peaks of your pebbled nipples.

"God," he groaned, dragging his mouth across one chocolate-streaked breast, licking a path through the mess with obscene hunger. "You taste—hon, you taste incredible."

He closed his mouth over your nipple and sucked hard.

Your entire body snapped, spine arching, hands gripping his shoulders as your hips kept rolling, frantic and needy and utterly soaked.

"Yes—ooohh yes— Right there, right there!"

He groaned around your tit, licking and sucking until your nipple was red and aching, until the chocolate was gone and all that remained was spit and love bites.

Greed overpowered him, and he moved to the other breast with the same passion.

"Can’t—can’t stop," he panted, dragging his tongue across your skin, open-mouthed kisses pressed between your breasts. "You’re driving me insane—"

His hips bucked violently, cock slamming deep throughout, and you sobbed, dizzy with sensation and still craving more.

"I’m gonna —come again," you panted. "Gonna come on your big, beautiful, cock, baby, and you’re gonna give it to me, right? Gonna fill me up like I need, Clark—fill me—right, baby?"

"Yeah, I'll f–fill you up," he choked. "Sweetheart—if you keep saying things like that I won't last— you'll leak for days—"

"I want it," you begged, trembling all over. "Want you to fuck me full and keep it there—god, I want it so bad, want everyone to know—fuck a baby into me, Clark—I love you, Iloveyou, love you!"

Your nails raked down his chest, your rhythm faltering as you started to come again. Your whole body locked up, heat exploding through your stomach, your mouth falling open to chant his name that echoed through the whole damn apartment.

Clark was almost gone.

He surged up into you, loud, broken grunts spilling from his mouth as he chased his own release, and one–two–three—he pulsed deep inside, cum thick and hot, flooding you full and still not enough.

Your hips kept grinding through the aftershocks, both of you too far gone to stop, both of you moaning, panting, clinging.

He stayed buried inside, arms locked around your waist, mouth pressed to your shoulder, chanting sweet nothings and I love you's.

.

The bathwater had gone lukewarm without either of you noticing.

Chocolate smeared softly along the rim of the tub, half-melted and forgotten. One of the candles guttered low, wax spilling down its side, the flame trembling like it was tired of watching. The air was thick with steam and sweat and the lingering sweetness of strawberries crushed between fingers and mouths.

Clark’s arms cradled you close, one hand firm at your lower back, the other cupping your hip, keeping you settled. You were pruning, and you didn’t care. You didn’t want to move. You wanted to stay right here, boneless and full and buzzing, his body still anchoring you to the world.

You were still full of him.

Still warm and stretched and sensitive.

Still trembling in those aftershocks that never quite faded all the way out.

Your fingers traced lazy, distracted patterns over his chest, following the rise and fall of his breath, the faint scrape of stubble at his jaw when he dipped to press a kiss into your hair. The burn lingered in your blood like an ember that refused to cool.

Not satisfied. Just… softened enough to breathe and think again.

He shifted slightly, careful, one thigh braced, making sure you didn’t slip. He pressed a kiss to your temple, then your hairline. "You okay?"

You nodded, dazed and blissed out, cheek tucked into the crook of his neck. Your body gave a small, involuntary squeeze around him, and you felt him suck in a breath.

"Never better," you murmured. And it was mostly true. Because some part of you that still wanted more. Still throbbed and buzzed and reached.

Clark glanced toward the counter. The box sat there, damp at the edges, its lid askew. He reached for it absently, brows knitting as he tugged at the heart-shaped sticker plastered across the center.

It peeled away with a soft rip.

He squinted. Read. Once. Twice. One more time.

Then out loud, incredulous, voice climbing with each word:

"Eltaea chocolates and Solari strawberries…" He paused. Blinked. "Aphrodisiac Assortment?!"

Your head snapped up.

"Oh—oh no." You groaned and buried your face against his collarbone, mortification flooding hot through your chest. "There’s—there’s more—" You lifted your head just long enough to recite it with him. "‘Happy Valentine’s Day! Enjoy, bitches!’"

There was a beat of silence.

Then laughter. Wild, breathless, uncontained.

Clark laughed first, a disbelieving bark that shook his chest. You followed, shaking and helpless, pressing your face into his neck again as the absurdity of it all hit at once.

Kara. Of course, it was Kara. Your interstellar menace.

"Kara, what the fuck?" you wheezed, dragging your hands down your face, cheeks burning for a whole new reason. "We should—uh—probably not finish the rest, right?" You squinted up at him. "Take another bath. A proper one."

Still staring at your mouth, still swollen, still glossy; at your breasts, heavy, flushed, nipples dark and sensitive; at your thighs, splayed and distorted beneath the water, still trembling, still open around him, Clark's eyes narrowed, head tilted.

Then his gaze lifted back to your eyes.

"Nope," he said simply, a little pop on the 'p'. "We’re definitely finishing the rest."

You laughed, half-dazed, half-thrilled, and then yelped as he scooped you up without warning, water streaming off both of you. He held you with one arm under your ass, the other firm between your shoulder blades, his body still deep inside you, careful not to pull away.

"Clark—" you giggled, clinging to his shoulders, legs tightening around his waist.

"I’ve got you," he murmured, already kissing you, already moving. "And I’m taking you to bed."

He stepped out of the tub, slow and deliberate, keeping you tipped just enough so nothing spilled where it shouldn’t. You squirmed against him, still too sensitive, still buzzing, still aching in that delicious, half-satisfied way.

As he walked out, you reached back with arms outstretched towards the damp box of sweets still at the lid of the tub with a pout.

"Oh Gosh," He chuckled, shaking his head. He turned back and crouched until your fingers snatched the box with a triumphant little "Ah-ha!".

"You’re ridiculous."

You grinned at him, delirious and shameless, securely tucking the treats flushed to your chest. "You’re the ridiculous one for letting these go to waste!"

He carried you toward the bedroom, still inside you, still holding you close.

"Hon, you're absolutely right. We’re not wasting a thing," he said, chuckling.

You tugged him into a deep kiss and sighed, already burning again.

.

Thank you for reading! Any reblogs, comments, likes are forever appreciated, and keeps me motivated!

.

Tags: @sphynxx @untilmynextstory @sevinaqia @animegamerfox @dreaming-starlet @nnab @catsdenia @friedunknownphantom @garfieldhollander @hallow-blue @httpstoyosi @yeontanssecretblog @kristine13 @alexandritte80 @may-machin @snowsgames @alanahlovesryan @athenxt @nobeautywithoutstrangeness @wtfrudoinhere @thel0v3hashira143 @vanillapjm @doctorwhoandfairytaillover @marvel-hiddles-stark @foremma444 @yyiikes @kooquetre @niceforcum22 @tw1sters @54nboo @jordiemeow @strawbvrrystrgirl @pinksplace @zutara-s @ticklish-leafy-plant @crazycatchloe @isthisprada @clarknsun @blueki16 @rynwritesstuff @luvekent @lilypad-55449 @serenityrjd @stellarbstar @a-lumos-in-the-nox @thychuvaluswife @punkrockrr

[honey-on-your-tongue]

tbr

[cosmic-reads]

LORD 😭😭

[sergeantangel]

* = 18+. 2026 Lists. 2025 Lists. Some Tags.

The Pitt

So . . . Dinner? - Jack Abbot - @starlord-s

Affair - Brendon Park - @jadeittic

I Almost Do Part 3 - Michael Robinavitch - @cosmic-whispers

Baby Fever - Jack Abbot - @love-quinn

Cold Feet (Foot) - Jack Abbot - @bitters-n-sweets

* Kitchen Counter - Brendon Park - @thelightofday

* The Shower - Jack Abbot - @butyoudidthis4what

Everything Else

Every Moment Counts - Din Djarin - @jobean12-blog

Good Time - Lee Bodecker - @societyfolklore

A Message From the Bulletin Board - Cardinal Copia - @writingjourney

Enough is Enough - Aaron Hotchner - @ssahotchnerr

You Need to be More Careful + * Like A Prayer - Andrew Cody + Nice Sight + * Angel of Small Death - Jack Abbot - @se7entyrell

Drinks On Me - Andrew Cody - @ofstarsandvibranium

Training Session - Titus Danforth - @sweeethearts

Arranged Marriage - Titus Danforth + Supernatural AU - Andrew Cody - @pope-codys

The Holidays - Charlie Reid + The Fucking Patient - Brendon Park (Feat. Jack Abbot) - @bullet-prooflove

Enjoy

[lovebugism]

CASUAL ─── michael robinavitch

summary: robby tells you he wants to keep things casual after you catch him flirting with noelle. he's less enthusiastic when he finds out you've been seeing his best friend. (5k)

characters: michael robinavitch / fem!reader, jack abbot / fem!reader, trinity santos, dennis whitaker, mel king

contents: established relationship, friends with benefits, jealousy, mutual pining, angst, possessive!robby, allusions to smut

FIC #5 / 20 FOR 20

( NAVIGATION ) | ( MASTERLIST ) | ( AO3 )

You and Robby were not together. Not officially, and definitely not publicly. You were hardly together privately, if you were being real honest with yourself — aside from a few stolen nights after particularly draining shifts, where he’d show up at your place with takeout and exhaustion sitting heavy in his eyes and promises of distracting you from the hard day; where he’d then wake up before sunrise and leave before you had the chance to miss him.

Casual. That was the point. Because he was an attending, and you were his resident, and Robby had already made the mistake of blurring those lines once before. “It gets messy, sweetheart,” he murmured against your bare shoulder one night, voice heavy with sex and sleep alike. “And when it ends, it… It really fuckin’ ends, you know?”

You didn’t know what he meant by that, actually. You figured he was saying that dating within the hierarchy tends to crash and burn in some way or another, but you didn’t press him on the issue then. Though now you think that maybe you should’ve.

You should’ve told him to give this a name back then — whatever this thing was between you — because at least then you’d have a name for the feeling searing in your chest just now, as you’re forced to watch Robby flirt with Noelle on the other side of the workstation.

You’re examining the chart glowing from the iPad in your hands, trying hard to ignore the ache in your lower back and the fact that you haven’t eaten since six that morning, when the sound of Robby’s sudden laughter graces your ears — finding you despite the buzzing chatter of the crowded E.R. 

You glance up automatically and find him leaning against the counter, with the sleeves of his undershirt pushed up to his elbows and his stethoscope looped lazily around his neck, towering several inches over Noelle.

“You’re getting less grumpy in your old age, Robinavitch,” the older woman quips beneath a quiet smile and the faint flush coating her caramel-colored cheeks. She arches a manicured brow in his direction, dark eyes glimmering beneath long lashes. “Something been improving your mood lately? Or some-one?”

Your palms go clammy around the tablet in your hand. You never wanted anyone to find out that you were dating your attending, but god, your heart stops beating just to hear your name fall from his lips.

Robby laughs instead, a sharp exhale from his nose. 

“You always think you know everything,” he says with a shake of his head, though you can still hear the smile in his voice when he tells her, “I’m not sure your new boyfriend up in ortho would like you asking about my love life, Hastings…”

“Oh, I stopped seeing him ages ago,” Noelle scoffs. “He kept calling himself an alpha male unironically, and I— couldn’t take it anymore.”

Robby physically recoils. “Jeez… And here I thought your taste in men improved after me.”

Their laughter entwines and lingers in the air for several lingering moments. It’s more familiar than flirtatious, but your stomach twists with a sick feeling anyway. Because Noelle was, to put it simply, everything you weren’t. She was effortlessly gorgeous and carried all that confidence in her matching pant suits and pulled-back curls. She was much closer to Robby’s age, too, and their lengthy history is one you know you couldn’t compete with if you tried.

You feel a little like a child as you watch them talk in hushed voices. You flare with all the embarrassment of one, too, when Robby’s eyes lock suddenly with yours.

You turn away a beat too late, just in time to catch the look that flashes suddenly across his weathered features — as if he’d somehow been caught. You pretend not to notice, or otherwise care, when he dismisses himself from Noelle and closes the distance between you. He towers over you the same way he had with her, smelling like a mixture of his cologne and your bed sheets.

“Hey…” he says, all casual, stuffing his hands into his scrub pockets and nodding to the tablet in your hands. “You get that CBC back on Central Eight?”

“Yep,” you deadpan, still without looking at him. 

He flinches slightly when you shove the chart suddenly at his chest with a less-than-gentle hand. His brows lower in confusion when you turn on your heel and walk away a second later, with considerably more ire than you had that morning. (‘Cause you’d been complaining about some mild insomnia for a while now, so Robby fucked you to sleep the night before. He figured you’d be in a better mood today accordingly. But alas.)

“So I take it you’re not helping with this endoscopy?” he calls after you, pulling his glasses from his shirt pocket for a better view of the screen in his hand.

“Nope,” you call back, already halfway down the hall — not as his resident, but as a woman halfway scorned.

Whitaker’s eyes dart back and forth like he’s watching a tennis match — between you, Robby, and the bloodied head wound he’s watching you stitch up with practiced hands. There’s a heavy tension he can feel simmering in the air, snatching all the remaining oxygen out of the room. Even from where he stands behind you, peering over Trinity’s shoulder, he feels hardly shielded from the building stress.

“Call ortho for a consult for me, will ya?” Robby asks you, or rather politely commands, without looking away from the chart in his hands.

You, similarly, don’t glance up from your sutures as you tell him, “You have a pair of free hands, don’t you, Dr. Robby?”

The man’s eyes dart to you in an instant, peering at you over the top of the glasses sitting low on his broad nose. His dark brown gaze glimmers with a mixture of amusement and shock as a faint smile flickers beneath his beard.

“Excuse me?”

“I’ll do it!” Whitaker blurts, half-strangled by the tension, as he rushes for the red phone across the room. It’s quite telling, the younger boy finds, that he’d rather suffer a call with Park the Shark than watch this lover’s quarrel unfold.

Robby squints as he takes a slow step towards you. His eyes flit from your deadpan face, to your gloved hands, to the balding head of the unconscious patient you stitch up. 

“Have you eaten today?” he wonders aloud.

“Are you gonna ask if I need a nap next to?” you scoff. “I’m not a child.”

“Well, you’re kinda acting like one,” Robby says within a breathless chuckle. “So do you wanna maybe dial the attitude back a notch?”

“Sorry, Dr. Robby,” you say flatly, tying off the final stitch with sharp, methodical movements. “I’ll remember to stroke your ego next time—  Maybe then you won’t accuse me of being a bitch.”

“I wasn’t—”

A laugh sputters suddenly from Santos’ mouth before she can help it. She hides it behind her fist when Robby glares at her and pretends to cough instead.

The tension between the two of you doesn’t snap until around the tenth hour of the shift, when you’re hiding from the chaos of the E.D. with the excuse of fetching more supplies from the walk-in closet. Robby enters like a dark cloud, mixing with your own storm, and threatening to create a most fatal concoction when he corners you against the shelf. (You hadn’t stopped moving for about four straight hours, to be fair — this was his only real chance of getting you alone.)

“What the hell is your problem today?” the older man says in lieu of a greeting.

You huff and roll your eyes, shoving at a pack of saline flushes a little harder than necessary when they threaten to fall from the shelf and on top of you. Robby watches with narrowed eyes and a pair of weathered hands splayed on his hip. 

“Did I do something to you? ‘Cause you’ve been acting crazy all day—”

You slam the cabinet door shut with a resounding clang, so hard it refuses to latch,before spinning on your heels to face the man behind you. The glare you give him almost makes him flinch before he swallows down the instinct to.

“Crazy?” you echo through a tense jaw. “You flirt with Noelle all day, right in front of me, and now you’re calling me crazy?”

Robby blinks owlishly back at you for several long moments. 

You almost think you see a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth beneath his mustache, before a chuckle sputters suddenly from his lips. You flinch at the intensity of his laughter, and at the distant mania glimmering in his dark eyes.

“Oh, my god—”

“Don’t laugh!” you exclaim, face burning under the weight of your embarrassment.

“—That’s what this is about?”

“Yes! It is. Because I thought I was enough for you.”

His weathered features soften with a heavy sigh, though traces of his amusement still remain — equal parts fond and exhausted. 

“Oh, c’mon… You know this wasn’t supposed to be anything serious,” Robby croons gently, taking slow steps towards you. “That was the agreement, right? Casual. So we could avoid all… This.”

You peer up at the man from beneath your lashes when he plants himself in front of you. You try not to melt when you catch a whiff of his dizzying cologne. “This?” you echo.

“Yeah… You know, all the… jealousy and the— arguments,” he huffs with a lazy shrug and crosses his pale arms over his chest. “I’ve been through this before, kid. Trust me. This is… This is what’s best.”

Your chest sears with a mixture of red-hot anger and ice-cold jealousy. Your jaw tightens at how detached he sounds, how rational, as if he were discussing policies instead of real actual feelings. (If he was even capable of those). You want him to feel this, too — this awful, wretched jealousy clawing at your ribs from the inside out. 

You fold your arms tightly across your chest, forcing your voice into a deadpan as hurt simmers somewhere beneath the words. “So I can see whoever I want?” you ask him.

Robby’s expression flickers slightly, almost imperceptibly. His adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows, but his dark gaze never once wavers from yours. 

“Of course, you can,” he tells you, though his taut voice threatens to betray him. “We’re casual. That was the deal.”

“Okay,” you nod once and turn away from him again, giving him very little to play off of as he tries and fails to call your bluff. 

Robby’s forced to stare at the back of you while you pull a large pack of lap pads from the shelf. His brows knit in confusion when you spin back around to face him, mostly back to normal again, with a ghost of a polite smile dancing the edges of your mouth.

“Run these to Trauma 1 for me, will ya? Dr. Al-Hashimi needs ‘em for a trauma patient coming in.”

You press the package to Robby’s chest before he can answer and walk past him for the exit before he can blink.

Three days after the fact, you’re sitting in a crowded bar a block away from the PTMC, drowning your post-shift sorrows in half-priced beers. 

In those three days, you haven’t seen Robby once outside of work. There were no more stolen kisses in empty elevators, no more lingering touches in stairwells, no more “come over” texts sent in the dead of night. And Robby thought it was strange, because the two of you weren’t even fighting anymore — not technically, anyway — and yet you were more distant now than ever.

“Question,” the man murmured casually from the other side of the desk while you finished up your charting at the monitor. “Is it me you’re avoiding or just my apartment?”

“What?” you scoffed, still typing. “I’ve just been— busy, Robby.”

“Hm…” he sighed, less than convinced.

You didn’t spare him a second glance — not then and not when you took Santos’ offer of happy hour and Friday night karaoke. The girl herself returns now to the cracked pleather booth in the corner of the dingy bar, where you sit with Mel and Whitaker, after butchering another Alanis Morrissette song. 

Her chest heaves with panted breaths under her black tank top, pale skin sticky with a thin layer of alcohol-induced sweat.

“Okay, what’s with the long faces over here?” Trinity jokes as she steals a room-temperature fry off your plate, talking through the mouthful. “I know you and Robby are fighting or whatever, but I just gave the performance of a lifetime up there.”

You slurp nosily at the remnants of your fruity drink and nearly choke on it at the accusation. “What?” you cough with the thin straw still in your mouth. “We aren’t— fighting. What are you talking about?”

“Oh, please,” Trinity scoffs and reaches for her beer. “You’re both been acting like a couple of… divorced parents at soccer practice.”

“Okay, I don’t even know what that means—”

“Playing nice in front of everyone as not to evoke suspicion, which inevitably turns the obvious tension between you from angry to sexually charged,” Mel rambles matter-of-factly. Her blonde hair sways around her jaw as she nods, left slightly crimped from her undone braid.

Your eyes flit to Whitaker then, who nods much more solemnly in agreement.

Your face burns red-hot in response. “Well— we’re not even, like, together or anything, so…”

“Mhm…” Santos hums with a knowing look that makes you shift uncomfortably in the booth. She takes another quick swig from the amber bottle in her hand before her gaze zeroes in on an unfortunate Whitaker. “C’mon, Huckleberry. You’re up.”

His light eyes widen, glassy with exhaustion and alcohol alike. “I’m… Up?”

“Yeah. You’re doing karaoke with me. Let’s go,” Trinity says as she slides once more off the weathered vinyl. She frowns when she rises and finds the boy still sitting in place. “Let’s go, I said! We gotta get back in line before the spots fill up—”

Whitaker scrambles to follow the girl towards the stage despite his better judgment. You use that as an excuse to get another drink, tugging the skirt of your dress further down your thighs as you go. You weave through the crowd of strangers and coworkers alike until you reach the sticky wooden counter. 

You lean your elbows against it and flash the bartender a kinda smile. “Can I get another aperol spritz, please?”

“Put that on my tab,” a familiar voice says from beside you.

Your head whips to find Jack sitting there, one chair down and nursing a sweaty amber bottle of cheap beer in his pale hand. He looks more relaxed now than you think you’ve ever seen him — camo pants baggy around his legs, black t-shirt untucked from the belt, warm around the edges from the alcohol.

You feel very suddenly overdressed in your form-fitting velveteen number and cross your arms over your chest to hide beneath the loose cardigan you wear over top of it. “Oh, you don’t have to do that—”

“I insist,” the older man smiles. “You deserve it after that canthotomy you did today. You were a real trooper.”

The bartender slides a cocktail glass across the wooden surface over to you. The orange liquid threatens to slosh over the thin rim. You give him a polite grin in return. “Thank you,” you tell the man, then grow considerably shier when you turn back to the attending sitting a stool down from you. “Thanks, Dr. Abbot.”

“Jack,” the older man corrects before bringing the lip of his bottle back up to his mouth.

“Jack,” you echo softly.

The man shifts on the hard stool, keeping his prosthetic limb stretched slightly ahead of him beneath the bar. A not quite silence settles between you then, filled by the buzzing bar all around you. Your eyes cut to the stage on the far side of the room, where Santos belts the lyrics to “You Oughta Know” and Whitaker stumbles over himself to get the foreign words out. 

“I think Shen is looking for a karaoke partner,” you quip, nodding your head towards the doctor standing by the stage and flipping through the binder of song choices there.

The dim overhead lighting turns Jack’s silver curls a softer golden shade when he turns his head to follow your gaze. He grimaces instantly at the thought. “Yeah, absolutely not.”

“Why?” you laugh softly, with the thin straw dancing against your mouth. “You scared?”

“Yes,” the man answers without a second thought. “And I’ve been shot at before— Today, even— And somehow karaoke still feels more terrifying.”

Your eyes squint in his direction, glittering with something foreign. “That’s a little dramatic, don’t ya think?”

“Eh. Maybe a little.”

You scoff and slide into the bar stool beside him. “You don’t strike me as someone who embarrasses easily, Dr. Abbot.”

“That’s because you only know me at work,” he quips halfway into his beer, before licking the amber sheen from his mouth. “Where I am equal parts competent and mysterious.”

“Mysterious?” you repeat skeptically.

“Mm,” Jack nods with narrowed eyes and a faint smile twitching the corner of his lip. “Very tortured, you know? Very brooding.”

“Ah, yes…” you sigh with alcohol glittering on your lips like gloss. “The very brooding, tortured doctor who makes dinosaur noises to win over scared children in pedes.”

Jack pauses mid-sip, pale eyes narrowing. “Well, this is new…” he hums.

Your stomach flips at the way he’s looking at you. Heat crawls instantly up your neck. You feel very suddenly suffocated by the heavy cardigan on your shoulders. “…What is?”

“I don’t know,” he answers with a lazy shrug, though his heavy eyes dart once down your form and up again. You don’t realize, until then, that this is his first time seeing you in anything other than your dark black scrubs. “You… Flirting with me.”

You exhale a breathy laugh, if only to dispel the anxiety clawing at your chest. “Flirting? Is that what this is?” 

“Hey— You’re the one who called me mysterious.”

“Actually, I was clarifying if you thought you were mysterious.”

“Still counts.”

“Does it?” you squint.

Jack smirks behind the lip of the beer bottle against his mouth. His adam’s apple bobs with a short sip before he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “You know… For a while there, I thought you hated me… Considering you never talked to me unless you had to.”

“You work nights, Jack— I don’t talk to you because I see you for, maybe, twenty minutes out of my day,” you scoff, and don’t realize you’ve called him by his first name until his eyes glimmer with amusement. You turn away with a shake of your head as your face burns, bringing the straw back up to your mouth. “Though, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t consider it…”

“Oh, really?” Jack hums with raised brows. “What’s the verdict now, then, huh?”

You let your gaze drag over him deliberately as you ponder the question, biting at the straw between your teeth. You scan over his toned biceps, his lean stomach caged beneath his form-fitting tee, and his spread thighs that make your head spin, before meeting his eyes once more. 

“Now,” you hum sweetly, “I think I’m starting to understand the appeal…”

Jack stares at you for a long moment before he lets out a low, disbelieving laugh. The lamplight shines in his greying curls as he shakes his head. “Yeah? And how does Robby feel about that?”

Your eyes harden in an instant.

Jack raises a free hand in surrender. “Hey, I’m just sayin’— He looks like he wants to put his fist through a wall any time another attending talks to you for more than thirty seconds.”

Your chest tightens unexpectedly. You swallow hard to fight the strangling feeling — of Robby, and of his laughter in the supply closet — as you shrug a lazy shoulder in response. You don’t bother to lift your cardigan when it slips softly down your arm.

“It’s casual,” you tell him.

Jack studies you for a long moment. The corner of his mouth curls into a slow half-smile, and you feel your heart stuttering behind your ribcage. 

“Casual, huh?” he hums and brings his bottle back up to his mouth. “Interesting…”

Morning arrives slowly through the veiled curtains of the quiet bedroom, where pale golden light cuts softly over hardwood floors and rumpled sheets. You rouse gradually, cocooned beneath strangely heavy blankets that smell differently from your own back home — like unfamiliar detergent, cedarwood, and musky cologne. 

For a blissful wink of a moment, you don’t remember where you are. Not until you stretch your tired limbs and brush a scruffy leg with your foot, anyway.

Your breath catches. Your heavy eyes snap open. Your body prickles with heat as flashes from the night before return to you at once — of the walk home from the bar, of Jack’s laugh against your throat, of his stubble scraping your skin, of the teasing murmur in his velvety voice as he told you to cum for him.

Your thighs clench together at the memory, while a lingering ache pulses pleasantly low in the pit of your stomach.

You lift your head from the pillow and inhale sharply through your nose as your eyes scan the foreign bedroom, which you had been too busy to do the night before. 

There’s an expensive-looking record player in one corner, sat beside a crate of well-loved vinyls. There’s a bookshelf lining the far wall — cluttered with medical textbooks, old paperbacks, and framed photos from his military days. His camo bag, etched with his name, slouches by the entrance, and over the foot of the bed, you can see his prosthetic limb lying beside your shoes.

Other than that, it’s strikingly empty, with very little decoration on the wall or bedside tables. It makes sense, you figure, for a man who is working far more than he isn’t.

Your head turns in the opposite direction to find Jack sleeping soundly just beside you. The gentle rays of morning light brush over the canvas of his bare back, turning his freckles there a deeper shade of golden brown. He’s got one arm shoved beneath the pillow he folds into his cheek and the other lying loose across the mattress — from where your waist must’ve been before you slithered out from underneath it.

Your chest pinches at the sight of him. With pride, maybe, at having conquered him. And with a pang of white-hot guilt that twists when your mind inevitably drifts to Robby.

You slide out of bed, careful not to let the mattress give too much beneath your weight. You grimace when the fabric of your t-shirt twists uncomfortably around your form, only to find that you’re wearing Jack’s shirt, which had seemingly been given to you at some point last night. It falls over your thighs when you stand, bare feet padding as you gather your discarded clothes.

You bend down to drag your underwear back up your thighs and wince when your head throbs from last night’s cheap cocktails. With your dress and knit cardigan balled in your arm, you toe your shoes back on. Your breath hitches when the mattress shifts with a soft creak.

Jack squints when he raises his wild head. His mouth twitches when he finds you at the foot of the mattress. “Y’know…” he rasps, voice rough with sleep. “I’m at least grateful you’re not robbing me before sneaking out. That’s very courteous of you.”

“I’m not sneaking,” you scoff. “I just… didn’t want to wake you.”

The man inhales sharply as he twists onto his back, charcoal sheets tangling around his waist. You force yourself to look away from his lean stomach and the red claw marks you left on his scruffy chest when he stretches his toned arms above his head. 

“That’s sweet,” he says with a wince. “But unfortunately, I wake up if somebody breathes wrong in the next room.”

You exhale a soft laugh. 

Jack’s eyes soften around the edges at the sound of it. “You workin’  today?”

“Yep, in about…” Your eyes flit to the alarm clock on his nightstand. “Half an hour.”

“Brutal,” he scoffs.

“You’re fault.”

“Don’t say that like you didn’t have a good time,” he teases with narrowed eyes, then softens slightly when you turn away. You fumble with the stubborn back of your shoe, and his chest twists at your silence. “Do you… Do you regret it?”

“No,” you answer instantly.

“Good,” he hums, relaxing visibly once more into the sheets. “Me neither.”

Your stomach blooms with warmth. You shift awkwardly on your feet before him, even still. “So, uh… What— What now?”

“Well, feel free to use my shower, if you want—”

“I’m serious, Jack,” you insist gently, then add, more sheepishly. “But I will be using your shower, actually, thank you…”

Jack inhales deeply, considering. “Well,” he starts carefully, “I like you. Obviously.”

Your pulse rushes like a teenage girl.

“But,” he continues, as relief and disappointment tangle in your chest all at once. “I also know that neither of us is in the right spot for a relationship right now…”

“So… Casual?” you offer lightly, mouth lifted in a tired smile.

“Casual,” Jack agrees with a firm nod and glassy eyes.

You wear the night before all over, despite your desperate attempts to hide it.

Robby notices it the moment he sees you — how relaxed you are, how happy you seem to be. Whatever had been plaguing you before is now long gone, and that alone should be enough to comfort him. But still, he can’t shake the feeling that someone had gotten rid of all the aching for you — fucked it out of you the way only he could.

“You’re in a good mood today,” he observes while signing off on the chart you’d given him.

“Am I?” you hum.

“Yeah,” he nods, clicking his pen with his thumb. He glances at you over the top of his glasses before averting his gaze once more. “What’d you get up to last night, huh?”

“Nothing,” you shrug. “Other than watching Santos butcher Alanis Morrissette’s discography at karaoke… Maybe I just slept well.”

“You usually only do that at my place.”

Your brows furrow when he passes the clipboard back to you. “I’m sorry— Are you accusing me of something, Dr. Robby?”

His mouth opens to respond — to tell you that he can smell the foreign body wash on your skin, far muskier than the delicate sweet-vanilla he’s used to. But the automatic doors across the station swish open and shut before he can. 

Jack enters with his camo pack slung over his shoulder and brings a cool evening breeze in with him. Robby can’t help but notice how your eyes find each other’s almost instantly, clicking like magnets and lingering together like there’s a secret that only the two of you know about. His stomach swirls with jealousy.

“Look alive, degenerates,” Jack announces in lieu of a greeting, then quiets slightly when he reaches your side. “What’d I miss?”

“I was just briefing Robby on last night at karaoke,” you answer with a polite smile. “And how I will never be able to listen to Alanis Morissette after Santos’ crimes last night—”

“Fuuuck you,” Trinity drags out from the desk beside you, still sluggish from the long day and the hangover that won’t seem to leave her.

“Don’t drag me into this,” Jack quips. “I took an oath as a physician to do no harm.”

You exhale a quiet laugh. The man’s eyes soften around the edges, as though pleased at having earned the sound, before walking off towards the locker room. He leaves a trail of musky cedarwood as he goes, and Robby’s heart drops when he finally places the scent — the one he’s been smelling on you all day. 

The realization hit him like a truck.

His expression darkens instantly when he turns back to you.

“Supply closet,” he mutters lowly as he walks past you. “Now.”

Your stomach drops at his tone. He takes all the remaining breath from your lungs with him as he goes. Your chest stings accordingly — with a surge of pride at his jealousy, and with a pang of distant regret at his hurt. You follow behind him down the long hallway to the supply closet like a scolded child. He barely waits for the door to click shut behind him before rounding on you.

“You slept with him?” he shouts, eyes wide and wild.

You cross your arms tight over your chest, with your head tilted inquisitively to your shoulder. “Aren’t you the one who said I could see whoever I want?”

“Yeah, I meant random assholes at the bar,” he snaps. “Not my best fucking friend!”

An incredulous laugh sputters from your lips. “Oh, so now we have rules? What happened to just being casual, huh? If you can flirt with your coworkers, why can’t I?”

Robby’s dark eyes narrow as he takes a slow step towards you. You catch a faint upward flicker of his mouth as he asks, “So that’s why you did it, huh? You just wanted to piss me off?”

Your anger spikes instantly. You feel it prickling red-hot beneath your scrubs. Because he’s an arrogant asshole, maybe, or maybe because a distant part of you knows that he’s right.

“No, actually,” you tell him anyway. “Because not everything’s about you, Robby. I did it because Jack wanted me. Because he didn’t treat me like I was just another one of his dirty secrets—”

“Yeah, alright,” Robby scoffs a breathy laugh and turns away, running a pale hand through his chopped brown hair.

“Because being with him made me feel good—”

“I said alright!” 

“Aw, what’s wrong, Robby?” you coo, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Does it bother you that somebody else wanted me?”

Robby exhales another one of his stupid laughs.

Your chest swells with a burning feeling that makes you feel like crying. “Why is it so hard to admit that you care about me?”

“I care about you! Of course, I fucking care about you!” he exclaims, red in the face. “Because I’ve spent months trying not to screw this up.”

“Oh, please,” you roll your eyes. “Says the man who practically shoved me into someone else’s bed.”

“Oh, don’t do that,” Robby squints.

“Do what?”

“Act like this is what I wanted—”

The words die in his throat when the silver knob to the closet door clicks suddenly behind him. The hinges open with a quiet squeak a second later. Your heads whip in sync to find Santos in the threshold, rubbing at her tired eyes as she steps into the room. She doesn’t realize the two of you are in there until the door shuts behind her again. 

Her wide eyes dart back and forth between the two of you for a moment. “…Why does it feel like I just walked into a hostage situation?” she quips in a monotone.

“Now you know how I felt last night,” you joke back weakly.

She flips you off and walks further inside. Neither of you says a word as she retrieves a case of saline flushes and four-by-fours from the shelves. The plastic crinkles loudly in the silence. 

“Please. Feel free to continue,” Santos deadpans as she leaves. “I definitely won’t be listening with my ear pressed against the door.”

The entrance shuts behind her with a dull click that sounds much louder in the quiet. You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding as Robby pinches his nose between his thumb and forefinger. When he lifts his head against, his eyes zero in on you. 

“We’ll finish this when we get home,” he tells you, firmly.

“Can’t tonight,” you shrug, lying through your teeth. “I have plans.”

“Yeah, not anymore, you don’t.”

Your stomach does a back flip at his words, at his very sudden act of dominance that makes you feel like melting into a puddle at his feet. And judging by the newfound glint in Robby’s dark eyes, he notices it, too.

You couldn’t hide from him if you tried.

[cosmic-reads]

Ohhhh this is MESSY, I love it 😈

[captainfern]

Blessed

Baelor Targaryen x wife!reader

✿ baelor is ‘blessed’ by a travelling herb-woman, and after two weeks away from his wife, he is desperate to have her (or, a sex pollen fic with the hand of the king). ✿ 18+ ✿ wc: 5.6k ✿ cw: fem!reader/secondwife!reader, reader is not physically defined but she sexyyy, no y/n, sex pollen, SMUT, unprotected piv, unintentional rough sex initially, clothed sex (kinda), baelor is desperate asf, pet names (sweet girl, little dove, etc), praise, lowkey hyperspermia, strong language, baelor being the people’s princess <3

The red and black banners of the royal Targaryen caravan draws a significant crowd, and when Baelor, heir to the Iron Throne and Hand of the King, dismounts his black stallion, the crowd ripples with voices. It’s a great clamour: common people reaching for him, calling his name, begging for his attention as he’s flanked by his loyal kingsguard.

He has been away for two weeks. Travelling from Kings Landing to Sunspear and back again, stopping in various towns and villages on his way. He spoke kindly with vendors, purchased goods from travelling merchants, discussed the state of the realm with minor lords who frequented trailside inns.

He was a man of the people, but in truth, he only wanted to be the man for one person. He wanted to be your man, and he had been away for two weeks too long.

His pretty wife, no doubt sitting alone within the walls of the Keep. Waiting for the return of your dear husband, biding your time lost between the pages of Valyrian literature or nosing around the quiet observatories.

He smiles to himself as he thinks of you.

One of his guards, Ser Donnel, stoops low to whisper in his ear as he waves to the surging crowd, who respond with shouts of praise.

“We need not stop here, your grace,” Donnel informs. “We are but three hours from the royal residence. We can make landing before midday if—”

Baelor swishes his hand through the air, polite but dismissive. “Do not fret, ser. I will only spend a moment here then we will depart once more.”

Donnel says nothing more as Baelor approaches some of the commonfolk. He extends his arm and shakes the hand of a young man, no older than his eldest son. The boy beams at the prince, his handshake firm and confident.

“Seven blessings, your grace,” the young man says, dipping his head as he shakes Baelor’s hand. Baelor smiles softly at him, and the young man brings a hand to his chest in a display of respect. “I have the means to become a knight.”

Baelor smiles still. “Then I wish you all the best. We are always in need of good men and good knights.”

The young man continues to beam as Baelor moves through the crowd, flanked by the shining white armoured men that comprise his kingsguard.

The village is small and very simple. A scarce few buildings stand amongst crudely made wooden houses, but nevertheless, Baelor winds his way through the wide streets, greeting people who peer out their windows and doors curiously.

Once he has done a lap of the village, shaking hands and offering kind smiles, he returns to where he had started. With one final wave to the people, he mounts his steed and the royal caravan presses on. Cantering beside him, Donnel, his white armour gleaming in the mid-morning sun, casts him a sidelong look.

Baelor meets his gaze. “Yes, Ser Donnel?”

“You assume everyone you meet has good intentions, your grace,” Donnel speaks plainly, and this makes Baelor shake his head, chuckling softly.

“I’d rather assume the good intentions of the people than the bad,” Baelor replies, the Targaryen procession winding through the countryside now, surrounded by endless rolling hills, coloured a patchwork of brilliant greens. “If I assume everyone has bad intentions, Ser Donnel, I would not make a good prince.”

Donnel huffs. “You’d make my job significantly easier.”

Baelor tuts, humoured. “Well, we wouldn’t want that, would we?”

An hour passes beneath the bright sun, and Baelor finds his lower back growing stiff with his continued straight riding posture. But he does not complain, nor does he ask for a break: he has kept his entourage from their homes for long enough, and on the distant horizon, King’s Landing juts from the hills, the ocean glittering beyond.

The well-ridden path ahead of them stretches and coils between the rolling hills like a serpent, and way ahead, the guards alert Baelor to a fully-stocked wagon pulled by a gangly old mule. A shawled figure walks beside the mule, and Baelor smiles to himself as he sees the figure patting the creature gently, heading away from King’s Landing.

“I intend to dismount,” Baelor tells Donnel, who can scarcely react before the prince’s horse sidles up beside the wagon. 

The shawled figure, revealed to be an elderly woman of perhaps seven and ninety, stops at the sound of thundering hooves. She leans into a stiff bow as Baelor leaps from his stallion, stretching his hand to stroke the nose of the old mule.

“Your grace,” the woman greets kindly, her eyes darting nervously to the two imposing kingsguard who dismount their own horses and stand beside the prince. Their hands rest on the pommels of their swords, and they eye both the woman and her wagon skeptically. She gestures to the wagon, which is draped in dark blue material and smells of lavender. “I am a travelling herb-woman.”

Baelor assesses the woman with his mismatched eyes. “Well, it has been many years since I have met someone of your specialty.”

The woman smiles, and the kingsguard bristles as Baelor continues to pet the mule. The prince speaks with a disarming kindness that constantly has them on edge. He was considerably more difficult to guard compared to his younger brother, who spoke to no one unless he really needed to.

“I have been travelling for far too long,” Baelor continues, allowing the mule to butt his hand in search of more strokes. “Might you have something to ease my aches?”

Donnel clears his throat behind him. “Your grace, I don’t recommend—”

The woman splits into a deep smile and turns to her wagon, her dark cloak moving around her like the blackness of night. She smells rich of lavender and road dirt, and Baelor shoots Donnel a pointed look as he waits. The woman peels back the covering of her wagon and rifles through the contents she can reach. After a moment, she spins around with a small vial. She holds it up, the liquid inside a milky-white.

“A tannic tea made from the bark of the white willow,” she says, holding it out to the prince. “Used to relieve muscle and joint aches.”

Baelor goes to reach for it, but Donnel beats him to it, snatching the vial from the woman, who jumps slightly at his roughness. Baelor peers curiously at his guard, who inspects the bottle thoughtfully.

“You cannot take something of which you do not know its origins,” Donnel says in response to Baelor’s stare. “It could be poison.”

The woman gawks. “Oh, no! No, your grace, I do not—I do not carry poisons. I am a simple herb-woman, gods believe me, and—”

Baelor lifts his hand, and the mule snorts in discontent at the lack of contact. “Please, you owe us no explanation. Ser Donnel is simply being thorough,” Baelor says the last part pointedly, and casts Donnel a sidelong glance that makes Roland, on his other side, snort around a poorly hidden laugh.

Donnel frowns. “Your father would not forgive me if I allowed you to drink strange liquids from strangers. Not to mention, your wife—”

Baelor gently takes the small vial from Donnel, interrupting his tirade. The prince carefully uncorks it, smells it—it smells of willow tannins, something he is familiar with from his many travels across the realm—and then drinks the entire small bottle. It’s bitter to the taste, with a subtle honey-sweetness used by many experienced healers to remedy the acridness of many bark-based tannics.

The woman smiles softly, taking the vial back. “It should begin to work within the hour.”

The prince returns the smile, allowing the old woman to clasp one of his hands in two of hers. The kingsguard watches her like a pair of hawks as she retreats, but not before exclaiming aloud, pulling a small pouch from within her thick cloak.

“May I bless you, your grace?” She asks.

Donnel frowns. “No—”

Baelor ignores his guard, stepping forward and presenting himself to the herb-woman, thus putting some space between him and his guards. She smiles, opening the pouch. Between her thumb and forefinger, she produces a pinch of bright pink powder.

“How long have you been from your wife?” the woman questions, tucking the pouch back within her cloak and sprinkling the powder onto her outstretched palm.

Baelor chuckles softly, watching the woman. “Too long. Weeks now.”

“You must desire her embrace then, I assume,” she says, and Baelor ignores another poorly-hidden laugh from Roland at the woman’s open words.

“Desperately,” Baelor speaks plainly, also ignoring the fact he could feel Donnel’s scowl pressing into the back of his head.

“Well,” the woman begins, running her finger through the pink powder on her palm and drawing a circle in it. “I bless you, your grace, with the passion and the desire to make up for such lost time.”

The woman raises her hand and blows the pink powder directly into Baelor’s face. He closes his eyes, the dust settling across him like a mist, tickling his skin as it settles. It takes a second for the smell to calm around his head, but as he inhales, everything he smells is strikingly familiar. He smells his childhood in Dorne: hot, sun-bleached sand, rain-soaked yew trees, spiced wine and pomegranate juice; he smells the ash of Dragonstone, fresh wax seals, blood on Valyrian steel beneath a stormy sky; and then he smells you.

That makes him freeze.

You, as if he had his nose pressed to the crook of your neck.

The musk of your skin, the rose-water of your baths, the cinnamon in your perfume. He smells the lilacs you pick in the gardens, and the ink you so often spill across your fingers as you write. He smells the honey wax soap you wash your hair with, and the rich apple cider you so often treat yourself to during times of celebration.

Baelor opens his eyes and gapes at the woman. “What is—?”

“Blessed be you and your wife, your grace. Travel safely,” she says with a knowing smile, dipping into another stiff curtsy before taking the rope at her mule’s neck and leading him on, pulling the cart away.

Behind the prince, Donnel places a hand on his shoulder. “Your grace, are you—?”

“Let us continue,” Baelor interrupts, slightly too loud. He quickly mounts his horse as Donnel and Roland exchange a strange look. Baelor beckons his knights. “Come, sers. We must not delay our arrival any longer.”

He can’t wait to see you.

Your face flits through his mind and he has to physically press the back of his hand to his mouth to stop himself from groaning as he nudges his horse into motion. When he pulls his hand away, he can see something iridescent dusting across the black leather of his riding glove, but it quickly melts into the hide, leaving behind only a dull shimmer.

He doesn’t feel as though he has been poisoned, but now more than ever, with King’s Landing looming in the distance, his mind is plagued with thoughts of you. Thoughts, which were once wholesome, now diverge—images of you spread out on his bed, a hand between your legs; or the whiny little breath you suck in each time he enters you.

His thoughts are unbecoming of a man of his standing.

But he cannot rid his mind of them.

Images—memories—of you hiking up your skirts as you perch on the edge of his desk, cunt glistening as his mouth lowers, or the way you arch and bend yourself over the edge of your tall bed, gripping the soft furs and sheets, begging him to take you.

“Your grace, are you well?” Donnel asks, catching the light glaze falling across the prince’s eyes.

Baelor nods, clearing his throat. He’s fine. If he ignores the way his cock is currently twitching in his breeches, he’s fine.

“I am,” he replies convincingly. “I must admit, my back feels better already.”

Donnel scoffs, but says nothing more.

If not for the horde of people around him, Baelor would have taken off. No doubt he would have gotten to the Keep in record time, even if he did run his poor stallion into the ground.

—✿—

The sun hangs high in the sky as Baelor hurriedly dismounts his steed and waves Donnel and Roland away. The Red Keep is alive with servants and workers, but amongst the sea of people he does not see you.

The hours that went by were torturous, and on several occasions the prince found himself screwing his eyes shut and willing himself not to burst through the seam of his trousers. Your scent clogged his sinuses, and he could almost feel some phantom of your touch trailing along the back of his neck, rustling the cropped hair of his beard, fiddling with the clasp of his cloak.

He strides purposely through the glowing halls of the Keep, pulling his riding gloves off and tossing them to a servant who hurries after him. He unclasps his cloak too, letting it drop to the ground behind him. The servant squeaks, scooping the cloak up before sprinting forward in an attempt to keep up with the heir.

The servant clears his throat nervously. “Your grace, your presence is requested in counsel at the turn of the hour, and the Lord of Riverrun is awaiting your letter in reply to—”

“I have been absent for weeks,” Baelor snaps, but although his tone is short, he is not cruel. “It will not hurt to miss one more meeting. And as for the Lord of Riverrun, he can wait even longer unless he’d rather a reply from my brother, who he is not fond of.”

The servant nods. “Of course, your grace, but—”

“Where is my wife?” Baelor voices, his doublet too hot and too restrictive around his chest. The halls of the Keep seem particularly warm today.

“Your chambers, as far as I’m aware,” the servant replies. “But—”

“Thank you, you are dismissed,” Baelor says as he rounds a corner, the door to your shared chambers coming into close view. His heart leaps in his chest envisioning you waiting patiently for his arrival.

The servant, arms struggling to hold onto Baelor’s thick, luxurious cloak, frowns deeply. “Your grace—?”

Baelor whirls around, and the servant yelps as he is forced to an abrupt stop. The prince gestures to the closed door of his chambers with a quick flick of his hand.

“Please make it aware to all of the workers that I am not to be disturbed for the rest of the day,” he says, voice low. “Tell the entire Keep for all I care, but under no circumstances is anyone to call for me, understood?”

The servant nods.

Baelor spins and pushes his door open, closing it and bolting it behind him with a resounding clank. He rests his forehead on the rough wood for a moment, catching his breath. His heart hammers wildly in his chest, as if his journey through the Keep had been miles longer than it actually was. It almost pains him, the way it clatters against his ribs as his breaths grow more ragged. His head is swimming too, a dizzy sort of euphoria overwhelmed by everything relating to you.

You.

He groans, eyes screwing shut as his cock presses painfully to the front of his breeches. He has half the mind to simply stick his hand into his trousers and jerk himself into the linen.

“Baelor?”

Your voice is angelic in the quiet of the chambers, and it makes another groan split from between Baelor’s lax jaw.

He turns, eyes opening, blinking blearily as he stares into the sunlight streaming through the windows. You sit up in the large canopy bed, your white chemise sitting loosely on your shoulders, revealing the curve of your neck. The furs and sheets pool around you in a mass of browns and blacks, and you rub at your eyes with the heel of your hand as you take in the sight of your husband across the room.

“You’re home,” you smile lazily at him, pushing yourself from the bed and padding your way over to him.

Your voice is so soft that it makes Baelor fold forward, the weight of his arousal dragging him towards you. You have him on an invisible leash, tugging him across the room until you can wrap your arms around his waist and press your face into his chest.

“No one informed me you were returning today,” you tell him, voice muffled against the thickness of his doublet. He presses two trembling hands to your lower back, pulling you tighter against him. You nuzzle him, the feeling making his stomach swoop. “I’ve missed you.”

“And I you,” he responds quietly, and he stiffens when he feels you go still. His voice is throaty and hoarse, hauled through gravel.

Slowly, you look up, and he realises you can feel the press of his clothed cock against your stomach. He groans, a pathetic little bellow as you gape up at him, eyes sparkling as they take in the state of his fevered face. You raise a hand, placing it against his cheek. He closes his eyes, and like a puppy, leans into your touch with a small sound of pleasure.

“You…” You begin, but falter. Your fingers trail along the neat line where the hair of his beard meets his cheek. He wonders, as he finally opens his eyes, if you can see every one of his pores glistening. He wonders too if the sweat that collects along his forehead is tinted pink. You frown. “You smell of… well, I’m not sure.”

He whines at the timidness in your voice, his hands circling to your hips. He grips you tightly, pulling your pelvis flush to his. It takes all power within him not to grind his cock against you. He doesn’t want to scare you off.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he says before you can open your mouth. Your hands continue to flutter over his face, and it makes his cock jump in his breeches when your thumb slides over the bow of his top lip. “Being away from you has been torture.”

You hum, slightly distracted. Your hands continue to shift across his face, and your brows knit together once more when you slowly pull one of them away. Baelor watches you examine your fingertips before your eyes find his again. He can feel the hot pressure of tears behind his eyes—not because he is sad, but because he needs you so badly he feels his heart will implode against his sternum.

“Gods, I need you,” Baelor declares gently, strong hands lifting to cup your face. He leans forward to press his lips to yours, but you resist, turning your head so his mouth lands against your warm cheek. He whines, frustrated, as he scatters kisses over your cheekbone. “No, no, sweet girl, please don’t—”

“You’re sparkling like a silk-street whore,” you quip, voice light with humour, but Baelor doesn’t hear it that way.

“No, no, never,” he rambles, nose pressing to your cheek. “I’d never, sweet girl, gods no. I’d first open my throat before I ever—”

“Baelor,” you stop him with a small, breathless chuckle, slightly overwhelmed. 

He’s burning hot against you, he knows it, and you’re just as warm against him. It makes his head swim as he inhales, your skin slightly tacky with sweat from your midday nap, but smelling of roses and cinnamon.

“I’ve been blessed,” he says quickly, trying to turn your face, but you resist. He kisses your chin instead. “A herb-woman blessed me.”

“Ah,” you reply, knowing what he’s referring to. Not only have you met a few of these travelling healers in your time, but you’ve also read much about them.

Baelor leans his weight into you, and you stumble back until you collide with one of the thick posts of your canopy bed. He groans, pinning you to it as he kisses along your jaw, strong hands cupping your face. Your fingers find the hem of his doublet and you rub along the dense seam. As you do that, his hips rut forward and you gasp at the thick print of his cock against you, hot and hard in his trousers. Your hands drop, finding the cool metal of the clasp.

You hear him suck in a breath as he kisses the tender skin beside your ear. Then, he whispers, “Yes, take them off. Please take them off, little dove.”

You unbuckle the clasp.

He groans. “Yes, yes.”

Your fingers peel the front of his trousers open, and he finally manages to pull your mouth up to his. His hands are burning hot against the side of your head as his mouth slots against yours. The kiss is tender to start with, but one beat of your heart later and he’s whining against you, tongue sliding across your lips.

“Let me in,” he pleads against your mouth, before delving back in.

You do, opening your kisses for him to press his tongue in, finding yours. Everything about it is warm, your proximity burning hotter than a Dornish summer sun.

The tent of his cock nudges your palm as you finally shuck his trousers down. You feel for the ties of his breeches next, pulling at the knots as his tongue skims across your teeth. When he feels his breeches begin to loosen around his hips, he breaks away to groan, head tilting down slightly, your foreheads bumping together. He watches your fingers draw his breeches undone before they drop alongside his trousers.

You hesitate.

Baelor groans. “Touch me. Touch me, please, I need you to—”

You clasp the base of his cock with a warm, gentle hand. He groans again: this time, louder, and he lifts your head with his guiding hands and slams his mouth back to yours. There’s a subtle bitterness on his tongue, like a medicine of some sort, but it’s overwhelmed by an apple flavour that has you searching for more. Your tongues tangle as you grasp his cock, giving it a few tiny strokes as he pulls you away from the canopy post and pushes you down onto the mattress.

The kiss disconnects and you yelp as you fall flat onto the furs. Your husband’s hands find the hem of your chemise now and push it quickly up your body.

“There’s my pretty girl,” he utters, finding you bare of any smallclothes beneath your sleepwear.

He stares down at your cunt with a misty gloss across his mismatched eyes. His hands drag down your sides, then onto your thighs, massaging the fat there before he’s prying them apart.

One of his hands grips the base of his cock, replacing your own. “You have no… no idea how badly I need this.”

Baelor steps forward and tugs you towards him at the same time. You yelp once more as your arse practically hangs off of the bed as he settles between your spread legs. The thick head of his cock presses right against your clit, and you yowl his name as he taps it there roughly. His eyes snap up to take in your expression, and that’s when you notice a tear slip from his dark-hued eye.

“Oh, Baelor,” you whisper, pussy fluttering around nothing at the unbridled need in his face. There are a million butterflies in your tummy too.

He whimpers deeply, then drags his cock through your silken folds. He collects the slick that gathers there with a small moan before he speaks. The tear disappears into the hair of his beard. “My sweetest girl, please let me have you.”

You’re nodding straight away.

Baelor sucks in a breath, and you see something like regret flicker through his eyes. “Gods, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t,” you tell him, noting the rapid rise and fall of his chest as his eyes rake down your body. They linger on the peaks of your nipples through the thin material of your chemise. “You could never hurt me.”

“No, no, sweet girl, I can’t—” Baelor slurs, then cuts himself off with a low whine as he notches the head of his cock at your hole.

You’re wet and glistening for him, but his mind is split in two: conflicted, overrun with the effects of whatever he had been ‘blessed’ with, but still anchored to his princely values.

He huffs, desperate as he rubs the tip of his cock in tight circles around your entrance. “Oh, fuck.”

You angle your hips and the leaking tip sinks into you. He chokes on his moan, the apple in his throat bobbing as he swallows around it. He watches, eyes nearly the same colour with the way his pupils dilate, as your pussy splits apart for him and sucks the head in. Then, his entire body trembling with need, he pushes even further, shoving his cock all the way inside you, giving you no room to adjust.

It punches a pained noise from your chest that you tried to keep at bay, and you can’t help but wriggle away from him at the intrusion. It’s instinctive, your body reacting to the sudden pressure that fissures both pain and pleasure deep in your gut. Your body writhes against the furs as you whimper, somehow feeling the tip of his cock all the way in your chest, the sensation of being filled suffocating after over two weeks without him.

Your body flees his, and the moan that leaves his mouth is nothing short of heart-breaking. It’s stretched and whiny and nothing you’ve ever heard before.

“No, no, no, please, don’t run from me,” Baelor stammers, eyes wide, hands tight on your hips. He tugs you back down, spearing you on his cock and you howl as he buries himself to the hilt inside you. You fist the sheets, wriggling. Baelor whines. “Stop, s-stop, no, I’m sorry, sweet girl, please don’t—please don’t cry.”

You hadn’t even noticed a few hot tears slipping from your eyes. He bends then, kissing them from your face. His eyelashes flutter against you and the hair of his beard scratches against the skin of your cheek. He whispers to you as he rolls his hips, stretching your pussy around him.

“M’sorry, need—fuck, tell me to stop and I will.” His lips ghost across your earlobe as he pins you beneath him, the angle slightly awkward, hips trapped beneath his.

You gasp softly as he ruts his hips again. “Don’t stop, jus’ keep going.”

“Thank you,” Baelor says, kissing your cheek once more before he rights himself. He holds your hips tightly, pulling himself out and then back in. The drive is deep, and he’s moaning louder than you as he bottoms out again and again. “Thank you, thank you, thank you—”

His trousers and breeches rustle against his thighs as he fucks you, your arse hanging off the bed, the wood of the canopy creaking with his feverish movements. You take it, the sting of the stretch slowly dissipating with each thrust. Your cunt clenches around him as he thanks you repeatedly, growing more and more desperate as he moves. You can see the sweat on his forehead, and you can only assume he’s drenched beneath his doublet and tunic.

The sounds of your union bounce through the chambers, moans and whimpers and curses ricocheting off the stone. He’s murmuring your name like a prayer, strung beautifully between rambling sentences of High Valyrian as he ruts into you.

Not only is this little blessing working, but the white willow tea surely did. His back no longer pains him, and he feels like he could go on forever as he fills you. His eyes linger on where your pussy takes him, sloppy and wet and so fucking loud that his ears burn red. And you’re loud too, whimpering and gasping as your body is rocked roughly against the silken sheets and plush furs.

With a long-winded groan, Baelor takes one of his hands and presses it down on your lower belly. The added pressure has you keening, eyes almost rolling.

“That’s it,” Baelor speaks in a tone heavy with pleasure. “That’s it, little dove. Feel me filling you. Feel the way you take me.”

His words are so foreign yet so familiar. In bed, he’s no stranger to telling you how well you’re doing, how well you take him, how good of a girl you are. But this? The pink powder is thick between his teeth, clogging up the blood vessels in his brain, and he’s spitting out sentences that have you clenching tight around him. He groans as your pussy flutters, and the knot of pleasure in your tummy grows tenfold. A heavy pressure begins to build in the base of your cervix too, hips twitching as he slams into you.

He must see it in your face, because he’s panting now, eyes taking in every little expression that flits before him.

“I know, I know,” he affirms gently, noting what you could not articulate into words. “I know you’re feeling good. I know you’re feeling real good, little dove, but you just need to h-hang on—don’t want you coming u-until I do.”

You whimper, pouting a little.

“Can you do that for me?” Baelor pants, forcing your hips down. By the way he’s moving, the speed in which he fills you and the whines that begin to replace his groans, you know he’s close. But the pressure in your tummy is so heavy that you can’t answer him. He coos at you. “You can do it, sweet girl. I’m almost there. Just hold on for me.”

You moan his name, arching off the bed as the knot in your stomach pulls taut. He responds with a moan of his own, leaning forward as if he’s beginning to lose his balance. He ruts into you like a starving man, the bed shaking, his body silhouetted by the window behind him. His mouth is agape, his breathing erratic and strained.

“Baelor,” you call for him. You’re teetering on a very high cliff, your entire body alight with your impending orgasm. There’s a scream trapped in your throat and your legs pull painfully tight either side of him.

“Okay, okay, okay,” he rambles, his knuckles white where he holds you. “Okay, fuck, s’okay, little dove. You can come for me. M’right here, m’right here.”

You whine, almost pained.

“S’alright, sweet girl,” Baelor continues to coo down at you. “Let me feel you. Want to feel you come around me while I fill you.”

His cock jerks heavily inside you, and his thrusts falter just as you release around him. Gripping the sheets, you sob his name as the knot of pleasure splinters apart. Your release is intense: you shake beneath the warm hold of his big hands, legs seizing tightly as you wrap them around him. His name and his title tumble from your lips, and they only increase when you feel his cock nudge up against your cervix as he spills inside you.

Baelor groans your name. His hips stutter to a stop as he spills, and he’s panting and shuddering as his pleasure peaks. It’s the strongest release he’s ever experienced, his eyes snapping closed as his entire body shakes and his heart leaps into his throat.

And he’s still spilling. Thick ropes of seed that seem never-ending as he hunches over you, cock jolting over and over until the point of pain.

He whines deeply, then pulls out, just for a few hot spurts of cum to splatter across your mound and your lower tummy.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Baelor whimpers, and you gasp out as he rests his cock against you. You feel it give one last jerk, dribbling at your navel, before you watch it slowly begin to soften, blood steadily seeping away from the head. Baelor notices the mess he’s made when his vision finally clears, still slightly dizzy with pleasure though. “M’so sorry, little dove, I didn’t—gods, I didn’t mean—”

You lift a tired arm and seize him by the doublet, tugging him down beside you. You capture his mouth in a heated kiss, and he melts into it straight away. His hands smooth down your sides as your fingers comb through his beard.

When you pull apart, you kiss the tip of his nose. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

Baelor frowns slightly, and you can’t help but raise your head to kiss the divots in his brow. He huffs. “I… I was too rough, I shouldn’t have…”

There’s a slight ache deep in your womb, but nothing significant. All you’re focusing on, anyway, is the way his seed leaks from you like honey from its dipper.

“Please, Baelor,” you interrupt him softly, stroking his face. “Like I said, you could never hurt me.”

He goes to speak again, but you kiss him to shut him up.

“I missed you so much,” you say against him, and he grunts, agreeing. You laugh, pulling back a little, examining the bright pink in his cheeks. “And although I… enjoyed this, I must implore you not to take strange blessings from strange people—”

Baelor rolls his eyes, and now it’s his turn to kiss you to shut you up.

———

this might be a little ooc but oh well he’s hot

———

tag list 🌿

@ghostlybfgf @breakspearz @sem-ra @bitterrfruit @dododix @fandom4always @hannisreading @through-the-looking--glass @all-men-are-knights @kittiowolf210 @ildico-the-golden @cheesecakepersonvet @julez-5

[trashshart]

✤ ᖴOᖇ ᗩ ᗰIᑎI-ᗰIᒪESTOᑎE ᑕEᒪEᗷᖇᗩTIOᑎ, I ᗯᗩᑎTEᗪ TO SᕼOᗯ SOᗰE ᒪOᐯE TO ᖴIᑕS ᗩᑎᗪ ᗩᑌTᕼOᖇS I ᒪOᐯE! ✤

⁂ more works by this author included below | ❤ an all time favorite

◊ baby goes again ◊ sacraments ◊ speak of her over my grave ❤ by @docrobinavitch

◊ your needs, my needs ◊ how easy you are to need by @robbyology ⁂

◊ bruin, bird, bairn ◊ a faeder’s troth by @jackrrabbot ⁂

◊ bond ◊ human resources ◊ yours ◊ if by @rr-after-dark ⁂

◊ let me in by @soulluvrrr ⁂

◊ boogie by @spookypeachpitt13

◊ spellbound ◊ alight with the sparks ◊holding you, holding me by @oldermenfucker ⁂

◊ secrets & oaths by @tay-writes

◊ mythological beauty by @vanilleandclove

◊ all my flowers for you ◊ it had to be you by @thatfanficstuff ⁂

◊ a false start by @titusdanforths

◊ out in the garden by @lauraneedstochill ⁂

◊ blurb by @titus-danforth ⁂

◊ there’s a reason dr. robby asked you to be his housesitter… by @loves-alibi ⁂

◊ blurb by @cinnxmxngxrl

◊ across the hall by @rynwrites4fun ⁂

◊ take a break ❤ by @bitters-n-sweets

◊ done for by @popcornpoppypop {m.list with series}

◊ saving all my love for you by @thedilfydoctorshow ⁂

◊ undone by @bottmless-pitt

◊ private dancer by @thedamnqueenofhell ⁂

◊ blurb by @smiteswrites

◊ from eden by @cosmic-whispers

◊ michael robinavitch - a case study in falling {x ofc} by aurelius0517

◊ sweet little lamb ◊ champagne problems by @/oldermenfucker ⁂

◊ don’t worry, baby by @erwinsvow ⁂

◊ material girl ❤ ◊ stupid by @/rr-after-dark ⁂

◊ stained with you by @/lauraneedstochill

◊ sucrose ◊ love in limerence by @/jackrrabbot ⁂

◊ close encounter by @thebirdandthebee ↪ the fact that jack being this ridiculous is basically canon now is amazing

◊ attrition by @/soulluvrrr ⁂

◊ rebel cowboy by @thatcorporategirlie

◊ little blue pill by @/thedilfydoctorshow ⁂

◊ fated by @/loves-alibi ⁂

◊ toy box by @drjohncarters

◊ remember me by @at-this-point-i-dont-even-know

◊ homegrown by @ozarkthedog

◊ bad idea right by @/thedilfydoctorshow

◊ loathing by @inlovewithquestionablecharacters

◊ hostile work environment by @dolloebaby

◊ kiss of life by @/soulluvrrr ⁂

◊ dirty thirty by @ovaryacted

◊ blurb ◊ jack and his pups blurbs by @gatorlovebot ⁂

◊ blink by @superhoeva ⁂

◊ heat by @/soullluvrrr ⁂

◊ the sweetest submission by @pope-codys ⁂

◊ blurb by @/thedamnqueenofhell

◊ robby being granted the opportunity to watch jack fuck his spouse by@/loves-alibi ⁂

◊ home welcoming guests! by @/oldermenfucker ⁂

◊ blurb by @/gatorlovebot

◊ i wanna fuck you like an animal by @hawksredrobe ⁂

◊ dancing phantoms by @/oldermenfucker

◊ line without a hook by @ofhouseadama

◊ i want to know your plans ◊ i wanna kiss you standing up by @pittofdespair

◊ whipped ❤ ◊ timoclea ◊ guard dog by @/rr-after-dark ⁂

◊ just a little too much ◊ baby, don’t be scared, i want you everywhere ◊ blurb by @/pope-codys ⁂

◊ from eden by @/titus-danforth

◊ here is my hand that will not harm you ❤ ◊ and you shall not need to fear me by @/erwinsvow ⁂

◊ love you anyway by @/rynwrites4fun

◊ found out by @love-quinn

◊ the diner by lizcar

◊ bad influence ❤ by @pittrabbit ↪ i literally binged animal kingdom to read this masterpiece

◊ karma by @alvfr

◊ the hunt by @/thatfanficstuff

◊ venus fly trap by @/pope-codys

◊ white feather hawk tail deer hunter by @se7entyrell ⁂

◊ build-a-blurb by @/rr-after-dark ↪ yeah it was my request, what of it?

◊ falling off the deep end by @/soulluvrrr

◊ epithalamium by @/jackrrabbot

◊ canines of the savior by @/robbyology

◊ ultraviolence by @flofaiiry

◊ jack abbot x reader x baran al hashimi ↪ blurb by @/superhoeva

◊ baelor targaryen x reader ↪ hopelessly devoted to you by @/erwinsvow

✤ ᗪᖇᗩᗷᗷᒪEᖇS ᗩᑎᗪ ᗷᒪᑌᖇᗷEᖇS ✤

◊ @/hawksredrobe ◊ @/loves-alibi ◊ @starlord-s ◊ @/se7entyrell

ᗰᗯᗩᕼ!

✤ a non-exhaustive list in no particular order. i didn't want to include an author's entire masterlist, may have missed a fic i loved, & have many on my tbr list that i know i will ✤

line dividers by @/strangergraphics | circus dividers by @/pixopix | graphics by my brain worms

[kingsqveen]

i am absolutely obsessed with robby’s tummy, so i’ve collected all the tummy worship / tummy riding fics i could find with him

fluff / no smut

• tummy by @thatfanficstuff

• short drabble by @promotional-dvd

• insecure robby by @loves-alibi (this one does get more explicit but stops before full smut)

smut drabbles

• belly riding, mutual masturbation by @merlinsaggyballs

• tipsy tummy riding by @oldermenfucker

• riding robby’s tummy by @cosmic-whispers

longer fics

• tummy riding by @science-hoes

• vacation hookup by @docrobinavitch (not fully about tummy riding but it is included)

• you should never know how easy you are to need by @ceriseangels

(if anyone wants to tag me in future tummy worship fics with robby or direct me to fics i missed please please do)

[rr-after-dark]

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

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

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

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

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

Word Count: 14.2k

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You’re leaving? Why?”

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

“How long ago was that?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whitaker shakes his head and mutters, “Freak.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He has a handsome smile.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You melt – just a little.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I don’t think I’m-”

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

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

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

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

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

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

And Brendon Park is smitten.

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

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

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

“I have work to do, Frank.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trinity mouths to Whitaker, Brendon?

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

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

“Brutal, Sharkbait. Brutal.”

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

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

Your brows furrow. “What? Why?”

“Look.”

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

“You sure?”

“We get along great, actually.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Give it a period.”

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

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

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

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

“No gym buddies to gab with?”

“No gym buddies,” he confirms.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He barks out a laugh. “Is that why?”

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

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

“He said, frowning.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Involuntary response to relevant stimulus.”

“Whatever you say, big guy.”

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

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

When you say yes, his heart sings.

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

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

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

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

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

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

There are the tears.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then you start crying even more.

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

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

But at least you have the weekend to wallow.

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

Fuck.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

God, you’re an idiot.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Park’s pupils dilate.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then he kisses you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Really?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fuck, you’re soaked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Shut up; yes, you did.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Well, they do say he was hung.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That I’m a crybaby?”

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

“Really?”

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

And you weep.

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

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

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

Then you bite him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah, alright, tough guy.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[cosmic-reads]

Ohhhhh this is delicious

[renrecs]

The Pitt Reqs 2

part one here: ♡´･ᴗ･`♡ ill try not to show my bias but if you notice one character has more fics than the others..no you don't <3

Jack Abbot: your move, abbot by @jrabbott (slight angst but very happy ending with sassy abbot) jealous girl by @youleftmenochoicebut (you get a lil jealous when someone touches him but honestly who wouldn't??) hoola hoop by @inkydelusions (i wont even lie despite how utterly beautiful this piece is i was tearing up a bit, the love abbot showed helped but damn) sharing is caring by @talaok (this is a fic with Robby n jack sharing you but its in this section as jack needs you BAD) happily married by @imaginesofwonder (fliiiirty jack god yum) you've ruined my life @pencil-n-pen (god he's so fucking delish in this he's so caring) tiktok trend by @littlebatx (playing a trick on your old man) cant take my eyes off of you by @angelverse222 (hes a yearneeeer n its amazing) say please by @euon111a ( i love his so much so flirty n i need him) tender is the night by @lovebugism (i love love looove how flirty hes written) you have no idea by @geminiwritten (this shit had me bricked up so bad i love him) you win some, you lose some by @lovebugism (slight angst but worth it)

Dennis Whitaker: yee-haw! by @lovee-potions (i looove sub Dennis it just feels right, smuuutty) scrub off well by @imagines-all-day-everyday (super cute flustered dennis yum) curiosity (did not) kill the cat by @sapiensecrets ( he's so dumb i love him) pathetically yours by @pittifullyobsessed ( he's a peeeerv but its so pathetically cute i wanna chomp him, smut)

Michael Robinavitch: bathroom break by @talaok (a lil bit of angst as foreplay but then smut :3) burn for you by @cosmic-whispers (smut with a very flirty robby my fav) seven-week itch by @lovebugism (this fic has it all; angst, hurt/comfort, fluff, and smut. enjooy) soft, harder, in between by @ceriseangels (like the author states its a angst to smut to fluff story) ex's and oh's by @cinnxmxngxrl (your ex causes robby to realize some feelings and he acts,, smut!!) hands around a cold glass by @cosmic-whispers (this author just does it so well with robby god, hes yummy in their works) dating??? by @kolsmikaelson (hes a lil oblivious but cute) father material by @gwen-novella (he wants to be a dad and when you share the sentiment well he fulfills his wishes, smutty) feels like trouble by @thepencilnerd (you stand up against a frat guy n robbys jealousy is eased) father figure by @ceriseangels (this author is too good with writing tension this shit had me bricked)

and there is one special honor for this fic because he's so pathetic but this James Ogilvie fic by @rockmepm called pretty when i cry shiiiit i nutted along with this yummy drabble by @strangelure of pervy trinity and guys this author is literally always on a listen some how and now they're wring the Pitt I'm fed.

mdni and border is @cursed-carmine

[xreader1989]

The Shark

Michael Robinavitch x fem!attending!reader

Word count: 1.5k Masterlist

Summary: your boyfriend gets a little jealous when a past situationship with a certain ortho god comes to light in front of everyone in the trauma room.

AN: Allusions to sex and cursing. Sorry I’m so Pitt focused right now babes! I just can’t get enough!

You were listening to Whitaker explain the findings on the xray when the doors to the trauma room opened up.

After all, this was a teaching hospital, and Ogilvie was listening as Whitaker spoke and you chimed in when needed.

Robby stood on the other side managing the patients pain and vitals.

You knew Park was upstairs but you really hoped he would send anyone else down.

“Is this a favorable amputation,” he said, cutting Dennis off and demanding the attention from the room.

You squeezed your eyes shut. You had successfully avoided having a conversation with Brendan Park for the better part of two years while working under the same roof.

Robby rolled his eyes, as he always did when surgery came down and demanded attention, “Park, always a pleasure.”

“Pretty clean cut, sliced through like a guillotine,” Garcia said calmly.

Then his eyes met yours across the room and he said your name, it was by no means soft. In fact, there wasn’t a soft thing about him.

But it wasn’t cold either, which was the only persona he ever presented, especially towards people he felt were below him.

You gave him a nod as acknowledgement. His eyes left yours and he went back to barking orders at everyone around him, Garcia taking notes from his side.

You could feel Robby’s gaze basically burning a hole into the side of your head at the small interaction. Everyone was a little confused by it, but it wasn’t uncommon for men in this hospital to have a crush on you.

You were beautiful and smart, and more than competent.

As Park finished giving instructions and being rude to Whitaker he moved across the room to stand by you.

Everyone went back to what they were doing, except for Robby, who was now watching you interact with Park.

“I haven’t heard from you in a while,” he said quietly enough that you hoped only you could hear.

You scoffed, “really? Didn’t think you would notice, Brendan.”

“I was wondering if I could take you out again?” He said confidently, grinning.

You couldn’t have rolled your eyes further enough into the back of your head, “and why would I let you do that?”

You could feel everyone trying not to obviously listen to the conversation, grasping at any gossip they could.

“I figured maybe we could try again. Third time’s the charm and all that,” he said, still grinning. It was a smile he rarely wore at work, especially in the ER.

“Are you considering whatever those were to be two attempts?” You asked, crossing your arms over your chest and raising your brow.

“Exactly. So the third would be the charm,” he smirked.

“You’re persistent. I’ll give you that,” you said, keeping your tone neutral in attempt to sound casual to those around you.

“Occupational hazard. Surgeons don’t quit easily.”

You hated the way you wanted to smile, god damn his surgeon charm. “That’s great for the OR. Less charming in a trauma room while you ask me out.”

“Ouch. Is that a hard no?” He said, feigning offense.

“It’s a polite no.”

“Did I do something wrong? I thought the dates went pretty well,” he said with a shrug.

“You spent forty minutes telling the waiter about how your ACL repair technique is the fastest in the state, even though I’m pretty sure there’s no evidence to support that.”

“It was relevant to the story.”

“There was no story. It was like I was forced to attend your TED talk.”

“Okay… fair. But I was nervous,” he lowered his voice at the last part of the sentence, like he was trying to be vulnerable.

“You didn’t seem nervous. You seemed impressed with yourself,” you swore you heard Robby choke back a laugh, but you didn’t spare a look at him,

“That’s my baseline personality,” he was still fucking smirking.

“Yes, I noticed,” was all you could manage in response.

“Look, I know I can come off… intense. But I did enjoy spending time with you. And plus you love teasing me,” he said reaching out to squeeze your side, a move that made you freeze, far too intimate for your liking.

“Mmhmm, but I can tease you right here in the trauma room without having to get dressed up. And it’s free,” you quipped.

“That’s harsh. But wouldn’t it be more fun to tease me over wine? And who said anything about you paying.”

You smiled a little, only humming in response.

“What if I promised to ask at least three questions about you this time?” He raised his eyebrows at his own suggestion.

“I feel like that’s something we shouldn’t have to preface, it should just be a given.”

“I’m serious. And technically I haven’t heard you say no yet.”

You nearly choked, “I think you’re delusional. I guess you’ll just have to do better than groveling with me in a trauma room full of my peers.”

“Alright. I can respect that,” he said with a small smile.

“Now, excuse me Dr. Park, I have to irrigate this severed leg with… what is it again… oh right… saline!” You patted his bicep before turning back to the patient.

He walked around you and back to the doors, his tense posture returning almost immediately, “page me once you have consent.” And he was gone.

You finally felt like you could exhale.

The nonessential people left the room. Whitaker took Ogilvie to find saline. Leaving only you and Robby, and your patient.

“So…” Robby broke the silence, “Park the Shark…. And you?”

You rolled your eyes immediately, “it was years ago, Michael.”

He hummed in response.

“You know I’m kind of taking a three month vacation with you starting tonight, right?” You said without looking up from the chart in your hands, “I also believe there’s a nice script M on the gold chain I’m wearing.”

“Yeah, well you seemed to have forgotten to mention your boyfriend to Park,” he said coldly.

“Oh my god. Michael, are you jealous?” You looked up at him, his eyes still on the monitor in front of him, “… of Park the freaking Shark?”

He scoffed, “no, not jealous.” You walked around the patient to exit the trauma room.

“Well, Mr. Not Jealous, I’ll leave you to your irrigation.” You said, pushing the door open with your back and leaving the room while snapping your gloves off.

You reentered the chaos of the ER and couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at your lips. Part of you loved seeing Robby a little jealous, you had been together for a few years, and it made you feel a little fire inside of you. Call it toxic, or trauma, or whatever you wanted. It excited you.

You weaved through all the people until you reached the small break room, hoping for a cup of shitty coffee and a moment of reprieve.

You didn’t even hear Robby slip in behind you until you heard a lock click.

“I didn’t even know the door in here locked,” you said leaning against the counter and sipping your coffee.

He walked over to you, ignoring your words. He took the coffee cup out of your hand, placing it behind you. He placed a hand on each side of you on the counter, caging you in. His face only inches from yours.

“Do I need to remind Dr. Park upstairs what’s mine?” He said quietly, his breath ticking your cheek.

“What’s yours?” You said teasingly, but your voice was shaking.

He smiled a little, liking the effect he was having on you. He nodded slowly, “what’s mine.”

You were blushing under his gaze, “no need to make a scene, I know who I belong to.” 

He nearly grunted at your statement.

“And I can spend the next three months showing you,” you added, barely above a whisper.

He chuckled, his shoulders shaking, his eyes didn’t leave yours, “I’m looking forward to our little trip then.”

The door knob jiggled, someone trying to get in to the break room. You looked at the door but Robby’s eyes stayed on you.

“Can’t wait to run out of here with you at seven,” you said, flicking your eyes to the clock before back to him, “only three more hours.”

He leaned down and kissed you slowly, much more passionately than you he usually would at work.

“We might have to make a pit stop at home, I don’t know if I can wait.” He said honestly as he pulled away from the kiss.

You laughed against his lips, “patience is a virtue, Michael.”

He laughed.

Now there was banging on the door. Robby groaned, pecking your lips before moving to unlock the door, revealing Dana.

“Oh, the lovebirds, should’ve guessed. I didn’t even know the break room locked.” She said with a smirk.

“Well I’m going back to work,” you grabbed your coffee cup, “see you at seven Dr. Robinavitch.” You said before slipping out the door and back into the sea of chaos.

You smiled into your cup as you were bombarded by residents needing approvals and opinion.

But all you could think about is how there was only three more hours until you and Robby were completely and utterly alone for three whole months.

[docrobinavitch]

ONCE MORE TO SEE YOU— PART ONE

dr robby x f!charge nurse!reader | read on ao3 | part two

wc: 33.2k (both parts) content: 18+ mdni, sexually explicit content, implied age gap, robby is a manwhore and a dick lol, enemies(?)rivals to lovers, angst with happy ending, hurt/comfort, parent with lewy body dementia, caretaker of parent, caretaker burnout, death of a parent, alcohol, scene where reader is nearly taken advantage of but there is no actual SA, reader is briefly arrested for disorderly conduct (acab), dysfunctional father/daughter dynamic, panic attack, mental health issues, suicidal ideation synopsis: after what you thought was a one night stand while on vacation, you're forced to now work in your hook up's emergency room. with your life in shambles, you've sworn off men, but robby is an inescapable force that you are not ready to reckon with. a/n: hello! first thing’s first, pleaseee read the tags! unfortunately tumblr is lame and wouldn't let me post all in one go, so part two is linked at the bottom or it is posted in one piece on ao3. i incorporated this blurb into the beginning of the fic, if you haven’t read it you’re not missing anything it’s all here. if you have read it, i made some slight tweaks and reordered some things. i know absolutely nothing about being a charge nurse so. lmao sorry if it’s trash!!! anyway i hope you like it <3 -syd

It was likely poor decision making that you ended up blowing your savings on the trip to Jamaica. Yes, the money had been intended for the wedding that was now off. But you knew you were about to be in a financially precarious situation, and really, the adult thing to do would've been to put the money aside for later.

But it was deep winter on the east coast and on top of everything else that was going wrong in your life, you thought the lack of vitamin D was about to hit a catastrophic low. Frankly, you thought your mental health would not take well to yet another blow. In just a week you'd be back in your hometown, starting a new job, and living with your father. Just when you thought you'd finally escaped. When you thought you'd built the family you'd always wanted.

It was snatched away from you just like that. You were angry and more than a little bitter and you wanted to get fucked up on a beach about it.

There would be no men on this vacation, you decided. It would be all too easy to fall in bed with a gorgeous specimen and drown yourself in someone else. You'd spiral down the same path you'd only just narrowly escaped. Because that's how you were framing it now, that you were lucky all this had happened, that you learned who he really was before the wedding.

It didn't make it all hurt any less though, no matter how you tried to pretend it did.

So men were off limits. Yep, they sure were. You almost made it through to the end of the trip having followed through. Until you met him.

As luck would have it, the resort you'd chosen in Jamaica had been overrun with middle aged men, exactly your type. At first, you had thought it'd be an inhuman feat to get home without falling victim to some older man's flirting. But quickly, you noticed all of these men were here with their wives and had exhaled a sigh of relief. Immediately, all desire for them evaporated and it was much easier to ignore them.

So when a tall, handsome, bearded man took the pool chair next to you your last morning you didn't bother to even look up from your book.

"Gorgeous weather we're having, wouldn't you say?" His voice was warm with amusement, a pleasant grate to it against your ears.

You sighed and turned a page, "No," You said simply.

He gave a short, incredulous laugh, "Excuse me?"

"The weather's lovely, but I'm not interested."

"Interested in what?"

"Sleeping with you."

He chortled quietly and out of your peripheral, you saw him shake his head, "Well I don't recall asking you that."

You sighed, "Look, I'm young, but I wasn't born yesterday. And, my God, how long have you been married that the best you could do was ask about the weather?"

Finally, you looked at him, and were immediately grateful your sunglasses could not betray the way your pupils likely dilated at the sight of him. So thoroughly exactly your type: Tall, slightly graying beard, brown hair and brown eyes, a hairy chest that led to a soft tummy, the beginnings of a beer belly, protruding just slightly over the waistband of his bathing suit. Oh, you were going to be sick.

Amused smirk on his face, he scratched the back of his head, "Well, I guess that explains why I've never been married, if my flirting is as horrendous as you say."

You blinked and your eyes darted immediately to his left hand. No ring. "You're not married?" You asked, note of fear in your voice. If he wasn't married this was going to make things much more difficult for you.

He shook his head, "No."

You weren't entirely convinced and you had been burned before by men claiming not to be married, but it turned out they had simply taken their ring off for the evening.

Clenching your jaw, you held out your hand, "May I see your hand?"

He gave you a funny look, but obliged you, likely amused by your bizarre behavior. His hand dwarfed yours, warm and calloused in your own. You resisted the urge to intertwine your fingers and closely examined his ring finger. No indentation, no hint of a tan line. If he had ever worn a wedding band, he had taken it off long ago.

Satisfied, you returned his hand and leaned back in your chair, turning your attention back to your book, "I'm still not sleeping with you."

"Again, I never asked you to."

"Not yet, but you will. The answer will still be no."

You had said it more for your own benefit than his, but you suspected he had taken it as a challenge. So you learned each other's names and he had spent the whole day chatting with you, asking about your book, asking you why you were here, if your ire for men encompassed the whole gender or was it reserved exclusively for married men.

"All of them, at the moment. You can thank my cheating ex-fiance for that."

"He must've been out of his mind to cheat on you." He said softly, and it didn't sound like a line to use, it sounded genuine.

But you scoffed, "You don't know me, maybe I'm a raging psychotic bitch who drove him to cheat."

He shook his head, "Nah, I don't buy it. I suspect this prickly exterior is just to act as a deterrent."

You felt your cheeks heat, "And you're not deterred?"

"Not in the slightest."

Chatting at the pool turned into drinks by the pool turned into drinks in the pool turned into lunch by the pool until the sun began to wane.

"Come to dinner with me." He said as everyone was beginning to abandon the pool.

"I'm not sleeping with you," you repeated your mantra, but it was beginning to sound false even to your own ears.

"I'm not asking you to," He repeated, and you knew he was lying as well.

Dinner turned into drinks turned into a walk on the beach under the stars. As the waves crashed against the shore, he kissed you in the moonlight and when you moaned into his mouth you knew he had won.

Which was how you'd ended up naked back in his room, straddled on top of him, worshiping his chest and belly with lips and teeth and tongue. You weren't entirely sure what you had done to deserve the sort of pleasure that was overtaking you now, sparking through every inch of your skin that met his.

Until he gently gripped your chin in between his fingers and brought your face up to his own, so you could see just how desperate and breathless you'd made him. Dewy brown eyes looked up at you, heavy with lust and awe as you rocked your hips back and forth, your pussy dragging over his hard cock and clit rubbing against the soft pudge of his belly with every stroke.

You ground your slick folds against anything, anything to find purchase. Your clit rode the incline from groin to belly button, moaning into his mouth as you did.

"You're gonna come just like this, aren't you baby?" He murmured, "Rubbing your clit on anything will do the job, hm? You're that desperate for me?"

Normally his cockiness would've pissed you off, but you were so desperate for him it only surged you forward, pathetic whimper falling from your lips where he gripped your cheeks.

"Go on, sweetheart, come for me."

And suddenly you were unraveling and crying out his name as you did. He had positioned your hips over his cock afterwards, driving you up and down his erection himself while you were dumb on the aftershocks of your orgasm, clit occasionally rubbing against his belly again as he did, sending sparks across your body.

When it was over, you had begun to gather your things to head back to your room, "Where're you going?" He asked, voice rough with sleep.

"Back to my room."

"Oh," he said, a note of surprise, and was that… disappointment? In his voice? "You could, um, you could sleep here if you wanted."

You resisted a smirk as you looked up at him, "Robby, are you asking me to sleep with you?"

A grin stretched across his face, "Yeah, I think I am. If you'd reconsider your previous decision."

You pretended to think it over, but you had really already decided. You'd lost your own battle, why deny yourself the softness afterwards as well? Those eyes, those hands, that face, that voice, had won you over from the moment you saw him.

And so, you were back in bed with him, curled up against his chest with his lips at your temple. You reminded yourself that all this was just temporary, that tomorrow you'd both be leaving, likely to another side of the country, and you'd never see him again.

You continued to remind yourself this as you both woke up the next morning and you gathered your things, intending to head back to your room to pack.

"Hey, um, I know we're on vacation and we're both thinking that's all this is, but…" He took out a card from his wallet and began scribbling what you assumed was his number on the back, "If you're ever in town, give me a call."

You smirked as you took the card, already knowing you'd get rid of it when you got home. You desperately needed to be alone for a while and you had already broken too many rules for him in the space of 24 hours. You shuddered to think what other rules he could convince you to break if you allotted him any more time.

But as you went to place the card in your wallet, your eyes caught on the front:

Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center

Michael Robinavitch, MD

Emergency Medicine, Department Head

And your heart stuttered to a stop in your chest. Oh, this couldn't be happening, "Fuck."

"What? What is it?"

Your mind raced backwards to the interview you'd had a month ago with Dana Evans. The grumpy attending she'd told you might need a little time to adjust to you. That he struggled with change but he had a good heart and if you did a good job (which you would, you were a fucking stellar charge nurse) he'd come around.

"You're Dr. Robinavitch?" You asked, a little breathless.

He looked at you, confusion evident in his face, "…Yes?"

You sighed heavily, resigned to whatever fresh hell this was turning out to be, all because you couldn't have just kept to your one fucking rule. No men.

You reintroduced yourself and stuck out your hand, "I'm your new charge nurse."

***

Robby's head had been spinning ever since you had told him you would be taking over for Dana for a while. It wasn't that big of a deal he tried to tell himself. It was possible to maintain a mature, professional relationship even if you had slept with a colleague.

He just wished he had had the chance to know you professionally first.

"You can't tell anyone," You had said frantically that morning, "You have to pretend you don't know me when I come in."

He had rolled his eyes and scratched the back of his head, "Seems a bit high school, don't you think?"

"No," you snapped, "I know how much everyone there must love Dana because I met her! She's phenomenal! Do you know how hard it's gonna be for me to earn everyone's respect? And if on day one everyone knows I slept with the attending?"

He looked down at his shoes, shrugging his shoulders, "Honestly I think a lot of them would respect you for it. Might even consider it community service given how miserable I've been lately." When he looked back up, you were glaring at him and he managed a chuckle, "Fine, okay. We'll act like it never happened if that's what you want."

"It is."

He nodded, but felt a kernel of disappointment in his chest. He wasn't sure why, exactly. He knew when he slept with you it would likely be a one night stand, but the idea of acting like he didn't know you when he had spent the last twenty four hours wooing you felt wrong.

To complicate matters further he didn't want to like Dana's replacement. And he found already there was resentment brewing within him, both for replacing Dana and for dictating your nonexistent relationship.

"Great," He said, turning his back on you, "Then I'll see you in the Pitt."

And so now he sat at his work station, glasses perched on his nose as he pretended to chart while Dana reiterated that you'd be coming in today to shadow. He'd nodded and nervously scratched the back of his head, avoiding meeting her eyes.

"Robinavitch."

"Yeah?" his jaw shifted from side to side. Even just the sound of your name elicited memories of you on top of him, of his hand squeezing the soft flesh of your hip in the pool, of kissing you with only the stars to witness.

He had no idea how he was going to make it through today or any successive shift with you as charge.

"What's the matter with you?" Dana popped a piece of gum in her mouth, "You look like you've seen a ghost."

He shook his head and looked back at the computer screen in front of him, words on the chart scrambling and bouncing off his skull, not quite penetrating.

"Just tired." He said, tossing back some of his coffee as if to prove the point.

He could feel Dana's eyes scrutinizing him still across the hub, "You know, you've been off since you got back from vacation. Thought it would've done you some good to be away from this place, but it seems to have made you worse somehow."

Your words echoed in his head. How you'd asked him to pretend to not know you. He was fairly certain he could probably be convincing of that in front of most people—But not Dana. He was almost positive the second you walked through the door she'd clock it.

What was the harm? It wasn't Dana you were worried about anyhow, it was everyone else. And if he didn't tell someone it would drive him insane.

He sighed, "I… met someone. While I was away."

Dana frowned, "Okay…" She said slowly, "Vacation fling, what's the big deal?"

"Yeah, I thought as much… Until I gave her my full name," He shook his head slowly, "You should've seen the look on her face."

Dana stared at him, blinking blankly, "You're gonna have to spell it out for me, Cap, I'm not following."

He rubbed his face with his hands, felt the flush crawling up his neck, "Well it turned out," He said finally, "My vacation fling is our new charge nurse."

After a moment of what Robby assumed was processing, Dana pulled her glasses off, "You slept with my new hire? Are you joking? Tell me you're joking."

Robby was beet red, "Could you keep it down, please? She asked me not to tell anyone."

Finally, Dana scoffed, "Son of a b—"

***

You were leaned up against the wall outside the ambulance bay, lit cigarette between your lips. Your new badge was clipped to your scrub top but you'd been mostly avoiding looking at it. Every time you saw "Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center" you were reminded of Robby's business card, of the fact that he was going to be in this building. That as charge you'd be unable to avoid him.

You looked down at your watch and saw you were three minutes late. Probably not the best first impression to have, but you'd do almost anything to prolong what was certain to be a painfully awkward reunion.

In the time between when your plane deboarded in Pittsburgh and now you had been actively fighting every urge to think about him. To remember the way he felt inside you, the sound of his voice, low and husky in your ear, his tongue between your legs—

"Fuck," you muttered, feeling the warmth spread from your belly outwards as you ground out your cigarette.

Stretching your neck from side to side, you breathed in the frigid February air slowly through your nose, and out through your mouth, opening your eyes in time to see your breath cloud in front of you. You were alive and you had been through worse. You would survive this, too. Better yet, you'd thrive.

And with that, you walked into the lion's den.

Dana spotted you first, a smile on her face as you approached. And you couldn't help it, your eyes slid to the broad shouldered doctor next to her, his face cold and distant. It was what you'd asked for, you knew. But still, you couldn't help remembering the gentle and funny man he'd been when you met. The way he'd looked at you that day felt like being warmed by the sun.

You swallowed and tore your eyes away from his to meet Dana's, forcing a smile.

"Hey, kiddo," she greeted you, "You make it in okay?"

You nodded, "Yeah, it's good to see you again, Dana."

"This is Dr. Robinavitch next to me," she gestured to Robby and you immediately reached a hand out to shake his— "Though I understand introductions are unnecessary."

Your face fell and yours and Robby's hands hung midway to one another before you dropped yours and looked up at him with abject horror.

He at least had the decency to look guilty as he sighed and turned to the woman next to him, "Really, Dana?"

"What?" She looked between the both of you, a knowing smile on her face, "We're all adults here."

But your mouth hung open, daggers in your eyes aimed exclusively at the man in front of you, "I asked you for one thing."

Before Robby could rush in to defend himself, Dana swung an arm around you and turned you away from him, "Kid, believe me. This is a blip. He only told me because I could tell something was up and I would have pinpointed it as soon as you walked in. He hasn't told anyone else and he won't, alright?"

The betrayal and anger still simmered in your peripheral at Dana's words. You felt immediately like a trapped animal, Robby having coaxed you into a cage and tossing away the key. You had trust issues. Your last relationship had ended terribly, marred by betrayal and a complete upheaval of the person you thought you had known best. It wasn't easy to trust anyone after that. You had let Robby slip past your defenses too easily, lulled by the idea of never having to see him again.

Well, now, he'd have a tough time surpassing your "prickly exterior" as he had so affectionately called it. Now, it would become an absolute fortress, hostile to any potential invaders, especially him.

"I just don't want that to be everyone's first impression of me," You said softly to Dana, still unable to look at her for the embarrassment.

"It won't be," She squeezed your shoulder, "As long as it's done now, yes?" She forced eye contact with you, "It was one and done, right?"

"Yes," you said immediately, "absolutely."

"Alright, then don't sweat it, kid. No one's gonna find out anything. Now," She gestured behind her and in a moment you felt Robby's presence beside you, though you didn't look at him, "Let's do rounds with the doctors, alright?"

You nodded, tried to calm yourself as you jotted notes on each patient, but it was hard to jolt yourself from your thoughts.

That was, until a hypothermic child was rolled in and then you had purpose again. You hardly noticed Robby next to you as he called out orders, already flagging a Respiratory Therapist to assist with intubation and the warming and humidifying of the ventilation circuit to attempt to warm the lungs.

Before Robby could ask, you gently removed the family from the room, attempted to gather more information about the accident that brought the child in.

"His clothes were wet, did he fall through some ice on a lake or a pond?"

His mother shook her head, eyes red rimmed, "No, I—I don't think so. I think he was just outside for too long." Her face crumpled, "He has autism. I didn't even know he'd gone outside. Is he going to be okay?"

Before you could say anything, you felt Robby behind you, "He's stable right now and we're working to warm him up. His heart seems healthy, if a bit slower than it should be. We're helping him breathe right now and using humidified air to warm up his lungs. I'll come find you when we have an update."

"Can we see him?"

"Of course."

The parents thanked Robby profusely and then headed into the trauma room and you immediately began walking to the Hub where Dana was.

"Hey—" You felt his warm hand at your forearm and flinched as you turned to face him. He dropped his hand, a flicker of something you couldn't quite place was there and gone, "I wanted to talk to you for a second—"

"Is it about work?"

"No," He said slowly, "I—"

"Dr. Robby," You looked around nervously to make sure no one was watching the two of you, "From here on out our relationship is strictly professional. I don't want to discuss personal matters with you and I certainly don't want to discuss them here. Okay? Are we good?"

He stared at you and this time you recognized the irritation in the set of his jaw, "I only wanted to apologize to you for telling Dana. I didn't do it maliciously, I just know her and she's… very observant. It was just easier to have it out in the open—"

"Easier for who?" You snapped, "I imagine it's very easy for you to just brush things like this off in the workplace. You're not the first attending I've slept with, I know how this goes. I bet you sweep a new woman off her feet every week in this hospital. I'm sure I'm just another in a very long, forgotten list. The problem is that long after you've forgotten, everyone else will remember the women you've discarded."

He scoffed, looking bewildered, "I'm—I'm sorry have I done something to offend you? Beyond the obvious? This—" He gestured between you, "—reaction seems disproportionate to what happened today."

You shrugged, "I'm not upset, I just want to be clear that there is and will be nothing more between us than a collegial relationship."

He crossed his arms and looked down at this feet, "Understood, I just wanted to—"

"No need," You smiled, "I'll see you around."

Then you left him standing there, feeling confused and dumb and maybe a little angry, though he wouldn't admit that yet. No, he would not give you the satisfaction of seeing how easily you'd gotten under his skin.

Robby thought himself an empathetic man and it didn't take a genius to understand why you were lashing out at him. He remembered dismissive comments about hating men and a cheating fiancé. You had let him in so easily in Jamaica because you didn't think you'd have to see him again. Now that the two of you would be working together, the stakes were higher. You had to cut him out like a cancer before he metastasized, before he reached your heart.

And fuck, he knew he should respect that. He should have backed off right then.

But the fact that you were so terrified to let him get close meant that what you were really afraid of was your own desire. In other words, he could have another chance to touch you. He'd also thought he'd never see you again after the first time, but finding out that you would be working here had had him revisiting your night together and longing for your skin instead of deterring him.

So once again, Icarus spread his wings, his eyes turned up to the sun.

***

Robby had to jog to catch up to you after shift ended. You had left in a hurry, dismissive of all his attempts at conversation unless it was about a patient.

"Is this gonna be an issue?" Dana had asked him quietly when there was just an hour left of the shift and you had once again skirted past his attempts to address the tension between you, "The girl becomes Houdini whenever you enter a five foot radius."

"I'll sort it out." He said sighing, watching you from across the way. The child that had come in with hypothermia earlier that day was awake and the two of you smiling at each other as you took his vitals. Something you said made him laugh and your grin widened. It nearly knocked him out.

So now he was running to catch up with you, "Hey—" he called out when he was close enough, out of breath, "Hang on a sec—"

You sighed when you saw him next to you, matching your stride, "I thought we understood each other—"

"You haven't let me get a goddamn word in all day so I don't know what would give you that idea."

He watched as your whole body tensed up. You were still avoiding looking at him, "I want to be adults about this—"

Robby stepped in front of you, walked slowly backwards to force you to look at him, "Is that why you're avoiding me like a schoolgirl with a crush?"

It was obvious you weren't enjoying the fact that he was now cornering you and you had no choice, but to listen to him. You rolled your neck and slowed to a stop in front of him, "I'm not avoiding you. Last I checked, you should be able to do your job without my input. There was nothing about babysitting the attending physician in the job description."

You sidestepped him as he laughed softly to himself. You were so goddamn antagonistic it was infuriating.

"If you can't handle working with me, collaboratively," He called after you, "Then I'll have to tell Dana that she needs to find a different charge nurse."

You stopped walking and slowly turned back towards him, "You wouldn't do that." You said, but your voice betrayed you. You were uncertain.

He was bluffing. First of all, Dana would kill him if she had to put off leaving for a while because he had defiled their promising new hire. Second, even though it had only been one shift and you had been avoiding him as if your life depended on it, it was easy to see that you were a good charge nurse and finding a nurse at all in need of employment was rare. Third—and the reason that brought him the most shame—he really wanted to sleep with you again and he suspected if he fired you, you'd be unlikely to indulge him.

But right now, you didn't need to know any of that.

"I certainly don't want to," he shrugged, "but the working relationship between a charge nurse and the attending physician is probably the most important in our department. If we don't work well together it all falls apart. So… do you think you could put our little dalliance behind you?"

Slowly, you walked up to him until you were toe to toe. Until you were close enough to kiss him if you just pushed up on your toes. His breathing faltered at your closeness and a smug look transformed your face when you noticed, "Can you?"

The scent of you sat heady in his nostrils, and despite himself, Robby felt himself leaning into it, mouth hovering just above yours. If he closed his eyes, he was back in the Caribbean, your tongue in his mouth tasting of rum and sea salt.

Swallowing, he took a step back from you, "Sure can."

Your grin widened, "Then we're good."

He cleared his throat, "You'll stop avoiding me?"

You nodded and looked down at your watch, "Sure, I really have to go now, though."

"Let me walk you home."

You snorted, "No, I don't want you to know where I live."

He frowned, "What do you think I'll do with that information?"

"Probably show up in the middle of the night begging to slip into my bed," You smirked and started to walk away from him again, "Goodnight, Doctor Robinavitch."

"I would not—We said—It's Robby." He called after you, exasperated, but you ignored him.

He wasn't used to someone getting under his skin like this. In fact, it was usually him doing the irritating. But you were so good at needling him to the point of being flustered.

"Fuck," he muttered to himself as he watched you disappear into the dark.

It would be annoying how frustrating he found you if it didn't also turn him on.

But that was just fine. If you wanted to play games then he'd set the match.

***

You hesitated for just a moment as you turned the key in the doorknob of your childhood home. As always, when you walked through the threshold you were cocooned by old ghosts.

You leaned against the door as you closed it behind you, pressing your entire weight into it so you could slide the deadbolt into place. Though, you thought, the deadbolt likely wouldn't supply much protection if someone thought to break in, the wood around the hinges beginning to splinter and crack. All that stood between you and the outside world was a good kick from a steel-toed boot.

You let your backpack fall from your shoulder to the hardwoods, kicking off your New Balances as you did. You listened to the familiar sounds of the house: the hum of the refrigerator (the appliance was as old as you were and had only gotten louder as time passed), a Jeopardy! rerun playing in the TV room, and your father's snores echoing down the hallway.

You padded towards the TV room where you found Cecelia on the couch, illuminated by the blue light from the TV as she crocheted diligently. She looked up slightly from her project when you entered the doorway, but continued counting quietly to herself as you sat down next to her, leaning your head on her shoulder.

Cecelia had been the first emergency charge nurse you'd shadowed at Presby when you were still in college. And since you had never known your mother, you had imprinted on her immediately like a little duckling. Luckily, she had taken to you as well. She was the reason you'd gotten the job at PTMC since Dana had been her sorority sister once upon a time.

Having retired during COVID, she spent her time now with her kids and grandkids. And you. And occasionally your father, when you needed the help.

"How was your first day?" She asked, once she'd written down where she'd left off on the sweater she was crocheting in a notebook.

"Long," You said solemnly.

She pointed to a mug sitting on the coffee table in front of you, "Made you tea."

You sighed and picked it up, the warmth of the mug leeching into your hands and spreading. The steam caressed your face and you inhaled greedily—chamomile.

"Thank you," you said softly and took a sip, "How was he today?"

It had been two years since your father was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia. You were an only child, your mother had left both of you when you were an infant, and your father had no other family as far as you knew. Except for a single cousin who, up until a couple of months ago, had been taking care of him as the disease progressed. Until in an episode of confusion, your father had punched him, convinced he was an intruder in his home.

And so, the responsibilities had passed to you.

"Okay, tired, which is why I let him go to bed before you got home. I saw some bruises on him when I took him to the bathroom earlier. Did he sleep through the night last night?"

You closed your eyes and rubbed at your forehead, "Uh, no. Sorry I forgot to mention that. He, um, he fell. Trying to get out of bed last night."

Cecelia hummed, "So you didn't get much sleep then either, I assume."

You shook your head, "Guilty."

She sighed and wrapped an arm around your shoulders, "Honey, I'm worried about you. He's only gonna get worse. I really think you should look into around the clock care—"

"I can't afford it," You shook your head, "And he blew all his money gambling before I knew how sick he was. Before anyone knew how sick he was."

"There are programs," she said softly, "For people who can't afford it. Ask Dana, someone in that hospital should be able to help you."

You pondered that in silence for a moment, but the truth was you didn't want anyone else taking care of him. It was bad enough subjecting Cecelia to it and that was only because she had absolutely insisted so that you could work and you had insisted on paying her. You couldn't pay her much, in fact it was sort of criminal how little you were paying her, but you really didn't have the money to give and she wouldn't have accepted more anyway.

The money didn't change the fact that you didn't know how you'd forgive yourself if in his confusion your father hurt Cecelia.

"I can talk to Dana—"

"No," You said quickly, "Thank you, but I—I can handle it."

Cecelia eyed you warily and then hummed, "He kept asking for an 'Evie' today. Do you know who that is? Kept asking when she'd be home from work."

Your stomach knotted and you turned away from her, "Yeah, that's my mom's name. Evelyn. He called her Evie."

Cecelia squeezed your shoulders, "I'm sorry, sweetie. I know this is hard on you."

It was hard. Uplifting your whole life to take care of a man who had never paid you much attention unless it was to yell at you. Losing the man you thought you were going to marry in the midst of it all. Moving back into this house all alone was turning you into the isolated, reactionary child you used to be. You could feel her trying to work her way out of you, sticky fingers and sharp tongue, especially whenever you were talking to Robby. Something about him had her stomping her feet and sticking out her tongue.

"It's okay," You said and then stood, "Let me walk you out."

"I'll see you tomorrow morning?" She asked as she pulled on her shoes.

You nodded, "Yes, thank you for doing this."

"After twenty something years in an ED this is a cake walk." She said and pulled you into a hug, "I'm happy to do it for you. I'd do more if I could."

The backs of your eyes burned and you furiously blinked it away as you pulled back, "You've done more than enough."

You closed the door behind her, leaning against the door again so you could lock the deadbolt. With Cecilia gone, you got ready for bed and then curled up on the couch in the TV room. You didn't like to sleep in your childhood bed, had tried a few times now since moving back and had gotten repeated nightmares. Besides, it was easier to hear your father from the couch.

As if on cue, Franklin, one of your father's German Shepherds padded out of your father's room to sleep at your feet. You reached a hand out to stroke his head once he'd settled. Your father had two German Shepherds, Franklin, named after Franklin D. Roosevelt and Garner, named after FDR's first vice president, John Nance Garner.

Garner couldn't be bothered with anyone who wasn't your father, but Franklin had always liked you best. Which was just as well, because it made you feel better knowing Garner had an eye on your dad while he was sleeping.

"Goodnight, Mr. President." You said softly, and closed your eyes, the sounds of Jeopardy! lulling you to sleep.

***

Robby's eyes were closed, but the images from the TV still bled through to the backs of his eyelids. A woman was asleep next to him. He couldn't quite remember her name. Jennifer or Jessica or Jillian… He had gone for a beer after walking away from you not intending to bring anyone home. But she'd been persistent and something about her had reminded him of you. The sarcastic tilt of her mouth much like yours.

Now that she was asleep, he thought he had wanted it to be you so badly any similarities he might've seen were a figment of his imagination.

Along with the blue light of the TV, your face occasionally flashed behind his eyelids. Sleep seemed faraway and impossible with your ghost haunting every corner and crevice of his mind.

The game of solving the mystery of you had been a welcome distraction while he was on vacation, a vacation that had been essentially forced upon him by the higher ups. He had spent most of it booking excursion after excursion or drinking himself into oblivion. Until he met you that last day.

He thought he had you figured out, but he was starting to realize he had barely scratched the surface of you that day. Why wouldn't you let him walk you home? He suspected there was more to it than your teasing about him trying to slip inside with you.

It was easier to distract himself with thoughts of you, with the novel stimulation of having a new puzzle to solve, than it was to deal with his own shit.

He turned his head to the side and blinked his eyes open to see the woman sleeping next to him and heard your voice echo in his mind: I'm sure I'm just another in a very long, forgotten list. The problem is that long after you've forgotten, everyone else will remember the women you've discarded.

He hadn't meant for it to ever be that way, but as he looked at this woman next to him and tried and failed to recall her name, he knew you were right. In being reckless with himself, there had been collateral damage.

The problem was, he wasn't quite sure how to stop.

***

It had been three or four weeks now since you started in the Pitt, you had lost count. The days tended to blend together. It didn't help that you couldn't recall the last time you had gotten a proper night's sleep. Your father had been waking up more and more throughout the night until you were so anxious anticipating it that you were averaging maybe three hours of sleep a night if you were lucky.

You were spending all, or most of your energy being kind and supportive for your staff and so had very little patience for Robby. And he had been pissing you off already this morning. Moving patients around without telling you. Assigning incoming triage to rooms without telling you. He was fucking with your board and that already pissed you off, but then you saw Princess at the bedside of a patient you had specifically assigned to Jesse and you back pedaled.

"Princess?" She smiled as she saw you and walked over, "I assigned Jesse this patient because it's a more physically demanding case and you're still recovering—"

"I know," She said quickly, "and thank you, I just, Robby asked Jesse to switch with me. The patient only speaks French, it was faster than calling an interpreter."

You scoffed and rolled your eyes, "That's not—I mean, thank you for telling me, but it's unacceptable. He can't just do that without telling me."

Princess shrugged, "I don't know, that's how him and Dana used to work."

"Yeah, well, I'm not Dana," You sighed, "Sorry, my drama with Robby isn't your problem. Do you need anything? A break?"

She shook her head, "I'll holler if I need you."

Fuming, you stormed off toward the Hub where you found Robby looking up at the board, "How are we doing? Can we clear some of these beds out?"

Despite your irritation, you stretched your neck, "North 11 and South 20 are going up to Med-Surg, I was able to get an ICU bed for North 4, and Perlah is getting North 1 discharged."

"Great, keep me updated."

He started to walk away, but you trailed after him, "Do you have any issue with the way I'm doing things?"

He frowned and shook his head, "No."

"Do you think you can do my job better than I can?"

He stopped and turned fully to face you, "What is this about?"

"You fuck with my board, you don't even let me know that you fuck with my board, I have to hear about it from my nurses—"

"Your board?"

"Sorry, is bed management in your job description?"

He scoffed and ran a hand over the back of his head, "Dana didn't have a problem with me occasionally moving things around on the board—"

"Dana's not charge anymore," You snapped, "I am. And I also don't appreciate you changing my assignments around. There's a reason I gave North 8 to Jesse and not Princess. She's injured and I'm trying to give her a lighter case load—"

"Princess didn't seem bothered when I asked her to switch with Jesse—"

"Of course she didn't!" You said, exasperated, "Do you think she's going to say no to an attending?"

He smiled, though it didn't reach his eyes, "I don't know where you worked last, but I do like to foster a relationship of mutual respect with my nurses. I promise you they're all very comfortable saying no to me."

Your lip curled, "Well maybe you could show me some of that respect by letting me do my job."

He stared at you for a moment, challenge in his eyes, and you realized that he was enjoying this. He wanted to spar with you, wanted to see how far he could push you before you backed down.

Well you wouldn't fucking roll over for anyone, and certainly not for him.

"I like to have some semblance of control over all aspects of my ED—"

"I'm gonna stop you right there, I think you mean my ED. Your paycheck may say you run this place, but let's not forget how quickly it would fall apart without me. It is, in fact, my circus and my monkeys." You felt your voice raise and the telltale feeling of eyes turning on you. But you couldn't find it in you to stop, "And one bearded, six foot monkey is really beginning to test my patience so if you don't back off, you're going to find out just how fast this place will burn to the ground if I walk out."

It wasn't the first time you had reamed out an attending, but it was the first time that one had smirked at you like that afterwards. It was certainly the first time one had looked at you with hunger in his eyes after you'd just put him in his place.

Eyes darting to your mouth and then back up to your eyes, he leaned in to your ear, "You speak to me like that again in front of the department, we're gonna have a problem."

And then he was gone, leaving you still simmering and with an audience. The charge phone started to ring. God, you were so fucking tired.

Later, you were taking a smoke break outside when Mateo found you, "Sorry," you said immediately and put out your cigarette, "I'll be back inside in a minute."

"Oh, no, I actually came out to invite you to drinks after shift at Paddy's. A few of us are going for Kim's birthday."

Oh. Well that certainly was a surprise. It wasn't that you thought anyone explicitly didn't like you (except maybe Robby), but you didn't think they liked you enough to invite you out. At least, not yet.

But Cecelia was with your father. You couldn't make her stay later so that you could go get a drink. She was already doing so much for you.

"Thank you for the invite, really, but I… I don't think I can make it tonight."

"Okay," Mateo nodded and smiled, "Well, open invitation if you change your mind."

When he was gone, you stood outside for a couple of extra minutes, thinking about everything you'd left behind to be here.

You had told Robby while you were on vacation that your ex-fiancé had cheated on you. But that wasn't true. He hadn't cheated on you. He had just decided that when you moved back to Pittsburgh to take care of your father he wasn't going to come with you. Made some dismissive comments about it "being super sad" and "depressing" and "a real bummer."

You had always been attracted to older men and your fiancé had been no exception. He was a good fifteen years older than you. The problem with men that age was that if they were still single, there was usually a reason. Your fiancé's being that he refused to grow the fuck up. You had told him if he wasn't prepared to be by your side when shit got hard, including your father's impending death, then you couldn't share a life with him. And he had calmly shrugged his shoulders and asked for the ring back.

Six years prior you had moved across the country for him. You built a life in the Pacific Northwest with him. You had friends there. All of that disappeared when you moved back to Pittsburgh. And despite the fact that you'd grown up here, you didn't have any friends, only acquaintances. You had always been an exceptionally difficult person to love. You thought you got that from your father.

Though you acted like you didn't care, there was a small part of you that wanted things to be different now that you were older. You wanted to build a community rather than pretend to be so disdainful of human connection so when it didn't find you you could pretend you hadn't wanted it in the first place.

Chewing the inside of your cheek, you drafted a text to Cecelia: Would you be able to stay a bit later tonight? Some of the nurses are going out for drinks. I'd only stay for one round.

You were about to head back inside when her reply came through: Of course, sweetheart. That just means more alone time with my crochet project. Take your time.

Stifling a smile, you headed back into the Pitt.

***

You were two beers deep, sandwiched between Princess and Kim in a booth when you saw Robby walk into Paddy's. It pissed you off the way just looking at him felt like a knife twisting in your chest. Despite your attempts to distance yourself, the sound of his voice anywhere near you was like the call of a siren, coaxing you into deep waters. You wouldn't realize how far out you'd swam until it was much too late.

"What's up with you and Dr. Robby?" Princess asked and you quickly tore your gaze away from him.

You frowned, tried to feign confusion, "What d'you mean?"

Princess gave you a knowing look, "Girl, come on, you're constantly giving each other 'fuck me' eyes."

Your mouth dropped open and you gave a short laugh as you felt a hot flush crawl up your neck, "That is not true, we're always fighting."

Princess raised her eyebrows, "Hate fucking is still fucking," she sighed wistfully, "God, I miss hate fucking."

You suspected it was the beer talking, but you felt like you wanted to tell someone, someone closer to your age what had happened with Robby. And you liked Princess a lot.

Biting your cheek you leaned into her so no one else could hear you, "If I tell you something, do you promise not to tell anyone?"

Princess's eyes lit up as she looked at you, "About Dr. Robby?" You nodded in affirmation. "I can't keep anything from Perlah, but it won't leave either of us, that I promise."

Well, you liked Perlah too. You hoped Princess meant it when she said it wouldn't leave them. "Good enough," you said, and then explained to Princess the actual circumstances of you meeting Robby.

When you were done, she pulled away from you with wide eyes, "Holy shit." Then she broke into a smile, "I knew I wasn't imagining the sexual chemistry between you two."

You choked a laugh, "No, there's not—It's not happening again."

"Oh, why not?" She whined playfully, "You obviously both want to, that's why you're fighting all the time."

"We're fighting all the time because he's a self absorbed dick," You took a sip from your beer, "Can you look at me and tell me that he doesn't have a new woman in this hospital wrapped around his finger every few weeks?"

Princess opened and closed her mouth, looking down at her drink. Well, that was all you needed to know, "I won't be another one of his conquests."

"Well what if he was your conquest instead?"

You snorted and rolled your eyes, but before you could say anything else a deep and rough voice was saying your name behind you. Your stomach dropped when you turned to see Robby standing at the end of the table, looking directly at you, "Could we talk outside for a minute?"

Normally, you could stuff your feelings down very deep while you were working. The ED was so chaotic, it was easy to redirect your thoughts when they wandered to his big brown eyes or the way he looked when he pulled on the extra large gloves, or the sound of his laugh as it reverberated across the department.

But you were drunk now and he was looking at you with rapt attention, your name having just fallen from his lips like a sonnet. After a moment you nodded and Kim scooted out of the booth to let you out.

You followed him outside, trying and failing to keep your eyes off him, his broad shoulders, his confident gait, the curve of his neck. You had been in a completely different timezone the last time you'd been drunk around Robby and you were conscious of how quickly your defenses dropped when you were even a little bit inebriated. Feelings that had been previously repressed rocketing to the surface. You had pushed it down so thoroughly it even shocked you how badly you wanted him still.

He leaned against the wall on the side of the bar, away from windows and any prying eyes before turning his attention back to you.

"I wanted to clear the air about earlier, we need to be able to communicate with each other in there without it devolving the way it did. Everyone in there looks to us for direction—"

You squeezed your eyes shut and were already shaking your head, the familiar anger poking and prodding again just under your skin, "It wouldn't have gotten to that point if you had been communicating with me—"

He laughed humorlessly, "You just can't let me get a word in, can you? Does the sound of my voice bother you that much?"

"Yes," you lied, even as your stomach stirred and warmed at his attention, "it infuriates me, actually."

He was still smiling, but you knew there was only irritation behind it. He ran a hand along his jawline and looked down at his feet, "S'that so?"

"Yes," you said again, letting your anger, knowingly misplaced, overtake your voice, "That ED runs at a deficit because you're such an insufferable, overbearing control freak and—"

Suddenly his hands were cupping your cheeks and his mouth crashed into yours, hot and abrasive. You stiffened for the briefest of moments in surprise before you kissed him back, pushing him back up against the wall.

It was exhausting pretending like you didn't want him as badly as you did from the moment you met him. You couldn't deny that there was likely a little bit of truth in what Princess had said earlier, that the tension, the wanting of what you knew you couldn't have, was as much a factor in your warring as was his massive ego.

Your frustration and his fought with teeth and tongue. If he took your bottom lip between his teeth, you took his and bit down harder. If your tongue was licking into his mouth a little too dominantly, he would groan and suck on it hard enough to immobilize you.

But then you reached between his legs and palmed him over his pants and you felt the fight go out of him. His head leaned back against the wall, Adam's apple bobbing along his throat, "Fuck me." He cursed quietly and you couldn't help your smirk.

Moving closer to him, you slipped your hand beneath his waistband, gripping his length as he shuddered under your touch. Your free hand cupped his cheek and your thumb ran aimlessly over his parted lips as you watched the effect your touch had on him.

His eyes never left yours, pupils going wide like sinkholes. As you pumped him, he took your thumb in his mouth and you gasped at the feel of his tongue around the digit.

"You want something to suck on while I make you feel good, baby?" You asked, breathless.

He blinked slowly at you, your thumb still in his mouth before he nodded. Eyes never leaving his, you pulled your thumb from his mouth and pushed your hand between your legs, gathering your arousal on two of your fingers. You lifted your fingers back up towards his face, "Open up," You said softly, your other hand continuing to pump him, precum smearing against your skin.

His eyes scanned your face slowly, lips tilting up in a barely there smile before he opened his mouth. He sucked on your fingers greedily, moaning at the taste of you, "Good boy." You whispered and felt his cock twitch in your hand in response.

The fucked out expression on his face, the way he practically went limp and docile at your touch, was enough to keep you satisfied, but still you wanted to taste him. After a few more moments, you pulled your fingers from his mouth and began to lower yourself to the ground.

"You—you don't have to—" Robby began protesting, his voice husky and warm, like bourbon.

"Want to," Was all you said before your ran your tongue along his cock, lapping at the tip where precum had accumulated. He hissed and swore when you took him in your mouth fully, hollowing out your cheeks as you felt him repeatedly hit the back of your throat.

You felt almost out of body as you sucked him off, focusing only on the sounds he was making, the way he occasionally praised you, said how good your mouth felt. You didn't want to think, didn't want to consider the repercussions of this. Of the fact that you were doing exactly what you had promised yourself you wouldn't do again.

But he had kissed you first and at least in the end it had been you making him whimper, you who was in control. You didn't want to be at his mercy again.

"Fuck—M'gonna—M'gonna come." He said, breathless.

You looked up at him, mouth still wrapped around him, granting permission with your eyes and his hips bucked as the come shot out of him and down the back of your throat. When it was done, you pulled your mouth off him and stood.

Immediately, his hand on the back of your neck pulled your mouth back to his, "Come home with me," He said into your mouth, sounding desperate, "Please."

It was like a switch finally flipped in your brain and you remembered Cecelia was at home, waiting for you.

"Shit," You mumbled and pushed yourself away from him.

"What? What is it?"

"I have to go." You said, beginning to walk back to the front of the bar so you could grab your bag from inside.

"Wait—Hold on—Let me take you home, then—"

"No," You said, though at that moment you stumbled, likely revealing to him for the first time just how intoxicated you were.

He steadied you with a light hand at your elbow, "Come on, don't be stubborn."

You pulled your arm from his grasp and headed for your bag at the booth, swinging it over your shoulder as you wished Kim a happy birthday and said goodbyes, carefully avoiding Princess's incessant stare.

"I have to go," You repeated, sidestepping him to get to the door, "Please don't follow me."

And then you rushed back outside, the cold night air a balm to your alcohol flushed skin.

***

Robby watched you go, his hands knotted together on the back of his head. He was still recovering from how hard he came in your mouth just minutes ago and then you had run away.

What the fuck was he supposed to do with that? With how easily you had taken him over? It was like when you touched him his head went quiet. He'd do whatever you asked to keep your hands on him.

Someone sighed next to him and he turned to see Princess also staring after you, "Well you're gonna go after her, aren't you?"

He did a double take, frowning, "What do you know, Princess?"

She smirked, "Enough to know that you should go after her."

He didn't, though, in the end. He went home and stared at his ceiling and replayed you putting your fingers in his mouth.

The next morning he walked into the Pitt— and slowed when he saw Dana standing at the hub instead of you.

"What… Are you doing here?" He asked slowly. Immediately, his brain was running a thousand miles an hour. After last night you disappeared and now you weren't at work. You quit and disappeared and he wouldn't even get the chance to say goodbye.

And why did that possibility scare the shit out of him?

Dana smirked at him, "Well don't look so happy to see me, Cap."

He sighed, "Of course I'm happy to see you, but you weren't on the schedule today."

"No, I was not." When Dana didn't say anything else, Robby raised his eyebrows expectantly, "She'll be here later, she just needed someone to cover this morning."

"Uh huh," Robby nodded, "Any particular reason?"

Dana sighed, "Why're you messing with that poor girl?"

"Messing with—? I'm not messing with her. Did she say that?"

"Oh, she didn't have to, Robinavitch. I know you. Can see it all over your face."

Was it really that obvious? "I'm not, I promise. And I'm a little offended you think I just sleep with any woman that looks sideways at me."

Dana rolled her eyes, "Look, she's going through some shit right now—"

"Aren't we all?"

"—This isn't a game. She's not one of your toys. Do not pull her down into the pit with you. You understand me?"

Well, now he was really starting to get offended. What sort of reputation had he created for himself that Dana thought he was a danger to you?

"Yeah, okay. Like I said, you have nothing to worry about."

"Good." Dana said and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

Robby cleared his throat and leaned over the counter, "So when will she be back?"

Dana glared at him until he raised his hands in surrender and backed away, "Alright, alright, fine. I'm gonna go find Shen for rounds."

"Yeah, you do that."

Robby shook his head as he walked off. He thought about pulling his phone out and calling you himself, but then realized that if Dana was right and you had serious stuff going on at home, that would be selfish of him.

Instead, he stopped in front of the workstation Santos was sitting at, "Hey," he said, "You, uh, catch up on your charting?"

Trinity's eyes flicked up to him and then back down to the screen, "Working on it," she stretched her arms over her head and then directed her full attention to him, "Hey what's going on with you and the new charge?"

Robby laughed nervously, "That is none of your business."

Trinity smiled, "Well don't fuck it up because I like her."

Robby raised his eyebrows at that, "Oh yeah?"

"I love Dana, but it's nice having someone on shift who doesn't baby you. Dana lets you get away with too much."

He scoffed, "Thank you for your unsolicited opinion Dr. Santos. Now if you could go grab the students for rounds, please?"

Robby watched Trinity walk off and tried not to think too hard about what she'd said. First Princess had caught on to the something between you and now Trinity. It wouldn't be long at all before it was making the rounds in the ED, if it hadn't already. You had taken the morning off for personal issues and to then come in and hear the department speculating about a relationship with him— It was going to hurt you. You had become something of a cyclone when you'd found out he told Dana, he didn't want to find out how much more you would lash out this time.

"Princess—" He called out when he saw her walking across the floor, "Can I talk to you for a second?"

"What's up?" She asked when they were somewhat secluded from the others.

"Look, I—I need to know what you know."

Princess lit up, "About your new charge nurse friend?"

Robby sighed, "Yeah, she—There's nothing going on between us right now, but if she hears that people think that there is—I don't know—She might quit, even. You're not telling people that we're—are you?"

"No," She shook her head, "She asked me not to. I only told Perlah. In Tagalog."

He ran a hand over his face, "And was Dr. Santos perhaps nearby during that conversation?"

Princess frowned and then her mouth fell open, "I… Will take care of that. She won't hear anything, I promise."

Robby nodded, "Thank you."

Princess stood there for a few more moments and then, "Did you… Go after her last night?"

Robby tilted his head in exasperation, "Princess—"

"Yeah, yeah. Going now."

Robby ran his hands over his face and then to the back of his neck, bending his head forward and sighing. His hands again itched to take out his phone and call you, just to make sure you were okay. But Dana said you'd be in later, he reminded himself. He could wait. He could be patient. He most definitely could act like a professional when you got here.

***

You were shaking as you walked towards PTMC. Cecelia had said you should just call out, let Dana take the whole shift and then the two of you sit down and research to find a solution for caring for your father. You and Cecelia on your own just weren't cutting it. When you'd come home late last night and Cecelia left, your father tried to get out of bed and while you'd mostly been able to calm him and get him back into bed each time without incident, you hadn't slept.

Finally, when Cecelia came in the morning so you could go to work, you suspected from his lack of sleep, he'd gotten even more confused. He didn't recognize Cecelia and became aggressive and erratic. He confused you with your mother, thought when you were leaving the house to go to work you were leaving for good. When you finally calmed him and convinced him everything was alright, he started crying.

"I'm sorry," he'd said over and over, "I'm so sorry, pumpkin." Using your childhood nickname had thrown you for a loop. It had been a while since he'd indicated he recognized you and not your mother. More than that, you couldn't remember a time he had ever apologized to you so tenderly, even before he was sick.

With him finally asleep, you had tried to excuse yourself to another room, but Cecelia had seen through you and pulled you to her, holding you when you fell apart.

"You can't go to work like this," she said, wiping your tears away when you had begun to quiet, "I'm gonna give Dana a call—"

"No, I don't want—"

"You need to sleep. You're of no use to anyone like this," she said sharply, "I'll tell her you'll be in at 1 to relieve her, alright?"

Half a shift. Just half a shift. The world wouldn't fall apart if you missed just half a shift.

So you'd agreed. You slept for four hours and when you woke, Cecelia tried to convince you again to stay home. But you watched your father as he stared emptily at the TV from his recliner and you wanted to leave. You couldn't stay in this house with its stifling cage of memories. With this version of your father who was mean, but still more gentle with you than he had ever been when he was healthy.

Now you were just outside PTMC trying to get your hands to still when Robby walked outside—And almost right into you.

"Oh—shit—" He reached out to steady you, "Hello." He said, and his tone softened immediately when he recognized you, "Are you okay?"

You flinched away from his touch, feeling like you might fall apart at his attempt to soothe you, "I'm fine," You said curtly, "Sorry I'm late."

"That's okay," he shook his head, "Is everything okay with you?"

"Yeah," You said, voice climbing several octaves as you tried to sound chipper, "Why, did Dana say that I wasn't?"

He pushed his hands into his pockets, shoulders shrugging as he shook his head, "No, she just said that you had some things to take care of this morning."

You nodded slowly and swallowed, "Yeah, I—I did."

"Okay…" He said slowly, "Because I was worried maybe I… scared you off last night."

Despite the morning you had, your stomach flipped and you laughed as if to dispel the warm flush you felt climb up your neck, "Scared me off?" You said with more confidence than you felt, "You practically melted for me."

He smiled and hung his head, but you saw the blush that stained his cheeks as he avoided eye contact, "Yeah, it was—" he cleared his throat, "I… enjoyed it. I hope you did too?"

"I did," You said slowly, "But we probably shouldn't do it again."

He nodded, "Right. Yeah, I know." He scratched the back of his head, "Look, um, before we go back in there I just wanted to tell you that I understand where you were coming from about communicating about the board and I will make sure I consult you next time before making any changes."

You tilted your head and smiled, "Well if I had known all I needed to do to get you to agree with me was give you a blowjob I would've gotten on my knees weeks ago."

If it was possible, his cheeks grew even more scarlet, "It's not—That's not why—"

"I'm kidding." You said quickly, "Thank you, I appreciate that, and I'll try to… communicate my grievances more professionally in the future."

He nodded, "Great. Let's get back to it, then?"

You followed him back inside and watched as he ran off when one of the residents called for him, his hands resting on his stethoscope.

Turning your attention back to the Hub, you saw Dana watching you, a smirk on her face, "Hey kid," she said softly, "You get some sleep?"

You nodded, "Thank you for covering for me, I'm really sorry—"

"Don't sweat it. I was starting to get bored anyway."

As you came around the counter, she pushed some brochures over to you: Juniper Village at Forest Hills, Hemsley House of McCandless, The Pines of Mount Lebanon. All memory care facilities.

Your heart squeezed painfully in your chest, "Dana—"

"You are not a bad person for wanting to live your life. For needing help. His tremors are gonna get worse and his balance will go with it. How're you gonna handle that on your own?"

You swallowed, "I've been slowly working towards buying all the equipment he'll need. I have a transfer belt and a wheelchair. I'm looking into getting a hospital bed—"

"Even with all that it's not sustainable by yourself and you know it." She placed a hand over yours and squeezed, "I say this with all the love in my heart, kid: He's going to die. Sooner rather than later. Just because his life is ending doesn't mean yours is too."

You swallowed and looked back down at the brochures. Ironically, boarding him somewhere would be cheaper than hiring around the clock care. But—

"He made me promise I'd never put him in a home."

Dana tilted her head, lips twisting sympathetically, "That's an impressively unfair thing to ask of your child." She covered your hand with her own and gave it a light squeeze, "Just, think about it, okay? I can come tour the facilities with you, if you want."

You gave her a small smile, "Thanks, Dana."

She began to pack her things away, pulling her jacket over her scrubs, "Now, one more thing before I go. I thought you said it was one and done with Robinavitch."

You nearly choked on your coffee, "Wha—? It was—It is. Done. What did you hear?"

She gave you a lopsided smirk, "Nothing. I saw him walk in this ER looking for you like a lost puppy."

Ridiculous, Bambi eyed doctor. It was really hard to lie to Dana and you were already exhausted, "We may have had a…relapse last night. But it won't happen again."

She rolled her eyes, "Spare me, alright? I've been here before. I just hope you know what you're getting into. He doesn't know how to let anyone in and you'll drown in your attempts to save him."

You gave a short laugh, "Oh, Dana, Dana, Dana… I don't think I can fix him. I think I can make him worse."

She shook her head dismissively, "Don't know why I bother. Just don't do anything stupid, alright?"

You reassured her you wouldn't and watched her head out to the ambulance bay, still chuckling to yourself that she thought you had a savior complex.

You were many things, but you had never been the one to rush in during the final act and mend a broken heart. Your own heart was too mangled for that.

No, you were more like rot, you decided. Slow moving and by the time you were detected it was too late. You swallowed as you looked down at the brochures and thought of your mother. Was your father like this too? Was that why she left?

"Hey," A large hand lightly tapped the counter in front of you, scrambling your thoughts and causing you to try to quickly hide the brochures, "What's open?"

Robby was stopped in front of you, a stretcher being wheeled behind him.

"Uh," you quickly looked down at your iPad to see the board and then around the department, "Trauma one's open."

"Thanks," He said, and as he began to walk away, he winked at you.

It was so ridiculous, you laughed once he'd walked away from you.

"So," You looked to see Princess at your side, grinning smugly, "Has Dr. Robby been conquered?"

You rolled your eyes, but smirked, "Could you assist in trauma one, please?"

Princess walked off, but you stared into trauma one for more than was appropriate afterwards, watching the way Robby moved, his skilled healing hands, the way he rocked on his feet. You strained to hear his voice above the cacophony of the ED.

You may have convinced everyone that the previous night had been a mistake, not to be repeated, but your mind seemed to have other ideas.

***

It had been about two weeks since you and Robby had succumbed to the tension that had been building between you just outside Paddy's. Fortunately for Robby, you had become more and more willing to cross the line as the days passed. However, the one rule you seemed to be sticking to was that nothing could happen outside the confines of the hospital. No matter how many times he invited you to his house for dinner after shift, you refused. And you never ever invited him to your place. Still refused to even let him walk you home.

It would've hurt his feelings more if he hadn't also been noticing the way you were deteriorating. Eyes sinking into sockets, snapping at the techs and students… He had even caught more than one mistake on your beloved board.

No matter how he begged Dana, she wouldn't tell him what you were dealing with at home. You wouldn't even reveal if you were living alone or if there was someone else. He remembered from when you were in Jamaica that you had said you'd just broken an engagement over infidelity. Could it be that you had reconciled and now he was the affair partner?

He was tugging his scrub top back over his head, the two of you having finished your usual post shift fifteen minute quickie in the abandoned floor upstairs, when he decided to try yet again to pierce your defenses.

"What hospital did you say you worked at before here?"

You were pulling your pants up, still shirtless. Robby had begun carefully cataloguing every imperfection, every divot, of your body. He was always worried it would be the last time you allowed him to touch you and then he'd be left with nothing but his own memories.

"I didn't." You said shortly, not looking at him.

He hummed, "Was it here in Pittsburgh?"

"No."

He let a few moments pass, hoping you would fill it, but still nothing. "Is it just me that you have an aversion to giving more than a few breadcrumbs of your life to?"

You sighed as you pulled your scrub top back over your head, "I don't know why you care. Haven't I given you what you wanted?"

Robby scoffed, "I would think that my repeated attempts to get to know you outside of this hospital despite your constant rejection would indicate otherwise."

"Oh," You said frowning, "I thought you were just being nice. You know, in the way older men try to be chivalrous to compensate for their guilt of just using women to fuck. Like, 'Oh, don't worry, you're not just my whore, you're my Madonna too!' But I'm fine just being the whore."

He stared at you open mouthed for a few moments before running a hand over the back of his head, "How do you manage to constantly find new ways to insult me?"

A surprised laugh bubbled out of you, "I called myself a whore and you're insulted?"

"You think I just fuck my way through women without ever recognizing their personhood?"

You blinked at him, "I mean, that's sort of what I've heard, yeah." You shrugged, "But I'm not judging you, I'm doing the same thing to you."

He ran a hand over his face, "Okay, well you're wrong, and I'm concerned both as your friend and your colleague that you're not sleeping."

You smiled as you walked towards him and twined your arms around his waist. You could pretend to be unbothered all you wanted, but he knew you craved touch. It was easy to pick up the way you leaned into any contact at all. He still remembered in Jamaica when you'd slept in the same bed how you followed him, sought out his warmth, if he moved away from you.

Now you leaned into his chest, leaning up on your toes to kiss him, which he obliged. His tongue making languid strokes into your mouth while his hands kept you anchored to him.

It was true that Robby slept around and he wasn't always the best at considering his partner's feelings. There was that woman just a few weeks ago who'd slept in his bed and he couldn't recall her name.

But he was trying to be better about that with you. He didn't want to hurt you, if for no other reason than it would make things difficult around here. But it felt like the closer you allowed him physically the more closed off you were emotionally.

Maybe that was for the best. He had plenty of his own shit to deal with.

He pulled back slightly, his hands reaching up to cradle your face, "I really am worried about you," he said softly, and found that he meant it, "You can trust me with whatever it is."

Your eyes flared with an emotion he couldn't place, but then you blinked and it was gone. Instead, you smiled and nudged your nose against his, "I'm fine. I promise."

He sighed, "Fine. But if I said I want you to come home with me because I sleep better when someone else is nearby, would you be more likely to indulge me?"

You disentangled yourself from his arms and grabbed your backpack off the floor and slung it over your shoulder, "I can't, but thank you for the offer."

He nodded, "Can you at least tell me that the reason you won't come home with me and won't tell me where you live isn't because you already have a significant other at home?"

At that, you smiled, "Don't worry, Robinavitch, you're my one and only."

He shook his head, "I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse."

"Goodnight," You swung the door of the room open, "See you tomorrow."

The door closed behind you and Robby sat on the edge of the bed, staring at it blankly. He sat there for a while, staring after you. Part of him hoped you'd come back.

It was a distinct torture, he found, that he had you, but not quite. He hadn't realized that much of the reason he had been sleeping with various women was because he liked when he wasn't the only one in his home. He liked it when someone else was next to him, when he could hear someone else breathing, alive, beside him.

But now that you refused him over and over, he felt even more alone.

Maybe that was why a few days later, when Noelle texted him late at night, he invited her over. It felt bad, wrong, lying in bed with her with the TV on. Her head laid on his chest and he felt sad all over again.

After that, he felt irritated. It only made him want you more, your insistence to pull away and build walls. He couldn't enjoy intimacy with anyone else. He didn't think he was usually this possessive, his eyes following your every move across the ED with near predatory intent.

When he saw you flirting with the EMT, the way you smiled at him, he felt sick. Like you had reached into his chest and ripped out his heart, still beating between your fingers.

But still, he shoved it down and acted nonchalant later when he came to stand next to you at the board, "Meet me upstairs after shift?" he asked softly, looking around the department over your head.

Miraculously, Perlah and Princess had been true to their word about keeping everything under wraps, even convincing Trinity that they had been wrong about it. He assumed his rekindling things with Noelle had been helpful in pushing her off the scent as well. At least his idiocy was good for something.

"I can't today," you said, not looking at him, Apple pencil resting against your lips, "I have plans."

He hummed, "The EMT?"

"Brian?" Slowly, your eyes flitted to his, "Maybe. I don't think that's really your business."

"It is my business if we're sleeping together."

You laughed, the sound grating rather than the soft trilling he heard earlier, "Really? Because last I heard it was Noelle who was in your bed and you didn't think to tell me about that."

He smiled smugly at the vitriol in your voice, pleased to see that you were just as jealous as he was, "Is that what this is about?" You rolled your eyes and began to walk away and he followed, easily keeping pace with you despite how you tried to outrun him, "You've made it pretty clear that you have no desire to be in my bed, so I'm not sure how you could be upset with me."

"I'm not upset," You said, though your tone was sharp as daggers, eager to impale him on every word, "It just would've been nice to be given a heads up instead of having to watch you flirt with her right in front of me and listen to the nurses gossip about it all day."

He tilted his head, "You mean the same way you've been rubbing it in my face with Brian all day?"

The corner of your lip twitched up into a smile, "So it worked, then?"

He laughed and shook his head, "Are you gonna go home with him tonight? His bed is good enough for you?"

You sighed, "I don't know why you're so hung up on this. You run through women like a fucking train—as evidenced by getting your dick wet with Noelle when you were just inside me not even twenty four hours before—and yet you find it confusing why I wouldn't go home with you? Why I'm trying to keep my distance?"

"If you had just come home with me I wouldn't have called Noelle at all."

You narrowed your eyes at him, jaw going slack in exasperation, "Okay, so the second you don't get your way you're reaching for a new toy?"

He ran a hand over his face, "That's not what I meant."

"Right," you said tersely, "I think we're done here."

When you walked away he watched you go, running his hand over the back of his head. No matter how hard he tried not to, he seemed to just keep digging himself deeper in a hole with you.

***

The date was horrible. As horrible as a date could get, maybe even worse than the worst date you'd ever had. Any chemistry you thought you had picked up on in the ED seemed to evaporate and he was really rude to the waitress who took your order. So rude, in fact, you had excused yourself to go to the bathroom so you could find the waitress, apologize profusely, and ask for her Venmo so you could send her a huge tip.

You sat across from him for nearly two hours and kept thinking about Robby, how the only reason you were here was because he had driven you to such irrational levels of irritation. You hated being jealous, it made your skin itch, it gave power to Robby that you never ever wanted him to have. It was terrifying knowing that he had that sort of control over you, that just seeing him with Noelle had made it hard to breathe, had made you feel nauseous, had thrown you off for the entire day.

In order to make it through the date with your sanity and to stop thinking about Robby, you had overcompensated with alcohol. You'd lost count of how many drinks you ordered, but you felt mostly fine, until you stood up to leave and the world tilted.

"Woah—" A hand was at your elbow, steadying you. Then on your back, then your waist. He was saying things in your ear as you left the restaurant, but the world was beginning to gray at the edges.

Your breathing began to come in fits and starts, your chest tight and painful. You tried to slap his hands away, you wanted to call an Uber, but he stayed firm.

"Stop," You meant to dig your heels into the pavement, but he practically lifted you off your feet, leading you behind the restaurant, near the dumpsters. The panic had really taken hold now, tears beginning to collect at the corners of your eyes.

You were too drunk, you didn't feel right, you didn't feel like yourself, you felt like you were floating above yourself as his hands wandered, his hot mouth on your neck, as he shoved you against the brick wall.

"Stop, I don't want to—Stop!" You don't remember thinking about it, it must have been some sort of primal instinct to drive your knee into his groin—But it got him to release you.

Cursing, he backed away from you and you tried to catch your breath, heart still in your throat and hands shaking.

You had the vague sense that he was shouting at you, but all you caught at the end was "—stupid cunt—" Before he spat in your general direction and turned his back on you.

Looking back on it, you didn't think you wanted to hurt him—Just maybe scare him a little. Or perhaps you went a little wild with rage, like a dog who'd been hit one too many times. You longed to bite back, sink your teeth into soft flesh. But as he began to walk away, you picked up a half broken beer bottle that was on the ground near the dumpster and threw it in his direction, causing it to shatter against the pavement near his feet.

He turned back to you, like he was ready to lunge, and you regretted it immediately. You felt like you'd knowingly provoked a predator, alerting it to its next meal. But then blue lights flashed across his face, the brief whoop of a siren, and you turned to see a police car parked not more than a hundred feet away.

For the briefest of moments, you felt vindication. Surely they had been there the whole time, had witnessed him about to force himself onto you and were here to take him away.

But when they got out of the car, they stopped to talk to him first and you watched with growing apprehension as they acted fraternal. Shook hands and slapped each other on the shoulder. And then Brian was walking away, a spring in his step, and they were walking towards you.

It was difficult later to recall the exact details, you were too far gone in your own panic attack as well as the alcohol, but you did think you tried to fight back when they told you you were under arrest for disorderly conduct. You're sure you were sobbing and incoherent, but you had tried asking them about Brian, told them he'd tried to force himself on you, but they were unempathetic and eventually the fight went out of you as they confiscated your things and put you in the back of their cruiser.

Your breathing rattled in your chest, silent tears streaming down your face the whole ride. When you threw up in the back of their cruiser, it made you feel only slightly better imagining they'd have to clean up after you. Pigs.

"We're just keeping you until you sober up," They said after you were processed and put in a cell.

"I want a phone call, can I have my phone?"

"You can have a phone call, but you can't use your phone so you better know a number by heart."

You wanted to scream. Of course you didn't know any fucking numbers by heart. The only number you knew by heart was your father's old landline that he'd taken out years ago at your suggestion.

Feeling defeated and sorry for yourself, you curled up on a cold bench. You weren't sure who you would call anyway, even if you had your phone. Cecelia was the only person you wouldn't feel humiliated by seeing like this and she was staying with your father overnight with her husband at your request.

You hadn't been planning to spend the night at Brian's house, but McKay had asked you to meet her later to go dancing as it was her ex's weekend with her son. She'd said you could crash at her place after and you had intended to take advantage of that, to sleep somewhere that didn't feel so haunted and full of decaying memories.

Maybe if you had your phone you could've called McKay. You weren't super close, but she was open about her history and had never seemed judgmental in the least. Didn't matter, though, you couldn't use your fucking phone. Seemingly for no reason other than they were being spiteful. Probably because you threw up in their car.

You had been in enough trouble as a teenager to know that disorderly conduct was a summary offense that usually warranted only a ticket if the offender had ceased the behavior upon receiving a warning, not an arrest. You couldn't remember, but you didn't think they had given you a warning.

It was cold in the cell and in a useless attempt to warm your hands, you shoved them in the pockets of your jeans— to find a piece of card stock poking into one of your hands. Frowning, you pulled it out to examine it and found Robby's business card, his personal cell scribbled on the back. These were the jeans you had worn to the airport on the flight back to Jamaica.

You stared at his phone number, his messy scrawl that you had become so familiar with over the last couple of months, and wondered if you could bear it. If you could swallow your pride and call him to see if he'd come get you, faced with both humiliation and the possibility of rejection. Or if you'd sit and stare at the cement ceiling, shivering all night.

Unfortunately, the thought of spending the whole night here was immediately spiral inducing. You could not stay here. Well, you could, but you knew you'd regret at least not trying to get out.

So, tail tucked between your legs and business card clutched in hand, you asked for the phone.

PART TWO

[cosmic-reads]

God this is incredible, the way you write robby is unparalleled

EVERYONE READ THIS NOW!!!

[hearts4hughes]

— three times jack abbot flirted with you without you realizing, and the one time you realized !!

jack abbot x fem!resident!reader 5k+ word count warnings: medical inaccuracies (i researched the best i could), age gap (not specified), reader may come across as “dumb”, but she’s just overwhelmed!! note: first jack writing!! he’s my dream man btw. also, i refer to the characters as i think of them in my head😭 some are first name basis, others are strictly last name because i cannot remember their first names for the life of me.

{ ONE }

the emergency department at two in the evening feels like a beehive someone kicked. monitors chirp in uneven rhythms, stretchers rattle past with loose wheels that squeal against the tile, santos and langdon argue for the tenth time in an hour, and you stand right in the middle of it with a big smile.

you’ve always loved your job. even when it meant eight straight years of school. nights spent bent over anatomy textbooks while your roommates got dressed for the bars. even when med school felt like someone had taken your brain out of your skull and wrung it dry. you loved it. you loved the moment something finally clicked. the way a diagnosis stopped being a puzzle and started making sense.

now you’re a second-year resident and technically a doctor, even though sometimes the word still catches in your throat when someone says it out loud. the emergency department is exhausting and overwhelming and perfect.

“no, look,” you insist, tapping the chart with the end of your pen. “if his potassium was actually that high, he’d look way worse than this. always check for hemolysis before you panic.”

ogilvie blinks from across you. he runs a hand through his tousled hair and nods curtly. “oh,” he says faintly, internally freaking out because he was the top of his class at whatever school he went to and he wasn’t supposed to mess up.

you grin, knowing that feeling all too well. “hey, don’t get down on yourself. with time comes wisdom. you’ll get used to it.” you promise, giving him a comforting pat on the shoulder. you scribble something quick on the chart and hand it back to him before he scurries off.

you’re already turning back to the computer when you pat the counter beside you automatically, searching for something that isn’t there. your hand lands on the cold desk and you frown. “…damn.”

dana glances over. “what’s up, kid?” she tilts her head, looking above the top of her glasses.

“forgot my coffee this morning,” you sigh, already pulling up another chart. “i was already here before i realized.”

“rookie mistake.” she tsks, already looking up at the patient board again.

“i know,” you mutter, pinching the bridge of your nose. “this shift might kill me.” you say casually, fingers clicking against the keyboard again.

three feet to your left, jack abbott hears every word. he’s leaning against the far counter pretending to review a chart he finished five minutes ago. his eyes lift the second you say forgot my coffee. he continues watching you—like always. you’re talking again now, explaining something to a student doctor javadi, gesturing with your pen, hair slightly messy from the start of a long shift. you laugh at something perlah says and the sound carries toward him.

jack used to feel guilty for observing you. it would curl up the nape of his neck and plant itself there every time he realized he’d been watching you for longer than necessary. you were one of the best residents he’d ever seen, so naturally, like any other attending, he kept an eye on you (even though you technically were under dr. robby). still, the first few times he caught himself leaning against a counter across the department, eyes following the way you moved from patient to patient, he’d look away immediately. like he’d been caught doing something he couldn’t quite justify.

now it’s just routine. jack walks into the department and his eyes find you automatically. across the room, down the hall, wherever you’ve planted yourself in the middle of the noise. he tells himself it’s habit. just keeping track of a resident. but the truth is simpler than that.

“abbott.” he looks over, snapping out of whatever trance overtook him. robby, his longtime friend and coworker, raises an eyebrow. “you’ve been staring at her for like…three minutes. blink, brother.”

jack glances back at you. you’re still talking, still smiling, still completely unaware. “…was reading the chart,” he grumbles, scratching the back of his neck.

robby snorts, fingers drumming against the tabletop. they’ve known each other long enough to call bullshit. “whatever keeps you going.”

jack sets the chart down with a huff and pushes off the counter. he taps his pocket, feeling the cold weight of his phone, and murmurs, “gonna make a call.”

robby stifles a laugh, shaking his head briefly before assisting dr. mckay with her patient.

~

about twenty minutes later, you’re halfway through typing a note when a paper coffee cup slides quietly into your line of sight. you pause, blinking like it’s a figment of your imagination, before looking up.

dr. jack abbott stands on the other side of the station, one hand braced on the counter, the other nudging the coffee toward you. he’s wearing a black scrub top that squeezes his juicy biceps, and acting pretty casually for someone who’s not supposed to be working yet.

your eyes flick between the cup and him. “did someone get this for me?” you ask, fluttering your lashes at him subconsciously.

jack stares at you. his mind runs blank. behind you, princess slowly swivels her chair to watch. jack drags a hand down his face. “yeah,” he says flatly. “somebody did.”

you nod thoughtfully. you should ask who or where it came from, but you’re running on fumes. “okay.” you pick up the coffee, pressing your lips against the lid and taking a generous sip. jack watches you drink it like a man waiting for a verdict, his finger tapping against his thigh. your shoulders relax instantly. you hum quietly. “this is really good.”

jack exhales through his nose. “glad you approve,” he murmurs, biting back a smirk. call him a creep, but he’s the only person in the department that can get your coffee order correct down to a T.

you finally glance up again, eyebrows lifting like you’ve only just remembered he exists. “wait,” you say. “you’re here early.”

jack tilts his head slightly, pursing his lips. “that bother you?” his voice is lower than before, causing butterflies to erupt in your stomach.

“no,” you say quickly, ignoring the tingly sensation in your stomach. truth be told, you’re never bothered to see him. “you just usually come in later.”

he shrugs, crossing his arms over his broad chest. it’s a losing battle to keep your eyes on his. “couldn’t sleep.”

dana snorts from behind you, shaking her head while dialing a number on the phone. she bites her tongue, choosing peace for once. jack doesn’t take his eyes off of you, ignoring dana’s antics entirely.

you groan sympathetically. “that’s the worst. i always have melatonin with me if you need it.”

jack’s mouth twitches. a flush forms from his cheeks to the tips of his ears. still, his gaze stays glued on you. “i’ll keep that in mind.”

with a smile, you turn back to the computer, already clicking through charts again, and attempting to calm your nerves. you grip the poor coffee cup, hoping jack doesn’t notice your skin is hot to the touch.

finally, he begrudgingly leaves to assist on a patient down the hall. when he’s out of sight, dana, who stands besides you, leans closer. “you know he bought that for you, right?”

you frown at your chart. “abbot?” you glance up at her, brows furrowed. she nods her head, widening her eyes like ‘wasn’t it obvious?’ you glance over your shoulder toward the hallway he disappeared down. “yeah, but he’s just nice. he’d do it for anyone.” you insist, scratching the top of your head.

dana stares at you like she’s trying to solve a complex neurological condition. “sure…” she finally says.

you just shrug, taking another sip of your coffee because that has to be the reason. right? why else would he buy you the coffee? you close your eyes, shaking the thoughts out of your head because…no way. meanwhile, somewhere down the hall, jack abbott is absolutely losing his mind.

{ TWO }

hour five is always the worst, in your opinion. close enough to the middle of your shift that you should feel motivated, but not quite there. not enough to push you through. just enough time for the exhaustion to settle in your bones and stay.

you’re in bay four with a chart tucked under your arm. the elderly woman on the stretcher looks small under the hospital blanket, silver hair falling loose around her shoulders. her ankle is already swelling beneath the thin sheet and she keeps apologizing every few seconds for something that wasn’t her fault.

“hey,” you murmur gently, crouching slightly so she doesn’t have to crane her neck to see you. “no apologies. gravity gets the best of all of us.”

she laughs softly at that. “i tripped on the rug,” she explains again. “my daughter keeps telling me to get rid of it.” her lips pull downward as she continues. “but it’s just so beautiful.”

you nod while carefully pressing along her ankle, fingers gentle but firm as you check for tenderness. “nothing wrong with enjoying art,” you say lightly. your thumb presses along the swollen joint and she winces just a little. you soften your touch immediately. “even if it occasionally decides to fight back.” she smiles in response.

behind you, jack stands close enough that his shoulder nearly brushes yours when you shift. robby got pulled into something more serious ten minutes ago, and jack (who once again is here before the start of his shift) stepped in without much explanation besides a quiet, i’ll help you with this one. you didn’t question it.

jack watches the way you explain each movement before you touch the patient. the way your voice softens slightly when she winces. the way your hands move with that careful confidence that only comes from repetition. you’re good at this. he already knew that, but still.

“alright,” you say after a moment, straightening slightly. “i’m gonna order an x-ray just to be safe, okay?”

the woman nods, commenting something about you being a doll. then, her eyes flick between you and jack. a slow smile spreads across her face. “aren’t you two just the sweetest together.” you both freeze. “such a nice couple,” she continues warmly. “working side by side like that.”

your brain stutters. “oh-” you start, laughing nervously. jack’s mouth twitches, but he doesn’t flinch. you shoot him a quick look before turning back to the patient. “we’re not-”

the woman waves her hand dismissively. “no need to explain, dear.”

jack lets out a quiet chuckle behind you. it’s low and amused and extremely unhelpful. you clear your throat, suddenly very focused on the color of your pen ink. “we just work together.”

the woman hums like she heard you and chose not to believe it. well,” she says sweetly, glancing at jack, “he looks at you very nicely.”

your face heats instantly. you pretend to adjust the blanket around her ankle so you don’t have to respond. jack goes very still beside you. the room stays quiet for a beat before you say, a little too brightly, “okay! we’ll get that x-ray and see what’s going on.”

you scribble something on the chart and step toward the door. jack follows. the second you’re out in the hallway, you exhale like you’ve been holding your breath. “oh my god.” jack laughs softly in response. you glance at him. “you could’ve said something.”

“about what.” he feigns innocence.

“the couple thing.”

jack shrugs, hands slipping casually into the pockets of his scrub pants. “didn’t seem necessary.”

you stare at him. your eyes are wide and mouth agape. “it was embarrassing.”

jack tilts his head slightly, studying you for a second longer than necessary. then he says, voice low and teasing, “i didn’t mind playing your boyfriend for a few minutes.”

your brain stalls. you stare at him like he spoke a different language. jack watches the exact moment the words land. the faint color climbing up your neck. the way the floor tiles suddenly call your attention. his mouth curves slightly.

you clear your throat once again. he definitely didn’t mean it like that. jack abbot is many things, including a vigorous flirt. he’s just trying to fluster you. “i’m sure you’d do it for anyone,” you say weakly, turning toward the nurses’ station, “i-i,” cough, “have to, to go do something.”

jack moves to the side, motioning for you to walk. “go ahead,” he murmurs, but he’s smiling.

{ THREE }

the ambulance bay doors swing shut behind you with a hollow metallic clang. outside, the air is colder than it looked through the glass. it slips straight through the thin fabric of your scrubs, raising goosebumps along your arms almost instantly. your hands brace against the cool metal railing and you stare out into the dark parking lot like it might answer the questions still bouncing around your head.

the case had gone bad fast. too fast. one minute the patient had been talking. the next minute the room filled with voices and hands and alarms screaming over each other. someone calling for another unit of blood. someone else pushing meds. robby barking orders across the bed. you’d done everything right.

your shift ended an hour ago. by now, you should’ve been cuddled up with a hot cup of tea and your favorite fluffy socks and maybe a nice book. but after…that…you couldn’t leave. you offered to help the transition into the night shift and assist with some cases. it was enough to keep your mind off of it until now.

your jaw tightens. you take another slow breath, trying to push the noise out of your head. the ambulance bay door opens again behind you, but you don’t have the strength to turn around. heavy footsteps approach, steady and familiar, until someone stops beside you.

jack rests his forearms on the railing beside you. for a second, neither of you speak. he glances sideways, taking a deep breath. the brisk air burns his throat. you’re staring straight ahead, shoulders tense, lips pressed together like you’re trying very hard not to let the thoughts spill out.

jack knows that look. he’s spent way too long memorizing it. “hey,” he says quietly, bumping his shoulder against yours. you hum in response, which is about the most energy you can spare. jack watches you for another moment. “you did good in there.”

you shake your head slightly, inhaling sharply. “we lost him.”

jack sighs, nodding. “sometimes we do.”

you stare harder at the parking lot. “that doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck.” you mutter, tears pooling at your waterline.

that pulls the faintest huff of a laugh out of him. “yeah,” he says. “that’s the official medical term.” you shake your head, a small smile threatening at the corner of your mouth before it disappears again.

the wind picks up slightly. you shift your weight. jack’s eyes fall to your arms. they’re crossed loosely over your stomach, bumps covering every inch of skin. your shoulders hunch just a little to tell that you’re shivering. he straightens slightly. “hold on.” he says with a tight-lipped smile.

you glance at him. “wha-” but he’s already pushing off the railing before you can finish. you watch him disappear back through the ambulance bay doors with a small frown. he probably got sick of watching you mope. you scoff, kicking yourself mentally because he’s the chief attending and you’re standing here burdening him with your emotional issues.

about a minute later the door swings open again. jack steps back outside to find you in the same position as before. this time, something dark is slung over his arm. you blink as he walks back over and holds it out. a gray zip-up sweatshirt lies in his extended hands.

you stare at it, not moving. “what’s this?” you ask, even though it’s pretty obvious. you’ve never seen him wear the fabric. you’ve only watched him saunter through the automatic doors, eyes intense, and sweatshirt in his hand as he prepares for the night shift.

jack lifts an eyebrow, motioning his hand toward you. “take it.” his voice is low and raspy.

you hesitate. “i’m fine.”

jack gives you a look. the kind that clearly says you’re absolutely not fine. “you’re shivering.” he simply states.

you glance down at your arms like you only just noticed. “…maybe a little.” your hands rub up and down against your arms. jack doesn’t move. the sweatshirt stays extended toward you. after a second, you sigh and take it. “thanks.” when you pull it on, the scent of musky cologne and him fill your senses. you breathe deeper, the smell like a drug. your brain catches up a bit later. “wait—are you gonna be cold?”

jack snorts quietly. “i’ll survive.”

you zip it up the rest of the way, the sleeves a little long over your hands. you fold your arms again, but this time it’s inside the sweatshirt. “thanks,” your voice is softer.

jack shrugs like it’s nothing. “don’t get used to it.”

you glance sideways at him. “you’re very grumpy for someone doing something nice.”

“i’m always grumpy.”

“debatable.”

jack looks at you. his eyes bore into yours, memorizing every detail he can of you. your shoulders have relaxed slightly. the tight line between your brows is gone. mission accomplished. “you should go home now.” he starts softly. “the day shift is all gone and we can handle the rest from here.” he urges.

after a moment, you clear your throat and nod. “i’ll bring this back tomorrow.”

he shakes his head. “keep it.” he says it like it’s no big deal. like he’s not your boss and he’s not lending you a sweatshirt in an oddly intimate way. before you can argue, he says, “you forget things,” he’s already turning toward the door. “figure this way you’ve got a spare.”

you stare at him and just laugh. “that seems like a terrible system.” your shoulders move as you giggle. after the night you’ve had, this is the funniest scenario ever.

jack glances back over his shoulder. his mouth curves slightly. “works for me.” he disappears back inside before you can respond. you stand there for another moment, wrapped in his sweatshirt, staring at the ambulance bay doors.

your fingers curl into the sleeves, fabric bunching around your hands, still warm from him. it sits heavier on your shoulders than it should. you exhale slowly, shaking your head to yourself, a small, tired smile tugging at your lips.

he’s probably just used to this. used to residents stepping out after bad cases, quiet and shaken and trying to hold it together. used to knowing exactly what to say, what to do. how to fix it just enough to get you back on your feet.

you huff out a soft breath, pushing yourself off the railing. “yeah,” you murmur under your breath, already turning toward the doors. “he’s just good at his job.”

{ + ONE }

the bar is loud. a different type of loud than you’re used to. instead of the sharp, frantic noise of the ER, it’s the warmth of conversation and light jokes. robby makes a toast, glasses clink, and drinks are tipped back. the day shift claimed a long stretch of tables near the back. someone dragged two together at some point. chairs are half pulled out, people shifting and talking over each other like no one’s had a full thought all day and now they finally can.

you’re next to samira with one leg tucked under your chair, and your drink sweating in your hand. “i’m telling you,” samira says, covering her mouth to giggle before she even gets the words out. “dr. robby is hot.”

you gasp, choking on your drink before barking out in laughter. “i mean…i can see it.” you say quietly. she raises an eyebrow. you pause. “ok…of course he is.” you rephrase. “he’s just not my usual type.”

beside you, perlah and princess chuckle, pretending that they aren’t eavesdropping.

“what you mean is,” samira takes a swig of her drink before finishing. “he’s not jack abbot.”

you swear you almost drop your glass. “keep your voice down!” you hiss, looking over both shoulders to see if anyone heard.

“it’s not like it’s a secret!” she argues, barely containing her laughter. “you both like each other and you’re both too dense to see it.”

“i would know if someone liked me.” you insist, swirling your straw around in your glass. the ice cubes clink with each stir.

she rolls her eyes, nudging you with her elbow. “yet, you’re the only one who doesn’t.” she huffs out a laugh, shaking her head.

the conversation shifts again after that. someone across the table starts complaining about charting, whittaker gets louder, joy says something dry that makes half the table go quiet for a second before laughing. this is the part of the job makes everything else feel worth it.

you’re sitting quiet, listening to the chatter of samira and the occasional arguments of the med-students when a cool breeze brings goosebumps in its wake. you shiver, peaking over your shoulder.

jack abbott steps inside, pausing just past the threshold. he wasn’t planning on coming. it’s his night off. he told himself he’d stay home for once, maybe get a decent night’s sleep. maybe do something that didn’t revolve around the hospital. then robby mentioned called and drinks. then mentioned you’d be there, and here he is.

he scans the room once, finding you easily. he almost physically stumbles when he processes you. you’re laughing at something samira said, head tipped slightly back, hair down around your shoulders instead of tied up like it always is. you traded your scrubs for a pair of jeans and a simple top that fit you in a way that should be illegal.

jack exhales slowly. right. this was a mistake. he runs a hand over the back of his neck, debating turning around and walking right back out. instead, he straightens slightly and makes his way over. he doesn’t go to you first. mostly because he’s nervous and he’s sporting a semi-hard that needs to go down.

he stops by the end of the table, nodding at everyone, and engaging in conversation with robby. dana gives him a knowing look that he pointedly ignores. “thought you had the night off,” she says, blatantly interrupting robby.

“i do.” he crosses his arms.

“and yet.” dana motions to the room and where he stands.

jack shrugs, casual. “heard there were drinks.” dana hums like she doesn’t believe him for a second. she glances past him, toward you, and then back. jack pretends not to notice. he lingers there longer than necessary, letting himself get pulled into the edge of a conversation he’s not really listening to. how could he listen when you’re there looking like that?

he’s aware of you in a way that hinders his ability to interact. the sound of your voice cutting through the noise. the way you gesture when you talk. the way you lean into samira, laughing at something under your breath. he drags his gaze away, but it always comes back. he’s metal being pulled into your magnetic field.

finally, he pushes off from the end of the table. he circles the group until he’s right behind you. he can hear you clearly now, even smell your perfume.

“you always this loud?” he asks, voice cutting cleanly into your conversation, “or is this a special occasion?”

you freeze. samira’s eyes go wide for half a second before she bites her lip to keep from laughing. slowly—slowly—you turn your head. up close, he looks even better than he did from across the room. you can see his features clearly. the stubble beard he bother shaving, his salt and peppered curls, and that hardened look that always melts you. could he be anymore perfect?

your brain stutters. “i’m not loud,” you retort, which is immediately a lie.

jack raises an eyebrow. “no?” he asks, voice low, amused. “could’ve fooled me.”

samira lets out a quiet snort beside you. you shoot her a look before turning back to him, narrowing your eyes slightly. “maybe you’re just eavesdropping.”

“maybe you’re just easy to overhear.”

you open your mouth, then close it. you can barely breathe the way he’s still looking at you, never mind forming coherent sentences. you swallow. “what are you doing here?” you ask, tone lower.

jack shrugs, one hand settling on the back of your chair. your back brushes his fingers when you lean closer. “thought i’d see what you all look like outside the hospital.”

your stomach flips. samira makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like oh my god. “and?” you ask, lifting your chin slightly. “what’s the verdict?”

jack’s gaze drags over you in an antagonizing slow manner. it starts at your face, and dips before coming back up. your breath catches.

he hums. “undecided.”

samira chokes on her drink. “i need another round,” she blurts, already sliding out of her seat. she grabs princess and perlah by the wrist and drags the with her before you can even process what just happened.

traitors.

you’re suddenly very aware of the empty chairs beside you, and the fact that jack doesn’t move away. if anything, he moves closer. “so,” you say, clearing your throat, trying to ignore the way your heart is picking up speed. “night off?”

“yeah.”

“and you chose to spend it here.”

“seems that way.”

you huff a quiet laugh, glancing down at your drink (because if you don’t you’ll stare at him arms). “we’re honored.”

jack’s mouth twitches. “you should be.” he lowers his voice to a gruff sound. that has to be his bedroom voice, you think. you look back up at him, rolling your eyes, but there’s no heat behind it.

he watches you for a second longer than necessary before finally dropping into the chair samira abandoned like it was always his. your knee brushes his and neither of you move. you take a sip of your drink just to give your hands something to do. jack doesn’t look away. he leans back slightly in his chair, one arm draped behind you like it belongs there.

you clear your throat. “so,” you say, glancing at him, “you just haunt bars on your nights off now?”

jack huffs quietly. “only the ones you’re in.”

your brain trips over itself for half a second. you recover fast. mostly. “that’s…concerning.”

“yeah,” he nods. “i’ve been told.”

you shake your head, trying not to smile into your drink. the liquor warms your throat, giving you some much needed confidence. neither of you move. you glance down at your glass again, tracing the rim with your finger. “they’re short on night shift,” you say after a second. “again.”

jack’s attention sharpens. he notes the way your voice lowers. you don’t want anyone else at the table to hear. “yeah,” he nods, pouring himself a beer from the pitcher on the table. “we are.”

you look up at him through your lashes and he has to adjust his pants. you stall, questioning if this is the right time or place to talk about this. finally, you exhale. “i was thinking about maybe switching over for a bit,” you continue, shrugging one shoulder. “just temporarily. try something different.”

almost immediately, he replies, “you should.”

you blink, stifling a laugh. “that was fast.”

he doesn’t even try to backtrack. “you’d be good over there.”

you tilt your head slightly. “you don’t even know what i’d be like on nights.”

“yeah, i do.”

your brows lift. “you’ve never seen me on nights.”

“don’t need to.”

you bite the inside of your cheek to calm yourself. you feel tingly all over. “you’re very confident.” you say, avoiding eye contact with him.

“i’m usually right.”

“debatable.”

“not about this.” there’s a quiet certainty in his voice that makes it hard to brush off.

you shift slightly in your seat. “i just-” you sigh. “i don’t know how robby’s gonna feel about it. i feel like he’s gonna think i’m abandoning day shift or something.” you ramble. “and-”

jack leans forward now, thick forearms resting on the table. “robby won’t be mad at you,” he interrupts with no room for discussion.

you glance at him. “you say that like you speak for him.”

“i’ve known him longer than you,” jack replies easily. “he’s not gonna hold you back.” you nod slowly, but your not convinced. “he likes you,” jack adds.

your lips twitch. “he likes everyone.”

jack shakes his head slightly. “he admires you.” he corrects himself.

your eyes flick back to his. there’s something in his tone that makes your chest tighten again. you look down quickly. “i just don’t want it to be weird,” you say, softer now.

jack watches you for a second. then leans in just a little more. “it won’t be,” he says. he’s close enough that you can feel his breath fanning against your skin. your breath catches. after a moment, he straightens again. “we can talk more about it over dinner.” he states in a matter of fact tone.

you nearly choke. your brain tries to file that under professional—it doesn’t match. “…what?”

jack’s mouth curves slightly. “dinner,” he repeats, like it’s obvious. like you’re the one lagging behind.

you stare at him. that didn’t sound like just a friendly request. your heart starts picking up. “like…with the team?” you ask, clinging to logic.

jack’s gaze doesn’t waver. “no.”

your stomach drops. “…just us?”

“that’s usually how dates go, no?” he smirks. there’s no hesitation.

everything clicks at once. the realization flashes across your eyes in series of memories. the coffee, the sweatshirt, the way he shows up early, and the way he watches you like you’re the only thing in the room. your breath catches. “you’re asking me on a date?” you ask like you had to say it out loud for it to process.

jack’s smile deepens. “took you long enough.”

your heart stutters. “wait-” you sit up straighter, staring at him. “you’re serious?”

jack leans in slightly, voice low. “i asked you to dinner.”

your pulse jumps. “i thought you meant like talking about the shift-”

“we can talk about the shift,” he nods, taking a sip of his glass. his eyes flick down to your lips for a split second before coming back up. “doesn’t have to be the only thing.”

oh.

oh.

your face heats. you look away, then back, like you don’t know where to land. “you’ve been-” you shake your head slightly, almost laughing. “this whole time?”

“pretty much.”

you huff out a disbelieving breath. “i thought you were just-” you stop yourself.

jack raises an eyebrow. “just what.”

you groan, dropping your head into your hand for a second. “i don’t know…normal.”

that actually makes him laugh real low. “this is me being normal?”

you peek at him. “apparently not.” you lower your hand slowly, looking at him again. your heart is still racing, but you don’t hate it. “you’re bold,” you say quietly.

jack’s mouth curves. “only when it counts.”

your stomach twists again. you shake your head slightly, smiling despite yourself. “and you just assumed i’d say yes?”

“no.” he shrugs simply.

the honesty catches you off guard. “then why ask?”

jack holds your gaze. “because i wanted to.” he murmurs. “figured you were worth the risk.”

you stare at him for a second longer, tilting your head like it might help you figure him out better. “…ok.” it slips out before you can overthink it.

jack tilts his head slightly. “ok?”

you nod, a little more certain now. “yes, i’ll go out with you.”

a boyish grin takes over his face. it may have taken months of what he thought was obvious flirting, hundreds spent on overpriced coffees, and more self-control than he’d ever admit out loud, but he got there. now you’re sitting in front of him, cheeks warm, eyes a little wide, finally seeing him the way he’s been seeing you all along.

worth it.

[cosmic-reads]

CUTE!!!!

[fluttervoid]

✦ — WHAT HE CANNOT NAME ..!

summary: you were meant for valarr targaryen. his father had approved the match himself. neither of these facts stopped baelor breakspear from looking at you the way he did, and you were running out of reasons to look away. (10k)

pairing: baelor targaryen x fem!reader

content: brief side of valarr targaryen x reader, lannister!reader, age gap (reader is adult, baelor is older ig), arranged marriage, slow burn, angst, so much yearning, protective!baelor, reader has never been enough for anyone until now, father who means well and says the worst things, baelor is down bad, allusions to smut 18+ (MDNI): hand kink (you'll know when you get there), wedding night, baelor asks permission like a gentleman and then doesn't hold back, fade to black.

The gods had a particular sense of humour, Baelor though, in giving him everything he was supposed to want and then you walking through his gates. 

He had approved the match himself, between you and Valarr, which was, he would come to understand, the single most foolish thing he had ever done. Of course it wasn’t official yet, but why else would Lancel Lannister bring his daughter to King’s Landing? 

Lancel had said it plainly enough in the small council chamber three weeks prior, with the particular straightforwardness of a man who has run out of patience “my daughter is of age, Your Grace, and I would see her settled well, and there is no finer match in the Seven Kingdoms than your son,” and the council had agreed, Baelor had agreed, and the whole thing had been arranged with smooth efficiency.

King Daeron II's nameday celebration had been Baelor's own suggestion as convenient cover for the visit. A natural occasion for the Lannisters to travel to the capital, he'd said, and you had apparently been wanting silks that weren't available back home, it would also give Valarr and you time to find footing without the weight of a formal betrothal negotiation hanging over every interaction.

The Lannister procession came through the gates of the Red Keep at midday, when the autumn sun was still high enough to be warm without being punishing, and Baelor was already in the courtyard to receive them– standing at the foot of the keep's great steps with two of his household knights behind him and Lord Tarly at his elbow, saying something about trade routes that Baelor was not listening to.

He could not have said, afterward, why he had come down himself rather than sending a steward. It was not customary, strictly speaking, for the Prince of Dragonstone to stand in the courtyard like a man waiting for something. He had told himself it was a matter of courtesy.

The horses came through first, then the outriders, then the luggage carts, and then the carriage– crimson-lacquered, the Lannister lion picked out in gold on the door, and Baelor watched a groom move to open it and watched Lord Lancel step down first, broad and unhurried, already scanning the courtyard. Then a figure behind him, partly obscured, one hand catching the carriage door for balance as you stepped down, and then the hand let go and you straightened, and Baelor–

Baelor stopped thinking about trade routes.

He was not certain how long he stood there before he remembered he was supposed to be doing something. You were looking at the keep, at the towers of it, with the unhurried attention of someone who has decided to take a place in properly before saying anything about it, and there was something in it, in the simple fact of you standing in his courtyard looking at his home like it was worth looking at, that struck him somewhere in the chest with a precision he had not been braced for.

You were not looking at him. Most people, upon arriving in the courtyard of the Red Keep to be received by the Prince of Dragonstone, looked immediately at the Prince of Dragonstone. It was a reliable quality in people, the instinct to locate the most important person in a space and orient toward them.

Though you were looking at the towers.

And then, as if you had simply finished with them, your gaze came down and found him, and Baelor, who had stood in front of armies without flinching, who had presided over councils that decided the fates of thousands, who had buried his wife and raised two sons and not been rattled by anything in longer than he could remember– felt something move through him that he could not name and did not try to. 

"—wouldn't you say, Your Grace?" Tarly was saying.

"Mm," Baelor said, which covered most things, and walked forward to meet Lord Lancel.

The man clasped his hand with both of his, warm and firm, the grip of someone genuinely pleased to be here. "Your Grace," Lancel said, with the easy warmth of a man whose plans were going according to schedule. "You're too generous, as always." He glanced around the courtyard briefly. "King Daeron will be well celebrated. The city seems in fine spirits for it."

"It does," Baelor agreed, pleasantly. "His Grace will be glad you've come, my lord. He asks after you." He said it to Lancel's face the way a man was supposed to, and not to the figure just behind Lancel's shoulder, who had not moved and had not spoken.

He was extremely aware of not looking at you.

And then Lancel shifted, stepping slightly aside with the particular ease of a man about to make an introduction he has been looking forward to, and Baelor looked, because there was nothing else to do, because the alternative was to visibly avoid looking, which was worse, and you were there.

He extended his hand and said, "It is a pleasure to finally meet you, my lady…" and stopped, because he found, absurdly, that he wanted to hear your name from you rather than say the version he'd read in correspondence, which had always felt like a different thing from the real one.

You looked at him with the same look you'd given the towers and said your name, and offered your hand, Baelor took it and thought, with a clarity that was almost violent in its precision: I have made a terrible mistake.

Your name sat on his tongue like it had always been there. Like it belonged. He filed that away with considerable force, straightened and said pleasantly, "We hope King's Landing treats you well, my lady. I understand there are silks here you've been after?"

Something shifted in your expression, brief, contained, the ghost of something wry moving across your face before being put away. "There are, Your Grace," you said. "Though I suspect my father has also brought me here for reasons that have considerably less to do with silk."

Beside you, Lancel made a sound in his throat that wasn't quite anything, and Baelor looked at the man and found him studying the middle distance with the focused interest of someone who had absolutely heard what was just said, and Baelor looked back at you and felt the corner of his mouth move before he'd decided to let it. "Perceptive," he said.

"Occasionally," you said, and the word had a lightness to it, almost a warmth, and you held his gaze for just a beat longer than was strictly necessary before you looked away toward the keep, and Baelor looked away toward Lancel, and that was the first thirty seconds, and he was already in considerable trouble.

It had not been long before Valarr eventually came down. Baelor still in conversation with Lancel, still being perfectly composed about all of it, when the doors of the keep opened behind him and Valarr came down the steps into the courtyard with the easy, unhurried confidence of someone who had been told guests had arrived and saw absolutely no reason not to come and find them immediately.

He was, Baelor thought, with the particular mixture of pride and something considerably less straightforward, very like his mother in that way. Jena had never waited for things to come to her either.

"My lord," Valarr said, extending his hand to Lancel with the bright warmth he gave most people on first meeting, the smile of a young man who genuinely liked people and wanted them to know it. "I've been looking forward to your visit." And then his gaze moved easily, the way it always did, searching out the most interesting thing in the space, and found you, and something in his expression shifted into the particular surprised pleasure of a man who had been given something better than he expected. "And you must be–"

"His daughter," you said, with a faint lift at the corner of your mouth. "Yes."

Valarr blinked. Then laughed, a real one, caught off guard by it, and said, "I was going to say my lady, but yes, that too." He took your hand and bowed over it with a gallantry that was entirely genuine and only slightly showing off, and when he straightened he was already tilting his head with that look he got when something had caught his interest and he intended to find out more about it.

Baelor watched his son look at you with the slow dawning delight of someone who had been expecting a pleasant obligation and found something else entirely, and felt something move through his chest that he could not call by its right name in a courtyard in broad daylight. It was not pride, though there was pride in it somewhere. It was something uglier than pride– the sudden, unreasonable, completely inexcusable awareness that he did not want this. 

That he had arranged it himself, had sat in a council chamber and approved it with both hands, and was standing here now watching it begin to work exactly as intended, and wanted, with a clarity that shamed him, to undo all of it. To send Lancel Lannister back to Lannisport. To find some quiet room and keep you in it and not share you with anyone, least of all his own son, who deserved none of what his father was currently thinking and had done nothing wrong except arrive in a courtyard and smile at a girl.

Baelor looked away. He was not a selfish man, had never been, had spent the better part of his life making sure of it. He was not going to become one now, and certainly not at the expense of Valarr, who was good and kind and deserved a match that his father had not already decided to covet before the first afternoon was out.

He was not going to do that.

He looked away, and kept looking away, and was thoroughly disgusted with himself.

"—wouldn't you say, Your Grace?" Lancel was saying beside him.

"Entirely," Baelor said, and looked back at Lancel with the practiced ease of a man who had been half-present in conversations for most of his life and had learned to manage it gracefully.

Behind him, Valarr said something that made you tilt your head and give him that look — the assessing one, the one that made people feel they were being read — and then say something back that made Valarr laugh again, and Baelor kept his eyes on Lancel and his expression pleasantly attentive and turned away.

He was very good at turning away.

He was considerably less good at it than he used to be.

King's Landing was louder than you had expected, and warmer, and smelled quite differently from Lannisport, which smelled of salt and sea wind and the particular clean cold of the Westerlands coast. Here it smelled of people and dust and something underneath it that wasn't quite pleasant but wasn't quite unpleasant either, the smell of a city that had been alive for a very long time and had no interest in apologising for it.

You had wanted the silks, and you had gotten them, three bolts of Myrish lace and two of a pale sea-coloured silk that you had been thinking about for the better part of six months, and your chambers in the Red Keep were comfortable and the servants were efficient and the view from your window was the sort that made you stand there longer than you meant to every morning, the whole of the city spread out below you in the early light.

It was fine. It was more than fine. You were being very ungrateful, you told yourself, for the small persistent feeling at the back of your mind that said your father had not brought you all this way simply because he was feeling generous about silk.

Your father had done it again. Brought you somewhere and arranged for there to be a man, the way he always did, the way he had been doing since you were old enough for it to be a thing worth arranging.

Lord Whatshisname from the Reach, the second son of somebody important from the Stormlands, the cousin of someone your father owed a favour to. They arrived, they were pleasant or they weren't, they made their interest known or they didn't, and nothing ever came of any of it. Your father would look at you afterward with that expression of fond, exhausted patience and say that your heart was merely just too big for most men to know what to do with it, which you had decided a long time ago was a very kind way of saying that you were too much.

You were used to it by now. You were good at making peace with things you were used to.

What you were considerably less good at, you were discovering, was making peace with Baelor Targaryen.

You had noticed him noticing you, which was the problem, and you had noticed him in return, which was a bigger one.

It would have been easier if he were not handsome. You had not been prepared for that, which in retrospect was foolish of you, he was a Targaryen, and Targaryens were not, as a rule, difficult to look at, but there was a difference between knowing a thing and being confronted with it in a courtyard on a random warm afternoon when you had nowhere to put your face. 

He was broad-shouldered and distinctive-bearded with greys decorating spots of it and had the kind of face that had been lived in long enough to have something behind it, though his eyes were mismatched, one brown and one blue, and they were the most specific thing about him, the thing that made looking at him feel like being caught even when he wasn't looking back. You had decided on the first evening to stop noticing any of this and had been failing at it consistently ever since.

And then there was the other thing, which was worse than the handsome, which was the way he paid attention. Not in the way men at court paid attention to women, which was a performance you had seen enough times to recognise immediately and set aside without much effort. This was different. The difference was in the quality of it, the way his attention when it landed on you felt less like being looked at and more like being seen, and those were not the same thing at all and you wished they were, because you knew how to handle being looked at. 

You had been handling it your whole life. You did not know what to do with someone who listened to the things you said and also, somehow, to the things you didn't say, who noticed the small ways you held yourself in a room and said nothing about it, who had looked at you on the first afternoon across a courtyard with those mismatched eyes and made you feel, for one disorienting moment, like you had already been known by him for a very long time.

You were fighting it. You wanted to be clear about that, at least to yourself, because there was no one else you could be clear about it. You were fighting it with the practical, clear-eyed determination of someone who understood the situation completely and had absolutely no intention of making it worse. 

The situation was: you were here for Valarr. Your father wanted this match and your father's wants were not nothing, they were the product of careful thought and genuine care for you, and Valarr was warm and kind and had laughed at something you said on the first afternoon with a genuineness that had caught you off guard. 

Valarr was fine. Valarr was more than fine. Valarr was who you were supposed to be thinking about, and you were thinking about him, you were making a concerted and ongoing effort to think about him, and it was working, mostly, except for the times you were sitting in a room and his father said something quietly funny and you had to remind yourself, with more effort than should have been necessary, that you were not there for his father.

You were very good at not finishing thoughts that started that way. You had gotten a great deal of practice at it over the past week and expected to need considerably more before this visit was over.

The tourney held in honour of King Daeron II's nameday was on a bright, punishing afternoon, the sun sitting high and merciless over the yard and the heat of it pressing down on everything like a hand laid flat on the back of your neck. 

You sat in the royal box with your father on your left and the awareness you had been managing for two weeks now on your right, in the form of Baelor Targaryen, who had been there when you arrived and had set aside whatever he had been discussing with Lord Tarly when you sat down with the easy unhurried attention of a man who was very good at making you feel like the most important thing in the room without doing anything that could be specifically identified as doing that. 

"How are you finding the celebrations so far, my lady?" he asked, as the lists filled below and the crowd noise swelled around you.

You fanned yourself with the folded programme your maid had pressed into your hands on the way in and looked out at the yard. "Considerably hotter than I was prepared for, Your Grace," you said.

He made a sound that was almost a laugh. "King's Landing in early autumn. It gets worse before it gets better."

"That is the least reassuring thing anyone has said to me since I arrived," you told him.

"You've been speaking to the wrong people, then," he said. "Most of them are much less honest."

You glanced at him sidelong and found him looking at the lists with that composed half-smile of his and looked away again before he could catch you looking. "And is that what you are, Your Grace?" you asked, directing your words at the yard below. "Honest?"

"Occasionally," he said, and something in the way he said it made it feel like more than a word, like it was the beginning of a sentence he had decided not to finish, and you fanned yourself again and watched the first knight take the field and told yourself the warmth in your face was the sun.

It was midway through the afternoon, when the crowd had warmed to the sustained pleasant noise of people who were genuinely enjoying themselves, that you heard your name called from below. 

You looked down. Valarr was on his horse at the edge of the lists, having just unhorsed a knight from the Vale with the easy competence he brought to most things physical, and he was looking up at the royal box with that bright open smile of his and a question in his expression that he made verbal a moment later, raising his voice just enough to carry. "My lady, would you do me the honour of your favour?"

The crowd nearest the box rippled with the pleasant noise of people who found this charming, and you felt your father shift beside you with the satisfied stillness of a man watching something go according to plan, and you stood carefully because standing quickly in this heat was inadvisable and reached up to unhook the laurel wreath from your hair.

"Good luck, my prince," you called down, and leaned over the railing to pass it to the page who had appeared below, and as you straightened you became aware of two things at once. Your father's expression, which was pleased in a way he was not quite bothering to conceal. And the quality of the silence on your right. 

You sat back down. You looked forward at the lists. You told yourself you wouldn’t even gaze upon Baelor but you did the eaxt opposite.

He was watching the yard, his profile composed and still, he did not look at you, and somehow that was worse than if he had, because you had spent enough time in his company over the past week to know the difference between him not looking at you because there was nothing to look at and him not looking at you because he had decided not to. 

Valarr won. Of course he won. He was young and quick and had been trained by the best in the kingdom, and he dispatched the Dornish knight he was paired with in two passes with a thoroughness that brought the crowd to its feet. You clapped with everyone else, genuinely pleased, and told yourself the warmth in your chest was simple uncomplicated gladness.

And then Valarr rode up to the box again and the crowd went quiet in the anticipatory way of people who knew what was coming, and he looked up at you with that bright easy smile and declared you queen of love and beauty, and the yard erupted, and you rose and accepted the crown of pale roses with the composed grace your mother had spent years teaching you, and you smiled, and it was fine, it was genuinely fine, you were glad.

You just also couldn't stop thinking, somewhere very quietly underneath all of it, about what it would have felt like if it had been his father asking for your favour instead. What Baelor's voice would have sounded like carrying across that yard. Whether he would have smiled after, the way Valarr was smiling now, or whether he would have simply looked at you with those mismatched eyes of his and let that be enough.

You sat down and did not think about that anymore, and were almost entirely successful.

The feast was held in the great hall on the fourteenth evening of your stay, by which point you had been in King's Landing long enough to stop finding the noise of it startling and long enough to have developed, you were privately admitting to yourself, feelings that were becoming increasingly inconvenient.

Not for Baelor. You were managing that. You were managing it very well, you thought– you had developed a system, which was to look at him only when it was necessary and to keep your expression pleasantly neutral when you did, and to occupy your mind with other things when you found it drifting in directions it had no business drifting, and it was working, mostly, except for the times it wasn't, which were more frequent than you would have liked but still, you felt, within the bounds of manageable.

The inconvenient feelings were for Valarr.

This was not something you had planned for. You had arrived in King's Landing with your silk. your suspicions, your practiced composure and your very sensible intention to be pleasant and unattached to let your father do whatever your father was going to do without getting your own heart involved in it, and then Valarr had been– Valarr. Warm and easy and funny in a way that didn't require anything from you, and genuinely interested in the things you said in the way that some men performed interest and some men actually felt it, and you had caught yourself, over the past two weeks, looking forward to seeing him in a way you hadn't planned on and were now trying to figure out what to do with.

It was fine. It was more than fine. You were making peace with it, the way you always made peace with things. Your father wanted a match, Valarr was a good man, and you were starting to feel something real, perhaps that was simply how it worked sometimes. 

You had almost entirely convinced yourself of this by the time Valarr appeared at your shoulder during a lull in the dancing and said, "My lady, would you dance with me?" and held out his hand, and you looked at it for a moment. "I would," you said, and took his hand, and let him lead you out among the other dancers, and told yourself the warmth in your chest was uncomplicated.

He was a good dancer, better than you'd expected, though you weren't sure why you'd expected otherwise. He held you with the comfortable confidence of someone who had learned young and never had reason to be nervous about it. The music was good, the hall was warm and bright, you talked while you danced the way you had started talking over the past two weeks, easily, without the careful weight of people trying to make impressions on each other.

"You look like you're enjoying yourself," Valarr said, with a slight lift of amusement in it, like he was pleasantly surprised.

"I am," you said, which was true. "Should I not be?"

"Most people look slightly terrified at formal feasts," he said. "Like they're being evaluated."

"I am being evaluated," you said. "I'm just choosing not to find it terrifying."

He looked at you with that tilted-head thing he did when something caught him off guard, and laughed. "That's– yes. That's exactly the right way to think about it, actually." He turned you neatly through a gap in the other dancers. "My father says something similar. He says the court can only make you small if you let it."

"Your father," you said, very carefully, "seems like a wise man."

"He is," Valarr said, simply and without hesitation, the way people spoke about things they had never had cause to doubt. "He's a good man. Better than he gets credit for, I think. People see the prince and they forget the man."

You looked at him while he said this, at the open uncomplicated affection on his face, and felt something complicated move through your own chest in response to it that you did not examine. "That must be–" you started, and then Valarr's feet stopped.

Not gradually. Not the slowing of someone who has decided to stop. It was a full, immediate, involuntary halt, like a man who has walked into a wall he didn't see, and you stumbled slightly into him, and said, instinctively, "Oh– I'm sorry, did I–" and started to look down at his feet, thinking you'd trodden on him.

"No," Valarr said, distantly, already not quite looking at you. "No, you didn'™ forgive me, my lady, I–" He was looking past you, toward the doors of the great hall, and his expression had done something you hadn't seen it do before, something unguarded, startled and– lit, somehow, like a man recognising something he hadn't expected to see here. "Forgive me," he said again, already moving, already stepping back from you with a brief apologetic incline of his head. "There's someone I– I'll find you later, my lady.”

And then he was gone, moving through the crowd with a purpose that had nothing to do with you, and you stood in the middle of the dance floor as the music continued around you and the other couples moved past you like water around a stone, and you turned, slowly, because some part of you already knew you didn't want to see it and were going to look anyway, and found Valarr across the hall at the doors, smiling at a girl you had never seen before.

She was beautiful, which you noticed the way you noticed most things that were true and inconvenient, with a flat, clear-eyed acknowledgment that didn't help at all.She had pink hair, dressed in the particular style of the Free Cities that sat slightly apart from the Westerosi fashion around her in a way that drew the eye, and Valarr was taking her hand and pressing his lips to it and saying something that made her laugh, and his smile– his smile was different from the one he'd been giving you all evening. Wider. Less considered. The smile of someone who had forgotten, just for a moment, that they were in a room full of people.

You were still standing in the middle of the dance floor.

You became aware of this, and of the number of people around you who were either too polite or too interested in their own conversations to remark on it, and you moved smoothly, with the composed unhurried walk of someone who had somewhere to be and had chosen this direction deliberately, back to the table, back to your seat, back to the cup of wine your father's steward had left for you, and you sat down and folded your hands in your lap and looked at the table.

Your father noticed. Of course he noticed, he noticed everything, always, it was his most reliable quality, though he said nothing, because he also knew when silence was more useful than speech. 

You did not look at Valarr and the pink-haired girl.

You looked at them for approximately forty-five seconds, which told you everything you needed to know, and then you looked at the table and felt the heat of embarrassment move through you slowly from your chest outward, warm and thorough and deeply unpleasant. It wasn't grief, exactly. It wasn't heartbreak you hadn't been there yet, you hadn't had time to get there, it was something smaller and sharper, the embarrassment of having started to let yourself believe something that turned out to be beside the point. 

"My lady."

You looked up. Baelor was watching you from further down the table, his expression giving nothing away, his eyes doing that thing where they were more specific than his face, seeing more than the face admitted to, or so it always felt when they were directed at you. "Are you alright?" he said, quietly enough that it was for you and not the table. 

You smiled. You were very good at smiling when you needed to, you had been practicing since you were old enough to understand that a lady's face was a thing she owed to the room she was in. "Of course, Your Grace," you said, pleasantly. "It is a wonderful evening."

His eyes did not move from yours for a moment, and in that moment you had the uncomfortable feeling of being seen very clearly by someone who was not going to say so. "It is," he agreed, and looked away, you looked at your hands in your lap, while the hall moved cheerfully around you, and the wine in your cup was very good and you barely tasted it.

"I think I need some air," you said, to no one in particular, or to your father, and rose before anyone could respond, and walked to the doors of the great hall with the measured, unhurried steps of someone who was fine, who was perfectly fine, who was simply in need of a moment outside and would be back shortly. 

The Red Keep was large enough that you could walk for some time without doubling back, and you had been walking for ten minutes before you found yourself in a part of it that was quieter than the rest, an older wing, by the look of the stonework, the torches fewer and the ceiling lower and the whole corridor having the particular quality of a place that was maintained but not often used.

There was a window alcove at the end of it, deep-set, with a stone seat worn smooth by what must have been centuries of people sitting in it, looking out at whatever this particular angle of the keep faced. You sat in the alcove and pulled your knees up slightly and looked at the courtyard and let yourself, finally, in the absence of anyone watching, feel all of it.

It wasn't much, in the end. A few tears, which you caught with the back of your hand before they could make it past your cheekbones, the kind of tears that came less from sadness than from the pressure of holding a face together for too long. It was the frustration of it. 

The frustration of being here, again, in this same position you had been in a dozen times before, having tried and adjusted and made peace and tried again, and somehow always arriving at the same place: standing in the middle of a room watching someone look at someone else the way you had started, foolishly, quietly, to hope they might look at you.

Your heart is too big. You had always thought that was a generous interpretation of the evidence. It suggested rather more plainly that there was simply something about you that people grew tired of, some quality you had too much of or not enough of, something that made men perfectly happy to spend a fortnight in your company and then look across a room and find someone else entirely, the fact that you could never identify what it was did not make it better, it made it worse, because you couldn't fix a thing you couldn't name. 

You wiped your eyes with the back of your hand and took a slow breath and looked at the dark courtyard and told yourself firmly that you were done, that this was enough, that you were going back to the feast in five minutes and you were going to be perfectly pleasant for the rest of the evening and you were going to stop being so–

The voice came from behind you, low and unhurried, and you knew it before you had finished turning. You stood up too quickly, nearly getting your foot caught in the hem of your dress, as you brought your hands to wipe your face, the hem of the dress righted itself.

Baelor was standing at the entrance to the alcove, a few feet away, looking at you with an expression you had not seen on him before and could not immediately read. 

“Your Grace,” you said, your voice came out steadier than you deserved credit for. 

"Just Baelor," he said, quietly. "If you'll allow it."

You lowered your hands. You could feel that your eyes were red, that there was very little you could do about it. "Baelor, then," and the name sat differently in your mouth than the title had, warmer, more familiar, like something you had been saying for longer than two weeks.

He did not look away from you, and did not look around the alcove or at the courtyard below or at anything else, just at you, and you had the sense that the looking was very deliberate, that he was choosing to look at you the way people chose to say difficult things, because they had decided it was the right thing and were going to see it through. "What's upset you?" he asked.

"Nothing," you said immediately, with a smile plastered on your face. 

Baelor looked at you, and the corner of his mouth moved, not quite a smile, not quite anything else, just a small acknowledgment of what you had just done. "My lady," he said.

"Nothing worth mentioning," you amended.

"That isn't the same as nothing," he said.

You looked at him. He looked back at you. The torch at the end of the courtyard below moved in a breath of wind, sending the shadow of it shifting across the stones.

"I'm merely–" you started, then stopped, then started again. "It has been a long evening, Your Grace– Baelor." The name again, and the same warmth in it, and you saw something shift very slightly in his expression when you said it. "I needed a moment away from the noise."

"You've been crying," he said, simply and without cruelty, just the fact of it.

You opened your mouth then closed it, looking at the courtyard then back at him, because looking away from him felt somehow more revealing than looking at him.  "A little," you admitted. "It's nothing."

"It doesn't look like nothing," he said. He had not moved from the entrance of the alcove, had kept that careful distance, and you were aware of it. Aware of the distance and his awareness of it, of the sense that it was a choice he was making and maintaining. "If something has happened to distress you, I would know of it."

There was something in the way he said it, not a demand, not the authority of a prince requiring information, but something quieter than that, something that had more weight in it than a command would have had, precisely because it wasn't one. You felt it somewhere in your chest and looked at your hands.

"I was enjoying myself this evening. Before." You smoothed your skirt, a small unnecessary gesture. "And then I found myself somewhat abruptly not, and I think I simply needed to…" gesturing vaguely at the alcove, "...be somewhere quiet for a moment. That is all."

"Valarr," he said.

You looked up. He was watching you with that steady, specific attention, and you felt the back of your neck go warm despite the cool of the corridor. "I don't—" you started.

"You don't have to," he said.

The quiet between you held for a moment, full and textured, the kind of quiet that was made of things not said. 

"I feel foolish," you said, finally, quietly. "I know it is foolish to feel foolish about feeling foolish, so please don't tell me that." You said it with a small attempt at lightness, and he received it without patronizing it, and so you continued. "I had started to think perhaps there was something there. Between Valarr and I. Something real." You looked at the courtyard. "And then he looked across the room at her, and I could see that whatever he'd had with me was. It was practice, maybe. Or kindness. And she was the actual thing."

Baelor said nothing for a moment. You could feel him looking at you, and you kept your eyes on the courtyard because meeting it felt like more than you had the composure for just now.

"You think you scared him off," he said, carefully. 

You made a small sound that was not quite a laugh. "I think I always do, somehow," you said. "My father says my heart is too big for most men. Which is very kind. I have somewhat less kind interpretations of the evidence."

"What evidence," Baelor said, and something in his voice had changed, something that made you look at him despite yourself, and find him watching you with an expression that was more intent than before, something in it that you couldn't name.

"The pattern of it, I suppose. The same thing, more or less, every time. I am, I think I am quite a lot. I talk too much, or feel too much, or– I don't know exactly what it is, only that it seems to be reliably too much for people to–" you stopped, because you had said rather more of that than you intended to, and your voice had done something at the end of it that you were not pleased with.

"Look at me," Baelor said. You looked at him.

"You are not too much," he said, and he said it the way he said things he meant. 

 His eyes had not moved from yours, and they did not move now, and you felt the looking of them like something warm and specific, like a hand placed with care. "You are not too much and you have not scared anyone off and whatever the pattern is that you think you've found, you have read it wrong."

You looked at him, this man standing in a quiet corridor with torchlight from the courtyard moving on the stones behind him, looking at you with something in his face that had no safe name and that you had been avoiding naming for two weeks, and felt something in your chest pull in a direction that was deeply inconvenient and completely beyond your ability to manage.

"Baelor," you said. Very quietly. Not as a sentence, not going anywhere, just the name, because it was the only thing you had.

"Yes," he said. Just as quietly. 

His jaw tightened fractionally, and he looked at you, and you looked at him, and the torch moved in the courtyard below, and neither of you said anything else for a long moment that held everything and nothing at once.

Then he straightened, and something careful came back into his expression, the composed half-smile of a man rearranging himself. "Come back to the feast," he said. "You have nothing to be ashamed of, and I won't have you sitting in a corridor thinking otherwise."

You looked at him for another moment. Then you stood, and smoothed your dress, and said, "Yes, alright," and followed him back through the quiet corridor toward the noise and the light, and did not think about the way he had looked at you.

You thought about it for the rest of the evening.

"This is absurd."

Your father's voice had the particular controlled fury of a man who had been raised never to shout and was currently finding that a significant inconvenience. He had been saying it for the better part of ten minutes now, in various configurations, and each time it landed a little heavier than the last.

"I did not travel to the Red Keep to be humiliated," he said, to the room, to the lords seated around the long table, and most specifically to Baelor Targaryen, who sat at the head of it in the place of King Daeron, who was ill. Nobody had commented on that. Baelor was the Prince of Dragonstone and the Hand of the King. "My daughter did not travel to the Red Keep to be humiliated. We had an agreement– Valarr was to court my daughter, and in return House Lannister offers the crown its full support and cooperation. And now, a week after the feast, Lady Kiera of Tyrosh appears and the boy announces he will be marrying her and no one else."

He looked at Baelor directly. "It’s fucking nonsense."

You were looking at the table.

You had been looking at the table since you sat down and had no immediate plans to stop. You were not upset about Valarr. That was what made all of this so much harder to sit through. You were not upset about Valarr, not genuinely, not in the way your father seemed to believe you should be. You had seen the way Valarr looked at Kiera of Tyrosh across the great hall and understood, with a clarity that was almost kind in its simplicity, that whatever had been between you and Valarr had been warmth and nothing more.

It was genuinely fine.

What was not fine was that your father had reminded you last night, when the news spread through the Red Keep and reached your chambers before supper, that you were once again unwed, once again the almost, once again the woman that men were perfectly pleasant to and then left for another woman. He had not been cruel about it. He was never cruel. But he had been sharp, in the way only people who loved you could be, and the sharpness of it had stayed with you through the night and was sitting with you still.

You kept your eyes on the table. Hands folded in your lap. Face arranged into something you hoped read as dignified rather than what it actually was.

"My lady."

You looked up before you had decided to.

Baelor's voice had a quality that did that to you, had done it since the first afternoon in the courtyard, and you still had not worked out how to stop your body from responding before you had chosen to respond. He was looking at you from the head of the table with an expression that was calm and unhurried and gave nothing away, the way his expressions always did, except for his eyes, which were doing the thing they always did, which was see you considerably more clearly than you wanted to be seen. He did not look stressed. He did not look rattled by your father's outburst or by the situation or by any of it. He looked, infuriatingly, rather pleasant.

"What are your thoughts on the matter?" he said, and leaned back in his chair as he said it, settling more fully into the seat, and his hands came to rest on the armrests with the unhurried ease of a man entirely comfortable in the space he occupied. 

You noticed his hands, which you had no business noticing– the width of them, the rings he wore, the particular way they moved when he was thinking, deliberate and unhurried, like everything else about him. He was turning one ring slowly with his thumb, the one on his right hand with the Targaryen sigil carved into dark stone, turning it in a slow circle without seeming to know he was doing it, and you watched it for a moment longer than you should have and thought, with shame of a person whose mind had gone somewhere they had absolutely not given permission to go, about what those hands would feel like.

Around your wrist. Against your jaw. Curved at the base of your throat, pressing, the weight of them, the warmth.

You looked back at the table.

Your face felt very warm. You were grateful, for the first time, for the poor lighting in the small council chamber.

When you looked back up at him he was still looking at you, and his expression had shifted by something so small it was barely a shift at all, just a quality in the eyes, something that said he had noticed exactly where your attention had gone and was choosing, with great deliberateness, not to say so.

The heat moved from your face down the back of your neck.

"I am quite happy for Prince Valarr and Lady Kiera," you said, with every ounce of composure you had been rehearsing since the night before. "They seemed very well suited to one another and I wish them–"

"No the fuck she isn't," your father said.

The room went very quiet in the specific way of rooms where people are pretending very hard not to have heard something. You closed your eyes for one brief moment. Opened them. Looked at the table.

Baelor's gaze moved from you to your father with the slow deliberateness , something in his expression cooled, not unkindly, but with the quality of a man who had a great deal of patience and was keeping careful track of how much of it was being spent.

"I appreciate Lord Lancel's candour," he said, evenly, and then looked back at you, which was somehow worse. "If there is a grievance—"

"The grievance," your father said, the restraint in his voice something impressive in its way, "is that my daughter has been made to look a fool, and House Lannister has been made to look a fool, and this needs to be resolved before I say something in this chamber that I cannot unsay, or I swear to the gods that—"

"Wed her to me."

The words fell into the room like a stone dropped into still water, and everything stopped.

Your mouth opened. You were not aware of deciding to open it. You became aware of it after, along with the fact that you had looked at Baelor before you looked at anyone else, which said something you were not going to examine right now, and he was looking back at you, just at you, not at your father or the lords or the room, just at you, with an expression that was entirely unreadable and eyes that were not.

"What," your father said. Flat and slow, the voice of a man refusing to accept that he had heard correctly.

"Wed her to me," Baelor said again, with the same even unhurried certainty of a man repeating something perfectly reasonable that someone had simply failed to hear the first time.

He had not looked away from you. You were having some difficulty breathing at a normal rate.

Your father looked at you with an expression you could not parse, something between disbelief and calculation, and you looked back at him and then back at Baelor because you could not seem to stop doing that, and Baelor was still watching you , and you felt warmth moving through you that had absolutely nothing to do with the temperature of the chamber.

"This does not solve the insult to my house," your father said. The snarl had gone out of his voice, replaced by something more careful, a man recalibrating. "My daughter was brought here under the understanding that she would be a prince's wife. You're asking me to consider her a consolation prize, Your Grace, which I find—"

"I am asking you to consider her a princess and future queen," Baelor said, still without looking at anyone but you, his voice patient and his hands still on the armrests of that chair. "She would be Princess of Dragonstone. When the time comes, queen of the Seven Kingdoms. Any children we had would be princes and princesses of the realm." A pause. "House Lannister would lose nothing it was promised and gain considerably more. The alliance holds, my lord, and your daughter's position would be rather more significant than the one you came here seeking."

"More significant," your father repeated, with the flat tone of a man being maneuvered and knowing it and not yet having decided how he felt about it.

"Considerably," Baelor said.

Your father looked at you again. You looked back at him and tried to make your face say something useful, and were not entirely sure what it said instead. Whatever it was, he looked at it for a long moment and then looked away, pressing his mouth into a thin line and saying nothing, which was Lancel Lannister's version of thinking very hard about something.

"She's been on the market longer than I care to admit, as the whole of Westeros is aware. You'd be getting goods that no one wanted, Your Grace, with respect to my daughter." he said finally, the snarky edge back in his voice, the particular one he used when he was testing something.

You stared at the table.

You had spent your entire life being loved by this man and in this moment you wished, very sincerely, that he would stop.

"Lord Lancel," Baelor said, and something in the way he said it made you look up despite yourself, and you found him looking at your father with an expression that was perfectly pleasant and had a quality underneath it like stone. "Your daughter is not goods, nor is she something to be appraised. I'd ask you to remember that in my council chamber."

Your father had the grace to look briefly taken aback. He cleared his throat. "I only meant—"

"I know what you meant," Baelor said, mildly, and looked back at you, and the shift from that cool quality to the way he looked at you was so immediate and so different that you felt it somewhere behind your sternum like a hand pressed flat. "I also know it isn't what I think."

The room was very quiet.

"I think it's rather a good idea."

Your voice cut through the quiet of the room cleanly, and you felt everyone in it look at you, and you looked at your father.

He was staring at you with an expression you had not seen on his face in a very long time, something between surprise and the particular stillness of a man recalibrating quickly. You held his gaze and kept your face very still and said, quietly, "After all, since no one wants my goods," and you let the words sit there between you, his words, and watched something move across his face that he could not quite contain, something that was not quite guilt but was adjacent to it, "he wants me for how I am."

The indifference in your voice was real and it was not real, both things at once, because underneath it was something older and more tired than anger, the particular hurt of being spoken of that way by someone who loved you, you were absolutely not going to cry in this council chamber in front of four lords and Baelor Targaryen, but you let your father see it in your face for one moment, the hurt, before you looked back down at your hands.

The silence in the room had a different quality to it now.

Your father said nothing. You could feel him beside you, the particular stillness of a man who had said the wrong thing and knew it and did not yet know what to do with that knowledge, and you did not look at him. 

“Alright,” your father said finally, his voice stripped of its earlier edge, much softer this time.

You looked at Baelor without meaning to. 

“In a moons time then.” He says, concluding the council. 

You were a wife.

You still could not quite believe it, even standing in the middle of your shared chambers with the candles burning low around you and the sound of the city muffled behind the thick stone walls and the weight of the day sitting on your shoulders like something physical. Wedded to Baelor Breakspear Targaryen. His princess. The words sat strangely in your mind, too large for the space you had made for them, and you stood with your back half to him and your hands clasped in front of you and tried to find somewhere to put yourself in this room that was now yours as much as his.

You had heard things, today. People talked at weddings the way they always talked, freely and without much care for who was listening, and you had caught enough of it in passing– in the sept, in the corridors, at the feast– to know what the court thought of this union. That he had married for duty. That he was trying to put a ghost to rest. That you were an alliance and a convenience and that Jena Dondarrion would always be the woman who had actually held his heart, and everything after her was simply duty.

You had smiled through all of it. You were very good at smiling through things.

The door closed behind him.

"Are you alright?"

His voice, even now, even after weeks of hearing it, did something to the back of your neck. You kept your eyes on the far wall and said, "Yes," and heard, in the small silence that followed, that he did not believe you.

"We are wedded now," he said, and his voice was soft, unhurried, the way it always was. "I would rather you not speak lies to me."

You felt his hand before you fully registered that he had moved, his fingers closing gently around your arm and turning you, not forcing, just the suggestion of it, and you let yourself be turned because there was no version of this where you were going to stand with your back to him all night. He was close. Closer than he had been permitted to be before tonight, and the candles threw his shadow long across the floor behind him and caught the silver in his beard and the particular quality of his eyes, one brown and one blue, both of them on you.

You opened your mouth. Closed it.

"Can I ask you something?" you said, and your voice came out smaller than you intended.

"Of course," he said, and the corner of his mouth moved.

You looked at the middle of his chest because looking at his face felt like too much right now. "I heard things today," you said. "People talking." You stopped, felt the embarrassment of it move through you, and made yourself continue anyway. "About your lady wife. Jena." You said her name carefully, like a thing that needed to be handled. "They said — they said you married again for duty, to put her memory to rest, and that I am an alliance and nothing more." You looked up at him then, because you needed to see his face when he answered. "Is that true?"

He looked at you for a long moment and there was no anger in it and no grief, just that steadiness, that particular focused attention he gave you that you had never quite gotten used to. "My lady wife who perished was the duty," he said, simply and without cruelty. "I was fond of her. I did love her, in the way that you love someone you have built a life alongside. But that was many years ago, and it was not–" he paused, and something shifted in his expression, something that looked like a man choosing his words not because he was being careful but because he wanted to be accurate. "It was not what I felt the day I saw you in that courtyard."

You went very still.

"I have never felt that in my entire life," he said, and his voice was quiet and even and utterly without performance, the voice of a man stating a fact he had already made his peace with. "That feeling. The strength of it." His eyes had not moved from yours. "I came close to calling off the betrothal entirely. I could not justify it to myself — I thought you had feelings for Valarr, I thought I was simply a man of a certain age wanting something that was not his, and I told myself that every morning for weeks and believed it less every time."

"You thought I had feelings for Valarr," you said.

"I did," he said.

"I didn't," you said.

Something moved across his face. "I know that now," he said.

The candles moved in a breath of air from somewhere and the light shifted across his face and you stood there in your wedding clothes in your shared chambers and felt the heat of the past weeks, all the looking and not looking and the rings and the council chamber and the alcove and every moment you had pressed down and put away, rising up through you all at once like something that had been held underwater finally breaking the surface.

"Baelor," you said.

"Yes," he said. Not a question. Just the word, steady and warm, and he was already close and he did not move closer and did not move away and simply waited, the way he always waited, with the patience of someone who had decided something and was content to let you arrive at it yourself.

You reached up and touched his jaw before you decided to, your fingertips against the grey of his beard, feeling the texture of it, and you heard the quiet sound he made at the back of his throat, barely anything, just the smallest exhale, and it moved through you like heat.

His hand came up to cover yours where it rested against his face, his fingers closing over yours, warm and certain, and you felt the size of that hand, the breadth of it, and thought about everything you had thought in that council chamber and felt your face go warm.

"I have been wanting to do that," you admitted, very quietly, "since the first week."

"Only the first week," he said, and the warmth in his voice had a low quality to it now, something underneath it that you had not heard before, and you felt it in your chest and lower.

"Perhaps since the courtyard," you said.

"That's more honest," he said.

You laughed, a small unsteady thing, and he smiled at the sound of it, and then the smile faded into something more intent as he looked at you, and his free hand came up slowly, giving you every opportunity to move away, and curved at the side of your neck, his thumb at your jaw, tilting your face up, and you felt the weight of it exactly the way you had imagined it and it was worse than imagining, it was so much worse, warm and specific and certain.

"I am going to kiss you," he said, low and unhurried, watching your face.

"I know," you said.

"Are you alright with that," he said.

You looked at him, this man who had been patient for weeks and built a fire in your chest without touching you and was asking you, on your wedding night, if he was allowed. "Baelor," you said, and your voice had gone soft with something you did not bother to hide anymore. "Yes."

He kissed you slowly, the way he did everything, without rush, and his mouth was warm and his beard was exactly as strange against your skin as you had imagined and also nothing like you had imagined, and his hand at your jaw tilted you into him and his other hand found your waist and you felt the warmth of both of them through the fabric of your dress and made a small sound against his mouth that you had not planned on making.

He pulled back just enough to look at you, his forehead nearly against yours, his thumb moving once along your jaw, and his eyes were very dark in the candlelight.

"I have been wanting to do that," he said quietly, "since considerably before the first week."

You laughed again, breathless, and felt him smile against your temple when he pressed his lips there, and then to your cheek, and then to the corner of your mouth, unhurried, like a man with all the time in the world who has nonetheless decided to use it very specifically.

"Baelor," you said, against his mouth.

"Mm," he said, which was not quite an answer and did not need to be.

His hands moved to the laces at the back of your dress, slowly, finding them without rushing, and you felt the loosening of it, the give of the fabric, his fingers warm against the skin of your back as he worked, and you pressed your forehead to his jaw and breathed him in and felt the particular quality of the quiet in the room.

"Are you still nervous?" he asked, low against your hair.

"A little," you admitted.

His hands stilled at your back, just resting there, warm and certain. "We have time," he said. "All the time there is."

You pulled back enough to look at him, at his face in the candlelight, at those mismatched eyes that had been looking at you since a courtyard in early autumn, and felt something settle in your chest that had been unsettled for a very long time.

"I don't want time," you said. "I've been patient for months."

Something shifted in his expression, something that moved through his eyes and down to the curve of his mouth, warm and unhurried and very deliberate. His hands at your back drew you closer rather than stilling, and when he kissed you again it was different from the first time, deeper, less careful, and you felt the warmth of it move through you all the way down, and slid your hands up into his hair, and stopped being patient.

[geminiwritten]

hold still ; michael ‘robby’ robinavitch

summary: you have a sex dream about your attending that leaves you hot, flustered, late for work, and completely off your game. then things go from bad to worse when gossip spreads and the entire emergency department finds out—including dr. robby.

notes: i honestly haven't been this excited or motivated to write in forever, and i just really hope it doesn't suck. this one feels a little different, kind of like... it just flowed? my writing feels less mechanical, i think? i don't know, i feel like i've been stuck in a rut and even though this isn't perfect, it feels like i finally enjoy writing again. i put so much love into this and tried so hard to get the characters right, i just really hope you guys enjoy! please, please let me know what you think!

warnings: more sitcom than drama (just let them have a good day, i beg you), swearing, italics, reader can drive, medical descriptions, blood, medical procedure descriptions (it's not super graphic though), most definitely incorrect medical information (my friend is a doctor, i am not), implied age gap but never specified, very likely incorrect tagalog (i'm sorry in advance), reader doesn't know tagalog, implied smut but nothing explicit, reader gets injured (and stitches), and making out (on shift, lol, nothing graphic but still, mdni please).

word count: 12763

You wake all at once.

Not slowly, not gently, but with one sharp inhale like you’ve surfaced from deep water.

For a second you don’t know where you are. Your room is too warm, the air too heavy, every inch of your skin flushed and slick with sweat. Heat clings to you, your heart pounding wildly in your ears, sheets twisted tight around your legs, and for one disorienting moment you swear you can still feel him—warm hands, breath close, the dizzying pull of something forbidden and overwhelming.

The echo of his voice follows you up from sleep, low and wrecked and impossibly real.

Dr. Robby.

Your stomach flips.

“Fuck,” you mumble into your pillow, already mortified, already knowing your brain has crossed a line it absolutely shouldn’t have this time.

Because it didn’t feel like a dream. It still doesn’t. Fragments flash behind your eyelids—the way he touched you, his voice softer than you’ve ever heard it, the teasing burn of stubble where he shouldn’t have been close enough to touch.

You roll onto your back and drag both hands over your face, groaning quietly as awareness settles in piece by piece. Your pulse refuses to slow, every nerve still humming like your body missed the memo that none of it actually happened.

You stare at the ceiling.

“…You have got to be kidding me.”

This wasn’t random. Not by a long shot.

It was him. Your attending. The stubborn, overworked, infuriatingly competent man who makes unresolved emotional baggage look hot. The man you have to see in barely two hours.

A small, helpless sound escapes you as you roll onto your side again, squeezing your eyes shut.

This is a problem.

A very real, very immediate, absolutely unprofessional problem.

And yet, you still don’t move. You lie there too long, cheeks burning despite the fact that no one else can see what you’re replaying in your mind. Warmth lingers beneath your skin, pooling low in your belly as you let yourself remember every phantom touch. Every whispered word. The look in his eyes as he’d settled between your legs and—

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

You bolt upright, your hand flying out to find your phone.

You’re still hot, still flushed and sticky. Still half-dreaming about Robby and his goddamn hands—but now? Now you’re late. Horribly late. Because that alarm isn’t your wake-up alarm—it’s your backup alarm. The one that goes off when it’s time for you to leave for work.

“Fuck!”

You throw the covers back and rush into the bathroom. You strip quickly out of your damp sleep shirt, tossing everything on the floor before stepping into the shower without even waiting for the water to warm. Which is exactly what you need, you remind yourself as you hiss beneath the cold spray.

Fifteen minutes later, you’re standing in front of the mirror in your black scrubs, trying to fix your hair and will the colour to drain from your cheeks. But it’s stubborn. Bright. Hot to the touch and utterly telling.

“Jesus Christ,” you sigh, squeezing your eyes shut for a second too long.

A second you don’t have.

With a deep breath, you turn, grab your bag, and sling it over your shoulder, wondering whether running to the hospital might actually be quicker than your usual commute at this time. Traffic is never great—you never truly know which route will get you there fastest—but now you’re about to hit peak hour.

You spend the entire drive trying to think about literally anything other than the dream—patient charts, upcoming shifts, whether your stethoscope is in your bag or your locker—but your thoughts keep slipping sideways, traitorous and vivid.

So vivid.

Stop thinking about his hands.

Stop thinking about his voice.

Stop—

You groan softly and turn the radio up louder.

It doesn’t help.

By the time you pull into the hospital parking lot, you’re almost twenty minutes late. You slam your car door shut, hike your bag higher on your shoulder, and practically run toward the ER doors.

“Woah,” Donnie says, quickly stepping out of your way. “Someone’s in a hurry.”

You don’t reply. You just keep going until you hit central, then slow to a hurried walk—head down, eyes fixed on your feet, praying everyone is already too busy to notice you.

“You’re late,” Dana says.

You stop mid-step, more out of habit than intention.

“Yeah, I’m sorry. I—”

“Shit, hon, you okay?” She steps around the desk, peering over her glasses. “You look like you’re burnin’ up.”

You step back before she can press a hand to your forehead.

“I’m fine, I swear.” You keep backing up. “Just my—my car’s A/C isn’t working and I’m a little warm. That’s all.”

You know she doesn’t believe you. This is Dana you’re talking to, not some brand-new, bright-eyed RN. Dana can see through any and all bullshit, and by the look on her face, she isn’t buying this at all.

“I’m fine,” you say again, forcing a smile before turning sharply on your heel.

Only to turn right into something solid.

Warm. Tall. Unmoving.

“Shit, I—”

You look up.

And your entire nervous system shuts down.

Dr. Robby.

“Sorry,” you blurt instantly, stepping back so fast you nearly trip over your own feet. “I didn’t see—I mean, I was looking, just not—”

His hand is still wrapped around your elbow, grounding you in place, and for one terrible second all you can think about is how close he is. How close he’d felt last night. How real it feels right now.

His eyebrows lift slightly, confusion flickering across his face. “You alright?”

“Yes,” you say too quickly. “Fine. Totally fine.”

You are not fine.

Your face feels nuclear, and you’re suddenly aware of everything at once—his height, his proximity, the way his sleeves are pushed up, the fact that he’s looking directly at you like he’s trying to figure something out.

His head tilts slightly.

“You’re late,” he says, not unkindly.

“I know.”

Neither of you move for a moment.

You can feel your pulse in your throat. Your chest. Lower.

“I—I’m gonna—”

You don’t even finish before you turn away, hurrying down the hall toward the lockers. Every inch of your skin feels like it’s on fire—and every thought in your head is so wildly inappropriate for where you are right now you feel like you might throw up.

“Damn.” Santos appears beside you, her eyes flicking between your face and the tablet in her hands. “Either you’re febrile or you just did something really embarrassing.” She tucks the tablet under her arm. “What gives?”

You shoot her a flat look as you key in the code to your locker. “Nothing gives. I’m fine.”

She snorts. “Sure. That tone is really selling it.”

You take a deep breath and turn toward your locker, shoving your bag inside before unzipping your jacket and shrugging off. You stuff that in too—then sling your stethoscope around your neck, shut the door, and turn back to your fellow R2.

She looks concerned now, brows drawn as her eyes track over your face and neck.

“You’re seriously flushed,” she says. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

“I’m fine.” You turn and start walking back toward central. “Just running late, okay? Now can I start my shift before—” You stop yourself, his name catching somewhere in your chest. “Before I have an attending down my throat for slacking off?”

God. You could have chosen better words.

“Okay, whatever,” Santos mutters, holding her tablet out again. “Sorry for caring.”

She gives you a sarcastic little eye roll before veering off around the other side of the nurse’s station and ducking into one of the active patient rooms. You watch after her for a second before a voice across the room steals your attention.

He’s on the other side of central, nodding along while Mohan and Whitaker brief him on a patient—and looking entirely too hot for seven-thirty on a Monday morning beneath harsh fluorescent lights.

“Stop it,” you whisper to yourself, pausing at the nurse’s station to collect a tablet.

“Stop what?”

You startle, head snapping toward the man suddenly beside you.

“Jesus Christ, Dr. Abbot,” you sigh. “Are you trying to get me admitted for a heart attack?”

The corner of his mouth twitches. “You already look halfway there.”

You roll your eyes. “Okay, I get it. I’m red and I’m sweaty—can everyone please stop commenting on it now?”

He chuckles. “Sorry. Didn’t realise you’d already been bullied about it.”

You sigh again and turn your attention to the board, tipping your head back to read it.

“Why are you still here, anyway?” you ask.

“Wanted to see my favourite resident,” he says. “You sure you don’t want to come back to nights?”

You huff a laugh through your nose. “I love you, Abbot, but nights aren’t for me.” You glance across the nurse’s station, where Dana and Robby are now discussing the latest incoming trauma. “I just miss Dana too much.”

Abbot snorts. “Dana?”

You look back at him. “Yes. Dana.”

Amusement flickers across his face. “You sure?”

“Yes,” you say, too quickly. “I mean, who—what else would—”

“Doctors,” Javadi interrupts, stepping in front of you both. “Sorry to interrupt, but could I get a second opinion on a patient in South Twenty-One, please?”

Abbot nods, glancing at you. “I’ll go. You settle in.” The corner of his mouth lifts a little higher. “Maybe check in with your attending.”

Then he turns and walks away with Javadi at his side.

You stare after him—eyes wide, pulse racing, wondering what the fuck he meant by all that.

You’ve always suspected Abbot might be a mind reader, but that? That was something else. Too knowing. Too dangerous. And now you need to figure out what the hell he thinks he knows.

“Doctor,” Perlah calls from behind the desk. “Could you check on Central Twelve? She’s still complaining of pain after morphine and Zofran.”

You turn to her, shaking your head as if that might knock your thoughts back into place. “Uh—yeah. Of course. Central Twelve, heading there now.”

She gives you a curious look, brows drawn, but you turn away before she can ask any more questions.

On your way to C12, you pull up the patient’s chart—seen by Whitaker about half an hour ago—and double-check the morphine and Zofran doses she received. You pause just outside the room, drawing a deep breath and reminding yourself that you are at work. You don’t have time to be flustered. You don’t have time to worry about what Jack Abbot may or may not know. And you definitely don’t have time to obsess over the imaginary rasp of Robby’s beard against your thigh that you can somehow still feel.

When you push the door open and step inside, you’re the picture of professionalism. You offer the patient a polite smile, introduce yourself, and start the routine checks that feel more like second nature than work.

After the exam and a brief conversation, you order two more milligrams of morphine, review the labs Whitaker sent, and make a note to check back in fifteen minutes. Then, still intent on avoiding your attending, you bury your nose in your tablet and move on to the next patient waiting in South Sixteen.

Pressure-like chest pain. Diaphoretic, no shortness of breath. Initial ECG normal. Labs pending.

“Alright, Mr. Mullens,” you say, squirting a pump of sanitizer into your palm. “We’re going to get some scans done so we can get a better idea of what’s going on. If the pain gets worse before then, let us know.”

The man nods. “Thank you, Doc.”

You smile, stepping out into the hallway. “I’ll be back soon to check in.”

As soon as you turn around, you look for Robby, making sure you’re not about to run into him again. Literally.

You spot him all the way across central, walking with Santos toward the North hallway. Good. You’re safe. And if all goes well, maybe you’ll manage to avoid him for the entire day. Maybe you won’t have to come face to face with the face you can still see buried between your legs.

Fuck.

Your pulse kicks, heart beating too fast as you remember the way his eyes had watched you in your dream. It’s almost too much. Even the phantom memory of it is making you breathless.

God. If it ever actually happened, you might pass out.

“Why would you even think of that?” you mutter to yourself, stopping at the nurse’s station.

When you finally look up, Perlah and Princess are watching you closely, speculation sparkling in their eyes.

“Sobrang pula ng mukha niya,” Perlah murmurs.

Princess nods. “Hindi lagnat ’yan.”

Perlah lowers her voice even more. “Sa tingin mo ba may kinalaman ito sa crush niya?”

They both laugh quietly, turning away from you as if it isn’t you they’re gossiping about.

“Malinaw,” Princess says.

You give them both a tight smile before glancing up at the board, searching for something suitably distracting and far away from nosy nurses and unfairly attractive attendings.

You’re just about to head back toward the South hallway when a gurney crashes through the ambulance bay doors.

“Trauma Two!” Dana calls. “Robby!”

Abbot is already moving, meeting the paramedics halfway and guiding the gurney toward T2.

He points at you as he walks. “With me.”

“Shit,” you mutter, dropping your tablet on the desk and jogging over.

“Thirty-two-year-old male, MVC, restrained driver,” the paramedic says. “Front-end collision, airbags deployed. No LOC. Increasing shortness of breath during transport. Breath sounds decreased left side.”

“Let’s get him on monitor,” Abbot says, moving to stand opposite you at the head of the bed. “On my count.”

Robby steps in at your side, like he always does—close enough that you feel him before you see him.

His arm brushes yours.

Your stomach flips.

Focus.

“One. Two. Three,” Abbot counts.

You transfer the patient from gurney to trauma bed, and Santos starts cutting away clothes.

“Two large-bore IVs,” Abbot tells Jesse. “Trauma labs. Portable chest X-ray.” Then he looks at you, brows raised. “Breath sounds?”

“Oh—uh—” You fumble with your stethoscope, pressing it to each side of the patient’s chest. “Diminished on the left.”

You reach for the patient’s neck, fingers steady despite the noise around you.

“Trachea midline.”

Abbot nods, then turns to Santos. “Let’s get ultrasound.”

“BP holding?” Robby asks.

The sound of his voice sends goosebumps racing along your arms—and you shiver before you can stop yourself.

“Pressure’s 118 over 76,” Jesse replies. “Stable.”

Robby glances at you, brows drawn. “You okay?”

You nod quickly, without looking up. “Never better.”

“Absent lung sliding on the left,” Santos announces.

“Likely pneumothorax,” Abbot says, looking at Robby.

“Sats dropping,” Jesse calls. “Eighty-nine.”

Robby nods once. “Okay. We’re putting in a chest tube.”

“Chest tube tray. Twenty-eight French. Left side,” Abbot orders.

You try to move out of the way, but Robby’s hand catches your elbow—and you can’t help but look up. His dark eyes meet yours with an intensity you’ve never noticed before, and suddenly your lungs forget how to work.

“You’re up,” he says. “I’ll walk you through it.”

You know there’s no time to argue. You know you can’t. Shouldn’t. This is your job. And it’s not like you could say no to this man even if you wanted to.

You swallow. “Okay.”

Robby nods, then looks at Jesse. “Alright, let’s get some lido. Sutures ready. Hook up suction.”

You turn back to the patient, watching Abbot position the left arm above his head while Jesse preps the area—chlorhexidine swab, sterile drape. The rustle of sterile gowns and the snap of gloves fill the room as you pull on your own and push a pair of protective glasses up your nose. Then you grab the lidocaine from the tray and lean over the patient’s left side, steadying your hand as you guide the needle in.

The room is quieter now—save for the steady beeping of the monitors—chaos narrowing into focus as everyone watches you sink the needle into the patient’s skin.

“A little deeper,” Robby murmurs.

Your breath catches, but your hands stay steady.

You can feel him just behind you, leaning close, his warmth bleeding through your scrubs and setting your whole body on fire.

“Now find the rib,” he instructs. “Stay above it.”

You discard the needle onto the tray and start feeling ribs, counting down until you find the space.

“Scalpel,” you say, refusing to take your eyes off the spot your fingers found.

Jesse places the scalpel in your hand, and without hesitation, you cut a three-centimetre incision.

“Good,” Robby murmurs.

Your pulse thrums beneath your skin.

“Clamp,” you say, your voice almost breaking.

Jesse takes the scalpel from your hand, replacing it with a curved clamp.

You insert the clamp, pushing past muscle layers, and begin to spread. It feels forceful. Too much. Invasive, even though you know this is exactly what you’re supposed to do.

Robby steps closer. “Commit to it.”

His hand covers yours to adjust the angle, add pressure—until you feel the pop. And it takes every ounce of your self-control not to react. Not to whimper at the very normal, very professional way your attending is guiding you right now.

“Now sweep,” he says, so close you can feel the warmth of his breath against your cheek.

You insert your finger into the space, confirming entry into the pleural cavity and checking for adhesions—then nod. You don’t dare turn your head as you hold your hand out for the tube. He’s too close, too warm. You can smell the faint scent of soap on his skin even over the antiseptic and metallic tang in the air.

“Inserting tube,” you say, more to yourself than anyone else.

You start guiding the tube in—slow and controlled—feeling every millimetre of movement.

Until it stops.

Too much resistance.

“Up,” Robby says, his hand covering yours again. “Aim higher.”

He adjusts your wrist slightly, guiding the pressure.

You swallow hard and nod, hoping no one else can hear your uneven breathing—but knowing Robby definitely can.

He helps you apply more pressure, firmer now, angle corrected, and the tube starts moving again.

“That’s it,” he murmurs. “Good girl. Keep going.”

Your brain short-circuits.

Heat floods your face. Your chest. Lower.

His voice echoes from your dream. Breathless. Panting. Words whispered against your skin.

Fuck. Now is not the time.

You tighten your grip on the tube and push.

Then—

A rush of air.

“Air return,” Abbot says, a hint of pride in his tone. “Now secure it.”

Robby steps back, and you hear the snap of his gloves coming off.

“O2 sats climbing,” he announces.

“Cool,” Santos says, grinning at Abbot’s side. “I’m doing the next one.”

You barely look up. You can’t. Your whole face feels like it’s on fire. You've never blushed this hard before. You’ve never been this hot in your life. And you’ve definitely never been this horny in the goddamn trauma bay.

“You good to finish up?” Robby asks Abbot.

Abbot nods.

From the corner of your eye, you see Robby step toward the door, glancing over his shoulder with a small, impressed smile.

“Nice work, Doctor.”

You don’t reply. You just nod, lips twitching with a soft smile as you keep your eyes on the patient.

As soon as you finish suturing and securing the tube, you step back, tearing off your gown and gloves as if that’ll somehow give you a reprieve from the heat beneath your skin. Jesse takes your place beside the patient, nodding along to Abbot’s orders while he and Kim start cleaning up.

You shove your gown, gloves, and glasses into the biohazard bin and head for the door without looking back—which is exactly why you don’t notice Santos trailing you.

“That was so cool,” she says, startling you.

“Jesus,” you mutter. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

She frowns. “Sneak? I was right behind you. It’s not my fault you’re all weird and jumpy today.”

“I’m not—” You glance across central to make sure Robby isn’t somewhere in your path to the ambulance bay. “I’m not weird and jumpy.”

Santos scoffs. “Right. And I’m not behind on my charting.”

You don’t bother arguing with her. You just keep walking—and she follows. All the way through the ER and out to the ambulance bay, where you stop just before the curb and draw a deep breath. It isn’t nearly as refreshing as you’d hoped, but a break from the fluorescents is always welcome.

“Okay,” she says, folding her arms. “What is with you today? You’re never this off. I’ve seen you perform procedures you’d only read about without a single assist from the attending. And I know you’ve done a chest tube before.”

You don’t answer. You don’t even look at her. You just tip your head back and stare at the roof of the ambulance bay, wondering whether it might collapse and save you from this conversation.

“And on that note,” she goes on, “Dr. Robby knows you’ve done a chest tube before, so why the hell was he being so patient? I swear he’s got a soft spot for you. Javadi pointed it out a few weeks ago and I honestly don’t know how I missed it. I mean—has he ever yelled at you?”

You finally look at her, brows drawn. “I—uh—no, I don’t think so.”

“Exactly,” she says, stepping closer. “And please tell me I heard wrong, but did he say good girl to you back there?”

As soon as she says it, your cheeks burn with renewed intensity. You can feel your heart in your throat, beating out of rhythm and way too fast for someone who is definitely not in a life-or-death situation.

And Santos notices—because of course she does.

Her eyes go wide. “Oh my God. This totally has something to do with Dr. Robby.”

“Shut up,” you mutter. “It’s not—”

You stop yourself, squeezing your eyes shut and pinching the bridge of your nose.

Santos isn’t going to let this go. You know her. She’s too inquisitive, too nosy, and there’s not nearly enough chaos today to distract her.

“Okay, fine,” you sigh, looking up, face burning. “I had a sex dream about him and now I can’t stop thinking about it.”

She stares at you for a second.

“A sex dream?”

You nod miserably.

Her mouth twitches—then she snorts.

Not a polite laugh. A full, startled snort she tries—and fails—to muffle behind her hand.

“Oh my God,” she says. “I knew you had a thing for him, but a sex dream?”

“Would you stop saying it?” you hiss, glancing nervously around the empty ambulance bay.

She laughs a little harder. “Was he good?”

“Oh my God,” you mutter, dropping your head into your hands. “I regret everything.”

“Hey,” she says, still laughing as she drops a hand on your shoulder. “For what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure he’d go there if you asked.”

Your head snaps up. “If I asked?”

She shrugs. “Why not shoot your shot?”

“Because he’s my boss!”

“He’s your attending,” she says. “Technically, Dr. Underwood is your boss. Dr. Robby just supervises you.”

You shut your eyes again and draw a deep breath, trying to steady your pulse.

“Okay,” you say, squaring your shoulders. “I’m done with this conversation. I’m going back to work, and you’re not telling anyone what I just told you. Okay?”

She mimes zipping her lips. “I’m a vault, I swear.”

You nod. “Good.”

Then you turn and start walking back inside, trying not to conspicuously check for Robby on your way to the nurse’s station. Santos is still at your heels, still wearing an amused grin as if your humiliation is her exact brand of humour.

“One more question,” she says, stopping beside you as you grab another tablet from the rack.

You sigh. “What?”

She leans in. “Did he say ‘good girl’ in the dream too?”

Your pulse jumps.

“Goodbye, Dr. Santos,” you say, turning quickly on your heel.

“I’m taking that as a yes,” she calls after you.

You ignore her, turning toward S16 to check on your chest pain patient.

“Hey, Mr. Mullens,” you say as you push back the curtain. “How are you feeling?”

The older man sits up a little. “I’m okay.”

“Good.” You pull up his chart on your tablet. “The pain hasn’t gotten any worse?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

“That’s good to hear,” you say, quickly flicking through his lab results. “Your first labs look reassuring, but we’ll repeat them in a couple of hours just to be safe.”

You glance up, and he nods.

“Thank you, Doctor.”

You smile softly. “If the pain gets worse, or if you start having trouble breathing, press the call button.”

“Will do.”

You offer him one last nod before tucking your tablet under your arm and squirting a pump of sanitiser into your palm as you exit the room.

The second you step into the hall, you take a deep breath, finally feeling like your lungs remember how to work. Like your pulse might finally be settling into something resembling a normal rhythm. Like maybe—just maybe—you can survive the day if you stay distracted with work long enough not to think about last night.

About his voice—low and rough in your ear, whispering something you can’t quite remember.

Except the way it made your spine arch.

Or the moment he’d braced his hands on either side of you, his head dipping just enough that you could feel the warmth of his breath before he—

“Doctor.”

You jerk slightly, heat rushing straight back into your face as the memory evaporates.

“Sorry—what?”

Whitaker, now standing in front of you, clears his throat. “Nothing. I just—you looked a little out of it.”

You shake your head and turn toward central. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m a little off today.”

He nods, falling into step beside you. “Santos mentioned.”

Your head snaps toward him. “Santos mentioned what?”

“Just that you were out of it today,” he says quietly, staring at the floor.

You stare at him. “And?”

He shrugs, but it’s stiff. “And nothing.”

You stop at the nurse’s station and drop your tablet on the desk.

“I swear to God, Whitaker, if she told you—”

“She didn’t tell me anything,” he says, clearly panicked now. “I—I’ve got to go check on a patient.”

Then he’s gone, hurrying off toward the South hallway.

Fuck.

You told Santos barely ten minutes ago and she’s already told Whitaker?

So much for being a vault.

“What’d I tell you about swearin’ on God, little lady?” Dana asks, peering over her glasses from the other side of the desk.

You sigh, resting both forearms on the counter. “Sorry. Rough morning.”

“Tell me about it,” she says, glancing down at her tablet. “Sprained ankle in North Four wants an MRI and a wheelchair escort to the parking lot. Psych hold in B2 tried to climb out the bathroom window. Ogilvie ordered the wrong labs and blamed the computer. And someone—” she pauses, squinting toward where McKay is assessing a patient, “—keeps leaving half-empty coffee cups everywhere like we’re running a café instead of an emergency department.”

You huff a quiet laugh.

“And we’re only on hour two,” she adds, looking back up at you.

“Lucky us,” you mutter.

She sets her tablet down and slides her glasses off, folding them into the breast pocket of her scrubs.

“What’s with you, hm?” She leans in. “First you’re late, then you run out of trauma like you’re about to pass out. That’s not like you, kid.”

You shrug. “Just a little off today.”

She watches you for a second, her eyes narrowing just a fraction. She’s not stupid. She knows there’s more to it than that—but Dana isn’t the type to push.

She hums quietly.

“Alright,” she says. “I’ll pretend I believe that.”

You give her a small, appreciative smile as you push off the counter. “Love you, Dana.”

She just shakes her head, the corner of her mouth lifting as she glances back down at her tablet. “Yeah? Then check on North Four for me and see if you can get ‘em discharged.”

You nod. “North Four, on it.”

You start to turn away, then stop yourself and swivel back toward her.

“Hey—uh—is Abbot still here?” you ask.

“No, he left right after the MVC trauma,” she replies without looking up.

“Oh.”

“Why? You need him?” she asks. “I’m sure whatever you need, Dr. Robby can—”

“No,” you say quickly. “Nope. I’m good. Totally fine. Don’t need anything at all.”

You hug your tablet to your chest and start turning away again.

“Everything’s fine!”

You don’t dare look back. You just keep walking toward the North hall, completely missing the sceptical look Dana sends after you—and the confused look on Robby’s face as he glances between the two of you.

On your way to N4, you pull your phone out of your pocket and tap on Dr. Abbot’s contact, typing quickly.

So much for saying goodbye to your favourite resident.

Then you hit send and tuck your phone back into your pocket.

You’re not actually offended. Not really. This is the ER. People barely have time to finish a sentence, let alone say goodbye.

You’re just… nervous.

Nervous because Abbot thinks he knows something—and you need to figure out what that is before he decides to say something to Robby and make this whole situation infinitely worse.

You stop outside N4 and take a deep breath—your hundredth deep breath of the morning. You can do this. This is the easy part. The patients. The work. The familiarity of what you do every day. You just need to focus on this for the next twelve hours and definitely not the way you can still feel the weight of his hand on your hip, steady and certain, holding you exactly where he wanted you as he—

“Nope,” you tell yourself out loud. “Absolutely not. Focus.”

You shake your head as you step into the room and slide the curtain back, greeting the patient with your practiced mask of cool, calm, and collected. You manage to convince them they don’t need an MRI, since their ankle is only sprained, but you do get Ahmad to escort them out in a wheelchair—and now you owe him ten bucks and a bagel tomorrow morning.

Then you move on to the next patient. And the next.

The next few hours pass by in a blur of minor catastrophes. A migraine that melts away with the standard cocktail of Toradol, Reglan, and Benadryl. A Lego piece extracted from a three-year-old’s nose while Whitaker distracts the squirming patient. Three stitches in the eyebrow of a man who swears he doesn’t drink before 10AM—even though you can smell the alcohol on his breath. An overworked woman with chest pain that turns out to be a panic attack. A teenager with a swollen knee and a devastated look on his face when you suggest he might be benched for the rest of the season.

And at half past noon, you step into C9. Mid-thirties, right lower quadrant abdominal pain, nausea, mild fever—what you can already guess is appendicitis.

“Hi, Ms. Park, how are you feeling?” you ask, squirting a pump of sanitiser into your palm.

She winces. “Not so good.”

“It says here you’re having abdominal pain, nausea, and a bit of a fever,” you say. “When did that start?”

She nods. “Early this morning. Four, maybe.”

You set your tablet on the cart, grab a pair of gloves, and drag a stool beside the bed. “Mind if I take a look at your abdomen so I can get a better idea of what’s going on?”

She nods and tips her head back against the pillow, hands falling either side as you start palpating her lower abdomen. It doesn’t take more than a few presses for her to hiss and lift a hand, trying to push you away.

“Sorry,” she says, voice strained. “It hurts a lot.”

“That’s okay.” You scoot back and rise from the stool, peeling off your gloves. “I’m going to order a CT scan to take a better look, and we’ll give you something for the pain and something for the nausea in the meantime.”

You step around the bed and grab your tablet off the cart.

“A nurse will come in shortly to start fluids too,” you add. “You’re probably a little dehydrated if you haven’t been able to eat or drink much this morning.”

She looks at you with wide eyes. “I don’t know if I want a CT. Isn’t that a lot of radiation?”

“It’s a relatively small amount,” you reply evenly, “and it’s the best way for us to see what’s going on inside your abdomen. I can assure you, it’s very safe.”

“I try to avoid unnecessary radiation,” Ms. Park argues, shifting uncomfortably. “Is there another option?”

“Ultrasound can sometimes help, but it’s not always reliable in adults,” you say. “A CT scan will give us the clearest answer.”

She hesitates, eyes dropping to her lap. “Well—could I please speak to the doctor in charge?”

You open your mouth to reply when someone steps in beside you. Tall. Solid. Close enough to make your pulse skip and your stomach take a nosedive.

“You are,” Robby says, arms folded. “She’s the physician managing your care right now, so we’ll follow her recommendation.”

You step to the side, nearly tripping over nothing, clutching your tablet to your chest.

“Uh—Dr. Robby, this is Ms. Park,” you say quickly. “Thirty-five, right lower quadrant pain since early this morning. Nausea, no vomiting, low-grade fever at triage. Tenderness at McBurney’s point. I’ve ordered labs and a CT abdomen to rule out appendicitis.”

Robby nods once. “That sounds appropriate.”

Ms. Park sighs.

“Alright,” she says, a little more pleasantly now. “If that’s what you recommend.”

She doesn’t even look at you as she says it—her eyes stay fixed on Robby, softening in a way that makes you briefly consider poking her appendix again.

Not that you can blame her.

Your gaze flicks to Robby, wondering if he’s noticed the sudden change in demeanour—or the way she’s practically making heart eyes at him.

But he isn’t looking at Ms. Park.

He’s looking at you.

You clear your throat, quickly glancing back down at your tablet. “Uh—that’s good. Great. I’ll finish the orders now, and a nurse will be by shortly with some pain relief.”

Ms. Park gives you a brief nod before turning back to Robby with a smile that makes you want to roll your eyes. Robby just nods, squirts a pump of sanitiser into his hand, then steps out of the room—and you try not to follow too closely.

You slide the curtain shut before turning into the hall, half expecting Robby to be gone—but he isn’t. He’s still standing there, holding his tablet in one hand while the other scrubs at his jaw in that mildly anxious way it always does.

“Nice work in there,” he says without looking up.

Heat floods your face.

“Thanks,” you say with a tight smile. “And thanks for backing me up.”

He glances at you over the top of his glasses.

“You had it handled.”

You clutch your tablet to your chest. “Well—uh—thanks anyway.”

Then, before you completely lose the ability to function, you turn on your heel and start down the hall—but not fast enough to miss Dana’s voice.

“Careful, Robinavitch,” she says dryly. “You’re hovering.”

“I supervise,” Robby mutters.

Dana hums.

“Uh-huh. I’ll pretend I believe that.”

Hovering?

You tighten your grip on your tablet as you hurry down the South hall, pretending you know where you’re headed.

Robby wasn’t hovering. He was just doing his job. Right?

He hovers around every resident and med student.

It’s not like he was—

You shake your head.

No—Dana’s just teasing. It’s her thing. It’s practically her love language.

You stop short when you reach the end of the hall. Elevator ahead. Restrooms to your right.

Nowhere else to go.

“You okay, Doctor?” McKay asks, stepping out of the ladies’ room.

You blink. “Uh—yeah, I just—”

You’re not sure what excuse to use now—standing in the middle of the hall, staring at the elevator, white-knuckling your tablet like you’re one bad patient away from a psychotic break.

“You look like you’re buffering,” she says, the corner of her mouth twitching. “Why don’t you take a break?”

You shake your head. “I don’t need a break.”

Her brows lift as she gently places a hand on each of your shoulders, turning you back the other way. “Alright. Well, why don’t you go sit down and catch up on your charting?”

She starts guiding you slowly back up the hall.

“Charting,” you echo, a faint frown forming between your brows. “Yeah. That’s a good idea, actually. I haven’t done much all day.”

She nods. “See? I’m full of good ideas. And you are seriously concerning me today.”

You give her a look. “I’m fine. Everyone is just being—”

“Caring?” she offers.

You roll your eyes. “Overbearing.”

She shakes her head, laughing quietly as she steers you toward the nurse’s station.

“Here,” she says, pulling out a chair in front of a vacant computer. “Sit.”

“Yes, ma’am,” you mutter, dropping down at the desk.

She steps behind you, pushes the chair in, then leans over your shoulder.

“Good girl,” she murmurs.

Your entire spine locks.

“What was that?”

McKay straightens, already grinning.

“Charting,” she says lightly, tapping the monitor. “Try it.”

“But—you just—”

She laughs under her breath, already backing away.

“Finish your notes, doctor. You don’t want to have to stay late.”

Then she’s gone, shaking her head again as she disappears back toward triage.

You sit there for a few seconds longer than you should, staring after her while your brain desperately tries to reboot.

“Fucking Santos,” you mutter, finally turning back to the computer.

“You called,” Santos says, appearing on the other side of the desk.

Your eyes snap up. “You.”

Her brows lift. “Me?”

“Yes,” you snap. “You’ve been telling people.”

She tries—and fails—to suppress a smile.

“Not technically.” She leans forward, resting both forearms on the counter. “I only told Huckleberry, but McKay overheard. Can you blame me, though? It’s the most interesting thing to happen around here today.”

“Yes,” you hiss. “I can blame you. And I will blame you if—”

You stop, your eyes flicking past her to where Robby has just stepped out of C8, chart in hand and head bowed. Santos frowns for a second before following your gaze over her shoulder.

She snorts. “Oh my God. You can’t even function.”

“Who can’t function?” Whitaker asks, stepping up beside Santos.

You drop your head into your hands and sigh. “Great. They’re multiplying.”

Santos leans closer. “Hey, what’s the song that plays in your head whenever he walks past? Is it, like, SexyBack, or more… Like a Prayer?”

Whitaker snorts softly, his cheeks turning pink.

You glare at Santos. “Neither.”

“You’re right.” She nods thoughtfully. “I can practically hear the Careless Whisper sax playing in your mind right now.”

Your eyes go wide as you snatch a pen off the desk and lob it straight at her—but she dodges it easily.

“Wow,” she says, still laughing. “I’m on fire today.”

“Is that so, Dr. Santos?”

You recognise the voice before you even see him—because of course you do. You dream about that voice.

“That would mean you’ve caught up on all your charting and discharged your patient in North One?” Robby asks as he steps up beside Santos.

Her grin drops. “Uh—yeah. Actually, I was just on my way to North One.”

Her eyes slide back to you as she pushes away from the desk, lips pressed tight to keep herself from laughing.

“Dr. Whitaker,” Robby says. “Are you hovering?”

Hovering?

Whitaker glances up. “Oh—uh—no. I was just finishing some orders.”

“Good. You can finish them on your way to discharging South Twenty.”

Whitaker nods, barely even glancing at you as he grabs his tablet off the desk and turns toward the South hall.

Then Robby looks at you, holding up the pen you threw at Santos.

Your pulse stutters.

“Think you lost this,” he says, leaning forward to drop it on the desk.

“I threw it,” you blurt.

He hesitates, the corner of his mouth twitching before he turns away.

“I know.”

You watch him go until he turns a corner and disappears—then you look down at the pen.

“Fuck,” you sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose. “I need today to end.”

You slide the pen aside and force your attention back to the computer—to the cursor blinking patiently beside the single word you’d managed to write since sitting down.

Right.

Charting.

You manage exactly four more words before you’re interrupted again—something about your abdominal pain patient in Central Nine.

With a sigh, you push away from the desk, grab your tablet, and head for C9.

After confirming Ms. Park does indeed need an appendectomy and contacting Garcia for a surgical consult, Dana stops you in the hall to ask if Mr. Mullens can be discharged from South Sixteen. Then Javadi grabs you to present a calf laceration that you end up supervising while she sutures it, and after that Whitaker calls you in for a second opinion on a dizziness patient in North Five.

The hours start to blur together. You bounce from one room to another, just barely finishing your notes in between patients and med students and reviewing labs. By the time you finally make it back to the desk again, you’ve almost—almost—forgotten about why your heart is still beating a little too fast.

“Back to charting?” Princess asks.

You nod. “The never-ending task.”

She gives you the same quiet, speculative smile she gave you this morning.

“You seem off today,” she says.

“I’m fine,” you mutter. “Just tired.”

“And red,” she adds before turning away.

You frown, pressing a hand to your ridiculously hot cheek as you turn back toward the computer. If this keeps up, you’re more likely to end the shift as a patient than a doctor.

With a small sigh, you scoot your chair closer to the desk and pull the chart back up. Your eyes flick to the corner of the screen, to the little clock telling you that you only have a few hours left. A few hours to finish your charting, discharge a couple more patients, and keep avoiding Dr. Robby. Then you’re free. Then you’ve got at least eight solid hours to sort yourself out before you’re back here tomorrow.

Just as you position your fingers over the keyboard to start typing, your phone vibrates in your pocket—and your pulse jumps.

Abbot.

You quickly pull it out, swipe up, and open the notification.

Sorry. Too busy mourning the loss of my status as your favourite attending.

Your stomach drops.

What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

You stare at the text for an unreasonable length of time—heart pounding, face burning, thoughts racing. Abbot definitely thinks he knows something. Something he shouldn’t know. Something he’s probably very wrong about. Something you need to figure out and shut down immediately.

Before he decides to say something to Robby about whatever it is he thinks he knows.

“Hey,” Dana says, stopping on the other side of the desk. “Thought you were working?”

You clear your throat. “Uh—yeah. Sorry. Got distracted.”

Her brows lift. “Distracted, huh? That’s exactly what we want in emergency medicine.”

Then she shakes her head and walks away.

You tuck your phone into your pocket and turn your attention back to the chart in front of you. The chart of exactly five words—the first of many unfinished charts standing in your way of going home on time.

And today is not a day you want to stay back.

Your fingers hover over the keyboard again, eyes flicking over the few words already written. It takes a minute—probably longer than it should—but eventually you remember how to do your job and start typing.

The ER fades into background noise—monitors beeping, nurses chatting, the rumble of beds rolling past—and for the first time all day, you feel focused. Steady. Until—

“Robby,” Dana calls, “can you come over here for a sec?”

Your fingers slow over the keys—and against your better judgment, you glance up.

“Mrs. Alvarez,” Robby says fondly. “What brings you here?”

Your brows draw together as you study the older woman sitting on the bed. She looks familiar, and Alvarez rings a bell, but you can’t quite place it.

“Perlah,” you say, without fully looking away from the woman. “Who’s Mrs. Alvarez?”

“She used to work here,” Perlah replies. “She was the night shift charge nurse before Lena. Partially retired a couple years ago, but she’s covered a shift or two since then.”

You tilt your head. “Oh.”

“She probably asked for Robby,” Princess chimes in. “She always had a soft spot for him.”

Perlah tries to muffle her laughter. “Katulad ng ibang kakilala natin.”

Princess laughs behind you, but the sound barely registers. You’re too captivated by the scene unfolding in front of you. The very normal, very professional interaction that is hardly out of place in an ER—yet for some reason, it feels like you’re watching an adult film made specifically for you.

Mrs. Alvarez’s bed is parked up against the wall—a sight that would normally remind you to look for patients to discharge, but right now that’s the furthest thing from your mind.

Robby has pulled a stool up beside her, leaning in while she talks, forearms resting loosely on the bed rail. He nods along as she explains what’s wrong, his expression soft, his posture relaxed. There’s absolutely nothing obscene about it—but your pulse is still racing.

There’s just something about the way he listens—really listens—that makes it difficult to look anywhere else. That makes it difficult not to envy Mrs. Alvarez right now.

“Let’s take a listen,” he says after a moment, voice low and steady.

Your stomach does a strange little flip.

It’s such a normal sentence. Completely harmless. Totally professional. You’ve probably said the same thing yourself at least three times today. But hearing it in that voice—calm, warm, just rough enough at the edges to carry across the department—does something deeply unhelpful to your concentration.

He slips the stethoscope from around his neck, the tubing sliding through his fingers with the kind of easy familiarity that only comes from years of doing the same motion over and over again. The movement is quick, practiced, almost absentminded.

Still, your eyes follow it.

They follow the way he leans forward, one hand bracing lightly against the mattress while the other presses the diaphragm of the stethoscope gently against Mrs. Alvarez’s chest.

“Deep breath for me.”

Your pulse stutters.

Because suddenly—unhelpfully, vividly—you remember exactly how those hands felt in the dream.

The same steady fingers. The same calm voice, dropped just a little lower when he leaned close enough that you could feel the warmth of his breath near your ear.

His hand had been wrapped around your wrist—firm but careful—guiding your hand above your head and pinning it against the pillow.

“Hold still,” he murmured.

The memory is sharp enough that for a second you can almost feel it again. The weight of his body pressing into the space between your knees, the quiet authority in his voice when he spoke, the way his fingers tightened against your skin just enough to keep you right where he wanted you.

Your hands had curled into the bed sheets as his lips traced the line of your jaw, his voice dropping again—softer now, almost thoughtful.

“Look at me.”

Your breath had caught in your throat when you did.

Because he was watching you the same way he watches patients—calm, focused, completely absorbed—except the attention felt different in the dream. Slower. Heavier. Like he was studying every reaction you gave him and deciding exactly how much more you could handle.

Your pulse had started racing the second his gaze dropped to your mouth.

It wasn’t subtle.

Just a brief shift of his eyes—thoughtful, almost curious—but the heat that followed it made your stomach tighten.

His thumb found its way back to your jaw, tracing slowly along the curve of it as if he were considering something. Following the line of your chin as he tipped your head back just slightly beneath his hand.

You hadn’t realised you’d stopped breathing until his fingers stilled.

“Breathe,” he said quietly.

The word brushed over your lips.

You remember the way your chest rose when you obeyed him—slow, unsteady—and the way his gaze followed the movement before drifting back to your mouth again.

God.

The corner of his mouth had lifted slightly then, like he’d noticed exactly what he was doing to you.

Like he wasn’t in any hurry to stop.

His hand slid from your jaw to the side of your throat, fingers warm against your skin, thumb resting just beneath your chin as if he were holding you there—not tightly, just enough that you stayed exactly where he wanted you.

And the entire time he watched you with that same quiet concentration.

Like this was just another thing he was very, very good at.

“Hey,” Santos says, appearing beside the desk. “Your abdominal pain in C9 just went upstairs.”

You blink at her. “Already?”

She shrugs. “Garcia signed off.”

You nod once, shifting awkwardly in your chair as you turn back toward the computer, trying very hard to ignore the heat pooling low in your belly.

“You good?” Santos asks, as if you haven’t been asked that enough today.

You clear your throat, eyes flicking briefly back to Robby and Mrs. Alvarez. “Yeah. Fine.”

She follows your gaze, the corner of her mouth twitching.

“Wow,” she says. “You’re down bad.”

You glare at her. “I’m charting.”

“You’re drooling.”

You quickly lift a hand to your mouth, swiping at the corner.

Santos smirks. “Metaphorically.”

“Fuck you,” you mutter.

“Fuck who?” Whitaker asks, appearing beside Santos.

Santos grins. “Well, it depends who you’re asking, because if you ask—”

“Santos,” you warn.

She laughs. “Come on. It’s just a joke.”

“Isang biro?” Princess says, smiling. “Walang nakakatawa sa paraan ng pagtitig niya kay Robby.”

Your stomach drops.

You might not understand Tagalog, but you sure as hell know what that last word was.

“Santos,” you say, slowly rising from your chair. “How many people have you told?”

She presses her lips together sheepishly. “Again, technically? Just Huckleberry.”

“And—and I haven’t told anyone,” Whitaker adds quickly.

“Ano ang pinag-uusapan nila?” Perlah says behind you.

Princess shrugs. “May alam lang na sikreto si Santos.”

Your eyes widen. “Santos, I swear—”

“Relax,” she says. “They’re not talking about the dream. They were talking about your staring.”

Princess steps forward. “A dream? What dream?”

You bury your face in your hands. “Oh my God.”

“Wait,” Perlah says. “Did she have a dream about—”

Santos smirks. “Yep.”

“Oh,” Princess gasps. “That’s why she’s been so weird today.”

Perlah snorts.

Princess mutters something else in Tagalog that makes them all laugh again.

“Oh my God, Santos!” you say again, louder this time. “I’m just trying to get through the day without my attending finding out I had a sex dream about him and you’re telling the entire emergency department?”

Silence.

Perlah is staring at you.

Princess is staring at you.

Whitaker looks like someone has just pulled the fire alarm inside his head.

And Santos—

Santos is very carefully not looking at you anymore.

“What?” you snap. “No more jokes?”

No one answers.

Instead, Princess’s eyes flick slowly past your shoulder.

Whitaker clears his throat.

Santos presses her lips together, the corners twitching like she’s fighting for her life not to laugh.

“What?” you repeat, glancing over your shoulder.

And there he is.

Your attending—standing just a few feet from the nurse’s station, tablet still in one hand, glasses sliding slightly down his nose as he looks at you over the top of them.

Your stomach drops so violently it feels like all your organs have fallen out of your body.

He clears his throat.

Once.

“Alright,” he says evenly. “Back to work.”

That’s all it takes.

Perlah and Princess busy themselves on the other side of the nurse’s station.

Whitaker rushes off toward triage.

Santos lingers just long enough to give you a look that promises she will never let this go before she slips away too.

And then it’s just you.

And him.

He doesn’t say anything for a moment. Just adjusts the tablet in his hand, pulls his glasses off, folds them into the pocket of his scrubs, and turns away.

And as he steps away, you could almost swear you see the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth.

Almost as if he’s fighting a smile.

But that would be ridiculous, right?

It takes an embarrassingly long time for you to remember how to move.

How to function.

You can feel Perlah and Princess watching you. Waiting for you to do something other than stare at the spot your attending had been standing when you announced your sex dream about him to the entire department.

God.

This has to be some kind of HR violation.

Robby is probably on his way to find Dana right now so she can tell you to go upstairs and talk to someone about misconduct. If you’re not fired, you’ll be transferred.

Or worse—night shift.

You gasp and fumble for your phone, pulling it out of your pocket.

Abbot's message thread is already open when you swipe up and start typing.

What’s that supposed to mean?

Then you hit send and tuck your phone away again.

It’s a ridiculous thought, but maybe if you can talk to Abbot and explain that this was all just one giant misunderstanding, maybe he can convince Robby not to hate you for it. Maybe he can convince Robby to let you finish your residency at PTMC without it being painfully awkward for both of you.

Because as funny as this is to Santos and the nurses, you’re not so sure Robby will see it that way.

Not when you’ve let it affect your work.

Not when you just embarrassed him—and yourself—in front of the entire emergency department.

You draw in a slow breath and grab your tablet off the desk.

All you can do now is your job.

All you can do for the next hour is avoid Robby and pray Abbot will hear you out when he comes back on shift.

You turn deliberately toward the North hallway and pull up the lab results for Whitaker’s dizziness patient, keeping your eyes fixed on your tablet as you walk.

The department hums around you like it always does—monitors beeping, beds rolling past, nurses calling out vitals—but you can still feel eyes on you. Whether it’s the nurses or the med students, or even a patient who overheard your outburst, you know you’re being watched.

Whispered about, probably.

But if you don’t look up, it doesn’t count. Right?

By the time you circle back to central, Mrs. Alvarez has already been discharged, which you take as a small mercy. Then you duck into South Fifteen to check on a teenager with a sprained ankle who is mostly interested in whether he can still play soccer this weekend. After that it’s a quick review of labs for a chest pain patient in Central Ten—normal troponins, thank God—and a brief stop at the nurse’s station to sign off on discharge instructions Dana has already printed.

None of it requires you to look up very much.

Which is ideal.

You spend the next half hour moving steadily from room to room—listening to a set of lungs for a persistent cough in North Three, answering a worried daughter’s questions about her father’s blood pressure in South Twenty-Two, and checking a set of repeat vitals on a dehydration case Princess flagged earlier. Every task is perfectly ordinary. Completely routine.

And through all of it, you make a very conscious effort not to look for your attending.

Not that you’re avoiding him.

Obviously.

You’re just… busy.

You still see him, though—across the hall, talking to patients, nodding along while med students present. He doesn’t look up. Never looks at you. Just keeps walking, keeps working, keeps nodding.

Like nothing happened.

And somehow, that’s worse.

You’re on your way back from dropping discharge paperwork at the front desk—walking a little slower than you should as you wonder how long until the end of your shift—when McKay calls out from triage.

“Hey, you busy?”

You stop mid-step. “Always. What’s up?”

“Can you grab me a suture kit?” she asks. “I’m out in here.”

“Of course. What size?”

“Four-oh nylon. Whatever's closest.”

You nod. “On it.”

“And maybe send a med student to grab more from supply,” she calls as you walk away.

You don’t reply. You just duck into Trauma One—thankfully empty—grab a kit, then call out to Ogilvie on your way back, telling him to go get more suture kits for triage as soon as he’s free. You don’t even wait for him to answer, but you do hear him turn to a nurse and ask where supply is.

You wedge your tablet under one arm as you head back toward the triage bay. With the kit held against your chest, you start peeling back the sterile packaging—since you know McKay’s already halfway through cleaning whatever it is she needs to suture up.

You’re just being helpful.

But the plastic seam is stubborn, and just as you turn into the bay the wrapper gives with a jerked tear—and the scalpel slides free.

You shift to catch it, but the blade grazes the inside of your upper arm before you can pull away.

“Oh—shit.”

It’s not dramatic. Just a sharp sting at first, and for a second you assume it’s nothing more than a scratch.

Until the warmth starts to trickle down your arm and drip from your elbow.

“Damn,” you sigh, watching a small droplet of blood hit the floor.

McKay glances up, eyes going wide. “What the hell happened?”

She quickly takes everything out of your hands, and you lift your arm to inspect the damage.

“Scalpel slipped.”

McKay winces. “That’s going to need stitches.”

Ignoring the confused patient still sitting in the triage chair, she grabs a wad of gauze off the cart and presses it against your arm.

“Hold this,” she says. “I’ll go get someone to take over here, then we can—”

“It’s alright,” a familiar voice says from somewhere behind you. “I’ll deal with this.”

Your stomach drops.

“Oh.” McKay glances over your shoulder, the corner of her mouth twitching. “Thanks, Dr. Robby.”

Fuck.

You turn slowly, one hand still clamped over the gauze on your arm.

He’s already so close—barely half a step away—and you have to tip your head back to look up at him.

“Let me see,” he says, voice low.

You hold your arm out obediently.

His fingers brush yours as he peels back the gauze, and your pulse jumps.

“Alright.” He nods once, something indistinguishable flickering across his face. “That needs stitches.”

Before you can respond, his hand closes lightly around your wrist, guiding your arm back toward your side as he turns you with him.

“Come with me.”

The touch is brief, professional—but when his hand shifts to the small of your back to steer you out of triage, the warmth of it makes your heart stutter out of rhythm.

“Dana,” he calls, walking quickly through central. “What’s open?”

Dana looks up from the desk just as the two of you pass. Her gaze flicks from the gauze on your arm to Robby’s hand still resting lightly at your back, and something sharp and knowing slides into her expression immediately.

“Central Eleven just got cleaned,” she says.

Robby nods once. “Thanks.”

Dana’s brows lift just a fraction as she watches the two of you step into the room, like she’s just connected several very interesting dots.

You move automatically toward the bed, trying not to feel disappointed when Robby’s hand leaves your back. He shuts the doors on both sides of the room, then slides the curtain closed—and every move makes your heart rate climb higher.

“Lay back,” he says.

Your whole body flushes with heat as you adjust yourself on the exam bed, trying desperately not to think about the other circumstances in which he might give you that instruction.

He rolls the stool beside the bed and reaches for your arm, turning it out gently.

His fingers are warm as he removes the gauze.

You try not to think too hard about his fingers.

“It’s a clean cut, at least,” he says after a second.

You nod. “Sharp blade.”

Like he didn’t already know that.

He releases your arm long enough to pull on a pair of gloves and gather what he needs from the tray beside the bed. You watch him move around the room with that same quiet efficiency that has been ruining your concentration all day—steady hands, calm voice, not a hint of hurry even though the department outside the door is probably chaos.

“Come a little closer,” he says, almost absentmindedly—as if he doesn’t know what saying something like that is going to do to you.

You shift against the mattress while he lifts your arm again, angling it under the exam light.

He’s so close now you can hardly breathe. You can feel his breath against your cheek, his warmth bleeding through the thin fabric of your scrubs, every touch careful as he starts cleaning the cut.

The antiseptic stings enough to make you tense.

“Easy,” he murmurs, steadying your arm. “It’s not that bad.”

“I’m aware,” you say quickly. “I do actually work here.”

“Yes,” he says mildly. “I’m aware of that too.”

You risk a glance at him then—and immediately regret it.

He’s standing now, leaning close enough that you could count every fleck of grey in his beard. Close enough to notice the way his glasses have slid slightly down his nose while he concentrates on the wound. His fingers move with careful precision as he prepares the needle driver, completely focused.

Completely calm.

Completely unaware that your brain is still stuck somewhere between the nurse’s station and a very inappropriate dream.

“Hold still,” he murmurs.

Your stomach flips—and when you squeeze your eyes shut, that exact moment from your dream flashes through your mind again.

The lidocaine burns for a second when he injects it, and you suck in a breath before you can stop yourself.

“Breathe,” he says automatically.

God.

If he could stop with the direct quotes from your dream, maybe you would actually be able to breathe.

You clear your throat, staring stubbornly at the wall now while he begins the first stitch.

“Try to relax,” he adds quietly.

You let out a short, incredulous laugh. “I’m trying.”

His hands pause for the briefest moment.

Then he glances up at you over the rim of his glasses.

“You of all people should know better than to open a suture kit while walking.”

You let out a small, embarrassed breath and shift slightly on the bed while he works, trying not to react every time the needle passes neatly through the edge of the cut.

“Sorry,” you mutter. “It’s been a weird day.”

“Mhm.”

The sound is absentminded, the same one he makes when a patient is explaining symptoms he already understands. His attention stays on your arm while he ties the knot and reaches for the next stitch, movements calm and precise, like this is the most ordinary thing in the world.

“You seemed a little distracted earlier,” he adds after a moment.

Your stomach tightens.

“Busy department.”

He hums again as he adjusts your arm slightly.

“Not exactly what I meant.”

You stare at the ceiling again, your pulse racing dangerously fast.

“It’s not unusual, you know,” he says after a moment, his voice calm and thoughtful as he works. “There’s actually quite a lot of research on it. In high-stress environments people’s subconscious tends to latch onto someone they admire rather than… straightforward attraction. It’s a way of organizing all that pressure—long hours, constant adrenaline, the need to trust the people around you.”

He pauses briefly to adjust the stitch.

You feel like you’re about to throw up.

“Hospitals are particularly good at creating that kind of dynamic,” he goes on. “Everyone’s exhausted, everyone’s relying on each other, and if there happens to be someone who seems steady in the middle of all that—someone people look to when things go wrong—it’s very easy for admiration to blur into something else.”

Another small pause, the thread tightening neatly under his fingers.

“It’s rarely intentional,” he adds, quieter now. “Most of the time the person experiencing it doesn’t even realise what their brain is doing.”

You finally look at him. His face is barely inches from yours, close enough that you can see the faint crease between his brows while he concentrates on the last stitch, all of his attention focused on closing the cut.

“Wait,” you say slowly. “So… I—I’m not fired?”

His hands still for the briefest moment before he glances at you, genuine confusion flickering across his face.

“Fired?”

You swallow. “For… you know. The thing I said. Out there. To the entire department.”

He huffs a small laugh—barely a breath.

“Why would you be fired?” he says mildly. “Embarrassing yourself in front of the nurses isn’t exactly grounds for termination.”

Your face burns.

He sets the needle driver down and reaches for the scissors, his tone settling back into that same calm, matter-of-fact rhythm.

“You shouldn’t have let it distract you from your work, though,” he continues. “That’s the only part I was concerned about. But one off day doesn’t suddenly erase an otherwise solid record.”

You stare at him.

“Concerned?”

“Mhm.”

He snips the suture, then reaches to adjust your arm slightly under the light, examining his work.

“First you were late,” he says, almost absently. “You were flustered during the chest tube. You’ve been avoiding traumas all day—” His eyes meet yours briefly. “And your attending. You’ve barely caught up on your charting, and you’ve unintentionally encouraged the nurses’ gossiping.”

Your stomach drops.

“Not to mention,” he adds, just a little drier now, “the pen you threw at Dr. Santos for—what? Teasing you, I presume.”

Your brain short-circuits.

Because suddenly, Dana’s voice echoes through your mind.

Careful, Robinavitch. You’re hovering.

Hovering?

Like the way he’d stood so close while you placed that chest tube. The way his hand had settled at your back when he guided you out of triage.

Why was he even there to begin with?

Santos’ voice cuts through your mind next.

I swear he’s got a soft spot for you.

I’m pretty sure he’d go there if you asked.

And suddenly the entire day looks… different.

Not like an attending keeping an eye on his resident.

Like a man trying very hard not to make it obvious he was paying attention to you.

Robby smooths the edge of the dressing over the sutured cut, pressing it down carefully as he glances back up at you.

“Keep that dry for the next—”

And that’s the moment your brain finally catches up.

Before you can talk yourself out of it, your hand shoots out and grabs the front of his scrubs, fingers bunching the fabric at his chest as you pull him the few inches closer.

Then you kiss him.

It’s not graceful.

It’s barely even planned.

Just a quick, impulsive press of your mouth against his—warm and startled and over almost as soon as it begins.

For half a second, he doesn’t move at all.

“Oh—fuck. I—”

You drop his shirt like it’s suddenly on fire and lean back on the bed, horrified.

“I’m so sorry,” you blurt. “I don’t know why I just—”

The apology dies halfway through, because Robby hasn’t stepped away.

He hasn’t leapt back, shocked or offended. He’s just… there.

Where he was when you grabbed him—close enough that you can still feel his warmth, with one hand resting lightly near your arm where he’d been finishing the dressing. For a second he simply watches you, studying your face with the same quiet concentration he uses when he’s working through a diagnosis, like he’s trying to decide whether the last thirty seconds actually happened.

Your pulse is hammering.

“I shouldn’t have—” you try again.

His hand lifts.

The movement is slow, deliberate, and before you can finish your sentence his thumb and forefinger settle lightly around your chin, tilting your face upward just enough that you have to look at him.

Your breath catches.

He hesitates for the briefest moment, his gaze moving across your face as if he’s still weighing the decision.

Then he leans in.

The first contact is firmer than you expect—his mouth warm and solid against yours, the faint scrape of his beard against your skin as he adjusts the angle. His glasses are still on, the frame nudging the bridge of your nose when he shifts closer. His nose bumps yours before he tilts his head, finding a better position.

For a second it’s almost restrained.

Then it isn’t.

His grip on your chin tightens a fraction as he deepens the kiss, tipping your head back against the pillow while he leans over you. The change is sudden enough that your hands catch the front of his scrubs again without thinking. The fabric bunches in your fingers as he moves closer, the pressure of his mouth shifting—slower now but more certain, like he’s stopped pretending he’s about to pull away.

The beard you’d been trying not to notice all day brushes your cheek again when he moves, softer than you expected, and when his teeth graze your lower lip for half a second the sound that escapes you is embarrassingly honest.

He exhales quietly through his nose against your skin.

Not stopping.

If anything, the opposite.

His free hand comes down beside your shoulder on the mattress to brace himself as he leans over you, the movement tilting your head back further while his mouth finds yours again—deeper this time, the rhythm of it suddenly practiced enough to make your stomach flip.

Like this is something he hasn’t done in a while.

But definitely knows how to do.

And the entire time his thumb stays lightly under your chin, holding you exactly where he wants you while he kisses you like he’s still trying to decide whether this is a mistake—and losing that argument by the second.

You barely notice when he shifts closer again, the movement subtle but unmistakable, his hand tightening slightly against the mattress beside you as if he’s about to lean in further, about to let himself forget the door, the department, the fact that this is an exam room in the middle of a shift—

The curtain whips open.

“Been looking for you, Robinavitch—”

Abbot stops dead.

For half a second no one moves.

You’re still on the bed, Robby bent over you, your hands fisted in the front of his scrubs while his hand is still braced beside your shoulder.

Abbot’s gaze flicks from your grip on Robby’s shirt, to Robby’s face, to the dressing he’d just placed on your arm.

His eyebrows climb slowly toward his hairline.

“Well,” he says after a beat. “I wish I could say I'm surprised, but…”

Robby straightens immediately.

Not panicked. Not flustered.

Just very, very still for a second before he adjusts his glasses and steps back from the bed like he’d simply been finishing a routine procedure.

“Jack,” he says evenly.

Abbot folds his arms, the corner of his mouth already curling upward.

“Michael.”

The silence stretches just long enough for the humiliation to fully settle in.

Abbot glances at you again, then back at Robby.

“Should I come back later,” he asks mildly, “or are you two… just about done here?”

The heat that floods your face is instantaneous, and you slide off the bed so fast you nearly fall.

“Don’t get it wet for twenty-four hours, stitches out in a week unless there’s redness, swelling, drainage, fever—I know the drill,” you ramble, slowly backing toward the door.

Robby has already turned back to the tray, calmly disposing of the suture needle like none of this is remotely unusual. Only the faint redness creeping up the back of his neck gives him away.

Abbot doesn’t move. He just stands there, arms folded, with a look of deep theatrical satisfaction on his face.

“This,” he says pleasantly, “is exactly what I meant, by the way.”

Your stomach drops.

“What?”

His brows lift.

“Your text.”

Your eyes widen.

Abbot tilts his head, studying you for a moment before glancing toward Robby again.

“I mean, honestly,” he adds. “I leave you two alone for what—ten hours?”

“What day shift does is none of your business, Dr. Abbot,” you mutter, trying to slip past him.

Abbot’s mouth twitches.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” he says. “It seems very much like my business now.”

You snort, the sound escaping before you can stop it.

“Don’t be jealous,” you say, glancing over your shoulder as you step out the door. “He’s still your boyfriend.”

Behind him, Robby drops the gauze into the bin and gives a quiet shake of his head, laughing softly despite himself.

“That’s my girl,” he murmurs.

Abbot’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Your girl, huh?”

Robby scrubs a hand over his beard and turns away.

“Shut up.”

You’re not sure you were supposed to hear that last bit—but it makes your heart race anyway.

The second you step into the hallway, the emergency department crashes back in around you—monitors beeping, nurses calling for labs, a stretcher rattling past that you have to dodge. Almost like the last fifteen minutes never happened at all.

“Hey, Doc,” Princess calls from the nurse’s station. “North Five, dizziness patient’s daughter is looking for a doctor, but Whitaker’s stuck in chairs.”

“And Javadi needs you in South Seventeen,” Perlah adds. “Something about a rash.”

“Oh—and imaging’s back on your sprained ankle kid,” Santos says. “He’s asking when he can get out of here.”

You nod. “Uh—right. Okay, yeah. I’ll just—”

“Hey,” Dana cuts in, appearing beside you. “You okay? How’s the arm?”

You blink down at the fresh dressing like you’d almost forgotten about it.

“Oh. Yeah. It’s fine.”

She studies it for a second before her gaze drifts up to your face—and her brow lifts.

“Uh-huh,” she says slowly.

You frown. “What?”

“Nothing,” she says lightly, starting to walk away. “Just thought that looked like beard burn.”

She gives a small shrug, then glances back over the top of her glasses.

“But I know my doctors are far too professional for that.”

Your entire face goes hot.

You open your mouth—then close it again, because there is absolutely nothing you can say to that without making it worse.

Santos leans across the desk at the nurse’s station, squinting at your face.

“…Oh my God.”

Her eyes widen.

“Oh my God.”

Your stomach sinks.

Will this day ever end?

© 2025 geminiwritten.

[cosmic-reads]

Kicking my feet rn 🤭🤭