Summary: Saved, infected and hidden away in the estate of a man who hasnât had company in years, now you sleep beneath the same roof as a lonely lord whose mold lives under your skin and whose obsession grows deeper the more he observes you.
Tags: Male Reader. No Use of Y/N. Lord Ethan Winters AU. Canon Divergence. Dark Ethan Winters. Gothic Horror. Possessive Ethan Winters. Obsessive behavior. Protective Ethan Winters. Corruption. Infected Reader. Mold Infection. Body Horror. Touch-Starved Characters. Emotional Dependency. Unhealthy Attachment. Fluff. Smut. Handjob. Hive mind smut. Dubious consent.
Lifting your hand before your mind could make the decision by itself, cold and stiff fingers attached to a palm streaked with the dry residue of your own blood, made contact with Ethan's palm and his fingers closed around yours immediately, very gently pulling and lifting you off your knees with strength.
Your boots scraped on the flagstone and your knees buckled once as he drew you up to your full height in front of him.
Five-foot-eleven of broad shoulders and dirty-blond hair sticking up in tired uneven tufts, gold of his jacket scuffed at the cuffs, dark blue hoodie underneath patched at the collar.
Eyes leveled on yours from a hand's breadth away.
Pale blue-grey, ringed with exhaustion but glowing for a single heartbeat, same faint moonlight glow you'd glimpsed in the meeting hall, blue light flickering deep behind the iris and then guttering out before you could be sure you'd seen it.
He held your eyes a beat longer than he needed to before turning and walking.
You followed at a distance of three paces towards the door in the far corner of the meeting room set into a wall of black stone.
Ethan pushed it open with the flat of one hand and a rectangle of grey-white light fell in across the flagstones, so bright after the candlelit dark that your eyes screwed shut on reflex.
When you blinked them open again the world had become a wash of overcast sky and pale snow, light ricocheting off every surface, a sky packed flat with clouds mildly grey.
Crows clustered on a heap to the left of the doorstep, four or five of them shoulder to shoulder, beaks dipped into the open ribcage of something that had once been a goat. They jumped sideways and lifted with a dry papery rattle of wings the moment Ethan crossed the threshold.
He walked on without slowing, hem of his golden jacket flicked snow into small puffs.
You followed for ten or twelve steps, hands tucked under your armpits because you'd lost your gloves somewhere in the swamp and your fingers were already cold again.
Letting your head turn slowly to check your surroundings, trees were dead.
A great black thicket of them off the far side of the path, naked branches braided into each other.
Your eyes went to Ethan's back and he was a good twelve paces ahead now, head lowered and hand in his pocket, the other one swinging loose at his side.
You turned sideways and ran for three strides or maybe four. Your boots punched down through the crust of old snow and the cold was a knife in your lungs as you pulled in a great whooping breath and threw yourself toward the tree line.
The ground in front of your right boot ruptured, a wet thick suck of something pulling itself loose from beneath and then the snow itself bulged in a low dome, cracked as a long black rope of mold burst out of the earth in a single fluid lash, fibrous all along its length with thousands of tiny moving filaments that pulsed in waves up and down its body.
The end of it was bulbed, splitting open into a four-petaled blossom that closed around your ankle.
In pure surprise you gasped, the breath punched out of you in a sharp white cloud.
There was an absolute lack of pain from the firm grip, but the pressure was even and patient.
Through the leather of your boot you could feel a faint slow throb of something that might have been a heartbeat contracting and releasing.
Your foot was bolted to the ground even as you yanked, dropping your weight to try and wrench the ankle sideways but the mold-thing simply moved with you, refusing to release.
A small panicked noise climbed your throat and you swallowed it.
Ethan's bootsteps stopped at all somewhere off to your right, snow creaking under his weight as he half-turned.
You couldn't look at him head-on, too busy hauling at your trapped leg, but in the corner of your sight you caught his profile.
Clean line of his jaw, stubble catching the cold light, breath pluming white past his nose.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," he said, voice easy and without anger or annoyance.
"If I let you go," he said, still not looking, "would you do me a favor and not run?"
Snow ticked down from a high branch somewhere and landed in a small soft slap.
You could feel your own pulse in your throat, a slow ebb of cold creeping up your trapped calf where the mold pulsed warm against the boot.
"Okay." You nodded once, word thin and you hated how it sounded.
The tendril held a second longer as it contracted, a slow firm squeeze around your ankle before it unspooled and the long black rope of it folded back into the snow with a wet retracting sound, fibers pulsing as it went, vanishing through the slot in the crust it had punched on its way up.
You went down on one knee, both numb hands at your ankle, fingers fumbling at the leather of the boot, peeling the trouser-leg up to look.
The skin above the boot top was streaked with a long dark smear, black and glossy, it gave a little under your fingertip when you touched it, leaving a smudge on your thumb.
No bruise or cuts thankfully, just a faint prickling warmth where the grip had been.
You looked up. He'd turned the rest of the way now, gold jacket bright against the dead trees behind him, hands folded back into his pockets. He didn't answer right away.
"What did you do to me?" Your fingers were already moving, shoving your shirt up and letting cold hit your abdomen to take a better look at the bandages there, a long clean spiral of pale linen wrapped around your middle from the bottom of your ribs down past your hipbone, neat overlapping turns of it.
No blood or a thread of dirt at the edges.
You looked up at him with the shirt still bunched at your sternum and a rattling cough came out of the trees behind you.
Turning your head over your shoulder there was a hunched shape, one shoulder higher than the other.
The coat it was wearing was Stoica's, you could see the brass of the third button gleaming dully where the snow hadn't covered it, but his face was a pad of black moss bristling with fibers and split vertically up the middle into a vertical mouth full of sharp fangs.
His arms were completely fungus and black, now long far past his knees now, hands fused into great curving talons, four to a side while moving towards you in a lopsided shuffling trot.
Scrambling backward and letting out a curse as your eyes pinged off everything in arm's reach for anything to protect yourself with.
An arm came around your chest from behind, bicep settling above your sternum and it pulled. A short steady draw that brought your back flat against a wall of warmth.
You hit his chest and the breath went out of your lungs.
He was lean but packed dense underneath the gold canvas of the coat, dark hoodie below it thinner than you'd thought and through the knit you could feel the long flat shelf of his pectoral pressed against your shoulder blades, slow lift and fall of his ribs at your back along tight cord of muscle that ran along the inside of his forearm where it lay across your chest.
His right hand was the one wrapped around you and through the cuff of his sleeve where the wrist met your jacket you felt the difference of him, a smooth waxy coolness where skin should have been warm, fingers a little too stiff but the rest of him radiated heat.
His chin came down past the side of your head, stubble at his jaw catching the shell of your ear.
In front of you the moss-faced thing that had been Stoica contracted on itself with a wet crumpling sound and it went down to its knees in the snow, dissolving from the bottom up.
The body within it puddled into a thick black slurry that drained down through the snow in seconds.
Your hand was on his forearm without even thinking.
"I'm sorry about that," he murmured.
His mouth was right at your ear, warm breath puffing on your face and tickling the small hairs at your hairline, breath fogging the side of your jaw before it dissipated.
"I haven't had anyone with me in a long time."
You felt your own throat work.
"I'll keep them off you," he said, softer still. "I promise. They won't even look at you."
His arm flexed across your chest, pec at your back tightening as you felt the line of his hipbone settle against your back and felt, behind the cloth of his trousers, the thigh he'd braced behind your own to keep you both upright in the snow.
Nodding at his words, head moved before you could stop it. The tip of your ear brushed the corner of his mouth as you nodded and you felt the warmth of his lower lip catch the rim of it for an instant.
A small sound left him.
Somewhere in the muscle of your chest, was a feeling you couldn't name but that had grown a half-step stronger when his hand had taken yours. Now, with his arm wrapped around your chest and his breath on your ear, it pulsed warm in time with the deep crawling itch under the bandage at your side.
The itch climbed and spread up under your sternum till it reached the side of your neck and behind your ear toward the place where his mouth was.
Trust him.
Lean.
Don't move.
A third quiet thing speaking up out of your own pulse.
Your shoulders settled deeper into the shelf of his chest and he held you for another long count before, gradually, his arm loosened.
He drew his hand down across your sternum, heel of his palm sliding from your collarbone down past the buttons of your coat before he let you have your weight back.
The cold rushed in where he had been and you realized, with a small hot pang you didn't want to admit to, that you missed his warmth already.
He stepped around to your side, hand brushing the back of your elbow as he came past.
"Duke's waiting up the road," he said in a lighter voice now. "He gave me a lift down here, helped me with the bandages too, all the supplies for that came out of his cart. I owe him about six favors already." A short tired laugh. "I was running late for the meeting and he had the day free. Said he'd take us back to my place once we were done."
He was looking up the path ahead when talking, head tilted with a small careful smile at the corner of his mouth while you followed behind.
The two of you fell into a slow even pace and he kept himself at your shoulder rather than ahead of it this time, close enough that your sleeve brushed his every third step.
At the bottom of the bank, on a flat patch of churned snow, the cart was waiting.
The man on the box was the size of a small barn, sitting enormous and patient under the small rooftop of he cart, a cigar clamped at the corner of his vast mouth.
His face was humanly pale and pleasant.
"Ahhh, Lord Winters," he said and inclined his head a degree. "You return and in good time, I see."
"Duke." Ethan dipped his chin back. "Thanks for waiting."
"For you, always." The Duke's small clever eyes slid sideways and settled on you. They warmed. "Ah, our little stray is up and walking. How splendid." He took the cigar out of his mouth while looking down at you. "I confess, when our good Lord went into that hall I was uncertain we would see you, young man, come out at his side. He feared it greatly, you know. That and the worries of what Mother Miranda might have planed for one so freshly mended."
A small wince ran across Ethan's face and didn't exactly meet your eye.
"Duke," he said, in the tone of a man who has been needled by a friend and embarrassed.
"What?" The Duke spread one enormous hand, the pipe dangling from two fingers. "Am I not to be honest? You spent the whole carriage ride pacing, you wore a furrow in my floorboards."
He looked back at you and his mouth twitched in a big grin. "He paced and asked me three separate times if the meds I offered him were enough for you. I told him, of course they were, and here you are." The smile broadened. "Splendid. Splendid."
"Meeting went all right," Ethan said firmly, redirecting. "Heisenberg ran his mouth. Dimitrescu wanted him for the cellars. Donna stayed silent as usual. Miranda decided he'd stay with me."
"Mmm, as she should." The Duke's eyes had not quite left you. "And how delightful for you, by extension. Some company at last in these long gray afternoons of ours, eh? A new face." A pause. The mustaches twitched again. "Do see, however, to keep your moldy fellows out of my pantry, Lord Winters. One of them got some scratches on my the size of my own head last month and I am still owed."
"Duke, those things don't even attack unless I tell them to."
"No, they do not and yet the damage is there. What am I to conclude?" The Duke chuckled, a warm rumble while waving the cigar. "Joking, joking. Mostly. In, in, the both of you. The road back is long and the light goes early."
Ethan stepped up onto the running board and the cart creaked. He turned in the open door of the cabin and held a hand down to you, palm up.
Up close in the grey light you could see, faintly, that the lines on the palm were too pale.
Slowly, you accepted his hand and fingers closed as you went up the step on the pull of him, his other arm coming around your back as you came up over the threshold to keep you from cracking your knee on the doorframe.
The cabin was quite small and there was a single bench seat upholstered in dark red pillows, a hanging lantern swung gently as the cart shifted under your weight.
You sat and his thigh was already against yours, shoulder pressed to your own, hip wedged into the curve of his hip and there was nowhere else to put yourself.
The door clapped shut, outside the Duke moved his cart began to move with a long low creak, runners grinding on snow, clop of hooves muffled by the drifts.
Cabin rocking you both gently.
"I'm Ethan, by the way," he said while half-turning to face you in the cramped space and his knee bumped yours as he did. "Ethan Winters. I should've said that before. Listen, you don't have to address me with any of the Lord stuff with me." He made a small dismissive gesture, "I never asked for it. Half of those other lords scare me as much as they scare you, all right? Probably more, because I have to see them at meetings."
He laughed, short embarrassed sound.
"Anyway. I'm sorry about all of this. Those people from the village who took you up there and all the rest. I've been trying for months to get these stupid rituals stopped. I was up at the rock because I'd heard the next victim had been chosen and I wanted toâ" His jaw worked. "I wanted to be there so no one else had to die for nothing. I got there as fast as I could, I'm sorry I wasn't faster."
Letting him finish as the cart rocked you sideways into his shoulder
Then you said, quietly, "Why did you lie to her?"
He blinked.
"Sorry?"
"Mother Miranda. About how you saved me." Your voice came out steadier than you'd thought it would. "You told her you patched me up."
The look on his face was, for one small unguarded moment, that of a man caught flat-footed. His mouth opened and closed, brows drew together in a small troubled crease. He glanced once toward the front of the cabin where the Duke's head was visible.
"Well," he said, "that's basically what it was. There was a lot of blood and I had to work fast. The Duke had supplies on him, came up the path right after, helped me get you wrapped so I could carry you downâ"
"Indeed I did," the Duke called amiably from the box, without turning around, focused on the road ahead. "A great deal of linen and brandy, also, but only for myself, you understand."
You waited a heartbeat.
"I remember what happened on the rock. I didn't, when I woke up, but I do now."
The cabin was quiet except for the crunch of snow under the wheels.
"I remember the men turning into those monsters like the one I saw before."
Ethan's face had gone very still.
"And I remember you standing over me with your hand on my wound. And I rememberâ" you swallowed, "âI remember the veins on my skin going black for a second because whatever's in those men, you put it in me."
You hadn't meant for the last part to come out as steady as it did, proud of yourself for it. There was fright underneath due to sitting hip-to-hip with one of Mother Miranda's lords in a moving cabin, but you kept the fright tucked low under your collarbone where he wouldn't have to see it.
He looked at you for a long moment, lantern light catching his eyes and that blue bloomed up from behind the iris.
Your heart kicked hard against your ribs.
"Yeah," he said softly. "Okay."
He let out a breath and turned a fraction more toward you.
"You'd have died," he said. "If I hadn't done what I did. That knife went in deep, your liver was nicked and there was so much blood under you on that rock the moss was drinking it up faster than you could lose it and I still had maybe a minute. There wasn't time for anything that wasn't what I did."
"Tasty Lord business, this is," the Duke remarked from the box, around his pipe. "I do try not to listen, of course. Thereâs a hole up there, however."
"Duke, please."
"Listening intently."
A short sigh from Ethan and looked at you with apology.
"He's a friend," he said quietly. "The only person on this whole damn mountain who's been a friend to me and he hears most things eventually anyway."
"Am I going to turn into one of those monsters?"
Snow under the runners, lantern above swinging.
"No," he said.
"How do you know?"
"Because every other time I've tried to save someone and share it on purpose, they turned. Every single time." His jaw worked, very bright eyes lifting.
"You didn't." The smile that came onto his face was small but the realest thing his face had done since the meeting hall.
"You're the first one," he said. "It's not making you into one of them and listens to me a little." He let out a small breath that was almost a laugh. "I didn't know it could also go like this. I had hoped, but I didn't know."
His left hand came up and settled, broad and warm, on your other shoulder, mirroring where his right hand had rested in the meeting hall. The thumb pressed gently at the hollow above your collarbone, fingers curling around the back of your shoulder, heat of his palm soaking through the wool of your coat.
"You must be tired," he said and his voice had dropped again, the intimate shape of it. "After everything that happened. The road back is long, couple hours at least. You should rest, you've earned it."
His blue eyes glowed.
It was not a flicker this time but a steady deepening, pale ring of color around each pupil filling in with a soft underlit blue.
In time you realized vaguely, with the deep crawling itch under the bandage at your side, the slow throb that had been climbing your sternum for the last hour.
A weight came down behind your eyes, starting at your eyelids and pulling them down a fraction as your eyelashes brushed and you blinked. Your shoulders settled lower, breath in your chest went deeper and slower.
You tried to track Ethan's face, it was easier to look at than anything else and your eyes wanted to stay on it.
The blue glow softened.
"That's it," he said gently. "There you go. Shhh." His hand on your shoulder slid, palm going up the side of your neck, thumb tracing along the line of your jaw.
The itch under your bandage purred.
You did not remember closing your eyes, only that a moment came when it was easier to keep them shut than to lift them again.
There was something solid at the side and your cheek was on it, broad shoulder of the dirty blonde man, scratch of a hoodie collar at the corner of your jaw.
Above your head, very softly, his voice murmured something maybe to himself or the Duke, you couldn't tell. The words bent and warped as if you were underwater listening to people speak on the surface.
A hand settled in your hair, fingers carding once through it and then resting at the back of your skull, cradling the weight of your head against him.
"I've got you," he said, very low, somewhere far above you, somewhere very close.
Sleep is not really sleep when somebody else has put it in you.
The dark behind your eyelids was warm and you floated just below the surface with your cheek against his broad shoulder.
There was a clean note over the top of him, plain soap under a sweetness that gathered at the throat where a man's pulse sat.
Under the canvas of the gold jacket there was an earth-sweet smell of a fir forest in autumn after snow when the duff under the needles has gone soft and the white lacework of mycelium has started to bloom under bark.
A clean dampness with a faint sugary edge of decay underneath, almost fruity.
It almost smelled of decay but not unwell.
You drifted with that smell in your sinuses for a long time as the cabin rocked until it stopped abruptly.
The Duke clucked sharply and the whole cabin gave a hard short jolt as the carriage settled on its springs.
Your head, balanced on the slope of his shoulder, slid forward with the inertia and your chin dropped toward your chest.
His hand was on your wrist before your head had finished falling and that small tug ran up your arm.
You stirred, eyelids fluttering as the world came back in pieces like the faint blue glow still alive somewhere in the bottom of his eyes but it had guttered as you focused on him and it dimmed back to a normal blue-grey.
"Ohâ oh, I'm sorry, Iâ sorry, I didn't mean toâ" you jerked back, straightening off him fast enough that the side of your head felt a small cold rush where it had been warm against his collar a heartbeat before and you blinked twice.
He smiled, corner of his mouth pulled up only on one side and his eyes softened as he let his hand drop off your wrist.
"You're fine," he said.
"Ah-ha. Awake at last." The Duke's voice rolled back from the front, fat and amused. The back of his huge head was just barely visible through the small slot set high in the cabin's forward wall, the plume on the band trembling as he laughed his velvety laugh. "You see, my Lord, I told you he would not cross. Good evening to the both of you, then. We have arrived."
"Thanks, Duke." Ethan reached past you for the door handle and his arm brushed the front of your coat as he did. "I owe you. Really. For everything."
"Pish." A wide pale hand waved itself through the slot. "Take care of him. That is payment in full."
"Goodnight, Duke."
The door swung open and a wash of evening air poured into the cabin, making your nose sting on the first inhale.
Light outside had gone deep flat grey, sky overhead bruised purple at one edge and pewter at the other.
Ethan stepped down first and the runner of the cart creaked. He turned in the snow half-pivoting and lifted his hand back up to your palm-open.
Your fingers were stiff from the long ride as you accepted it and let him guide you down the step.
His other hand came to your elbow as your boot found the snow and stayed there a second longer than balance required.
Behind you the Duke's voice rose in a soft burr to the creaky wheels as the cart shifted and eventually the trees covered itâs shape.
You stood in the snow with him, the clearing he had brought you to was wide and ringed with trees and full of the bones of houses.
There were maybe a dozen of them leaned at angles of long abandonment, some half-collapsed with their roof beams gone and snow gathered in their open ribs, others still mostly standing with their windows blown black and their front doors hanging crooked off bent hinges.
The clapboards had gone grey with weather and lichen, snow laying deep across all of it.
Whatever city this had once been, it was a ruin.
What lived here now was black mold, thicker ropes across the ceiling and inside them, slow contraction-and-release of fibers along their length.
He was walking toward the largest of the houses, the only one that still looked truly intact.
"Welcome home," he said over his shoulder, light and dry with a small laugh in his throat. He glanced back at you and the corner of his mouth pulled in a crooked way and he shook his head slightly at his own joke.
He stopped at the foot of the porch without putting a hand on the door.
Three ropy threads of mold slid out with a faint wet whisper, met at the seam where the door butted into the jamb, hooked their bulbed ends under the top rail and pulled.
The latch lifted with a small clean click and the door swung open inward on a slow hinge. The black retracted and tucked itself away into the wood until you could only just see the thin dark seams where it slept.
He went up the steps, very casual to him with the way he moved while you followed up the steps and across the threshold into the warm dim of his house.
He took his jacket off and dropped it across the back of a chair.
There was a long couch where he plopped on, a low table in front of it of dark wood and many ring-marks.
It was, in its way, beautiful.
But the black was everywhere as your eyes adjusted.
A thin dark vein crawling up the corner of the wall behind the sideboard pulsing faintly when you held your gaze on it.
Small ropy tendril coiling around the ceiling along a flat black stain that spread across one upper corner of the room.
Around the legs of the sideboard the black had grown up out of the floorboards into a small lacy fringe, pulled tight and dense.
He had not said anything for a while, settled into into with one ankle crossed over the opposite knee, elbow on the armrest and cheek propped on the knuckles of his left hand.
His pale hair caught the light and went a deeper gold as he observed you, eyes following as you took in the place and they did not move away when yours found them.
He had been watching you for a while and there was nothing tense in him, steady focus of a man who had nothing better to look at and didn't intend to.
When your gaze caught his, he smiled and his left hand came down off his cheek and patted, twice the cushion next to him.
You hesitated, feet did wanting to cross the rug.
There was the sleep he'd put in you in the cart still sitting low in your bones, the smell of fungus rising warm from every corner of the room along with also the memory of the moss-faced thing dissolving in the snow⊠add to that the glow of his eyes.
Crossing the rug anyway because you still had in front of you a fricking Lord, someone you deeply venerated together with the others.
You sat down on the couch one cushion from him and you did not let yourself sit deep, hands flat on your thighs.
He looked at you for a moment, a small soft hurt, almost too quick to catch. The corners of his mouth pulled in fractionally, line between his brows deepened a hair and those eyes glowed, briefly, brighter than they had since the meeting hall, a clean cold blue that lit the underside of his lashes for the space of a single long blink, and then dimmed.
He didn't reach for you.
"Want a glass of wine?" he asked.
The question hit you sideways. You'd been braced for any number of things and you had not been braced for that. Your mouth opened. Closed. He'd already turned away from you and was leaning forward over the low table to lift a dark green bottle off it by the neck.
The bottle was old. glass hand-blown, slightly wavy in its profile, the label across its belly a square of foxed paper with Romanian printing in faded black.
He turned it in his hand, looked at the table, made a small low grumble in the back of his throat and reached his other hand across the boards in a half-blind grope.
It was, you thought without meaning to, very attractive. The frown made him look five years younger along with ten years more human and your chest did a small hot thing it had no business doing.
He stared off into the dark of the arched doorway that led to the kitchen with his head slightly tilted as if listening.
In the kitchen doorway, a black mass uncoiled out of nowhere along the floor, long and ropy, head of it lifted off the planks and it came in fast across the rug. It carried two stemware glasses, one in each of two bulbed clusters at the front of its main body, crystal balanced absolutely level as the long stems caged in fine pulsing fibers that held them like a hand holds the stem of a glass.
The thing flowed across the room without sound and reached the table, first cluster opening and setting the first glass down on the table by Ethan's hand.
He closed his fingers around its stem without taking his eyes off you as the second cluster lifted.
It rose off the floor on a long slow curve of its own body and the glass came up with it, climbing the air and turned in the cabin lamplight, sliding across the small distance between the couch and you.
The bulbed end paused in front of your chest, stem of the glass held out as the fibers pulsed once around it in a small offering motion.
Your breath stopped while your hand approached it very slowly, thumb and first two fingers closing on the stem of the glass through the cage of fibers.
They weren't slimy, you realized that with a strange small lurch in your chest, instead something almost pleasant, a soft-textured warmth.
The mold let go and the glass was yours, bulbed cluster retracting as the long body of the tendril folded back across the floor and as it went the whole of it began to disassemble.
It thinned along its length, split into runners and filaments that sank into the gaps between the floorboards and were gone, wood closing over them with a soft small dry tick.
A flinch ran from your shoulders down through your whole back the second it retracted and he laughed, shacking his head a fraction and reaching for the bottle and worked the cork out with the heel of one hand.
The wine ran into his glass dark and glossy as it got poured, almost black with a thin line of red glow.
He scooted along the couch toward you, thigh sliding closer along the leather until his knee was a hand's breadth from yours.
He leaned across you with the bottle and tilted it, pouring a small splash into your glass, no more than a swallow and a half, dark wine pooling at the bottom of the bowl.
"Probably not the smartest thing for someone who just got patched up," he said quietly. "I know, but come on. Just a little won't kill you." A small laugh while set the bottle on the table. "Felt like doing something special. Y'know? It's not every night I come home with company."
He sat back and raised his glass, waiting.
You stared at the small dark pool in the bottom of your own glass.
In a different version of this evening, you thought, you were dead.
If Lady Dimitrescu had won the argument in the meeting hall, you would have been on a hook in her stone cellar somewhere west of here and the daughters would be drifting into the room in slow swarms of black insects.
Had Moreau won, you would have been in a shed while getting conducted experiments on.
Heisenberg would have let the lycans have their meal to make a show for everyone else to enjoy you.
Instead there was now a glass of wine in your hand and a man on the couch watching you over the rim of his own, face tired and quietly pleased to be have you here with him.
Maybe luck had finally turned a corner with you.
"Thanks," you said very quietly and the corner of his mouth pulled up, tilting his glass toward yours and letting the crystals touch.
The wine was sweet as you took a sip, not a cheap artificial one but a deep red ripeness that opened on your tongue.
Black cherry first, then a deeper plum that was almost cooked, edges of it touching with vanilla from the oak it had slept in. There was a thin warm ribbon of honey running underneath.
You let your eyes close for a second on the swallow and when you opened them he was watching you with that same quiet focus.
"You like it?" he asked.
Nodding because you didnât trust your voice yet, you drew the glass in close to your chest and held it against your sternum.
He picked the bottle up off the table and turned it in his hand and squinted at the label.
"TÄmĂąioasÄ RomĂąneascÄ," he tried.
The name fell out of his American mouth in a long disaster, vowels collapsing into each other and the diacritical syllable came out somewhere between three different sounds, none of them right.
It was so bad you laughed, a small startled thing high in your throat and his head came up at the sound of it, looking at you in real surprise and pleasure as his free hand spread in a small helpless gesture.
"That's not it?" he said. "That's not even close, is it. That was bad."
"TÄ-mĂą-ioa-sÄ," you said slowly, laugh still in your voice. "Ro-mĂą-neas-cÄ. The Ăą is a back vowel, you put it back here." You tapped the back of your tongue without thinking. "TÄmĂąioasÄ."
"Ta-maiâ"
"TÄmĂąioasÄ."
"TÄmĂąioasÄ."
"Better."
"RomĂąneascÄ." He nodded once, satisfied with himself while setting the bottle down. "Thanks. I've been mangling that label for a year." He huffed, a small quiet self-deprecating noise. "If I ever meet the man who made it I'd have owed him an apology. Now I owe him a slightly smaller one."
You laughed again and his face when you laughed was a thing to look at, corners of his eyes creasing deep, mouth opening just slightly, small white line of his lower teeth showing.
There was warmth in it along a small level of hunger borderline of obsession.
Be it either for joy in chasing away the loneliness he must have felt⊠or something else entirely.
The blue glow rose under his iris and stayed for a long slow second before it dimmed.
You took another small sip of wine to have something to do with your face.
"So." He shifted on the couch, tucking one leg up under him so that he was half-turned toward you. "Tell me. New Lord and all this stuff up at the rock. What does the village say about me?"
"What?"
"Stories⊠i dunno, myths? Whatever they tell the kids." A small wry pull of his mouth. "I know they say something, nobody's been brave enough to come up here and tell me and I'm curious. What do they say?"
You took a breath.
"I don't think anyone really knows why the rituals started," you said. "People argue about it. Somebody says Mother Miranda asked for them, somebody else says no, the priest started doing it on his own to please her, someone else says the elders did itâ like thereâs this crazy hag telling things no one's sure." You looked into your wine. "But yes, there are stories about what⊠you are."
"Okay." His curiosity amplified.
"Some of them think you eat people."
He made a small amused sound. "Mm-hm. Eat them how?"
"That you're slowly draining people. That if someone goes to the new Lord's land they come back tired, weaker and you've taken something from them." You let yourself half-smile. "One old woman down by the reservoir says you drink spirits the way Lady D. drinks blood⊠like breathe their life out of them or something."
He laughed, bright and surprised, tilting his head back against the couch and letting the laugh out at the ceiling, almost losing the grip on his glass of wine. âWhat else?"
"Some say you eat the dead. Iâ I don't think that one's the worst though. I've heard worse."
"Tell me the worst."
You hesitated.
âPlease?â He set his now empty glass on the small table ahead of him and fully turned his attention entirely on you, blue in his irises taking a very bright color while his face held a big smile of curiosity.
"They say you can put pictures in a person's head," you said. "Whoever walks too far into your land, you make them see things that aren't there. The old ones say a hunter went up your way looking for lost cows two summers ago and came back and walked into the reservoir on his own, said the river was a road and his dead wife was waiting on the far bank. They say you can make people mad just by sitting near them long enough."
You looked up and the joy had died out of his face.
His mouth was still set in something like a smile but his eyes had gone a little more still and less mobile.
"Wow." A small, almost airy smile back at you, the kind you put on a face when a face needs one. "I was just thinking, It's funny the things people come up with." He set the glass down carefully on the low table. "I wonder if anyone's making lambs of these stories at midnight to scare their kids."
"Probably."
"Yeah."
He was leaning toward you, having been doing that the entire conversation, you realized, angle of his shoulder rotating an inch every few minutes, cushion under him compressed slightly more on your side than the other and his arm along the back of the couch was literally right behind where you were sitting while you now looked down at the glass in your hand.
The quiet had begun to come down but he broke it before it could settle.
"Hey," he said.
His voice was very quiet, a different register from the laugh.
You looked up and his face was closer than it had been, moved while you were looking down, only a few inches, but a few inches at this distance was not a small thing. You could see the faint stubble along his jaw along with the dry cracks at the center of his lower lip where the cold had worked at him on the trip up.
His pupils were huge.
"I'm really glad," he said, "that I got there in time. I keep thinking about it," he went on, soft. "On the way down, I kept thinking about what could have happened if I didnât get there fast enough." A small breath, shape of a smile on his face.
"I'd have been really upset about that. Instead you're here in my house drinking some wine with me. That's actually pretty good."
His hand had come down off the back of the couch and the tip of his middle finger was a hand's breadth from your thigh.
"You're safe here," he said. "You should know that nothing in this house is gonna hurt you. The lycans don't come up here. Anything that walks in off the path, I know about it before its second step hits the dirt."
He paused.
"I'm gonna take care of you," he said, voice in that sentence very quiet. The half-smile was still there but the blue at the back of his eyes had risen up bright, burning steady.
âI promise you that." He didn't move his hand or his face, staying exactly that close to you, eyes on your own without looking away.
Your throat had gone tight, hands closing harder around the bowl of your wineglass and the knuckles had gone a paler color.
You sat there and looked at him, lips parting a fraction and closing again as the slow black vein on the wall pulsed.
There was no flicker at the corner of his mouth or small shift of the eyebrow, his face just held and the blue glow stayed steady. pupils wide.
Your heart was very loud in your ears and you had the uncomfortable thought that he was timing your heart.
Then his face moved, smile softening and pupils contracting by a hair. The blue glow at the bottom of his eyes dimmed until it was almost gone and his shoulder lowered.
"Sorry," he breathed out, audibly. "That got a little heavy. I didn't mean to lay all that on you ten minutes after we got in the door."
His hand came up off the cushion and brought it to your shoulder, settling there with the same firm weight it had settled with before, palm down across the slope of you, the heat of it seeping through the wool, the thumb tucking itself into the small soft hollow above your collarbone where his thumb had rested earlier.
It rested there a moment and he squeezed before patting you twice.
He pushed up off the couch with a small grunt low in his chest, soft involuntary noise while stretching a little, free hand going to his back.
The hoodie rode half an inch above his belt again and you saw, very briefly before he settled, the fine dark line of one of the veins running up his spine that pulsed under his skin.
He bent and picked up his empty glass from the low table and set it back down a few inches further in toward the center of the table.
"C'mon," he said. He smiled down at you. Tired. Real. "Let me show you the spare room. Trip was long, you gotta be wiped."
You opened your mouth to state how you slept the whole way, the wine had loosened a small warmth in your belly and your body, for the first time in a long time, felt almost rested.
Opposing the idea of staying more with him you just closed your mouth, nodding instead.
"Yeah," he said, soft, almost to himself. "Come on up."
He turned and the heat of his palm slid off your shoulder as he led you to the stairs.
The wine had gone to your knees a little as you stood, floorboards giving back a hollow low note under the heel of your boot and you had to put your hand briefly to the arm of the couch to steady yourself before you came after him.
He was already at the foot of the stairs when you heard, very small from somewhere deeper in the house, maybe in the kitchen, two small pair of lungs working a small mouth to emanate a high wavering hiccupy cry of a very small baby.
Fussy hitching cry of a baby that had been left in a room to sleep and woken up and could not find what it had been looking for, the small wet âhahâ hahâ ha-aaaaahâ of a child too young to know words.
Hand on the newel post at the bottom of the stairs and you stopped, turning your head a half-inch to the left and you listened.
A shape went through the dark, hunched a lot and the silhouette of it made your stomach clench at the sight of those molded monsters inside the house.
You took a step toward it unconsciously before a high thin ringing started out of nowhere, rising at the back of your skull.
It started low in pitch and it climbed steadily through the bones behind your ears, getting into the hinges of your jaw and small bones in front of your ears.
The cry started to muffle but, when you pressed your hand to your right ear, the ringing cut all at once and the corridor was quiet, cry of a possibly existing baby now gone.
"Hey."
His voice came from above as you looked up.
He was four steps up the staircase, back on you and never turning, broad shoulders perfectly square to the top of the stairs.
There was no rise and fall on his shoulders, waiting with his face away from you because he did not, at this exact moment, want you to see his face.
"Everything okay?" he asked, same warm tired voice he had used on the couch, nothing in the voice that matched the stillness of the back.
You wet your lips and looked once down the corridor past the stairs.
There was nothing in it, no shape or movement. Neither a foreign cry you swore you had heard.
"Yes, Lord Winters," you mumbled.
The words came out small and faint, word âLordâ rolling out of you on the old habit of the village, the way you'd been taught to say it of any of the four since you'd been a child.
He nodded and he started up the stairs again and, as he turned to take the next riser the side of his face came briefly into view and you saw for a fraction of a second before he angled his chin the other way, that the fine pale lashes on the near side of his face were lit blue,.
Then he was past it, angle gone and back of his head gone before he was climbing.
"It's Ethan," he said, easy, over his shoulder. "By the way. You don't have to do the Lord thing, I never got used to it. It feels weird coming at me. Just Ethan's good."
You did not answer, moving after him with your hand on the banister as the stairs made small confidential creaks.
He stopped at the door present at the very end of the hallway on the left of the stairs.
"Here you go," he said.
He turned the knob and pushed the door inward, stepping half aside to let you in.
It had been a study, you thought, or a storage room.
Maybe both.
There was a narrow bed against the far wall and a small window at the left, linen pulled tight and the dark wool blanket folded down at the foot of it in a careful triangle.
There was a small wash stand with a chipped enamel basin, a writing desk at the right of the door and there were boxes scattered a bit everywhere.
He stepped past you into it and looked around with a small reflexive wince.
"Ah," he said. "Yeah. I'm sorry. God, I had no idea I was gonna have somebody. I haven't been here in months. I'd have cleaned it up, I would've gotten all this out," He bent and lifted the brass lamp off the top of the nearest crate, set it down on the desk. "I'll get all of these out first thing tomorrow. You'll have a real space from now on."
A simple yet possessive curl on the ânow,â half-smile at the corner of his mouth went deeper and you ducked your face.
"Thanks," you said. Soft. "It's not a problem, really. My house wasn't that clean either, back home there were always things on the floor. My mother used to leave her sewing across the chair, you'd sit down on a needle if you weren't paying attention." You let out a small breath that wanted to be a laugh and wasn't quite. "It's fine. Really. It's a kind room."
He chuckled and his face crinkled at the corners of his eyes and he set his hand on the door frame, leaning a little on it.
"Yeah?" he said. "You miss it already?"
"They didn't lift a finger," you said.
It came out flat and small, looking at the leather trunk at the foot of the bed and not at his face.
"For the ritual," you said. "When the men came for me, nobody said anything. They let them tie my hands and take me up the path. Probably ate dinner that night with no much problem and the priest was going to come in the morning to tell them something about how my sacrifice was needed for the village toâ" Your throat tightened and you swallowed it down.
The room held quiet and you did not look up at him.
He did not say anything for a long moment while you felt him looking, steady weight of his attention coming down across the side of your face.
"Hey," he said softly and you looked up.
Half-smile still there but it had gone narrow and tender at the edges, his blue eyes were no longer glowing.
"They didn't deserve you, okay?" he said quietly. "Get some sleep, the bed's pretty good. Bathroom's two doors down on the left and, if you need anything, my room's at the left end of the hall, you knock, I'll be up. I'm a light sleeper."
"Goodnight," he said after a beat. "I'm really glad you're here."
He stepped back into the hall and pulled the door shut.
You stood for a moment in the middle of the small floor, listening for his footsteps going down the runner before taking a seat down on the bed.
The mattress took your weight with a small obliging compression and the wool blanket scratched at the back of your hand where it fell on it.
Putting your elbows on your thighs and leaning forward while putting both hands over your face, heels of them pressed into your eye sockets.
He'd seemed kind.
That was the small careful thought your head kept circling.
The glowing blue eyes and the times where heâd just stare off while observing you were the things influencing a ten out of ten for this place.
And the black mold everywhere.
How could you forget that with a small branch right inside the wall of your own room.
Looking around the room carefully, the window looked out over the back garden, although the black past the glass showed nothing.
The drop on the other side was a long drop if the window was on the second story above bare ground, plus glass.
Regarding the door, it had no inner lock and there was no second exit beside the window.
The little window at the end of the hall, beyond your door, looked out over the front. If you could get to that at some hour deep in the night, you could put your boots in your hand and walk on stockinged feet down the runner to the end of the hall to try the latch on the small window and you couldâ
Your eyelids dropped, they went heavy at once all in a rush and the room blurred at the edges.
The pillow was firm and good under your cheek as you laid on it and the room smelled faintly of cedar and wet moss.
You came back into yourself slowly many hours later and the first piece that came into focus was your currently hot skin all over, pillow under your cheek damp where your breath had been going on it and the collar of your shirt clung at the back of your neck.
There was a fine sheen of sweat at your hairline while you were lying on your side, curled a little and with one leg drawn up.
The next piece that came up into focus with the heat was the heavy ache of your cock that had been hard for a while without being touched, fly of your trousers strained at the laces and shape of you pressed up into the rough cloth, lining already wet at the spot, a small dark warm circle of damp where your slit had been leaking quietly for some time.
The pleasure was already there in all of your muscles, a long slow heat at the base of your dick.
Big and wide palms were on your sides, heat of them siping through your shirt and they moved on you in long slow strokes, up from your hip to the bottom of your ribs and down again to waist-level.
"Hey." The voice was at your ear so quiet and close yet it felt whispered from insanely far away, mouth at your temple and the voice of a man very familiar.
"Hey. You're okay. It's just me."
Ethan's voice.
"You're so warm," he said right against the shell of your ear. âThat's a lot, huh? You've been like that for a while."
A small breath, almost-laugh, warm puff of air moving on the side of your face.
"Can I help?"
You tried to answer, mouth opening and tongue moving as your breath came out in a small high shape neither a word or a no.
The hands on your sides did not stop, went up and down, thumbs on the upstroke pressed in just under the edge of your ribs and the pressure was perfect as those hands took the sound as a yes.
"Yeah," he murmured. "Lemme."
A hand left your side to come around to the front of you and sliding down, careful as the heel of it pressed for a long second against the hard hot shape of you in your trousers while your breath came out of you as a low broken âhh-hhhââ
His hand worked at your belt and it came loose soon, front of your trousers parting to let his hand dive inside.
The skin of his palm on the bare skin of your cock was hot and his fingers wrapped on it, long thumb laying itself flat down the underside of you and the four fingers closing around your shaft.
Your hips bucked into the grip and it gave back a slow sweet stroke, down to the root, knuckles of his pinky finger brushing your sack at the bottom and then all the way up, ring of his fingers tightening as it went over the head, thumb pressing flat across the wet slit and smearing the leak across the crown so that the next downstroke was wet and slick.
You bit your lip hard trying to catch the noise that wanted to come up out of you but some of it got past and your face turned into the pillow.
Your eyes were open, you thought, you could not be sure, the dark inside the room and the dark inside your head looked like the same dark.
His breath was on your cheek, so warm up close and it smelled faintly of the wine you shared.
"Yeah," he said, low, into the side of your face. "There you go."
His hand worked you in a long slow patient rhythm, up and down, grip pulsing at the top, fingers tightening as they came over the head, then easing as they slid back down.
He gave you all of that like he would have given it to himself and your hips moved under it without your permission, pushing up into his fist on every upstroke.
"Mm," he hummed. "Look at you. You're being so good for me."
His weight shifted, you felt it through the mattress as the bed dipped and he was over you, chest pressed against your shoulder blades, hips fitting against the curve of your ass and the work of the hand on your cock not pausing, long slow stroke continuing through the readjustment while his face tucked itself into the crook of your neck.
Fine dark stubble at his jaw scraping soft against the side of your throat and the underside of your jaw, a clean small bright pleasant friction and he turned his face into you and pressed his open mouth there, a small wet warm kiss landed there, followed by many more up the line of your jaw to the corner of your mouth, stubble dragging between each kiss while the soft of his lips landed wet.
Your hand came up and found the back of his head and his hair was soft as your fingers slid up into it before his mouth crashed down to yours.
It was a long slow open kiss, lips parting yours, tongue coming forward between your teeth warm and exploratory, sliding along the surface of yours with a careful unhurried thoroughness and you opened to him, you opened your mouth to him because your mouth was already open because you had been making small soft hurt noises into the pillow and your jaw had gone slack with them.
"My Lord," you breathed into his mouth and you had not meant to say it.
His hips jerked, a long heavy line of his against your ass jerking involuntarily and you felt him through the layer of his jeans and the layer of your trousers, long thick hot ridge of his big bulge pressing against the curve of your backside.
Shape of it laying along the cleft of you and the head of it was up against the small of your back.
When his hips jerked the line dragged across you and a low ragged breath came out of his nose into your cheek.
"Now I like that name," he muttered, into your mouth.
The rhythm of his hand on your cock and the rhythm of his hips at your ass came in together, long hot shape of him grinding gently against the curve of you and a small needy whimper came up out of him into your mouth.
His hand sped up, strokes shortened and wet sound of his fist on your slick cock got louder in the small dark room, thumb working the head on every pass and your body answered, hips fucking up into his fist in small fast jerks.
"You're close," he breathed into your mouth, almost amazed. "I can feel it in you. Can you feel that?"
You could feel his hand on you and you could feel it through your skin.
He was in you, that was the thought.
His tongue stroked yours patiently
"Come on," he breathed, into your mouth. "Let me have it. Come on, baby."
His fist tightened, hips grounding into you harder to let the long thick shape of him dragging hot and heavy, breath quickening in your mouth as his moan came up into the kiss.
Your last small thread of holding snapped and you came, cock kicking in his fist and the first stripe shot hot across the back of his fingers, second over his thumb and the third pulsed warm down the side onto the inside of his wrist.
You cried into the mouth engulfing your own as his fist worked you slow and patiently through every long shuddering throb, milking each pulse out of the head of you, thumb collecting the spend off the slit and sliding it down the shaft to make the next stroke wetter until there was nothing left to give and you were shaking against him with a fine low tremor.
He pulled back enough to look at you, face coming into focus above yours.
The blue of his eyes was glowing, steady and bright, pupils huge and round in the middle of the cold blue and the light from his eyes washed faint across your cheek, his face so flushed the high color was up across his cheekbones in two warm uneven bands and down the side of his neck, hair a little damp at the temples and he looked so handsome.
He looked down at you with his glowing eyes and his flushed face.
"I love you," he breathed into your mouth. "I love you, I love you, I love youâ"
You woke up hard, body snapping up out of the dark and your eyes opened, ceiling of the spare room over you, place very dark and empty.
Your chest was heaving, hair stuck to your temple and shirt wet at the collar, trousers and everything still.
The front of them was wet together with the small sour-sweet smell of spend rising up out of the cloth.
You sat up slowly and careful, face going hot at the wet dream you had gotten.
A very strong one at that.
A knock on his door would not be necessary, the small wet sounds of you cleaning yourself in the basin would not carry through the wall.
You did not see what was on the floor at the foot of the bed, now small low dark on the boards in the corner of the room near the leather trunk, last fine traces of a black thing that had been there.
A network of vein-fine black lines spread out across the boards, all radiating from a point on the floor near the foot of the bed where, perhaps, the toe of boots might have stood, lines fading and dissolving back into the wood.
By the time you had stood up off the bed with your hand at the wet front of your trousers and your face hot with embarrassment, there was nothing left on the floor.
Summary: You don't remember hitting your head. You also don't remember marrying such a smokeshow.
AN: I found some old fluff/angst amnesia prompts and adapted one for some whimsy.
Content warning: Reader is gender neutral and absolutely soaring on painkillers, one mention of sex (regardless MINORS DNI)
Masterlist // AO3 Version // Gif Credit
The world entered through a wormhole of tissue paper, emerging through the darkness in blotches and fuzzy shapes. Yet you were able to feel the intensity of your hand being held.
Your head felt like it was stuffed with cotton wool, your doctorâs voice occasionally pushing through the forest of fluff to remind you that you had to keep sipping water. Accepting the straw that materialised in front of your face was easy enough. It led you back to the man sat at your side who was holding it â and your hand still in his other one â for you. You tried to squint at him whilst you drank to abate the overwhelm that came with looking at someone you were half sure was handsome, but catching and keeping the straw between your pursed lips took all your concentration.
âWoah there,â he dabbed a napkin â where did he get a napkin from? â around your mouth.
Ah, you were dribbling, not swallowing.
At some point, heâd placed the cup back on the table. You only realised when he squeezed your hand in both of his, his smile making you weak at the knees. Probably. Your legs felt like you hadnât moved them in years. His face was in full focus now, and goddamn if it wasnât the most beautiful one youâd seen.
âHey.â The âyâ was really drawn out by whoever was saying that. They sounded close by.
The strangerâs smile grew bigger, creating lines at his eyes that sweetened the deal, âHi again.â
You took in the black sweater he was wearing, how cosy it looked around his arms and how you wanted to snuggle into them.
ââM I dreaminâ?â said the voice. You looked to your right to catch who it was, but no one else was there, not even the doctor. Whereâd she go? Whereâd the chatterer go?
âYouâre awake,â the stranger answered. He cocked his head to the left; you copied him.
âCool.â Oh, it was your voice talking. ââVe we met?â
He chuckled and you would be offended if he didnât look so damn attractive doing it. The joy echoed clearly out of his throat; your eyes latched onto the dimples that framed his mirth like a painting.
âYeah, weâve met,â he confirmed. A corner of his mouth stayed upright in a smirk.
Eh, fuck it.
âCan I buy you a drink?â you slurred.
Your own tongue poked out of your mouth as you watched him wet his lips, his head and shoulders shaking before he replied, âHow about I buy you one and you get the next round?â
He ended his proposal with a wink which sent you reeling like heâd spun the world and you on a plate.
ââKay, charmer,â you smiled goofily at him. If you looked dumb, who cares? No you, you were getting propositioned by a hottie with a body â seriously howâd it taken you so long to notice his arms?
âBe right back.â He kissed your brow, still smiling down at you. Woah, this guy was forward!
In your anaesthetic haze, you went to playfully slap his chest, but he was already out his chair and the room. You wouldâve scrunched your body up in on itself to keep the view of his behind in sight, except you were achy still and could barely lift your head off the pillow.
You were left staring at the popcorn tiled ceiling, brightly lit. Stupid interior choice for a flirting hot spot, youâd have to take this guy somewhere else.
âJust checking your-â
âSweeâ Jesus,â you winced in slow motion at the sudden voice.
âSorry, I didnât mean to startle you,â apologised the voice, now appearing at your side in the form of a nurse by an IV bag. Your gaze trailed down the tubing and frowned when it found a needle plastered to your hand, but you didnât fight against it.
âWhatâsâis name?â you pointed vaguely in the direction heâd gone and pouted. How long did it take to get you a damn drink?
âJack?â
âOhhh, nooo,â your head lolled back and forth on the pillow, âNot supposed to date a âJâ name. âS cursed.â
Your nurse tapped the tautly full IV bag (that you were sure was nearly empty a second ago), âBit late for that. Heâs your husband.â
âMâhusband?â You gawked, eyelids slipping halfway in shock as all other energy was directed on trying to remember what this man looked like on your wedding day. âI married that?â
The nurse smiled down at you, âArenât you lucky?â
âYâsee those biceps?â slipped out your mouth before the idea of being embarrassed could even be conjured from the recesses of your subconscious. âCould bounce a dime off that ass⊠âR a nickel.â
What would be harder to aim? You couldnât remember their sizes or shapes, so calculating the prime aerodynamics would be tricky. Getting past the number seven of counting the ceiling tiles without getting bored was already threatening you with another round of sleep.
Thank God, the hot guy came back with two drinks in hand. Instantly, this room was better.
âHey, handsome,â you cooed.
âWell,â he balanced the drinks on a moveable table, âHello, gorgeous.â
Beaming at him, your head rolled back towards him and you demanded, âGimme some sugar!â
Hopefully you were pouting. You were telling your lips to pout. If they were listening, that was another thing.
His arms â Christ, his arms were bulging out of that black t-shirt â bracketed you into the bed as he drew closer to you. Each freckle, speck of stubble, line across his skin brightened with clarity. You could happily stare at him for days. Why was he this close again?
Oh yeah, youâd requested a kiss from his pretty mouth. Â
No sooner were his lips brushing yours, you collapsed into giggles as if he was tickling you five drinks deep, batting him with all the strength you had. He barely moved.
âGlad to see the meds are working their magic,â Whatâs-his-face barely moved to leave a prickly kiss on your cheek before he withdrew back to his seat.
A gasp escaped you as you covered where heâd left his affection. The laughter kept spilling out like water from your mouth though. Then your fingertip caught on something on your left hand. Before Whatâs-his-name could take your hand again, you lifted it in front of your eyes which widened five long seconds later.
âOh shit! Iâm married?â You gawked at the ring. How long had that been there?
âYeah,â He showed his hand where a ring glinted teasingly at you, âWeâre married.â
Jaw slack, you reached a shaky hand out and prodded his ring then yours.
âWeâre married?â you said softly, eyes big and beaming.
âYeah. Two years in a month.â
Before you could feel any embarrassment at forgetting your husbandâs name again, you spotted your nurse passing the corridor.
You flinched at the volume you couldnât control as you bellowed, âWill I be outta here in time to have anniversary sex?â
A low cackling echoed beside you and you frowned at your husband who was hiding his crimson blush in cupped hands. Evidently, your expression conveyed your concern at his lack thereof; he took your hand back in his and kissed your knuckles.
âIâll take you home tonight if you behave,â he squeezed your fingers gently, âGet some rest?â
A short hum escaped you, suspicious yet complacent, as your pillow seemed to swallow you up. As your eyelids sank shut, you prayed youâd remember his name by the time you woke up â though âhot stuffâ would work in the interim.
Synopsis: You and Robby had history, lots of it. A failed marriage, mutual coworkers and patients, even a dog with shared custody. It was a directive strictly followed by nurses, not to call you down there, even if they needed a consult with your department, so when the new nurse, Emma, calls you down to the Pitt, something might be ready to resurface.
Warnings: Divorce, heated arguments, medical jargon, skin conditions.
Check the rest of my work (masterlist) here!
Your eyes. Robby could never forget them. No matter how messy the divorce was, how many nights he stayed up arguing with you, how insufferable coexisting was, he would find himself daydreaming about your eyes. The way the sun highlighted their natural color, how sharp and thick your eyelashes were, and how you could take him apart with a simple glimpse of those damn eyes.
It was an unspoken rule at the Pitt that no one called the Dermatology department. If it were extremely necessary, the patient would be transferred upstairs, but calling derm was out of the question. Of course, the new nurse, Emma, wasn't debriefed about it, so when Doctor Al-Hashimi told her to get Dr. Robinavitch to trauma two, the girl checked the hospital directory and called Dr. (Y/N) Robinavitch downstairs.
You kept his name after the divorce, maybe because you loved self-inflicted pain and keeping it there reminded you of him constantly, maybe because changing all of your documents was a lot of work after an already messy and long judicial divorce...maybe because deep down you hoped you two would end up together somehow.
When the floor nurse knocked on your door and told you were called down to the pit, you almost thought it was a joke, some sick joke. "Are you serious?" You double-checked, gladly picking up the raspberry water glass she handed you. "One hundred per cent, they called you by name, you're needed in trauma two, Dr. Al-Hashimi asked," she said, looking at the note. "Okay then," you said, sipping your water and entering the elevator.
The metallic double doors opened with a ding, and immediately, eyes were drawn towards you. The well-pressed white shirt under a dark green Ralph Lauren, paired with navy blue tailored pants and expensive Ferragamo shoes, didn't exactly help you fit in. The only things proving you were a doctor and not some spoiled nepobaby were the pristine white coat and your nametag.
You took a quick look around and walked towards the trauma room, opening the swing doors. "Hello, I'm Dr. Robinavitch." You spoke, looking at the attending doctor, two other doctors, probably residents, looked at you, confused, and Perlah gulped.
"No, you are not," She said, laughing, and Perlah seemed about to pass out. You tapped your nametag twice, where it was clearly stated 'Dr. Robinavitch'.
"I didn't know there were two of you." One of the residents, Dr. Whitaker, as it was written in his nametag, spoke, "You probably wanted Michael, right? I'm chief of dermatology, there is not much I can do about this broken leg," You said, pointing at the patient. "Perlah, you look pale. Are you okay?" You asked, suppressing a smile. Nurses kept the hospital running, but they also kept all of the gossip in check. You knew about the 'not calling you' rule through the nurses on your floor.
"Yes, Dr., I haven't eaten," She explained. "I see... well, I'll be back upstairs if you need anything, Dr. Al-Hashimi. It was a pleasure." You spoke and turned on your heels, leaving the trauma room.
When the glass door in front of you was opened, you immediately saw Robby standing across the nurses' bay looking straight ahead. Dana was by his side, Langdon, and a Mel was there. Robby's posture got immediately stiff, and that horrid, loud ringing started echoing inside both his ears. Your gaze, the way your eyes looked around the ER untill their crossed his brought back memories to both of you, but your sharp eyes were exactly how he remembered, Fierce and stubborn, just how he liked it.
"(Y/N)...?" Robby asked as you walked towards the small group. "Oh, we are back on a first-name basis, Michael?" You teased, holding his gaze, "Well, we were married." He shot back, " 'Were'Â as the word in evidence in that sentence." You spoke back, watching Dana smile.
"What are you doing in my ER?" He asked, running his hand over his face up to his hair, "I could ask you the same thing. Apparently, your team had trouble locating their attending. Someone called me instead of you, and here I am." You explained, "It was me, I'm sorry. I checked the directory and called him instead of you." Emma came forward confessing.
You broke the stare competition with Robby first; you always folded when it came to him. "It's okay, darling. Rookie mistake, I'm sure now it won't happen again." You conforted her, "Besides, not like he was busy up there applying Botox or whatever. There is no sunscreen convention here, so you can go back up." Robby's snarky comment felt worse than it should; you hated how you still felt some stuff about him.
"You? Talking about sunscreen? That's bold; you should wear some. We are the same age, and you are ten years older than I am." You teased, looking at a stretcher inside one of the rooms by your side. "Ouch, that's a mean case of Phytophotodermatitis," You said, forgetting the argument and walking towards the patient. "Phytophoto what?" Javadi asked.
"We are running a few tests. Are you sure that it is phytophotodermatitis?" Ogilvie, another intern, asked, "I'll pretend like I didn't just hear that from an intern." You said, walking closer to the male, "We got it covered." Robby said, getting by your side and crossing his arms over his chest. "Of course you have," you said and turned towards the patient. "Sir, would you prefer a dermatologist or an emergency specialist to take a look at those wounds?" You asked, and the patient spoke immediately, "A dermatologist, please".
"My patient now, you can go see what Dr. Al-Hashimi wants," You said. "I need five liters of cold .9 saline solution, a tub of Cetaphil or CeraVe cream, and a shot of steroids. Some morphine for the pain as well." You ordered and watched, and Javaddi and Ogilvie started working. You gave them a few tips on how to treat it, how to wash without popping the blisters, and how to manage his pain without too much morphine.Â
After tending to that patient, you went back to your office and resumed your consults. You gossiped a bit with the nurses on your floor, and they loved to get your perspective on how it went because the nurses from the Pitt had already started toÂ
Laura, the nurse responsible for the dermatology front desk, stopped by your room once again with a crooked smile on her lips. "So... you think this is a joke... but you're being called down to the pitt, again..." She said, "You double checked they mean me?" You inquired, "Yeah, Dr. Robinavitch, from dermatology," Laura confirmed, "Lord have mercy." You prayed, making your way downstairs again.Â
Dana saw you and pointed you towards room south 5. You gave her a small nod and walked inside. Dr. Al Hashimi was there with Whitaker, Santos, Langdon, Mel, and Javadi. "Feels crowded in here," You spoke, entering the room. "Meet Thomas, a 15-year-old boy with no prior records, who lived a healthy life until the beginning of this week, and those lesions started appearing on his skin. We ran cultures and many tests, but they all came back negative. We were hoping you could help shed some light." Al-Hashimi said, and you smiled at the boy and his mother.Â
You felt Robby's gaze burning on your back, but you ignored him; he was standing in the hallway looking inside. You lowered your body and used your glasses to have a better look at the lesions. You didn't want to say what it was, you knew, an incurable disease with a lot of pain and care in the future. "It looks like Epidermolysis bullosa, the dystrophic type." You spoke, "Let's order a genetic panel, look specifically for the genes KRT5, KRT14, collagen XVII, COL7A1, and FERMT1. It could also be Kindler's syndrome, a more aggressive form of the disease, but let's wait for the results. In the meantime, give him steroids and antystaminics." You spoke.Â
The mother started crying, and you hugged her, staying inside the room for another thirty minutes, explaining everything she needed to know. When the result came positive for Kindler's syndrome, she was a bit more prepared than she was before. You arranged the kids' transfer upstairs and placed him under your chief resident's care, since he was on call.Â
"I'm sorry it wasn't something easier to fix." You spoke to the group of doctors who were inside the room with you. "It's not going to be easy, but with proper medication, care, correct diet, and constant visits to his doctor, he will manage it," You added, giving the group a soft smile.
"If you guys have any questions, please come upstairs to my department. We have raspberry water and collagen cookies; they sound horrible, but are awesome. People think dermatology is just about Botox and sunscreen, but the skin is the largest organ in our body. If any of you are interested in residency, our program is opening spots soon." You finished.Â
"Already trying to steal my doctors?" Robby said, approaching you, "I don't want them hating dermatology just because I can't be down here." You shot back, and he laughed, "And yet here you are," He added, and you rolled your eyes. "I'm not in the mood to argue, Michael. Just gave a single mother a devastating diagnosis, and putting up with your bullshit is the last of my priorities." You said, leaving him behind, opening and closing his mouth, trying to find some sarcastic comment, "Call me if you need anything, Dr. Al-Hashimi." You spoke and hopped inside the elevator.Â
The rest of the day was carried out the way it usually went. Weird rashes, Botox applications, moles, and skin tags that needed to be removed. When the last patient left your office, you started packing your stuff, desperate to leave. You were already tired and wanted the tub of Ben & Jerry's ice cream you had inside your freezer and some corny show, maybe cry yourself to sleep after seeing Robby twice the same day, and he still treated you like shit.Â
"Dr. Robinavitch," Laura screamed from her desk towards you, "I know you are off the clock, but they called you down at the pitt again. It seems to be urgent, really urgent. Dana was desperate on the phone," She said, and you gulped, "Okay. I'm on my way". The elevator was taking too long, so you took the stairs and ran down, feeling a strange tightness in your chest.Â
You found Dr. Al Hashimi and then Dana, both of them were standing in front of the Trauma Room, a silent "Dana? What's wrong?" You asked, catching your breath.Â
"Robby, he... he was run over by an ambulance outside. He passed out. I checked his file, and you were listed as an emergency contact." She blurred out the sentence, and you dropped your bag and got inside the Trauma room. Perlah tried to take you outside, but you said a simple "Don't," and she let you get closer to him.Â
His face was drenched in blood, with a large laceration on his forehead; both arms were also covered in scratches, his left leg was clearly broken, and he was unconscious. Jack was running the room, and when he saw you, he shared a concerned look.Â
"Call Schimitt for neuro, I don't care if he is not on-call, he is the best. Get Garcia and Park here, tell them I called, and they'll be here in an instant." You ordered, and Perlah gave a thumbs up, reaching for the phone on the wall. You gloved up and started palpating his ribs and limbs. "You can't treat family," Jack said, "We are divorced, we're not family anymore." You shot back and continued the exam.Â
Robby was bumped to the top of the CT and X-Ray line and rushed into the OR after that. You used your credentials to look at the images and his chart and felt a bit relieved when you realized it was manageable. A broken femur that had to be fixed and a brain bleed that needed draining inside the OR.Â
Robby was kept in the ICU for three days, and you stayed there. His colleagues would come visit him, but no family. You realized you were everything he had left, which was strange considering the way he treated you.Â
During the third night, you heard coughing and went to his bedside to extubate him. "I forgot how those things are horrible." He spoke, complaining about the tube and reaching for the water. You placed a straw in his dry, chapped lips and helped him with it. "Do you know what happened?" You asked, "Yeah, a blind ambulance driver backed up the vehicle on me and crushed me against a wall," Robby said, "How long was I out?" He added, "Three days." You explained, handing him his own chart. "Shit," He spoke, reading the notes and exams.Â
"Why are you here?" He asked, "I'm your emergency contact on file, guess you forgot to change it."Â
"Yeah, I had no one to put there," He confessed, and you smiled, "You are much more tolerable when you're sleeping, so I didn't mind it." You spoke.
"Why did you stay, tho? I get stopping by, but staying, it doesn't suit you," Robby said. "The fuck is that supposed to mean? You are the one who hates me." You shot back, crossing your arms over your chest.Â
"I... I never hated you, I couldn't hate you," Robby admitted, and you froze in place. "Bullshit, you treat me like I'm the worst thing that happened to you. I went down to your department twice today and was met with an attitude and poor behaviour. I'm not saying you should hug me and take me around for a tour, just maybe don't act like an asshole," You defended.Â
"I hate when you look at me like that, always did," Robby sighs, drinking more water. "You look at me with that gaze of someone who knows they are right, and the worst part is that you are. I'm sorry for being a jerk with you. But I can either treat you like shit or run to your arms, I have no middle ground." The room went silent for a while. "And you clearly don't want the second option, so..."
You interrupted him, "I kept your name, you idiot, is there something more 'I want you' than keeping your name?" You spoke back, hiding your face, "I never stopped wanting you, nor for a second. I agreed with everything because I know I'm hard to deal with. I imagined you'd be happier with someone else, Robby."Â
Robby scoffed, "And for some reason we've been acting like two enemies for no good reason?" Robby inquired, but he already knew the answer, "Yeah, pretty much." You added.Â
The room went silent again, this time a comfortable silence. Robby held your hand and you carressed the back of his hand with your thumb; somehow, this time felt like it was going to work.Â
Drives me genuinely insane that kids-only spaces on the internet like Club Penguin were destroyed because companies realised that thereâs only so much profit you can squeeze out of children with no disposable income, so now kids are being forced into adult spaces on the internet where the profit model is to find the most viewers you can passively expose to ads that nobody is clicking on so all online media is slowly turning into Mr Beast Elsagate nightmares, and for adults this means giving your ID to companies owned by businessmen with Epstein connections to keep the kids âsafe.â Clown internet.
The Department of Education worked with the far-right Family Research Council to officially designate March 12th as Detrans Awareness Day last year. But what actually leads people to detransition? It's not regret, but social stigma, incited by the very figures who claim to protect detransitioners. I want to hear their stories describing how the current moral panic influenced their decisions.
When people argue that food from Chinese and Mexican restaurants in the US are not 'real' representations of that culture's cuisine ignore the historical reality that these dishes were developed by diasporic communities striving to recreate the flavors of home with available resources. Such criticism frames adaptation as a loss of authenticity, rather than recognizing it as a sincere and evolving expression of culture by people separated from their homeland.
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Patrick sumner x male reader
Summary: when fate (and a ruptured whale carcass) throws you into Patrickâs care, the lines between treatment and indulgence blur fast as you get treated by a doctor who knows exactly where to press and how to make the body give in. Meanwhile, he finds his perfect replacement for laudanum.
Tags: No use of Y/N. Male reader. Requested by an anon, hope youâll like this. Some science talk thrown in here. Fluff. Smut. Top Patrick Sumner. Dom Patrick Sumner. Bottom male reader. Handjob. Anal sex. Manhandling.
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Words count: 3500
Wood beneath your weight creaked faintly with every shallow shift, worn smooth by years of sailors far rougher than yourself.
A lantern swung ever so slightly overhead with the shipâs motion, casting slow lights across his face.
Which was currently far too close.
Those pale, cutting blue eyes studied you with an intensity that made your chest feel tight. He leaned in just enough to catch the light properly, one hand braced on the back of the desk you were sitting on, the other lifting your chin with firm, unhesitating fingers.
Touch precise while he examined and tried to solve whatever thing afflicted your body.
You barely registered the question he asked about your condition and symptoms.
It dissolved entirely under the weight of his gaze as your stomach lurched and throat tightened, focus caught on the flecks of darker blue in his irises, the way his beard framed his mouth or that faint scent of tobacco and clean alcohol clinging to him.
A sharp snap of his fingers clicking briskly in front of your face.
âStay wiâ me, lad.â
The sound cut clean through the fog in your head as he had already stepped back half a pace, one hand settling near your frame beside him while the other was resting on his hip. He looked down at you now, posture loose but authoritative, expecting to be obeyed without question.
âWhat is it yeâre feelinâ, then? Properly this time.â
Heat rushed up your neck while you let out a low, awkward hum, trying to gather yourself and drag your thoughts back into something resembling order.
âItâsââ you swallowed, your voice catching slightly, âbeen⊠constant, sir. Since we set out.â
Your hands tightened faintly in your lap as you tried to explain it in a way that made sense.
âMy stomach feels as if it wonât settle, keeps turninâ over itself.â You pressed a hand briefly to your abdomen, as if demonstrating. âCanât keep food well, comes back up near as quick as it goes down.â
Your brow knit as you searched for the right words.
âAnd my head feels light. Worse when I stand or look too long at anythinâ.â
You exhaled slowly, embarrassed at how much it all sounded when laid out like that.
âAnâ the smell oâ things makes it worse.â
Silence followed, save for the creak of timber and the distant groan of the ship.
Sumner nodded once as a low hum left him, deep in his chest, while he looked you over again.
His fingers returned to you without warning, pressing lightly along your jaw, then your neck. He turned your head slightly, inspecting the whites of your eyes and color of your skin, checking for pallor while his knuckles brushed your cheek as he tilted your face toward the lantern.
âMm.â He moved quicker now, lifting your wrist and turning it palm-up, thumb pressing into your pulse point, counting silently. His other hand ran along your forearm, firm pressure, testing the flesh and muscle beneath.
No lesions or suppuration, skinâs sound.
His touch shifted to your hands, turning them over, inspecting the nails, beds and faint grime worked into the creases from labor. He pressed along your fingers, checking for swelling or tenderness.
Then your arms and shoulders, moving clinically efficiently, something entirely under his control that sent a welcoming heat pooling low in your gut.
âShirt off.â
The words came flat and immediate.
He wasnât even looking at your face when he said it, rather already reaching forward, fingers catching the fabric at your collar, tugging it aside.
âââscuse me?â Your breath hitched, words slipping out half-laugh and half-unintentional arousal as your hands fumbled to comply. The fabric dragged over your skin, cool air hitting your chest as you pulled it off.
He stepped in too close again, broad palms moving across your ribs and sternum, pressing, assessing. He leaned in, ear near your chest for a moment, listening to the rhythm beneath.
âBreathe.â
You did sharply at first, then slower as he repeated it.
His fingers traced along your side, pressing between ribs, checking for tenderness and possible fluid, hands warm against your skin as they traveled down your spine, pressing at intervals.
âAny cuts from the works?â he asked, voice closer to your ear now. âContact wiâ carcass? Rot?â
âFew small ones. Nothinâ deep.â You swallowed.
âShow me.â
You twisted slightly, pointing them out as he leaned in again, inspecting each with care, checking for swelling or discoloration.
âNo sign oâ putrefaction,â he murmured mostly to himself. âGood. Yeâd know it if there were wiâ flesh that goes foul quickly out here. Infection takes hold faster than a man can think. Blood turns on ye if itâs left unchecked.â
You could have listened to him for hours, especially considering the way your body was betraying you with heat coiling low as blood traveled all the way down to your dick.
The faint rasp of his beard when he moved past you got addictive to watch
He stepped away at last.
âYe can dress.â
Relief and disappointment tangled together as you pulled your shirt back on, fingers clumsier than they should have been.
Across the room, he had already rolled his sleeve up, exposing strong forearms marked faintly by veins and old scars previously hidden unfairly by that white sweater he had on. He reached for a small collection of dried herbs, selecting them with care.
Ginger root and dried mint that he set into a mortar and began to grind.
The pestle moved in steady circles, crushing the plant matter down, constant grit against stone as the herbs broke further, releasing their oils along a scent blooming into the air.
His forearm flexed with each motion, tightening of muscle beneath skin while those veins rose more prominently as he applied pressure. A faint grunt escaped him now and again as he worked.
You tried unsuccessfully not to stare.
ââŠMakinâ somethinâ tâ ease the passinâ, are you?â you muttered, voice quieter, edged with dry humor. âSo I donât suffer through it?â
He scoffed, a brief lift of his gaze as those blue eyes caught yours again, a flicker of amusement at the corner of his mouth. His beard shifted with it, framing the faint grin that tugged there.
âHardly.â Voice softening just a fraction. âYeâre not dyinâ, lad. Just unused tâ the sea.â
He returned to his work, adding a small measure of water cut with a touch of alcohol to the crushed herbs, working it into a thin preparation.
âYeâll have plenty oâ work yet.â
You huffed lightly at that, nodding.
âWouldâve been useful tâ know before signinâ on.â
A quiet chuckle left him.
âFirst voyage, is it?â
âAye, sir.â
âPatrick,â he corrected, almost absently.
The mixture had thinned now, liquid taking on a cloudy, greenish-brown hue. He poured it carefully into small glass flasks, stoppering each with a cork cap.
âItâll settle the stomach. Ginger for the nausea, mint tâ calm it. Take a small measure when the feelinâ rises.â
He stepped back toward you, handing them over but his hand lingered as it settled on your shoulder.
âBody learns the motion, just give it time.â He said, quieter now. âIf it worsens,â he added, eyes holding yours again, âye know where tâ find me.â
The change came on you so gradually it almost felt like a trick of the body rather than a cure.
At first it was simply less.
Churning that had once twisted your insides into knots softened. The sharp, bitter rise in your throat dulled until it was nothing more than a faint, forgettable irritation and your once light head settled back into itself. The deck still moved beneath your feet but your body had begun, obediently, to match it.
Just as heâd said it would.
The draught heâd given you worked quickly, gingerâs volatile oils warming the stomach, encouraging proper gastric movement instead of that miserable, reversed churn while the mint eased the spasms and calmed the vagus nerveâs overreaction.
It was infuriatingly effective.
Within a day or two you were well, strong in your footing and steady in your stomach as appetite returned with vengeance.
You had no reason to see him again and that, far more than the sickness, sat wrong in your chest.
Founding yourself glancing toward the door of his surgery more often than youâd admit, listening for his voice and any excuseâŠ
None came until a long enough dead whale left too long in the cold water before being brought alongside, had begun the slow unseen work of decay.
Bacteria within the gut breaking down tissue, releasing methane and hydrogen sulfide trapped beneath layers of blubber thick.
Pressure building but contained until the rupture came sudden.
A deep, wet crack followed by a violent release as the abdominal cavity split under its own strain. Gas, liquefied tissue and partially decomposed matter burst outward with force enough to send men stumbling.
You hadnât even braced as the impact hit you square, force of it knocking the breath from you as your footing slipped and the deck lurched at the same moment, sending your body skidding hard across slick wood until you slammed into the shipâs side.
The impact jolted through your back, harsh enough to steal the air from your lungs entirely as the cold edge of the rail bit into you, open sea just beyond black and endless.
Around you, men cursed and laughed but not a single complaint left your mouth as the captain ordered you to get checked by the doctor.
The room felt and smelled the same while sitting there again in the same spot, though feeling entirely different now that you were not distracted by sickness.
Now, you noticed everything like the arrangement of his bone-handled scalpels, neatly wrapped bandages, glass vials clouded faintly by residue. The mortar from before, cleaned but still faintly stained with green along a collection of classical literature and his own desire to write poetry
Your patience wore thin far quicker than you cared to admit as you waited, every sound outside made your attention flick toward the door.
Until the latch turned and that door opened.
A flicker of recognition that softened the edge of his expression just slightly.
âBack again,â he breathed, closing the door behind him, gaze sweeping over you once. âThe nausea worsened?â
You shook your head, unable to stop the small edge of something in your voice.
âOpposite, sir. Cleared near entirely.â
A pause and a small nod.
âPatrick.â He corrected the way you addressed him before turning toward his desk, moving a few things aside, clearing space as he spoke. âThaâs good tâknow. What happened, then?â
âCarcass burst,â you said simply. âKnocked me clean across the deck.â
Another practical nod as he turned back but stopped at seeing you already shirtless, garment discarded off to the side.
For a moment his gaze held, not much clinically as it dropped unintentionally across your pecs and the line of your shoulders, then back to your face.
âYe in a hurry, are ye?â Dry and almost amused.
You shifted slightly, letting your weight settle more deliberately.
âFar from it,â you said, voice quieter now. âCaptain gave me the day and I like to be very⊠obedient.â A faint tilt of your head. âEfficient as well.â
Something in his jaw tightened barely as he stepped forward, closer again.
âWhereâs the pain?â His voice had lowered, not softer but more focused.
You nodded slightly, then turned, lifting yourself just enough to show your back.
âTook it here.â
Broad and warm hands settled on your back as he pressed along your shoulders, thumbs working into muscle with practiced certainty, testing for tension and disruption beneath the skin. His fingers traced the line of your spine, pressing at intervals and checking for tenderness or misalignment, palm flattening briefly against your back.
âBreathe.â His hand shifted with it as you did to feel the expansion and symmetry of your lungs.
He moved closer because he had to.
That was the reason.
It had to be.
Yet the closeness lingered just a fraction longer than necessary before his hand rose to your neck, fingers pressing against your pulse, firmer than needed and almost absent.
âTurn.â
You did too quickly and willingly, really wanted to show how obedient you could be.
His hand caught your jaw, steadying you as he tilted your head slightly, thumb dragged down your lower lip, exposing your gums and checking color for any signs of dehydration or systemic distress.
He released you slowly and stepped back half a pace while a low hum left him.
âYeâre sure thereâs pain?â Not a question at all as he seemed to have caught on.âThereâs no contusion or sign oâ trauma beyond surface impact.â
Now or never.
You shifted again, turning fully by swinging your legs over the side so you faced him properly now.
âIf what yeâre seeinâ is pleasant enough,â you murmured, âdoes it matter much?â
Something in him responded as a low, rumbling sound left his chest, gaze moving slower this time intentionally.
âPhysically sound,â he said, though his voice had changed just slightly. âGood musculature, no signs oâ malnutrition and skin intact.â Large and warm hands settled at your thighs.
âWhat should I do wiâ ye, then?â he asked, voice low, edged with something restrained.
You held his gaze without hesitation.
âAnythinâ ye want.â
His mouth found yours without hesitation or careful testing, coarse beard scraping against your lips immediately, dragging along the soft skin at the corner of your mouth as he adjusted the angle, something that made your breath hitch the second it deepened fast.
Your lips parted under his without thinking, a quick inhale slipping between you that he took advantage of instantly with his tongue pushed in, testing and mapping the inside of your mouth with the same precision he used in examination, only this time there was nothing clinical about it.
A low rumbling sound erupted deep in his chest that you felt as much as heard, vibrating faintly through the contact of your bodies, hands still gripping your thigh and tightening.
Fingers digging in closer to the curve of your rear, hauling you forward with strength as he pulled you flush against him.
One of your hands caught at his sleeve, the other bracing against his side while his tongue moved slipped along yours, pressing and withdrawing enough to drag against it before returning again. He angled his head slightly, deepening the kiss further, beard scraping along your jaw this time, rough enough to make your skin burn faintly in its wake.
Another low sound left him and you answered it without meaning to, breath catching, body reacting faster than your thoughts could keep up, heat pooling low, hips shifting faintly against his grip.
Thumb pressing hard into your thigh as if to keep you exactly where he wanted even as his mouth slowed enough to make you chase it when he pulled back a fraction, lips dragged once more against yours before he finally broke the kiss, breath warm and uneven as it ghosted across your mouth.
âStay,â he muttered, voice rougher now, edged with emotions that hadnât been there before. âAnâ take those off.â
He pulled away fully, turning to the side as if he hadnât just left your lips swollen and your head spinning.
âNeed somethinâ.â
You sat there for half a second, breath unsteady, wiping at the faint line of spit threatening to slip from your lower lip before fingers fumbled slightly at your belt from the lingering effect of him.
Buckle coming loose, then your trousers followed, pushed down enough to free yourself, fully and achingly hard for him.
There was no hiding it, not that you tried.
By the time he turned back, you were laid open for him, legs parted and dick standing firm, flushed and leaking faintly at the tip.
His eyes did all the comments as he stepped closer with a small tin in hand for storing rendered fats. He opened it with his thumb, revealing the pale and creamy substance inside.
âDoctor keepinâ that on hand fâ all his patients, is he?â you murmured, voice edged with teasing.
He huffed a quiet laugh, free hand coming up, unexpectedly gentle as it settled against your cheek, thumb brushing once along your skin.
âTreats cuts,â he said, tone low, casual. âWounds or earaches if ye warm it right.â
A pause as his eyes held yours. âOr tâ help an handsome patient in need oâ his doctorâs dick.â
Breath catching as a laugh slipped out of you louder than expected, tension snapping to let it through until is hand was on your thigh again and he moved it with a firm pull upward, your leg lifted and guided over his shoulder with a low grunt of effort, making your back meet the desk fully now, wood cool beneath you as your body opened to him completely.
His fingers, smooth by the substance that melted from his warmth, pressed slow at first, testing the resistance and tension there before easing in further, slickness of the tallow doing its work as his finger slid inside you with controlled pressure and your breath broke.
Free other hand of his moved immediately and wrapped around your cock, stroking to draw another reaction from you before his focus returned fully to what he was doing.
âRelax,â he murmured, instruction and expectation.
A second finger followed and the stretch burned not for long because he knew exactly what he was doing, fingers curving precisely where he knew to find your prostate.
Soon a sharp and electric jolt tore a sound from your throat and he hummed, low and satisfied.
âAye,â he muttered, almost to himself. âThere it is.â Fingers moving again, repeating the motion and pressing into that same spot with practiced accuracy.
Of course he knew where it was.
His hand on your cock kept a controlled pace now while those sharp blue eyes took in every reaction.
âGood response,â he murmured. âYer takinâ it well.â
The words went straight to your dick held through his fist.
By the time he withdrew his fingers, you were already trembling slightly, breath uneven and body more than ready for more.
He stepped back just enough to unbuckle his belt, all the noises between metal shifting and leather loosening felt louder despite your heart drumming inside the ear channels while being left there, open and waiting.
Then he was back along with a blunt, slick press of him at your entrance. Thick and already prepared.
He stroked himself once, eyes fixed on the way your body looked laid out beneath him before he pushed in, stretched deeper than before and fuller while your body forced to adjust around him inch by inch as he worked his way inside.
When he was fully seated a low groan left him unrestrained.
He leaned down, bracing himself over you with one arm planted beside your waist as the other steadied your hip before he moved slowly, measured thrusts drawing out the sensation and letting your body take him properly.
As Patrick began to move with a thick cock sliding in and out of your slick and eager hole, you couldn't help but let out a low moan.
He was so gentle at first, allowing you to feel every inch of him as he filled you completely. Heat radiating off of him along the way he stretched perfectly your hole, making you gasp and arch your back with each thrust.
He leaned down further, body pressing against yours, breath hot on your ear as he groaned low. "Fuck, ye feel good," he muttered, voice close to a low growl. "Tight an' warm."
Very glad to know the temperature of your anus was of his liking, you could feel the way his cockhead pressed against your prostate with each thrust, medical knowledge guiding and allowing him to hit that spot with unerring accuracy.
He knew just how to move and angle his hips to make you gasp and beg quietly for more, using all that knowledge stored inside his beautiful and haunted mind to drive you wild with that veined length of flesh.
Friction from his smooth thrusts sending jolts of pleasure coursing through your body.
His breath was coming in ragged gasps now, body pressing you into the desk, his hands gripping your hips to pull you onto him and urging you to take more.
Pleasure was building fast, heat coiling in your belly as the pressure began growing with each thrust. He was hitting your prostate with every movement, his medical knowledge guiding him, allowing him to drive you closer and closer to the edge.
With a loud groan, you came, cock spasming and shooting your load onto his white sweater, marking him in a way.
But Patrick wasn't done yet as he continued to move, hips thrusting in a steady, relentless rhythm while his cock sliding in and out of you, hammering your prostate with every movement.
âFunny thing, pleasure. Same pathways as pain but interpreted differently.â A faint, rough chuckle left his throat that mixed along a groan. âBrainâs easy tâ fool if ye know how.â
Impossible to answer him back as the grip that you held on the desk below tightened significantly, all he got back was a breathless chuckle interrupted halfway with a groan of your own.
Then, with a final groan, he came too as he moved himself flush till his groin slapped your ass and warmth pulsed in hot and thick waves pulsed deep inside of your hole, dripping out and mingling with the lubricant.
He collapsed onto you, his body pressing you into the desk, breath hot on your ear as he whispered, "Fuck, lad, ye milked me dry."
For a moment, neither of you moved before he muttered, almost thoughtful, âBody adapts quick,â voice low against your ear. âGiven the right stimulus.â
Another breathless chuckle puffed warm air against his lips as you brought him closer with a soft touch to the cheek, kissing him softly and he made a low pleasant sound at the motion, lips parting together with his before you both had to step back due to oxygen already being in meagre abundance inside your lungs.
âIf yeâve no furtherâŠailments,â he said, a faint edge returning, âIâve work tâ be gettinâ on with.â
A pause, just long enough to mean something.
âBut the doorâs not barred tâ ye.â
It was the closest thing to an invitation heâd give, a small smile forming on your lips as you nodded in response.
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Ah, lazy Saturday mornings were the best. Especially if they were spent with a significant other, cuddling and being sickeningly sweet together.
You hadnât planned to stay the night but after your movie date last night, Jason wasnât too eager to let you go just yet. So he persuaded you to stay the night, sweetly pressing kisses down your jawline and nuzzling against your cheek because he knew the affectionate gesture made you melt every time. So you agreed, having missed him just as much as he did, if not more. This week consisted of tiring work and less time spent together, hence Jasonâs clinginessâ not that you minded.
âAlright, alright, Iâll stay the night.â
There was something endearing about a beefy man twice your size that was just so desperate for your touch to the point of subconsciously gravitating towards you as though unable to help himself from making up for lost time by basking in your presence.
Jason was struggling to tame the possessive satisfaction in his chest once he saw you change into one of his shirts since you hadnât came prepared for a sleepover. He cleared his throat and pretended he was busy inspecting a book from his desk and wasnât staring at your bare back and that plump assâ no, no. He wasnât staring at all!
âYour shirt is so big on me.â You noted with a little chuckle, a little amused by the size difference between the two of you. Meanwhile Jason had less-than-innocent thoughts about it.
âSorry, itâs the smallest piece I own.â He murmured apologetically, even though a small part of him was preening inside when you shook your head and said you didnât mind and in fact liked it.
You both settled into his bed, getting comfortable in each otherâs arms, but when you threw your leg over his hip to keep him close? It felt like someone squeezed his heartâ in a good way. Nothing felt more perfect than the weight of your head on his chest, your form fitting in his embrace like you two meant to be molded together. Jason waited until you slept to bury his face in your hair and smell it, acting like a lovesick idiot. Unable to hide his softened smile, he gently squeezed you closer and stroked your hair before pressing his lips against your forehead.
The sound of the bed rustling stirred you into semi-consciousness, the tickling sensation on your spine definitely woke you up some more but your eyes remained closed since you werenât too disturbed. But then it spread along the curve of your spine, you squirmed as a large palm caressed over your waist beneath your shirt that wasnât really your shirt.
âHnn, Jay?â You sleepily questioned, back arching as the kisses turned into open-mouthed smooches that left you slightly breathless. âLet me wake you up properly, sweetheart, hm?â Jason hummed lowly, ducking his head to kiss between your shoulder blades and nuzzle against your nape as you sighed at the tickling sensation.
âThat tickles.â Jasonâs heart flutters at the sleepy, dopey smile on your lips once you tell him his affection tickles. He kissed the side of your neck, softer against your skin this time around.
âLooked so pretty in the sunlight. Like an angel, baby.â
He spoke softly, morning voice gravely but soft as it usually was when addressing you. His hands ghosted over your ribs, tracing the soft curve with featherlight caresses before palming at your chest. His lips found the spot beneath your ear and lightly sucked on it, his fingers rubbed circles around your pebbled nubs and gently plucked at them.
âH-hahhâŠâ He was rewarded with a moan that shifted to a whimper, immediately sending jolts to his cock from the sound alone. Jason let out a low sigh and switched to kiss the other side of your neck, one hand gently pushed down your shorts to expose your pert cheeks while the other remained toying with your nipple in gentle rubs. As soon as your round cheeks were in view, he let out a pained groan and kissed one cheek before nuzzling against it.
âLook at you⊠so beautiful.â Jasonâs voice came in an awed, reverent tone. Your head drops against the pillow beneath your head, cheek smushed and lips parted in a soft and shaky sigh once you felt your lower cheeks held apart. A rumbling growl escaped Jason when you involuntarily clenched around nothing, you were already getting hard from the anticipation alone.
âJay⊠câmon.â You whined, an attempt to get him to hurry up and do something already! And thatâs when you felt it and squeaked in surprise. His lips pressed against your hole in a languid kiss that has your back arched and your fingers digging into his bedsheets. His hands gripped your hips to hold you in place, he laid down between your legs with his face nuzzling against the crease where your ass met the back of your thigh. Before you could let out an impatient huff, his tongue was already lapping against your hole in steady, slow, toe curling, flicks that had you panting against his pillow.
âF-feels good!â You moaned, eyes rolling to the back of your head as you involuntarily pushed your ass out and tried to grind against his face.
To ensure you wouldnât squirm too much, Jason put one hand on the small of your back to force you into an arch and simultaneously keep you still. His other hand sneaks down between your thighs and reaches for your hard cock that leaked against the sheets, you whimper when he finally wraps his hand around your dick and slowly stroked it from base to leaky tip. You keen so pretty when he plays with the frenulum and rubs circles around it and when his tongue pushed inside. You were a mess.
âLike it? Feels good, baby?â Jason didnât bother hiding his grin as he spoke against your hole and filthily nuzzled his face between your cheeks, entirely proud of himself for bringing you to this level of pleasure where you couldnât answer him or even grumble if he was being too cocky. He likes that he can get away with it at times.
âHngh⊠m-more!â Is all you can manage as you writhe helplessly and drool over his pillow when he strokes your cock a little more earnestly, that languid pace a second ago nowhere to be found. He squeezes and pumps up and down faster than before, twisting his wrist with each upwards stroke to stimulate the tip while his hand leaves the small of your back to insert themselves in your stretched hole.
A choked gasp leaves you as you feel him rubbing your inner walls and then crook inside right against your prostate. âOh, baby⊠youâre close, arenât you?â He coos. Actually coos at you while you whimper incoherently something that sounds like a ây-yesssâ but it doesnât come out right since he keeps thrusting against your prostate purposely to take away your ability to talk altogether.
Your orgasm hits you hard when he squeezed your cock and played with the spot under your frenulum relentlessly paired with your prostate rubbed again and again, your vision blurred and your thighs shook as you cried out and came all over his fingers.
âThatâs it, pretty boy. You did so good fâme.â He helped you through the aftershocks by rubbing gently against your sensitive prostate until you couldnât take anymore and then he carefully pulled his fingers out, resulting into a filthy âpopâ sound.
He whispered sweet nothings so affectionately against your nape, beefy arms wrapping around you from behind as he settled on top of you. He kissed your shoulder blades and the back of your head, when you lifted your head from the pillow to blearily get a hold of your surroundings, he attacked your cheek in kisses.
âYou look so pretty all sleepy and sated. Did I do that? Huh? Did I?â He shamelessly smirked smugly, you only giggled at that onslaught of kisses raining down on the side of your face.
You shut him up by tilting your head to capture his lips in a lingering kiss, immediately responding to you with a groan and eagerly kissing back. His hand cradled your cheek, pulling you closer while you placed a hand on his chest.
âLove you. Sâmuch.â He murmured against your lips, eyes shining with unadulterated adoration, replacing the mischievous glint in them earlier.
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