Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Disabled!Reader
Summary: When a flare hits hard, staying in becomes the only option—but Aaron shows up anyway, bringing dinner, warmth, and the kind of love that stays.
Tags: disabled!reader, single mum!reader, multiple sclerosis flare, depictions of chronic pain, fatigue and mobility issues, reader uses a cane, parenting with a disability, lottie being the sweetest ever, hurt/comfort, reader gives aaron a key, jack and lottie sibling vibes, rainy night domesticity, quiet love, fluff, no use of y/n, warm safe space kind of fic, everything that matters is right here
Word Count: 2.8k words
Series Masterlist
The weather turns quickly—one of those sudden, sour shifts summer seems to specialise in. One moment, the sky is an endless, brilliant blue, sun pouring in through the windows with the kind of golden warmth that lingers in your hair and makes your skin feel kissed by something softer than light. The next, clouds sweep in like bruises, low and heavy, and the wind twists through the street outside with restless fingers. The smell of impending rain settles against the windowsill, and the tree outside your flat bends beneath the first warning gusts, its leaves whispering of change.
You're halfway through packing Lottie's bag, singing under your breath as you move between the sofa and the hallway. Her bunny is already tucked safely inside—of course, always first—followed by a spare sleepsuit, a clean bottle, two nappies just in case, and the plastic giraffe she's suddenly obsessed with again. She's on the rug, carefully aligning her crayons in a row, softly babbling a song you half recognise. You can feel the edges of the day softening, folding into something slower, quieter—takeout and cartoons and the kind of bedtime that doesn't happen on time.
Then it hits.
It starts with a low throb in your back, not entirely unfamiliar, something that flickers like a warning beneath your ribs. You straighten up slowly, shifting your weight onto your good leg, but the pain doesn't ease. It twists instead, tighter, deeper. You barely have time to curse under your breath before your left hip seizes, your leg locking out at the knee. The pressure is white-hot, burning down your thigh and all the way to your ankle like a snapped wire, and your cane slips before you can catch it. It clatters to the kitchen floor, a sharp, echoing crack that makes Lottie's head snap up.
She watches you silently. Her crayon drops to the rug. There's a pause, then she scrambles upright, bunny under her arm, and toddles over with determined little steps.
You grip the counter hard, jaw clenched, trying to breathe through it. The pain lances through you with every minor shift, your balance wobbling. Your heart pounds loud in your ears. You're not new to this. You've ridden worse. But this one comes fast, cruel, and persistent.
"Mama?"
She's at your leg, palm pressing against your thigh like she can fix it just by being there.
You manage a smile, brushing a hand across her curls. "It's okay, baby. Just give Mama a minute."
She leans into you, soft and steady. "Air'n and Jah?" she asks hopefully, peeking up at you. Her voice is quiet but expectant, her tiny brows raised like she already knows the answer she doesn't want to hear.
You press your lips together. "We might have to stay in, sweetheart."
Her face begins to crumple—not crying, not upset, just… disappointment. Confused, small.
You ease yourself into the dining chair, every movement measured and painfully slow. The moment you sit, your body sighs in protest, and your shoulders sag under the weight of it. You fish your phone from your pocket and tap Aaron's name. It rings once. Twice.
"Hey," he says, warm and present in that way that always makes you feel like everything might be okay after all.
You swallow. "Hi. I'm really sorry—we're not going to make it tonight."
There's a pause. "What's going on?"
"My leg's locked up," you admit. "Started just a bit ago. It's not the worst it's ever been, but I can't move properly. I wouldn't make it to the car, let alone to yours."
Another pause, but never one that feels judgmental. Only quiet concern.
"I'll bring dinner to you," he says immediately. "Whatever you need. Don't even think about it."
You close your eyes. "Aaron, you don't have to do that."
"I want to. It's no trouble. Jack's excited to see her, and frankly, so am I. We'll be there in thirty. Pizza?"
"Perfect," you murmur, voice catching.
"Sit down. Put a blanket on. We'll take care of the rest."
You hang up, heart full of something aching and warm.
Lottie watches you closely. "Air'n come here?"
You nod, brushing her hair back from her flushed forehead. "He's coming here, baby. And Jack too."
She claps once, delighted. Then climbs into your lap, bunny tight against her chest.
You manage the sofa slowly, body stiff and protesting. She climbs up beside you and settles in like she's meant to be there. Her small fingers tug the edge of the throw blanket over both of you. She leans her cheek against your arm.
Outside, the rain starts in earnest, gentle at first, then heavier, a steady rhythm against the windows. The sky goes darker than it should be at this hour. You breathe with the storm, the sound a lullaby, Lottie's weight comforting against your side. You stroke her curls slowly, watching her eyes drift to the TV where the home screen bounces idly.
Twenty-seven minutes later, the doorbell rings.
You move carefully, easing your leg into place, cane in one hand. Aaron's silhouette is already visible through the glass, Jack's behind him. You open the door and the smell of rain rolls in with them.
Aaron is holding two pizza boxes and a paper bag, shoulders dusted with droplets. "Hi," he says, soft as anything.
"Come in," you say, stepping back. "You're soaked."
"Not too bad. Jack insisted on walking the last bit."
"I ran!" Jack says, darting past you into the flat. "Hi!"
Lottie squeals. "Jah!"
She runs to him, giggling as they meet in the middle of the living room like it's a movie scene. She throws her arms around his neck and he spins her in a clumsy circle before they flop onto the rug together.
Aaron sets the food down and shrugs off his coat. He glances at you, and his smile fades slightly, concern rising again. "How's the leg?"
"Stubborn," you admit.
"I've got the heating pad," he murmurs, already moving. "Sit."
You do. He returns moments later, slipping the warm pad behind your hip, his hands gentle but efficient. Then he sits beside you, close enough to share your space, careful not to crowd it. He hands you a plate, already piled with a slice of pepperoni.
"Thanks," you whisper.
He leans in, kisses your hair. "You don't have to thank me for showing up. I want to be here."
The kids are now under a blanket, one shared pizza box between them. Jack wipes sauce off Lottie's chin, and she lets him, barely blinking. She offers him her crust. He trades her a cartoon recommendation.
Aaron watches them with something tender in his expression.
"He's good with her," you murmur.
"They're good for each other," Aaron replies.
You nod, throat tight. "They really are."
He glances at you again. "I meant what I said. I care about her happiness. And yours."
You reach for his hand, squeezing. "We're happy. Especially now."
He doesn't speak. Just smiles. Leans into you a little more.
Lottie starts singing, softly, some nonsense lullaby she's stitched together from memory and melody. Jack joins in, deliberately wrong, and she shrieks with laughter. They collapse into giggles, their cheeks flushed, their eyes bright.
Aaron looks over at you again, his gaze steady.
You smile, eyes damp. "Everything that matters is right here."
And it is. Despite the pain, despite the storm, despite everything that tries to pull at the seams—you're held together by warmth, by laughter, by the small, soft miracle of being loved in return.
Later, when bellies are full and the storm outside has softened into a gentle hush of water on concrete and the occasional drip from the eaves, the flat feels wrapped in something slower, quieter, like the whole world has exhaled and left only softness in its place. The lights are low, casting a golden haze over the room, the air warm with the scent of garlic and tomato and soft crust, the last traces of dinner lingering like comfort. Everything carries the hum of contentment. Even the corners of the flat, so often cluttered with the daily chaos of parenting, feel calmer—less like a mess, more like a life being lived. The toys scattered across the floor, the crumpled blanket draped halfway off the arm of the chair, the sippy cup on the coffee table—it all looks like evidence of something real, something good.
Lottie's nestled deep in the blanket nest on the couch, her small body pressed between a drowsy Jack and her bunny. Her thumb hovers close to her mouth, never quite committing, and her curls are a wild, contented tangle—proof of a day spent laughing, cuddling, and basking in the security of familiar love. Her legs stretch lazily across Jack's lap, her foot twitching now and again like she's half-dreaming her way through the end of the evening. Jack rests one arm lightly over her legs like he's been doing it his whole life. He's sleepy too, but alert enough to keep an eye on her, the kind of watchfulness you never asked him for but which he offers anyway.
The TV glows soft across the room, playing something with talking animals and pastel colours, the background music a gentle lull beneath the occasional peals of sleepy toddler laughter. You've half-watched, half-drifted, your body wrapped in the slow, stubborn ache of recovery. Aaron's beside you still, thigh against yours, arm slung comfortably across the back of the couch, fingertips occasionally brushing your shoulder when you shift. He's been quiet, content to sit in the hush and warmth, his presence as steadying as the weight of your cane and as grounding as the beat of your own heart. His warmth is like another blanket, familiar and easy in a way that feels earned rather than assumed. He doesn't fill the silence just to fill it—he lets it stretch and settle, lets it breathe between you.
The silence between you is easy now—something lived-in, something earned through quiet evenings and slow dinners and the patient, careful stitching together of two separate lives. This isn't the start. This is the middle. The part where things hold. Where you begin to move less cautiously, speak more freely. Where you remember what it feels like to rest beside someone and not brace yourself for the moment it falls apart. This is the kind of quiet that feels like it could last. The kind that doesn't need explanation or reassurance. The kind that carries its own weight.
You should probably get up and stretch soon. Let your joints know you haven't turned to stone. Move before the stiffness reclaims too much ground. Your hip has begun to pulse again, just slightly—a low, stubborn throb that reminds you who's really in charge of your pace. You murmur something about needing your water and press your hands to the cushions, rising slowly, your cane already at your side before Aaron can move to help.
He starts to rise with you, a reflex you know well by now, but you wave him off with a small smile. "I've got it."
"You sure?"
You nod. "Just water."
He watches you for a beat longer, then relaxes back into the cushions, eyes tracking you with a quiet protectiveness that never feels smothering, only constant. It's not hovering—it's presence. It's knowing when to step in and when to simply let you be.
You move carefully, each step measured, deliberate. The flat creaks faintly under your feet, familiar and forgiving. Your body protests every step, not loudly, but persistently, the way it always does after a long day—even one filled with softness. And as you pass the hallway, something makes you pause. Not pain this time, not fatigue, but something quieter. Quicker. A thought that blooms behind your ribs and settles there. A flash of instinct, more than intention. You look toward the key hook without really meaning to.
Your eyes catch on it—the one by the door, where your car keys hang, where the back-up cane strap swings slightly in the breeze from the open kitchen window, where Lottie's tiny sunhat with the bent brim waits for a sunny day that hasn't come yet. And there, hanging quietly at the end of the row, is the spare.
The extra key to your flat.
You stand there for a moment, not really thinking, not really planning. Just feeling. The ache in your hip hums in the background, your fingers loose around your cane. You glance back down the hall—Aaron's voice is low, a soft chuckle at something Jack mumbles, a blanket being readjusted. Lottie doesn't stir. It's peaceful, warm, and full of the kind of small sounds that mean you're not alone. That you're safe. That you're home.
You don't overthink it. You reach up and take the spare from the hook.
It's warm in your hand, small and plain. But weighty. Not in metal. In meaning. It fits perfectly against your palm, and suddenly your pulse is loud in your ears. You stand there for a moment longer, just holding it. Letting it settle. Letting yourself feel what it means to choose this. Not out of necessity. Not out of desperation. But trust. Something earned, slow and steady, day by day. Trust that has grown across months, built between early mornings and long nights, in moments like these, where nothing needs to be said for everything to be known.
When you return to the living room, Aaron's rising, probably to check on you despite your earlier protest. You meet him just outside the entryway, hand still curled around the key.
You hold it out to him.
He blinks, then frowns gently, eyes flicking between your face and your hand. "What's this?"
"So next time," you say softly, "you don't have to wait for me."
The moment hangs suspended between you, so still it feels like the air has pressed pause. The room seems to quiet further, the cartoon on the TV now only a vague echo behind you. Aaron doesn't reach for the key right away. He looks at you—really looks—like he's turning the gesture over in his hands before he's even touched it. Then his expression shifts, something soft and reverent rising behind his eyes, like he knows what this is. What it means. What it costs, even if you've never said the words aloud.
He takes the key slowly. Carefully. Like it's breakable. Like it matters. Like it's not just an object—it's a piece of your space, your world, your trust. And he holds it with both hands.
"Thank you for trusting me," he murmurs, voice rough around the edges in the way it sometimes gets when he's holding back something bigger. The words aren't automatic. They're deliberate. Weighted. True.
You nod, swallowing around the lump in your throat. "You've earned it."
He doesn't respond right away, just turns the key over in his hand once before tucking it gently into his pocket like he's been carrying it forever. Like he's already memorised its shape. Like it belongs there.
Lottie stirs then, her tiny voice bubbling up like a sudden splash in still water. "Air'n!"
It's bright, delighted, like she's only just remembered he's here and can't quite believe her luck. She scrambles upright, bunny flung back over her shoulder, eyes wide and full of joy, her whole body lighting up with recognition and love.
Aaron's smile grows as he kneels in front of her. "Hi, sweet girl."
She launches at him, wrapping her arms around his neck in a sleepy tackle that makes Jack laugh behind her. Aaron catches her easily, pulling her close without the slightest hesitation. His eyes flick to you over her shoulder, and there's something quiet and deep in his gaze. Something settled. Something sure.
He doesn't say anything, but he doesn't need to.
You watch him hold your daughter with steady hands and quiet joy. You watch her bury her face against his shoulder and giggle softly, already calming, already comforted. Jack watches too, like he's known this version of Aaron all along. Like he trusts it implicitly. Like he's been waiting for this part.
The key is still in his pocket.
That's it, you think. That's the moment. Not the giving. Not the taking. The holding. The keeping. The way he doesn't make it a performance. Doesn't fuss or falter. Just slips it away like something precious and understood. Like it's always been meant for him.
You feel your breath catch. The decision—the impulse, the key, the trust—it settles into certainty so cleanly you almost don't notice the shift. It's not grand or loud or ceremonial. It just is. Like so many of the best things you've learned to trust again. Like coming home and finding the lights already on.
Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Disabled!Reader
Summary: Three cancelled dates bring Aaron to your door, and once he's there, he isn't leaving.
Tags: disabled!reader, ulcerative colitis, chronic illness, pain flare, hospitalisation, hurt/comfort, soft!aaron hotchner, aaron showing up without being asked, reader minimising their pain, reader doesn't want to be a burden, he sees through every deflection, a&e, corticosteroids and IV fluids, aaron taking notes like the devoted man he is, possible surgery mention, fear and sitting with it together, no use of y/n, slow quiet love, declarations in hospital pyjamas, the most unglamorous i love you, he stays the whole night, uncomfortable chair no complaints, this man is so gone for you, steady hands and steadier love, reader finally letting someone in, you are not a fuss you are not a problem, fluff and hurt/comfort, love that doesn't need the right moment
Word Count: 5k words
The third cancellation comes on a Wednesday.
Aaron reads the message twice, standing in the middle of his kitchen with his phone in his hand and his coffee going cold on the counter behind him. Sorry, not feeling great tonight. Rain check? And then a small emoji—a deflecting little thing, the kind you put at the end of a sentence when you want it to seem lighter than it is, when you want it to feel like punctuation rather than a door closing.
He types back of course, rest up, because he's not going to push over text. But he sets his phone down slowly, and he stands there a moment longer than he needs to, and something quiet and certain settles in the space behind his sternum—the part of him that spent years reading people for a living, the part that never fully clocks off even when he wants it to.
Something's wrong.
He doesn't act on it that night. He eats alone, clears the table, goes through the motions of an evening that was supposed to have you in it. He'd had a reservation. He'd thought about what you'd order. He'd been looking forward to it in the quiet, private way he allows himself to look forward to things now—carefully, without broadcasting it, the way a person cups a small flame against the wind. He puts the reservation out of his head and notices the shape of the cancellations instead, because he can't help it. The way the first one had been apologetic and detailed—so sorry, work's been a nightmare, can we do Sunday? The second, a little vaguer. This one stripped down to almost nothing, a message constructed to communicate as little as possible while still technically communicating. He knows that particular economy of language. He uses it himself when he doesn't want anyone to ask too many questions.
He gives it until the next evening.
You don't answer your phone. It rings out to voicemail, and he listens to your recorded voice tell him to leave a message, and the familiarity of it—the warmth in it, the slight lilt you have at the end of your name—does something uncomfortable to his chest. He doesn't leave one. He picks up his keys instead.
The drive to your flat isn't long—fifteen minutes, maybe twenty with evening traffic—and he makes it on autopilot, the city sliding past the windows in amber and grey. He's not sure what he expects to find. Something manageable, probably. You on the sofa with a hot water bottle and a film on, tired and pale but fundamentally okay, mildly irritated that he's shown up without warning. He rehearses a version of himself that says I just wanted to check on you without it sounding like an accusation. He rehearses keeping his face neutral when you open the door. He's good at neutral.
He knocks twice. Then again, a little harder.
The pause before you open the door is too long.
And then there you are, and everything he'd rehearsed becomes immediately irrelevant.
You're in your pyjamas, and your face has the particular greyish-white cast of someone who's been fighting their own body for days—not the soft pink of ordinary tiredness, but the drained, wrung-out pallor of real illness, the kind that comes from inside and works its way out. There's a faint sheen of sweat at your hairline, a brightness in your eyes that isn't health. You're holding the door frame in a way that might pass for casual if he didn't know better, if he hadn't spent years learning the difference between leaning on something and bracing against it.
"Aaron." Your voice is careful. "You didn't have to—"
"I know." He steps inside, not asking. "When did it start?"
You blink at him, a flicker of something—surprise, relief, the particular expression of someone who's been white-knuckling it alone and has suddenly had someone else show up. You step back to let him in, and he notices the way you move: slowly, precisely, conserving energy the way people do when they've learned that every unnecessary movement is a tax they can't afford right now.
He turns to look at you properly once the door is closed, and cataloguing is not something he decides to do—it's something he simply does, automatic and thorough, the same instinct that's kept him alive and kept other people alive for twenty years now. And what he sees makes his jaw tighten, fractionally.
"It's just a flare," you say. The word just doing a lot of heavy lifting.
"Okay." He keeps his voice even. "When did it start?"
"I was going to call my GI on Monday if it wasn't better."
"It's Thursday."
"I know what day it is, Aaron."
"So tell me when it started."
A pause. The small, tired defeat of it.
"Saturday mornging, if I'm being honest."
He doesn't say anything to that. He doesn't trust himself to, quite yet—not because he's angry at you, but because the anger is looking for somewhere to land and he doesn't want it to land anywhere near you. He looks around the flat instead. The abandoned mug on the coffee table, cold, forgotten. The blanket in a heap on the sofa like it had been thrown off in a hurry. The kitchen dark and untouched, no evidence of cooking, no evidence of eating. The particular stillness of a space that hasn't been properly inhabited in days—just endured. Just survived.
"Come and sit down," he says.
"I'm fine standing—"
You shift your weight to demonstrate, and your face does something—a flicker, a tightening around the eyes and the corners of your mouth, there and gone in less than a second—but he catches it the way he catches everything, and he's already moving. One hand finds the small of your back before the moment has fully registered, warm and firm and careful.
"Sit down," he says again, softer this time. Not a suggestion.
You sit.
He crouches in front of you, elbows on his knees, and looks at you—really looks at you, the way he doesn't always let himself, the way he allows himself now, because he's long past pretending he isn't in love with you. He thinks about the word flare and what he knows about your condition, which is not nothing. He'd read about ulcerative colitis in the same quiet, methodical way he approaches anything he cares about understanding: the inflammation, the ulcers forming in the lining of the colon, the way a flare can escalate from uncomfortable to dangerous with very little warning. He'd read about the blood. He'd read about the cramping and the urgency and the exhaustion that accumulates like interest, compounding daily.
"How bad's the pain?" he asks.
"Manageable."
"That's not a number."
You look at him for a moment, and he watches something in you waver—the particular exhaustion of having maintained a performance for too long, of having kept the mask on for days and days in an empty flat with no one to perform for except yourself.
"Six," you say. "Sometimes seven. It spikes."
"And the blood?"
Your eyes drop to your hands.
That's answer enough.
He stands up, and there's a decision settling in him, solid and without question, the way decisions do when they're already made and the deliberation is just the mind catching up with the body. "I'm taking you to hospital."
"Aaron—"
"You've been bleeding for five days."
"It's—"
"Manageable. Yeah." His voice doesn't rise, but it doesn't need to. It gets very, very quiet instead. "You're grey. You're bracing against the door frame in your own flat. You haven't been eating—" he glances toward the dark kitchen, the empty hob, the absence of anything that suggests a meal has happened here recently "—and you've been doing this alone for nearly a week waiting to see if it got better on its own." He pauses. "How's that plan working out?"
You look up at him. And then your face does something that breaks something in him—it crumbles, just slightly, just at the edges, the careful composure coming undone like a seam that's been held together by hand. You look exhausted in a way that goes deeper than tired. You look relieved—quietly, almost guiltily relieved—that someone else is here. You look like you've been holding this alone for days because you couldn't bear the thought of being a problem to anyone.
"I didn't want to make a fuss," you say, very quietly.
He exhales. Something in him goes unbearably tender.
"I know," he says. He reaches out and tucks a piece of hair back from your face, his fingers brushing your temple, the shell of your ear. "I know you didn't. But you're not making a fuss. You're sick, and I want to take care of you." He holds your gaze for a moment. "Let me."
Something shifts in your expression. The last of the resistance.
"I just need to get my bag," you say.
"Tell me where it is."
He gets it for you.
The drive to A&E is quiet, and Aaron keeps one hand on the wheel and one eye on you—a split attention he's comfortable with, practised at, though the context has never sat this close to his chest before. You're in the passenger seat with your head tipped back against the headrest and your eyes half-closed, and you're bracing without seeming to realise you're doing it: one hand pressed low against your abdomen, the other gripping the door handle in the loose, involuntary way of someone who's learned to disperse pain by pushing it outward into whatever surface is nearby. Your breathing is careful. Measured. The breathing of someone managing something.
He reaches across and rests his hand on your knee. Just that—warm, steady, there.
You put your hand over his without opening your eyes.
"You really didn't have to come," you say about halfway there, your voice thin and strained, still doing the work of minimising. "I would've been okay."
"I know you would've," he says, because he does—you're one of the most capable people he knows, and that's precisely the problem. "I'm not doing this because I think you can't manage. I'm doing this because I didn't want you to have to."
You don't say anything after that. But your hand tightens slightly over his, and he takes it for what it is.
The A&E is neither quiet nor quick, but Aaron is patient in the particular way of someone who's learned that patience is not the absence of urgency but the ability to hold it without letting it make you less useful. He speaks to the triage nurse with the quiet, even authority of someone who doesn't need to perform a crisis to convey that one exists. He gives your history accurately and concisely—the flare, the duration, the bleeding, the pain level, the fact that you've barely been eating, the low fever he clocked when he touched the back of his hand to your forehead in the car—and he watches the nurse's face as she takes it in. He doesn't sit down until he's certain you're being prioritised.
When you finally get a bay—curtain on three sides, a window showing a square of dark evening sky, the antiseptic hum of the ward going on around you—Aaron pulls his chair close and doesn't move it.
The doctor who comes is thorough. She explains what she's seeing: severe inflammation in your colon, the lining of it angry and compromised, bleeding that hasn't slowed because the disease isn't giving it the chance to. Significant dehydration—you've been losing fluid and electrolytes and not replacing them, too nauseous to eat, too exhausted to care. A low-grade fever, which means your body is in active battle. She says IV fluids and corticosteroids and we want to monitor your response over the next forty-eight hours, and Aaron listens with the same concentrated stillness he brings to briefings—absorbing, cataloguing, looking for the gaps between what's being said and what's being implied.
He watches your face while she speaks. You're listening, but there's a quality to it that he recognises: the glazed, effortful attention of someone who's too exhausted and overwhelmed to fully metabolise what they're hearing. You're getting the shape of it without the substance. He's seen that look before, on witnesses, on families, on people who are in the middle of something too large for their brain to fully land on.
You need someone to hold this information for you.
So he does.
"What does a strong early response to the steroids typically look like?" he asks, when the doctor pauses. "And what would concern you over the next twenty-four hours?"
The doctor looks at him—an assessing look, not unfriendly—and then answers him directly, which he appreciates. He takes out his phone and types notes, quiet and unobtrusive. He asks about the medication dosage, about what the inflammation markers look like, about what diet is appropriate once you can manage food again. The doctor is patient with him. Some people bristle at this kind of engagement, read it as a challenge; this one seems to understand that he's not questioning her expertise, he's building a map.
When she goes, you look at him.
"You wrote notes," you say.
"I did."
"On your phone."
"Yes."
A faint, tired smile crosses your face—the first one he's seen all evening, small and crooked and it does something to his ribs. "You're ridiculous," you say, fondly.
"You can tell me that later," he says, "when you feel better."
The nurse comes to place the IV, and Aaron watches your face go tight when she feels for the vein, tapping at the inside of your arm—you're dehydrated enough that it takes her two tries, and he sees your jaw clench, sees you press your lips together and stare very fixedly at the ceiling. Without thinking, he reaches across and takes your free hand, his fingers wrapping around yours, his thumb settling into the slow back-and-forth motion it always finds when he's holding your hand. Back and forth. Steady. Back and forth.
You exhale.
"Okay," the nurse says, and the worst of it is past, and Aaron watches the tension drain fractionally from your shoulders.
"Good," he says, quietly, just for you. "That's it."
And then, after a moment, softly:
"I'm sorry."
He looks at you. "For what?"
"For being—" you glance down at the IV line, at the hospital bracelet on your wrist, at all of it "—a burden. Dragging you here on a Thursday night."
The anger arrives so quickly he almost doesn't catch it. Not at you—never at you—but a deep, burning anger directed somewhere formless: at the disease, at the days you'd spent alone and hurting before he'd shown up, at whatever in you learned to apologise for needing things. It moves through him like a wave against a seawall and he breathes it out through his nose and lets it recede, because right now you need steadiness, not his fury on your behalf.
"You're not a burden," he says. His voice is very quiet and very even, the way it gets when he means something completely. "Don't say that to me."
"Aaron—"
"You're not." He leans forward, his elbows on his knees, his face level with yours. "You've been ill for almost a week. You've been managing it alone, in pain, not eating, because you didn't want to inconvenience anyone." He holds your gaze. "That's not being a burden. That's you doing what you always do—taking care of everyone except yourself." A pause. "I'm asking you not to do that with me. I need you not to do that with me."
You're quiet for a long moment. The IV drips. The ward makes its soft, constant noise beyond the curtain.
"It's hard," you say, finally. "Not feeling like this is too much."
"I know it is." He turns your hand over in his, pressing his lips briefly to your knuckles—a quiet thing, unhurried, a small declaration. "But it isn't. You could never be too much." He meets your eyes again. "Not for me."
Something in your expression does what it does—that slow, private softening that he's learned to look for, the one that tells him he's got through. You look at him for a long moment.
"Okay," you say, finally.
"Okay," he echoes. His thumb doesn't stop moving.
The first night is difficult. Aaron stays in the chair and doesn't consider leaving. The corticosteroids and fluids go in steadily, and he watches the monitors and learns the rhythms of the ward—the handover at ten, the obs checks every two hours, the particular cadence of footsteps that means a nurse is doing a round versus responding to something. He learns them the way he learns everything: without trying, through accumulated attention.
When the pain spikes—and it does, sharply, around one in the morning—you make a sound that is small and involuntary and controlled, the sound of someone trying very hard not to show how bad it is, and Aaron is already leaning forward before it's finished. His free hand comes up to bracket yours between both of his. He dips his head close to yours, close enough that you don't have to go far to hear him.
"Hey." His voice is low. "I've got you. Breathe."
"It's—" Your grip tightens on his hand, knuckles going white. "It's cramping, it's—"
"I know. Breathe through it. I'm right here."
He stays close, his thumb moving in slow circles now on the back of your hand, and he talks you through it in a low, steady voice—breathe in, breathe out, I've got you, I'm right here, you're all right—and it's not enough, it can't be enough, but it's everything he has and he gives it without reservation. After a while—a long while—the worst of it passes, and you go loose against the pillow, exhausted.
"Tell me something," you say, when you can speak again. Your voice is rough. "Anything. I don't care."
So he talks. About Jack, about a story from years ago on a case that ended with Reid somehow locked in a supply closet and Rossi having to explain himself to local law enforcement, and he watches you try to laugh and mostly succeed. He talks about the restaurant he'd been planning to take you to—a small Italian place, a friend recommended it, apparently the pasta is obscene. He talks about a book he's been meaning to start. He talks about nothing in particular, and his voice fills the space around you like something warm, and he watches you drift toward sleep one degree at a time, your grip on his hand going slowly, gradually loose, until he's certain you're under.
He sits in the quiet that follows and looks at you, and the tenderness of it is almost unbearable.
The next morning brings a different doctor for rounds, and Aaron is ready for him—his notes out, his questions organised, the specifics of your medication and response already committed to memory. The doctor—a gastroenterologist, thank God, someone who knows what they're doing—asks Aaron when he was last home, and Aaron says it doesn't matter, and the doctor has the grace to let it go.
You wake up a little more coherent, which is both encouraging and, he realises, a mixed blessing—because now you're awake enough to be embarrassed.
"You look terrible," you tell him, studying his face.
"Good morning to you too."
"Have you slept at all?"
"Some." A lie, mostly. "How's the pain?"
"Better than last night. Still—" you make a face "—there. But better." You look at him again, at the shadows under his eyes, at the fact that he's still in yesterday's clothes. "Aaron. You should go home."
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine, you've been in that chair all night—"
"Which is exactly where I intend to stay." He stands up, stretching his back with a quiet wince he can't entirely suppress. "Do you want tea? I saw a machine down the corridor. I can't promise it's good."
You stare at him.
"Tea," he says again, patiently.
"...Yes," you say, after a moment, and something in your face does the soft thing again. "Please."
He comes back with two cups of something that is approximately tea—hot, at least, and pale brown in a way that suggests there's been some involvement of teabag—and he sits back down in his chair and pushes one cup toward you, and you both drink it in the comfortable quiet of two people who don't need to fill silence to feel good in it.
"How are you doing?" you ask, after a while. "Really."
"I'm fine," he says, and then, because it's you: "Worried. But fine."
"You don't need to worry."
"I know I don't need to." He looks at you over the rim of his cup. "Doesn't stop me."
You look at him for a long moment. "When did you—" you stop. Restart. "How long have you been this—"
"Ridiculous?" he offers.
"I was going to say attentive."
"About as long as I've been this in love with you," he says simply, like it's the most obvious thing in the world, like it's a fact he's past being careful about. "Which is a while."
You go quiet. The word hangs in the air between you—warm, settled, not dramatic. Not the declaration of someone who needed the right moment. Just the truth, offered plainly, the way he offers most things.
"I didn't know you were going to say that," you say.
"You should've," he says. "It's not a secret."
You look down at your tea. The smile that crosses your face is private and a little undone. "I love you too," you say, to the cup.
"I know," he says. And he does. He's known for a while. But he likes hearing it, here, in this terrible hospital bay with your IV line and your paper bracelet and yesterday's pyjamas, your hair unbrushed, your face still pale—he likes it more than he would like it anywhere else, because it's unguarded. It's just true.
It's on the second day that the doctors raise the possibility of surgery.
The gastroenterologist is careful about it—measured, clinical in the best way, presenting it as a contingency rather than a verdict. But the word colectomy enters the room and the air pressure changes, the way certain words do; words that arrive not loudly but with a specific weight that rearranges everything they land near. He explains that if your inflammation doesn't respond meaningfully to the corticosteroids within another twenty-four to forty-eight hours, there may be a conversation to have about surgical options. That in severe, refractory cases, removing the colon can be the difference between continued deterioration and a real return to quality of life. That it wouldn't necessarily mean—
Aaron asks two questions, precisely, while the doctor is still talking: what does 'meaningful response' look like on the markers, and what's the timeline before that decision point? The doctor answers them. Aaron types the answers into his notes.
And then the doctor leaves, and it's just the two of you.
You stare at the ceiling.
He doesn't say anything. He doesn't offer perspective or silver linings or the kind of brisk reassurance that would make him feel useful at the cost of being honest. He just stays—his chair pulled close to the bed, your hand loosely in his, the ward going on softly around them. He lets the silence be what it is. He's sat with people in difficult silences for his entire career, and he knows the difference between a silence that needs filling and a silence that needs witnessing.
This one needs witnessing.
After a long while, you turn your head on the pillow and look at him.
He looks back.
"I'm scared," you say.
"I know," he says. "That makes complete sense."
"I don't want surgery." A pause. "I don't want to deal with the recovery, and the complications, and—" Your voice catches, slightly. "I just want my body to work properly. I just want it to do what it's supposed to do."
Something in him aches enormously. He reaches out and brushes your hair back from your forehead, slow and deliberate, his hand staying there—palm curved against the side of your head, warm.
"I know," he says. "I know you do."
"What if it doesn't get better?"
"Then we deal with whatever comes next." His thumb moves gently along your hairline. "We. Not you. We."
"Aaron—"
"I'm not going anywhere." He says it simply, with no particular weight, the way you state a fact that doesn't require emphasis to be true. "Whatever the next forty-eight hours look like, whatever the week after looks like. I'm not going anywhere." He holds your gaze. "I need you to know that."
You look at him for a long moment, your eyes bright in a way that is not entirely about the fever. Then you reach up and cover his hand with yours, pressing it more firmly against the side of your face, and you close your eyes.
"Okay," you say.
"Okay," he echoes.
He stays like that until you drift off. Then he pulls his chair a little closer, takes your hand again, and settles in for the night.
It's not a comfortable chair. His back begins to protest around midnight, the familiar ache of accumulated years and too many crime scenes making itself known with a thoroughness that suggests it intends to be ignored at significant cost. He shifts, adjusts, finds a position that is only somewhat worse than the previous one, and ignores it with the ease of long practice.
He's not going anywhere.
The ward dims and quiets around you. Outside the window, the city holds its deep blue vigil, amber lights pressing against the dark, indifferent to this particular room, this particular chair. Aaron watches your chest rise and fall. He thinks about the word manageable, how you'd said it like a shield over and over, how thin it had been by the time he'd gotten to you. He thinks about the empty kitchen and the cold mug and the days you'd spent moving carefully through your own flat, managing the pain and the urgency and the exhaustion alone, not because you had to, but because you'd decided not to bother anyone. Not to be a fuss. Not to be a problem.
He'd built careful walls after Haley—not out of cruelty but out of necessity, the way you board up a window after the glass breaks. He'd become someone who calibrated his proximity to people with great deliberateness. Who cared in measured doses and kept his expectations reasonable and told himself that was wisdom rather than fear. And then you'd happened—gradually, then completely, the way things do when you're not watching closely enough—and the walls had come down not with drama but with the slow, inevitable patience of weather, and now he's sitting in an uncomfortable chair in a hospital bay at half past one in the morning, and he is not calibrated at all. He is entirely open. He is in love with you in the particular, ungovernable way that makes him feel at once incredibly exposed and perfectly, absolutely certain.
You stir—not fully waking, a small, unconscious sound of discomfort—and his hand tightens on yours in the same instant, automatic, a reflex as natural as breathing. Your grip tightens in your sleep, just slightly, just enough, and then you settle again, your breathing deepening, your face going soft.
He watches you.
He thinks about the fact that you'd said I love you too to your terrible cup of tea in your hospital pyjamas, as if it were nothing, as if it were just a fact that had been lying around waiting to be said. He thinks about the fact that this—all of this, the chair and the ache in his back and the ward's fluorescent hum and the fear that lives just behind his sternum—is exactly where he wants to be. Not in spite of the difficulty of it. Because of it. Because you're here and you need him and being needed by you feels like the most important thing he's done with himself in a long time.
The dark outside the window begins, almost imperceptibly, to thin—the deep blue lightening at its edges, the particular dark that precedes morning, which is a different quality entirely from the dark that precedes midnight. A dark that knows it's temporary. Aaron watches it without watching it, his attention elsewhere, on the slow rhythm of your breathing and the weight of your hand in his and the steadiness he can feel building somewhere low in his chest, spreading outward like warmth.
The steroids will work or they won't. The next set of labs will show what they show. There are things outside his control here, which is not a comfortable thing for him to sit with, but he's sitting with it, because you're worth sitting with uncomfortable things for. You've been worth it from the beginning.
He stays as the city outside begins its slow morning recalibration—the distant sound of a lorry, the first grey seeping into the sky, the ward beginning to stir at its edges. He stays as the night shift does its final rounds and the early morning quiet holds like something held in cupped hands, fragile and complete.
He stays because you're here.
He stays because you said I love you like it was the simplest, most obvious thing in the world and it undid something in him that he's not interested in putting back together.
He stays because that's what this is—not a decision he makes each moment, but a fact he's already settled. Somewhere along the way, without announcing itself, staying became the only thing that made sense.
And Aaron Hotchner does not leave things that make sense.
Basically, I think Nesta loves Feyre and Elain because they're sisters, but Emerie and Gwyn are Nesta's sisters because she loves them.
And I do think that if it came down to choosing who to save over the other, then Nesta would feel obliged/compelled to save her blood sisters, but that would be a sacrifice on her part to lose Gwyn and Emerie to save Feyre and Elain, whereas choosing to save Gwyn and Emerie would be an indulgence.
If the choice was who'd Nesta want to be locked in a house with, or go on an adventure with, or be exiled from the land with, just basically who she wants by her side and in her life, it would be Gwyn and Emerie.
They're the only two people who ever just loved her because she's Nesta and they love Nesta. Not because of a mating bond or blood ties or because she's connected to someone they love and therefore have to put up with her, they just love Nesta.
this team is a fucking joke because what do you mean Lando has to take a 10 place drop because Lando's car can't stay in one piece all first half of the season
and then he puts on a mega stint to still be running in the top 5 with no pit stop just sick pace and tyre management
and then his teammate won't fucking move despite it being the best TEAM option
and then Lando gets told "no yo-yo racing" aka your teammate can but not you never you
and then the shittiest stop we've seen in a while that costs him MULTIPLE places
and now he's got 12 laps to carve back through the field to once again salvage this
I hate this team bar Lando they make his life so difficult sometimes
(obviously this is just a vent post I have full faith in Lando to grab back as much as he can it's just so frustrating)
It's so weird to me that blocking has turned into such a serious thing only reserved for if someone did something wrong. I witnessed some discourse a few months ago around some content creator blocking someone and it blew up. They were harassed for "blocking someone for no reason". And I was like ??? cause there was a reason. They simply didn't want to see the blocked person's posts.
Blocking does not have to be some big gesture. I block people for being assholes but I'm also willing to block someone for giving a dumb take about my fav character. I've blocked people because I was tired of seeing their posts in a tag I'm browsing. I've blocked people who had opinions I agreed with but they were an ass about it. I've blocked people simply because I didn't like their personality or the vibe they gave off.
It's not that deep. You don't have to save blocking for "bad" people. If it brings you peace then do it. I promise you that you'll enjoy your internet experience much more if you block instead of engaging with the thing that's upsetting you.
Jude Bellingham being jealous is almost impossible to catch in the moment, it hides behind slow kisses, careful hands and a smile that never quite disappears. You don't realize something's changed until he's already decided to carry you home with him.
WARNINGS ◦ club scene ◦ alcohol use ◦ protective!jude (let him live) ◦ jealousy themes ◦ drunk!reader ◦ reader cannot hold her liquor to save her life ◦ making out ◦ slight suggestive content ◦ i'm convinced jude deserves financial compensation for this evening
5,473 ━━━━━ oneshot jude bellingham x reader
۶ৎ 𝓩 , this started because someone asked for jealous jude and somehow i managed to make a 5k words fic. to the lovely anon who requested this: i hope you don't mind that i took a few creative liberties. 😭 i just couldn't picture jude as the loud, territorial type, so i tried writing the kind of jealousy i personally think suits him better. thank you for inspiring this one bae xo <3
━━━━━ read on ao3
The private booth in the upscale Madrid club felt like an extension of the celebration itself—velvet seating curved around a low table already scattered with chilled bottles, delicate glasses catching the warm light from overhead fixtures, and a small reserved card that had your name on it.
The first hour unfolded slowly, unhurried. Congratulations blended into easy conversation as fresh drinks replaced empty glasses almost without anyone noticing. Stories from work drifted into football, football into travel plans, someone ordering another round before the waiter had even collected the previous one. Every so often another toast interrupted the conversation, glasses clinking across the table while your friends insisted on celebrating "one more thing."
It wasn't until your glass had been topped up for what must've been the third time that you realised you'd hardly moved from the spot you'd claimed beside Jude all evening.
You sat nestled against your boyfriend's side, his arm draped casually along the back of the booth behind your shoulders. The fabric of his black shirt was smooth under your fingers whenever you reached for your drink, and the subtle scent of his cologne mixed with the faint citrus from the cocktails.
Your girlfriends arrived in waves of laughter and hugs, their partners trailing with easy handshakes for Jude. Congratulations came in steady, warm increments, each time someone raised a glass or leaned across the table to toast your new contract, Jude’s hand would find your knee or lower back, giving a gentle squeeze. “Told you she’s brilliant,” he’d say, voice carrying that expressive pride without ever sounding performative.
His eyes would find yours across the small space, holding for a beat longer than necessary, the corner of his mouth lifting into a genuine smile. You felt yourself glowing under the attention, the champagne and cocktails sliding down easily, warming your chest and loosening the long day’s work tension from your shoulders.
Time stretched comfortably, conversations wandered: one of your friends recounting a disastrous event from last month, Jude chiming in with a dry comment about how football dressing rooms had nothing on event logistics chaos.
You laughed, the sound brighter than usual, and reached for another sip. The alcohol settled in gradually, first a pleasant buzz in your limbs, then a softer haze that made the lights seem a touch warmer and the music more inviting. Jude noticed, of course.
His thumb traced slow patterns on your shoulder, and when your laugh turned a little too loose he leaned in, lips brushing your ear. “Pace yourself, darling. You want to enjoy yourself until later, right?”
The words were affectionate, not scolding, carrying the same quiet reminder he'd given you more than once before.
You smiled into your glass almost immediately.
He wasn't trying to stop you from drinking. If anything, Jude loved seeing you like this—lighter, louder, laughing at things that probably weren't as funny as they seemed after two cocktails. But the two of you knew exactly where your limit lived, mostly because you'd crossed it enough times to recognize the warning signs. You were a spectacular lightweight, and every celebration seemed to end the same way: waking up the next morning trying to piece together the last hour of the evening while Jude filled in the blanks over breakfast.
Somewhere along the line, you'd been the one to ask him to step in before that happened. Not to stop you, just to slow you down enough that you'd still remember the night you'd spent weeks looking forward to.
The club filled slowly around your booth. What started as a refined, spacious atmosphere grew denser with bodies and voices. Jude’s posture shifted almost imperceptibly at first, his arm stayed around you, but his gaze began flicking toward the growing crowd more often, tracking the flow of people near your table.
When someone bumped the edge of the booth reaching for a passing waiter, Jude’s body angled slightly, creating a subtle barrier between you and the movement. He didn’t say anything about it, just continued listening to the conversation, nodding along, fingers still playing idly with the strap of your dress on your shoulder.
You were too pleasantly tipsy to register the full shift, the way his easy usual energy had quietly layered into something more protective.
Eventually the music began to drown out the conversations around the table. One of your friends disappeared toward the dance floor first, dragging her boyfriend after her with surprisingly little resistance, while the second couple followed not long after, laughing as another round of drinks arrived just as everyone seemed to be abandoning the booth.
Jude stayed where he was for another minute, one arm still resting lazily along the back of the seat behind you as he watched the small exodus with quiet amusement. His fingers rolled the condensation around his glass while the conversation naturally dissolved into smaller pockets, people getting to their feet one by one without much urgency.
Clubs like this had their own rhythm. There were no phones held discreetly under tables, no whispered excitement when someone recognisable walked past. Famous footballers, actors, musicians, old-money families and business owners drifted through the room with the same quiet anonymity, everyone seemingly understanding that the point of the place was to leave one another alone. Privacy wasn't advertised; it was simply expected.
It was one of the few places where Jude could disappear into the crowd despite standing well over six feet tall.
He finished the last sip from his glass before setting it down with a soft clink, turning towards you with the smallest smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"Come on."
His hand found yours before you even had the chance to answer, giving it a gentle squeeze as he stood. You followed with a quiet laugh, letting him pull you effortlessly to your feet, the room tipping ever so slightly from the champagne before his free hand settled instinctively at your waist to steady you.
"Easy," he murmured, smiling to himself.
Together, you slipped away from the booth and into the growing crowd.
His hand remained wrapped around yours as you left the booth, weaving between clusters of people without ever really having to think about it. Every now and then someone stepped into your path—a waiter balancing a tray of drinks, another couple laughing too hard to notice where they were going—and each time Jude adjusted instinctively, his hand slipping from yours to the small of your back for a second before finding it again once there was space.
The dance floor was fuller than it had been earlier, though it still carried the same restrained elegance as the rest of the club. Nobody was trying to outshine anyone else. Groups drifted together and apart beneath the warm lights, expensive dresses catching the glow as conversations dissolved into music.
One of your girlfriends spotted the two of you from somewhere near the middle and lifted her glass in the air with an exaggerated cheer before disappearing back into her own little world.
Jude laughed under his breath. He stopped just before the crowd thickened, turning to face you properly for the first time since leaving the booth. His hands settled naturally on your hips, thumbs resting lightly against the fabric of your dress as though they'd found their usual place without either of you thinking about it.
"There she is," he murmured, the grin on his face widening as you immediately caught the rhythm. "Closing deals by day..." You laughed before he could even finish. "...Owning the floor by night."
"Oh, shut up."
"I'm serious." His answer disappeared into a quiet laugh as you gave your hips an exaggerated sway just to prove a point, he watched you for half a second before shaking his head. "I'm really proud of you, you know that?"
You felt your own smile falter into something smaller, warmer.
"You worked your arse off for this." He gave you the gentlest squeeze before pulling you a fraction closer again, as though the words themselves weren't enough. "You deserve tonight."
Without thinking, your arms slipped up around his neck, fingers lacing loosely together as they rested there. The music carried on around you, people moving past in blurred flashes of light, but for a moment it felt as though the two of you had quietly drifted into your own little pocket of the room.
"Thank you," you said, the words coming quieter this time.
Jude frowned ever so slightly.
"For what?" His smile showed that he had no clue what you were referring to.
"For being here." You leaned in just enough to steal a slow kiss, unhurried and familiar, lingering for a heartbeat before your forehead brushed lightly against his. "I know you've been exhausted."
His expression barely changed, but you saw the flicker of recognition in his eyes. Pre-season always asked a little more of him than people realised. New tactical sessions, double training days, fitness testing, constant travelling, the expectation of arriving sharper than he'd left. It wasn't unusual for the two of you to spend most of a week working around one another's schedules rather than with them, stealing dinners together at ten o'clock or settling for a FaceTime call when one of you was still in the office and the other had an early recovery session the next morning.
"You've had a rough couple of weeks," you continued gently. "You could've gone home after training and slept for twelve hours."
A quiet smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Could have."
"Instead you're here."
His hands settled a little more securely at your waist.
"Where else was I going to be?" The answer was so matter-of-fact that it made you smile. He shrugged one shoulder, almost as if the decision had never really existed in the first place. "My girl just signed the biggest contract of her career, I'm not missing that for shit."
You smiled and kissed him again, the corners of your mouth lingering there even after you'd pulled apart. Neither of you hurried to say anything else, there wasn't much left to add.
The music carried you forward instead.
Another song bled seamlessly into the next, and the two of you simply kept moving. Sometimes it was little more than an easy sway, your forehead brushing his chin as he absentmindedly traced the curve of your waist beneath his palm. Other times one of your girlfriends would pull you into a small circle, laughing as the group attempted increasingly questionable dance moves after another round of cocktails, each fresh drink arriving before the previous one had quite disappeared.
Somewhere along the way you'd stopped counting.
Jude never protested when you wandered off for a minute or two, he'd simply watch with that small, amused smile of his, occasionally catching the eye of one of the other boyfriends as they exchanged the kind of look only people accompanying very happy women seemed to understand. Every now and then one of them would drift over, the conversation between the four men coming and going naturally while they watched the celebration unfold in front of them.
They laughed amongst themselves, nursed the same drinks for far longer than any of you did, and every so often one of them would peel away when his girlfriend came looking for another dance.
He kept that balance for a long while: hyping you with grins and quiet praise, then instinctively shifting whenever the dance floor grew tighter around you. His body would angle just enough to absorb the occasional bump from passing strangers, one arm finding its way more securely around your waist while the other remained loosely tangled with yours whenever the music slowed again.
None of it felt deliberate, it was simply how Jude moved through crowded spaces.
Your group drifted together, then apart again, your girlfriends pulling you into little circles before someone inevitably reached for another round of drinks. You laughed more easily with each passing daiquiri, the pleasant warmth in your chest settling into your limbs until everything—the music, the lights, the conversations around you—felt softened around the edges.
More than once you caught Jude watching you instead of the room. Every time your eyes met, he'd smile without thinking, as if he still couldn't quite believe the night was real.
At one point he reached for you again, drawing you back against him with an easy familiarity before pressing a lingering kiss to your temple. When he pulled back, his eyes lingered on your face for a second longer than necessary, taking you in beneath the shifting lights before the corner of his mouth lifted.
"I'm gonna grab another round and use the bathroom," he said eventually, leaning close enough that only you could hear him. His hand gave your waist one last reassuring squeeze. "Don't wander off. I'll be quick."
You nodded, smiling up at him before letting yourself be swept back towards your friends as one of them waved you further into the crowd.
The minutes after Jude disappeared into the crowd stretched a little longer than you'd expected. Around you, the dance floor had reached its evening peak, conversations overlapping with the music as people drifted in loose circles beneath the warm lights.
One of your girlfriends was halfway through dramatically reenacting a disaster from a gala the month before when a man in a tailored navy suit wandered over, lifting his glass in greeting.
“Quite the celebration over here,” he said, raising his own glass in a small toast. “Saw the bottle service. Special occasion?”
Your little circle laughed almost in unison.
"She does," one of your friends answered before you had the chance, pointing enthusiastically in your direction. "Biggest contract of her career."
You groaned, already laughing. "Don't make it sound so dramatic."
"It is dramatic," another one insisted, throwing an arm around your shoulders with considerably less balance than she'd intended. "We're celebrating."
"Fair enough," the man smiled, his attention drifting back to you. "Congratulations."
"Thank you." You smiled politely. "It was a good day."
"What do you do?"
You told him the name of your company, explaining in a sentence or two that you worked in event promotion. Recognition flickered across his face almost immediately.
"Right... I know the name."
The conversation wandered naturally from there. He mentioned attending one of your company's events a couple of years earlier, one of your girlfriends interrupted to argue that yours had been better, somebody else burst out laughing because they'd completely forgotten what they were talking about in the first place, and before long all four of you were speaking over one another in the wonderfully chaotic way slightly drunk friends always seemed to.
The man stayed beside the group, chiming in every now and then with a comment or a question that you answered without much thought whenever there was a gap in the conversation.
Most of your attention, though, belonged elsewhere.
Your stomach already hurt from laughing.
At one point another boyfriend appeared beside your friend with the long-suffering expression of someone who'd clearly been sent to collect her before she embarrassed herself any further. She protested dramatically, insisting she was perfectly capable of standing on her own before immediately wobbling into him anyway, sending the rest of you into another fit of laughter.
You doubled over, clutching your friend's arm as tears threatened to gather in the corners of your eyes. "Oh my God..."
"I told you!" your friend managed between laughs.
"I can't breathe."
Somewhere beside you, the conversation with the man continued.
You answered something, you weren't entirely sure what. Whatever it was seemed polite enough.
Across the room, Jude emerged from the bar with two fresh drinks balanced easily in one hand (water for you). His eyes found you almost immediately, more out of habit than anything else. For a second, everything looked exactly as he'd left it, your friends laughing amongst themselves, music carrying through the room, you smiling so hard your shoulders were shaking.
Then he noticed the man.
It wasn't anything obvious. No wandering hands or exaggerated flirting. Just the way he kept subtly angling himself towards you every time the conversation shifted, waiting for your attention to drift back to him. You, meanwhile, seemed entirely oblivious, answering whatever he asked before dissolving back into laughter with your friends a second later.
Jude stood where he was for another beat, watching the interaction settle into place. His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly before he started across the dance floor, weaving through the crowd with the same measured pace he'd had all evening.
By the time he reached the group, the conversation hadn't changed all that much. You were still laughing, one hand resting on your friend's arm while you tried, and failed, to explain whatever story had just sent the three of you into another fit of giggles.
Jude stepped in beside you as though he'd never left. His free hand settled naturally at your waist, fingers spreading lightly against the fabric of your dress as he leaned in just enough to place the fresh glass into your hand.
"There you go, darling." You looked up immediately, your whole face brightening.
"There you are!" The smile that broke across your face was so immediate, so instinctive, that Jude felt something inside him quietly settle.
"Miss me already?" he asked, the corner of his mouth lifting.
"Mm..." you hummed dramatically, already leaning into his side. "You took ages."
"Seven minutes."
"Exactly."
A quiet laugh escaped him. He bent to press an unhurried kiss against your temple, lingering there for a second before straightening again.
Only then did he acknowledge the man standing opposite, his expression never changing.
"Alright, mate." The greeting was polite, almost conversational.
The man returned the nod without hesitation, glanced once between the two of you and smiled politely. "Congratulations on the contract."
"Cheers." A beat passed. "I'm gonna steal her back."
There wasn't a trace of hostility in Jude's voice, he'd said it with the same easy certainty someone might excuse themselves from a conversation at dinner.
The man understood immediately, wished the group a good evening and disappeared back into the crowd without another word.
Jude didn't watch him leave. His attention had already returned to you, his arm still comfortably around your waist as though it had never belonged anywhere else.
The rest of the night unfolded in that same unhurried rhythm. Jude kept his arm around your waist as the stranger melted back into the crowd, his fingers pressing lightly against the fabric of your dress in a way that felt more like habit than anything deliberate. You leaned into him without thinking, the pleasant haze of the evening wrapping around you both as the music swelled again.
For a while, nothing seemed different, your girlfriends pulled the group back into a loose circle on the dance floor, laughter rising easily whenever someone missed a step or nearly spilled a drink. Jude moved with you, his hands finding your hips as the beat shifted, pulling you close enough that your back rested against his chest, the warmth of him was steady, familiar.
Another song bled into the next, you turned in his arms, looping yours around his neck as you swayed together. Jude’s forehead brushed yours for a moment, his breath warm against your skin. Then, almost casually, as if the thought had only just occurred to him, he murmured, “Funny guy, eh? What was he saying over there?”
You blinked up at him, the question landing softly through the tipsy glow. A slow smile spread across your face as realisation dawned. “Oh my god,” you laughed, the sound light and affectionate, pressing your cheek against his shoulder for a second. “Were you jealous?”
Jude’s hand tightened slightly at your waist, but his expression stayed easy, almost sheepish. “Not jealous. Just… curious.” He shrugged one shoulder, eyes flicking down to meet yours as you both continued moving to the music. The crowd shifted around you, but the space between your bodies stayed small and warm. “He seemed pretty chatty.”
You grinned, tipping your head back to look at him properly. The alcohol made everything softer, warmer, and his subtle shift in mood only made him look more endearing. “Baby, I barely remember what we were talking about. Something about the club, I think? One of the events we did last year. I was mostly laughing with the girls.” You reached up, fingers brushing along the back of his neck as you pulled him a little closer.
He watched you for a long moment, the corner of his mouth twitching like he was fighting a smile. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” You kissed him then, slow and sweet, tasting the faint trace of his drink on his lips. When you pulled back, your smile was teasing but warm. “My big, strong footballer boyrfriend getting a little worked up over some random guy who probably just wanted free bottle service stories.” You laughed again, the sound bubbling up easily, and Jude finally let out a quiet chuckle of his own, shaking his head as he rested his forehead against yours.
“Alright, alright,” he murmured, but his hand stayed firm at your waist, thumb tracing slow circles as the music carried you both.
The conversation didn’t linger, it dissolved the way things often did between you—into another kiss, then another sway of your bodies, your girlfriends pulling you back into the group for a few chaotic minutes of dancing before Jude drew you close again.
The night continued around you, laughter and lights and the steady pulse of the club, but you noticed the tiny shift in him as the hours wore on. He was still there, still affectionate—his hand finding yours, his lips brushing your temple—but he was quieter than usual, more thoughtful.
His smiles came just as readily, but they settled a little deeper, like he was turning something over in his mind without quite saying it aloud. You knew him well enough to see it, even through the pleasant fog of champagne.
Eventually the group decided it was time. Goodbyes stretched out in warm hugs and promises to text tomorrow, the energy winding down naturally as everyone filtered toward the exit. Outside, the Madrid night air was cooler, carrying the faint hum of the city. Jude’s driver was on the way, so the two of you lingered near the discreet side entrance, the doorman giving you both a respectful nod.
You were deep in that sweet, affectionate stage of being tipsy, everything felt softer, warmer, and Jude suddenly seemed like the most solid, wonderful thing in the world. You leaned your full weight against him without warning, arms wrapping around his middle as you pressed your face into his chest.
“Kiss me,” you mumbled against his shirt, the words coming out a little muffled and demanding in the best way.
Jude’s laugh rumbled low, one arm steadying you around the waist while his free hand came up to brush hair from your face. “You’re a handful tonight,” he said softly, but he obliged anyway, tilting your chin up gently and kissing you slow and deep. His other hand slipped your handbag and phone from your shoulder without being asked, tucking them securely under his arm as he kept you close.
You made a contented sound into the kiss, fingers curling into the front of his shirt, growing progressively handsier as the minutes passed and the car still hadn’t arrived. Your hands wandered down his sides, then lower, pressing closer until your bodies were flush.
He indulged for a while, kissing you back with the same lazy heat, one hand sliding up your back while the other kept you steady on your feet. But when your touch grew bolder, he chuckled quietly against your mouth and redirected with effortless care. Instead of pulling away, he tilted his head, kissing slowly along your jaw and down the side of your neck. His lips lingered there, warm and deliberate, before he gave one teasing, gentle bite just below your ear.
You shivered, a soft laugh escaping as you tilted your head to give him better access. Jude’s hand stayed firm at your lower back, guiding you subtly when you wobbled on your heels, his body strong and reliable against yours. He passed you his water bottle between kisses, murmuring, “you better drink this before getting into bed,” without ever making it feel like a correction.
You took the bottle, still grinning against his neck, and tipped it back for a few long gulps. The cool water slid down your throat, cutting through some of the pleasant haze. When you lowered it, you caught him watching you closely, his gaze lingering on the way your throat moved, the faint sheen on your lips. The corner of your mouth curved into something mischievous, the tipsy warmth making you bold.
“You’re so jealous,” you teased, voice low and playful as you pressed closer, one hand sliding up his chest. “Look at you, staring like that while I drink water. What, worried someone else might offer me a sip?”
Jude’s eyebrows lifted, but the small smile tugging at his lips betrayed him. His hand flexed at your lower back, keeping you anchored against him as the night air brushed past. “Not jealous,” he said, the words carrying that familiar Brummie lilt, warm and slightly defensive in the most endearing way. “Just making sure you stay hydrated.”
You laughed softly, the sound flirtatious and provocative as you tilted your head, lips brushing the line of his jaw. “Mhm. And you’re taking up all of my space and bossing me around.” Your fingers traced lazy patterns on his shirt, pressing just enough to feel the steady beat of his heart. “Very possessive for someone who claims he’s not jealous.”
“I’m not bossing you around,” he countered, voice low, but there was a quiet laugh threaded through it. His free hand came up to cup the side of your face, thumb brushing your cheek as he looked down at you. The streetlights caught the subtle tension still lingering in his expression from earlier, but it softened under your teasing.
“Yes you absolutely are,” you shot back, grinning up at him with bright, tipsy eyes. You pushed up onto your toes—wobbling again—and stole another kiss, this one slower, more deliberate, your body leaning fully into his. “Big strong footballer taking care of his girl. Making sure no one else talks to me. Passing me water like it’s an order.” Between kisses you kept the playful pressure on, your voice dropping into something flirtatiously sweet. “Admit it. You hated that guy chatting me up.”
Jude exhaled a quiet laugh against your mouth, the sound vibrating through his chest. He didn’t pull away. Instead he kissed you back, deeper for a moment, then redirected with that same effortless control—lips trailing slowly down the side of your neck again, teeth grazing lightly in a teasing bite that made your breath hitch. “You’re trouble when you’re like this,” he murmured against your skin, hand steady at your waist as he kept you upright. His touch stayed sensual, affectionate, but grounded—never letting the moment tip too far while the car was still minutes away.
You hummed happily, fingers threading into the hair at the nape of his neck as you melted further against him. The teasing hung in the air between kisses, light and warm, the subtle undercurrent of his earlier mood still present but wrapped in the easy intimacy of the night winding down.
The minutes outside the club stretched lazily, the cool Madrid night air doing little to temper the warmth still buzzing under your skin. You stayed wrapped around Jude like that for a good while longer, the teasing flowing as easily as the laughter between you. He kept one arm locked securely around your waist, holding you steady while his other hand occasionally adjusted the strap of your bag on his shoulder or passed the water bottle back to your lips.
You drank when prompted, but mostly you used the moments in between to push your luck, wobbling deliberately on your heels just to feel his grip tighten, pressing closer until your bodies were flush, your fingers tracing the line of his collarbone beneath his shirt.
“You’re so jealous,” you murmured again, voice syrupy and provocative as you tilted your head up, lips brushing the underside of his jaw. “Admit it. You wanted to drag me away the second he smiled at me.”
Jude huffed a quiet laugh, the sound warm against your hair. “You’re winding me up on purpose now.” His hand slid lower on your back, steadying you as you shifted your weight again, one heel catching awkwardly on the pavement. “Careful.”
You giggled, the sound bright and unfiltered, and did it again—just a little wobble, enough to make him pull you tighter against his chest. “See? Bossing me around." Your hand wandered down his side, playful and bold.
He shook his head, but you could feel the smile in the way his cheek pressed against your temple. “You’re trouble,” he said again, lower this time, the words laced with affection. For several long minutes you stayed like that, talking about nothing, really. Teasing him about the way he’d watched you drink the water, giggling when he tried to defend himself, stealing lazy kisses that tasted like champagne and the night air.
He indulged you, kissing you back whenever you asked, sometimes deepening them until your fingers tightened in his shirt, sometimes redirecting with slow trails down your neck that left you shivering pleasantly. The city hummed softly around you, distant traffic and the occasional passing car, but it all felt far away.
When the black luxury van finally pulled up—sleek, tinted windows, the driver stepping out to open the door with quiet professionalism—Jude’s demeanor shifted. He kept his arm around you, guiding you toward the open door, but his voice dropped into something more serious, steady, and low.
“Alright, that’s enough of that,” he said, the words firm but not harsh, carrying that natural authority he slipped into when he needed to be the grounded one. “You keep pushing and I’ll have to put you in your place when we get home. Behave for five minutes, yeah?”
The warning wasn’t a threat, it was Jude, looking after you in the way he always did, serious enough that you knew he meant it, but wrapped in the same care that had defined the whole night. You pouted dramatically as he helped you into the backseat, but the giggle that followed ruined the effect.
Inside the van the world narrowed to soft leather seats, dim ambient lighting, and the smooth hum of the engine as it pulled away from the curb. Jude settled beside you, immediately pulling you close so your head could rest on his shoulder. He took your heels off without being asked, setting them neatly on the floor, then draped his jacket over your lap when you shivered lightly.
You were still giggling at first, tipsy and affectionate, trying to climb into his lap with clumsy determination, lips seeking his again.
“Baby,” he murmured, catching your hips gently but firmly before you could fully straddle him. “Not here.” He redirected you back down beside him with effortless strength, kissing your forehead instead, then your cheek, then the corner of your mouth—slow, soothing presses that calmed the restless energy without shutting it down completely. “Settle. You're drunk, baby.”
You pouted again, dramatic and sleepy now, but the fight drained out of you quickly. The gentle motion of the car, the warmth of his body, and the long night finally caught up. You melted against his side, head heavy on his shoulder, fingers loosely tangled in the front of his shirt.
“You’re so sweet,” you mumbled, voice softening into something smaller and more vulnerable. “Taking care of me all night… even when I’m annoying.”
Jude’s arm tightened around you, his free hand coming up to stroke your hair in slow, rhythmic passes. “Not annoying,” he said quietly, lips brushing the top of your head. “Just happy, I like you happy.”
You hummed contentedly, eyes already drifting shut as the city lights continued to streak past the windows. “I love you,” you whispered, the words slurred with sleep and affection, genuine and unguarded. “So much.”
He pressed another kiss to your hair, holding you closer as your breathing evened out. “Love you too, darling. Get some rest. I’ve got you.”
The rest of the ride passed in comfortable silence, just the low hum of the engine and the steady warmth of him beside you, carrying you home.
author's note — don't even know what to comment i'm sleepy as fuck and my back is killing me. if this sucks blame the pre-season because apparently i suffered through it too.
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