Summary: Andrew's girlfriend volunteers to be Lena's camp counselor. During a secret, late night meet up at the edge of the woods, she confesses a dark fantasy to him. Andrew fulfills it.
Content: +18 MDNI, established relationship, codependent tendencies from both pope and reader, size difference, slasher summer vibes, unprotected piv, dry humping, semi-public sex, fingering, oral f! and m!receiving, choking, facefucking, finger sucking, masked sex, knife play, predator/prey primal play, dacryphilia, pussy slapping, fem edging, bondage with zipties, rough sex, creampie, aftercare
Note: this is part two of of my fic sweetheart but can be read as a stand alone!! just written with the same shy freaky reader in mind! i hope you enjoy this new edition to the sweetheartverse <3
WC: 9.5k
[masterlist][AO3]
You are, single-handedly, the best thing to ever happen to Andrew Cody.
And he's painfully aware of it that day you pick up the phone to selflessly put an end to his anxiety. You don't hesitate or think twice. You see a solution even at the expense of yourself and you don't consider anything else.
The first week that school is out, Lena mentions summer camp no less than twenty times. So, Smurf finds one just out of town and signs her up.
She doesn't think about all the problems Lena's had with other kids this year. She doesn't think about the fact that they'd be dropping her off in the middle of nowhere with kids she's never met in her life.
They might be mean. They might exclude her or laugh at her or pull awful pranks. And no one would know until the four weeks were up, until summer camp was over, until she'd already endured it.
Andrew confesses his fears to you late one night, and the following morning he wakes to you making breakfast in the kitchen with your cellphone pressed to your ear, talking animatedly.
And when you're done, you tell him that you'd signed up to be a counselor at the camp Lena's going to. "So she has someone looking out for her," you explain.
Four weeks of your life, stuck in the middle of the woods with a handful of kids, all to protect Lena. All to give Pope a little bit of respite.
He doesn't understand what he did to deserve you, his sweetheart, but he promises to keep you. Happy, safe, satisfied—to keep you his.
The ache starts the moment you step out of his truck, encumbered by your duffel bag and Lena's backpack.
And even though you look back at him over your shoulder as you walk to the camp office building, hand in hand with his niece—even though you stop completely to run back to him for one last kiss, much to Lena's disgust—Andrew misses you the second you're gone.
He tries to busy himself by cleaning your shared room and color coding your dresser drawers. He pulls small jobs with his brothers and runs a few errands for Smurf and hires a new pool cleaner.
But the loneliness begins to suffocate by the second night.
He wasn't used to this. To the absence of your hand around his elbow, to the lack of warmth from your breath whenever you hid your face behind his shoulder, to the silence that presses in on him late at night.
He misses your quiet giggles and your whispered questions and the weight of your hand in his.
He misses the way you look up at him with wide eyes from down on your knees and the way you roll around restlessly in his sheets every night before finally giving up and admitting, "I can't sleep."
And he'll smile and kiss you sweetly and say, "I know, sweetheart. Take your shirt off."
Pope hadn't realized just how reliant he was on his nighttime routine of fucking you to sleep until he no longer could.
Sure, he could stroke himself to the gallery of photos he has of you split open on his cock, but it's not the same. It's not the same, and sleep evades him the same way it used to before he'd met you.
Before he'd been absolved of his sins by the sweetest little girl. Before you'd stuck your fingers between his ribs and taken hold of his twisted and mangled heart for yourself; without flinching, without hesitance—only a claiming.
And now you were gone, loving him in a different way, a way he had never experienced before.
On the third day, Craig is the first to point it out.
Pope is sitting in the same pool lounger you always lay on. His spine is straight and he doesn't speak, he only stares at the glimmers of reflection in the aquamarine waters.
"Dude," Craig says, lifting a joint to his lips and cupping his hands around the end to light it. "You've gotta get a hobby or somethin' man. I've got a girl coming over in twenty minutes, you can't just sit here all creepy and woeful cause you haven't gotten any pussy in a few days."
Andrew's lip curls. "Don't say that."
His brother shrugs dramatically. "Well, man. I'm just being honest. We're all thinking it, I'm just the one saying it."
"Saying what?"
"That this—" Craig sweeps his hands outwards, motioning to Pope and the state he's in. "It's not healthy. She's a real sweetheart and you love her, I get it. But this, like, codependency you've got going on is just sad, bro. Seriously."
Andrew doesn't respond, but the words stick with him.
He gets in his truck and drives himself to Deran's bar, knowing there's probably a hundred and one things to clean in the kitchen. A hundred and one things that will keep his mind busy.
But while he's reorganizing the back stock, he can't help but think about Craig's little speech.
Codependent?
Andrew Cody. Codependent.
No, he thinks. It's not that bad, is it?
Sure, he misses you. And yeah, it's hard to sleep without you. And he might be going a little stir crazy, not being about to take care of you in his day-to-day routines, but…codependent?
He's drinking a beer, sitting at the bar at the end of the night while Deran resets the register and wipes down the countertop one final time. Pope stares hard at his brother and carefully asks, "Do you think I'm…codependent?"
"Craig talk to you?"
The clarifying question comes immediately, and it does nothing to soothe his concerns. Andrew just levels his stare.
Deran lets out a sigh and says, "Uh…I wouldn't use the word codependent. Isn't that, like, a one sided thing?"
When Andrew speaks, the words come out monotone and rehearsed. "A codependent is someone who forms a dysfunctional, one sided relationship by prioritizing another persons needs over their own, often enabling harmful behaviors."
His brother stares blankly at him.
"I looked it up."
Deran sighs deeply and mulls over the definition for a moment, silence hanging between them while he counts the twenties in his hand. "I guess…maybe it's more like separation anxiety or something," Deran says. "You know, like a dog gets without it's owner."
"That's not helpful."
"You asked," he counters with a shrug.
Pope drops the subject.
And it doesn't matter, anyway. Because an hour later he gets a phone call from an unknown number and when he answers it, the sweetest voice speaks.
"Andrew?"
"Sweetheart? You okay? What's wrong?"
"I…I'm sorry for calling so late, but…"
He can hear it, even through the phone. The anguish in you. Pope hates it. Hates it so much that the words are rushed and desperate as they spill from his mouth. "Tell me, sweetheart. Tell me what's wrong and I'll fix it, okay? Talk to me."
A ragged sound leaves you, an almost-sob. "I—I can't sleep. I need to see you, to kiss you, to…please."
Oh—sweet girl. He knows what you need, even if you're a little shy with the asking. He knows because he needs it, too.
Pope's been fantasizing about this exact scenario for the last forty eight hours. So when he gives instructions, they're crystal clear.
"There's a…a trail. Into the woods, a little bit away from that cabin on the east side of the property, do you know which one I'm talking about?"
He's already got his keys in hand, halfway to his truck before you answer. "They call it Cabin Frog."
It makes Andrew laugh. He'd gone in the middle of the night two days before he'd dropped you and Lena off to scope the place out, and he does recall the cartoonish frog painted on the front door.
"Yeah, that's the one," he says, the faintest trace of amusement still in his voice. "Want you to take that trail through the woods, alright? All the way. It's gonna feel like you're walking a real long time, but once you get to the end you'll be at the side of that winding road we took to get to the camp."
"And you'll be waiting for me there?"
"Yeah, sweetheart," he answers gently. "Of course I will be."
"Do you promise?"
"Cross my heart."
By the time you hang up, Pope's almost out of Oceanside. The bustle of the city falls away behind him, allowing for the tall, towering trees to replace the lights.
He likes it out here. Thinks about one day finding some land away from all the chaos and noise and building a home for you there. Someplace that doesn't belong to his brothers or his mother. Someplace that's just yours.
But maybe it's wishful thinking. Maybe he's just excited and eager for the first time in days, fueled by the promise of seeing you.
Pope arrives at your spot before you do. He parks his truck on the shoulder of the empty street and gets out.
With his arms folded and his back pressed to the passenger door, he waits. It doesn't take long, though. He hears crunching leaves and cracking sticks beneath your feet seconds before you emerge from the darkness of the brush.
And the moment you see him, you melt into yourself. Shoulders relaxing, a long held sigh leaving your pretty mouth. You're dressed in nothing more than a pair of pajama shorts and one of Pope's old t-shirts.
That tightness in his chest dissipates right then and there. The tension bleeds from his muscles and everything settles in him as you run up the small, grassy bank at the side of the road and throw yourself into his waiting arms.
Pope smiles. For the first time in what feels like a long time. He smiles and presses his nose into your hair, inhaling the scent of you deep into his lungs. "Oh, sweetheart," he muses, hands squeezing you tight.
"I missed you so much," you mumble, face pressed into the crook of his neck.
Pope feels the wetness of your tears against his freckled skin and pulls back just enough to see your face. "Hey, don't cry. M'right here. Okay? I've got you."
His sweet girl.
When he slips his big hands beneath your shirt, pressed to the small of your back, it's not a sexual caress but instead a grounding one. Feeling the softness of your skin, warming the cold away with his heat.
Pope opens the passenger door of his truck, brackets a hand around your waist, and sets you on the edge of the leather seat. He pushes your knees apart to make room for him between them and rests his head against your chest.
He hears the steady thumping of your heart and feels himself finally, finally relax.
You card your fingers through his hair, messing up the structure of the ambery curls. Your nails scratch lightly at his scalp and he can't help the low groan that leaves him, the sound vibrating against your sternum.
When you tug lightly to pull his head back and press your mouth to his, he can taste the desperation on your tongue.
Andrew reaches up and grips your face just beneath your chin, holding you in place to lick into your mouth. He's moaning already, sounds mirrored in you, wanting to be impossibly closer.
Your hands grow fevered and he matches your every movement, fingertips pressing into the softness of your hips and the curve of your jaw.
He takes you right then and there; pushes your legs up to your chest and sinks his cock deep inside.
It feels like relief, like forgiveness, like coming home.
Andrew hadn't realized just how much he longed for the taste of your mouth. A craving satisfied only by your sweet sighs against his lips.
Even when he's finished, when he pumps you full of his release, he stays fully seated inside you. Not moving but simply feeling you, pulsing around his cock, sensitive and alive and his.
He traces the features of your face and feels like he'd taken his time with you for granted before. This closeness, the feeling of your skin beneath his fingertips—he hated being without it.
After some time, he helps clean you up with napkins from the glove box and climbs into the cab of the truck with you.
Only then, when you've got your head in his lap, looking up at him with those pretty eyes of yours, does he ask, "How's Lena?"
"She's good," you answer, sleepy grin widening. "I think she's having a lot of fun. And there's this girl her age—Caitlin. They've been making friendship bracelets the last few days. So many of them they're halfway up her arm now."
Hearing it makes Pope crack a smile. She deserves it. After the rough year she's had, he finds peace in knowing she's at least having fun and being a kid for a few weeks the way she should be. "Thank you," he says, voice quiet and a little melancholic.
"For what?"
"For taking care of her," he answers. "And me."
You reach for his hand at your hip and take it in yours. Pope lets you move his fingers of your own will, flattening them before placing them against the side of your cheek. "I love you, Andrew," you say.
It makes his chest pull tight. It's different when you say it. Not like when Smurf tells him she loves him, not like his brothers.
It's painfully different, because it's something you choose.
Even knowing all you know about him and his family, even seeing all you've seen, the things he's never been able to fully shield you from—you still choose him.
He brushes his knuckles against the side of your cheek. And because he doesn't quite know how to explain his own devotion, he says, "I'd do anything for you. Anything."
Andrew means it. Lie or cheat or steal or kill. Anything.
But you don't ask for much. You never do. Just his time and his affection. "Will you rub my back? I haven't been sleeping very well without you."
He nods, eyes shining bright with adoration. You turn on your side with your head still in his lap, and Andrew spends the next several hours stroking his hand lazily up your spine.
Not sleeping, because he doesn't want to miss this precious time with you. Holding his sweetheart close, smelling the scent of your shampoo and the cedar of the trees.
He wakes you a little before sunrise, giving you just enough time that you can sneak back onto the camp's property and back into your cabin undetected.
But before you go, you press your forehead to his and give him that pretty, warm smile of yours. You brush your noses together and peck his lips and say, "Same time tomorrow night, okay?"
"I'll be here," Andrew says.
"You promise?"
"Cross my heart."
This time, when the sun begins to set, Andrew brings a few things with him. He's in less of a rush because there's a routine created now that he can expect.
He's got blankets laid out in the truck bed and a cooler full of your favorite snacks and your favorite movie downloaded on his phone. Everything to make you comfortable, to keep you coming back through the woods every night to find him.
Craig is the first to notice the change.
They're both standing in the kitchen. Pope is making himself something to eat and Craig and Deran are piling leftovers from yesterday onto plates and popping the caps off a couple of beers.
Craig offers one to Pope, and even though it's only eleven in the morning he takes it. Because he's got no where to be until nightfall, and the weather is nice enough out today that he won't be scorched by the sun. He could use a little time to unwind.
His brother's eyes widen in surprise when he takes the bottle from his hands. "You're in a good mood today," he says.
Andrew just shrugs. Knows good and well what's gotten him out of the slump he was in, but doesn't want to give either of his brothers another reason to believe he's codependent. "What? I can't just be in a good mood?"
Deran narrows his eyes and lifts his beer to his mouth. "Seriously, man. Something must've changed."
Whatever relaxation Andrew had hoped for disappears with the conversation at hand. "Stop," he says simply. He wants to argue, but has no ground to stand on that wouldn't collapse under the smallest amount of pressure.
So, Pope leaves it. Gathers his perfectly made sandwich and his beer and leaves the kitchen, trying to ignore the look of concern on their faces.
He chooses not to speak when he overhears Craig saying confusedly, "Therapy, maybe?"
It doesn't matter to him what they think. Not when he shows up on the side of the empty road each night to you bouncing on the balls of your feet, more excited to see him than anyone else has ever been.
So, yeah—maybe he's a little codependent. But none of that matters when you tilt your head back to smile up at him.
None of that matters when you're sitting in his lap, kissing his cheeks and nose and forehead, feverishly rocking your hips against his thigh and making a big wet mess on the denim of his jeans.
Pretty, desperate girl. Always so needy for him, never fully satisfied. And of course Andrew understands, because he's just as insatiable for you.
He does start to wonder if maybe it's a little perverse, though. What he's doing to you.
It clicks in his brain one night when you emerge from the trees in nothing but a bikini top and a pair of jean shorts. The ends of your hair are wet, and when he tilts his head curiously you explain, "The camp counselors had a swim race tonight. And guess what."
Andrew struggles to guess much of anything because he can't stop staring. Rivulets of water still drip down the center of your chest, just between your breasts that are held up beautifully by the polyester ribbon tied behind your neck. When he speaks it's a single word and it's low and slow and raspy, eyes locked on yours. "What?"
"I won! Fastest swimmer out of everyone. Lena was so happy. Seeing her giggling and jumping around—God, Andrew. She's so cute."
"You're cute," he says. "Come here."
And you do, of course. Let him pull you in by the belt loops on your shorts, talking and giggling all the while. So excited to recount your whole day to him that you hardly notice what he's doing until you're on the hood of his car and he's pulling your shorts down your legs and pushing your shoulders back.
It hits him then. With his head between your legs, staring up at you to watch your nipples pebble beneath your bikini. The rubber soles of your high top sneakers make little scuff marks on the black chrome paint as you writhe under the gentle ministrations of his tongue against your clit.
Andrew Cody's got the sweetest, filthiest girl in the palm of his bloodied hands. Wrapped real tight around his finger.
A sweetheart who'd do just about anything for him, and here he is indulging your every whim when in truth he should be protecting you. From himself especially. From the raging monster that lives between his ribs, from the guard dog he'd been molded into by the harsh edges of his life.
Andrew's too weak, though. Could never in a million fucking years deny you anything.
Especially when you set those cute little sneakers over his shoulders and beg so prettily, "Please, Andrew—more. Want you to be—hmm—be mean to me, make it—oh, god. Want you to make it hurt."
And he will, of course. Shoving your legs against your chest, squeezing the back of your thighs hard enough to bruise.
Later in the month, nearly through the final week of your new routine now, the thought crosses Andrew's mind again.
He wonders if the state of your desires has been subconsciously shaped by him. Wonders if maybe, somehow, that darkness inside has started to seep out of his heart and stain your sweet one.
Andrew's given the opportunity to confess these worries to you late one night in the back of his truck. He's got you tucked tight beneath his arm, your fingers tracing lazy patterns over the muscle of his pectoral, right over his heart. "Can I…ask you something?"
You turn your head to look up at him. "Anything. Always."
He chews nervously on the inside of his bottom lip, mulling over how he can approach the subject without coming across insecure, despite the fact that he is.
"Do you…you don't…pretend to like the things we do for—for me, do you?"
A crease forms between your brows, and you prop yourself up on an elbow to fully look at him now. "What do you mean?"
Pope swallows hard, casting his eyes away, feeling suddenly as shy as you get around anyone other than him. "When we…when I…hurt you," he says. "You're not asking for those things just because I want them, right?"
"Andrew, what?"
"I just want to make sure I'm not changing you or….or corrupting you." He takes your face gently in his hands, stroking his fingers softly over your cheek. "You're so—so good. Such a sweetheart. And I'm…"
You wrap your hands around his wrists, pulling him away. It feels like a loss, like rejection, and he can feel his heart beginning to crack clean in two.
But then you look him right in the eye, voice more sure than he's ever heard it.
"I want you, Andrew. Not half of you. Not parts of you." You lean up further, on your knees now, a surety in your movements. "Do you…does it bother you? That I want those things?"
"No—no. Not at all. I…" The words get caught, stuck in his throat, horrified and exhilarated all at once to be so honest about the part of himself he's been taught to hate. The part of himself he knows is bad. Andrew is terrified of losing you, of scaring you.
But even as shy as you are, often hiding your face behind his shoulder, voice always timid and unsure, with this you seem certain. Unwavering.
With him, you've always opened your chest fully, willingly, your heart a soft feast for the darkness inside him.
And what is a man who's been denied softness at every turn of his life to do but devour it?
"Pope."
He stops, the spiral in his mind going quiet.
Not Andrew, but Pope. The worst of him. A name given to a boy with blood beneath his fingernails, a boy who'd already been molded.
You take his big hand in yours and bring it to the side of your neck, pressing his thumb just over your steady pulse.
His own heart hammers, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for you to realize you deserve better than this. Softer than this.
When you speak, the words are a whisper. A secret meant for him only. "I want you to violate me."
And because it's you who asks—his soft spoken, timid little sweetheart, who's never once flinched at the hard grip of his bloodied hands or shown an ounce of fear at a glimpse into what lives inside him—Pope does it.
Unleashes the worst of himself and lets his fingers tighten around your pretty neck. He presses you down and crawls on top of you, knees bracketing the top of your ribcage. Your hands come to steady themselves on the big expanse of his thighs, and the touch is so gentle that it grounds him. Helps him stay in the moment, reminding him that this is what you want.
Pope's hand on your throat moves up your jaw, cradling your face. He circles the shape of your mouth with the rough pad of his thumb, squishing your pretty lips beneath the pressure. "You have such a sweet mouth," he murmurs, his eyes dark and molten. "D'you know that?"
You can't answer, because he's shoving two fingers behind your teeth before you can inhale again. Your tongue swirls around them, between each digit, moaning around the thickness of his knuckles. He pushes them in deeper, deeper, until you're choking and gasping for air.
Pope doesn't pull them out, not right away. He lets those tears well in your eyes, lets your fingers flex at his thighs, nails scratching against the rough denim. But not once do you look afraid.
Instead, your glassy eyes hold a certain sort of magic in them.
When he does finally pull back, Pope's fingers come away slick and glossy with your saliva. You greedily suck in lungfuls of air that he'd denied you, lips turning up at the corners, forming the happiest looking smile he's ever seen.
Pope unbuttons his jeans and pulls his cock out, already hard and aching. He grips the back of your neck and guides himself between your swollen lips, letting out a sigh of relief when you swallow him down.
Your mouth is soft and smooth, warm velvet around him, tongue gentle but seeking as you swirl it around the tip. He pushes himself to the back of your throat, humming when you choke on his length.
His other hand joins the first, cradling the back of your head, holding you firmly in place so that when he snaps his hips forward your mouth stays in perfect position.
It doesn't take long. Pope fucks your mouth with reckless abandon. Violates you, just like you'd asked. When your eyes go all cloudy, he pulls back just enough to let you breathe. To let the oxygen return to your blood cells, groaning low at the way his cock looks covered in your spit, webs of it clinging to his length and snapping against your lips.
Pope slides himself back into your mouth, down your warm throat, until your nose is pressed up against the trimmed hair at the base of his cock.
He steals your air and you stare up at him with so much adoration in your eyes that it makes his heart constrict. He's never felt a love like this—unconditional and absolute. His own devotion met with equal and devastating totality.
That familiar coil winds tight around his spine, and before he can stop himself Pope is spilling his release at the back of your mouth with a heavy groan.
You swallow him down until he's finished, his cock twitching between your lips. And when he finally pulls out, assessing the fucked out state of you, guilt begins to creep up around the edges of his psyche.
But then you giggle and wipe the back of your hand across your messy, spit-covered mouth, and Pope can't help but mirror the sound.
You cling tight to him for the remainder of the night, and Andrew presses gentle kisses to every inch of exposed skin he can reach with your head on his chest.
It makes him a little sad when sunrise comes and you have to leave him again, but the feeling is soothed by knowing you only do so only to protect Lena.
Still, the final week comes as blessed relief.
On Tuesday night, you come bounding out of the treeline more excited than usual. There's a wide grin on your face as you fall into his embrace, arms wrapped tight around his neck.
"You're in a good mood," he observes, hands resting against the small of your back.
"Mhm. After we put the kids to bed today all the adults got together to watch a movie. A scary one. You wanna know what it was?"
Andrew opens the passenger door of his truck for you, relieved just to hear your voice. "Tell me."
"It was Friday the 13th. You know, the one where the killer goes around and murders all the camp counselors."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah, but it wasn't that scary. Some of it was even a little silly. But…there was this one part."
Andrew helps you up onto the leather seat in the cab and stands tall between your knees. He urges, "What part?"
"Well, it just…"
He sees it happen in real time; that slight embarrassment taking hold of you. You twist your fingers in your lap, fidgeting nervously. "Just what, sweetheart?"
Bashfully, you admit, "It got me thinking of you."
And he knows, before you even explain, that this particular scene had you thinking of what he does to you. Pope wets his lips with the tip of his tongue, breath growing a little slower. "Did it?"
"Mhm." You nod. "The killer is, like…super strong. He's tall and broad and big, you know? Like you are."
Andrew feels his face heat when you say it. "Big, huh?"
You giggle softly and press your forehead against his chest that is, in fact, big and broad. Corded with muscle beneath a masculine softness.
He nudges you back up with a shoulder. "Keep going," he says. "I'm still listening."
Your eyes shine brightly when your gaze finds his. When you continue, your voice is just a little lower, quieter—but that shy smile still persists. "He wears this hockey mask, too. Which got me thinking about that mask you wore for that one job—the one I helped with, remember?"
"Mhm."
"And the killer, he was…well, he was chasing one of the camp counselors through the woods. And it was late at night, and the actress was wearing the same shoes as me."
"Yeah?"
"Mhm. Same color and everything. And then she trips, and he catches her of course—"
"Well, of course."
You laugh at his dry attempt at a joke. "Of course. But then…I don't know. He has…he carries this big knife with him, too. Like a machete kinda. And…" You swallow hard, raise your index finger to his neck, and slide it across the crease in his skin. "He holds it to her, you know? Right here. And she looks so scared but…I don't think…if it were me. If it were…you."
Andrew picks it up then, what you're inadvertently asking him for. He knows you. Knows his sweetheart like the back of his hand, in fact. Can hear your desires even before you form the words around them. "You don't think you'd be scared? If I chased you through the woods and held a knife to your throat?"
Your breath stutters when he puts it plainly. But you don't speak, you just slowly shake your head.
He asks, holding eye contact so he'll know if you lie, "S'that what you want me to do to you?"
"I think…maybe…" You sigh, trying to fight of your shy demeanor. "Yes."
Truthfully, he's not sure what to make of it right away. Because Andrew would be lying if he said he hadn't thought about it before. Or an adjacent thing, anyway. Chasing you down, tying you up. Seeing that look in your eye when you're not sure what happens next. Seeing just how far he could push, seeing how much he could take.
But it's all only fantasy. Buried beneath his own shame, his own guilt, practicing the learned behavior of suppression. Because it's you, and he's fire holding fragility in the palm of his hand, and Andrew Cody thinks he would die if he ever managed to hurt you. To truly hurt you.
He would die. Should die.
But…he's not taking, is he?
You're offering up your trust, your safety, your life. For him. For pleasure.
No, Andrew thinks. He's not taking, and it's not something as simple as surrender.
You're giving. Eagerly. Wishfully.
The weight of it overwhelms him.
Andrew lifts his hand to your face, brushing the back of his knuckles gently over your cheek. "And you're—you're sure?"
"I'm sure."
"Do you promise?"
"Cross my heart."
A smile pulls at his lips, hearing a phrase of his own echoed in your mouth. Vowing this time not on his darkened heart but on your sweet one. And because he'd give you anything, anything—even the very worst of him, Andrew nods stiffly. Says, "I think I want that, too."
Your shoulders slump just a little, relief bleeding the tension from your bones.
"But you'll tell me if you change your mind, right? Even during. If you…if you do get scared, I won't be upset or mad or—or anything. You just tell me, okay?"
You wind your arms and legs around him, pulling his body against yours, head resting at the crook of his neck. "I'm not afraid of you."
Only then does he feel himself relax, melting beneath your touch. Andrew lifts your face to his with a finger beneath your chin. But as soon as he presses his mouth to yours, his phone begins to ring.
With a sigh, he fishes the pesky device out of his pocket and presses it to his ear, listening to his brother fill him in on the situation going on back home, outside of the perfect bubble of devotion and safety he's created here with you.
When he hangs up, there's melancholy in his voice as he admits, "I've…I've gotta go. Scouting something for a job next week. And I won't make it tomorrow, either. But…Thursday night. Alright?"
"It'll be the last night before summer camp is over," you say with an excited smirk. "So we can…"
Pope nods. "Just don't—don't come all the way off the trail. alright? You find someplace to hide an' I'll…I'll find you. Yeah?"
He doesn't miss the flash of excitement as it flickers through your pretty eyes. But you only nod in agreement, press a kiss to his cheek and say, "Be careful. And come back to me in one piece."
Far sooner than he'd like, you're turning to walk back to camp and Andrew is turning the key in the ignition.
But even knowing he won't see you for two days, the unsettled feeling is soothed in knowing what comes next.
And when he swaps Craig and Deran out at the scouting spot, Andrew is left alone to his own thoughts and they're filled with only you.
Of how lucky he is that of all the people in the world you could choose to shower in your affection, you choose him. It makes Andrew feel lucky and blessed and perhaps a little undeserving.
He thinks about how pretty you always look and how much harder he'll be standing over you with a knife in his hand.
The thought does occur that maybe this whole thing is fucked up—that he is fucked up for wanting it as much as he does. But then he remembers the brightness in your eyes when you'd asked this of him, and it settles something heavy in his chest.
He moves through the next few days in a sort of haze. Unfocused, because his mind is stuck on you. Not an unusual thing, but more intense than any given day.
And by Thursday morning, Andrew feels like he's buzzing with excitement. A little nervous, too, because he wants this to be perfect for you.
He even picks out an outfit. Andrew isn't the type to typically care that much about how he looks, as long as it's neat and clean and comfortable.
But for this, he picks out a pair of black jeans and a black hoodie, an attempt to blend himself into the shadows where he'll be hiding in wait.
He doesn't own a hockey mask, but he does own an all black ski mask, and…there's a part of him that thinks maybe you'll like it even more.
It takes longer to pick out a knife than an outfit, though.
He has quite the collection, in truth. Mostly smaller ones, easily concealed in a pocket or a boot.
But the one he settles on is a little flashier. Sharp around the edges. It's got a heavy, four knuckled grip and a chrome blade. Serrated with a saw back and a glint at its point.
It's pretty, like you are.
Andrew packs his truck with a few extras for afterwards, too. Your favorite blanket. A thermos full of icy water. A towel and a change of clothes and the t-shirt he'd worn to bed the night before just in case you ask for one to sleep in.
He stops at Deran's bar before he goes. Sets a stack of cash on the table and says, "I'm busy tonight. So don't bother me."
His brother asses him, trying to unearth an answer he won't be telling. Because this is something meant for Andrew only. Deran might know about your shared codependence, but all he needs to know apart from that is the truth; that you're a sweetheart.
"O…kay?"
Pope's jaw flexes. "I mean it. Don't call me unless one of us is dead."
Deran laughs nervously. "Somethin' going on I should know about?"
"No."
"Okay, well…you're acting weird, Pope. I mean, what? I'm just supposed to agree and not ask any questions?"
"Yes."
"You pullin' a solo job or something?"
"If I told you, it wouldn't be a solo job."
Deran levels his stare. And then asks with the smallest trace of amusement in his voice, "You breaking in to a summer camp tonight?"
Pope's jaw flexes. He blinks, and points at the cash. "That's for whoever takes my scouting shift," he says. And because he doesn't trust himself to say nothing more, he turns and leaves.
It takes more effort than he'd like to admit to ignore his brother's laughing in the background.
But none of that matters, Pope tells himself. Not now. Not tonight. Not when dusk falls, and he parks his truck in the familiar spot on the side of the road.
Not when he slides the freshly-polished knife into the leather sheath at his hip or when he pulls the black ski mask over his face.
Andrew's heart beats fast as he steps into the woods. The trees here are tall, the underbrush thick. The air smells like soil and rain and there's a faint aroma of fresh blossoms beneath it all.
His steps are careful. Meticulous. He's silent as he disappears into the cover of thick branches and green leaves. Darkness begins to descend, and Andrew lies in wait, knowing any minute now you'll come.
Knowing you'll run.
He's off the trail. Not far, but enough that you'd never spot him without knowing exactly where he's at. He breathes in deep, shedding free of that veil he wears of a righteous man, letting the his own darkness breach the surface of his psyche.
Pope hears you before he sees you. The branches breaking beneath your sneakers, the subtle shift of your feet. And when he does see you, coming into view just up on the trail, the thought crosses his mind that you got all dressed up for this, too.
Your hair's done up all pretty, and there's glitter on your eyelids and mascara on your lashes. There's even a shimmery gloss on your lips, and Pope can't help but think of how nice your glittering mouth would look around his cock.
He doesn't approach, not right away. He just follows close behind, observing the way you move when you think he's not watching. You're a little more stiff—more aware than you are with him. Like his presence alone puts you at ease, letting you become the sweet girl you are with the protective predator at your back.
You're wearing a pair of shorts and a black tank top over a bikini, the straps thin. Easily cut away, Pope thinks.
He steps deliberately on a stick, the sound loud and echoing in the silence of the forest.
Pope watches you turn towards it, your eyes wide and searching. But he's too well hidden in the shadows.
Yet still, you know he's there.
You turn and run.
Pope gives you a head start. Counts to ten in his head before chasing after you, a dark shadow that meets yours all too quickly.
You look back over your shoulder and stumble when you see him catching up, your balance faltering for only a second.
The trees blur at the edges of his vision as he closes the space between you. When he's close enough to hear your panting breaths, Pope flings his hand out to grab your elbow.
You give a yelp and wrench your arm away, slipping out of his hold.
A raw, animalistic sound of frustration rumbles deep in his chest.
Pope forces himself forward, breathing hard beneath the knit wool of his mask. His heart pounds in his ears, hands itching for another touch of your skin.
You're fast. Faster than he'd though you'd be. A sweet little gazelle slipping fluidly through the brush.
But he's the hungry wolf nipping at your heels, and it doesn't take long before he catches up with you again.
Pope surges forward, this time waiting until he's close enough to enclose his arms around your waist.
You let out a cry, loud and echoing in the trees, squirming in his hold that you'll never free yourself from. He's too strong, too big, too mean.
He holds you tight against him, trying to wedge his leg between your thighs as you struggle. Pope reaches for the knife at his hip and unsheathes it, gripping the handle hard as he brings the blade to your throat.
Your squirming settles.
Pope smiles when he sees you swallow hard. "Yeah," he whispers, breath warm against your ear. "You know what that is, huh?"
He pushes you forward, sharp blade pressing against your neck. You let him maneuver you, forcing you over to a tree a few feet away.
The bark is dark and rough, the trunk thin enough for what he intends.
Pope grabs your shoulder and turns you around, pressing your back against the tree. He lifts the knife and presses the point of it to your chin, lifting your head so you're looking right at him.
Your shimmery lips are parted, your eyes wide and zealous and wanting. Andrew doesn't think he's ever seen you this needy before. So filled with desire that your eyes are glassy with tears.
"Aw, sweetheart," he says tenderly. "You gonna cry? Shh. S'okay. You can cry if you need to, hm?"
A whimper stutters out of you, a single tear sliding down your cheek as you close your eyes.
Pope leans forward and licks at the wetness, drinking in the saltiness of your overwhelm. "You're pretty when you cry," he whispers.
He rights his blade, pressing the edge against your throat again. And then he caresses your arm, fingers sliding all the way down to your hand.
"Don't move," he orders, rounding the tree. Andrew sets your hand against the back of it, reaches for your other arm, and brings them together. He takes one of the black zip ties he'd stashed in his hoodie pocket and wraps it tight around your wrists, the plastic sliding noisily over the raised notches.
Pope comes back around the tree to face you, standing just a few feet away so he can get a good look at you. Sweet and pretty, completely at his mercy.
He could do anything to you, anything. And you'd let him. Perfect, perverted girl that you are.
The muscles in your shoulder flex as you fight against your restraints, trying to free yourself.
Pope smiles beneath his mask and steps closer, bringing the tip of his blade to your face. Carefully, he slides the cold steel down your cheek, over your pulse, across your chest.
"Please," you cry, shifting frantically from one foot to another.
He hooks the knife beneath the straps against your collarbone and pulls, cutting them clean.
You whimper, and Andrew feels the adrenaline in his blood peak. His skin buzzes with the power he holds, watching you twitch in fear and arousal alike.
He shifts the blade over, to the other side of your chest. He cuts away what remains of your straps and feels his cock pulse as your breasts bounce, released from their confines. With his free hand, Pope yanks the fabric down your chest, baring you to him, letting the polyester gather just above your hips.
A whimper escapes your mouth, and then his name, and Andrew pauses.
But then you say, "Touch me, please. Please, please, I can't—"
He sees the way your thighs press together. The way your hips move, chasing what little friction the seam of your shorts allows.
Pope tilts his head. "Filthy thing, aren't you?" He slides his blade down your chest, over the swell of your breast. He gently presses the tip of it against your hardened nipple, smiling at the way you squirm in response. "Got everyone fooled, hm? Always acting so shy. Embarrassed so easily."
His hand comes to your center, pressing hard between your legs. You moan at the contact, the sound desperate and guttural.
"But how pretty you sound when you're afraid," he whispers, rubbing his hand over your clothed cunt. He drags the tip of the knife across your sternum, laying the cold metal flat against your other nipple. "Begging me to touch you. To fuck you. To hurt you."
"Yes, please. I need it, I need it, Pope, please—!"
"Shh," he coos, bringing his hand up to cup your jaw, squeezing hard. "Open your mouth."
You do, and Pope sets his blade between your teeth.
"Hold it," he orders. "Don't drop it. Understand?"
You nod frantically, biting down hard.
"Good." Pope unbuttons your shorts and drags them down your legs. He tugs them off over your sneakers, leaving you in nothing but your cut top around your belly and bikini bottoms.
He drops down to his knees and hooks his fingers around the strings tied at your hips. And as he slowly lowers them, a groan leaves him as he sees just how wet you are.
Sticky and slick, webs of arousal clinging to the polyester fabric as he pulls it away. Pope doesn't think he's ever been this hard before in his entire fucking life.
"Sweet girl," he mutters, discarding your bottoms. He wraps his big hands around the backs of your thighs and pulls them apart. "This where you need me?"
A cry escapes from between your clenched teeth. He thinks you look real cute like this. Squirmy and needy, all for him.
He brings his hand to your cunt, sliding only the tip of his index finger through your syrupy folds. He collects your wetness, dragging it down to press his finger into your entrance.
Pope curls it upwards, stroking that soft spot inside of you, and watches as you struggle to hold the knife in your mouth. Drool begins to collect at the corners of your lips, slowly leaking down your shin. There's a crease between your brows, frustration manifested.
With his free hand, Pope spreads your cunt open. "Pretty pussy's just crying for me, huh?" He pulls his finger out of you, painfully slow, and drags it back up to your swollen clit. He circles it gently, watching it twitch beneath his touch.
And then, with no warning at all, he brings his hand sharply down against your cunt.
You gasp, teeth parting just enough that you drop the knife.
It clatters to the ground between your feet, and Pope looks up at you with a darkened look in his eye. "What did I say?"
Your clit throbs beneath his hand. "M'sorry, m'sorry, I know—"
Pope picks up the knife and wipes both sides of it on his jeans, cleaning the dirt and spit from around the blade. "It's alright," he soothes. "I'm gonna give you one more chance. Okay?"
With a frantic nod you say, "Okay, okay—I'll be good—I promise I'll be good."
He stands, slides his knuckles tenderly over your cheek, and smiles sweetly at you. "I know you will be, sweetheart."
Pope sets the knife back between your teeth and lowers himself down to his knees again
This time, he pulls his mask up just enough to expose his mouth. He leans forward and slides a pointed tongue through all your wetness, drinking deep. You moan in tandem with him, satisfied fully for the first time all night.
He licks every inch of you, tongue hot and wet against your clit. He slides it up and down, up and down, circling your opening that flutters around nothing, begging to be filled.
Pope eats at you like a man starved for it, chin messy and covered in your slick. He presses his face against you, hardly breathing as he licks and sucks feverishly. You taste so sweet, a blend of ambrosia made all for him.
His pretty girl. His sweetheart.
He can hear it in your moans when release threatens. Can feel the way your clit throbs when he sucks it deep into his mouth, tongue flicking over it, ratcheting your pleasure higher and higher.
Pope doesn't let it happen. Pulls his mouth away from you at the very last second, ignoring your whining to slap your cunt again. Not as sharply this time, yet still no less forgiving.
You cry out, thighs trembling, drool covering your chin.
He taps your clit with his fingers. Not quite a slap this time, but not meant for pleasure, either. Just a quick rhythm to keep you right there, right on the edge.
Pope sucks in a breath through his teeth. "So fuckin' wet," he muses. "Does it hurt, baby? Does it burn right here, right in your belly 'cause you need to cum? Hm?"
You try to grit out a response, but it's muffled by the steel in your mouth. Pope stands to his feet and wraps a hand around your neck.
He licks your mouth, right over the blade you hold, cock leaking now behind his zipper. Your eyes are so full of lust and adoration and love that it makes him feel high on it.
The taste of metal and drool and strawberry lip gloss coats his tongue. Pope gently eases the blade from your mouth, smirking when your shoulders slump in relief.
He returns the blade to the leather casing at his hip and palms himself through his jeans.
"I need—fuck, Pope—I need you to fuck me. Please. Please."
It makes him laugh. All those shy, sweet words gone completely now, overshadowed by your desperation. "Yeah," he says. "I know it."
Pope undoes the button of his jeans, watching you watch him.
Your eyes are so eager as he slides his zipper down and reaches in to free his cock, thick and so hard that just stroking it has him fighting back a sigh of bliss.
He closes the small distance between you, lifting one of your legs and setting it up over his hip. Pope lines himself up at your entrance, sliding his cock through your spit-slick folds once before pressing inside.
It feels like solace. Satisfying, blessed solace as he sinks fully inside your cunt, filling you up, spreading you open.
"Oh god—"
Andrew thrusts his hips into you. Hard and unforgiving. The bark of the tree scrapes against your spine, but there's nothing but euphoria on your face.
He slams his hips up into you, fucking you as deep as your anatomy will allow, the head of his cock pressing right up against your womb.
"That's it," he mutters. "Look so fuckin' pretty taking my cock." Pope sets a punishing pace, finding your clit with his thumb and circling it.
Your head falls back, and your sweet moans echoing in the trees. Each wet slide of his cock reverberates in the open space, and the pleasure buzzes beneath you skin. "Don't stop, oh god—please—"
Pope loves the sound of the word in your mouth.
Please.
You beg so beautifully, music to his sick and twisted heart. He knows what he does to you is perverse and wicked and he knows that he shouldn't want to hurt you like this.
But he does. God, he does.
And what's worse is that you want it just as bad. More, even.
He fucks his cock into you, grunting low at how tight and wet you are around him. "You gonna cum for me, sweetheart? Hm?"
"Yes, yes yes—fuck, Andrew, please. Love you so much, I love you so fucking—hmm—"
The words send a shiver down his spine. To hear it now, while he's fucking you like this, rough and cruel and without mercy—it's euphoric.
He's never been loved by anyone else. Not like this. Not so true or so raw. You ask to be given the very worst of him and when he does you love it still.
The velvety walls of your cunt squeeze tight around him.
"Cum for me, baby," he orders. "Give it to me. S'mine. All mine. My fucking girl. My sweetheart. There you go. That's it."
He fucks you through it, even when his own releases crashes into him. Even when his cock grows too sensitive as he pumps you full of his cum, Pope doesn't stop the rhythm of his hips until your thighs tremble. Until your body twitches, balance faltering, pulling tight at the restraints around your wrists.
He's gentle when he pulls out of you to tuck his cock back into his jeans, and quick to grab his blade, reach around the trunk of the tree, and cut the zip ties away.
Your knees buckle, but Andrew is there to catch you. The way he silently vows he always will be. "Hey," he murmurs. "You're alright. Here, hold onto me."
He places your hands on his shoulders, and grabs your shorts from the forest floor. He shakes the dirt out of them and carefully pulls them back up your legs, righting the denim at your hips.
He then removes his ski mask completely, then his hoodie. Pope pulls it over your head, helping you get your arms through the too-big sleeves. When he's satisfied you're warm enough, he wipes gently at your face with careful fingers, cleaning away your tears and spit.
The entire time, you wear this sated, sleepy smile. Staring up at him through your lashes, mascara smudged now.
When he speaks, his voice is quiet. Soft. The words break a little in his mouth. "Are you…okay?"
You nod immediately. "I'm really good," you say. "Are you okay?"
Andrew kisses your forehead, cradling your face in his big hands. "Course I'm okay. Just wanna take care of you. Will you let me do that?"
An easy giggles leaves you, and Andrew wraps his arm around your shoulders.
He leads you back to his truck, where he hand feeds you your favorite snacks and urges you to drink water. He holds you close, your back to his chest, stroking his fingers delicately over your arm.
Your wrists are tender and beginning to bruise already, and Andrew thinks he'd hate himself for it if you hadn't told him how pretty they make you feel.
He tries to massage some of the tension from your shoulders, and wraps you up tight in a blanket. You fall asleep in his lap, safe and sound with his arms around you.
Only in the silence does Andrew admit to himself just how much he enjoyed the night. Only to himself does he admit that maybe he does want to hurt you.
Just a little bit. Just enough.
And he thinks it's not so bad, is it, if you want it too?
He gently wakes you just before sunrise. Just before the alarms back at the camp will start to go off, just before your fellow counselors will notice your absence.
Andrew hates to see you go, but the ache is soothed by knowing you'll return to him later tonight, just after five when he comes to pick up both you and his niece.
You kiss him hard before you start back down the trail in the woods. Look up at him through your lashes with a playful smile and embarrassment in your eyes.
Pope laughs when he sees it. Thinks it's a little silly, after all you've done together, to be shy about anything with him. "What?"
"Nothing, nothing…just—well…" He waits. Gives you the time to gather the courage. "Maybe, I don't know…maybe sometime, we could…do it again?"
A grin stretches wide across his face. "Of course we can, baby."
Your eyes brighten. "You swear?"
He thinks he'd promise you just about anything, as long as you keep looking at him like that. Like he put the stars in the sky. Like you're so unfathomably in love.
Andrew smiles. Kisses the tip of your nose and promises, "Cross my heart."
⋮⟢ drabble: pope cody who was your scary best friend before he became your scary boyfriend
── ✦ pope who you’d probably met in a very normal, mundane setting. something like a park, somewhere the wood chips got into your socks and gave you a splinter. you’d been walking on the side of your foot for a while, trying to ignore it, until you asked the boy sitting in front of you on the bench for help with the wood chip stuck to the bottom of your foot.
he’d take your foot in both hands the way you’d hold a bird, turn it toward the sun, and get the splinter out with his thumbnail. he acted like he did this all the time. and then he’d have no clue what to do when your face crumpled, because it still stung.
“it’s out,” pope’d say dumbly, holding up the splinter to show you. and when just the mere fact of stating the removal of your pain didn’t work, he’d awkwardly pat your ankle once.
and when that also didn’t work – dramatic you – he'd sigh through his nose and just put your sock on for you. he’d put on your shoe for you, too, tie the laces in a knot, tight enough that you’d have to cut it off later, and give it one firm pat.
and then you’d just keep materializing over and over again to the point that pope was confused. all he'd done was help you take out a splinter and now it felt like you lived here, on this bench, next to him. forever, seemingly. he’d definitely realize you were the only person in the whole wide world that wasn’t anything like his family and had given him a semblance of attention. sure, he was confused why you’d done it in the first place. but i imagine that earlier – before he’d started dabbling further in his violence and the cody family work – he’d be more prone to accepting a stranger-turned-constant in his life. he still had some trusting instinct in him, choosing to believe you when you honestly told him you liked hanging out with him.
── ✦ pope who was sometimes very strange and didn’t know he was. he’d bring you rocks because you once said – while walking past an enormous house in oceanside – that the quartz gravel in somebody’s driveway was pretty. so naturally he picked up a random little rock from the gutter two streets over, wiped it on his shirt, and gave it to you.
he did it again and again and again because you found that you were more endeared than anything and had started keeping these rocks first in your pocket, then in a shoebox, and finally on your windowsill. you could’ve told anyone which came from where. so even if you didn’t particularly have a fondness for random rocks when you noticed the quartz gravel, you definitely grew one!
(pope who also later replaced said rocks with the real thing when he came into money he had no idea what to use for, only ever remembering how your older tastes had sometimes made you look through the window at the jewelers and your eyes had lingered too long on a little diamond necklace. he never saw the necklace, really, only noticed you wanting it. he knew how to take care of that)
pope who wasn’t really sure how a simple hangout worked, so when you’d asked him to come over later on saturday without specifying when, he sat on your porch step for two and a half hours. when your mother asked him if he wanted to come inside and eat something, he’d say no, because he was supposed to be hanging out with you, not your mother.
when you finally came, you just sat next to him on the step and stayed there, finding it all so natural.
── ✦ and when he’d begrudgingly agree to hang out with your other friends, it’d accidentally lead into him drawing them away from the both of you. he hadn’t even meant to do that (not at first, at least).
he’d watched your friend hand you some shitty snack and said something like “don’t give her those,” without any explanation, smacking the snack away from your hand gently (though the explanation was that you’d ate one of those and promptly threw up on the ferris wheel, and it’d put you off of them for life).
if someone asked if you wanted beer, he’d say “she’s driving.” you were?
if someone asked you if you were cold, he was already handing you his jacket, mentally beating himself up for not having noticed sooner.
he’d move his chair to face the door wherever he was sitting, because ever since he’d watched people break into their little trailer as a kid – smurf, always tangled up in some shit – he’d learned to stay alert. so people always thought he was rude when he randomly turned his chair away from the group while someone was speaking and they were forced to stare at his back.
── ✦ pope who during your surprise birthday party (that he was only invited to because everyone knew how mad you’d be if they didn’t invite your best friend since you were a kid) would just stand in the corner and watch everyone with a frown, and when it got too late he’d tell everyone that the party was meant to end at ten even though that was never decided. and everyone would leave because you’d just stand there beside pope being like “yup!”
and then you and pope would spend the next three hours bagging cans, wiping down corners, finding a nickel or two between the couch cushions because of how thorough the two of you were. that was the good part. he’d wait for that.
after, he’d say, “that was fun.” and you’d think he was talking about the party.
── ✦ pope who kept saying “i can take care of it,” whenever one of your friends mentioned someone bothering them. at first, they thought it was a turn of phrase – ugh, i’ll beat him up for you, but in pope’s language – until pope started asking where he worked, where he lived, and what his car looked like.
pope who had punched a guy for you, a boyfriend-of-a-friend, when he’d said something about you while you were in the bathroom. he’d asked the guy to go outside to smoke a cigarette, decked him, and come back with his hands in his pockets.
you were a little confused when your friends told you pope had gone out for a smoke, because pope doesn’t smoke, and because the six of them had squeaked it out at once.
he knew your friends knew, so when he came back, he’d just looked at all of them as he stood behind your chair as you and your friends sat in silence, tilting his head to the side to confirm whatever social contract he’d expected from them. then he’d simply shrugged and said, “he had to go home.”
── ✦ and when pope started noticing that you were being invited to hang out less with your other friends, consequently meaning he was being invited by you less with your other friends, he’d ask, “is it ‘cause of me?”
you’d immediately say “no!”
because even you hardly believed that it was because of him; pope was so good. he read the manuals for everything you got, peeled oranges for you – handed over in an unbroken coil, because a torn piece would've bothered him – fixed your bike chain, and made you the perfect sandwiches.
sure, he had a tendency to sometimes growl when a stranger got too close to you or a little puppy barked at you. sureee, he always had bruises on his knuckles without ever having a story for them (or rather, without giving one). and he sometimes glared when your girlfriends asked you to go on a double date. or appointed himself as the designated driver when they specifically asked you to have girls night.
on the occasion you actually did go, he’d sit outside in the car watching you through the window of some restaurant or bar.
he’d come in just once – after he saw a guy linger at your table for nineteen minutes and thought it was fucking girls night, waiting until the guy went to the bathroom – and when you gave him a questioning look he just pointed toward the bathroom, forcing an embarrassed shrug like he just wanted to take a leak.
maybe it was just a coincidence that you nor your friends saw the guy come out of the bathroom! pope stopped at your table on the way back, hands in his pockets, knuckles freshly pink, and said, “want anything?” and when you said no, he went back to his car.
“isn’t he so sweet?” you’d say to your friends, misty-eyed and dreamily, watching him sit in the parked car like he was a pretty sunset.
“the sweetest,” they’d say, three of them in unison like they’d been trained. you were completely unaware that they were in the midst of realizing you were a lost cause.
so obviously you could not, for the life of you, imagine that people wanted to not hang out with you because of pope. it was their loss, anyway, you thought.
pope was so relieved once he realized he wouldn’t have to spend time with other people, just so he could hang out with you.
── ✦ pope who took over their vacancy so quickly that you didn’t even consider it as a loss even for a day.
if you wanted to get drunk at a bar, he’d go with you and get a beer while you slammed three cocktails within an hour. he’d try to gossip with you when you asked him to “tell me something fun.”
“craig and renn had a fight.”
you’d light up because that was interesting. “good. he’s bad for her anyway.”
“yes,” he’d simply say.
and when you’d press for the details (what did they fight about? who started it? did anyone cry? on a scale of one-to-ten, how bad?), and he’d have none, he’d noticed how you’d slumped slightly, ever the nosy little thing he’d been hauling around for years, he’d frown. he genuinely had no more details to give you because he hadn’t cared enough to listen to craig’s tangent. but clearly you cared, so he’d say, “i’ll ask him.”
after he managed to get the hang of it – and found he liked it, talking shit, the whole nine yards of "but you didn't hear it from me – you’d both end up laughing.
and when you’d ask him for another story (because he had so many; the cody house was so weird), he’d say, “smurf woke up so late this morning,” thinking it held the same value as baz breaking up with his girlfriend at the time.
when you opened your mouth without saying a single word, stumped, he'd double down, "like ten," like you just didn't get it yet.
pope who somehow started filling every single shoe of the people in your life. pope, your girl best friend. pope, your mother (“did you eat?” “yes.”). pope, your dad, apparently, at some point (making it his mission to check your car).
pope, your dog (waits by the door and knows the sound of your car pulling in). pope, your bodyguard (constantly scaring away everyone, threat or not). pope, your financial advisor (“you don’t need to spend that kinda money on that.”) pope, your sugar daddy, immediately after (“fine. give it to me.” “what?” “i’m getting it.”)
pope, when you’d run him through the list, just looked at you confused and said, “someone’s gotta.”
once again, he was right. you’d gotten so lucky with pope, what were the odds of that? astronomical, you’d think, cheerfully. and then you’d wonder if he’d like one more shoe to fill.
Pairings: Eddie x Ex-ChildhoodBestfriend!Reader, Eddie x Popular!Cheerleader!Reader
Summary: You and Eddie Munson used to be inseparable as kids—best friends who did everything together. But high school changed things between the two of you. You climbed up the Hawkins High social hierarchy and became a cheerleader, started hanging around the "right" people, lived up to everyone's expectations. He became the freak of Hawkins, the drug dealer, the guy most people weren’t exactly itching to be around. Naturally, you drifted apart from one another. One night, however, when he finds you heartbroken at a party and brings you back to his trailer, unspoken sentiments bubble up to the surface and the two of you finally confront the truth about your feelings.
Word Count: 13k
Notes: angst/comfort, fluff, smut 18+, mentions of eddie being bullied, mentions of insecurities?, societal pressure, reader gets cheated on (not by eddie), reader is lowkey the villain in their backstory but it all ends well I swear, you WILL feel extremely bad for eddie :(( , mention of a past physical altercation (reader slaps someone lol), SO MUCH YEARNING. it’s yearning central over here, oral (f receiving, brief m receiving), protected p in v, praise, pet names (sweetheart, baby)
A/N ⚠︎: this took SO long and I really hope the amount of effort was worth it. WE’RE AT 200 FOLLOWERS YIPPIE!!! thank you guys <333 I hope you enjoy! mwah♡
The bass coming from inside the house is loud enough for Eddie to be able to feel it vibrating through the soles of his worn Reeboks. He counts the crumpled dollar bills in his hand. This is his last sale of the night—some senior whose name he didn't quite catch and who seemed to be in a rush—either too eager to get back inside the party and engage in some more small talk or possibly afraid of being caught buying drugs from Hawkins’ resident freak. Fine by Eddie. The faster he can get out of here, the better.
House parties aren’t his scene. They've never been his scene. Honestly, they might be somewhere in his top five list of personal hells. Too many people, too much noise, too many reminders that he exists on the very fringes of Hawkins High's social ecosystem. He’s here for business, plain and simple. Make his rounds, sell his product, get the hell out before someone decides to make his night more difficult than it has to be.
He shoves the wad of cash into his back pocket, the senior already hurrying back inside with a very unappreciative 'thanks'. Then Eddie heads down the sidewalk, away from the pulsing lights and drunken laughter spilling out of Tyler McKinney's massive picket-fence house. His van is parked a few blocks away. He’s learned a long time ago not to park too close to these things. Plausible deniability and all that.
The October air is crisp, just shy of cold, and Eddie's breath puffs out in small clouds as he walks. The sounds of the party fade behind him, replaced by the quiet suburban night—distant dogs barking, the rustle of leaves, the occasional lone car passing by down the main road.
He’s already looking forward to the rest of his night now that the peskier affairs are all taken care of. He might sample a fair share of his own product, practice that one tricky guitar riff he’s been trying to get the hang of… he probably couldn’t think of a more relaxing way to spend his time if he tried. And after a long night of "business", Eddie really just wants to relax.
He’s almost arrived at his van when he sees it. At first, it’s just a silhouette on a bench near the sidewalk, hunched over, small and alone. But as he gets closer, the streetlight begins to illuminate a very familiar side profile that makes his heart do something complicated in his chest.
You.
Of course it’s you.
Eddie slows his pace almost instantly at the realization, uncertainty warring with concern. You’re crying. He can see your shoulders shaking, can hear the quiet, hitching breaths escaping your throat even from a few feet away. Every instinct screams at him to just keep walking.
You run in completely different circles now. Have been for years. But you used to be good friends—really good friends, actually. Best friends, if Eddie's being honest.
You went to the same kindergarten. Eddie still remembers how you two met for the first time and he doesn't think he'll ever forget.
Some of the kids were playing house together in the classroom while Eddie watched from the sidelines, fingers fidgeting with the hem of his worn shirt that was a few sizes too big on him. He observed their easy, seamless interactions—how much fun they seemed to be having, how naturally they fell into their roles. The mom, the dad, the older and younger kids. Everyone had a part to play and knew how to play it.
Eddie, intrigued and desperately wanting to fit in, gathered up all the courage in his tiny five-year-old body and approached the group. His voice was small when he asked if he could play too, if there were any family members left that he could be.
The other kids gave him a look—not quite mean, but not exactly welcoming either. It was the kind of look Eddie would become intimately familiar with over the course of his life. One that assured him he wasn’t quite welcome in someone’s space.
"All the roles are taken," one of the kids informed him matter-of-factly. They didn’t seem to feel terribly bad about it. "Maybe next time."
Eddie's face fell, but he tried again. "I could be the dog?" he offered hopefully, big brown doe eyes sparkling with a dim, hopeful glint. "Every family needs a dog."
But everyone had already turned back to their game, dismissing him without another word. So Eddie just stood there, watching them play, feeling that familiar ache of being on the outside looking in. He knew he wasn't really like the other kids. It wasn’t a very easy concept to grasp for a regular five year old, but Eddie also wasn’t exactly like every other regular kid his age. His home life was rough. He was too loud, too expressive, too hyper and too bad at following the rules. But knowing all of that didn't make the rejection hurt any less. He gave up after that, quietly sulking by the very edge of where all the fun was happening.
That's when you stepped out of the group.
You'd been playing the youngest child, Eddie remembers—wearing a bright yellow dress. You walked right up to him with a big fat smile on your face that made the hopeful glint in his eyes reappear.
"We can play if you want!" you offered all cheery, like you were much happier at the prospect of playing with him, a kid you didn’t know, instead of all your close friends. "Do you want to go swing?"
Eddie was dumbfounded, unable to quite believe that someone was choosing to play with him, let alone that they were the one to come up to him first. But he was also really excited and practically vibrating with joy.
"Really?" he asked.
"Yes," you confirmed, already heading toward the playground. "Come on! I can swing really high. I bet I can go higher than you."
"No way!" Eddie protested, following you eagerly.
And so you went swinging together, laughing and challenging each other to go higher and higher, and by the time the teacher called everyone back inside, Eddie had found a new friend.
From that day on, you two were inseparable. You did everything together—shared your snacks at lunch, partnered up for every recess, defended each other from the meaner kids. You were one of the few kids who didn't care that Eddie's clothes were too big or that he sometimes smelled like cigarettes from his dad's smoke. You laughed at all his jokes, listened to all his hyper tangents and made-up stories about dragons and adventures. You made him feel like hanging out with him was actually fun. And you absolutely thought it was.
Following that, elementary school was pretty easy. You were just kids, after all. Nobody really cared about who hung out with who.
Middle school was a notch harder, though you stuck together. Sure, you started getting prettier, catching the attention of some of the popular kids who wanted you to sit with them at lunch. And yeah, Eddie, on the other hand, got even weirder, louder, more defiant, and more willing to embrace the "freak" label that was already starting to stick to him like glue. Regardless, you stayed by his side through it all. And he stayed by yours.
Eddie particularly remembers one day in eighth grade. You were walking together in the hallway between classes when Matthew Hayes—captain of the middle school basketball team and already a certified asshole at thirteen—stepped in front of you both.
"Hey," Matthew said, looking at you with that suave, try-hard smile that made Eddie's skin crawl. At the time, Matthew was probably one of the biggest pricks he thought he’d ever had the displeasure of knowing.
"You're coming to my birthday party this weekend, right?" He continued, ignoring Eddie right beside you, seemingly pretty damn sure of himself and convinced that you were gonna say yes.
You shifted your books in your arms awkwardly, polite but uninterested. You didn’t even know the guy that well anyway, so you thought it probably wouldn’t be much of a bummer if you ditched his birthday. "I’m sorry. I don't think so. Eddie and I were going to—"
"Wait, you're actually friends with this loser?" Matthew cut you off and laughed, gesturing at Eddie like he was something pesky stuck to the bottom of his shoe. "Come on. You're way too pretty to be hanging around with Munson the Freak. I mean, everyone knows his dad's in jail and his uncle's trailer trash."
Eddie felt his face burn with shame and anger, his hands clenching into fists. He'd heard worse before—was already used to worse, honestly—but it still stung. Maybe it stung particularly bad that time because you were right there to witness it, and he didn’t want you to think less of him. He was about to tell Matthew to fuck off, detention be damned, when you were already moving. Your shoes clacked a short few steps in Matthew’s direction.
The slap that followed echoed down the entire hallway. Matthew stumbled back, hand flying to his already reddening cheek, eyes wide with shock. The conversations around you died instantly and everyone turned to stare at the scene before them with bewilderment.
"Don't ever talk about him like that again," you said, voice shaky but firm. "Eddie's worth a hundred of you, and if you can't see that, then you're even dumber than your stupid face already makes you look."
Matthew looked between you and Eddie, jaw clenched, face twisted with humiliation and rage. "You're going to regret that, you bitch." He scowled and his voice dripped with venom. But you didn’t look the slightest bit intimidated.
"No, I'm not," you finalized matter-of-factly, grabbing Eddie's hand and marching away with your head held high, leaving Matthew and his stunned friends in your wake.
Of course, you got in massive trouble for that stunt. Principal's office, call home to your parents, detention for a week, the whole nine yards. Your mom was furious. Not at Matthew for what he'd said. She wouldn’t hear you out about any of that. She was furious at you for causing a scene and for jeopardizing your reputation—for "acting out". Still, you never once apologized. Not to Matthew, not to your parents, not to anyone except Eddie for what was said about him.
"He deserved it," you told Eddie later, sitting next to him on the curb outside school while you waited for your mom to pick you up. "And I'd do it again."
Eddie looked at you. He looked at the stubborn clench of your jaw, the lingering rage still sparkling in your eyes, and felt something shift in his heart. Something more intense than friendship, though he didn’t really have the words or courage to admit it to himself, let alone to you, back then.
"You're kind of badass, you know that?" he said, awed.
You grinned in return. "Yeah. I know."
That moment felt important, like proof that nothing could come between you. That you'd always choose each other, no matter what anyone else thought or said. Eddie really wanted that. He was fairly certain you did too.
But then high school happened.
Suddenly, the social hierarchies that had been forming in middle school became concrete and immovable. You tried out for the cheer squad on a whim and ended up making it, which put you in proximity to the popular crowd—the pretty girls, the jocks, the kids whose parents had money and influence. They welcomed you with open arms, eager to claim someone as smart and pretty as you as their own. You liked making new friends and it’s not like you could’ve kept your position in the cheer squad without getting along with the rest of the team, so you didn’t mind joining their clique.
At first, you tried to balance both worlds, because you really didn’t wanna lose Eddie. You'd sit with him at lunch sometimes, wave to him in the hallways, defend him when your new friends made snarky comments about him. But the pressure from your new peers was starting to become relentless. It was fairly subtle at first: a raised eyebrow here, a pointed comment there, but steadily grew stronger and more frequent.
Why do you still hang out with him? You do know what everyone says about him, right? You're going to ruin your reputation. You're better than that.
And slowly, so slowly Eddie almost didn't notice it happening, you started pulling away. The lunch table visits became less frequent, then eventually stopped altogether. The hallway waves became more hurried. Your defenses of him became quieter, then went silent.
Your parents were thrilled with your new friend group and your new image. They started talking about your future—college, career, finding a nice boy from a good family. The hard truth the world pressured you into swallowing was that there was no room in a vision like that for someone like Eddie Munson.
And you were so young and impressionable, desperate to please everyone, and so afraid of being different and not appealing to as many people as possible. Once the popular crowd had taken you in, it felt wrong to try to leave. It was easier to drift away because of that. It was easier to pretend that your friendship had happened to two entirely different people.
Eddie hated it. He understood, in a way. Had even seen it coming at one point, really. He wasn’t stupid, he knew that when things seemed too good to be true—in this case, your bond—they usually really were. But partially understanding didn't make it hurt any less.
By sophomore year, you barely spoke with each other. You'd pass each other in the hallways—you with your cheer uniform and your perfect friends, Eddie with his leather jacket and his outcast status—and exchange the briefest of acknowledgments. A small smile or a tiny nod. Just enough to acknowledge that you'd once meant something to each other, but not enough to bridge the chasm-sized disconnect that had grown between you.
He told himself that he was fine with it. That people outgrew each other, that it was natural, that he didn't need you anyway and maybe he took you for someone you never really were. Maybe deep down it was always gonna turn out like this and you were always gonna grow apart. He told himself that you were just kids. You didn’t quite understand the implications of being best friends with someone like him at the time because you were young and naive, but now that those were clear and you finally realized that being associated with him would grant your reputation a massive hit, you saw a chance to bail and took it. It really, really hurt. But he couldn’t exactly blame you for it.
He had other friends, obviously. He had his bandmates and Hellfire—a decent amount of people who understood him and made his life a little easier. They had the same interests, likes and dislikes and probably matched his personality more than you ever did. But none of them really ever managed to fix or replace that void he felt in his heart whenever he saw you walk past him in the halls. Late at night, alone in his room, he'd think about kindergarten and middle school and the way you used to smile at him like he was someone worth being nice to, and he'd wonder if you ever thought about it too.
A loud sniffle snaps Eddie out of his thoughts. Suddenly, he finds himself back in the situation at hand and he’s standing just out of your peripheral vision like an awkward idiot, unsure of how to really proceed.
You probably don’t want Eddie "the Freak" Munson seeing you like this. He shouldn’t get himself involved. He really should just walk past you and pretend he never saw anything.
But then again, it’s you. And no matter how much time has passed since you last spoke and you've drifted into your world of pep rallies and popularity while he's sunken deeper into his reputation as Hawkins' resident drug-dealing metalhead, he's never been very good at not paying attention to you. And he’d be a prick if he just ignored you while you’re clearly hurting.
He approaches slowly, one hand shoved in his jacket pocket while the other grips his now empty lunchbox, trying to make himself appear as non-threatening as possible.
"Hey," he says softly once he’s close enough. "Uh— you okay?"
You startle, head snapping up, and Eddie's chest tightens instinctively at the sight of your tear-stained face. Your mascara has run in dark tracks down your cheeks, your eyes are red and puffy, and you look so absolutely miserable that it makes his throat tight.
"Oh," Your voice is rough, thick with tears and surprise. You wipe quickly at your face, trying and failing to compose yourself. "Eddie. What are you—I didn't think you'd be here."
"I'm not. I mean, I was, but I'm leaving." He gestures vaguely back toward the party. "Just had some, uh... business to take care of."
You nod, understanding immediately what kind of business he means. You don’t look judgmental of it, though—just tired. So, so tired and sad.
"Are you okay?" he asks again, even though you clearly aren’t. He’s lost. He doesn’t know what else to say. For a moment, the awkward tone in his voice really makes him regret not having just walked past you.
"I'm fine," you say automatically, but your voice cracks on the word and fresh tears well up in your eyes. You tilt your head downwards and try to wipe away at the dampness before it drips. "Sorry, I'm—God, this is really embarrassing."
"Hey, no." Eddie moves a little closer. He doesn’t feel quite confident enough to sit down next you on the bench just yet. "It's not embarrassing. What happened?"
You remain quiet for a long moment, clearly debating whether to tell him or not. Eddie waits, his gaze warm and never rushing, even though the cold night air is seeping through his ripped jeans.
Finally, you let out a shaky breath. "I caught Brad making out with Ashley Cunningham. Upstairs. In Tyler's parents' bedroom."
Brad Morrison. Captain of the basketball team, all-American golden boy and not-so-secret-preppy-asshole—your boyfriend for the last six months. Eddie saw you two together in the hallways a lot. Him with his arm around your shoulders, you with your perfect smile. You two were practically the image of Hawkins High's ideal couple.
He hated every second of it. Not because he had any right to, of course. You hadn’t been his friend in years. But that didn’t stop the bitter twist in his gut every time he saw Morrison's hands on you. He wondered if you were happy, if Morrison treated you right, if you ever, amidst it all, thought about the two kids who used to be inseparable back before everyone else told you that you couldn't be.
Guess he has his answer now about the "treating you right" part.
"Jesus," Eddie breathes, a little taken aback by your admission, but definitely not surprised. He avoids your gaze awkwardly, looking at the bushes surrounding the bench instead. "I'm sorry. That's... that's really shitty."
"Yeah." You laugh, but it’s watery, sad and the least bit amused. "The worst part is I'm not even that surprised? Like, I knew he was an asshole. Everyone knows he's an asshole. But he's the right kind of asshole, you know? The kind everyone approves of." You wipe at your eyes again, smearing your mascara further. You sniffle again when you realize how ridiculous you must be sounding. "God, I'm sorry. You don't want to hear about any of this."
"No, I do." Eddie insists softly, finally gathering up the courage to sit down on the bench beside you—close but not too close, maintaining a respectful distance. "I mean, if you want to talk about it. I'm a pretty good listener. When I'm not talking too much, which is, you know, most of the time, but—"
You laugh, a small but real chuckle this time, and Eddie feels a small spark of victory in his chest. He likes that sound.
"Yeah," you say, looking at him with something warm in your eyes and a wobbly grin on your face. "I know."
The words come out of you in a fond, almost reverent manner, and Eddie has to avoid your gaze again. He only hums faintly in return. He can’t even believe it, but he’s nervous. You make him nervous in the best and worst ways.
You two sit in silence for a moment, the distant thump of the party bass from a good few blocks away providing a strange rhythm to the otherwise quiet night. You’re clearly not ready to spill your emotions just yet, so he doesn’t push.
The silence is admittedly a little awkward, because what do you say to someone who used to be your best friend in the entire world and now barely acknowledges you in the hallways? There’s also something unspoken sitting in it. Like both of you aren’t talking about something you absolutely should talk about.
"Hey, uh—it’s getting cold out here. Maybe you should be getting home?" Eddie asks eventually. His tone is careful. He doesn’t want to imply that he’s getting bored of being here with you. He just doesn’t wanna overstay his welcome on this bench, especially when he’s uncertain of how to really offer any comfort other than a measly 'I’m sorry'. That and the fact he just feels incredibly awkward still.
Your brows furrow slightly and a sad look makes its way back on your face. He watches carefully. "I... I came here with Brad. I don’t have a ride home anymore."
"Right," Eddie acknowledges empathetically. He should’ve guessed. "Okay. Well, I can give you a ride home if you want. Your house isn't far, right? Still on Maple?"
"Yeah, but..." You bite your lip, looking genuinely distressed. "My family's out of town this weekend. They went to visit my aunt in Indianapolis. And—and I don't have my keys with me because I was supposed to stay at Brad's tonight after the party, and now..." You trail off, a fresh wave of tears threatening to spill in genuine stress over the situation you’ve gotten yourself into.
Eddie's brain is working overtime, trying to figure out a solution that won’t make this weird or uncomfortable. You clearly can’t go home. You probably have friends at the party you could stay with. But given the state you’re in, he’s guessing you don’t exactly want to go back in there and face the world, let alone potentially your cheating ex.
"You could crash at my place," he offers cautiously after a brief moment of silence, watching your reaction. "I know it's probably not your first choice, and you can totally say no, but Wayne's working the night shift so you'd have the couch to yourself. Or—shit, no—my room, I mean. I mean you can have my room, I can take the couch. Whatever makes you comfortable. I just—" He runs a hand through his hair nervously. "I’m guessing you probably don’t wanna go back in there to those assholes." He gestures vaguely toward the direction of the distant music.
You’re looking at him with an expression he can’t quite read. Surprise, definitely gratitude, and something tender he desperately hopes he’s not just deluding himself into seeing.
"Are you sure?" you ask quietly, surveilling his eyes for any sort of reluctance. "I don't wanna… impose."
Eddie shakes his head. "You're not imposing. I'm offering. Come on," he encourages, already standing back up with a slight grunt. He feels a newfound wave of confidence after you don’t immediately reject his offer. "It’s nothing fancy—I mean, you know that already. But better than staying out here all night, right?"
You study his face for another long moment, then nod and smile. "Yeah. Yeah—thank you, Eddie."
"Don't mention it."
The drive to the trailer park is quiet. Eddie half-expected it to be as awkward as the silence on the bench, honestly. But much to his surprise, it isn’t. Not really. You sit in the passenger seat, staring out the window, occasionally wiping at the lingering dampness under your eyes. Eddie focuses on driving and gives you space to just be.
He's turned a cassette tape into the deck, and Judas Priest’s "Dreamer Deceiver" plays quietly through his blown speakers. Not exactly cheerful music, but you haven’t asked him to turn it off yet, so he takes that as a good sign.
"I remember this song," your soft voice sounds out over the low music suddenly, startling him a little. "You were obsessed with it in, like, eighth grade."
Eddie glances over at you, surprised. He hadn’t expected you to recall a past memory of him, let alone with such a gentle, reverent tone in your voice. It catches him off guard. "You remember that?" he asks incredulously, eyes focusing back on the road ahead, his mind completely elsewhere.
"Of course I remember." You’re looking at him now, your profile illuminated by the headlights. There’s a small smile on your face despite the dried tear tracks on your cheeks. "You made me listen to it like a hundred times. Said it was going to change my life."
"Did it?"
"No," you admit, and Eddie grins sheepishly. "But I listened anyway. Because you were so excited about it." Your tone turns quieter, like you’re confessing something you’ve never told anyone before. Something warm, nostalgic and simultaneously painful blooms in Eddie's chest.
"I didn't think you'd remember stuff like that," he says, trying his hardest to focus on the road in front of him and not the way his heart stutters in his chest at your admission.
"I remember a lot of things." Your voice is soft, almost sad now. "Like that time you taught me how to play chords on your guitar," you reminisce, quiet for a moment after that. But then the memories catch up. "Or when we built that fort in my backyard out of sheets and lawn chairs. And when you convinced me to skip school with you to go to that record store in Indy."
Eddie’s surprise molds into something more fond and nostalgic. "We got in so much trouble for that," he recalls, grinning at the memory, smile lines carved around the corners of his mouth.
"So much trouble," you agree, chuckling. "My mom grounded me for two weeks. But it was worth it. That was a good day."
"Yeah," Eddie says, feeling something heavy settling in his stomach. "It was."
The two of you fall quiet again as Eddie pulls into the trailer park, navigating the familiar dirt roads to his and Wayne's trailer at the end. The lights are off, which means Wayne is definitely at work, and Eddie's old van looks even more beat-up than usual parked under the flickering front door lamp.
"Home sweet home," Eddie says in his familiar theatrical tone, trying for levity as he kills the engine. "Like I said, it's not much, but—"
"Eddie." You turn in your seat to face him fully. "You don't have to apologize for anything. Thank you for this. Really. You didn't have to help me at all."
"Yeah, I did," Eddie says honestly. "I couldn't just leave you there."
Something flickers across your face—that same expression you gave him earlier when he offered you to spend the night. Then you’re flashing him an appreciative grin, opening the passenger door and stepping out into the night, and the unreadable expression passes as quickly as it came.
Inside, Eddie flicks on the dim trailer lights and immediately starts apologizing for the mess even though it really isn’t that bad. Some of Wayne's mugs are in the sink, Eddie’s campaign notes are scattered across the small coffee table, and a few magazines and books are piled on the couch.
"Seriously, it's fine," you say, looking around with what seems like genuine interest and distant familiarity rather than judgment. "It's really cozy."
"That's a nice way of saying small."
"I said cozy," you insist honestly, though you flash him a small grin over your shoulder. You turn your attention over to the bookshelf by the entrance, trailing your fingers along the spines. You recognize some of the books from years ago—thick fantasy novels he’s read about a million times now.
Eddie watches you. When he realizes he is, he moves into the kitchen instead. "You want something to drink? I think we have Coke, or water, or... actually, I think that's it. We're not great at keeping the fridge stocked."
"Water's good.”
Eddie grabs two glasses, fills them with tap water, and hands one to you. You accept it gratefully, taking a long sip, and Eddie tries not to stare at the way your throat moves as you swallow.
You set the glass down on the coffee table as he’s sipping on his and sit down on the old couch, tucking your legs underneath you. Your skirt rides up slightly in the process and Eddie very deliberately looks away, focusing on literally anything else in the room.
"You can sit," you say, patting the cushion next to you with an amused grin. "It’s your couch."
Eddie does as you say, maintaining what he thinks is a respectful distance. The couch is old and sunken in the middle, though, which means you both kind of slide toward the center. Your knee bumps against his.
"Sorry," he mutters awkwardly, starting to shift away.
"It's okay." You don’t move your knee. You seem to be loosening up a little in his space, growing a little more accustomed after all this time. "This is nice. Just sitting. Not having to pretend to be having a good time."
"Yeah, McKinney’s parties are real ragers," Eddie says dryly, looking down at the now empty glass in his grip. "Nothing says fun like watching drunk jocks play beer pong badly."
You snort in agreement. "You've never even seen Brad try to play beer pong before. It's embarrassing."
His expression sours slightly at the mention of Brad, but his eyes seem to soften when the snarky insult leaves your mouth. "Not missing much then."
"No," you agree again quietly. "Not really."
Eddie picks at a loose thread on the rip in his jeans, going silent and trying to find the right words for what he wants to say next. "Can I ask you something? And you can totally tell me to fuck off if it's too personal."
"Okay," you answer, sitting up a little straighter in anticipation.
"Why were you with him?" Eddie looks at you now, genuinely curious. "Brad. Like, you knew what he was like. Everyone knows what he's like. So why?"
You’re quiet for a long moment, staring down at your hands in your lap. When you finally speak, your voice is small.
"I guess because it's what I'm supposed to do."
"What?"
"Y’know, date guys like Brad. Be friends with girls like Chrissy and Melissa and the rest of the cheer squad. Get good grades, look pretty, smile at the right people, go to the right parties." You look up at him, and there’s something unbearably raw and honest in your eyes now. "That's what's expected of me. It’s what my parents want, what my friends want, what everyone around me wants. I'm supposed to be perfect. The perfect daughter, the perfect student… the perfect girlfriend to the perfect guy." You say the last part with clear disdain, like it’s the aspect that bothers you the most.
"That sounds exhausting," Eddie mutters earnestly.
"It is," you reply. "It's so exhausting, Eddie. And the worst part is I don't even know who I really am anymore under all of it. I don't know what I actually like versus what I'm supposed to like. I don't know who my real friends are versus who's just around because I'm on the cheer squad and dating the basketball captain."
Eddie's heart aches. He can’t relate to what you’re saying at all and never will. A few years ago, he might’ve called these first-world problems. However, he can’t help but believe the exhaustion in your voice. You sound genuinely tired. He wants to say something profound, something that will make it all better, but what comes out is:
"I know who you are."
You look at him, surprised. "What?"
"I know who you are," he repeats. "I mean, what you used to be like. Before… y’know, all of that. Like, you used to spend hours building these… elaborate backstories for your stuffed animals. You cried when we watched E.T. even though you'd seen it like five times already. You were the girl who always shared her lunch with me in elementary school when I forgot mine." He’s on a roll now, years of stored-up memories spilling out all at once. "You defended me against those eighth-grade assholes who tried to flush my D&D dice down the toilet and—and you always told me I was going to be a famous musician someday and actually meant it."
You’re looking at him like he just stabbed you in the stomach. Your lips part, your eyes shining with fresh tears. You can’t help the bittersweet smile your lips curl into. "You remember all that?" It’s your turn to ask now.
"Of course I remember. That stuff matters. It’s real." He gestures vaguely toward the window, in the general direction of the rest of Hawkins. "All that other stuff… the perfect grades, the perfect boyfriend, the perfect image—that's just... that's all bullshit. That's not you." His tone is low and impossibly soft.
You stare down at your lap, opening your mouth to say something, but all words seem to fail you at the moment. The wave of nostalgia hits you all at once and acts as a sour reminder of all you’ve lost. Of the real, genuine friendship you ditched for bullshit that won’t even matter in the long run. You never wanted to lose Eddie. You never wanted to hurt him, you could never wish him pain. But you got so caught up in the shining promise of popularity that you ended up hurting him anyway. You feel so incredibly stupid.
"I miss it," you say suddenly, fiercely. "I miss you. I miss being friends with you. I miss not having to worry about what people think or who's watching or whether I'm acting the right way. I miss when things were simple."
"Me too," Eddie admits, his voice rough. "I miss you too. Like, all the time. I see you in the hallways and I want to talk to you, but I figure you probably don't want the freak bothering you in front of your friends."
"Don't call yourself that," you say sharply, sternly. "You're not a freak, Eddie. You're really not. You’re just... you're you. You're honest and creative and always so expressive and you don't give a shit about what anyone thinks, and I've always—" You stop abruptly, looking away, breath hitching in your throat.
"Always what?" Eddie's heart pounds in his chest.
"I've always admired that about you," you finish quietly. "Even when we stopped being friends. I always thought... God, I wish I could be that brave."
"You think I'm brave?" Eddie laughs, but it comes out shaky. "I'm terrified like ninety percent of the time."
"Really? Of what?"
Right now, of this. Of you and how much he’s never stopped caring about you, even after everything that’s happened.
But what he says is: "I dunno. Of ending up alone, I guess. Of never getting out of this town and being exactly who everyone thinks I am and nothing more."
You turn to face him fully now, pulling your knees up to your chest. "You're going to get out, Eddie. You're talented as shit. And you’re smart, even though you pretend not to be. You're going to do something amazing someday."
"Yeah? What about you?"
"Me?" You look taken aback by the question.
"Yeah, you. What do you want? Not what your parents want or your friends want. What do you actually want?"
You’re quiet for a long moment, really thinking about it. "I wanna move away," you confess finally. "Study something cool. I wanna go to a college far away from here where nobody knows me and I can just start over. Be whoever I want to be and not have to live for others anymore." You pick at a thread on the couch cushion. Eddie realizes that that’s coincidentally also exactly what he wants for himself—to move far, far away from Hawkins and start fresh—and he tries not to mentally harp on the fact that your future plans seem to match up.
"I want to date someone who actually cares about me and who sees me as more than just…arm candy. I wanna date someone who—who makes me laugh and doesn't make me feel like I have to be perfect all the time."
Eddie's throat goes tight. "That doesn't sound like too much to ask for."
"No? Tell that to my parents. They're already planning my future for me. Indiana State, probably. Close enough to visit every weekend. Marry someone 'appropriate.' Have, like, six kids." Your voice is bitter. "No room for what I actually want."
"That's bullshit," Eddie says bluntly. "It's your life. You should get to live it how you want."
"Yeah." You nod subtly. "You’re already pretty much doing that now, aren’t you?" You point out, smiling a little.
He hesitates a little. "Yup," he replies. "And look where it got me. Twenty years old and still in high school, living in a trailer and dealing pot." Eddie leans hard against the back of the couch. "Really living the dream." He snorts, but it’s self-deprecating.
"You're…happy though," you say, brows furrowed. "Aren't you? Like, actually happy. Not pretend happy."
Eddie considers this. Is he happy? His life is objectively a mess by most standards. Most people don’t exactly aspire to be in the position he’s in, and if he were someone else, he probably wouldn’t either. But he has his music, his friends, his interests, his freedom to be exactly who he is without apology or remorse. He is happy in that regard.
"I guess," he admits honestly. "Most of the time, yeah. I'm happy. Could be better, could be worse, but... I'm me. And I guess I'm okay with that."
"I want that," you retort softly. "I wanna be okay with just... being me."
"You can be," Eddie says. "I mean, it's not easy. People are going to have opinions. Your parents… they might be disappointed. Your friends might bail. But at the end of the day, you're the one who has to live with your choices. Might as well make 'em count."
You’re looking at him with such intensity now that Eddie feels pinned in place. Like hearing him say those words frees you from years of forcing yourself to conform. "When did you get so wise?"
"I'm not wise. I'm just stubborn and I don’t care what people think anymore." He grins.
You smile in return, and God, Eddie loves that expression a lot. He’s missed it more than he'll probably ever let himself acknowledge.
"I'm sorry," you say suddenly, because you feel that you’re due for a shit ton of apologies towards the boy beside you.
"For what?" He knows for what.
"For what?" you echo, incredulous. "For all of it. For ditching you. For… for choosing my reputation over you because I was worried about what others would think." Your voice cracks and you sound the most distraught you have all night. Which is a lot, considering the fact that you just got cheated on. "All of that was more than insanely shitty of me. You were my best friend, Eddie. You were—you are—amazing. You really are. You’re funny and you’re nice and you do your own thing despite what everyone else thinks. I’m just… I’m a coward. I was trying to fit in with the crowd and I threw everything we had away because I was scared and dumb and stupid and I thought that being popular mattered more than being happy, but I was wrong. I don’t think I could’ve been more wrong. You deserve someone who’s always there for you and who wouldn’t have done any of that bullshit I did. And—and I know that nothing I say now will ever make up for even a fraction of it and I’m not asking you to understand, let alone forgive me, but I just need you to know. I need you to know that I’m so, so sorry, Eddie."
Eddie doesn’t interrupt you once. He’s dumbfounded, really, eyes wide as he takes everything in. Yeah, what you did sucked. He won’t deny that or the fact that you hurt him. And he probably won’t every forget any of it, but he can hear the emotion and honesty oozing out of your words and all of a sudden, he feels that his only option is to forgive you.
"Hey, no." Eddie reaches out without thinking about it, taking your hand in his ring-clad, warm one. "We were kids. People change, they drift apart. It happens."
"Yeah, but not like that. I don't want us to drift apart anymore," you say fiercely while a tear drips down your cheek, gripping his hand tighter, also without thinking about it. "I really miss you. I know I don’t have the right to, but I do. I miss everything about you. You’ve always been there for me. You’re, like, the only person who knows the real me instead of the version of myself I perform for everyone else. You’re the realest person in this whole shithole town."
Eddie's heart is doing gymnastics in his chest. "I miss you too. Like, constantly. It's actually kind of pathetic how much I think about you." He admits, a sheepish grin on his face.
"Really?" You’re smiling now, even through the waterworks.
"Yeah. I see you in the hallways and it's like... I don't know, it's like I remember how we used to be and for a few seconds, the whole world gets a little brighter? Which is corny as hell, but it's true." He’s rambling now, nervous energy spilling out. "When I see you with Morrison or your cheer friends or whatever, there's this part of me that's happy because you look happy, but there's also this part that's just... sad. Because I remember when I was the one who made you smile like that. And I know I shouldn’t be feeling that way anymore. You're not mine—" he quickly corrects himself. "—my friend, and you haven't been for years, but I can't help it. I've never been able to help it when it comes to you."
You’re staring at him, lips slightly parted, eyes wide. Eddie realizes he's definitely just said too much, crossed about fifteen different lines, and there’s no taking it back now.
"Sorry," he mutters with embarrassment, starting to pull his hand away. "That was—I shouldn't have—"
You tighten your grip, not allowing him to retreat, and keep his hand in place. "Eddie."
"Yeah?"
"I think about you too. Like, so much." You’re leaning closer now, and Eddie's brain is short-circuiting. "Seeing you in the hallways gives me this… urge to just stop and talk to you. I’ll be stuck at some boring party with Brad and his friends, and all I can think about is how much funnier everything would be if you were there instead. But I don’t have the right to think about any of that because we haven't been friends in years and whose fault is that? Mine. It's my fault."
"It's not—"
"It is. I chose wrong, Eddie. I keep choosing wrong. Consistently. Wrong friends, wrong boyfriends, wrong everything. Because none of them are..." You trail off, and the silence between you is suddenly charged.
"Aren't what?" His voice comes out barely above a whisper.
"None of them are you."
The world narrows to just this: your hand in his and your eyes on his. Eddie can see every detail of your face and he takes them in amidst the quiet of the trailer—the smudged mascara, the earnestness in your gaze, the way you’re biting your bottom lip nervously.
He should say something. Do something. But he’s frozen. He’s terrified that, if he moves, the spell will break and you'll realize what you’re saying. Or, more specifically, who you’re saying it to. But you don’t pull away. Not in the slightest. Instead, you lean in, slowly, giving him every opportunity to pull back, to laugh all of it off as the emotional aftermath of a shitty night. Eddie doesn’t pull back.
Your lips meet his tentatively. He should be surprised. He should be fully taken-aback due to the unexpectedness of the situation. But he’s mostly just completely and utterly relieved. He kisses you back with years of pent-up wanting and missing you.
It’s gentle at first. Your free hand comes up to cup his cheek, and Eddie makes a sound he should probably be embarrassed about, his own hand sliding into your hair carefully, like he’s scared of hurting you with the gentlest of touches.
You taste like salt from your tears and something intoxicatingly sweet underneath, and Eddie thinks dimly that he could die right now and be perfectly happy about it.
When you finally pull back, you’re both breathing hard. You stay close, noses barely nudging, and he can feel your smile less than an inch away from his lips.
"Was that okay?" you whisper.
"Are you kidding?" His tone is incredulous. "That was—yeah. That was extremely okay."
You laugh, soft and breathy, and kiss him again. This time it’s deeper, more certain, and Eddie feels like every nerve ending in his body was on fire. Your fingers tangle in his hair, pulling him closer, and he gives in willingly, wrapping his arms around your waist. His grip is still painfully gentle.
Time stops meaning anything. Time seems like it’s never meant anything at all. There’s just you and him and the years of distance and want evaporating with every touch and soft sound you make against his mouth.
When you finally break apart for air again, you stay in his arms, tucked against his chest, and Eddie holds you like you’re something precious. You are, to be honest. You’re a treasure he’s lost and found again and is never letting go of.
"I don't wanna go back," you say quietly against his shoulder after a while of silence. "To pretending. To being someone I'm not."
"Then don't," Eddie says simply. "Stay here. With me. Fuck what everyone else thinks."
You pull back to look at him, and there’s hope in your eyes. "You make it sound so simple."
"It is simple. Not easy, but simple." Eddie brushes a strand of hair behind your ear, feeling less hesitant to touch you now. "You get to choose what you want. Who you want. Everything everyone else says is just noise. It doesn’t matter." Eddie's heart is pounding so hard he’s sure you can hear it. "And if you choose me, I'd say you're making a terrible decision, but I'm too selfish to talk you out of it."
You chuckle, pressing your face into his neck and shaking your head. "You're not a terrible decision, Eddie."
"I sell drugs in the school parking lot and I’m on my third senior year. I'm probably the literal definition of a terrible decision."
"No," you say, pulling back to look at him again. Your eyes are bright, clear, more certain than he's seen them all night. Or ever, maybe. "I don't care. I'm so tired of doing what I'm supposed to do. I want to do what makes me happy. And you..." You cup his face in both hands. "You make me happy. You always have."
Eddie can’t help himself. He kisses you again because he can’t not, because you’re looking at him like he hung the moon and he needs you to know that you’re so much brighter than any star.
"Stay," he murmurs pleadingly against your lips once you pull away. "I know I just said that I was a terrible decision but stay. Not just tonight. Please. I know it's scary and complicated and everyone's going to have an opinion about it, but I swear to God I will spend every single day making you happy."
"Eddie—"
"I'm in love with you," he says, the words tumbling out before he can even think of stopping them. "I have been for years. Maybe since we were kids, I don't know. I tried to move on, but I can't because you’re the only girl I’ve ever wanted. And if you walk out that door tomorrow—or even right now—and decide that this was just a moment, just the aftermath of a shitty night, that would suck but I'd understand. I just need you to know. I love you. It’s you, it's always been you, and I don't think that's ever going to change."
You really can’t help yourself. You’re crying again, but you’re smiling too—the biggest, most genuine smile he's probably ever seen on your face.
"I love you too," you whisper. "Fuck, Eddie, I love you too. I have for so long. I’ve always just been too scared to admit it."
"And now?"
"Now I'm still scared," you admit, laughing shakily. "But I'm more scared of messing up and losing you again. I really, really don’t want that."
The warm glow of the trailer’s dim lights highlights your features. Your arms are around his neck, crickets chirp outside the trailer walls, and Eddie doesn’t think he’s ever felt more at home.
You kiss him again. Soft at first, but it deepens, shifting into something more urgent. It reflects years of wanting, of holding back, of pretending not to feel what you felt—all of it comes pouring out in the way your fingers tighten in his hair and the way Eddie's hands grip your waist like you might dissolve into thin air if he doesn’t hold on tight enough.
"Eddie," you breathe against his mouth, and the sound of his name in your voice like that—all desperate and wanting—makes something in him snap.
He kisses you harder, pulling you closer until you’re practically in his lap. You go willingly, shifting to straddle him properly, your skirt riding up as you settle against him. Eddie's hands slid up your sides, feeling the warmth of your skin through the thin fabric of your top, and you gasp into his mouth.
"Is this okay?" he manages to ask, pulling back just enough to meet your eyes. His hands freeze right over your ribs, right below—
"Yes," you say immediately. "Yes. Don't stop. Please don't stop."
He listens. He kisses you like a drowning man gasping for air, like he’s trying to make up for every moment of the past few years in a single night. Your hands are everywhere—in his hair, on his shoulders, sliding under his jacket to feel the warmth of him through his shirt. Every touch feels purposeful and like you’re trying to memorize him by feel alone.
When his hands slide higher, thumbs brushing the undersides of your breasts through your top, you make a sound that goes straight through him. You arch into his touch, and Eddie groans.
"Oh, Jesus. You're killing me," he says roughly. He means it.
You chuckle, and then you’re kissing him again, rolling your hips against his in a way that makes Eddie see stars. He can feel every inch of you pressed against him—the softness of your thighs bracketing his, the way your chest rises and falls with each breath, the heat of you even through layers of clothing. It’s overwhelming in the best possible way.
Your hands find the hem of his shirt, fingers slipping beneath to trace the lines of his stomach, and Eddie shivers despite the warmth flooding his body. No one’s ever touched him like this before—with such tenderness and simultaneously desperate need. It’s like you can’t get close enough, like you wanna crawl inside his skin and live there forever.
"Can I—" you start, tugging at his shirt, and Eddie nods frantically before you have to elaborate.
He helps you pull it over his head, tossing it somewhere beside the couch, and then your hands are on his bare skin and Eddie forgets how to think. You trace the lines of his ribs. Your gaze trails upwards to a new, unfamiliar patch of ink right over his heart—something that looks like a snarling demon’s head.
"This new?" you ask softly, fingers tracing the slightly crooked design. You’ve seen him shirtless before at various public pool outings, but the marking seems entirely unfamiliar to you. "Never seen it before."
"Yeah," Eddie replies, his voice rough. "Got it, like, a year ago." He gauges your judgement of the design.
"I like it." You lean down, pressing a kiss to the tattoo, then to his collarbone, then up the side of his neck in a trail that makes Eddie's hands tighten on your hips.
"Your turn," he insists before you can kiss further, and you pull back to look at him, pupils blown wide.
"Yeah?"
"Only if you want," he adds quickly, backtracking self–consciously. "We don't have to—we can stop—"
You silence him with another breathless, intense kiss, then reach for the hem of your top. Eddie's hands cover yours.
"Let me?" he offers.
You nod in reply, raising your arms, and Eddie carefully peels the top up and off, revealing smooth skin and a white lacy bra that, despite its striking simplicity, somehow makes his mouth run dry. You’re so achingly beautiful that it actually hurts to look at you. His eyes wander along the curve of your waist and the way your chest seems to rise and fall with every panting breath.
"Hi," you say, looking at him and smiling a little nervously. You feel self-aware under his gaze.
"Hi," Eddie echoes, chuckling. You‘re so cute. "You're so—God, you're so beautiful."
You shake your head sheepishly and bite back a beaming smile, thinking he’s only trying to butter you up. "Eddie—"
"No, I mean it. You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Have been since we were kids. I used to think it wasn't fair, you know? That someone could be that pretty and that smart and that funny. Like you got all the good qualities and the rest of us just had to deal with it."
You can feel your face heating up increasingly and all you can do is laugh, though it comes out a little shaky. "Stop..." You don‘t want him to stop. You could listen to him flattering you forever.
"Never." He pulls you back down into a kiss, skin against skin now, and the feeling of it makes both of you gasp into each other‘s mouths. Eddie's hands roam your back, feeling the realness of you in his arms after years of not daring to even dream about this exact moment.
You kiss him deeply, slowly, like his trailer is a capsule and you have all the time in the world. Your hips roll against the now obvious stiffening bulge in his jeans and Eddie groans into your mouth, his hands sliding down to grip the flesh of your thighs.
"Eddie," you breathe when he pulls back and leans up to kiss sloppily down your throat, on a mission to find the exact spot that makes you shiver. "Eddie, I want—"
"What?" He pulls away to look at you, wanting to hear you say it. "What do you want, sweetheart?"
Sweetheart. You gulp at the pet name. You could absolutely get used to hearing that come out of his mouth. "You," you admit. "I really want you. Please."
Eddie's heart is pounding so hard he thinks it might break through his ribs. He shifts, carefully lifting you with him as he stands up from the couch. You wrap your legs around his waist automatically, giggling against his neck as he carries you down the short hallway to his bedroom with surprisingly sturdy arms.
"Very smooth, Munson," you tease.
"I have my moments," he grins, shouldering open his bedroom door. He’s suddenly very aware of the mess that is his room—clothes strewn across the floor, dice scattered on the nightstand, sheets crumpled up and bed unmade—but you don’t seem to care whatsoever, so he forces himself not to either.
He lays you down on his bed gently and you look up at him with a painful amount of trust, love and want. This is real, he realizes. This is actually happening.
You reach for him and he leans in, covering your body with his, kissing you slow and thorough and pouring every ounce of passion he has into it. Your legs wrap around his waist again, pulling him even closer. He feels a spark in his chest at the taste of your mouth and the softness of your skin and the little sounds you make when he kisses that spot just below your ear.
His hands, calloused from years of strumming guitars, tremble as they reach up to frame your face for a moment, his thumbs stroking your cheeks. He can feel the damp tracks of earlier tears. The sight of you half-naked in his bed, surrounded by band posters, scattered cassette tapes and an ashtray overflowing with butts on the nightstand is a real, physical manifestation of every daydream he’s ever stifled in his mind.
He kisses you again, even deeper. His lips travel from your mouth, down the column of your throat, feeling the frantic pulse there. Eddie’s taking his sweet, sweet time, his hands sliding down, fingers sneaking underneath your arched back to reach for the clasp of your bra. He hesitates for a fraction of a second, searching your sparkling eyes for any sliver of hesitance. When he only finds certainty, his fingers fiddle with the clasp. He struggles for a few moments, tongue poking out in concentration, before finally clicking it open.
Then he pulls the straps down your shoulders and frees you of it fully, tossing it aside to join the chaos on his floor. The sight of you, bared to him in the dim light from his bedside lamp, literally steals the air from his lungs. He just stares, drinking you in, his expression one of reverent awe.
"You’re so pretty," he praises again because he finds himself simply unable not to.
You look away shyly, feeling both utterly exposed and appreciated under his gaze. "Thanks."
Eddie smiles. Slowly, he lowers his head, his mouth finding the swell of your breast, his tongue tracing a slow, worshipful circle before closing his lips around your nipple. A low groan vibrates in his chest. His other hand slides down your side, over the curve of your hip, gripping the fabric of your skirt. He bunches it in his fist, dragging it upward, his knuckles brushing against the skin of your inner thigh teasingly.
His mouth is hot and insistent on your skin, his teeth grazing your nipple with a thrilling edge that makes your back arch off the bed. A choked-out gasp escapes you, your fingers tangling in the wild curls at the nape of his neck, holding him there desperately.
"Oh, shit—Eddie…"
He releases your peaked bud with a soft, smacking sound, his dark eyes lifting to meet yours. They’re blown wide, almost black with want, but there’s so much vulnerability swimming in them. He kisses a burning, worshipful trail up your sternum, back to your mouth, and swallows the sound you make when he nips at your bottom lip.
He pulls away again and his hands, trembling slightly, finally focus on the waistband of your skirt. His rings are cold against your heated skin when he slides the fabric down your legs, casting it aside like the measly blockage it is. He moves with a sudden, desperate grace, trailing kisses down the center of your stomach, his tongue flickering against the sensitive skin of your hip bone, until he reaches the waistband of your panties.
He rids you of those as well and shifts, kneeling between your thighs and draping your legs over his shoulders. He finds you glistening wet with arousal. The cool air of the trailer kisses your exposed skin for only a second before his mouth replaces it. He leans down, his dark curls spilling over your lap, shielding the rest of the world away. When he first tastes you, a mix of a groan and a sigh vibrates in his throat.
"Fuck," he breathes against you, the curse going straight through your core. His hands spread your thighs wider, palms pressing firm against trembling muscles. His tongue swipes a slow, experimental stripe through your folds, and the taste explodes across his senses. A ragged groan tears from his throat as he does it again, deeper this time, nose bumping against your aching clit.
You squirm on the mattress at that, fingers tangling in his wild curls. He moans against you, the sound sending fresh tremors through your body. "Eddie—"
"Shh. Let me," he murmurs into your pussy, lips finally sealing around your clit to suck gently. His ring-clad fingers dig into your hips, holding you as still as he wants you while his tongue flicks rapid circles. Every twitch of your muscles feeds him.
His eyes flick up to watch you, lashes low as your thighs quiver around his ears. The sight unravels him completely—Hawkins High’s prettiest cheerleader and his former best friend whom he‘s been in love with forever, drunk on his mouth. He doubles down, dragging his tongue through your soaking wet folds deliberately, speeding his movements up a little. Every nerve in his body screams to devour. But he‘ll be patient, he‘ll allow you to bask in the feeling.
"That’s it," he rasps, pulling back just enough to watch his own spit glisten on you. His breath fans over your swollen flesh. "Oh, Jesus Christ. Look at you," The word scrapes raw from his chest. He sounds genuinely awed. He seals his mouth over your clit again, his tongue fluttering rapid-fire against the sensitive bud until your back bows off the mattress.
Your fingers tighten in his hair, almost yanking with overwhelm. He groans—half pain, half triumph—and presses two fingers against your entrance.
"O–Oh! Please—" you whimper, and the sound goes straight to his cock, straining against his jeans. He pushes his digits in slowly, knuckles twisting as he curls them upward and rubs, his mouth never leaving your clit. Every thrust of his fingers matches the rhythm of his tongue, stretching you just shy of enough.
He feels it the second you tip—there‘s a flutter around his fingers and a loud hitch in your breathing. Eddie pins your hips down with his forearm, refusing to let you buck away, and swallows every pulse of your climax like communion. Only when you go boneless and fully pliant against the mattress does he ease off, pressing soft, reverent kisses to your inner thigh. His fingers slip out of you with a lewd squelch.
"So good, baby. You taste so good," he praises, dragging the back of his hand across his slicked mouth. He kneels between your trembling legs, hands trembling as he reaches for his belt buckle impatiently.
Before he can undo the belt completely, your hand quickly covers his, stilling the frantic motion. His eyes snap to yours, wide and startled. For a moment, he‘s terrified that he‘s gotten too ahead of himself. His breath catches as your fingers gently push his aside. Both to his surprise and major relief, you take over the task of undoing the worn leather.
The metal teeth of his zipper sound unnaturally loud in the quiet trailer. He’s holding his breath, watching you with a mixture of awe and disbelief. When you hook your fingers into the waistband of his jeans and boxers, pushing them down over his hips just enough to free him, he flinches slightly, a soft, choked sound escaping him. He‘s still kneeling on the mattress while you bow forward, his scent filling your senses completely.
"Sweetheart, you don‘t gotta—"
His protest is weak, half-hearted. He’s fully hard, his cock flushed and straining against his stomach. You can see the rapid pulse in his throat, the way his knuckles are white where they grip the edge of the mattress.
You press a soft, open-mouthed kiss to his navel. He jerks as if he’s just been shocked.
"You deserve this," you whisper against his skin, your breath ghosting over him. "Just let me."
He lets out a shuddering exhale, his head falling back as he squeezes his eyes shut. "Shit," he breathes, the word full of surrender. He shifts on the mattress and guides you along gently until you switch positions—his back against the headboard, you kneeling in between his legs.
You don’t take him into your mouth all at once. You start with the tip, a slow, tentative lick that has his entire body tensing already. A low groan rumbles in his chest. You swirl your tongue around the head, tasting his musk, before taking him deeper, inch by careful inch. Your hand wraps around the base, stroking in time with the shallow bobs of your head. You look and feel like a goddamn dream. There‘s no other way to describe it.
His hand reaches up, hovering near your hair as if afraid to touch and take control. "Christ..." he groans. His hips give an involuntary, tiny thrust, and he immediately stills them, a pained sound in the back of his throat. "Shit—sorry, sorry—"
You only hum encouragingly in response, the vibration against his dick making him curse again. His fingers finally sink into your hair. Not to guide you, but to simply hold on. You can feel the tension coiling in him, the way his muscles tremble with effort. You work him with your mouth and hand, learning his rhythm and the places that make his breath catch. Just as he feels himself begin to teeter on that edge, he pushes you off of him carefully. He‘s gasping and his dick is throbbing to an almost painful extent. As much as he loves the wet heat of your mouth, he really needs to finally be inside of you.
Without another word, he pulls you up until your lips meet again in a messy, desperate clash of teeth. He groans into your mouth, his hands coming up to cradle your face, and his thumbs stroke your cheeks in a way that is gentle enough to contrast with the frenzy in his kiss. Your shared taste is the most intoxicating thing he’s ever known.
He doesn’t speak anymore. Words have failed him. Instead, he moves with a sudden, decisive urgency, rolling you gently onto your back amidst the rumpled sheets. His jeans and briefs are kicked the rest of the way off, landing somewhere on the floor with a soft thud. He leans away from you and opens up the top drawer of his nightstand, fishing out a packaged condom lurking in there. You try not to work yourself up over the prospect of him having had other girls in this exact same position before.
He tears the wrapper open with his teeth, slipping it on his shaft. He settles between your thighs properly then, his weight a welcome anchor. The hard, heated length of him presses against your soaked entrance, and you both gasp at the contact.
He braces himself on his forearms, his face inches from yours. His hair forms a dark curtain around you, and his expression is one of raw reverence.
"Look at me," he whispers, his voice rough as gravel. "Please. I need to see you."
You do as he says and look straight into his eyes, an immediate grin making its way onto your face. He looks incredibly gorgeous like this, the pale moonlight bathing his features in a bluish hue.
You’re about to comment on how pretty he is, but then he’s already pushing forward, stealing the air from both your lungs. The feeling is overwhelming, a perfect, stretching fullness that makes your eyes flutter shut for a second before you force them open, locking back onto his gaze. He’s watching you with an intensity that borders on painful, cataloging every flicker of sensation that crosses your perfect face.
He bottoms out, hips flush against yours, and goes still, trembling with the effort. A bead of sweat traces a path from his temple down to his jaw. He’s breathing hard, his chest rising and falling against yours.
He whispers your name in a ragged sigh. He dips his head, pressing his forehead to yours, his eyes squeezed shut. "You feel... shit, you feel so good. Like heaven." He‘s not even exaggerating. The way your velvety walls clamp down on him has him cursing under his breath before he‘s even started moving properly.
He begins rolling his hips. It’s not a frantic, pounding rhythm, not yet. Instead, it’s deep, rolling thrusts that grind against every sensitive sweet spot inside of you. Each stroke is deliberate. The only sounds in the room are the faint creak of the mattress and your shared, panting breaths.
His mouth finds yours again in a searing kiss, then trails down your jaw to your neck, where he sucks a mark into your skin that both of you know will bruise. He wants it to. He wants to see physical proof of you choosing him marked onto your skin. One of his hands slides down to grip your hip, his fingers digging in possessively, while the other tangles in your hair.
The trailer's thin walls do little to muffle the sound of the old springs groaning under the weight of years of repressed wanting. Slowly but surely, Eddie‘s movements shift from that reverent, slow grind into something more desperate. Every time his hips slam home against yours, there’s a fleshy, heavy sound that echoes in the small room and drowns out the distant crickets as well as the blurring memories of Tyler McKinney’s bullshit party.
He pulls his head back, his dark curls matted with sweat against his forehead, and he just stares at you. His eyes are wide, glassy with a mix of pleasure and pure, unadulterated shock around the fact that this is actually happening.
He rasps out your name. "F–Fuck, you’re... you’re so fucking perfect. I’m gonna lose my goddamn mind." He’s not just talking about the physical sensation, though the way your slick pussy grips him with every pulse is enough to make his vision blur. He’s talking about the fact that it’s you. The girl he‘s always loved and whose proximity he stopped thinking he‘d be in ever again anymore. And now you‘re underneath him in his bed, being pounded like your life depends on it.
His hands slide from your hips, rings cold against your skin as he pins your wrists above your head. He’s not being rough to be mean; he’s being rough because he needs to feel you and know that this isn't some fucked–up hallucination his brain is making up. He buries his face in the crook of your neck, his teeth grazing the skin right where your pulse is hammering. He keeps leaving dark blossoms of color because he truly doesn‘t give a shit about the possible later fallout. He thrusts deeper, harder, his body tense with the unadulterated want of staying inside you forever.
"Jesus fuckin' Christ," he pants, his pace quickening until the bed is practically dancing with your movements. His body is trembling, his muscles corded and straining as he tries to maintain some semblance of control. But the way you’re looking up at him with your glassy, unfocused eyes is breaking him bit by bit. "Oh, shit— talk to me, sweetheart. Please, fuckin'–." He’s pleading. He just really needs to hear your voice.
Your jaw slacks. You can feel your orgasm coming on. That and a creeping, gnawing guilt for how you’ve hurt him with your decisions. You can physically sense the weight of every time you chose a preppy asshole over your best friend pressing down on you. It all comes crashing down along alongside the pleasure and it’s an overwhelming, suffocating tide of emotion that forces the air from your lungs in a high-pitched sob. You reach up, your fingers digging into the sweat-slicked skin of his shoulders, pulling him down until his ear is pressed against your lips.
"I love you, Eddie," you chant, the words tumbling out of you in a frantic, vocal flood that matches the pulse of your body tightening around him. "I love you. I love you... I’m sorry, I’m sorry—" The apology is a raw, strained thing that cuts through the haze of the moment. You’re crying now for likely the millionth time tonight. You repeat the words over and over, desperate for him to hear the genuine, undeniable regret coarsing through you. You’ve been such a coward, hurting him when he’s always been there for you. And the fact that he’s here, towering over you, holding you and making you feel things you‘ve never even dreamt of feeling before, makes the tears flow even quicker.
Eddie lets out a groan that serves as a visceral reaction to your words. Hearing you apologize—hearing the girl who was the only bright spot in his miserable childhood say she loves him while she’s coming apart under him—is simply too much. He doesn't want your apologies; he wants you. You‘re all he‘s ever wanted.
He redoubles his efforts, his thrusts becoming heavy and punishingly deep like he‘s trying to physically drive the guilt out of you, his teeth sinking into his own bottom lip to keep from sobbing himself.
"Don't—shit, don't say you're sorry," he gasps, his voice cracking as he catches your face in his hands, his rings biting into your skin. "Just stay. Just—ah—stay with me." He’s right on the edge now, his body vibrating with the force of his own impending peak.
He can see you unraveling, the apologies catching in your throat and your eyes searching his for a forgiveness he already gave you the second he saw you crying on that bench. He needs to push you over that final precipice. He needs to drown out your regret with a pleasure so absolute that you won't be able to remember anything except how fucking good he‘s making you feel.
He shifts his weight, one arm braced beside your head to keep from crushing you, while his other hand slides down through where your joined bodies connect. His calloused fingers find your clit, sensitive and swollen from your earlier orgasm, and begin to work it ruthlessly.
"Cum for me," he pleads, his voice a whiny vibration that shivers down your spine. "Give it to me. Need’a feel you cum around me—God, please. Cum with me, sweetheart."
You’re continously repeating his name now, your apologies melting into a frantic, breathless litany of "Eddie, Eddie, please." The combination of his weight on top of you, the depth of his length inside of you and the relentless friction of his fingers over your most sensitive spot is the final straw.
You arch your back, your fingers clenching so hard into the muscles of his shoulders that your nails leave crescent indents into his skin. The release hits you unlike anything ever has before. It’s a blinding explosion of sensation that radiates from your core and, even if only momentarily, washes away the lingering sting of those years of silence. You’re shaking, your walls spasming around him in tight, rhythmic pulses that feel like they're trying to pull him even deeper. Eddie watches it all and doesn‘t blink once, his eyes wide and glassy, relishing in the sight of you completely undone by him.
That tight, desperate clenching of your body shatters his own fragile restraint. He thrusts and buries himself as deep as he can possibly go, his forehead dropping to your shoulder as his own climax rips through him. It’s a stellar, exhaustive release, every ounce of his longing and frustration and love pouring out of him and into you. He’s gasping for air, his body heavy and trembling as he collapses against you, careful to shift his weight to his elbows as to not crush you but needing the contact, needing the reassurance that you’re still there, beneath him, real and breathing and finally, finally where you were always supposed to be.
The following silence is thick, interrupted only by the sound of two sets of lungs trying to remember how to work. Eddie doesn't move for a long time, hiding his face in the curve of your neck. He feels the cooling dampness of your tears and sweat, and then he pulls back just enough to look at you. His expression is familiarly soft. He reaches up, his fingers brushing a stray hair from your forehead. Your hair is a mess, your makeup completely smudged from earlier tears and kisses, and you've never looked more perfect to him.
You have a shit ton of things to talk about. You have to figure out how you‘re going to be moving forward—whether or not anyone will know about you, whether or not you’re fully ready to escape the confines of peoples’ expectations and the sparkling reputation you’ve constructed around yourself yet. What you do know, though, is that you‘ve learned from your mistakes, and you want Eddie by your side through it all. You‘re sick of having to pretend otherwise.
You know it had to be him. Despite everything, it was always going to be him.
Summary: You and Pope have loved each other since you were teenagers. And then he went to prison, and cut you off. No apology, no explanation, nothing. Just a sledgehammer to your heart and utter radio silence.
Three years later, he's out, and he wants you back.
Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI: Swearing, Mentions of drugs, Mentions of violence, Alcohol use, Gun use, It's Animal Kingdom there's a little bit of everything, Character death (not a main/canon character), Vague descriptions of mental illness (it's Pope), Smut!! Unprotected pinv (wrap it up guys!), Loss of virginity in a flashback, Brief Craig/Reader (they're besties though), Age gaps/timelines might be a little wonky but oh well, Mentions of abuse (reader’s dad is a bad man), Please let me know if I forgot anything!
Author's Note: I hope you guys enjoy this one! I wanted to experiment with flashbacks, and then this exploded out of my brain. Special thanks to @flowersforbucky for proofreading and dealing with my indecisiveness on the pictures and layout because she is the best!! Please let me know what you think!!
Word Count: 21k
-
The bar is dimly lit. Sticky. Loud.
The guy sitting across from you has nice eyes. Pretty, even. They’re a light blue, crinkled a little in the corners and looking at you with something like adoration. You try to appreciate it, you really do, but all you can see is naivety. Maybe you’re too cynical. More likely too damaged. Whatever.
You prefer brown eyes, anyway.
Warm brown eyes looking into your own. Large fingers tucking your hair behind your ear. The ghost of warm breath against your lips and a small curve of a shy smile as he leans closer and closes the distance between you-
You blink, and force a smile.
The guy across from you, Ethan or something, clears his throat. “So, do you wanna maybe-“
A beer hits the table, loud enough to make the man - though you should really call him a boy, with that collared shirt and combed hair and those innocent eyes - jump nearly a foot in the air.
“Move it, pal.”
Craig Fucking Cody stands above you, and you bite back a groan.
The boy stammers, pales at the sight of the gigantic, tattooed man beside you, and takes maybe a full twenty seconds to stammer out his next words.
“I-I…are you her…”
“Oh yeah, I’m her husband. Fresh outta the psych ward and everything. Now beat it, before I smash your head against the table.”
The boy bolts like Craig set the booth on fire, and you glare up at him.
“I was on a date.”
Craig laughs, like you were genuinely joking. “Not exactly your type.”
“You don’t know what my type is.”
“Pretty sure I do. I shared a wall with your type for most of my life.”
You clench your jaw. “What do you want, Craig?”
He sits across from you, all friendly familiarity, and smiles. “I need your help.”
“I don’t do jobs anymore.”
He raises his eyebrow, and glances pointedly towards Ethan in the corner of the bar, trying to save face by ordering himself another drink.
“I told you, that was a date.”
“C’mon, don’t lie to me. You think I don’t know when you’re working an angle?”
You narrow your eyes a little. “Okay, fine. I don’t do jobs with the Codys anymore.”
Craig’s smile falls a little.
Burning rubber in your nose. Panic in your throat. The shriek of the tires drowned out by your own voice as you grab frantically at the wheel.
“Baz what the fuck are you doing? What are you doing? Turn around!”
Baz’s hand darts out, and he slams you back against the seat so hard your teeth knock together. “It’s too late.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? We can’t just leave him-“
“We have to. He was too late. You know the rules. It’s him or all of us.”
You’re frantic. Panicked. You even start to yank at your own car door, like you might jump out and run back to the bank on your own two feet, and Baz slams you backwards again.
When he makes it to the house, you punch him in the face before you even get out of the car. He takes it, head whipping to the side like he expected this reaction from you. When you get out, you punch him again. It takes both Craig and Deran to pull you away.
“He’s out of prison, you know.”
You take a sip of your drink. “Good for him.”
“He keeps asking about you.”
Yeah, bullshit. “I’ll bet he does.”
Craig sucks his teeth, and seems to decide to pick a different battle.
“So, it’s a good job. You barely have to do anything. We just need your help with-“
“I don’t do jobs with the Codys anymore, Craig. Also, I don’t know if you realize this, but using my ex as an incentive to help you isn’t really boosting my interest.” Ex. Your ex. It still feels so weird to think of him like that.
Because he’s just…Pope. Andrew Cody. The love of your life since you were a teenager. Even when you were together, ‘boyfriend’ felt like too simple of a word to describe what he was to you. It was too intense for such a lame title. Too full of a love so deep it bordered on obsession.
And then it was all over. Just like that.
Craig is making a face. You frown back at him. “What?”
“It’s my job, okay?” He runs a hand through his hair, flexes his fingers on his beer. “And it’s good. I’ve worked my ass off at planning it, and Baz is out, so I just…I need it to go well. And it will go well if you help.”
You grip your drink a little tighter. Fucking Craig. Fucking asshole with the terrible decision making skills and good heart. Fuck him for being your friend. For making you care about him. For giving you that look that’s making you feel like-
“Fuck. Fine.” God help you. “Fine. Fine. Okay. Fine.” He grins at you, and you glare back at him. “But I don’t want to see Pope.”
Now it’s Craig’s turn to give you a look. “About that…”
-
Your outfit is so fucking uncomfortable you want to die.
Okay, maybe it’s not the outfit. Maybe it’s the anxiety twisting in your stomach so intensely you think you might vomit in the driveway of the Cody house.
You’ve been here since he went to prison. Since you broke up. Not for long - you haven’t exactly been in the habit of hanging out by the pool or anything - but whether you’re here for a minute or an hour this damn driveway always whips the memory of that horrible day back into your mind more violently than a slap.
-
“Put me down. Put me the fuck down I’m gonna-“
“Jesus, relax!” Baz throws his hands up, angry and defensive and so very punchable right now. Deran’s got you locked against him, feet kicking in the air like you might be able to land a blow if you just try hard enough. “I had to go! He got held up or some shit, and if the cops caught us the whole family would have gone down.”
“You just fucking left him there! We could have-“
“We didn’t have a choice. I made a decision. I saved our asses. We knew this was a risk. It always is.”
“Fuck you.”
“Yeah, yeah. Fuck me.” Baz runs a hand through his hair, and you know he’s heartbroken too but you couldn’t give less of a shit right now. His nose is still bleeding from where you clocked him a minute ago. “Fuck me for making the hard decisions for this family.”
Rage rises up in your throat again, threatening to choke you as you kick harder. “Boo fucking hoo. You left him! You fucking left him and-“
“Calm down.” It’s Deran’s voice now. Deran, who sounds choked up and is still holding you locked in a vice grip. The sound of it makes you look up at Craig, whose eyes are shining with tears, and…
Your feet drop back to the pavement, the sound and sight of the boys’ pain deflating you almost alarmingly quickly, and you pat the arm around you in both comfort and reassurance.
“Okay.” You breathe, shaky, and Baz’s shoulders drop.
“Okay.” He repeats, and the sound of his voice makes you grit your teeth. “Now that we’re all calm, we need to figure out what to do.”
-
He’s in the yard.
Three years later, and he’s just… in the yard. Standing there. Staring at you. And what did you expect? That he would drag himself out of a grave? Appear before you in an explosion of fire and blood?
He looks at you. You look at him. He doesn’t move an inch.
He looks good. Just as beautiful as the day you lost him. You hate him for it.
“Hi.” His voice sounds even lower than it used to. He looks bigger. Like he worked out a lot in prison.
You raise your eyebrows. Something curls deep in your core at the sight of him. Three years later, and you still can’t look at this man without feeling a physical reaction. “Hi.”
-
“You’re bleeding.”
You reach up, swiping the back of your hand over your lip and frowning at the smear of red across your skin, illuminated by the moonlight reflecting off the pool.
“You’re not the only one who can get into fights.”
Andrew Cody looks at you, with those dark eyes that always seems to see through whatever lie you try to tell him or even yourself, but you meet his gaze with the defiance of a teenage girl who really doesn’t want to talk about it.
“Are you…staying here again?” He asks, standing still from his spot beside the pool. You’re on a chair. Your face hurts. Your body aches. You nod.
“Smurf says I can crash for a few days.” In exchange for help, of course. Help with jobs. Connections. Money. You don’t mind. It’s better than being home, or hiding out on the beach again.
He still hasn’t moved. “Are you…gonna stay in Craig’s room? With him?”
You almost laugh out loud. Craig, big and rowdy and often immature even for a teenager, is closest to you in age. He might be your best friend. He definitely has a crush on you, and you’re almost positive that Smurf is angling for the two of you to get together.
“Why? Would that bother you?”
“Yes.”
You look up at him. He looks down at you. Slowly, almost unaware that you’re doing it, scoot over on your chair to make room, and he takes the invitation. Your heart hammers in your chest.
His hand comes up. Fingers brushing over a bruise on your cheek and eyebrows twitching with…
“Stop looking at me like that.”
He doesn’t. “Like what?”
“Like you want to kill someone for me.”
“I do.”
“I know.”
He’s close. His thumb is still brushing over your cheek, and his eyes fall to your lips. You think he might kiss you. You don’t think you’ve ever wanted anything more.
But this…this house, as chaotic and dangerous as it may be, is the only somewhat stable thing you have right now. The only safe place to go when things get too fucked up at home. When your petty criminal of a father takes things too far, or debt collectors come banging on the door. Smurf lets you stay here, and Smurf is always working an angle. You’ve told yourself a thousand times that, in exchange for this, you’ll go along with whatever plan she has for you.
This is not that plan.
And yet, as his face ducks closer to yours, fingers curling in your hair, you wonder what it would be like. To feel Pope’s lips against your own. To feel his body against yours as he lies you down right here on this pool chair. You think, despite his violent tendencies and episodes of something your uneducated mind can only call insanity, that he would be gentle with you. Like he always is. You don’t have much experience with boys, but you think he would make sure that you felt comfortable. He’d probably kiss you through any nervousness, whisper reassurances into your skin as he peels off your clothing, make you feel safe the whole time and-
His lips brush over your own, and you pull back.
“I’ve gotta…go inside.”
He searches your face, and you know that his observant eyes see the want there. Still, he nods, and stays where he is as you pull yourself to your feet.
-
“We should talk.”
You laugh, humorless, and push past him into the house. You don’t get far before you feel his hand on your arm, turning you towards him.
“Let go of me.”
He does, but he tilts his head and furrows his brow in that intense way he has. The familiar sight makes you ache. “We should talk.”
“I think the time for talking passed somewhere around three years ago, Andrew.” You grumble, and he fixes you with an expression so filled with helplessness and pain that you almost crumble right then and there.
You ignore him, and push your way into the house. Craig whistles at the sight of your too-tight dress and heels, and Deran greets you with a familiar smile.
As you start to plan, to prepare for the day ahead, you don’t turn around. You don’t look at Pope. His eyes don’t leave you the entire time, and it’s almost physically impossible to keep yourself from leaning back against him like you have a million times, over the course of a million similar meetings.
But you don’t look at him, and when it’s time to leave, you storm out of the house before he has a chance to catch your arm again.
The job. Focus on the job.
You can do this.
-
You lost your virginity to Craig Cody two weeks after you and Pope nearly kissed by the pool.
You don’t know why you did it. Well, you do. It’s what Smurf wants. It’s what Craig wants. It’s what you should want. You and Craig are well matched. You love him in whatever way you do. He’s your best friend. You know how to keep him in check when he acts like an idiot, and he knows how to make you laugh when the weight of everything feels like it’s going to fucking crush you.
So you had a couple of beers at a party. You grabbed his hand before he could get too wasted. Even for a teenager, he’s already fucking huge. Handsome, too. You know the other girls stare at him. You should feel proud that he follows you like a lost puppy the moment you start tugging him towards his room.
It was awkward. And messy. And nothing like the movies say it’s supposed to be like. You know he tried to make it…special, or whatever. He was gentle. He asked if you were okay between kisses as he laid you back on his unmade bed and helped you out of your clothes. When he pushed in, you’d gasped and clawed at his back, and he’d mumbled apologies into your neck and waited until you nodded that you were okay, but he still moved just a little too fast. A little too clumsily. It didn’t hurt too badly, and it wasn’t exactly unpleasant the whole time, but you didn’t feel fireworks or any of the overwhelming pleasure you thought you were supposed to.
When it was over, he’d kissed you, and you’d smiled up at him, and then he’d rolled over and pulled you into his chest and laughed.
“That was awesome.” He breathed, and you nodded. “You’re awesome. Was it…did you?”
“Yeah.” You think you did. There was a minute, somewhere towards the end, when it had felt pretty good. Not the explosion of pleasure you’ve always heard about, but that’s fine.
“Awesome.” He kissed your forehead, and sat up a little. “Wanna beer?”
You’d smiled, heart swelling with affection that should definitely feel more…romantic than it does. But it’s still affection. You still care about him a lot. Maybe this is supposed to be right. “Yeah.”
~
Pope Cody hasn’t looked at you in a week.
Smurf seems more than happy with you sleeping in Craig’s room. With him wrapping an arm around you when you all sit on the couch together. He’s even developed a habit of ducking down and pressing a kiss to your cheek when you’re standing in the kitchen, or before he does a backflip into the pool. It’s fun. You think you can get used to it.
You haven’t had sex again. He’s asked, almost every night, but you’ve always come up with some kind of excuse and he’s always responded with nothing harsher than a disappointed smile. And yet, you both stay up almost all night every night, talking and laughing and playing video games like you always have since the day he first brought you to this house. This family.
But Pope won’t look at you, and you can’t ignore it anymore.
Because he came home from a job with a black eye and bruised knuckles, and now he’s standing in the yard and Smurf’s chastising him for being reckless is still ringing in the air. He didn’t talk. He didn’t argue. He just stared at the pool and refused to look at her. At you.
And now you’re alone with him, and everyone has left to go regroup or party or whatever, and he still. Won’t. Look. At. You.
“Andrew.” You rarely use his real name. He tenses, but he doesn’t turn around.
“Look at me.”
He doesn’t. You snap.
“Why won’t you look at me?” You grab his arm, and turn him toward you, and he pulls it away.
“Stop it.”
“No.” You grab him again, and this time he catches your arm, fingers around your wrist in a vice grip that is firm but nowhere close to painful. His eyes remain on the pavement.
“You haven’t talked to me since I got with Craig.” You say, and his jaw clenches at your words. You can see his cold expression, now, if not his eyes. He’s older than you, but his face still holds the smooth roundness of youth. He’s just as handsome as always. Your heart stutters a little, like it’s supposed to with Craig.
When he still doesn’t answer, you shove at his chest. The sudden movement makes him release your wrist, but he doesn’t budge. “Fucking look at me! Why won’t you at least look at me? Are you seriously this pissed off because I hooked up with him? Stop being an asshole and tell me why you’re acting like this!”
“Because it should have been me!” He finally snaps, finally looks at you, and the sharpness of his voice paired with the intensity behind his dark eyes is enough to nearly make you stumble backwards. “It should have been me. You know it should have.”
He looks almost crazed, now, shoulders hunched and fists clenched and feet moving towards you until you take an instinctive step backwards. The movement doesn’t stop him. He still comes closer.
“You…you let him touch you. And kiss you. And do all of the things I’ve…” he trails off, and your breath freezes in your lungs, “the things I’ve wanted to do since I met you.” His eyes drop to your mouth, back up to your eyes, and he’s close. So close. “It should have been me.”
You don’t move back again. You can feel the warmth of his proximity in the chilly night air. Your voice is too quiet to your own ears. “That’s…not the plan.”
He’s not breathing regularly. His hands are still clenched at his sides. He looks you over, like he’s trying to fight it, before something finally breaks.
“Fuck the plan.” His voice is almost a growl, and you don’t have time to respond before his hand is on the back of your head and his mouth is against yours.
The world explodes.
His lips are warm and rough, demanding and desperate and sending fire through every vein and pore in your body. You choke on a whimper, surprising yourself with the sound, and Pope groans in response as his tongue sweeps its way into your mouth. Your hands fly up, curling in the fabric of his shirt before moving up to his hair like you don’t know how to touch all of him at once. His own hands move down, lips only leaving yours long enough for him to grab the backs of your thighs to lift you against him before he’s kissing you again.
You don’t even register that you’re moving, too caught up in the desperation and the feeling of something hot burning in your core. He presses you against a wall, trails his lips down your throat until you’re gasping for air, before he kisses you again and moves deeper into the empty house.
And then he’s lowering you back onto his bed, crisp sheets smooth against your back, and you barely let him pull away enough to crawl over you before you’re kissing him again with so much need that it’s almost embarrassing.
His rough palms are sliding up beneath your shirt, breath turning shaky at the feeling of your skin against his, and it feels so good you think you might die.
“Is this okay?” He whispers, lips against your cheek, and you nod.
“Please.” You don’t know what you’re begging for, but the sound of it makes him moan as he pulls your t-shirt over your head and trails his mouth down over your collarbone.
His own shirt comes next. You roll on top of him, and kiss and bite down his chest until he’s tangling his fingers in your hair and pulling your mouth back up to his, rolling you both once more until you’re on your back and your hands are fumbling with his belt, unpracticed and clumsy, until he shushes you gently and reaches down to help you with a lingering kiss to your cheek.
“Tell me if it’s too much.” He rasps after a while, and you can barely breathe enough to tell him that you will. You settle for a nod, and his rough palm slides over your stomach, up over your body until he’s cradling your cheek.
“I’ve got you.” He whispers, and the soft words are almost comical with how hard he’s trembling with restraint. With how dark his eyes are, how intense his touch feels. “Breathe. I’ve got you.”
You nod, and when you smile he smiles back, shy and nervous behind that starved expression, and that one look alone makes you feel like you’re floating.
It’s nothing like Craig. It isn’t like Pope is a whole lot more practiced, or some kind of sex god or anything, but every movement feels so much more…right. He slides his hand beneath your thigh, guiding it around his waist and watching your face as your bodies join together for the first time, and the noise that pulls its way out of your throat barely sounds human.
His breath comes on a shaky exhale, eyes never leaving yours as he searches your face for signs of pain or discomfort, and when he finally starts to move you feel something coiling so tightly in your stomach it almost hurts.
Every slow thrust, every reverent touch, tightens that coil. Every kiss. Every whispered word against your skin as his fingers catch your own and he presses your joined hands into the pillow above your head.
You reach the edge so quickly it shocks you, free hand clawing at his back as you bite down on his shoulder and fireworks explode behind your vision.
The feeling is so intense that, for a moment, you forget where you even are. You forget your own name. All you know, all you feel, is Pope moving with you. Whispering praise and promises of adoration against your lips and throat. When he follows you into oblivion, it’s with a breathless moan of your name.
After, he holds you like you’re the most precious thing he’s ever touched. He traces his hands over your skin. He follows the caresses with his lips. And, when you finally remember how to breathe again, you giggle.
He pulls back from your throat with a raised eyebrow, a smile curling on his own lips, and nuzzles his nose into your cheek. “What?”
“I didn’t…” you didn’t know it could feel that good. You didn’t know anything could feel that good. “I…wow.”
He really does smile, now. He tucks you closer to him, barely letting you go as he pulls you beneath the blankets with him and curls his body around yours. Protective. Possessive, even. “Yeah.” He murmurs, pressing his lips to the side of your head. “Wow.”
-
The future Mr. and Mrs. Franklin need to be convincing. Happy. Overwhelmingly in love.
Your heels click against the dock. It takes years of practice and training from Smurf to keep yourself from fidgeting in your expensive dress. Pope’s eyes are on you, burning holes into your head from behind his sunglasses.
“Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“You know like what.”
“You look nice.”
“Shut up.”
The door to the yacht opens, and you don’t have time to keep the argument going. Pope slides his arm around you, you grin wide, and he tugs you almost too-tightly into his side.
“Welcome!” The woman on the other side of the door is smiling in that fake and familiar way that people do when they’re trying to get a whole lotta money from rich people. “Mr. and Mrs. Franklin, right?”
“Soon to be.” Pope says, all confidence and practiced casualness. He catches your hand in his, the expensive ring glittering obnoxiously on your finger, and raises the back of your hand to his lips. You giggle like an airhead, tilt your head onto his shoulder, and grin up at him.
“Adorable.” The woman says, too emphatically, and you don’t miss the way her eyes rake over your ‘fiance’. You shouldn’t care. This isn’t real. He’s not… yours anymore. And yet, it’s hard to shake off the surge of possessiveness that nearly has you yanking him down and pressing your lips to his.
When she turns to lead you both into the yacht, you try to pull your hand out of Pope’s. He doesn’t let you go. You turn to glare, and he offers you a small smile and a squeeze of his fingers through your own.
Fine.
-
“I’m sorry. He refuses to see you.”
“I…” you blink, shake your head, and tell yourself you heard the guard wrong. “What?”
“Believe it or not, even prisoners have a right to refuse visitation. He said he doesn’t want to see you.”
You blink again. “That’s…that’s not true. That can’t be true.”
“You can try again next week, but in my experience you’ll probably have the same reaction.”
-
You try again the next week. And the next. You stop sleeping. You stop eating. You wait for a phone call. An explanation. You go to Smurf. You go back to the prison.
Six weeks later, he finally fucking agrees to see you.
You nearly rip the phone off of the wall. He doesn’t look right in a prison uniform. He doesn’t look like he’s been sleeping. “What the fuck, Andrew?”
At your use of his name, his real name, you swear you can see something like relief flicker in his eyes, like the sound of your voice is a drug he’s been deprived of for over a month. You’re about to keep talking, or even press your hand against the glass like some lame fucking cliche, the sight of his face lifting something heavy off of your soul.
“Stop calling.” He says simply, and your heart drops to your feet.
“What?”
“Stop calling. Stop showing up here. Stop.”
“I…” what? This isn’t happening. He wouldn’t do this. “What? Pope, Andrew, I didn’t leave you.” That’s almost, almost incriminating. You know that. But it could also mean anything. You’re his girlfriend, after all. He’s in prison. You’ve been trying to see him. You haven’t left him. The last thing they’ll probably assume is that you’re talking about leaving him to be arrested after robbing that fucking bank.
“I know.” He says simply, and meets your eyes. “I don’t care. Leave. Stop coming here. I’m not going to come see you again.”
You don’t know what to say. You don’t know how to breathe anymore. This is so fucking wrong and it doesn’t make sense and-
He places the phone on the receiver, stands up, and leaves.
That’s the last time you see Andrew Cody for three years.
-
“And here we have the reception deck. As you can see, the view will be absolutely spectacular, especially when you’re out on the water…”
Four exits. Three cameras. One, two…
“I’m so sorry. Is there a bathroom I can use?” You ask brightly, from where you’re hanging off of Pope’s arm. “Or I’m sorry, the head, right? Like they say on boats.” An airheaded giggle, a practiced bat of your eyes.
The moment you’re around the corner, you whip out your phone and start taking notes and pictures. Exits. Entrance points. Doors to the lower deck where Craig can-
“We need to talk.”
You actually yelp, whirling around and stumbling on your heels before Pope’s arm shoots out to curve around your middle and keep you from falling over.
“What the fuck are you doing?” You hiss, wide eyes shooting back towards the hall. “Now? Let me go.”
“You won’t talk to me. I have to-“
“So you’re gonna fuck up the job? They could be here any second. You’re supposed to be distracting them.” He’s lost his fucking mind. Clearly, prison has warped his brain and made him an irrational asshole who-
The click of heels against the hardwood floor. A familiar, professional voice calling out your fake names with too much curiosity and suspicion.
“Fuck.” You whisper, and start scrambling to pull away and hide your phone. “Fuck.”
In one swift movement, Pope snatches the device out of your hand, slides it into his back pocket, presses you against the wall and slams his mouth to yours.
Like always, even after all of this time, the feeling of his lips against your own sends a jolt of electricity through your entire body.
He kisses you like he hasn’t thought about anything else in the last three years. His lips move hungrily against yours, one large hand coming up to tangle in your perfectly-done hair as his body envelops yours until you can’t think of anything else.
His tongue traces over your lip, and you open for him instinctively until he groans and changes the angle so he can kiss you more deeply and it feels so fucking good you might-
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…interrupt.” A bright, awkward voice breaks you out of your trance, and you gasp as you wrench your mouth away from Pope’s. He doesn’t even turn to the woman, thumb pressing into your cheek as he traces it over your skin like he’s trying to re-memorize the feeling.
It takes a lot more effort than you want to admit to clear your throat and plaster a flustered and embarrassed look on your face. To fall back into the ditzy, wealthy fiance facade. To keep yourself from ignoring her completely and kissing Pope again to chase that euphoric fucking feeling for as long as you can.
“Oh geez. I’m so embarrassed.” You reach up, and pinch Pope’s cheek just a little too hard with one manicured hand, feigning bright affection. “I just can’t keep my hands off of him, you know?”
“It’s so nice to see a couple so…in love.” A tight lipped, professional smile. Another glance at Pope that has irritating possessiveness curling in your chest again. You don’t have a right to feel that way. Not anymore. Not even after…whatever that was. “Would you two like to continue the tour?”
-
When Craig found out, he punched Pope in the face.
Pope punched him back.
When you lurched forward, prepared to jump between them and stop the bullshit macho display, Smurf had stuck her arm out and pushed you back.
“Let them fight. They need it.” She said, voice even, and kept her eyes on her two sons as they wrestled each other near the pool.
“This is bullshit. They-“
“You know,” she interrupts, still not looking at you. “When I took you in off the street, I wasn’t expecting you to stir up so much trouble.”
You freeze, heart stilling in your chest. She could send you back to your family. Your father. Being thrown out on the street would be bad enough on its own, but Smurf doesn’t work that way. If she wanted to really hurt you, she would.
“I didn’t mean to…stir up anything.”
She looks at you now, assessing. “I believe you.” She hums, and pulls her arm back. “Go break them up now, baby. See if you can fix your mess.”
-
“What the fuck was that?”
“A distraction.” Pope’s hands are on the steering wheel. His eyes are on the road.
“And before that? Cornering me in the hallway when I’m trying to gather fucking intel?”
He frowns. His fingers flex on the steering wheel. “It’s been three years.”
“And whose fucking fault is that?”
His brow furrows like he genuinely doesn’t understand why you would ask that. “The…U.S. prison system.”
“You know exactly what I mean. Don’t be a dick.”
“I’m not being a dick.”
“Pull the truck over.”
He does look at you, now, and you can see surprise in his eyes from where they’re visible over his shades. “No. Why?”
“I’m walking. Pull the truck over.”
He turns back to the road. One hand drops off the steering wheel, like it might come to rest on your thigh the same way it has in almost every car ride for years, before he catches himself and returns it to its original spot. “You can barely stand in those shoes.”
“So I’ll take them off. Pull over.”
“Just let me talk to you. Please.”
“No.”
His head drops back against the seat, jaw clenching in frustration, and you feel a surge of pride that you still seem to be the only person who can break through his little bubble of stoicism. Yeah, take that asshole. Be as exasperated as you want.
You don’t speak to him for the rest of the car ride.
-
Craig’s nose is bleeding. His feet are in the pool. He’s holding an ice pack to his eye.
“Do you hate me?” You ask, feeling almost childish for the question.
He laughs. Actually laughs, like you just said something ridiculous.
“Nah. Couldn’t if I tried, I think.”
You frown. “Then why did you…”
He shrugs, takes a sip of his beer, and smiles at you. “I mean, he did fuck my girlfriend. I’d be a little bitch if I just let him get away with that.”
“I’m not your girlfriend.”
“Well, not anymore.”
“I was never-“
“C’mon. I’ve got a shiner and a broken nose. Don’t hit my ego, too.”
You laugh, and shake your head. “You’re an idiot.”
He holds up his beer in a silent cheers, and there’s nothing but affection in his eyes as he takes a swig. No pining. No longing. Not even hurt or betrayal. Just…affection.
You smile at him, and your heart swells in that way you once tried to convince yourself was romantic attraction.
“I thought Smurf was gonna throw me out.”
He frowns now, and shakes his head. “She won’t. And if she does, Pope and I’ll just come with you.”
You smile again. You know it doesn’t reach your eyes. Craig leans over, and bumps your shoulder with his own.
“No matter what, that asshole’s not gonna hurt you again. You’re gonna be okay.”
“And if Pope ever fucks up, I’ll be here. I know I’m the best sex you’ve ever had, anyway.”
You snort. “Craig-“
“Ego, remember? Lemme have this.”
You poke him in the bruised ribs, and he hisses in pain before he laughs again.
You believe him.
-
When you get back to the house, you lurch out of the car before he can even reach for you. You stumble on your heels, kick them off of your feet in the yard, and storm into the house.
“Woah, hey there Hurricane Lady.” Craig’s grin falls the second he sees your face. “Shit. What happened?”
“Nothing. Here’s the phone. It’s got the pictures. Exits. All of that shit.” You want to snap that maybe Craig could have just done this himself, having gotten himself a job there, but you know that he doesn’t get access to the same places you just did. “I’m off the job.”
“What?”
“She’s not off the job.” Pope’s voice, from the door, makes you prickle.
“You don’t get to decide whether I’m on or off the job.” You whirl, and glare. “You don’t get to decide shit about me. Not anymore.”
“Jesus.” Deran blows out a breath, eyes on Pope. “You didn’t tell her, man?”
“Tell me what?”
“She won’t let me tell her.” Pope looks frustrated. Pained, even. Like he has any fucking right to be.
“Tell me what?!”
“Just tell her.”
“I’ve been trying-“
“Tell. Me. What?”
“He cut you off in prison because the cops were coming after you.” Craig says, and the words shut you up. “They were investigating your involvement. He had to cut ties so you didn’t incriminate yourself.”
Oh. Oh.
‘Pope. Andrew. I didn’t leave you.’
“Can I talk to you now?” Pope’s voice is low, and he’s doing the head-tilt thing, and you swear your lips are still tingling from his kiss.
You stare. He stares back. You open your mouth. Close it.
And then you walk into his room.
You don’t even need to turn around to know he’s following you. You hear Craig whistle the wedding march behind you, and you flip him off over your shoulder.
Pope’s old room is empty. The bed is made like it always was before.
“Beautiful. So beautiful. All mine…”
He whispers the words into the flushed skin of your neck, reverent and laced with gravel as his body moves against yours like it was made to. You gasp his name, and he groans as he moves faster.
Some party rages down the hall. The sounds of it are distant and inconsequential. All you can hear is his shallow breathing. His whispered promises of love between presses of his lips to any part of your skin he can reach. You love him so much it hurts and you’re going to-
You shake the memory off. Clear your throat. When you turn to him, he’s looking at the bed like he’s remembering something similar. Well, there are a lot of memories like that in this house. In the house the two of you shared later. In his truck. By the pool. In the pool. On the beach. At the-
Fuck.
“Talk. You wanted to talk, so talk.”
He watches you. You watch back, tense.
“They were looking for a reason to arrest you. The cops thought they might have identified you on that job a few months before. The one at the dispensary.”
You just keep staring at him. He shifts on his feet. “I couldn’t tell you. They were listening to everything. I figured…it was the only way to keep you out of prison.”
“Three years.”
Guilt flickers across his expression. Something like desperation follows. His fingers flex by his side. “I didn’t know when they stopped investigating you. Just when they stopped asking me questions.”
“Three. Years.”
“I missed you every day.” He moves closer, hesitant, like he’s trying to make sure you don’t bolt. “Every fucking minute. I thought about you all the time. It…it killed me, to walk away like that. I still think about the look on your face. I…” his jaw clenches, and he reaches towards you.
You should pull back. You should slap him, maybe. You know he would let you.
“You risked the job.” You try. Try to find something to cling to your anger. Your hurt. You missed him so much and all of that pain doesn’t just go away with one explanation.
“Fuck the job.” He whispers, hand sliding up over your cheek. “It’s been three years.”
And then he’s kissing you. Rough. Hungry. Desperate in a way that makes your knees threaten to give out because holy shit nothing has ever felt as good as Pope Cody’s skin against yours.
For a moment, you forget. You forget to be angry and hurt and painfully confused in favor of tangling your fingers in his curls and dragging him closer to you. He groans, the sound rough and borderline desperate, and his hands drop to your waist, lifting you clean off your bare feet to spin you both until he has you pinned against the wall.
His chest is pressed against yours. His hand is moving down to the hem of your dress, and you think you can feel his fingers shaking as they skate up over your skin and a shiver falls down your spine.
But it isn’t enough. This isn’t enough. It feels so good that it kills you to pull away. But his fingers are sliding up the inside of your thigh and if they reach their intended destination there won’t be anything in the world that will be able to stop you. To stop him, either, if how hungrily he’s kissing you now is any indication.
Because his kiss doesn’t make up for the hours you spent alone, in the house you once shared, staring at a phone that wouldn’t ring. How humiliating it felt to cry yourself to sleep with your mind filled to the brim with questions that you would never have answers to.
His mouth is gliding over your jaw, down over your throat, and his grip on your waist is so wonderfully tight and his fingers are so close to where you need him so badly it hurts and-
You shove him away, breathless and flushed and almost shaking with hunger, and his dark eyes have never looked so predatory.
“You…you can’t do that.” You whisper, and he looks like he’s about to do exactly that again at any moment. You hold up a hand, warding him off, and force yourself to steady your breathing. “No, you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to just show up again and kiss me like that.”
“I’m sorry.” He starts, expression filled with a genuine pain.
“You made me think, for three years, that you didn’t love me anymore.”
“I’m sorry.” He moves closer like it’s instinct, and you back up a little more into the wall, and he looks like he’s about to drop to his knees before you. “I’m so fucking sorry. I did it to protect you. I promise. I couldn’t think of any other way.”
You push past him, and walk out the door.
For once, he doesn’t follow.
-
“Where is she?”
You’re not here. You haven’t come since he got out.
“She doesn’t really come around anymore, man.” Craig shrugs, like it’s casual, like your absence isn’t digging a hole into Pope’s soul even as he sits here by the pool and you should be here but you’re not and he fucking hates it. He should have apologized to you ten times over by now. You should be here with him.
“She comes around every now and then. Watches Lena. Grabs a beer with me on Tuesdays and surfs with us if we ask nicely.” Craig leans back, and Pope fights the urge to lean forward and beg for more information. “She doesn’t talk to Baz, though. I think the most I’ve seen them interact is her flipping him off or some shit.”
Yeah, sounds like you.
“So, you gonna talk to her?”
Yes. Of fucking course he is. He’ll be on his knees begging the second you’re in the room.
But you don’t come. You don’t show up at the house anymore. You changed your number, and he can’t call you. Despite what Craig said, it’s almost like you’ve made yourself into some kind of ghost, too far away for him to reach anymore.
When he was in prison, he would fantasize about the day he got out. In most of those fantasies, you were waiting for him at the house. In a good few of them, you weren’t wearing much clothing, but that part can be easily attributed to how long he went without seeing you.
Nevertheless, you were there. And he would take you into his arms, and you would smile and tell him you understood why he had to do what he did, and everything would be perfect.
But now, he has to track down your new house. On the beach, and not too far from his new place, but he doubts you know that.
He watches through your window and doesn’t even register that it might be a little fucked up of him. He makes sure you get home safe. Waits until he sees you climb into bed and flick off your lights, and often spends a good long while imagining all of the times he would be right there with you. How he would tuck you into his chest, and the two of you would have whispered conversations like you were still teenagers living in Smurf’s house and trying not to be overheard.
He doesn’t go to the door. It’s not the right time. Not yet. It isn’t like it has to be perfect, but… but it’s been three years. Three years of torture and an isolation that almost killed him. That may have killed a part of him, somewhere deep down where even he can’t reach. As badly as he wants to stand on your porch and beg and plead for you to understand, to love him again, he isn’t sure he would be able to handle you slamming a door in his face. He’s not sure he would be able to let you, and that thought alone almost frightens him more than anything else.
Not yet. The job. When Craig brings you in on the job, that’s when he’ll see you. Talk to you. Make you forgive him.
Just…not yet.
But that doesn’t mean he can’t keep an eye on you, until then.
-
The effort it took to get Ethan the Finance Bro to talk with you after Craig ruined it the first time is almost making this particular job too much of a pain in the ass.
It’s a little tricky to balance the work you have to put into the boat job with your own plans, but your own jobs are a little less complex than the ones enacted by the Cody boys. Less reward, sure, but it’s safer and easier. Find out a few things about Finance Bro Ethan’s rich dad, get access to an account or two, make a couple of unnoticeable transfers, and bing bang boom. You can afford rent and to fix your car, and maybe even a nice pair of shoes while you’re at it.
He’s jumpy. You have to smile a little more brightly at him, hold his hand across the table and bat your eyelashes as you insist that your friend from before is just terrible at making jokes, and he’s finally relaxing enough to-
His eyes trail up over your shoulder, and stop.
“Leave.” And that’s Pope’s low, furious voice. It is dripping with danger.
Ethan looks at you. Back at Pope. You smile, wide and sweet, and refuse to turn around. “Ignore him.”
“Do that, and I’ll cut your ears off.”
Son of a bitch.
“He’s joking.”
“Three.”
Ethan starts to scoot out of the booth.
“Don’t.” You say, jaw clenching and smile still forcefully bright.
“Two.”
And he’s gone. Just like that. Out the door and ruining your plans completely.
“Fucking Codys. Do you have any idea how hard it was to get him to talk to me again?”
“Who was that?”
“I had to bend over backwards to keep him from being terrified after Craig’s bullshit. This bra is so uncomfortable. You fucking-“
His hand comes down on the back of your chair, and he leans closer to you with a deadly and dark expression. You don’t flinch. You don’t even come close. In all the time you’ve known him, in all of his scariest moments, he’s never come anywhere close to harming you. The possibility simply doesn’t register in your mind. “Who was that?”
You look at him, deadpan. “My boyfriend.” It couldn’t be farther from the truth, but you may as well piss him off a little.
It works. His jaw clenches, and he leans a little closer. “I’m serious.”
Fine. You give up. “He was a mark. I’m on a job.”
“You’re already on a job.” Pope’s frown deepens, angry eyes moving up to the door again. “That guy was staring down the front of your shirt.”
“That’s kind of the point.” You glance down at your low cut top, at the aforementioned uncomfortable bra, and when Pope does the same you can see something twitch in his jaw. Feel his hand tighten imperceptibly on the booth behind you before he looks back up at your face.
“We’re leaving.”
“No, you’re leaving.” You correct, irritated, and move to turn away from him.
He catches you, turning you back towards him with a look so intense it makes your heart drop. “Come home with me.”
You pause, knocked off-kilter by his proximity and the desperation in his gaze. He looks…dangerous. Like a man in a desert who has been deprived of water for too long, and is starting to lose it enough to follow that water to a bar and ruin her weeks of work.
And yet, it’s annoyingly difficult to care. Not when it would be so easy to bring your hand up, curl your fingers in the soft curls on the back of his neck, and pull his lips down to yours. So, so easy, and yet…
You start to move back, and his hand catches your chin, thumb sliding over your jaw in that familiar and devoted way that always makes your toes curl a little. He saw it. He saw the hesitation. The want in your expression matching his own, and he’s too far gone to let it go.
“Come home with me.” He repeats, soft and close enough that his nose nearly brushes your temple. “We can do jobs together. Like we used to. You don’t have to…do this.”
You spent so long being a team. Being with him. Every job, every move, it was all with Pope and the Codys and while you can do these smaller jobs alone perfectly fine, you want…
Him. God, you want him. Not just sex, either. Though after three years and the way he’s standing so close you can feel the warmth radiating from him, you’re having a hard time not jumping his bones in the middle of this bar. You want to wake up with him in the mornings again. You want to watch him wash the dishes in that particular and concentrated way he has. You want to sit on the beach with him at night, and talk about everything and nothing until the sun peeks over the horizon.
His nose skates down your cheek. The noise of the bar fades away. Your eyes flutter closed as if of their own accord, head tilting to the side, and he makes a low noise as his fingers leave your face to move down your arm.
“I’m sorry.” He murmurs, lips pressing against the line of your jaw, and your next breath comes as a shaky exhale. His hand slides around the curve of your waist, and the angle of his body above yours is intoxicatingly overwhelming. He kisses your jaw again, a little higher, a little closer to your ear, and you melt. “I’ll apologize a thousand fuckin’ times, okay? Just come home with me. Let me show you how sorry I am.”
Your body relaxes beneath his, and you feel his mouth trailing over your skin like he couldn’t give less of a shit about the rest of the world around you. It’s so familiar. So nice. So warm and-
Goddammit.
“Stop.” You push on his chest, and he moves back with a genuinely pained expression. “Stop it, Pope. You just fucked up a month of work for me. I’m not going home with you.”
The look on his face would break your heart, if there was anything left of it to break.
You don’t say another word.
You just leave.
-
The girl sleeping on the couch is the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen.
Craig brought you here a few hours ago. Said something about you taking on three guys by the beach who were trying to rough him up over weed money. You hit the biggest one with a baseball bat. They knocked you out before Craig could take them down.
Smurf hadn’t said much when Craig walked in, eyes bright with lingering adrenaline as he’d placed you on the couch, but she’d seemed impressed when Craig had explained what happened. She’d told him to leave you on the couch for now, and to make sure you didn’t get any blood on her furniture. Your face is bruised. Your sneakers are dirty. You’re wearing a flannel that’s way too big and has holes in it.
“I think she’s been sleepin’ on the beach.” Craig says, brow furrowing a little as he looks down at you. You’re so still you could be dead. Pope wonders what color your eyes are, and then wonders why he wondered that.
“Junkie?” He asks, and resists the urge to brush the hair out of your eyes. Like Julia, maybe. Maybe you know her, wherever she might be right now. Maybe you already have that connection to him. Maybe…
Craig shakes his head. “Nah. Not a junkie. I dunno if she’s homeless, either. I just kinda see her around sometimes. She pickpockets tourists. Seems good at figuring out which ones are the L.A. douchebags.”
Pope frowns. Your face twitches a little, but you don’t wake.
“She’s hot.” His younger brother observes, and Pope’s frown deepens. “And badass. You shoulda seen her, dude. She went at them like a fuckin’ demon. She doesn’t even know me.”
You look so angelic, curled in on yourself on the couch with sand in your hair and dirt under your fingernails, that he finds it hard to believe.
Hard, but not impossible. Because there’s something about you, and the bruises on your face that look so much like the ones that often adorn his own, that screams…fighter. Survivor. Protector.
And he hasn’t even spoken to you yet, but there’s something else there. Something deep down and warm and intrinsic that he can’t exactly pinpoint but certainly can’t ignore.
His.
-
When you wake up, he’s watching you. He knows he probably shouldn’t be. He probably looks creepy, or whatever everyone says, but he can’t seem to pull his eyes away from the rise and fall of your breathing. The way your face twitches every now and then in sleep. The way your hair spills over the couch cushion. He wants to brush it away, but he’s afraid to wake you.
Your eyes flutter open. They’re beautiful.
And those beautiful eyes move dazedly around the room before they land on him, and widen. You bolt up, and hiss in pain as whatever injuries you sustained in that fight no doubt scream in protest.
You look at him. Look around. Look back at him.
Carefully, he passes you the baseball bat from his room. Craig said you had one before. You’re in a strange new place. It might make you feel safe.
You close your fingers around the handle, and watch him like a hawk as you pull it over to you.
“Where am I?” He likes the sound of your voice. Even cracked with sleep and shaky with nerves, it sounds as pretty as the rest of you.
“My house.” He says simply, cocking his head to the side. “Craig brought you here.”
Craig is passed out in his room down the hall. You took a while to wake up. You frown, and rub your head a little.
“Why did you do it?” The question leaves him before he can think, curiosity lying heavy in his chest. People in Oceanside don’t just help other people like that. Not when it could put them in the same state you ended up in.
“Three to one didn’t seem like fair odds.”
Pope takes this information, and holds it close to his heart. Keeps it there like a flame he’ll never let go out.
You sit in silence for a minute before he speaks again.
“Do you want a sandwich?”
You look up, surprised, and your lips quirk upwards just the smallest bit.
“Sure.”
-
The knocking is loud. Very loud. Angry, even.
When Pope opens the door, there you are.
Fuck, it’s like you don’t even know how beautiful you are. He’s always been surprised by that. Sure, you use your looks and pretty smiles to work people on jobs, but when that persona is lowered and you’re just…you, the sight of you could make him drop to his fucking knees.
“You fixed my door.”
He’s shirtless. It’s early. Your eyes drop down to his chest before they fly back up to his face, and he is two seconds away from yanking you into the house and taking you right here in the front hall.
Shit. Three years. Three long, long years of nothing but his hand and memories of you. He’s devolved into a fucking animal. All he can think about is ripping that t-shirt off of you. Of lifting you onto the table right here and dropping to his knees, hearing the noises he can pull from you when he buries his face between your-
“You fixed my door.” You repeat, angrier now, and he furrows his brow as he forces himself out of the fantasy.
“Yeah.”
“Pope, you don’t know where I live.”
His brow furrows a little more.
“Fine, I haven’t told you where I live.” Oh, that’s what you mean. Right.
“It was creaking.”
“How many times have you broken into my house?”
Seven. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Andrew.”
You should know better than to say his name. His real name. The sound of it shoots something molten through his veins, and his hand tightens on the doorframe.
“We’re broken up. You can’t break into my house.”
“We’re not broken up.” The fact comes easily. Simply. There’s no plea behind it. No question at all.
“We’re broken up. You broke up with me.”
“No, I didn’t. I said stop coming around. I didn’t break up with you.”
“Whatever you did, it was three years ago.”
“And you’re not in prison.” He wants to ask why you’re not getting it, but he knows that you do. Even if most wouldn’t, you know how he thinks. You’re just being deliberately obtuse because you’re angry. But he’ll spend the rest of his life apologizing to you, if that’s what you need. “I’m out. We still love each other.”
“You don’t know that I still love you.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Tell me you don’t.”
You open your mouth, like you just might try it, before closing it again and trying another tactic. He’s always found it…cute. The way you try to deflect your feelings like this. And he’ll never try to pretend that he doesn’t love how easily he can call you on it. There are two things in this world that Andrew Cody is absolutely confident in: jobs, and you.
“You fucked up my job.”
“You hate those jobs. They bore you.”
Your eyes narrow, and you’re gorgeous when you’re angry. “I don’t have a backup plan anymore. I need the boat job to go well.”
You’re stalling. You don’t want to leave. “It will.” He raises an eyebrow again. Your eyes drop back down to his bare chest, and it sends a thrill through him. “Want some breakfast?”
“No.” You’re still standing here, and he knows you too well to let you leave just yet. The tension crackling through the air, emanating from you and directing itself at him, is so fucking obvious it almost makes him grin.
“Coffee?”
You hesitate. Frown. “Fine.”
And with that word, you cross the threshold, and kiss him.
-
Your first job with the Cody family went well. Really well.
Smurf shocked all of them by inviting you in, building up her tests of your skills and your loyalty to the family until she suddenly just…made you a part of it. Sat you down at the family meeting with them and told you what your part in the job would be.
Baz protested. Deran was quiet. Craig, however, was thrilled. Pope is pretty sure his brother likes you a little too much, and he hates the way it makes jealousy and possessiveness curl black and vile in his throat. He hates the way Smurf seems to assess this. The way she watches you keep Craig in line and encourages the two of you to spend time together.
But you did well. Really well.
And then, after dinner, you disappeared.
Pope found you up the street, sitting on a small curve of beach and watching the moon like you were greeting an old friend. He’d hesitated to join you, like he might be interrupting, but…
“Hi.”
Shit. “Hi.”
“Wanna sit down?”
Yes. So fucking badly. He’d do anything in the world to just be close to you. “Do you want me to?”
“Yeah.”
He hesitates. You look back at him, illuminated by moonlight and so gorgeous it stops the breath in his lungs, and pat the sand beside you.
He sits, and you rest your head against his shoulder. Like it’s the easiest thing in the world.
“Are you…okay?” Do you expect him to function correctly right now? Do you expect him to be able to string a thought together? You’re so warm. So soft. He doesn’t have experience with this kind of thing.
“Oh yeah.” You hum, fingers curling in the sand beneath you. “I mean, if you’re asking if I’m upset about you holding an unloaded gun to my head while I pretended to freak out, don’t worry. I’m fine.” You mean it. Smurf would be impressed.
He could cover your hand with his own, right now. You might even let him. You might let him curl his fingers around yours, and even flip your palm to rest it against his. Your soft skin against his rough callouses, pillowed by the sand beneath you…
“So what’s wrong?”
You hum, and he feels it vibrate through his shoulder. “I don’t know. Smurf, the job, everything just feels like it’s going too well.”
“Too well?”
“Things change. They hurt when they change. It’s too…good.” He starts to say something, though he isn’t sure what, before you continue. “That’s why I like coming out here, though. I like looking at the water. It’s why I slept on the beach when things got too shitty at home, you know?”
He turns his head, and it brings his face so close to yours that he almost chokes. You don’t even look up, just keep watching the waves crash on the beach as you continue.
“It sounds kinda cheesy, but the ocean is so…big. And no matter what’s going on with me, no matter how bad things seem, it makes it all feel smaller, you know? All that ocean, everything going on beneath the surface, and whatever bullshit’s happening to me just feels…inconsequential. More manageable, I guess.”
Oh God. Fuck. He loves you. He loves you so much.
His hand, knuckles still bruised from some fight he got into earlier this week and already so much bigger than your own, covers yours. You stop picking at the sand, but you don’t pull away.
“I’ll always be here.” He murmurs, some part of him terrified that you’ll jump away from him. He means it. He really does.
And you mean it too, when you turn your palm and slide your fingers through his, and murmur back. “Thank you.”
-
It’s a fucking whirlwind.
You don’t know what possessed you. What you were thinking. Just that you are magnetized to this man, and he’s standing there looking at you like he knows every thought in your head and like he loves you more than anything in the world and you can’t spend another second without his lips against your own.
He meets you just as hard, hand coming up to grip at the hair at the base of your skull as you walk him backwards into his house. You realize, vaguely, between the blur of lips and teeth and desperate hands, that you haven’t even seen the inside of it yet. Even now, it’s weird for there to be any aspect of Pope’s life that you don’t know about.
The tour, however, is going to have to wait. Because Pope has you pressed against the counter and you barely have time to gasp his name before he’s lifting you onto it, tugging your shirt up over your head and tossing it aside before ducking down to trail desperate kisses over your neck. You tangle your fingers in his hair, and pull his mouth back up to yours, biting down on his lip until he groans and reaches down to start tugging your pants over your hips.
“Bedroom.” You manage, somewhere between a choked moan and a drag of your nails down his muscled back that has him sinking his teeth into your throat.
“Three years.” He replies, the words a starved growl, as he rips your pants and underwear down over your legs. All you can do is nod your understanding and drag his mouth back to yours, hands leaving his face to reach down and tug his sweatpants over his hips.
He pulls back, just enough to press his lips to your ear, and you can’t help but whimper when he murmurs his next words.
“Tell me you want this.”
You curl your fingers in his hair, pull him closer to you, and barely manage to gasp out a soft confirmation of “I want this, Andrew” before he’s pushing into you and it is everything you’ve missed for too long and it feels so good you might fucking die.
You gasp, and hold him tighter, and he breathes a shaky exhale into the hollow of your throat as he goes very very still.
You make a soft noise, needing more, and he understands immediately because he knows every inch of you better than he knows himself.
“Three years.” He murmurs again, hoarse and apologetic as his hands grip the counter on either side of you. You realize what he means through the haze of lust, and a bubble of laughter tears its way out of your throat. The sudden movement makes him hiss, cursing softly against your throat as his hands fly up to grip your hips. You clamp your lips together in an attempt to stop your giggling, and when he pulls back to look at you he starts laughing too.
And then, still smiling, he kisses you slow and deep, and begins to move. The moment he does, all humor flies out the window, and you gasp as you lock your legs around his hips and scramble for purchase against his back.
It’s fast and desperate, like he really and truly can’t help it, and it is absolutely perfect. Fuck, it’s everything you have ever needed in your entire life and more. You cling to him, wrapped in his arms and burying your face in his neck to try to muffle cries that might wake the entire Strand. He doesn’t stop, but his grip tightens as he adjusts his movements to grind deeper, fingers tangling in your hair to pull your head back from his shoulder until you can feel his ragged breaths against the shell of you ear.
“Yeah?” He whispers, hoarse and smiling and already wrecked as the force of his movements makes stars explode behind your vision. Then, closer, his nose against your temple and his grip almost bruising on your skin. “Yeah?”
You just nod, and hold on for dear life as you fall over the edge with a cry of his name, and he follows right after you with a choked moan of yours.
For a moment, you both just try to catch your breath, wrapped in each other’s arms with your legs shaking and Pope’s shoulder warm against your forehead. He kisses the side of your head, soft and loving, and huffs a laugh into your hair as he pulls back to press his lips to yours.
“I missed you.” He whispers, and you’re smiling too.
And then, without warning, he hoists you into his arms and starts walking.
“Where are we going?” You ask, still laughing, still smiling, still blissed out beyond words.
He kisses your forehead, your cheek, and kicks a door open. “Bedroom.”
-
Once the initial violent desperation has faded, Pope takes his time with you. He works you apart piece by piece, like he’s relearning every inch of your skin. He kisses every new scar. Every familiar freckle. He makes you forget every word that isn’t his name, tells you he loves you until he’s hoarse with it, and you do the same to him. In the confines of his room, in this new house on the beach, you forget about every morsel of pain you’ve felt in the past. Every tear you’ve shed. Every lonely moment.
At some point, when he’s trailing slow kisses up the inside of your thigh and your fingers are tangled in his curls, you manage to come back to yourself for half a second.
“We’re not back together.” You murmur, and he looks up long enough to raise a dark eyebrow at you.
“We’re not.” You repeat, and he gives you another look, this time with both eyebrows, before nudging your thigh further aside. He doesn’t speak, and he doesn’t need to, because in the next five seconds you completely forget how to form coherent thought.
-
The sun is setting by the time you’re both too exhausted to continue. A few minutes ago, you broke apart long enough to make your way to the shower, where you’d lasted about five minutes before he’d slipped in behind you. You managed to hold back long enough to shampoo each other’s hair before lathering off had turned into kissing beneath the stream, which had turned into…well, into you pressed up against the wall, his chest against your back and his teeth buried in your shoulder as your fingers clawed against the tile and your vision turned white for the umpteenth time today.
Now, his fingers card through your still-damp hair, and you wonder vaguely if you’ll ever walk again.
“Holy shit. We haven’t done that since…” you trail off, brain as mushy as your muscles seem to be, and you feel Pope’s proud smile against your forehead.
“Three years and forty nine days.” He supplies, and you can’t hold back your giggle. “Day after the jewelry store job.”
“Right.” Christ, it really is a miracle that you survived three years apart when you used to go at each other like coked out bunny rabbits. “Forgot about that.”
“I didn’t.”
You swat at his chest, and he tucks you closer to him, tilting your chin up to press his lips to yours.
-
For the first time in three years, you wake up in Andrew Cody’s arms.
And he’s asleep. He’s soundly, completely asleep. He’s always been a light sleeper, but despite that there are certain circumstances that have been known to knock him out like a log.
He’s completely out now, arms wrapped tightly around you and deep breaths tickling the top of your head.
There was always so much chaos in your lives. So many things that could go wrong at any moment, so many risks taken every single day. There was Smurf’s manipulations, Craig’s irresponsibility, Deran’s tendency to disappear and worry everyone, Julia being gone, and Baz…well, Baz being a raging douche most of the time. All of it was always so much, but right here, right like this…this was always where you felt safest. All of the insanity would always be a million miles away, blocked out by the circle of Andrew Cody’s arms.
Which is probably why it feels like a physical stab to your chest when you carefully wiggle out of them.
He grunts, one arm reaching out as if searching for you, but he doesn’t wake.
You allow yourself one moment to stare at him. One long, aching moment. He’s so beautiful in the moonlight that he almost hurts to look at.
And then you slip on one of his tshirts, wiggle into your jeans, and disappear out the door.
You don’t bother pulling your shoes back on, letting the sand cushion your feet as you wander down the beach, and listening to the waves crash against the shore.
He’ll wake up soon, and he’ll find you. And when he does, he’ll pull you back into his arms and the two of you will sit on this beach like you used to. Watch the waves and the stars like you used to. You’ll talk, and he’ll apologize, and he isn’t very good with words but you’ll understand him and you’ll forgive him. Just like that.
You’re not ready for that.
So you pull out your phone, and dial the only other number you have on speed dial. The only number besides Pope Cody’s.
“Where the hell have you been?” Craig shouts into the phone, mirth lacing his voice even through the tinny speaker.
You glance down at Pope’s t-shirt. Plain white. Too big for you. Soft and draped over your body like a flag with his name on it.
Oh well. “You’re gonna give me a whole lotta shit for it.”
He laughs, and you hear a bottle clink somewhere on the other side of the phone. “So why’re you callin’ me?”
“Cause I’m crazy, I guess. Or an idiot.”
“Or both.”
You hum, and bend down to scoop some sand into your palm, letting it trickle between your fingers as it falls back to the earth. You’re confused, and still hurting, and your heart aches heavy in your chest. In moments like this, you’ve always wondered what it would be like to have one of those girl best friends in rom-coms. The kind who would split a bottle of wine with you on the couch and talk for hours about boys with you. That must be nice. You wonder if they really exist, somewhere where life is normal.
Well, you don’t have that. You have Craig Cody.
“I’ve gotta go off grid for a minute.” You say, and trail your eyes back towards Pope’s darkened house. You have minutes before that light flicks on, and you cave. “Wanna get drunk?”
Craig blows out a long breath, and you can almost see him raising his eyebrows and resting his elbows on his knees.
“Sure. Where are you?”
-
Pope hasn’t seen you in three days.
Deran is the one who called him, frustrated and concerned and grouching about you not being able to handle your liquor.
“It’s weird, dude. The balance is gone. She’s not talking him out of shit anymore. They’re just kinda ramping each other up.” He hears the clink of bottles. Shouting in the background. Maybe, somewhere, your laughter. “Whatever you did, come fix it. Because your girlfriend is doing body shots on my bar and I’m not about to get shut down because those two are acting like fucking idiots.”
“I didn’t do anything.” He’s already grabbing his keys. You fell asleep in his arms, for fucks sake. You spent the entire day letting him whisper apologies and promises of love into your skin. He thought you were good. It felt like everything was back to normal, and then you were just…gone.
Sure, there was a moment where you insisted you weren’t back together, but when that sentence is quickly drowned out by “Oh God oh God Andrew please don’t stop” it’s a little hard to let the words sink in.
He’d searched the beach for hours. Called your phone even when it became blatantly obvious that you’d turned it off. He went to Craig’s house, and his brother wasn’t there. You didn’t take your car when you disappeared. He’s been worried sick about you and now you’ve been on some kind of bender?
“You did something.” Deran doesn’t seem to be grasping the gravity of this situation. Everything was fine. Why are you still upset? “They haven’t done this kind of shit since you dumped her in prison.”
“I didn’t fucking dump her.” He needs to focus on not breaking too many traffic laws, but he senses a few irritated comments coming his way. Annoyed as Deran may be right now, he fucking adores you almost as much as Craig does, and Pope can hear genuine worry in his tone.
“You should probably look up the definition of dumping, dude. Telling her to fuck off and not talking to her for three years is pretty-“
“Just tell me if she’s okay.” The words come out harsh. A snap of anger in the quiet car.
“Just get here.” The phone clicks off, and Pope almost throws it out the window.
-
Everything is nice and fuzzy, and you’re having a very fun time.
You don’t have anywhere near Craig’s tolerance, nor his penchant for anything stronger than alcohol and weed, so this ‘bender’ hasn’t exactly consisted of you partying straight through like he has. In fact, it took until tonight for him to pull you off of his couch and tell you to stop wallowing and have fun.
And you had listened. Oh boy, had you listened.
You started at Craig’s house, letting him amp you up and remind you to get angry between shots of tequila.
“Holy shit, just say it. Say it already!” Craig stands, waving the shot in front of your face before shoving it forward. “Are you mad? Sad? C’mon, quit bein’ such a closed book! Who the fuck is that helping?”
“I’m angry!” You take the shot, down it, and sputter.
And then you smash the glass against the wall.
“There she is!” Craig shouts, enveloping you in a drunken hug, and you let the rage build in the safety of your friend’s arms as you start to giggle like a fucking lunatic.
“Gimme another.”
He whoops, lets you go, and grabs the bottle.
And then you went to the Cove, and drank margaritas and let Craig convince you to get angrier. Angry because Pope left you. Because it hurt so bad it felt like a piece of you had broken off, and angry because he showed back up and brought all of that pain with him and just expected it all to be better.
And eventually, you ended up in Deran’s bar, hammered and laughing and trying to remember why you were mad in the first place.
That is, until Pope Cody shows up.
You’ve seen him look scary before, with that furrowed brow and those shark eyes, but now he looks downright murderous.
That’s okay. You can be angry too. You are angry.
“We’re leaving.” He says, simply, wrapping an arm around you before you shove him off.
“Nuh uh.” You step back, and his frown deepens.
“Dude, lay off. She’s just blowin’ off some steam-“
“What the fuck are you doing, man?” Pope stands too close to Craig. Looks way too angry. He doesn’t get to be mad. He broke your heart. He left you alone.
“What’re you doing?” Craig, larger than Pope and already too drunk and coked out to think rationally, matches the furious energy. “You think you’re cool just walkin’ in here and making her go home?”
Something twinges in your drunken mind. Tells you to step in. To stop this.
But you’re too late.
“Maybe I’m sick and tired of pickin’ her up off the floor because you did some shit to make her bawl her fucking eyes out.” Craig shoves Pope. Hard. “Seriously man, what’s the fuckin’ matter with you? You think she deserves this shit?”
Pope punches him in the face.
You just stand there for a moment, drunk and shocked, and it takes a good moment of them brawling and shoving each other into the bar before you realize that you should get in the middle of this.
Someone, some guy who was flirting with you a while back, tries to grab you and pull you away. You slam your elbow into his face, and he releases you long enough for you to leap onto Craig’s back, yanking him away from Pope just in time to feel your back slam into the corner of the bar hard enough to make you lose your grip.
You fall back, feel something smash beneath you, and groan as a bolt of agony shoots through your body. Fuck. Fuck, that’s gonna leave a mark.
The fight stops. The bar goes quiet.
Hands pull you up, slurred apologies spilling past Craig’s lips in a panic as he sets you on your feet and looks down at you with a horrified expression. You’ve had worse, sure, but the bruise isn’t gonna be pretty and you know damn well he’s gonna feel guilty about it tomorrow.
You look up at him, reach up to pat his chest…
And puke on his shoes.
You hear him mumble a quiet “oh, fuck” before he’s shoved aside, and Pope is there. Pope, who is scooping you up into his arms without a word and carrying you out of the bar.
“Sorry.” You mumble, and he doesn’t respond, but he squeezes you a little more tightly to him and that feels like enough.
He places you down in the passenger seat of his truck, and presses his lips to your forehead before he moves to the drivers side.
You’re suddenly very, very exhausted. You thunk your head against the window, and close your eyes as the engine starts.
You feel Pope’s hand on your leg, warm and comforting and familiar.
It feels like home.
-
“Look who finally decided to come home.”
Your father’s voice is nails on a chalkboard. A skin-prickling, hatred inducing rasp that makes your entire body tense.
“This isn’t home.” You drop your keys on the counter. It’s not home. It never has been, but now that you have a real home the difference has never been more obvious to you.
You left your home tonight. Left the warmth of Andrew Cody’s arms. He hadn’t woken, as exhausted after the job as you were, but he’d hummed sleepily into your neck and tried to squeeze you closer as you’d wiggled your way out of his embrace.
Your father scoffs, and doesn’t look up from the TV. “You think that place is home? You whore yourself out to that psycho Cody and now you can’t give half a shit about the guy who raised ya?”
It’s your turn to scoff. You don’t answer. He keeps going.
“You think that crazy kid loves you? You think you’ll get to leave and run off into the sunset with him? The ticking time bomb ain’t gonna love you. None of ‘em are. I know Smurf. She’s keepin’ you around because that shithead prefers to fuck you over going berserk and killin’ everyone in the house. They don’t give a shit about you. They use you. S’all you’re good for, anyway.”
That hits you. Harder than it should.
No. No, he’s wrong. He’s an asshole, and he’s wrong. Andrew Cody loves you more than life itself. There’s no question there.
…Right? It’s not like you even know what love is, being raised by this of shit. And Pope’s love is…obsessive. You don’t mind it. You like it, actually. But-
No. Fucking no. You’re not letting him get in your head. You can’t.
Because there’s Craig. And Deran. And even Baz, sometimes. Smurf likes you, and she most certainly sees you as a pawn, but… but Craig is your best friend. Craig laughs at your jokes. Hugs you so tightly your ribs might crack sometimes. Stays up to talk to you for hours by the pool.
And Pope loves you so much that it consumes him. Even you can’t doubt that. The way he looks at you, the way he touches you, the way he kisses you like he’ll never be able to get enough. His shoulders relax when you enter the room. His smile is the brightest thing you’ve ever seen. You even wake up to him watching you sleep, sometimes, tracing his calloused fingers over your skin with his eyes half-open like he’s fighting sleep just so he can look at you a little longer.
And the last time your father took things too far, the last time you came back with bruises…
You’d spent an hour talking Pope down from coming over here. You’d spent longer convincing Craig and even Deran to stop fucking encouraging him to, to stop insisting that they’ll help him end this asshole.
That’s love.
And that gives you the strength, the courage, to move over to your father and lean one hand on the back of the couch, glaring daggers into his eyes.
“The only reason you’re still alive, is because of me.” It sounds like a fucking growl, so angry and unlike you. “Don’t forget that.”
Your father just smiles, like you’re wrong and he knows it. You want to punch him. You want to prove him wrong, and let Andrew kill him.
You walk out the door, instead.
-
He sits you on the edge of his bed, and it’s just like before. Like every time you’ve been drunk or even sick since you were kids. He kisses your cheek, asks if it’s okay, and when you nod he pulls your t-shirt up over your head, quickly replacing it with one of his own. Your pants go next, and then he tucks you beneath the blankets of his bed and brushes your hair from your face.
He hesitates to pull his own shirt off, wonders if you might be too drunk and upset to want him near you. You never have before, but he’s realizing pretty quickly that before is more removed from the present than he expected it to be. Three years in prison, daydreaming every day about coming home to you and explaining why he did that he did and having you forgive him right away was…well, a daydream. He may have been able to lose himself in the fantasy of your unconditional love and forgiveness for three years, but you were here. Alone. Wondering what you did wrong and missing him on a level completely separate from his. He didn’t experience any of the confusion. The lack of understanding. The pain that comes with that.
You reach out, and push the hem of his shirt up. He pulls it over his head, a slave to your needs and whims, and helps you unbuckle his pants until he’s sliding into bed beside you and pulling you into his arms.
“You’re mad at me.”
You tilt your head into his hand, and nod.
His heart breaks, eyes softening and hand smoothing over your cheek as he leans closer and presses his forehead against yours.
“Why?” He asks, a genuine desperate pain cracking the word as it leaves his throat. “I thought…I thought we were good.”
You make a soft noise, and lean against him a little more.
He whispers your name, presses a kiss to your cheek, and inhales deep, trying to memorize your scent.
“I’m not good at this. You always tell me.” Another kiss. Fingers curling in your hair. “Tell me what to do. Tell me how to make you stop hurting.”
You curl a little closer.
“You left me.” You finally whisper. “You promised you never would, and then you left. I worried about you for three years.”
He pulls you closer. Feels tears prickle in his eyes and guilt churn in his stomach.
“I went to the beach, and it didn’t feel better, because you weren’t there.” Your fingers curl against his chest, right over his breaking heart. “I thought you didn’t love me anymore. For three years.”
Fuck. “I’ll never stop loving you.” If he holds you any more tightly, it might hurt the bruise on your back. He’s gonna fucking kill Craig for that, accident or not. “Never.”
And then, quietly, almost a whisper as you drift off but just loud enough for him to hear it and almost die right there, “…I don’t know if I believe you, anymore…”
-
The boat job goes well. Really fucking well. Save for Marco cutting a woman’s fucking finger off, everything goes off without a hitch.
And you’re proud. Really fucking proud. Craig was always capable of this kind of thing if he just applied himself, and here you all are. Richer than before and still riding that all-too-familiar adrenaline high.
“Geez, Pope really did a number on you.” You reach up now, poking lightly at his black eye. He flinches, and huffs out a sheepish laugh. You saw this coming when you decided someone would have to beat Craig up, and Pope volunteered a little…emphatically. But still.
“Pretty sure he’s got some pent up anger.” He rubs the back of his neck, eyes scanning over you. “How’s your back?”
You cringe, and resist the urge to rub the still-bruised area. “It’s fine. The hangover was worse.”
Craig looks like he’s about to turn you around inspect the injury himself, but one glance over your shoulder to where Pope is no doubt glaring from across the bar is enough to make him cave with one last guilty look. He’s apologized maybe a hundred times for the mistake, and you’ve forgiven him every time. After all, he didn’t mean it, and you’ve definitely had worse. “Damn, how bad?”
Your head is pounding, and you just barely managed to make it into the bathroom before the rest of last night’s tequila expels itself from your stomach.
Not five seconds later, you feel a large hand curl in your hair, pulling it back into a makeshift ponytail while another palm rubs small circles on your back.
“Oh, the humanity.” You whimper, pulling back to lean against the wall. You flinch at the movement, and give Pope a miserable look. “Christ, did I get hit by a truck last night?”
“You broke up a bar fight.”
“Why the fuck would I do that?”
“It was…between me and Craig.”
You frown, and try to piece the fuzzy memories together. “Did you kill him?”
“No. He fell back against the bar with you on his back, so I’m going to.”
Ah, that’s where the pain is coming from. You look him over, shirtless and beautiful and achingly familiar, but…
“Have you slept?”
He frowns, and looks like he’s fighting the urge to reach for you. “No.”
Ugh. This is stupid. Bad idea. You should leave. You are not together anymore. You will not-
“Okay. My head hurts. You need to sleep. Back to bed, big guy.” You reach out, and make grabby hands at him, just like you’ve done a million times before. Every time you were hungover, every time you were sick, or even one time when you just twisted your ankle trying to dive into the pool.
His smile is so full of adoration and relief that it nearly makes you cry. He doesn’t hesitate, moving to scoop you into his arms with a soft grunt of “c’mere…”
He lays you down, and you pull him with you, tugging the covers around you both before tucking yourself into his chest and reaching up to scratch your nails lightly over his back in the way that’s always made him melt.
“I love you.” He murmurs, warm fingers brushing through your hair. “I’m sorry-“
“Shhh. Go to sleep.” You press your lips to his shoulder, and feel him shiver a little at the feeling. “Head hurts, and you need to sleep.”
He takes a moment to speak, but then he nuzzles his nose into your hair and drops his arms down to pull you closer to him. “Okay.”
“I’ve had worse.” You smile, and clink your beer against Craig’s. “Thanks, though. You did fucking amazing today.”
Your friend’s smile, despite the damage to his face, lights up the entire room. “Fuck yeah I did. You did, too.”
“Aw, shucks.” You grin, and it’s just like before. Just like when you were kids, riding the adrenaline high together and laughing your way through the car chases and the gunfights despite Pope and Baz and even Deran’s concern. You nudge him, and smile a little wider as you gesture towards the door. “Renn’s here.”
He turns, and the way his eyes light up makes your heart swell impossibly more. That, right there. That’s how you look at Pope. How he looks at you. That little spark behind his eyes is exactly what he’s always deserved.
“You two back together?”
“Nah. I mean, I dunno. Maybe. We’re…you know.”
You clink your beer against his, and meet his eyes. “Just don’t fuck it up again, okay? You’ll be fine. Don’t overthink.”
His eyes trail behind you, to where Pope is most certainly still watching you, and he raises a pointed eyebrow.
You scoff. “Shut up.”
-
That’s the problem with good things. They always end.
You’re at the bar, sitting beside Pope like you have after a thousand jobs, and despite your conviction to keep your heart safe you can’t help the way it melts when his hand covers yours, large fingers threading through your own.
“Do you wanna go home?”
You hum, and lean into his side despite yourself. It was a pretty big day, after all, and nothing sounds better than curling up in bed with him and sleeping until noon tomorrow.
You open your mouth to agree, feeling his thumb trace lightly over your knuckles, and-
Your phone dings. A specific ringtone. One that makes you feel like an anvil has been dropped into your stomach.
“I’ll be right back.” You murmur, and when Pope’s brow furrows you lean forward and press your lips to the corner of his mouth. Not quite a kiss, but close enough that his hand squeezes yours one last time. “Just gotta go to the bathroom, first.”
You leave before he can follow.
-
“You look like shit.” You greet the old man in the alley with a frown, crossing your arms and standing a good few feet back. He does. Your father, piece of shit that he is, has probably pissed off a debt collector or two again, judging by the bruises on his face and arms. You have no sympathy for the man who once left similar marks on you.
“Heard your psycho boyfriend is outta prison.” His retort makes you grit your teeth. “Still sluttin’ yourself out to the Codys?”
“What the fuck do you want this time?”
“Just an exchange. Heard about that boat robbery today.” Fuck. “Wouldn’t be too great for good ol’ Dope’s probation if someone were to put in an anonymous tip, would it?”
“Pope had nothing to do with that.”
Your father smiles, all stained teeth and greedy eyes. “Shouldn’t be a problem, then.”
“Fuck you.”
“How ‘bout we make a trade? I don’t gotta call nobody, and you help cover my debt.”
You want to kill him. You hate him so much it makes you feel sick. “Like I said, fuck you.”
You turn to walk inside, and the move is a mistake. Fingers close too-tightly on your wrist, and before you know it you’re being slammed against the alley wall with your arm twisted agonizingly tightly behind your back. You bite hard on the inside of your cheek to keep from crying out, and remind yourself to breathe through the pain.
“Thought I raised you better than that.” The fingers on your wrist feel like they’re going to snap it in half. You want to bite something back, preferably something poetically sarcastic, but you can’t let your voice betray the pain you’re in. All these years, and you hate that he can still hurt you. “You got three days, kid. Sure you can spend enough time on your knees to get the money out of the crazy one. Maybe the cokehead, too.”
He lets you go with a shove that makes your cheek scratch against the wall, and you turn to glare defiant daggers as he walks away.
-
“Where did you go?” Pope’s dark eyes are curious, almost innocent as he reaches up to pull you closer to him by your hips.
You move back a little, and his brow furrows with concern. “I need my cut.”
“Yeah. You’ll get it when we-“
“I need it now.”
He stands, and you step back when he looks you over, but you’re too late. He knows you too well.
His hands are on your waist, tugging you close to him, and his fingers fly up to the scrape on your cheek. Down to pull up your sleeve, exposing angry red marks in the shape of fingerprints.
“Where is he?” He asks, voice dripping with danger, and you try to pull away but he just grips you more firmly. His grip is gentle, and you know he would let you go in a second if you asked, but he’s not letting you run from this. “Is he here?”
“Not anymore.” His fingers are curling around your arm, pulling it up to inspect your wrist. His eyes are almost black, and his jaw is clenched so tightly you’re worried he might crack a damn tooth. “Hey, Andrew. Look at me.”
His eyes don’t leave the bruises on your arm. “I should have killed him.”
“Beating him half to death caused enough problems.” Piece of shit that he is, your father has one too many connections in Oceanside, and the damage control from when Pope snapped on him years ago nearly got all of you arrested or killed.
It’s been proven safer to just give him what he wants, and try to keep it as secretive as possible, lest Pope or even Craig try to pound him into the pavement again.
Speaking of which, Pope is still holding you too tightly. You reach up, and turn his face towards yours. “I’m fine. We’re fine. Let’s…” God, you’re supposed to keep up with this ‘not together anymore’ thing, but “can we just go home?”
He melts. His eyes soften, and his arms slide around you to pull you closer to him. You feel his cheek against the side of your head, his hand sliding gently up over your back, and you melt too.
“Yeah. Yeah, let’s go.”
-
Split lip. Black eye. Ringing ears.
God, everything hurts. That asshole really did a number on you this time.
Bruised if not cracked ribs. A slight limp from where your leg hit weird when you were tossed across the floor. An aching arm that was grabbed a little too hard.
“Holy shit.” Craig. Craig’s voice, as familiar as your own.
“I got hit.” You worked on this lie. Practiced it the whole limping walk down here. “…by a car.” As bad as it is this time, it might be the only thing that’s believable.
“You’re a shit liar.” Now you know that’s not true, but your friend is already by your side, holding you up and helping you walk into the house. “I’m gonna kill him.”
You’ve definitely got a black eye. Your lip is swollen and bleeding. It’s becoming more exhausting to take stock of your injuries than it would be to note what isn’t hurting.
“Don’t. Just…don’t.” You wince on a step, and when Craig huffs and tries to scoop you up you swat him off.
“Fuck that. You look like you’re about to keel the fuck over.” He frowns, concern lacing every one of his features. “You’re not going back there.”
“I hit him with a fuckin’ frying pan.” You mumble, knocking your head against his shoulder. “So I figure I’m not welcome back any time soon.”
“Smurf is gonna shit.” He mumbles, and leans you back against the kitchen counter to inspect your face. “Fuck, Pope is gonna blow a gasket, dude. How are you gonna explain this to him?”
“I don’t know.” You mumble, reaching up to push the hair out of your face. All you want to do right now is see him. To be held by him and to maybe even just lay down in his twin bed and feel him tuck you into his arms. You’ve been with him for a little over a year, now, and it still feels like you’ve been dating for a week. Like your relationship is just one never ending honeymoon phase. Even these last few days, helping your father out with his bullshit scam, you’ve missed him so much it’s almost concerning.
Fuck.
“Beer, please.” You mumble, and when Craig hands it to you you take a moment to rest the cool glass against your bruised cheek. “I don’t know. I’ll tell him I got in an accident.”
Craig’s answer is immediate, lifting your arm to show the bruises in the shape of fingerprints dented into your skin. “Yeah, real fuckin’ believable.”
You pull you arm back, panic rising in your throat. “Okay. I…give me a sweatshirt.”
“He’ll just take it off.”
“Fuck.” He’s right. You shouldn’t have come here. You should have hidden out on the beach for a few days like you used to, and waited for some of these injuries to fade. Fuck. “I’ve gotta go.”
“Fat fuckin’ chance.” Craig grabs you, more firmly than usual, and keeps you still against the counter. “You think I’m gonna let you walk outta this house while that asshole is still breathing? Look, I ain’t Pope, but I’m not gonna let you into a situation where you could-“
You sense him before you see him. You didn’t even hear the door open.
“Get. Away. From. Her.”
Shit.
“Shit.” Craig releases you, and takes three large steps back like he might be attacked by a mountain lion.
Pope is on you in a second, one large hand cradling your bruised face, and in a moment you can see in his eyes that he’s not entirely there. That line in him has snapped, like it has on those nights you’ve found him in the yard, distant and empty and staring at the moon. When you’ve pulled him from fights, and he took a minute to even remember your name. Took him longer to remember his own.
“Please.” You whisper, reaching up to slide your fingers through his hair and force him to look at you. “Please be okay about this.”
He doesn’t answer you. He just moves his hand over your face, looks at you with those murderous eyes, and presses his forehead against yours.
“Where is he?”
“Pope. Andrew. Please.” Your heart cracks on his name, and he grips you more tightly. “Please, just take me to bed.” You turn his face to yours, squeeze your eyes shut. “I just wanna go to bed.”
And he does.
One hour later, he leaves that bed. You don’t open your eyes. Keep your breathing slow and steady as you feel him kiss your forehead, then your cheek, sliding his fingers through your hair like pulling away from you is physically painful.
But he does, and you feel him stand. You hear him leave.
And you let him.
Two hours later, he walks through the door of Smurf’s house with blood on his knuckles and sweat on his brow.
You’re waiting for him in the hall.
You look down at his hand. Back up to his eyes.
“Is he dead?” Your voice is quiet. He doesn’t look guilty, but he doesn’t look away from you, either.
“No.”
You just nod, and move forward to slide your hand over his cheek. He leans helplessly closer to you.
“Next time you do that,” you murmur, guiding his lips down to your own as his swollen knuckles curl against the back of your borrowed shirt, tugging you closer to him, “take me with you.”
He releases a shuddering breath, and his kiss is so full of love and devotion that it buckles your knees.
-
A warehouse is a cheesy place to meet. The fact that the asshole brought backup makes it worse. Granted, you brought Pope, Craig, and Deran with you, but…well, they’re more here for emotional support. And because they wouldn’t let you come alone.
When you got home, you told Pope everything. The threats, the money you’ve sent him, the amount of time he’s still been able to keep you under his thumb despite how hard you’ve worked to break away…
To your surprise, he hadn’t snapped. He hadn’t stormed out of his house to find the old man. He’d…
He’d kissed you. He’d wrapped his arms around you, tilted your head back, and kissed you.
You make a muffled noise against his mouth, eyes flying open in surprise before fluttering shut as your body melts into the embrace before your mind can even catch up.
When you finally break for air, still confused but certainly unable to complain, you blink your eyes open again.
“What was that for?”
He just kisses you again. Slow. Warm. Wonderful. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here.” He whispers, lips moving down to your jaw. Your neck. “I’m sorry you had to be so fuckin’ brave on your own.”
“Andrew, I…” this is a much different reaction than you were expecting. You haven’t mentally prepared for it. Your mind is still on the defensive.
He shushes you. Pushes his hands up under your shirt to trace them over your skin. “I love you. You don’t wanna be together? That’s okay. We can do whatever you want.” He kisses the hollow of your throat, scrapes his teeth against the sensitive skin, and you make a soft noise in the back of your throat that has him tightening his grip on you. “I’m not going anywhere, and you’re not dealing with this alone.”
You’re not alone. He’s not going anywhere. Never again.
You believe him. You really, really believe him.
“Take off your clothes, please.”
He smiles against your collarbone, and trails his nose up your throat until his lips are hovering over your own. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.” You’re already tugging at his shirt, already pulling him down to kiss you, and he meets you with a hunger that feels like a satisfied craving. “I love you. I trust you.” The words are murmured between kisses, “now please take off your clothes.”
“Christ, it’s like you think you’re Tony Soprano or some shit.” You grumble, feeling surprisingly petulant despite the intensity of the situation. Your father has connections, sure, but you grew up with Smurf Cody. The comparison between the way he operates and what you’re used to is absolutely insane.
Your father is a drunk, and an asshole, and he thinks he’s tough shit. You happen to know what it looks like to actually know what you’re doing. Shocker, that you’re the one who makes the actual fucking money. Even less shocking that he makes most of his income leeching off of you.
Well, not anymore.
“I told you to come alone. You brought your fuckin’ guard dog.”
“Yeah, you’re one to talk.” You gesture to the man beside him, the wall of muscle holding the gun and glaring at you like this is a gangster movie and he genuinely believes himself to be the most badass character. “Did you give your Steroid Humunculus his pay already, or is he gonna be banging on your door in a week looking for it?” You’re guessing the latter, if past experience is anything to go by.
“Enough.” Your father snaps, like he has any authority at all. It makes you furious. “Tell the psycho to leave.”
“Call him a psycho one more time, and this time it won’t be him who beats you to a fucking pulp.”
“Are you threatening me, you little shit?”
“Like father, like daughter.”
“I should teach you a fuckin’ lesson-“ he starts toward you, only to back up when Pope steps forward. His jaw ticks, fury flashing in his eyes, and you hear the click of something loading in the cavernous room.
It all happens so fast.
In all the times this kind of thing has happened, all of the times he’s made threats, it’s always been diffused. He’s always held up a gun, maybe loaded it, and said some bullshit until money was tossed his way.
This time, he brought the wrong backup. And that backup panics.
The man raises the gun, and aims it at Pope.
You move before you think, jerking instinctively in front of him and pushing him back, already beginning to move towards the money to end this bullshit. They always point the gun. Always shout a threat. Always shut up when they see the money and-
And then the gun goes off.
-
You wake to an empty bed.
Your first instinct is to reach out to the space Pope usually occupies, hand sliding over the cool sheets like you might be able to pull him out of thin air. It’s not morning, and the house is silent. If there was some kind of emergency, he would have woken you.
Huh.
The mystery doesn’t stay a mystery for long. You shuffle into the yard, and there he is.
Naked. Staring at the moon.
He seemed fine last night. Well, as fine as Pope Cody can be. A little more quiet, maybe. A little clingier than usual, and that would be saying something, but fine.
“Hey, handsome.” You hum, casual and sleepy, and move to stand beside him. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t break his eyes from the night sky. “What are we looking at?”
“Everything.” He murmurs, absent, and you can already tell that he isn’t here. Isn’t entirely inside his own head. That’s alright. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, and it probably won’t be the last. At least he’s not smashing anything with a hammer.
“Sounds like a lot.” You move to stand in front of him, lifting your hand to brush your fingers through the soft curls on the back of his neck and turn his gaze down to yours. “How ‘bout you just look at me instead?”
When his eyes meet your own, still hazy and distant, his breath catches in his lungs. His hand moves up, guiding yours so he can press his cheek into your palm like the touch is some sort of coveted blessing. You smile, soft and gentle, and bring up your other hand to mirror the first and cradle his other cheek.
“You’re an angel.” The words come out as a reverent whisper. He’s not trying to flatter you, not trying for pretty compliments, but rather stating a fact. Like he often does, when he’s in this state.
“Not quite.” You press your lips to the underside of his jaw, and you feel a shiver travel through his entire body. “But I appreciate the compliment.”
Large hands hover over your waist, and his eyes don’t leave you. “Can I…touch you?”
You nod, and bring his forehead down to rest against yours as his arms slide around you, tugging you against him as calloused fingers trail up beneath your sleep shirt, the touch just as familiar as the rest of him.
“Will you come to bed with me?” You ask softly, moving your own hands down to smooth over the skin of his chest. “I’m not an overly jealous person, but I’d prefer to keep this view for myself. Don’t wanna share with the neighbors.”
“I’ll do anything for you.”
“Tell me that again in the morning when I remind you to take your meds, okay?”
He follows you back inside, and allows you to pull him back into bed with you. Allows you to pull the covers up around you both as he envelops you in his arms, and trails his lips along your hairline as he whispers soft words against your skin. You can’t make them out, but you wonder from his tone if they might be some kind of prayer.
“I love you.” You murmur, and his arms tighten around you. “Every part of you. You know that?”
“I don’t deserve it.” He whispers, and you pull back to look at him.
“You do.” You kiss his nose. His cheek. “You really, really do.”
-
For a moment, you think a car might have backfired somewhere nearby.
It’s not like you don’t know what a gun sounds like. Fuck, with your childhood, you could recognize the sound faster than your own voice. And yet, in this moment, your mind can’t seem to keep up. Can’t seem to process exactly what just happened.
You feel like you got punched in the stomach. There’s an intense, knock-the-wind-out-of-you pressure, and then…
Your hand comes up to the point of that pressure, to the dull burn, and comes away red.
“Fuck.” Your father breathes, and then he starts shouting. “Fuck! You idiot! What the fuck did you do?!”
You’ve heard that voice before. When he’s lost an exceptionally lucrative bet. When a deal has gone wrong. That’s the tone of a man who is losing his meal ticket, not even close to the tone of a concerned father.
You didn’t even get to do your little speech. Your whole ‘fuck you, I owe you less than nothing and this is the last time you’re getting a cent from me’ speech. You were kind of looking forward to it.
Your whole body feels a little numb. When your knees finally give out, warm arms wrap around you before you can collapse.
“No. No no no no no!”
Now that…that isn’t concern either. It’s worse. So much worse. It’s the realest and most raw fear you’ve ever heard.
There’s too much blood. Fuck. So much blood. It’s spilling out between your fingers faster than should be possible. Vaguely, you remember when you were small, and the faucet broke at whatever house you and your dad were squatting in at the time. You were so scared of his ire, of him blaming you for the burst, that you’d tried to hold it together with your small hands until your entire body was soaked.
Andrew Cody is gathering you into his arms, lowering you to the ground, and the pain is starting to slice it’s way through the shock and it is absolutely fucking overwhelming.
“It’s okay. It’s okay. I’ve got you. You’re gonna be okay. Look at me. C’mon, y-you’ve gotta look at me.”
Your father is still yelling at the guy who shot you. Screaming about the money. Not about you. The sound is loud, cutting through the ringing in your ears, and Andrew’s arms tighten around you.
“Close your eyes.” The words are murmured by your ear. Soft and warm and gentle despite the chaos. When he speaks again, his voice is shaking. “Close your eyes, sweetheart. It’s gonna be okay.” He rarely calls you that. This must be bad.
When you do, you hear a gun fire, and the shouting stops.
Your eyes fly open, and you try to turn towards the sound of two bodies hitting the floor, but Pope is there before you can move, dropping a gun to the pavement and cradling your face in his hands.
“Don’t look at that. Look at me. Look at me, okay? You’re gonna be okay.”
He shouts for Craig. For Deran. Everything is still in a sharp, dizzy sort of focus.
-
“Holy shit. What happened?”
Craig is hunched over the toilet. There’s a bottle of tequila on the floor.
He turns his face towards you, hair messy and cheek resting against his arm. “Go away.”
“Nah.” You’re already sitting beside him, tugging his hair into a ponytail and tying it off.
“M’a fuckup.” He mumbles. “Jus’ a…drunk idiot. Deran said.”
You hum, and rub a soothing hand over his back. “Definitely acting like one.”
“See?” He tilts his head miserably back into his arm. “Even you say it.”
“Shut up. You know that’s not what I’m saying.” You move over to the bottle, and take a swig before throwing the rest into the trash. “Hey, look at me.”
He does. He looks like he might have been crying.
“You’re one of the smartest people I know, you know that?”
“You’re not funny.”
“I’m not lying.”
He looks at you now. Really, really looks at you. “You gotta stop seein’ the best in me.”
“Too late. You done puking?”
He grunts, and you reach down to help him stand with a significant amount of effort and bitching that he weighs a million pounds.
And you get him into bed, and even tuck him in, and before you leave to go back to Pope’s room he catches your wrist.
“I love you.”
You stop, and furrow your brow.
“Not in like, a weird way. M’not tryna fuck you or anything. I don’t even know how…” he frowns, and releases you to rub a hand over his face. “I dunno how to say it.”
Your heart swells, in that familiar way, and you laugh a little as you move over and sit on the edge of his bed. “I think you’re telling me I’m you’re best friend.”
“Well, obviously. S’more than that, though. You don’t…you don’t think I’m a fuckup. You actually like me.”
You think back to that kid on the beach, surrounded by three angry assholes and fully prepared to stand his fucking ground. The kid who you were knocked out defending. Who didn’t think twice before he brought you back to his home. To the only safe space he knew. Who brought you into his family.
Who loved you like you loved him, and wasn’t sure what it meant. Who assumed, as teenagers do, that it might be romantic. Who didn’t think twice when he realized that it wasn’t romantic, and still pushed his pride aside and kept on loving you. And even now, budding your own ways into adulthood together, he’s drunk and still trying to put into words that he loves you platonically.
“You have the biggest heart.” You say, honest and raw, and his hazy blue eyes fill with tears again. “Even if you can be an idiot sometimes.”
He swipes his hand over his eyes, and tries to hide a sniffle. He looks young like this. He’s only in his early twenties, sure, but he looks younger than that. Vulnerable in a way only you ever really get to see.
“Promise you won’t go anywhere.” He mumbles, like he’s nervous to say it.
He smells like puke, and he’s sweaty, but fuck it. You hug him, making sure to flop down on top of him a little so he groans miserably before he wraps a large arm around you to pat your back.
“Can’t get rid of me if you tried, jackass.”
-
Craig is freaking out. He’s in the back of the car, where Pope is still holding you, and he’s freaking out.
Oh, no. That won’t do, will it? You take care of them. You always do. You keep Craig level-headed, and you keep Andrew from freaking out. Or…or is it the other way around? It’s concerningly difficult to think. You feel like you’re floating.
“Almost there. Almost there. Don’t leave me, okay?” God, Andrew Cody’s voice is the best thing you’ve ever heard. You want to sink into it, but he’s shaking and you can hear tears in his voice and you’re supposed to fix that.
“Drive fucking faster!” Craig is pushing on your stomach too hard. It hurts. You wheeze, and he doesn’t let up. “Deran, the IV isn’t working. It’s not working, she’s too fuckin’ pale.”
He’s covered in blood. You can’t see Pope, but you think he is too. Everything is tainted a horrible shade of red, and it’s getting really hard to think.
“M’here.” You try, scratchy and raw. “M’here. You’re okay. Don’t…be a dumbass.”
“Fuck. Fuck, don’t die. Please don’t die. Look at me, okay? Look at me.” You try, but Pope is whispering near-nonsense into your hair and trembling so hard it’s almost starting to hurt more than the pressure on your stomach. Still, Craig brushes the hair from your face, and you can see tears tracking their way down his cheeks. “They’re all dead, okay? All those assholes are dead. You’re not going with them, you hear me? You’re not going with them.”
There’s shouting. There’s panic. It’s all fading. Pope’s lips are warm against your skin, and the sound of his voice is soothing and…
-
“I love you.”
The words are whispered into your hair, so soft that you almost don’t hear them through the haze of sleep. But you’re awake, now. He doesn’t know it, but you’re awake.
You blink, and feel his fingers trace slow, warm patterns over the bare skin of your back.
“I love you.” He whispers again, just as low and just as quiet.
You shift, and he goes very, very still.
“Hi.” You whisper, pulling back, and he looks fucking terrified.
“…Hi.”
“You just said you loved me.”
“I…thought you were sleeping.”
You reach up, and turn his face to yours. Feel soft curls between your fingers.
“How long have you been telling me you love me when I’m asleep?”
He’s silent. He doesn’t look away.
“Andrew?”
“…a while.”
You smile, and the way his eyes spark at the sight makes your heart melt. “I love you, too.”
His hand flies up almost too fast, cradling your cheek and brushing his thumb over your cheekbone as he stares into your eyes with an intensity that makes your blood tingle in your veins. “You do?”
“Yeah.” How could you not? How could he not know? “Of course I do.”
-
A sharp sting brings you back, this time. You think someone might have hit you.
“Fuck, thank God. You looked like…shit, okay. Pope, let her go. You’ve gotta let her go, man.”
“Where were you?” He’s whispering against your cheek, and he’s out of his mind. Shit, he’s really out of his mind. His arms are still around you, and he’s speaking like he used to when things got really bad. When whatever was in his mind snapped, and it would take you hours to bring him back to you. “Where did you go? Don’t go. Take me with you.”
Every instinct, every cell in your body, tells you to fight. To stay here. To be here with him. To make this better.
But you’re losing time, and he’s not letting you go.
“Don’t touch her.” Lips on your temple. Your cheek. Arms tight around you. “Don’t touch her. Don’t take her away.”
You try to speak, but convulse instead. The sight of it seems to trigger something, and Craig starts to yank you out of Pope’s arms in such a panicked rush that you whimper as another bolt of agony fires through you.
Andrew holds you tighter. Your mouth tastes like copper. You feel blood trickling past your lips.
“Fuck it. Fuck it. Deran, hold him down.” Craig says, and he’s still crying and you should fix that, before he reaches forward and slams Pope’s head against the window. The arms around you go limp as he loses consciousness, and then you’re being lifted out of the car.
“I got you. It’s okay.” You choke out a soft noise, grab at his arm, and he just tucks you closer to him. “Pope’s okay, too. Everything’s gonna be fine, yeah? Just…just don’t die. Please, please don’t die.”
You’re so tired. You want Andrew. If you’re going to drift into oblivion, he should be here. But…
-
When you open your eyes, it’s to a cracked ceiling and a heavy, distant pain in your stomach.
You feel the drugs in your system. Blurred and heavy and warm. Tijuana. They managed to get you to Tijuana. And you’re alive. Bullet wound in the gut and all, and you’re alive.
Andrew Cody is beside you, head resting on his hands like he may have been living up to his nickname and praying. When you stir, he does too, red-rimmed eyes blinking open and looking at you like you’re the only other person in the world. There is so much relief in his gaze that the sight makes you feel dizzy.
“Hi.” You murmur, hoarse, and reach up to tap gently at the side of his head. “Are you here?” You remember his mumbled words against your skin. The way he needed to be knocked out before he would let you go. He can go so far away, sometimes. But he looks like he’s here now. He looks like he’s your Andrew.
He nods, and catches your hand to press his lips to your palm. His breath shudders on a silent sob.
“I thought…I thought you were-“
“I think we should get married on the beach.” You cut him off with a gentle squeeze to his hand. “S’that okay?”
He looks at you, at your stomach, and back at your face like he’s trying to judge how full of painkillers you are. “You wanna get married?”
“Do you?”
“Yes.” There’s no hesitation. Not an ounce of it. “But you’re on-“
“I know. Still want to. I can ask you again when I’m off them, if you want.”
“I think you should.” He murmurs, but he’s smiling. It’s a small, hesitant thing. Like he was pretty sure, not too long ago, that he would never smile again. Like he’s already re-learning the expression.
“Mm.” You squeeze his hand, and lean your head back against the pillows. “You wanna marry me?”
“Since I first met you.”
“Softie.” You turn your head, and furrow your brow a little. “You never asked, though.”
“I planned it.” He admits, tracing his thumb over your knuckles. “Bought a ring.”
“When?”
“Five years ago.”
You raise your eyebrows, and say again, “you never asked.”
“Never found a perfect time.”
“Mm. Sorry for stealing your thunder then.”
He squeezes your hand, and brings it up to his lips so he can trail kisses over your knuckles. He looks back up at you after a moment, and his dark eyes are so beautiful. “I killed your father.”
Those four words should definitely make you feel something. Anything. Instead, you just feel a surge of love for the man before you. “Okay.”
“I’m glad I did it.”
“I know.”
And, like he just can’t help it anymore, he moves forward and presses his lips to yours. You kiss him back, and wrap your arms around his neck even as the movement makes you wince. Worth it.
“Can we get married now?” You ask, the words muffled by his lips, and he smiles down at you.
“When the drugs wear off.”
You frown, and shrug. “Okay. Can we go home?”
“When they say you can.”
Hm. “Can we have sex?”
He laughs. It’s a beautiful sound. “Go to sleep.”
“You’re no fun.”
“Promise I will be.” He kisses your cheek. “For the rest of your life.”
“I like where this is going.”
“I’ll never leave you again.”
“Keep talkin’, Cody.”
“When we get home, I’ll stock the fridge with that ice cream you like.”
“Take me now.”
The love in his eyes is so beautiful, so pure, so raw, that you know without a doubt that those eyes alone were worth living for. “Go to sleep.”
-
You and Pope rent a house in Tijuana for a while. There’s no need to go back to Oceanside. Not yet. Smurf doesn’t love it, but she doesn’t fight it. It wouldn’t be great optics, after all, for her son’s girlfriend to be recovering from a bullet wound while her father, whom Pope has nearly killed before, was recently found dead in a warehouse.
He fusses over you endlessly. He barely lets you stand on your own, even when you’re fully capable of doing so. You wake up to him watching you sleep more often than ever, and he barely spends more than a minute not touching you.
It’s nice. Really nice. Kind of like a honeymoon before the honeymoon. Just with less sex due to an annoying bullet wound, and a little more crankiness from you than usual due to both of the former issues.
But you stay up all night on the beach, talking until the sun rises and making out like teenagers. You try to make breakfast, burn it, and get to ogle him from your spot on the counter as he makes it for the both of you. You plan for the future, count down the days until your wound is healed, and just…enjoy being happy. No jobs, no strings, no stress.
A little over a month later, you wake him up by rolling on top of him, the familiar pain in your stomach reduced to much less than a dull ache.
His eyebrows raise before his eyes even open, a sleepy smile curling on his lips as his hand trails down your back and your lips move to press teasing kisses down his neck.
“Good morning.” You hum, and he seems more than happy to return the sentiment. “I officially think I’m healed enough for…strenuous activities.”
He makes a low noise, and kisses you slowly. Hungrily. You grin, triumphant and happy, and feel his hands come up to shift you on top of him, sitting himself up against the wall and-
And pulling back.
You actually whine, chasing his lips with your own, but he holds you firm with a smile so wide it’s almost silly.
“I have another idea.”
“It’s been over a month, Andrew. I challenge you to name one thing better than sex right now.”
His smile grows impossibly wider. He reaches into the pocket of his sweatpants, mischief sparking in his sleepy eyes like he was hoping you’d say something like that, and…
And pulls out a ring.
“Oh.” You breathe, eyes locked on the little diamond in his palm. It’s simple. Beautiful. Perfect.
“Bought a new one.” He says, hand coming up to brush your hair back from your face.
the selfies sugar daddy!jack abbot sends you every time he gets all dressed up for a hospital charity event, showing off his nice suits and how well he’s combed back all his salt-and-pepper. he doesn’t really understand when you reply somethings purrrrrring but he does get when you follow it quickly by lemme pull on that tie dr abbot with a sticker of meg the stallion biting her finger. he’s an old man texter, always, OK. When I’m done, I’ll send an uber for you to my place. but it doesn’t negate that you’ll be able to see him that night, all suited up and sexy, and probably get to spend the whole weekend poolside at his house, and pull on more than just those brooks brothers ties.
Fourth of July at Lover’s Lake & promises you shouldn’t make.
warnings: 18+ fluff so much fluff, and yearning (don’t get too comfortable though), drinking, smoking, semi public fooling around, finger sucking, dry humping, oral (steve receiving), big dick steve, unprotected p in v smut in the back of a car.
wc: 13k
authors note: I really cannot believe that after two years we are finally here. Thank you to everyone who’s ever messaged me about him, sent me asks, and just never gave up on the story. Writing this chapter made me realize how much I loved the little world I created here and I want to see it through. I wrote this for you guys 🥹💕 I hope it was worth the wait. ily endlessly.
series masterlist | series playlist
Cicadas buzz loudly, echoing through the trees that shroud the big lake in the middle of them. You’re hoping it’s enough to drown out the quick beating of your heart from reaching Robin’s ears as you approach the opening in the shrubs. It’s been a little over a week since your ‘date’ with Steve, and you aren’t really sure how to act around him anymore. Let alone your friends who bore witness to your biggest heartbreak and the years that followed. Shaky fingers absentmindedly reach up touching the warm gold still wrapped around your neck because you never took it off. You let it drop back against your chest, pushing down the thoughts of what that means.
“So would you say that Steve is your summer lovin’?”
Robin’s voice breaks through the jumbled mess of your thoughts that you hadn’t realized turned you mute. It takes a minute to finally comprehend what she’s implying, but when you do, the roll of your eyes couldn’t be any harder.
”Don’t start-“
”Are you guys having a blast? I mean, it happened so fast!” She smirks, sunburnt freckled cheeks pushing up with a wiggle of her eyebrows.
”You’re actually being really annoying about this whole thing.” You scold her in a hushed tone emerging from the woods, and into the chaos that is Lover’s Lake on the Fourth of July.
Smoke and sulfur fill your nose as the wrath of Indiana’s mid summer sun hits you both at full force without the shade of trees to hide from it. Kids run along the beach with fruit punch smiles and sticky fingers, while their parents spray way too much lighter fluid on the charcoal heating up their grills. Families spread out far leaving no part of the lake untouched, locked into their favorite spots for the colorful spectacle that’s expected tonight. A Hawkins tradition, one you hate to admit you missed.
”There they are!” Robin points with a chipped lime green finger, the nerves in your stomach twist into a knot.
Your eyes follow the invisible line to the corner end of the lake, immediately recognizing Eddie’s unruly hair tied up sloppily in a bun. He’s prepping the grill talking animatedly, throwing his head back in a full bellied laugh. Your eyes narrow, because only one person could be telling him a joke.
Whatever it is, it can't be that funny.
It takes you about a half a second to find Steve, unfortunately, it’s right as he’s taking off his shirt revealing tanned skin kissed by the kind of moles that make you want to play connect the dots with your fingertips. The dark thatch of hair on his chest you can’t seem to stop thinking about on full display.
“Come on.” You grumble, huffing an irritated breath through your nose, making Robin cackle loud enough to catch the boy's attention.
You avoid Steve’s gaze, defiantly.
”Quit acting like you don’t like it.” She snorts, grabbing your wrist, leading the way towards the table, “cat’s out of the bag, in fact it actually found its forever home when you came back to the apartment last week looking like a leopard.”
“I can - I can still think he’s annoying.” You argue feebly. Robin doesn’t entertain it, throwing you a deadly side eye.
”There’s the beer - I mean, my dear sweet friends, I’m so glad you can make it.”
Eddie greets you both with Ray Bans covering his big brown eyes and dimples so deep they poke holes in his cheeks, squashing whatever bickering this conversation was going to turn into. There’s still evidence of sunscreen painted on the tip of his nose, and more sloppily covering the tattoo on his chest. Little white skulls dot the black swim trunks that hang low, revealing a slight farmer's tan around his hips, the creamy skin already turning red.
”Imagine I forgot it.” Robin quips, entertained by the way Eddie’s eyes narrow over the top of his frames at a joke that isn’t very funny to him.
”Ha - ha - ha Buckley.”
The holes that Steve burns into the side of your head make it extremely hard to focus on your two friends, especially when he’s wearing nothing but fucking cherry red swim trunks. You chance a glance in his direction and immediately regret it meeting his amused stare. His white teeth shine in a smile that stretches wide across his face, catching onto you. Clearing his throat, those same teeth dig into his bottom lip to try and contain it from growing as he walks over. Eyes shamelessly trailing up and down the length of your body.
“Are you really going to play hard to get with my chain around your neck?” He tuts, close to your ear, sunscreen and amber tickling your nose.
Calloused fingertips whisper up your exposed back before curling around the strap of your beach bag, relieving you of the heavy weight you forgot you were carrying.
“You really like bringing that up don’t you?” You fight the curve of your lips with a roll of your eyes.
”Well, you keep wearing it.” He shrugs, setting the bag on the table before turning the full force of his attention onto you. You hate the way your thighs still press because of it.
“It’s just funny to me, you know? Since you haven’t called after that ‘date’ you practically begged me for.” Your hum, refusing to meet his eyes, tightening the tie on your sheer cover up skirt that suddenly feels too short under his heavy gaze.
Steve sucks his teeth.
”Just giving you space to process what happened, honey, because if I’m being completely honest, it’s been very hard to figure out if you want to kiss me or punch me. Like right now? The way you’re looking at me is a perfect example.”
Still, he takes the gamble, invading the rest of your space with a knowing smirk before continuing.
“I’m happy to hear that it was in fact a date, but I’d like to take you on a better one.”
You look up at him from under the thick hood of your lashes, wondering if he can see the quick way your chest rises and falls.
”Two things can be true at the same time. And the jury’s still out on that second date.”
Steve wets his lips, taking a deep breath through his nose, taking one last look at the gold that shimmers in the sun,
”That’s okay honey, we’ll just have to see how today goes then, won’t we?” He says quietly, like no one else is around, gaze flicking down at your mouth. “But since you did say both things are true.”
He curves two fingers under your chin, tilting your head up the rest of the way while his other hand grabs at your hip pulling you in. Steve gives you a minute to do anything like push him away, tell him to fuck off, but when you don’t, he closes the gap without any hesitation. Full pink lips that you missed more than you’d like to admit slot between yours with a sweetness you aren’t familiar with. Your cheeks warm under his hand that spreads wide across the side of your face, a gentle swipe of his tongue begging you to open up, threatening the edge of what’s appropriate.
Steve kisses you like he missed you too.
”Alright, I know you guys are like rekindling things or whatever but there’s literal children around.” Eddie scolds wasting no time cracking open a beer, bringing you back to reality.
Steve smiles against your mouth, matching the one that curves up the corners of yours despite yourself.
”This is actually some real sick shit that you two have going on.” Robin interrupts, snorting “she was literally just calling you annoying.”
”Robin!-“
”Wait, were you really calling me annoying?” Steve pulls away amused at the clear guilt painted all over your face.
“Oh yeah, she absolutely was, look at her man.” Eddie points out laughing, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his netted pocket silently offering one to your best friend, “this is a weird dynamic, but I’m not gonna lie, I’m probably liiiiike seventy five percent excited to see how this plays out tonight.”
”Crazy fun idea, let's all talk about something else.” You snap, crossing your arms ditching Steve for the spot next to Robin at the faded red picnic table. “Just keep your hands to yourself okay, Harrington? We don’t need to provide an extra show with the fireworks tonight.”
“Come on, I’ll pay extra.” Eddie pleads, batting his lashes, your obvious annoyance only egging him on.
None of it seems to phase Steve, too lost in his own world staring at you with the kind of goofy smirk that actually does make you want to punch him and then maybe kiss it better.
Baby steps.
”You couldn’t afford us Munson.” Steve winks not missing a beat, bringing himself back to the conversation like he never left, making Eddie smirk around his beer can.
“We’re not for sale! ” You interrupt, narrowing your gaze at your ex boyfriend, folding your hands on top of the table.
”But you are saying there’s a ‘we’?” Steve immediately takes the bait you’ve unknowingly laid out for him with the kind of glint in his eyes that tells you he’s going to be trouble all day.
”I’m afraid you walked right into that one.” Robin leans over whispering purposefully loud enough for everyone to hear, the corners of her eyes crinkling with a grin.
She meets Steve’s high five without even having to look at him, begging your lips to twist no matter how hard you press them into a straight line.
”Everyone at this barbecue is really annoying.” You announce contradicting the smile that finally splits your face in two.
”Here! Here!” Eddie bellows, polishing off his beer with a loud ‘ahh’ wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
For the first time all summer, you give in to the part of yourself hidden so deep you thought you’d lost forever that’s actually happy to be back. You didn’t realize the weight of it until it clawed its way into your chest, cracking at the wall you’ve built around your heart.
“It looks like those gremlin O’flanery kids finally got out of the lake, I’m gonna take advantage before I Emeril Lagasse the fuck out of these burgers.” Eddie announces his exit standing up tossing the crushed aluminum into the metal trash can near your set up.
You’re almost positive you see him give Robin a look, and then you know you did when she starts standing up too.
”I’m gonna come with, I don’t want to be in there when they start playing Marco Polo again.” She follows his lead with an excuse that would be believable if it wasn’t for the notorious crack in her voice every time she tries to lie.
She ignores the heat of your glare, fully knowing she’s going to get an earful on the way home.
”Have fun and don’t drown.” You grumble at her retreating figure, your tone making it sound like you mean the complete opposite.
“I will, thank you! I know you’d come save me if I diiid!” She sings in response, white teeth gleaming against the sun as she runs into the water, tossing her shorts on the sand cackling loudly with Eddie who splashes water at her.
You’ll drown both of them yourself.
The humidity feels thicker in the air once you’re alone with Steve for the first time without the buffer of your two friends. Heat steams, bubbling in the space between you with the kind tension that could combust without a release. Your own mind actively working against you when his words from the garage come sneaking out of the place you’ve tried to shove them down into.
”I could be so nice to you baby, don’t you want that?”
“I know you said to keep our hands to ourselves, paid or not.” he interrupts your wildly inappropriate thoughts pulling out a dark green backpack from under the picnic table.
The smirk on his pink lips makes you feel like he can read your mind, your hips shuffle subtly to try and hide the way you want to squirm. It doesn’t work.
“But I really don’t want to look like those two, especially since I’m gonna be on my back trying to fix the car you almost killed this week.”
“I did not almost kill my car.” You scoff arching an eyebrow at him, looking at the baby pink Banana Boat sunscreen bottle he set on the table. “And really? This is the trick you’re going to use on me?”
”A trick? I’m just asking an old friend for some help. I can return the favor if you’d like?” The intention that darkens behind his eyes is anything but the innocent way he tries to sell it.
”You have to come over here if you want my help, I’m not coming to you.” You snap, agreeing in a way that isn't the word ‘yes’ giving yourself the illusion of control. You know it, he knows it, but still he doesn’t press his luck, playing along for your sake.
For now.
He runs a big hand through his permanent bedhead, white teeth shining victoriously as he rounds the picnic table to your side. Straddling the bench, the sheer material of your swim cover slides up your thighs as you move back, giving him room to sit in front of you. Steve’s eyes track the movement, taking in the newly exposed skin with a lick of his lips, slinging his leg over the bench. He scoots back enough for the sides of your thighs to box him in at the hips, the heat of his body so close to that part of you that wants him more than you’re ready to accept.
Your eyes follow the movements of his shoulder blades that still have the slightest remnants of what your nails left behind. They mix with the freckles and moles exploding across his tanned skin, the sun bringing out even more of them from their hiding places. Agreeing to this starts to feel like a mistake when he reaches back, wrapping his fingers around your knees, bringing them up to hook your ankles across his lap. The new position pulls you close enough to feel the muscles in his lower back through the thin material of your suit. Your teeth dig into the fat of your bottom lip holding back the gasp that threatens to spill out at the new pressure against where you’re most sensitive.
”Mmm,” he hums, palms squeezing at your thighs before making their way down to do the same to your calves. “Missed you.”
It comes out in quiet sincerity despite his teasing and you fight the urge to say it back.
”I know what you miss.” You snort, trying to brush him and the buzzing in your veins away. Grabbing the pink bottle, you squeeze a generous amount of lotion on your hand.
His body shakes with laughter, the vibrations making your lashes flutter against the top of your warm cheeks.
“I can enjoy your company and also want to rip that swim suit off of you the moment I get you alone. Two things can be true at the same time, right?” He says with an obvious smile in his voice, hands wrapping around your ankles with thumbs that rub small circles on goosebump pebbled skin.
You’re thankful he can’t see your face when his words set in, because you didn’t even think about what happens after this. The realization that he has no plans on letting you go when fireworks end twists in your gut as your palms spread the cold lotion across the top of his back. The jump you get from him at the temperature difference interrupts your internal panic with a pleased smirk pulling at the corners of your lips.
“Jesus, that's cold.” He grumbles sucking air between his teeth, the blunt ends of his nails digging softly into your skin.
“You asked for this.” You remind him doing your best to sound casual, letting your gaze turn heavy watching the way the muscles constrict and twitch against your palms.
Working your way down the softness of his back, you press the pads of your thumbs on either side of the dip at the bottom of his spine, before pushing them up a path to the base of his neck. The pointed pressure earns you the kind of groan that has your thighs searching for each other. Steve catches it, the blunt ends of his nails digging into dough, squeezing at the soft fat of them.
You can be trouble too.
“And you told me to behave.” He tsks, regaining control grabbing at your thighs in an empty warning.
”I have no idea what you’re talking about, Steve.” You sigh with a mischievous grin, fingertips brushing tenderly against a crescent moon shaped freckle, before gliding the white cream over his shoulders that twitch under your touch.
”Oh yeah?” There’s a playful edge in his voice as he reaches back to squeeze at the bottom apple of your ass, laughing when you squeal.
”Okay, you’re done!” You snort shoving his shoulder, untangling yourself from him. The grin you had turns into a smile that spreads wide across your face at his feeble attempt to keep you there.
“We can’t go in the water yet, I haven’t done yours.” He tries with a pout, swinging his legs back over the bench with a devilish glint in his eyes. Big greedy hands grab for you but you back up just out of reach.
”I applied my own before we left the apartment, but thank you for such a kind offer Steven.” You feign disinterest, and his gaze narrows, silently accepting today’s challenge. “I’ll see you in the water.”
Tossing your swim cover at him, he catches it with ease, the whites of his teeth peeking out from behind plush pink lips at the wiggle of your fingers disappearing into the lake.
—-
The sun burns relentlessly in a clear blue sky, but the water underneath you is cold enough to battle its heat that’s threatened to take you out since you got here. You lay out on a pink inflatable tube with your eyes closed behind the Ray Bans you stole from the top of Eddie’s head. Basking in the weightless feeling, the tips of your fingers and toes glide along the water’s surface that slowly laps against the plastic.
The three of them have kept themselves entertained by loudly playing some kind of variation of monkey in the middle for the past twenty minutes. A seemingly permanent smirk curves up the edges of your mouth listening to Eddie get increasingly angry as the games go on.
“I forgot that gym wasn’t a strong subject for you, Munson” You tease, lazily turning your head in his direction pushing his sunglasses up the bridge of your nose and onto your forehead, snorting at the glare you get in return.
Steve’s laugh booms behind him, running a wet hand through his already damp hair. The blonde tips look like honey dripping from a comb, the ends curling around the bottom of his ear. His eyes that you know haven’t left you all afternoon are covered in a pair of aviators, the sun making the freckles on his shoulders more prominent. He looks made for summer because it's always belonged to him.
“And I forgot how annoying you are, princess.” Eddie splashes enough water at you that nearly knocks the borrowed sunglasses from your head.
You giggle like a gremlin despite his outburst, the sound poking dimples in his cheeks as he submerges himself back into the water, squatting down till it stops at the bottom of his chin. The four of you had lost track of time, the afternoon slipping away as you drifted further from your camp, successfully avoiding the O’ Flanery kids that made their dreaded return over an hour ago.
”We should go eat, then scope out a good place for tonight.” Eddie suggests sneaking up on Steve, stealing the ball from him easily from being too distracted staring at you.
His competitive streak snaps him out of his daze, turning to the metal head jumping at him with no hesitation, dunking his head under water by his shoulders. Snatching the ball back, he tosses it to Robin who fumbles but saves it with a manic laugh. Eddie emerges, spitting the lake water that had gotten into his mouth at Steve who splashes more at him with a ‘gross man!’
“I’m going to start dinner, I need another beer if I’m going to be dealing with the three of you all night.” Eddie huffs starting to swim away, lips twitching to fight the smile that threatens to spread across his face, smacking water in Steve’s direction one last time.
”You’re a dick!” Steve calls, running a hand through his now completely soaked hair.
”Eat me, Harrington.” Is all he gets in response, earning uncontrollable laughter from you and Robin.
”Ha, ha, ha, very funny.” Your ex boyfriend sneers, splashing Robin in retaliation who screams ‘Hey!’.
”You’re a child!” You grin, flicking more at him in her defense.
He does his best to bite back his own laugh, wiping a hand over his face, pushing his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose revealing his eyes for the first time in what feels like hours.
”I have to pee.” Robin announces, making you both groan. “Usually I would just do it in the lake, but I like you both too much for that.”
”Wow, what a friend.” Steve’s lips twist sarcastically, shaking his head with the borderline annoyance that's always lingering just under the surface.
“Yeah, thanks for not peeing on me, I guess?” You grimace tempted to splash her for good measure but you don’t want to start that cycle all over again.
”You guys are so welcome.” She winks sarcastically, starting the swim back to shore throwing the ball at Steve who catches it like you knew he would.
“Sometimes I can’t believe the things that come out of her mouth.” He mutters turning to face you, letting it float.
”It’s part of her charm.” You hum, closing your eyes as you lay back, doing your best not to think too hard about the fact that you’re alone with him again.
The butterflies stretching their wings do the opposite, though.
“Yeah,” he agrees, a little too quiet for your liking as the sound of water moving softly catches in your ears sending goosebumps pebbling across heated skin. The musk of his cologne hits your nose before the thick honey of his voice comes out low by the shell of your ear, “I know.”
”Steve,” you warn, feeling the pruny tips of his fingers start to play with yours under the water, but the smile on your face when he nudges your temple with his nose doesn’t make it a convincing one.
”What honey?” He nips at your earlobe, groaning at the quiet whine that slips from the back of your throat. “Missed that sound, been dreaming about it.”
His hushed confession has your wet thighs meet and suddenly the sun feels too hot.
“Will you stop? T-there’s people around.” You try to argue, the shake in your voice feeling like betrayal.
Steve sucks his teeth, and you feel him start to move around to the other end of the tube where your feet dangle facing out towards the lake. You’re determined to keep your eyes closed and ignore him but the feeling of both his hands wrapping around your ankles make it impossible.
”What are you doing?” You hiss, pushing yourself up slightly by your elbows to glare down at him. You’re not sure he can even see it.
”Me? I’m not doing anything. What are you doing?” He grins, keeping his gaze trained on your face, bending down to press a soft kiss right above the bone.
”Steve.”
”Hmm?” His mumbled response comes out hot against your skin with eyes closed pressing one more to your other ankle, leaving no one out.
Words feel foreign on the tip of your tongue, like you were never taught how to use them properly when his stare finds yours under hooded lids. Running his nose along the bottom of your calf, he inhales you.
“Let me take you somewhere.” It comes out a little desperate, cracks in his bravado showing themselves.
“St-“
”Please.” He begs for something you know you’re going to give him, because deep down being alone with him is all you’ve thought about this week.
Tugging your bottom lip between your teeth, you roll off the tube, skin sticking to the plastic before slipping into the lake. It's a temporary reprieve from the heat of the sun and the man next to you, but a short lived one as Steve wastes no time pushing the floatie out of his way. Big needy hands grab shamelessly at your hips, pulling you to him in woosh of water, like it’s been torture not to have you this close the past few hours. Your palms slide up his chest, relishing in the thick softness of his hair that tickles between your fingers before hooking your arms around his neck. Ringlets of water drip from the wild swoop of hair that never stays back kissing your cheeks as he stares down the slope of his nose at you.
“And where exactly do you think you’re taking me?” You question, meeting him from under your lashes, twisting the damp hair at the nape of his neck.
The sun shines like a halo behind him, the green hidden in his eyes shimmering against the reflection of the lake. White teeth gleam behind pink lips stretched wide at the shy one that twists the edges of yours. His fingers glide down to the backs of your thighs, using the buoyancy of the water that comes up to your chest to curve around them and lift you up. They wrap around his waist without much coaxing, pressing the effects of your teasing against your thigh, making you gasp.
“Somewhere I can have you all to myself.” He smirks, starting to move even further away from your friends on shore. Abandoning the hot pink tube in the process.
“What about the tube?” You giggle a little breathless, secretly enjoying the feel of your wet skin sliding against each other with every step he takes.
“We’ll get it on our way back.” He answers like he’s already thought this through, the grip on your thighs tightening, keeping you close refusing to let you go.
He carries you towards the edge where a jagged cliff curves out cutting through the side of the lake creating the imaginary boundary of the public area. The water laps at your waists with a little more force this far out, the breeze skirting across the top of the small rippling waves. It doesn’t take him very long to find a secluded spot just around the bend, the sounds of 4th of July still close enough to tickle in your ears, but far enough from prying eyes.
“I can’t be spending that much time away from you, anymore.” He murmurs, finally getting you alone, pressing your back into the rough grey rock after dropping you to your feet. His hungry mouth starts where his gold chain sits on your collar bone, before working a wet path up your neck. “I should’ve called.”
“Yeah,” you agree breathlessly, tilting your chin up to give him more to kiss, hips rolling all on their own, “You should’ve.”
He nips at your shoulder in response, meeting the second one with a deep groan, relishing in the way his name slips off your tongue in a whimper.
“Forgive me, baby.” He begs against your skin, lips ghosting to the hinge of your jaw, hands squeezing at every inch of you he can grab onto. “Let me make it up to you.”
His hand curves around the bend of your knee, pulling it up high on his waist keeping you open for him, while his fingers catch your chin forcing you to meet the moody storm in his gaze. The next snap of his hips feels pointed. A smug smile tugging up one side of his mouth at the quiet whimper he gets from it.
“You like that, huh?” He asks too cocky for his own good doing it again — harder.
Your whimper turns into a moan that he swallows with a greedy tongue, tasting like beer, summer, and mistakes. It’s a clumsy kind of kiss, teeth nipping and scraping, lips moving with the kind of intensity that makes your brain fuzzy. The hold around his neck tightens, your fingers curling into his wet hair pulling at the roots every time the tip of him catches against your clit.
“Think I can make you cum like this?” He pulls away to catch his breath with a wicked grin.
It takes all of your will power to give him a weak roll of your eyes, just for them to stay back when he hits that spot again. The grip on your knee loosens letting his fingers skirt up your thigh. The tips of them push under the bottom of your swimsuit, curving harshly around the fat of your ass encouraging another snap of your hips. It’s hard to regain your focus, lost in the way he touches you like he knows all the secrets of your body still, even after all these years.
“I’d like to see you try.” You manage to get out, fully prepared to lose but refusing to give him the satisfaction.
You wrap your other leg round his waist completely opening yourself up in a silent challenge. Using both hands to cup your ass, he holds you against every inch of him like this, something darkening in the chocolate edges of his eyes. The first grind of his hips is agonizingly slow, stealing the breath from your lungs. Your lashes flutter tickling against the top of your cheeks feeling every ridge and dip of him through the thin material of your swimsuit.
“Fuck,” He huffs, bravado breaking for a split second at the way your thighs tighten around him, pushing your hips off the rock daring him to move the fabric aside and bury himself inside.
Pressing his forehead against yours, his brows furrow in concentration, eyes squeezing shut as a shudder rakes through his body.
“Think I can make you cum like this?” You tease breathlessly, relishing in the twitch at the corners of his lips, the blunt ends of his nails digging into your soft skin trying to regain his strength.
“Right now, it's about you, honey.” He finally comes around, drowning you in the heat of his gaze, the whites of his teeth slowly shining against the water’s reflection.
The hard pointed grind of his hips has your head lulling back, gasping when he does it again, fingers grabbing at the slick skin of his back.
“Oh my god.” You whine, his hands encouraging you to meet every harsh thrust.
“Let me see you fall apart, I don’t think I can make it through the rest of the day without it.” He grunts, begging you for something you’re so close to giving, sending a shiver up your spine. “Can’t keep my fucking hands off you. Don’t want to.”
You can feel the band deep in your gut start to pull tight, legs shaking in his palms at the slow determined circle of his pelvis. He grips your ass with rough fingers, digging into the soft skin with the blunt ends of his nails, pulling you over his length again and again.
“Steve, p-please.” It’s your turn to beg, jaw going slack when he bends down to suck another bruise against the sensitive spot behind your ear.
”Please what, baby?” He whispers against the shell of your ear, the muscles in his arms twitching.
You’re not sure what you’re even begging for. You don’t want his mercy.
“Come on,” Steve coaxes with a sweetness that doesn’t match the harsh way he snaps his hips, pressing a kiss to one of the many fading bruises on your neck. “Tell me how good it feels, I know you want to.”
“S- so fucking good.” You manage to get out before he catches on your clit with just the right amount of pressure that rips a moan so loud from your chest he has to cover your mouth.
He keeps the pace, watching you transfixed with furrowed brows and a slack jaw. You manage the strength to keep your eyes open, holding his gaze, you roll your hips in time with his, slowly opening your mouth sucking three of his fingers into the heat of it.
“Jesus Christ." He hisses, eyes squeezing shut, hips stuttering fighting off his own release when your tongue glides between his index and middle.
You keen around the pads of them when they open again completely black, the length of him pressing into you with just the right amount of pressure that the tip of his cock pushes the thin material of your swimsuit to the side exposing you like a live wire, giving him what he wants without warning. He drowns you in his stare, watching you come undone like a man possessed, locking his hips in place, fingers pushing down on your tongue that goes limp around them in your silent scream. Your nails dig fresh marks into his back, body shaking underneath him.
“Fuck, look at you. Always so good for me even when you don’t wanna be.”
You’d be more annoyed at the smug way he says it, but everything feels too good to get there. He waits till your eyes slowly blink open, finally coming back down before pulling his fingers out. His hairy chest rises and falls in quick succession watching the tips of them catch on your kiss bitten bottom lip, eyes glazing over at the string of spit that clings to the pads of them.
“I can’t stand you,” You finally breathe, making him bark out a loud laugh in response, eyes shimmering with the kind of adoration that buzzes in your veins. A panic you’re not sure will ever go away tightening around your heart that swells because of it.
“There she is.” He winks, readjusting you in his arms relishing in the aftershocks that shake your thighs in his grasp, and the smile that tugs at the edges of your lips.
“Don’t let this get to your head, Harrington.” The roll of your eyes is feeble, fingers twisting the ends of his hair.
”Too late.” The grin that’s starting to feel like it’s reserved just for you pushes up his flushed cheeks as he bends down to press a light kiss to the base of your neck, peppering them up your jaw before claiming your own.
Your lips melt with ease, like they were always meant to be there, fingers burying themselves deeper in the thickness of his hair. They move slowly against each other this time, the need for dominance disappearing in the tender way his tongue brushes against yours. You get lost in it probably longer than you should, only stopping yourselves when the familiar heat starts to build between your thighs again.
”We should probably head back, huh?” You whisper against his mouth, the tips of your noses touching.
His grip on you tightens, a low annoyed groan coming from the back of his throat before nodding his head begrudgingly, pulling away.
“Yeah, Eddie’s gonna be pissed if we don’t start looking for a spot soon.” Steve huffs out a laugh, slowly letting go of your thighs just to grab onto your hips so you can find balance on shaky legs.
”He’s always taken fireworks very seriously,” You smirk up at him, enjoying the way the water cools your skin, lapping at your chest.
“He’s a pyro is what he is.” Steve corrects in a tone that tells you that it’s more than just fireworks, remembering the argument at their trailer about the fire pit.
You can’t stop the giggle that slips past your lips, earning a narrowed stare from your ex boyfriend that's not feeling so much like an ex anymore.
“Well, let's go then.” You sigh, walking away from him suddenly finding it very hard to look him in the eyes.
”Hey, not so fast. ” His hand wraps easily around your wrist, pulling you back to him, your palms landing on his chest.
“What?” You ask too shy for your liking, finally meeting his gaze.
He stares down at you, bright eyes shining in the sun tracing the edges of your face trying to read your mind. A wet hand cups the side of it, the pad of his thumb running delicately along your heated skin.
“Stay at my place tonight.” There’s nothing smug about the small smile that twists at the edges of his mouth. It’s nervous — vulnerable. “Eddie’s gonna be gone, it’ll just be me and you.”
”Ste-“
”Don’t — don’t answer right now. Just think about it okay?” He says softly, holding you like he’s fighting with will power to let you go. You don’t think you want him to.
”O-okay.” You whisper, grappling with the fact that you’re probably going to say yes, and what that means for your heart in a month and a half.
“Let’s get out of here.” He grins, pressing a kiss to your forehead before lacing his fingers with yours keeping you close as you walk back to your friends that you know are never going to let you hear the end of this. But when he lifts your hand to his lips once you round the bend, you can’t find it in yourself to care.
——
“Well, well, well, look who it is.” Eddie calls out from the picnic table with a mouth full of burger watching you and Steve walk up with the hot pink tube in tow, just like he promised.
”Didn’t know me having to pee wouldn’t make you two so horny.” Robin smirks around her beer can, taking a large gulp with a wink.
”Can you stop talking about pissing in the lake?” Steve sighs, irritation evident in the disgusted twist of his lips dropping the floatie onto the ground. He takes your hand, fingers lacing with yours like this is normal now, squeezing tighter when he feels your instinct to pull away.
“He was just showing me this cool spot.” You try weakly, hoping for that one percent chance they’ll believe it. An effort you know doesn’t work almost immediately, when your best friend snorts so loud she almost spits out her beer, making your face feel like the surface of the sun.
“Do they give out hickies at this ‘cool’ spot too? If so, please let me know where you went.” Eddie antagonizes with air quotes, taking another bite of his burger, ketchup dripping onto his paper plate.
“No, she got those from me.” Steve grins unphased, admiring his work with a hunger in his eyes that somehow heats up your cheeks more. “I’ll tell you what though, I’m starving.”
It might not be too late to fake an illness, or maybe you can just hide in the woods for the rest of the evening.
“I can’t wait to see if she punches you tonight.” Eddie responds, catching the mortified look on your face and you can’t stop the giggle that bubbles out because you actually want to right now.
Fuck, you want to kiss him too.
”Oh, it’s definitely going to happen.” Robin laughs, setting a plate full of food in the spot next to her and the other across the table where Steve sat before.
Excitement buzzes from your fingertips seeing your escape from his PDA in the sanctuary of a spot next to your best friend. A perfect place to bury the feelings you desperately tried to run away from five years ago. Maybe it was post orgasm clarity or maybe it was panic because you want to succumb to them so badly after realizing they were never really gone, just laying dormant.
He finally frees his hold on your hand to walk over to the cherry red cooler grabbing two beers. Robin pats the spot on the bench next to her with a wiggle of her eyebrows and a smirk that tells you that she’s not going to let you avoid this. Rolling your eyes at her, you try fighting the smile that plays on your lips that curve up anyway. Eddie hums knowingly, huffing out a laugh with a shake of his head that turns into a full bellied one when you flip him off.
”What’s so funny over here - and where do you think you’re going?” Steve chuckles, wrapping a toned bicep around your waist before you can make it to Robin, both of your hands reaching out for each other dramatically.
He tugs you onto his lap, palm splayed across your belly like it belongs there. Leaning over your shoulder the heat of his breath fans down the side of your neck as he drags your plate over, an involuntary shiver running up your spine. You can almost feel his knowing smirk against your skin. It feels natural to melt into him, muscles relaxing as he hooks his chin over your shoulder, squirting ketchup on your hot dog first. He noses the edge of your jaw before squeezing you, grabbing his burger with one big hand. Robin doesn’t miss the sparkle in your eye or the small smile that never goes away.
”I think she’ll give Harrington a black eye before fireworks. Want to take bets?” Eddie points to Robin who hasn’t stopped watching both of you, like she’s finally solved the puzzle.
”I don’t know anymore Munson, it looks an awful lot like she’s right where she wants to be.” She responds, a slow smile spreading across her face that turns blinding when you don’t argue.
The pad of Steve’s thumb starts tracing lazy patterns against your tummy, and it feels too good in his arms to want to keep true to your original plan.
You can bury it after the Fourth of July.
——
It’s dark by the time you reach the spot Eddie picked out on top of the same cliff you and Steve hid behind. Out of breath, and covered in sweat, the hike up the side of it almost doesn’t feel worth it until you step onto the plateau and see the entire lake, even the shimmering lights from the main strip in town. Sparklers glitter beneath you leaving white streaks in the air as the kids run up and down the shore line. The stars shine bright in the clear night sky painted navy blue, despite the edges in the distance being swallowed up by billowing lavender storm clouds. Faint flashes of lightning dance inside of them, just far enough out that you know it won’t interrupt the show, but you’ll definitely need to run back to your cars when it’s done.
The thin zip up hoodie you changed into sticks to your skin just like the cotton shorts that replaced your swim trunks, goosebumps pebbling under the cool breeze that whips around you from this height. Steve trails close behind, just like he has the entire walk up, the heat of his stare only adding the muggy warmth that’s wrapped around you all day. That big hand of his always hovering against your lower back every time you’d lose your balance.
“I also didn’t excel in gym class and I resent the way you under exaggerated the walk up here, Eddie.” Robin huffs stopping in front of you, bending over with her hands on her knees to catch her breath.
This is why you’re best friends.
”Yeah, I second that.” You gasp, the back of your hand smacking across your sticky forehead, the other supporting your lower back stretching your spine trying to even out your breathing.
Steve snorts coming up beside you, stopping in that signature stance of his you haven’t seen since high school. He winks at you with hands on his cocked hips, like you can’t see the quick rise and fall of his chest from here. The fresh tan on his skin practically glows against the clean white of his sleeveless shirt, the wind blowing open the sides so you can see the thick patch of hair that your fingers itch to feel again. A cocky grin quirks up one side of his mouth when he catches you staring and you hate him for it — for always looking like that.
”Well, well, well, look who’s the monkey in the middle now.” Eddie grins from his place in front with his arms crossed over the Metallica logo on chest, stopping right at the edge of the cliff.
“Is this revenge because you can’t catch a fucking ball?” Steve breathes, irritation evident looking wearily at the storm in the distance that seems to only grow in size.
“Fuck off, no. Maybe a little, but not really. I mean look at the view!” He smiles wide, spreading his arms out in hopes of a distraction.
”You’re annoying.” Robin groans, smacking one of them out her way before sitting down on the smooth grey stone. “You’re lucky it’s so pretty up here.”
”It’s going to be worth it guys, trust me.” Eddie coos like a parent trying to settle rowdy children plopping down next to your best friend.
“If we get struck by lightning up here, you’re fixing my car for free.” You finally find your voice, oxygen leaving in and out of your lungs like a normal person now.
”Ehh, maybe.” He shrugs, pulling out a joint from behind his ear, turning around to wink at you, barking out a loud laugh at the second middle finger he’s earned from you today.
”So feisty, honey.” Steve tsks from right next to your ear, a shiver running up your spine not realizing he’d gotten so close.
His fingers trail down the dip of your back, before finding your hand wasting no time tugging you onto his lap instead of the rock beneath you in one quick motion. A shocked gasp escapes past your lips, as he loops his arm around your middle, and a hand around your thigh keeping you in the dip between his legs with yours draped over the side of his hairy thigh. It feels like he’s surrounding you,sinking guilt roiling in your gut because you hate that it’s still not enough. Despite the way you’ve been teasing him all night, you duck your head down resting your cheek against his collar bone, inhaling the cedar, beer and sunscreen that sticks to him.
“Oh brother, am I going to have to hear giggles and lip smacking noises with my explosions?” Eddie grumbles looking back at the two of you lighting the joint.
”Shut up!” Robin smacks his arm with a scowl, “It’s cute, don’t ruin it.”
This is why she’s Steve’s best friend too.
”He’s clearly just mad that his little prediction didn’t come true.” Steve antagonizes, his deep voice vibrating against you from his chest, your eyes fixate on the way his Adam’s apple bobs with every word.
”There’s still time.” You manage, swallowing hard using all of your will power to tear your eyes away and meet Eddie’s toothy grin.
Steve huffs out a laugh over the top of your head, fingers squeezing your thigh playfully before the pad of his thumb smooths out the goosebumps that pebble under his touch.
The first firework soars into the sky, surprising everyone with its loud boom. Kids squeal and laugh below you, drunk parents whistling as the next three follow in quick succession lighting up the darkness. Eddie passes Robin the joint he’s clearly saved for this, taking a few puffs she twists herself to pass it back to you, smiling warmly at the view. You give her a weak ‘don’t think about it’ kind of look that she sees right through, waving you off with a roll of her eyes but a grin still intact as you take it from her.
You take a few hits, holding them in your lungs long enough to feel the burn before blowing it over Steve’s shoulder towards the woods. He’s too distracted to notice the way you stare at him, your gaze trailing up his neck that's stretched as he looks up at the sky. It gives you the perfect view of all the freckles and moles that dot this side more than the other. Colors burst in the reflection of his eyes with a slight part of his full pink lips, it’s obvious the only thing that’s been through his hair today is his fingers and yours. Still damp from sweat, the long swoop that’s constantly in his way tickles the narrow bridge of his nose, but he doesn’t seem to care, too enamored with show.
God damnit he was cute.
The long day makes it easy for your body to relax, eyelids growing lazy folding into him from the slow strokes of his thumb and the weed.
“Hey,” you whisper just loud enough for his ears, heart thumping wildly in your chest when he brings his full attention back to you.
The whites of his teeth shine, pulling you closer on instinct like he just remembered you were here. That he could touch you. Feel you. His wandering hands wake up at the notion.
“Hey pretty.” He murmurs so sweetly, that you almost ache with the need to hear it again.
“D-do you want any?” You stutter, shy like you used to be in the 12th grade.
Steve dips his head down, the tip of his nose brushing against yours.
“No,” he breathes against your lips, “gotta be sober enough to take us home after this.”
“I never said I was going home with you.” You try to play coy with him and yourself but deep down you’ve always known you were going to say yes.
“Sober enough to take you back to Robin’s then.” He plays along but the way the edges of his mouth curve tells you he knows he’s won.
Nudging your nose with his, there’s something mischievous in the way you narrow your eyes at him before leaning forward to pass the joint back to Eddie. He grabs it absentmindedly, barely tearing his gaze from the sky as you do your best to ignore the heat emanating off Steve’s. You go back to your spot against his shoulder, pressing your cheek back into his collar bone listening to the quick thumping of his heart that falls in step with the fireworks that have started to explode three to four at a time now. You wonder if he can feel yours beating faster with his long fingers curled around your ribs.
”Hey,” He whispers against the shell of your ear, making your teeth dig hard into your bottom lip.
”Yeah?” It comes out quiet as you bring your eyes back to his, all the blood in your body rushing to your cheeks at the lovesick look on his face. The kind you’d only seen on those late nights in his room. One that you’d thought was reserved for just you.
It still feels that way now, despite him proving you otherwise all those years ago. The reminder is a subtle pang in your chest, a pain you push down when the warmth of his palm cups the side of your face. The rough callouses on his thumb tickle tracing the line of your cheek bone before the curves of your bottom lip tilting your chin up a little more. He doesn’t say anything, the booms of the fireworks growing louder, their frequency letting you know it's reaching the end of the show. The soft roll of thunder catches your ears in the distance reminding you of the impending rain fall you’re sure to get trapped in but you can’t bring yourself to care. Not when he looks at you like this.
The bright colors dance in his eyes, the glittering lights casting shadows on his sharp features. His full pink lips curve softly at the edges, all traces of whatever game the two of you have been playing absent from his stare. Instead, it feels an awful lot like he’s in love with you, like he’s been waiting to look at you for years and it steals the air right from your lungs. The need to breathe becomes something you could care less about as you reach up curling your fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck, tugging him closer in a silent plea. One he answers eagerly, closing the space with the kind of urgency that tells you permission is all he was waiting for.
They slot together like you’ve missed each other despite his hands refusing to leave you all day. The sound of the finale hides the way they start moving together with the kind of desperation that feels like unspoken words trying to come out, confessions slipping off tongues.Your friends are too enthralled by the shimmering lights above not knowing you're breaking all your promises from a few feet away. Tugging at his roots the last brick of your wall starts to come loose from the cracked cement that holds it there. The last soldier standing, searching for his white flag.
His teeth nip at your bottom lip before finally pulling away, the last explosion hiding the whimper he gets from everyone but him. The pad of his thumb traces where he just bit, before pulling away with perfect timing as Robin and Eddie turn around with red eyes and thrilled smiles.
“Better than last yea — oh fuck.” Eddie starts only to get interrupted by the first rain drop landing on his cheek.
The loud roll of thunder following has the four of you meet each other with wide eyes, fight or flight kicking in as a wall of falling water starts gliding across the lake drenching everything it touches, reaching you when you all finally get to your feet.
”Run!” Robin screams with a laugh, flip flops clacking loudly taking off into the woods.
”Mother fucker!” Eddie follows, a wide smile splitting his face in two following her with the kind of pace that you know will have him passing her up in a matter of seconds.
Steve grins down at you, stealing one more kiss like he’s in no rush before grabbing your hand, setting a pace you can keep up with, lacing his fingers with yours when you encourage him to go faster, catching your stride through the dancing trees.
——
You’re completely soaked by the time you reach the break in the woods, feet hitting the pavement of the parking lot that’s in utter chaos as families try to hurry and pack everything up.
”What’s the plan?” Eddie yells to Steve over the downpour that mixes with the sounds of kids screaming and laughing. Hair so wet his curls tighten. “Who’s driving who? I can take Robin on my way to Carol’s if you guys are gonna hang out.”
They all three look at you. Steve squeezes your hand, and you don’t meet his gaze when you answer.
”I- I’m gonna go with Steve.”
Robin’s smile can’t physically get any bigger.
”Have fun, love birds!” Eddie teases one last time walking backwards towards his van getting his third and final middle finger he pretends to catch and stick in his pocket.
”Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” Robin calls over her shoulder with a giggle, the two of them disappearing into the crowd.
The curve of Steve’s lips is sweet when you finally find the courage to meet his gaze, the smugness from before nonexistent on his relaxed features as he lifts your hand brushing a kiss to your knuckles.
”There’s somewhere I want to show you before we head to my place.”
——
Steve’s car is still warm enough from baking in the sun all day that he doesn’t even need to turn on the heat as you drive around to the other side of the lake, a big hand on your thigh the whole way. Your clothes go from wet to damp by the time you reach this ‘secret’ spot hidden under a tent of leaning trees. It’s a small patch of gravel road wide enough to fit a car hidden on the side of an even bigger cliff. It stops right at the edge of the water, small waves lapping onto the smooth grey rocks. He squeezes your thigh before the heat of his hand disappears to put the car in park.
The engine cuts off just leaving the soft clicks of it cooling down, and the hard patter of the rain on the metal roof. Steve’s eyes meet yours from across the console leaning back against his window to face you. His white shirt is practically translucent, showing the dark patch of hair on his chest attached to the happy trail that disappears underneath his swim trucks that cling to his sunkissed skin. The sight has you biting your bottom lip mimicking his position, a knowing smirk playing at the corners of your mouth.
”Hi honey.” He grins, cocking an eyebrow, his gaze shameless as it takes in the tight way your wet hoodie sticks to the bottom swell of your breasts. You can feel your nipples pebble underneath the intensity of it, and he shifts in his seat.
”Hey,” you whisper, trying not to think about how the endearment doesn’t make your chest tighten with anger anymore, tongue wetting your lips, Steve tracks the movements.
”I know we’ve had this sarcastic back and forth since you’ve been here.” He clears his throat like the Steve you used to know, a nervous hand pushing his hair back, cracking open the cocoons hanging from your ribcage. ”But I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about what I’d do if I ever had you in front of me again. What I would say.”
His eyes look weary watching your face for any sign to shut up, and part of you wishes he would because you know the free fall that happens after this, but a bigger part of you doesn’t care anymore. You don’t even have a parachute.
”And now here you are in front of me,” he continues, squaring his shoulders when he realizes that you don’t want him to stop. “Letting me kiss you, touch you, fuck — hold you. I need you to understand how much I missed holding you, baby.”
Baby.
“Stev -“
”Just let me finish please, I don’t want to be with you tonight and not have said any of this.” He pleads with another card of his hair, it’s the most serious he’s been all summer. Your pulse quickens, nerves buzzing in your veins. “You’re giving me your time when god knows I don’t deserve it — I just need you to know that I’m not taking you for granted this time. And I’ll never regret this no matter what happens this summer.”
His words take a wrecking ball to that last brick, cracking your chest wide open, unlocking that part of your heart that you tried to pretend didn’t exist anymore. The rain falls harder, the air growing thicker.
“I need a redo of that kiss in the rain, Harrington.” You smile, leaning forward wrapping your hand around his wrist tugging him so close that your noses touch.
The darkness of his pupils expands, stealing the emerald around them in a love sick way, understanding you without saying anything.
”I’m always going to give you whatever you want.” He reminds you, the corner of his mouth ticking up at the small sigh that slips from your lips.
Tilting your chin up, you steal a small kiss he can barely return before you’re pulling away with a giggle, yanking the door open slipping out into the storm. Steve wastes no time joining you, his head poking over the top of his car with playful narrowed eyes.
“You think that’s funny?” He raises his eyebrows, slamming his door shut, the rain making his shirt more see through as he rounds the front of his car. Your wet thighs meet at the way he stalks towards you like he’s ready to get exactly what he wants.
You were going to let him.
”Mmhm.” You hum with a nod, biting back your grin with teeth that dig into your bottom lip, backing away from him.
”Why don’t you let me show you just how funny I can be then?” He smirks, closing in until your back hits the wide trunk of a tree.
“And why should I do that?” You try, but the tone in your voice doesn't match the way your fingers curl around the waist band of his trunks pulling him closer. Begging him to crowd your space till there’s no more room left.
One big hand finds a home next to your head, while the other gently tugs down the zipper of your hoodie, letting it fall open sucking a breath through his teeth at the way your nipples stand at attention for him. The pad of his thumb brushes against one relishing in the small gasp he gets in return.
”Why?” He murmurs ducking down so the tip of his nose nudges against yours, black eyes swallowing you whole. “Because it’ll feel so good.”
The back of his fingers glide down your sternum, tickling against your navel before pushing past the elastic of your waist band. A low growl rumbles deep from his chest finding you so wet they slip through your folds with so much ease that he can feel the way your walls already try to suck him in.
“Jesus Christ baby.” He huffs, pressing his forehead to yours, doing it again only this time he pushes the tip of his middle finger in, becoming obsessed with the high pitch way you say his name.
You find the strength to fist the soaked hair at the nape of his neck, tugging at the roots, crushing your mouth into his, hungry and needy. He moans into it, his hand slipping out of your shorts to grab your face between slick covered fingers determined to steal the breath from your lungs with a brush of his tongue. Your back curves, pressing every inch of your body to his, shuddering when you feel the hard weight of him against the inside of your thigh. The trees do little to protect you from the rain, the cool drops tickling the tops of your cheeks, and dripping off your chin.
“C-car.” you manage to say in between kisses, gasping when he licks a path up your neck taking your earlobe into the heat of his mouth, sucking hard enough for your eyes to hit the back of your head.
”You sure?” He breaths against your skin, hands dropping down to squeeze at your hips.
All you can manage is a nod, pushing him towards the BMW determined to make a new memory in it and erase the one that broke your heart. He keeps his lips on yours the few feet to the car, his back hitting the wet metal. Nipping at your bottom lip, his hand reaches behind him to try and find the handle. It’s a fruitless effort though, he’s too distracted by the way you pull away and start trailing messy kisses down his neck. Tugging at the collar of his shirt, you nip at his clavicle before traveling down, mouthing at the wet cotton covering his chest following the happy trail all the way to what you want. He blinks slowly, staring at you, jaw going slack as you drop to your knees in front of him.
“What - what are you doing?” He sounds wrecked, nothing like the confident man he’s been all day.
“What does it look like, Steve?” Looking up at him from under your lashes, you pull the front of his trunks down, releasing him from the net confines.
He throws his head back whispering a string of cuss words pushing his dripping hair out of his face. Eyes completely black when he finally looks at you again.
Revenge is sweet, just like the precum that leaks from his tip that you lap up with the kind of greed you should be embarrassed of. Steve sucks a harsh breath through his nose, fingers twitching at his sides to grab onto you for dear life. Your hands wrap around the base of him, licking up the length relishing in the twitch you get in response before taking as much as you can in the heat of your mouth. The moan that rips from his chest is so loud that the roll of thunder shaking the sky barely hits your ears.
“You’re fucking perfect.” He breathes, the sweetest whimper leaving the back of his throat when you make a point to flick your tongue against his sensitive tip.
You suck so hard, your cheeks hollow out, the lewd sounds of your wet mouth has drool dripping down your chin. The rain only aiding you in completely ruining him.
“I- I don’t want to cum like this - shit.” He grunts, throwing his head back searching for reprieve in cold droplets that hit his rosy cheeks. “Need to feel you, I’ve wanted it all day.”
Ignoring his pleas, you open your throat and take him as far as he can fit, the tip of your nose brushing against the rough hair at the base of him. His hand smacks the side of the door with the kind of weight behind it that echoes through the trees.
“Don’t make me beg, I fucking will if that’s what you want.” He babbles, when you do it again with a curve to your lips tasting just how close he really is. “Please, let me have it, please.”
You hear him search for the handle of the back door again, making you quicken your pace.
“Jesus Christ.” He groans, finally finding what he’s looking for, wasting no time pulling you off him with a loud pop before yanking the door open.
He tugs you up by your elbows, not letting you catch your breath before crashing his mouth into yours. One hand finds your hip, bringing your body flush against him, the hard length of his cock pressing into your tummy, the other wrapping around the back of your neck, tilting your head up. Licking into you, he moans at the eager way you match his energy, fingers curling into their favorite home in his hair.
Steve wraps his arm around the small of your back tugging you into his back seat in one smooth swoop. Your knees land on the leather seat either side of hips, teeth sinking into his full bottom lip as he slams the door shut. It’s a mess of tongues fighting for dominance, the desperate need to devour each other turning touches animalistic.
“Take this off.” He grunts, roughly shoving the rest of your hoodie off your shoulders, the fabric hitting the floor in a wet smack.
His lips waste no time taking your nipple into the heat of his mouth, the blunt ends of your nails digging into his biceps. A whine escapes the back of your throat when he sucks harshly, head lulling back against the head rest of the passenger seat.
“Steve — god, I need you.” Panting, the slow flicks of his tongue have you start to paw at his soaked shirt.
He helps you remove the offending fabric, dropping it next to yours with another wet smack of water. Your hands waste no time, burying themselves in the hair on his chest sliding them up finding a new home on the cluster of moles that dot his shoulders. Lifting your hips, you hold his heavy gaze, grinding against him, shuddering when the tip of him brushes against your clit through the fabric of your shorts.
“God damn it. Take. These. Off. Too.” he growls with flared nostrils, his fingers curling around the waist band shoving them down.
You help him fight the cotton that tries to cling to your thighs, giggling at the irritated huff he gives, smiling against him when he finally gets what he wants, kicking off his trunks in the process. You moan in unison at the feeling of your skin against each other, lighting a fire making your brain fuzzy. His tongue licks at your bottom lip, begging for entry that you grant with no resistance. The length of his cock slides through the slick between your thighs with ease, so wet that you coat him instantly. Steve looks down, guiding your hips over him watching the way he glides between your folds, brows knitting together at the sheen you leave behind.
“Gonna give me what I want, baby?” He teases your entrance, voice so low it sends another wave of arousal to your core.
“Mmhmm.” You nod with a whimper, lashes fluttering kissing the top of your cheeks at the tip of him pushing into you.
“So good to me, you know that?” Pressing his forehead to yours, his words come out hot against your lips, keeping his eyes on you, burying himself half way in.
“Oh my god.” You gasp, squeezing your eyes shut at the stretch you’ll never get used to, thighs shaking, body threatening to fold against him.
“I know, fuck, you feel — you’re so god damn wet.” His words come out through clenched teeth, using all of his will power to take his time and let you adjust.
“M-more.” You manage after a moment, eyes finding him at the same time you rock your hips, letting him slip further inside.
His name comes out in a gasp, jaw going slack as he buries himself to the hilt of you, the tip of him dangerously close to hitting your cervix. His head lulls back, bottoming out with a moan, the blunt ends of his nails digging into the soft dough of your hips.
“Baby, baby, baby.” He practically whines, sucking in a sharp breath through his nose, before meeting your eyes again.
A lazy smile spreads across your face at the dazed way he looks up at you like he’s seeing for the first time and butterflies that used to exist for him stretch new wings.
”I like when you call me that, now.” You admit shyly, fingers coming up to play with the gold chain still hanging from your neck.
“Yeah?” He grins, rolling his hips up just enough to earn a whimper. “You don’t want to punch me anymore?”
“I didn’t say that.” The edges of your lips dare to grin as you lean back, your palms finding his hairy thighs, grinding against him from the kind of angle that has him groaning so loud it drowns out the storm outside.
“One day you’ll quit lying to yourself, honey.” He manages with a soft laugh, gathering your ass in his big hands pulling you back against him, smiling with all his teeth at the moan he’s been waiting for. ”You would’ve done it already.”
It’s hard to concentrate on a witty comeback when his harsh grip keeps moving you at the kind of pace that has your hands land on his shoulders, the blunt ends of your nails digging into them.
“Wearing my chain, acting like you don’t wanna be mine.” He growls, picking you up to slam you back down on his cock, burying himself somehow even deeper and you think you might break skin. “You’re not fooling me.”
”No?” You quip, finally finding the strength to meet his thrusts, slick knees sticking to the leather seats with every quick snap of your hips. “You think I’m lying?”
The corner of his mouth ticks up, sweat beading at his damp hairline as both of his palms come down on your ass in a loud smack, immediately massaging where he hit, relishing in the way you gasp his name with fluttering walls.
“I don’t think,” He whispers, gripping you with one hand while his other curls around the gold metal chain. “I know.”
He pulls you to him by it, tongue tracing the curve of your bottom lip before swallowing your moan when he starts bucking up into you like he’s trying to prove his point. The kiss is sloppy, open mouthed and wet, your fingers digging back into his hair using it as your anchor to bounce yourself to the pace he’s trying to set. A growl rips low from the back of his throat, but you don’t miss the hint of a grin that pulls up the corners of his lips at your stubbornness.
“Proving my point baby,” His words come out hot against your cheek, trailing his lips along your jaw catching his breath, “Just do it.”
”Do what?” You gasp at the hickey he starts to leave behind your ear.
His tongue laps the indentations of his teeth on your skin, nosing his way back up with contrasting soft kisses to your pouty lips as you take the lead, grinding slow against him.
”Be mine.” He breathes like it’s as simple as two words. Like you hadn’t promised yourself to never be here again. Two words that mean more to you that you swore never would.
He presses his lips to the corner of your mouth, whispering ‘please’, then both your cheeks, chanting it like a mantra. The hand on your ass slides forward to dip between your thighs, the pad of his thumb finding your clit, rubbing slow circles. He adds just enough pressure for your body to shake, finally folding into him, sticky forehead pressing against his.
“You don’t understand what you’re asking me.” You whisper, meeting his dark gaze through heavy lids, the roll of your hips chasing more, working your muscle to bring him with you to the end.
“Give me the summer then,” Steve lets go of his chain, using his free hand to cup your cheek, bringing a softness to everything, the fogged up windows smoothing all the edges.
Your hips circle in time with his thumb, lost in the gold flecks that come out like stars in his eyes. He makes it seem so simple.
“Give me the summer to prove myself to you. Show you how good we can be.” He nudges the tip of his nose with yours, the pace of your hips starting to pick back up. The coil in your gut tightening.
“What happens when summer ends?” Your response comes out inside a half moan when he slides further down in the seat, taking up all the space inside you.
“We’ll worry about that later.” He grunts, eyebrows marrying in the middle of his forehead at the way you squeeze around him. “Don’t wanna play whatever game this is anymore, want you all the time.”
“Steve,” You whine his name without the intent to argue with him behind it.
“Like when you say my name like that.” He smirks, hips stuttering telling you he’s just as close.
His thumb swipes over your bundle of nerves with the kind of fervor that feels like he’s determined to watch you far apart.
“Come on baby, let me take you on dates, cook you dinner. Wanna wake up to you.” He practically begs, as you grind down hard against him, realizing you’re tired of saying no.
You nod and Steve pushes his hips up, burying himself so deep it feels like he’s splitting you in two.
“Need to hear you say it.” He growls keeping his thrusts slow and pointed, drawing the kind of whimpers from you he’s become obsessed with.
“Y-yes.” You gasp, legs starting to shake as he adds more pressure to clit.
“Yes - fuck - yes what?” He antagonizes, a shudder rolling off his shoulders, holding himself back.
“I’ll be yours.” You grit out, pushing your forehead harder into to his.
He moans so loud at your words like he’s been waiting to hear them all his life. The snap of his hips picks up the kind of pace that has your eyes rolling in the back of your head, the wire inside you ready to snap, your walls tightening with a vice grip around him.
“Need you to come with me, can you do that, pretty?” He whispers against your lips, swallowing you in the kind of stare that makes you always want to say yes to him.
Nodding, it feels impossible to form words, his name coming out in a whimper as you meet his thrusts with desperate energy to give him what he’s asking for. The lewd sound of sweat slick skin smacking against each other fills the quiet space of the car mixing in contrast with the calming rain.
“Come on, I can feel it. Give it to me.” His demand comes out in a low growl, cock twitching inside of you.
His hands find the curve of your ass again, pulling you closer, pushing deeper, hitting that spot that has your jaw go slack in a silent scream. Your own fireworks explode behind closed lids, the blunt ends of your nails digging harder into the freckles on his shoulders.
“So fucking good for me.” He grunts, before his body goes rigid, spilling everything he has inside of you. It’s almost enough for you to cum again, your walls miking him for all of it.
The two of you sit there sweaty, working hard to catch your breath while needy hands still wander, touching the skin you can reach. You wait for that familiar creeping itch of regret to make you want to run from all of this, but it doesn’t come when his eyes open meeting yours glazed over with love instead of lust. It still doesn’t show up even as he starts peppering soft kisses on your face whispering thank you’s and sweet words about how pretty you are. Still, nothing comes when he cleans you off using his own shirt, ringing out your clothes before trying his best to cover you up, in a mess of giggles.
And when holds your face between his hands saying, “Let’s go home baby.” You don’t think it ever will.
summary: you saved jack abbot's life once, and now he insists on returning the favor. (6k)
characters: jack abbot / fem!reader, michael robinavitch, trinity santos
contents: army medic!reader, friends to lovers, slow burn, mutual pining, angst with a happy ending, hurt/comfort, canon divergence, not proofread cw for medical inaccuracies, heavy mentions of ptsd and grief, mentions of blood and gore, and allusions to smut 18+ (MDNI)
FIC #7 / 20 FOR 20
( NAVIGATION ) | ( MASTERLIST ) | ( AO3 )
You find Jack Abbot the same way you left him — covered in bright red blood — though it doesn’t seem to be his this time.
You’re a few hours on your first shift as interim attending when the man rushes in from the ambulance bay. The camo tactical gear sitting heavily over his muscular form is strikingly familiar to you, along with the sweat matting his curls to his forehead. The wild strands are a lot more grey than you remember, and the smile lines that weren’t there before have since etched themselves into the corners of his eyes. The years have been endlessly kind to him, by the looks of it.
“Intubated neck wound. Sats not great. We were diverted here— Is there a trauma room open?” the man rambles all at once, before he’s even glanced up from the plastic mask he squeezes in a gloved hand. He jogs alongside the rolling gurney with a faint limp from his prosthetic. His stride stutters slightly when his eyes finally lift to find you, rushing to the stretcher with Robby at your side.
There’s a faint twitch of uncertainty in his light eyes, like he’s trying to gauge whether or not he’s seen a ghost. You miss the look of flickering amusement entirely as you snap on a pair of blue latex gloves, gaze zeroed in on the blood gushing around the intubation tube in the unconscious man’s throat.
“What’s the story?” Robby asks, following in the man’s hurried stride.
“My buddy, Officer Hiro,” Jack answers immediately, through a series of panted breaths. “High-velocity GSW, warehouse robbery gone sideways. He’s getting harder to bag.”
The windowless trauma room swallows you whole as you wheel the gurney inside. The four walls swell suddenly with the scent of coppery blood and bitter chlorhexidine. Nurses rush to wake the surrounding monitors with a set of electronic chirps, while Jack escorts the officers he came with out of the room. “We’ll take care of him, I promise,” you hear the man say as you slide your stethoscope into your ears.
You press the chestpiece to the man’s bloodied sternum, bare from where his uniform had already been cut down to his waist and sticky with fresh blood. His heartbeat is weak and rapid in your ears, barely maintaining enough pressure to reach his brain.
“Pulse is thready,” you murmur and slide the diaphragm half an inch higher. “Diminished breath sounds on the right…”
Jack appears across from you, mouth curling into a familiar crooked grin. “We have got to stop meeting like this, Doc,” he jokes in a gritty deadpan.
“That’s crazy— I was thinking the exact same thing,” you quip and slip the stethoscope back around your neck. “Dr. Santos, let’s make sure these lungs are up.”
“You two know each other?” Robby wonders aloud. He glances between you and Jack with a pair of suspiciously narrowed eyes as he plucks a pair of scissors from the metal tray beside him.
“Yeah, you could say that…” Jack huffs with his eyes on the blade, which slices mechanically through the end of the endotracheal tube protruding from Hiro’s throat.“Pulling out,” the man announces before sliding the thing out through his mouth. “Bag.”
A silver-haired nurse, whom you’ve yet to come acquainted with, squeezes at the valve mask at Jack’s instruction. Air bubbles at the wound.
“He’s not moving any air,” you call to the crowded room. “Get me a neonatal mask.”
“Neonatal?” Santos echoes with furrowed brows.
“Yeah, we’re gonna put it over the wound to keep his airflow up while Dr. Abbot cuts a full-length tube and Dr. Robby shifts his trachea back into place,” you explain with a firm nod, smiling softly as you turn back to the attendings across from you. “Sound like a plan?”
Robby glances up at you from where he’s hunched over Hiro’s body, with two gloved fingers searching for his vocal cords. A faint smile lifts the corner of his mouth. “Do you always explain procedures like you’re assigning homework?” he laughs.
“If you’re asking if she’s always been this bossy, yes, she has,” Jack quips with a crooked grin that widens at the edges when you roll your eyes, turning away to accept the neonatal mask a nurse passes from behind you. “And yes, it saved my life— Santos, cut me down a 6-0 ET tube, will you?”
“Oh, do tell…” Robby hums.
“There’s nothing to tell,” you huff and set the mask of the neonatal tube over the bubbling wound, helping the air move in and out of the unconscious man’s lungs. “It’s just the kinda stuff that happens when you’re an army medic— you win some, you lose some.”
“Oh, she’s just being modest,” Jack croons drily as he irrigates the wound with saline, washing away clotted blood until the displaced trachea emerges beneath the crimson. His gloved fingers move alongside yours as he rambles. “She had orders to leave me after I got hit by that IED… The rest of ‘em were pulling back— didn’t have much of a choice but to, really, but… She didn’t… She dragged me about… What was it? Two-hundred meters?”
Jack’s eyes lift and find yours have gone strangely distant. Your gaze zeroes in on the neck wound below; your mind wanders against your will.
The freezing A.C. of the emergency department grows sweltering in an instant, burning like the familiar desert heat that feels like dry fire in your lungs. Black smoke threatens to fog your vision all at once. The antiseptic smell turns suddenly to burning fuel. And the blood on your hands becomes darker, fresher, running over your fingers like an open faucet.
Your hands start to tremble the same way they did when you tied the tourniquet around Jack’s wounded limb, made of nothing more than exposed nerves and tendons from the knee down. You feel your legs weaken the same way they did when you dragged Jack’s weight across unforgiving ground beneath earth-shaking explosions and whizzing bullets.
Jack apologized through his guttural screams — because, even now, he swears the pain from the tourniquet hurt more than losing his leg — as you sat him up behind an unmanned tank.
“Shut. Up,” you commanded, covering his mouth with your bloodied hand. “Or I swear to god, I will kill you if we make it out of here— Do you understand?”
You made it out. And it became a funny story everyone told back at the VA — that time you threatened the life of the man you were saving — though you still struggle to laugh about it even still.
“…Right, Doc?” Jack presses, head ducking in an attempt to catch your eye.
Your hands remain firm over the small mask pressed to the wound in Hiro’s neck, but your face has emptied into an expressionless sort of look. It takes a long moment for your brain to will your eyes to blink, and only then does the sun-bleached desert in your mind return to the hospital where you plant your feet — buzzing fluorescent lights, beeping monitors, blinding white walls. You list everything you can see until your brain recalculates its surroundings.
Your wide eyes flit across the unblinking stares looking back at you, each of them waiting for a response. Your heart lurches in your chest. Your mouth opens and closes as you struggle to recall the last thing you’d heard.
“Uh, n-not quite two-hundred,” you stammer with a trembling smile. “We had a team find us before then, I’m pretty sure.”
“See what I mean?” Jack hums with a surer smile, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. His softened gaze remains fixed on you, studying you despite all your attempts to hide. “Modest.”
The automatic doors of the ambulance bay sigh open and shut every few seconds behind you. Each mechanical breath exhales waves of freezing air into the thick July evening, which smells overwhelmingly of hot asphalt, cigarette smoke, and gunpowder from far-off fireworks.
You stand next to Jack beneath the overhang, with summer wind whipping through the thin fabric of your tied isolation gowns as you wait for the incoming trauma together — roughly five minutes out, Dana had said.
“So…” you start slowly, wringing the loose pair of gloves in your anxious hands as your eyes fall to the man beside you. He’s still wearing the baggy camo pants he’d arrived in, though he’s since traded his heavy plate carrier for the fitted black t-shirt underneath it, which clings ardently to his muscular torso. “…SWAT, huh?”
“My therapist said I needed a hobby,” he jokes with a lazy shrug. “And, turns out, I suck at golf, so… I chose the next best thing.”
You shake your head and turn away, exhaling a quiet laugh in response — perhaps your first real one since the unforgiving shift started. The corner of Jack’s mouth lifts into a grin, proud of himself for having heard the pretty sound. He hadn’t thought to miss it until now.
“…How long has it been, you think?” he wonders suddenly, with a pair of squinted eyes.
You draw a deep breath through your nose. Your eyes scale the milky pink and orange skyline beyond the ambulance bay, where a molten gold sunset streaks across the sky. “A while…” you settle on after a few long moments.
“Anything new with you I should know about?” he asks, rocking gently to ease the weight on his prosthetic.
You scoff like it’s funny — maybe because you can’t remember the last time anyone other than your therapist was asking after you. “Nope…” you sigh. “Unfortunately, I am still the exact same person you knew back then…”
“Doesn’t seem so unfortunate to me,” he insists, brows furrowed, like he’s half-offended by your own self-degradation.
“Well, you’d think after— I don’t know— a decade of pretty intensive therapy that I might be a little different,” you quip with an awkward laugh. The humor dissolves a second later when you realize how pathetic you sound. “But, uh… I’m still working through it, I guess...”
“Aren’t we all…” Jack trails off with a slow nod.
“I don’t know,” you lilt, eyes drifting unconsciously towards his hand, where a black wedding ring sits around his fourth finger. The sight of it makes your chest ache more than you’d like to admit — as if a not-so-distant part of you had expected him to be as single and miserably lonely as you, even after all this time.
Of course, someone loves him, you think to yourself, how could they not?
“You seem to be doing pretty alright for yourself, I’d say.”
Jack follows your gaze and, almost instinctively, clasps his hands behind his back as if to hide them. His anxious grip tightens on the blue latex he holds between them. “Yeah, uh—” He clears his throat, eyes fixed on the street beyond the overhang. “My wife, she… She passed. A few years ago.”
The humid summer air becomes harder to breathe in an instant. Your mouth parts with shock, though it takes a long moment before any words of apology fall out. “Oh— Shit, Jack, I— I’m sorry. I—”
“It’s okay. You didn’t know,” he assures with a gentle smile, rubbing absentmindedly at the ring with his thumb from where it hides behind his back. “It’s my fault for still wearing the damn thing. I just— feel weird taking it off, I guess…”
You nod slowly to yourself and glance away. You’ve gotten well acquainted with grief and its tricky rituals over the years.
“What about you?” Jack wonders aloud, smiling a little wider when you turn back to face him with a pair of raised brows. “You seeing anyone?”
Your first instinct is to laugh. “No. God, no.”
“Oh, c’mon…” he croons. “It can’t be that bad.”
You flash him a cynical look and a sad sort of smile. “Yeah, well… I don’t think most people are looking for a girl like me, to be fair.”
“Yeah?” Jack hums, crossing his arms over his chest. “What’s that?”
“I don’t know,” you scoff. “A girl who… works all the time. Who barely sleeps. Who can’t sleep if someone’s breathing wrong in the next room. Who… goes to therapy twice a week— three times if things are real bad— I mean…” A laugh sputters from your lips. “I’m a total nutcase.”
“Hey,” Jack argues, weathered face screwed in a playful offense. “Some guys are into nutcases, I’ll have you know.”
“Oh, really?” you hum drily.
“Me chief among them,” he nods.
“What?” you laugh. “Is that supposed to flatter me or something—?”
Boom! An explosion crackles across the evening sky. Your body reacts before your mind, going into panic mode in a flicker. Your shoulders jerk violently, your heart leaps into your throat, your eyes snap instinctively for cover. A red-hot spark rushes down your legs as though your body was telling you to run.
Your brain catches up a second later.
It’s a firework… It’s just a firework, you think to soothe yourself, and to ease your suddenly pounding pulse. But as the fear fizzles slowly away, the self-hatred comes next — the undeniable fact that your body will always belong to a war that ended years ago.
You force your shoulders to relax once more and pray that Jack hasn’t noticed any of it. But you can see his expression softening in the corner of your eye — first with concern, which flickers thereafter into a softer sort of pity.
At the very least, however, he gives you the dignity of pretending he hadn’t seen it at all as sirens rage in the distance — growing nearer and nearer until the red-yellow lights of the ambulance whip around the corner. The two of you snap your gloves on in tandem.
Jack steps off the curb first when it squeals to a park just in front of you. “You picked a hell of a day to come in, Doc…” he huffs and rushes towards the back doors.
“I’d rather be here than working,” you scoff and follow behind him. “It’s less depressing that way, I think.”
“Is it?” Jack quips with narrowed eyes.
You laugh through your nose. “Yeah, jury’s still out on the one, I guess…”
Fourth of July rages across the city. You pretend not to notice.
You stand in the muffled quiet of the breakroom, tucked away from the chaos of the emergency department, and watch the coffee machine in front of you sputter as it coughs up steam that smells like burnt grounds and vanilla creamer. You let the bitter stench singe your nostrils as the firework show begins in the heart of the city.
Boom!
A firework sounds off in the distance, closer than all the ones from earlier in the evening. You wrap both hands around the paper cup of coffee, letting the scalding warmth seep into your palms. The heat nearly burns you, but it’s half-grounding nonetheless.
Boom!
You swear it’s shaking the ground beneath your feet, and trembling the thick, concrete walls on either side of you. Though, with the way your day is going now, it’s impossible to tell what’s real and what lives only inside your head.
Boom!
Your fingers tighten around the cup to the point of trembling. You close your eyes and attempt to count your breaths — in for seven, hold for four, out for eight. Your brain tries to trick you — tries to convince you that the freezing cold of the emergency department smells like desert heat and metallic blood and burning gunpowder. It works.
“Counter…” you mutter aloud to yourself, despite how strange it seems, flattening your hand along the white laminate below, even as your shoulders jerk from another explosion in the city. You place your hand on the smooth curve of the cold sink next, and then on the rough cloth draped just behind it. “Faucet… Dishrag…”
Your attempts to anchor yourself to reality only halfway work. You opt to abandon your coffee on the counter altogether as your pulse continues to climb. You’re grateful to find the E.R. still waiting for you on the other side of the door, instead of a memory you can’t seem to leave.
“Oh, hey— I was just looking for you.”
Your head whips over your shoulder to find Jack strolling down the half-empty corridor with a tablet in his hands, now dressed in his dark black scrubs instead of the tactical gear he arrived in.
His shift has probably started now, or is about to, at least — which means you should be leaving with the rest of the day shift. But you fear what waits for you outside these walls and those automatic doors; the crushing certainty of solitude that always seemed to be waiting for you back home, to be more specific.
You exhale a trembling breath, falling into step with Jack when he walks by. “Where is everyone?” you wonder aloud.
“Day shift went up to the roof, I think,” he answers with most of his attention on the tablet as he scrolls absentmindedly through it. “Watching the fireworks and drinking beer, I’m sure… Lucky bastards.”
“Santos did invite me to karaoke today,” you tell him.
“A karaoke invite on your first day, huh? Impressive,” Jack croons, laughing softly through his nose when you lean to knock your shoulder against his broader one. He gets a faint whiff of the perfume still lingering on your clothes, beneath layers of antiseptic and hospital soap. He misses your warmth the second you’re gone. “You gonna go?”
Your shoulders sag with a sigh. “I don’t know… I’m kinda liking this adrenaline rush, to be honest. Might try and ride it ’til the wheels fall off.”
“Well, that always ends well, in my experience,” Jack quips with a lopsided smile as he slows to a stop in front of you, tucking the tablet under his bicep. He towers a few inches over you, close enough to make you lift your chin to properly meet his eyes. “But I do have something you could help me with, if you have a few minutes to spare…”
“Of course.”
“I, uh…” he trails off, turning to glance awkwardly at his left shoulder. “I took a hit… You know, in the field earlier… I’m pretty sure the vest caught most of it but—”
“You were—” You catch yourself before your voice can carry down the hallway. You take a step closer, lowering your voice into a harsh whisper as you scold him. “You were shot?”
“Shot at,” he corrects, with his brows raised to his hairline. “And it’s not as bad as you’re thinking. I tried to clean it up myself, but it’s pretty… inconveniently located…”
He rolls his shoulder in an attempt to ease the discomfort building there from his scrubs rubbing against the wound. His scruffy jaw tightens with a faint grimace, enough for you to notice the pain in his weathered features that he’d been pretending wasn’t there before now.
Concern flares white-hot in your chest. “Let me see it.”
The tone leaves little room for argument. It’s the same one you’d used on him all that time ago, when you ordered him to shut up and quit apologizing for bleeding out before the people trying to kill you could find you.
“Yes, ma’am,” he nods.
Jack leads you to the nearest empty exam room and slips inside while you gather the supplies you suspect you’ll need from the cart outside the door. You hold them to your chest when you return to the room, where you find Jack undressing, tugging his scrub top off by the collar.
The pale tendons in his back flex unevenly when he pulls the fabric off completely. The milky white canvas of his back is exposed to you then, along with the raging scrape glowing a bright scarlet along his left shoulder.
The door clicks shut behind you and garners the man’s attention. Jack turns to face you. You find he’s grown strangely broader with age. His stomach is full but toned, and his chest is filled out with a similar strength. Both are dusted with faint freckles and light colored hair that trails down from his sternum and disappears beneath his scrub pants.
He seems to mistake the subtle shock on your face for concern.
“I’ve had worse,” he assures you.
“I know, Abbot,” you deadpan, reaching for the glove dispenser on the wall with your free hand. “I was there.”
Jack settles on the edge of the exam table while you arrange the supplies on the metal tray before you — gauze, saline, antibiotic ointment, steri-strips. Your hands remember the motions before your mind has to. It comes to you as easily as muscle memory. You work with an effortlessness that only comes with years of experience; and Jack weathers the pain with an effortlessness that only comes with years of aching.
“You wanna know something funny?” he announces suddenly. The muscles in his back tense slightly when he twists to glance at you over his bare shoulder.
“You getting shot at and not telling anyone for half a shift?” you answer in a monotone.
He exhales a quiet laugh and turns back around.
“I had… the biggest crush on you,” Jack confesses in an achingly gentle voice, and pretends not to notice when your hands still suddenly behind him. He inhales slowly through his nose, as if he’d been sitting on those words for some time, and crosses his arms over his bare chest as if to shield himself from them in some way. “I was, uh… I was gonna ask you out, actually. You know, when we got back home, but… You disappeared before I could.”
His quiet laugh sounds much louder in the silence that settles heavily between you.
“I, uh— I’m pretty sure I still have the letter I wrote you, actually, when I figured out your address— in a box somewhere in the attic probably, but… It felt a little too stalkerish to send it, and… Then I met my wife, and I figured you moved on, too, and…” he trails off, struggling to find the right words. “I guess it doesn’t matter anyway. You’re here now.”
“It was probably for the best,” you tell him, and clear your throat when your voice shakes. You pretend not to notice your fingers trembling when you smooth down the edge of the bandage you press over his wound. “I wasn’t exactly… the best company back then.”
“You were always good company,” Jack scoffs. “Even when I thought I was gonna die, I was glad I was with you. I mean, I hated that you were gonna have to witness it obviously, but… I was still glad it was you— Even when you were threatening to kill me.”
You’re pierced almost physically by his words. You blink rapidly to clear the haze of them when your vision starts to blur, another memory threatening to drag you under. Memories you’d spent years and a shit ton of money working through in therapy, that are now eating away at you from the inside out.
His shoulder beneath your fingertips is covered suddenly in shredded camouflage. The bandage on his freckled skin stains red until it gushes once more with warm blood. His laughter turns to screams. The air turns to smoke. The fluorescent lights turn to a white-hot sun.
Jack frowns to himself when he feels your hands freezing once more behind him. He glances over his shoulder and finds that your eyes have gone empty again, fixed somewhere far away — the same way they had earlier that day. His chest pinches with an instant worry.
“You okay?”
His words sound like they’re muffled by water or light-years of space. You can’t hear them over the heartbeat whoosh, whoosh, whooshing in your ears, pounding harder against your pulse with every second that passes that you can’t catch your breath.
Another firework explodes outside like distant thunder. Your body jolts in response, and reality slams back into you a second later.
“I, uh…” You swallow hard, eyes flitting wildly around the room, like you’re struggling to place yourself inside it. “I-I’m all done here, I think.”
“Hey…” Jack coos and turns around to face you completely. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
You step back from him and rip off your gloves with two dull pops. You chuck them hurriedly into the bin, feeling overwhelmingly like the walls are closing in on either side of you.
“I, uh... I just need… I’ll, um…” You shake your head when the words don’t come out right. The next ones leave in a whimper when you try and fail to catch your breath. “I’m sorry.”
You rush out of the room, gone before Jack can gather his shirt.
“No…” That’s the only thing you can seem to make out as you hide yourself in the breakroom. The word scrapes against your throat, still too narrow to properly let air flow through. You wedge your pointer fingers painfully in your ears when the far-off fireworks become unrelenting gunshots in your skull. Your vision tunnels, the room blurs, every breath seems to catch somewhere in your chest. “No, no, no—”
The words dissolve into a half-strangled whimper in the back of your throat. You crouch slowly down in the center of the room and curl inward on yourself, forehead nearly touching your knees. Every muscle draws tight enough to ache. Your body makes itself smaller on instinct, as if it still believed that smaller targets survived the longest.
You vaguely hear the sound of your name coming from behind you — far away at first, like a voice carried underwater — and then much closer, when a pair of warm, calloused hands curl gently around your forearms. Despite the inherent softness of the touch, you flinch violently in the sudden hold.
“Hey… It’s just me,” Jack coos.
His voice cuts through the buzzing panic with a remarkable steadiness. Your head snaps in his direction. You find him looming just beside you, bent over at the waist. His face is slow to flood into focus. For a gutwrenching flicker of a second, he’s the same dark-haired, bloodied, and crying man that nearly died in your arms.
Reality settles in a moment later.
The silver threaded in his curls catches the buzzing fluroscents overhead. His light eyes, still so soft despite the carnage they’ve witnessed, dart over your features with a silent concern.
“It’s just me,” he continues. “You’re okay. Just keep looking at me.”
You try to until— Boom! Another firework crackles in the distance. Your eyes squeeze shut despite yourself. Your entire body recoils. “I can’t—” you whimper through a ragged breath that catches in your throat. Your chest sears white-hot accordingly.
“Okay. That’s okay,” he nods. “Just breathe with me. Don’t fight it, okay? Just breathe.”
Jack inhales slowly, drawing in one exaggerated breath until his chest rises beneath his scrubs. You try to mimic it, but it stutters painfully halfway through. Your lungs seize despite yourself. Your face twists into a pained sort of look.
“That’s okay. There you go,” he praises. The corner of his mouth lifts into the faintest hint of a smile. His thumbs rub softly along the buzzing skin of your arm. “I know it doesn’t feel good. Just keep trying for me.”
It takes several long moments for your breaths to finally even out. Jack holds you through every single one of them. Only when your hands slip from your ears and your shoulders stop trembling does Jack carefully guide you to your feet, with a pair of warm hands clasped gently around the outside of your elbows.
He keeps you stable on unsteady limbs as he guides you the short distance to the plastic chairs gathered around the breakroom table. You collapse into one. He pulls up another to be nearer to you — close enough for your knees to slot between each other’s and for his fingers to thread with yours when he reaches for you again. His palm is warm and gently calloused; a little like velvet as it glides against yours.
You rest your other arm on the table beside you, hiding your face behind the palm of your free hand. When you regain your breath, the first thing you think to do is laugh — a wet, brittle, exhausted sort of sound.
“What the hell am I doing here?” you ask within a weak chuckle, shaking your head at yourself. “The VA recommended me because I was supposed to be good at this, but… I’ve been here for one shift… And all I’ve done is make everything worse—”
“C’mon,” Jack hums. “You know that’s not true.”
“Look at me!” you laugh, gesturing helplessly towards yourself when you lift your head to meet his eyes. Tears glisten in your gaze, clumping your bottom lashes together. “I’m supposed to be taking care of people, Jack! I’m not helping anyone like this!”
The man studies you for a long moment. His eyes narrow with a careful curiosity. “Does this happen a lot?” he wonders gently. “These… spells?”
You shake your head, eyes fluttering shut. “No. Not in— years. I thought they were gone. I mean, I certainly pay my therapist enough; they should be gone by now, but…” You end your ramble with a heavy sigh. “I don’t know… I think… Seeing you, you know, for the first time since… Since we came back home, it just… Opened something…”
Jack’s thumb swipes across your knuckles. You expect him to be half-offended at your confession. He smiles instead.
“Well, you know how we fix that?” he asks, with something short of amusement on the edge of his voice. “We go get a beer tomorrow night. Or whenever you’re up for it. And we talk about all this shit. All of our— trauma or whatever. We just… We have it out.”
Something like sunshine threatens to swell in your chest. It burns out quickly, though.
“But what about everything else?” you wonder in a small voice, wet eyes drifting towards the closed break room door. “I can’t go back out there. Not like this. What if… What if I freeze again? Three seconds is enough to… to kill someone if they’re in critical condition.”
“We’ll make sure you have dual coverage— if you freeze again, you’ll have another attending to step in for you,” Jack answers with a firm nod and unwavering gaze, confident enough to soothe you. “But, for now, we take you upstairs to neuro. Maybe do an EEG since you’re having new symptoms, just to rule out anything structural. And then tomorrow, you book an appointment with your doctor, and I’ll drive you— I don’t care when it is. Just call me, alright? I’ll give you my number.”
You crumple under the weight of his tenderness, of his thumb running soothingly across the ridges of your knuckles. You shake your head, brows knitting softly together. “Why—?” you go to ask, but the words get caught halfway through.
Why are you doing this? you want to say. Why are you doing this for me?
“Well, you pretty much carried me through hell, in case you forgot,” Jack answers with a tired laugh. “And I spent a long, long time wishing I could’ve helped you the same way you helped me.”
Silence settles comfortably between you once more. Your wet eyes fall to your joined hands, where his larger one engulfs your own. His are warmer, slightly rough around the knuckles, and calloused at the palms. It’s hard to imagine, you realize, that the hands that once clawed desperately at the sun-hot desert when you tended to his leg are now reaching so gently out for you.
A series of voices race down the hall all at once, yelling over the buzzing wheels of a gurney. “—What do you mean he lit it in his mouth?”
“He thought it’d shoot out the opposite way—”
“Sir, please, stop trying to pull the bottle rocket out yourself—”
“There it is…” Jack huffs. “The annual reminder that fireworks are nature’s way of thinning out humanity.”
You exhale a quiet laugh through your nose, too weak for anything else, and follow Jack when he stands to full height. The distance between you is barely a step. You feel yourself closing it before your mind can catch up, sliding your arms experimentally around his shoulders and pressing your chest against his.
For the faintest fraction of a second, Jack goes still. His breath leaves him in a quiet rush at the feeling of having you so close. His arms raise slowly, wrapping around your waist with a tenderness that threatens to undo you all over again. One broad hand settles warmly between your shoulder blades, while the other spreads carefully along the small of your back.
You haven’t been this close to him since the day he almost died. In fact, the last time you held him, your hands had been slick with his blood — so much of it, that the dirt turned to sticky paste on your palms. But now, he no longer smells of the metallic blood and burning gunpowder and death that haunts your dreams. Instead, he smells of fresh laundry, expensive cedar cologne, and hospital soap. Like home. Like life.
You breathe in through your nose, inhaling him deep into your lungs.
“Thank you…” you hear yourself say, chin bobbing on his shoulder, words brushing over the fabric of his scrubs.
“Don’t thank me,” Jack scoffs humorously, though his hands drift up and down your spine with an unyielding tenderness. “I’m still paying off a debt.”
“What debt?”
“You’re the one who refused to leave me behind, remember?” he asks. “Well, now it’s my turn to make sure nobody leaves you.”
Outside, another firework climbs high into the starry summer sky and bursts into a thousand brilliant stars with another far-away explosion. Only this time, you hear it without hearing the war.
Summer softens slowly into autumn.
The relentless early-July heat gives way to crisp mornings and cool evenings. Dusk arrives a little earlier every day, spilling through the closed bedroom curtains in silvers of honey-colored rays. Outside, a late afternoon breeze stirs the trees until the copper-colored branches brush the window — tires buzz across the worn pavement while the streets fill with the comforting chorus of the early evening.
Life always has a way of finding its rhythm, you find.
You continued working at the PTMC even after Robby returned from his sabbatical, settling into permanent dual coverage on the night shift with Jack. Your symptoms subsided after that first shift — no more blank spots since you switched medications; no more nightmares since you started spending the majority of your nights in Jack’s bed. Your mind feels like home again.
You lay there, tangled in the rumpled gray comforter, the majority of which you had unconsciously stolen during the night, and listen to the man’s even breaths as he sleeps soundly just beside you.
Jack lies on his stomach with his strong arms folded beneath the thin pillow under his head, facing away from you. You watch the gentle rise and fall of his back from where the dark sheet has slipped around his waist, exposing the freckled canvas of his back — and the healed scrape along his shoulder, now a thin scratch of marred, pink skin.
Your hand wanders slowly beneath the blankets — finding his clothed hip first, then crawling up the familiar landscape of his spine, before settling in the strands of silver curled at the nape of his neck.
The man wakes with a sharp inhale and turns his wild head slowly to face you, still not quite awake.
“Jack…” you whisper to him, fingers still twisting in his curls. “Jack.”
“Mm?” he grunts without opening his eyes, brows pinching in protest.
“We gotta start getting ready.”
Your hand parts from his neck to reach for the phone charging on the other side of you. You don’t make it far before a large, warm hand catches your wrist.
“No,” Jack grumbles halfway into his pillow, voice still gruff with sleep. He tugs your hand back to the back of his neck. “Keep going…”
You exhale a quiet laugh but oblige him anyway. His shoulders deflate with a contented sigh when your fingers return to his hair, scratching gently at his scalp. “Why is it you make me do this every morning, but when I ask you to scratch my back before bed, you’re asleep in two minutes?”
“I have a medical condition,” he slurs into his pillow, with his eyes still shut.
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”
“Mm… Pretty sure that’s a HIPAA violation, honey.”
A laugh escapes you before you can help it. “You’re so annoying.”
“Here— We’ll do it at the same time,” Jack mumbles.
He grunts quietly as he twists on his left shoulder until his facing you properly. His right hand slithers around your waist, urging you closer until your knees bump beneath the blankets. His hand is warm and gently calloused when it slips beneath the hem of your oversized shirt. His dull nails scratch lazily up and down the length of your spine. Still without opening his eyes.
“See?” he hums. “Teamwork.”
You exhale a satisfied sigh, then joke drily despite yourself. “Your breath smells, by the way.”
He peeks a tired eye open at that. “Oh, yeah? And what do you think yours smells like, huh? Sunshine and rainbows?”
He leans in to kiss you anyway — a mere brushing of your lips for no longer than a second. But then the second lingers, and so does his mouth against yours. The kiss turns sleepy and slow, mouths gliding and tongues brushing.
Jack lifts himself onto the elbow of his free hand and urges you onto your back until half of his heavy weight is resting on top of you. The stiffness tucked in his boxers rubs against your thigh. A smile curls slowly on your mouth.
“We only have an— an hour to get ready—” You just barely manage to protest between his kisses. “You know that right?”
His mouth slides down to your neck to smear wet-hot kisses along your pulse. His hips flatten further against yours, pressing his hardening length more ardently against you. “I only need five minutes, honey. I promise.”
“Oh, trust me,” you scoff drily. “I’m well aware.”
Jack pulls off of you with the quiet smack of his mouth parting from your jaw. His sleep-swollen features twist in a feigned offense. Slumber clings stubbornly to every inch of him — curls flat on one side and wild on the other; stubble a shade darker on his jaw; pillow creases stamped along his cheek.
“Oh, you are just asking for it, aren’t you?” he squints.
“Clock’s ticking, Dr. Abbot,” you tease with a lazy smile, fingers dancing through his silver curls. “I’m gonna be in that shower in five minutes— With or without you.”
A flicker of amusement flashes across his face, right before he ducks back down to swallow you whole in a searing kiss. “Don’t threaten me with a good time.”
Pairings: Eddie x Ex-ChildhoodBestfriend!Reader, Eddie x Popular!Cheerleader!Reader
Summary: You and Eddie Munson used to be inseparable as kids—best friends who did everything together. But high school changed things between the two of you. You climbed up the Hawkins High social hierarchy and became a cheerleader, started hanging around the "right" people, lived up to everyone's expectations. He became the freak of Hawkins, the drug dealer, the guy most people weren’t exactly itching to be around. Naturally, you drifted apart from one another. One night, however, when he finds you heartbroken at a party and brings you back to his trailer, unspoken sentiments bubble up to the surface and the two of you finally confront the truth about your feelings.
Word Count: 13k
Notes: angst/comfort, fluff, smut 18+, mentions of eddie being bullied, mentions of insecurities?, societal pressure, reader gets cheated on (not by eddie), reader is lowkey the villain in their backstory but it all ends well I swear, you WILL feel extremely bad for eddie :(( , mention of a past physical altercation (reader slaps someone lol), SO MUCH YEARNING. it’s yearning central over here, oral (f receiving, brief m receiving), protected p in v, praise, pet names (sweetheart, baby)
A/N ⚠︎: this took SO long and I really hope the amount of effort was worth it. WE’RE AT 200 FOLLOWERS YIPPIE!!! thank you guys <333 I hope you enjoy! mwah♡
The bass coming from inside the house is loud enough for Eddie to be able to feel it vibrating through the soles of his worn Reeboks. He counts the crumpled dollar bills in his hand. This is his last sale of the night—some senior whose name he didn't quite catch and who seemed to be in a rush—either too eager to get back inside the party and engage in some more small talk or possibly afraid of being caught buying drugs from Hawkins’ resident freak. Fine by Eddie. The faster he can get out of here, the better.
House parties aren’t his scene. They've never been his scene. Honestly, they might be somewhere in his top five list of personal hells. Too many people, too much noise, too many reminders that he exists on the very fringes of Hawkins High's social ecosystem. He’s here for business, plain and simple. Make his rounds, sell his product, get the hell out before someone decides to make his night more difficult than it has to be.
He shoves the wad of cash into his back pocket, the senior already hurrying back inside with a very unappreciative 'thanks'. Then Eddie heads down the sidewalk, away from the pulsing lights and drunken laughter spilling out of Tyler McKinney's massive picket-fence house. His van is parked a few blocks away. He’s learned a long time ago not to park too close to these things. Plausible deniability and all that.
The October air is crisp, just shy of cold, and Eddie's breath puffs out in small clouds as he walks. The sounds of the party fade behind him, replaced by the quiet suburban night—distant dogs barking, the rustle of leaves, the occasional lone car passing by down the main road.
He’s already looking forward to the rest of his night now that the peskier affairs are all taken care of. He might sample a fair share of his own product, practice that one tricky guitar riff he’s been trying to get the hang of… he probably couldn’t think of a more relaxing way to spend his time if he tried. And after a long night of "business", Eddie really just wants to relax.
He’s almost arrived at his van when he sees it. At first, it’s just a silhouette on a bench near the sidewalk, hunched over, small and alone. But as he gets closer, the streetlight begins to illuminate a very familiar side profile that makes his heart do something complicated in his chest.
You.
Of course it’s you.
Eddie slows his pace almost instantly at the realization, uncertainty warring with concern. You’re crying. He can see your shoulders shaking, can hear the quiet, hitching breaths escaping your throat even from a few feet away. Every instinct screams at him to just keep walking.
You run in completely different circles now. Have been for years. But you used to be good friends—really good friends, actually. Best friends, if Eddie's being honest.
You went to the same kindergarten. Eddie still remembers how you two met for the first time and he doesn't think he'll ever forget.
Some of the kids were playing house together in the classroom while Eddie watched from the sidelines, fingers fidgeting with the hem of his worn shirt that was a few sizes too big on him. He observed their easy, seamless interactions—how much fun they seemed to be having, how naturally they fell into their roles. The mom, the dad, the older and younger kids. Everyone had a part to play and knew how to play it.
Eddie, intrigued and desperately wanting to fit in, gathered up all the courage in his tiny five-year-old body and approached the group. His voice was small when he asked if he could play too, if there were any family members left that he could be.
The other kids gave him a look—not quite mean, but not exactly welcoming either. It was the kind of look Eddie would become intimately familiar with over the course of his life. One that assured him he wasn’t quite welcome in someone’s space.
"All the roles are taken," one of the kids informed him matter-of-factly. They didn’t seem to feel terribly bad about it. "Maybe next time."
Eddie's face fell, but he tried again. "I could be the dog?" he offered hopefully, big brown doe eyes sparkling with a dim, hopeful glint. "Every family needs a dog."
But everyone had already turned back to their game, dismissing him without another word. So Eddie just stood there, watching them play, feeling that familiar ache of being on the outside looking in. He knew he wasn't really like the other kids. It wasn’t a very easy concept to grasp for a regular five year old, but Eddie also wasn’t exactly like every other regular kid his age. His home life was rough. He was too loud, too expressive, too hyper and too bad at following the rules. But knowing all of that didn't make the rejection hurt any less. He gave up after that, quietly sulking by the very edge of where all the fun was happening.
That's when you stepped out of the group.
You'd been playing the youngest child, Eddie remembers—wearing a bright yellow dress. You walked right up to him with a big fat smile on your face that made the hopeful glint in his eyes reappear.
"We can play if you want!" you offered all cheery, like you were much happier at the prospect of playing with him, a kid you didn’t know, instead of all your close friends. "Do you want to go swing?"
Eddie was dumbfounded, unable to quite believe that someone was choosing to play with him, let alone that they were the one to come up to him first. But he was also really excited and practically vibrating with joy.
"Really?" he asked.
"Yes," you confirmed, already heading toward the playground. "Come on! I can swing really high. I bet I can go higher than you."
"No way!" Eddie protested, following you eagerly.
And so you went swinging together, laughing and challenging each other to go higher and higher, and by the time the teacher called everyone back inside, Eddie had found a new friend.
From that day on, you two were inseparable. You did everything together—shared your snacks at lunch, partnered up for every recess, defended each other from the meaner kids. You were one of the few kids who didn't care that Eddie's clothes were too big or that he sometimes smelled like cigarettes from his dad's smoke. You laughed at all his jokes, listened to all his hyper tangents and made-up stories about dragons and adventures. You made him feel like hanging out with him was actually fun. And you absolutely thought it was.
Following that, elementary school was pretty easy. You were just kids, after all. Nobody really cared about who hung out with who.
Middle school was a notch harder, though you stuck together. Sure, you started getting prettier, catching the attention of some of the popular kids who wanted you to sit with them at lunch. And yeah, Eddie, on the other hand, got even weirder, louder, more defiant, and more willing to embrace the "freak" label that was already starting to stick to him like glue. Regardless, you stayed by his side through it all. And he stayed by yours.
Eddie particularly remembers one day in eighth grade. You were walking together in the hallway between classes when Matthew Hayes—captain of the middle school basketball team and already a certified asshole at thirteen—stepped in front of you both.
"Hey," Matthew said, looking at you with that suave, try-hard smile that made Eddie's skin crawl. At the time, Matthew was probably one of the biggest pricks he thought he’d ever had the displeasure of knowing.
"You're coming to my birthday party this weekend, right?" He continued, ignoring Eddie right beside you, seemingly pretty damn sure of himself and convinced that you were gonna say yes.
You shifted your books in your arms awkwardly, polite but uninterested. You didn’t even know the guy that well anyway, so you thought it probably wouldn’t be much of a bummer if you ditched his birthday. "I’m sorry. I don't think so. Eddie and I were going to—"
"Wait, you're actually friends with this loser?" Matthew cut you off and laughed, gesturing at Eddie like he was something pesky stuck to the bottom of his shoe. "Come on. You're way too pretty to be hanging around with Munson the Freak. I mean, everyone knows his dad's in jail and his uncle's trailer trash."
Eddie felt his face burn with shame and anger, his hands clenching into fists. He'd heard worse before—was already used to worse, honestly—but it still stung. Maybe it stung particularly bad that time because you were right there to witness it, and he didn’t want you to think less of him. He was about to tell Matthew to fuck off, detention be damned, when you were already moving. Your shoes clacked a short few steps in Matthew’s direction.
The slap that followed echoed down the entire hallway. Matthew stumbled back, hand flying to his already reddening cheek, eyes wide with shock. The conversations around you died instantly and everyone turned to stare at the scene before them with bewilderment.
"Don't ever talk about him like that again," you said, voice shaky but firm. "Eddie's worth a hundred of you, and if you can't see that, then you're even dumber than your stupid face already makes you look."
Matthew looked between you and Eddie, jaw clenched, face twisted with humiliation and rage. "You're going to regret that, you bitch." He scowled and his voice dripped with venom. But you didn’t look the slightest bit intimidated.
"No, I'm not," you finalized matter-of-factly, grabbing Eddie's hand and marching away with your head held high, leaving Matthew and his stunned friends in your wake.
Of course, you got in massive trouble for that stunt. Principal's office, call home to your parents, detention for a week, the whole nine yards. Your mom was furious. Not at Matthew for what he'd said. She wouldn’t hear you out about any of that. She was furious at you for causing a scene and for jeopardizing your reputation—for "acting out". Still, you never once apologized. Not to Matthew, not to your parents, not to anyone except Eddie for what was said about him.
"He deserved it," you told Eddie later, sitting next to him on the curb outside school while you waited for your mom to pick you up. "And I'd do it again."
Eddie looked at you. He looked at the stubborn clench of your jaw, the lingering rage still sparkling in your eyes, and felt something shift in his heart. Something more intense than friendship, though he didn’t really have the words or courage to admit it to himself, let alone to you, back then.
"You're kind of badass, you know that?" he said, awed.
You grinned in return. "Yeah. I know."
That moment felt important, like proof that nothing could come between you. That you'd always choose each other, no matter what anyone else thought or said. Eddie really wanted that. He was fairly certain you did too.
But then high school happened.
Suddenly, the social hierarchies that had been forming in middle school became concrete and immovable. You tried out for the cheer squad on a whim and ended up making it, which put you in proximity to the popular crowd—the pretty girls, the jocks, the kids whose parents had money and influence. They welcomed you with open arms, eager to claim someone as smart and pretty as you as their own. You liked making new friends and it’s not like you could’ve kept your position in the cheer squad without getting along with the rest of the team, so you didn’t mind joining their clique.
At first, you tried to balance both worlds, because you really didn’t wanna lose Eddie. You'd sit with him at lunch sometimes, wave to him in the hallways, defend him when your new friends made snarky comments about him. But the pressure from your new peers was starting to become relentless. It was fairly subtle at first: a raised eyebrow here, a pointed comment there, but steadily grew stronger and more frequent.
Why do you still hang out with him? You do know what everyone says about him, right? You're going to ruin your reputation. You're better than that.
And slowly, so slowly Eddie almost didn't notice it happening, you started pulling away. The lunch table visits became less frequent, then eventually stopped altogether. The hallway waves became more hurried. Your defenses of him became quieter, then went silent.
Your parents were thrilled with your new friend group and your new image. They started talking about your future—college, career, finding a nice boy from a good family. The hard truth the world pressured you into swallowing was that there was no room in a vision like that for someone like Eddie Munson.
And you were so young and impressionable, desperate to please everyone, and so afraid of being different and not appealing to as many people as possible. Once the popular crowd had taken you in, it felt wrong to try to leave. It was easier to drift away because of that. It was easier to pretend that your friendship had happened to two entirely different people.
Eddie hated it. He understood, in a way. Had even seen it coming at one point, really. He wasn’t stupid, he knew that when things seemed too good to be true—in this case, your bond—they usually really were. But partially understanding didn't make it hurt any less.
By sophomore year, you barely spoke with each other. You'd pass each other in the hallways—you with your cheer uniform and your perfect friends, Eddie with his leather jacket and his outcast status—and exchange the briefest of acknowledgments. A small smile or a tiny nod. Just enough to acknowledge that you'd once meant something to each other, but not enough to bridge the chasm-sized disconnect that had grown between you.
He told himself that he was fine with it. That people outgrew each other, that it was natural, that he didn't need you anyway and maybe he took you for someone you never really were. Maybe deep down it was always gonna turn out like this and you were always gonna grow apart. He told himself that you were just kids. You didn’t quite understand the implications of being best friends with someone like him at the time because you were young and naive, but now that those were clear and you finally realized that being associated with him would grant your reputation a massive hit, you saw a chance to bail and took it. It really, really hurt. But he couldn’t exactly blame you for it.
He had other friends, obviously. He had his bandmates and Hellfire—a decent amount of people who understood him and made his life a little easier. They had the same interests, likes and dislikes and probably matched his personality more than you ever did. But none of them really ever managed to fix or replace that void he felt in his heart whenever he saw you walk past him in the halls. Late at night, alone in his room, he'd think about kindergarten and middle school and the way you used to smile at him like he was someone worth being nice to, and he'd wonder if you ever thought about it too.
A loud sniffle snaps Eddie out of his thoughts. Suddenly, he finds himself back in the situation at hand and he’s standing just out of your peripheral vision like an awkward idiot, unsure of how to really proceed.
You probably don’t want Eddie "the Freak" Munson seeing you like this. He shouldn’t get himself involved. He really should just walk past you and pretend he never saw anything.
But then again, it’s you. And no matter how much time has passed since you last spoke and you've drifted into your world of pep rallies and popularity while he's sunken deeper into his reputation as Hawkins' resident drug-dealing metalhead, he's never been very good at not paying attention to you. And he’d be a prick if he just ignored you while you’re clearly hurting.
He approaches slowly, one hand shoved in his jacket pocket while the other grips his now empty lunchbox, trying to make himself appear as non-threatening as possible.
"Hey," he says softly once he’s close enough. "Uh— you okay?"
You startle, head snapping up, and Eddie's chest tightens instinctively at the sight of your tear-stained face. Your mascara has run in dark tracks down your cheeks, your eyes are red and puffy, and you look so absolutely miserable that it makes his throat tight.
"Oh," Your voice is rough, thick with tears and surprise. You wipe quickly at your face, trying and failing to compose yourself. "Eddie. What are you—I didn't think you'd be here."
"I'm not. I mean, I was, but I'm leaving." He gestures vaguely back toward the party. "Just had some, uh... business to take care of."
You nod, understanding immediately what kind of business he means. You don’t look judgmental of it, though—just tired. So, so tired and sad.
"Are you okay?" he asks again, even though you clearly aren’t. He’s lost. He doesn’t know what else to say. For a moment, the awkward tone in his voice really makes him regret not having just walked past you.
"I'm fine," you say automatically, but your voice cracks on the word and fresh tears well up in your eyes. You tilt your head downwards and try to wipe away at the dampness before it drips. "Sorry, I'm—God, this is really embarrassing."
"Hey, no." Eddie moves a little closer. He doesn’t feel quite confident enough to sit down next you on the bench just yet. "It's not embarrassing. What happened?"
You remain quiet for a long moment, clearly debating whether to tell him or not. Eddie waits, his gaze warm and never rushing, even though the cold night air is seeping through his ripped jeans.
Finally, you let out a shaky breath. "I caught Brad making out with Ashley Cunningham. Upstairs. In Tyler's parents' bedroom."
Brad Morrison. Captain of the basketball team, all-American golden boy and not-so-secret-preppy-asshole—your boyfriend for the last six months. Eddie saw you two together in the hallways a lot. Him with his arm around your shoulders, you with your perfect smile. You two were practically the image of Hawkins High's ideal couple.
He hated every second of it. Not because he had any right to, of course. You hadn’t been his friend in years. But that didn’t stop the bitter twist in his gut every time he saw Morrison's hands on you. He wondered if you were happy, if Morrison treated you right, if you ever, amidst it all, thought about the two kids who used to be inseparable back before everyone else told you that you couldn't be.
Guess he has his answer now about the "treating you right" part.
"Jesus," Eddie breathes, a little taken aback by your admission, but definitely not surprised. He avoids your gaze awkwardly, looking at the bushes surrounding the bench instead. "I'm sorry. That's... that's really shitty."
"Yeah." You laugh, but it’s watery, sad and the least bit amused. "The worst part is I'm not even that surprised? Like, I knew he was an asshole. Everyone knows he's an asshole. But he's the right kind of asshole, you know? The kind everyone approves of." You wipe at your eyes again, smearing your mascara further. You sniffle again when you realize how ridiculous you must be sounding. "God, I'm sorry. You don't want to hear about any of this."
"No, I do." Eddie insists softly, finally gathering up the courage to sit down on the bench beside you—close but not too close, maintaining a respectful distance. "I mean, if you want to talk about it. I'm a pretty good listener. When I'm not talking too much, which is, you know, most of the time, but—"
You laugh, a small but real chuckle this time, and Eddie feels a small spark of victory in his chest. He likes that sound.
"Yeah," you say, looking at him with something warm in your eyes and a wobbly grin on your face. "I know."
The words come out of you in a fond, almost reverent manner, and Eddie has to avoid your gaze again. He only hums faintly in return. He can’t even believe it, but he’s nervous. You make him nervous in the best and worst ways.
You two sit in silence for a moment, the distant thump of the party bass from a good few blocks away providing a strange rhythm to the otherwise quiet night. You’re clearly not ready to spill your emotions just yet, so he doesn’t push.
The silence is admittedly a little awkward, because what do you say to someone who used to be your best friend in the entire world and now barely acknowledges you in the hallways? There’s also something unspoken sitting in it. Like both of you aren’t talking about something you absolutely should talk about.
"Hey, uh—it’s getting cold out here. Maybe you should be getting home?" Eddie asks eventually. His tone is careful. He doesn’t want to imply that he’s getting bored of being here with you. He just doesn’t wanna overstay his welcome on this bench, especially when he’s uncertain of how to really offer any comfort other than a measly 'I’m sorry'. That and the fact he just feels incredibly awkward still.
Your brows furrow slightly and a sad look makes its way back on your face. He watches carefully. "I... I came here with Brad. I don’t have a ride home anymore."
"Right," Eddie acknowledges empathetically. He should’ve guessed. "Okay. Well, I can give you a ride home if you want. Your house isn't far, right? Still on Maple?"
"Yeah, but..." You bite your lip, looking genuinely distressed. "My family's out of town this weekend. They went to visit my aunt in Indianapolis. And—and I don't have my keys with me because I was supposed to stay at Brad's tonight after the party, and now..." You trail off, a fresh wave of tears threatening to spill in genuine stress over the situation you’ve gotten yourself into.
Eddie's brain is working overtime, trying to figure out a solution that won’t make this weird or uncomfortable. You clearly can’t go home. You probably have friends at the party you could stay with. But given the state you’re in, he’s guessing you don’t exactly want to go back in there and face the world, let alone potentially your cheating ex.
"You could crash at my place," he offers cautiously after a brief moment of silence, watching your reaction. "I know it's probably not your first choice, and you can totally say no, but Wayne's working the night shift so you'd have the couch to yourself. Or—shit, no—my room, I mean. I mean you can have my room, I can take the couch. Whatever makes you comfortable. I just—" He runs a hand through his hair nervously. "I’m guessing you probably don’t wanna go back in there to those assholes." He gestures vaguely toward the direction of the distant music.
You’re looking at him with an expression he can’t quite read. Surprise, definitely gratitude, and something tender he desperately hopes he’s not just deluding himself into seeing.
"Are you sure?" you ask quietly, surveilling his eyes for any sort of reluctance. "I don't wanna… impose."
Eddie shakes his head. "You're not imposing. I'm offering. Come on," he encourages, already standing back up with a slight grunt. He feels a newfound wave of confidence after you don’t immediately reject his offer. "It’s nothing fancy—I mean, you know that already. But better than staying out here all night, right?"
You study his face for another long moment, then nod and smile. "Yeah. Yeah—thank you, Eddie."
"Don't mention it."
The drive to the trailer park is quiet. Eddie half-expected it to be as awkward as the silence on the bench, honestly. But much to his surprise, it isn’t. Not really. You sit in the passenger seat, staring out the window, occasionally wiping at the lingering dampness under your eyes. Eddie focuses on driving and gives you space to just be.
He's turned a cassette tape into the deck, and Judas Priest’s "Dreamer Deceiver" plays quietly through his blown speakers. Not exactly cheerful music, but you haven’t asked him to turn it off yet, so he takes that as a good sign.
"I remember this song," your soft voice sounds out over the low music suddenly, startling him a little. "You were obsessed with it in, like, eighth grade."
Eddie glances over at you, surprised. He hadn’t expected you to recall a past memory of him, let alone with such a gentle, reverent tone in your voice. It catches him off guard. "You remember that?" he asks incredulously, eyes focusing back on the road ahead, his mind completely elsewhere.
"Of course I remember." You’re looking at him now, your profile illuminated by the headlights. There’s a small smile on your face despite the dried tear tracks on your cheeks. "You made me listen to it like a hundred times. Said it was going to change my life."
"Did it?"
"No," you admit, and Eddie grins sheepishly. "But I listened anyway. Because you were so excited about it." Your tone turns quieter, like you’re confessing something you’ve never told anyone before. Something warm, nostalgic and simultaneously painful blooms in Eddie's chest.
"I didn't think you'd remember stuff like that," he says, trying his hardest to focus on the road in front of him and not the way his heart stutters in his chest at your admission.
"I remember a lot of things." Your voice is soft, almost sad now. "Like that time you taught me how to play chords on your guitar," you reminisce, quiet for a moment after that. But then the memories catch up. "Or when we built that fort in my backyard out of sheets and lawn chairs. And when you convinced me to skip school with you to go to that record store in Indy."
Eddie’s surprise molds into something more fond and nostalgic. "We got in so much trouble for that," he recalls, grinning at the memory, smile lines carved around the corners of his mouth.
"So much trouble," you agree, chuckling. "My mom grounded me for two weeks. But it was worth it. That was a good day."
"Yeah," Eddie says, feeling something heavy settling in his stomach. "It was."
The two of you fall quiet again as Eddie pulls into the trailer park, navigating the familiar dirt roads to his and Wayne's trailer at the end. The lights are off, which means Wayne is definitely at work, and Eddie's old van looks even more beat-up than usual parked under the flickering front door lamp.
"Home sweet home," Eddie says in his familiar theatrical tone, trying for levity as he kills the engine. "Like I said, it's not much, but—"
"Eddie." You turn in your seat to face him fully. "You don't have to apologize for anything. Thank you for this. Really. You didn't have to help me at all."
"Yeah, I did," Eddie says honestly. "I couldn't just leave you there."
Something flickers across your face—that same expression you gave him earlier when he offered you to spend the night. Then you’re flashing him an appreciative grin, opening the passenger door and stepping out into the night, and the unreadable expression passes as quickly as it came.
Inside, Eddie flicks on the dim trailer lights and immediately starts apologizing for the mess even though it really isn’t that bad. Some of Wayne's mugs are in the sink, Eddie’s campaign notes are scattered across the small coffee table, and a few magazines and books are piled on the couch.
"Seriously, it's fine," you say, looking around with what seems like genuine interest and distant familiarity rather than judgment. "It's really cozy."
"That's a nice way of saying small."
"I said cozy," you insist honestly, though you flash him a small grin over your shoulder. You turn your attention over to the bookshelf by the entrance, trailing your fingers along the spines. You recognize some of the books from years ago—thick fantasy novels he’s read about a million times now.
Eddie watches you. When he realizes he is, he moves into the kitchen instead. "You want something to drink? I think we have Coke, or water, or... actually, I think that's it. We're not great at keeping the fridge stocked."
"Water's good.”
Eddie grabs two glasses, fills them with tap water, and hands one to you. You accept it gratefully, taking a long sip, and Eddie tries not to stare at the way your throat moves as you swallow.
You set the glass down on the coffee table as he’s sipping on his and sit down on the old couch, tucking your legs underneath you. Your skirt rides up slightly in the process and Eddie very deliberately looks away, focusing on literally anything else in the room.
"You can sit," you say, patting the cushion next to you with an amused grin. "It’s your couch."
Eddie does as you say, maintaining what he thinks is a respectful distance. The couch is old and sunken in the middle, though, which means you both kind of slide toward the center. Your knee bumps against his.
"Sorry," he mutters awkwardly, starting to shift away.
"It's okay." You don’t move your knee. You seem to be loosening up a little in his space, growing a little more accustomed after all this time. "This is nice. Just sitting. Not having to pretend to be having a good time."
"Yeah, McKinney’s parties are real ragers," Eddie says dryly, looking down at the now empty glass in his grip. "Nothing says fun like watching drunk jocks play beer pong badly."
You snort in agreement. "You've never even seen Brad try to play beer pong before. It's embarrassing."
His expression sours slightly at the mention of Brad, but his eyes seem to soften when the snarky insult leaves your mouth. "Not missing much then."
"No," you agree again quietly. "Not really."
Eddie picks at a loose thread on the rip in his jeans, going silent and trying to find the right words for what he wants to say next. "Can I ask you something? And you can totally tell me to fuck off if it's too personal."
"Okay," you answer, sitting up a little straighter in anticipation.
"Why were you with him?" Eddie looks at you now, genuinely curious. "Brad. Like, you knew what he was like. Everyone knows what he's like. So why?"
You’re quiet for a long moment, staring down at your hands in your lap. When you finally speak, your voice is small.
"I guess because it's what I'm supposed to do."
"What?"
"Y’know, date guys like Brad. Be friends with girls like Chrissy and Melissa and the rest of the cheer squad. Get good grades, look pretty, smile at the right people, go to the right parties." You look up at him, and there’s something unbearably raw and honest in your eyes now. "That's what's expected of me. It’s what my parents want, what my friends want, what everyone around me wants. I'm supposed to be perfect. The perfect daughter, the perfect student… the perfect girlfriend to the perfect guy." You say the last part with clear disdain, like it’s the aspect that bothers you the most.
"That sounds exhausting," Eddie mutters earnestly.
"It is," you reply. "It's so exhausting, Eddie. And the worst part is I don't even know who I really am anymore under all of it. I don't know what I actually like versus what I'm supposed to like. I don't know who my real friends are versus who's just around because I'm on the cheer squad and dating the basketball captain."
Eddie's heart aches. He can’t relate to what you’re saying at all and never will. A few years ago, he might’ve called these first-world problems. However, he can’t help but believe the exhaustion in your voice. You sound genuinely tired. He wants to say something profound, something that will make it all better, but what comes out is:
"I know who you are."
You look at him, surprised. "What?"
"I know who you are," he repeats. "I mean, what you used to be like. Before… y’know, all of that. Like, you used to spend hours building these… elaborate backstories for your stuffed animals. You cried when we watched E.T. even though you'd seen it like five times already. You were the girl who always shared her lunch with me in elementary school when I forgot mine." He’s on a roll now, years of stored-up memories spilling out all at once. "You defended me against those eighth-grade assholes who tried to flush my D&D dice down the toilet and—and you always told me I was going to be a famous musician someday and actually meant it."
You’re looking at him like he just stabbed you in the stomach. Your lips part, your eyes shining with fresh tears. You can’t help the bittersweet smile your lips curl into. "You remember all that?" It’s your turn to ask now.
"Of course I remember. That stuff matters. It’s real." He gestures vaguely toward the window, in the general direction of the rest of Hawkins. "All that other stuff… the perfect grades, the perfect boyfriend, the perfect image—that's just... that's all bullshit. That's not you." His tone is low and impossibly soft.
You stare down at your lap, opening your mouth to say something, but all words seem to fail you at the moment. The wave of nostalgia hits you all at once and acts as a sour reminder of all you’ve lost. Of the real, genuine friendship you ditched for bullshit that won’t even matter in the long run. You never wanted to lose Eddie. You never wanted to hurt him, you could never wish him pain. But you got so caught up in the shining promise of popularity that you ended up hurting him anyway. You feel so incredibly stupid.
"I miss it," you say suddenly, fiercely. "I miss you. I miss being friends with you. I miss not having to worry about what people think or who's watching or whether I'm acting the right way. I miss when things were simple."
"Me too," Eddie admits, his voice rough. "I miss you too. Like, all the time. I see you in the hallways and I want to talk to you, but I figure you probably don't want the freak bothering you in front of your friends."
"Don't call yourself that," you say sharply, sternly. "You're not a freak, Eddie. You're really not. You’re just... you're you. You're honest and creative and always so expressive and you don't give a shit about what anyone thinks, and I've always—" You stop abruptly, looking away, breath hitching in your throat.
"Always what?" Eddie's heart pounds in his chest.
"I've always admired that about you," you finish quietly. "Even when we stopped being friends. I always thought... God, I wish I could be that brave."
"You think I'm brave?" Eddie laughs, but it comes out shaky. "I'm terrified like ninety percent of the time."
"Really? Of what?"
Right now, of this. Of you and how much he’s never stopped caring about you, even after everything that’s happened.
But what he says is: "I dunno. Of ending up alone, I guess. Of never getting out of this town and being exactly who everyone thinks I am and nothing more."
You turn to face him fully now, pulling your knees up to your chest. "You're going to get out, Eddie. You're talented as shit. And you’re smart, even though you pretend not to be. You're going to do something amazing someday."
"Yeah? What about you?"
"Me?" You look taken aback by the question.
"Yeah, you. What do you want? Not what your parents want or your friends want. What do you actually want?"
You’re quiet for a long moment, really thinking about it. "I wanna move away," you confess finally. "Study something cool. I wanna go to a college far away from here where nobody knows me and I can just start over. Be whoever I want to be and not have to live for others anymore." You pick at a thread on the couch cushion. Eddie realizes that that’s coincidentally also exactly what he wants for himself—to move far, far away from Hawkins and start fresh—and he tries not to mentally harp on the fact that your future plans seem to match up.
"I want to date someone who actually cares about me and who sees me as more than just…arm candy. I wanna date someone who—who makes me laugh and doesn't make me feel like I have to be perfect all the time."
Eddie's throat goes tight. "That doesn't sound like too much to ask for."
"No? Tell that to my parents. They're already planning my future for me. Indiana State, probably. Close enough to visit every weekend. Marry someone 'appropriate.' Have, like, six kids." Your voice is bitter. "No room for what I actually want."
"That's bullshit," Eddie says bluntly. "It's your life. You should get to live it how you want."
"Yeah." You nod subtly. "You’re already pretty much doing that now, aren’t you?" You point out, smiling a little.
He hesitates a little. "Yup," he replies. "And look where it got me. Twenty years old and still in high school, living in a trailer and dealing pot." Eddie leans hard against the back of the couch. "Really living the dream." He snorts, but it’s self-deprecating.
"You're…happy though," you say, brows furrowed. "Aren't you? Like, actually happy. Not pretend happy."
Eddie considers this. Is he happy? His life is objectively a mess by most standards. Most people don’t exactly aspire to be in the position he’s in, and if he were someone else, he probably wouldn’t either. But he has his music, his friends, his interests, his freedom to be exactly who he is without apology or remorse. He is happy in that regard.
"I guess," he admits honestly. "Most of the time, yeah. I'm happy. Could be better, could be worse, but... I'm me. And I guess I'm okay with that."
"I want that," you retort softly. "I wanna be okay with just... being me."
"You can be," Eddie says. "I mean, it's not easy. People are going to have opinions. Your parents… they might be disappointed. Your friends might bail. But at the end of the day, you're the one who has to live with your choices. Might as well make 'em count."
You’re looking at him with such intensity now that Eddie feels pinned in place. Like hearing him say those words frees you from years of forcing yourself to conform. "When did you get so wise?"
"I'm not wise. I'm just stubborn and I don’t care what people think anymore." He grins.
You smile in return, and God, Eddie loves that expression a lot. He’s missed it more than he'll probably ever let himself acknowledge.
"I'm sorry," you say suddenly, because you feel that you’re due for a shit ton of apologies towards the boy beside you.
"For what?" He knows for what.
"For what?" you echo, incredulous. "For all of it. For ditching you. For… for choosing my reputation over you because I was worried about what others would think." Your voice cracks and you sound the most distraught you have all night. Which is a lot, considering the fact that you just got cheated on. "All of that was more than insanely shitty of me. You were my best friend, Eddie. You were—you are—amazing. You really are. You’re funny and you’re nice and you do your own thing despite what everyone else thinks. I’m just… I’m a coward. I was trying to fit in with the crowd and I threw everything we had away because I was scared and dumb and stupid and I thought that being popular mattered more than being happy, but I was wrong. I don’t think I could’ve been more wrong. You deserve someone who’s always there for you and who wouldn’t have done any of that bullshit I did. And—and I know that nothing I say now will ever make up for even a fraction of it and I’m not asking you to understand, let alone forgive me, but I just need you to know. I need you to know that I’m so, so sorry, Eddie."
Eddie doesn’t interrupt you once. He’s dumbfounded, really, eyes wide as he takes everything in. Yeah, what you did sucked. He won’t deny that or the fact that you hurt him. And he probably won’t every forget any of it, but he can hear the emotion and honesty oozing out of your words and all of a sudden, he feels that his only option is to forgive you.
"Hey, no." Eddie reaches out without thinking about it, taking your hand in his ring-clad, warm one. "We were kids. People change, they drift apart. It happens."
"Yeah, but not like that. I don't want us to drift apart anymore," you say fiercely while a tear drips down your cheek, gripping his hand tighter, also without thinking about it. "I really miss you. I know I don’t have the right to, but I do. I miss everything about you. You’ve always been there for me. You’re, like, the only person who knows the real me instead of the version of myself I perform for everyone else. You’re the realest person in this whole shithole town."
Eddie's heart is doing gymnastics in his chest. "I miss you too. Like, constantly. It's actually kind of pathetic how much I think about you." He admits, a sheepish grin on his face.
"Really?" You’re smiling now, even through the waterworks.
"Yeah. I see you in the hallways and it's like... I don't know, it's like I remember how we used to be and for a few seconds, the whole world gets a little brighter? Which is corny as hell, but it's true." He’s rambling now, nervous energy spilling out. "When I see you with Morrison or your cheer friends or whatever, there's this part of me that's happy because you look happy, but there's also this part that's just... sad. Because I remember when I was the one who made you smile like that. And I know I shouldn’t be feeling that way anymore. You're not mine—" he quickly corrects himself. "—my friend, and you haven't been for years, but I can't help it. I've never been able to help it when it comes to you."
You’re staring at him, lips slightly parted, eyes wide. Eddie realizes he's definitely just said too much, crossed about fifteen different lines, and there’s no taking it back now.
"Sorry," he mutters with embarrassment, starting to pull his hand away. "That was—I shouldn't have—"
You tighten your grip, not allowing him to retreat, and keep his hand in place. "Eddie."
"Yeah?"
"I think about you too. Like, so much." You’re leaning closer now, and Eddie's brain is short-circuiting. "Seeing you in the hallways gives me this… urge to just stop and talk to you. I’ll be stuck at some boring party with Brad and his friends, and all I can think about is how much funnier everything would be if you were there instead. But I don’t have the right to think about any of that because we haven't been friends in years and whose fault is that? Mine. It's my fault."
"It's not—"
"It is. I chose wrong, Eddie. I keep choosing wrong. Consistently. Wrong friends, wrong boyfriends, wrong everything. Because none of them are..." You trail off, and the silence between you is suddenly charged.
"Aren't what?" His voice comes out barely above a whisper.
"None of them are you."
The world narrows to just this: your hand in his and your eyes on his. Eddie can see every detail of your face and he takes them in amidst the quiet of the trailer—the smudged mascara, the earnestness in your gaze, the way you’re biting your bottom lip nervously.
He should say something. Do something. But he’s frozen. He’s terrified that, if he moves, the spell will break and you'll realize what you’re saying. Or, more specifically, who you’re saying it to. But you don’t pull away. Not in the slightest. Instead, you lean in, slowly, giving him every opportunity to pull back, to laugh all of it off as the emotional aftermath of a shitty night. Eddie doesn’t pull back.
Your lips meet his tentatively. He should be surprised. He should be fully taken-aback due to the unexpectedness of the situation. But he’s mostly just completely and utterly relieved. He kisses you back with years of pent-up wanting and missing you.
It’s gentle at first. Your free hand comes up to cup his cheek, and Eddie makes a sound he should probably be embarrassed about, his own hand sliding into your hair carefully, like he’s scared of hurting you with the gentlest of touches.
You taste like salt from your tears and something intoxicatingly sweet underneath, and Eddie thinks dimly that he could die right now and be perfectly happy about it.
When you finally pull back, you’re both breathing hard. You stay close, noses barely nudging, and he can feel your smile less than an inch away from his lips.
"Was that okay?" you whisper.
"Are you kidding?" His tone is incredulous. "That was—yeah. That was extremely okay."
You laugh, soft and breathy, and kiss him again. This time it’s deeper, more certain, and Eddie feels like every nerve ending in his body was on fire. Your fingers tangle in his hair, pulling him closer, and he gives in willingly, wrapping his arms around your waist. His grip is still painfully gentle.
Time stops meaning anything. Time seems like it’s never meant anything at all. There’s just you and him and the years of distance and want evaporating with every touch and soft sound you make against his mouth.
When you finally break apart for air again, you stay in his arms, tucked against his chest, and Eddie holds you like you’re something precious. You are, to be honest. You’re a treasure he’s lost and found again and is never letting go of.
"I don't wanna go back," you say quietly against his shoulder after a while of silence. "To pretending. To being someone I'm not."
"Then don't," Eddie says simply. "Stay here. With me. Fuck what everyone else thinks."
You pull back to look at him, and there’s hope in your eyes. "You make it sound so simple."
"It is simple. Not easy, but simple." Eddie brushes a strand of hair behind your ear, feeling less hesitant to touch you now. "You get to choose what you want. Who you want. Everything everyone else says is just noise. It doesn’t matter." Eddie's heart is pounding so hard he’s sure you can hear it. "And if you choose me, I'd say you're making a terrible decision, but I'm too selfish to talk you out of it."
You chuckle, pressing your face into his neck and shaking your head. "You're not a terrible decision, Eddie."
"I sell drugs in the school parking lot and I’m on my third senior year. I'm probably the literal definition of a terrible decision."
"No," you say, pulling back to look at him again. Your eyes are bright, clear, more certain than he's seen them all night. Or ever, maybe. "I don't care. I'm so tired of doing what I'm supposed to do. I want to do what makes me happy. And you..." You cup his face in both hands. "You make me happy. You always have."
Eddie can’t help himself. He kisses you again because he can’t not, because you’re looking at him like he hung the moon and he needs you to know that you’re so much brighter than any star.
"Stay," he murmurs pleadingly against your lips once you pull away. "I know I just said that I was a terrible decision but stay. Not just tonight. Please. I know it's scary and complicated and everyone's going to have an opinion about it, but I swear to God I will spend every single day making you happy."
"Eddie—"
"I'm in love with you," he says, the words tumbling out before he can even think of stopping them. "I have been for years. Maybe since we were kids, I don't know. I tried to move on, but I can't because you’re the only girl I’ve ever wanted. And if you walk out that door tomorrow—or even right now—and decide that this was just a moment, just the aftermath of a shitty night, that would suck but I'd understand. I just need you to know. I love you. It’s you, it's always been you, and I don't think that's ever going to change."
You really can’t help yourself. You’re crying again, but you’re smiling too—the biggest, most genuine smile he's probably ever seen on your face.
"I love you too," you whisper. "Fuck, Eddie, I love you too. I have for so long. I’ve always just been too scared to admit it."
"And now?"
"Now I'm still scared," you admit, laughing shakily. "But I'm more scared of messing up and losing you again. I really, really don’t want that."
The warm glow of the trailer’s dim lights highlights your features. Your arms are around his neck, crickets chirp outside the trailer walls, and Eddie doesn’t think he’s ever felt more at home.
You kiss him again. Soft at first, but it deepens, shifting into something more urgent. It reflects years of wanting, of holding back, of pretending not to feel what you felt—all of it comes pouring out in the way your fingers tighten in his hair and the way Eddie's hands grip your waist like you might dissolve into thin air if he doesn’t hold on tight enough.
"Eddie," you breathe against his mouth, and the sound of his name in your voice like that—all desperate and wanting—makes something in him snap.
He kisses you harder, pulling you closer until you’re practically in his lap. You go willingly, shifting to straddle him properly, your skirt riding up as you settle against him. Eddie's hands slid up your sides, feeling the warmth of your skin through the thin fabric of your top, and you gasp into his mouth.
"Is this okay?" he manages to ask, pulling back just enough to meet your eyes. His hands freeze right over your ribs, right below—
"Yes," you say immediately. "Yes. Don't stop. Please don't stop."
He listens. He kisses you like a drowning man gasping for air, like he’s trying to make up for every moment of the past few years in a single night. Your hands are everywhere—in his hair, on his shoulders, sliding under his jacket to feel the warmth of him through his shirt. Every touch feels purposeful and like you’re trying to memorize him by feel alone.
When his hands slide higher, thumbs brushing the undersides of your breasts through your top, you make a sound that goes straight through him. You arch into his touch, and Eddie groans.
"Oh, Jesus. You're killing me," he says roughly. He means it.
You chuckle, and then you’re kissing him again, rolling your hips against his in a way that makes Eddie see stars. He can feel every inch of you pressed against him—the softness of your thighs bracketing his, the way your chest rises and falls with each breath, the heat of you even through layers of clothing. It’s overwhelming in the best possible way.
Your hands find the hem of his shirt, fingers slipping beneath to trace the lines of his stomach, and Eddie shivers despite the warmth flooding his body. No one’s ever touched him like this before—with such tenderness and simultaneously desperate need. It’s like you can’t get close enough, like you wanna crawl inside his skin and live there forever.
"Can I—" you start, tugging at his shirt, and Eddie nods frantically before you have to elaborate.
He helps you pull it over his head, tossing it somewhere beside the couch, and then your hands are on his bare skin and Eddie forgets how to think. You trace the lines of his ribs. Your gaze trails upwards to a new, unfamiliar patch of ink right over his heart—something that looks like a snarling demon’s head.
"This new?" you ask softly, fingers tracing the slightly crooked design. You’ve seen him shirtless before at various public pool outings, but the marking seems entirely unfamiliar to you. "Never seen it before."
"Yeah," Eddie replies, his voice rough. "Got it, like, a year ago." He gauges your judgement of the design.
"I like it." You lean down, pressing a kiss to the tattoo, then to his collarbone, then up the side of his neck in a trail that makes Eddie's hands tighten on your hips.
"Your turn," he insists before you can kiss further, and you pull back to look at him, pupils blown wide.
"Yeah?"
"Only if you want," he adds quickly, backtracking self–consciously. "We don't have to—we can stop—"
You silence him with another breathless, intense kiss, then reach for the hem of your top. Eddie's hands cover yours.
"Let me?" he offers.
You nod in reply, raising your arms, and Eddie carefully peels the top up and off, revealing smooth skin and a white lacy bra that, despite its striking simplicity, somehow makes his mouth run dry. You’re so achingly beautiful that it actually hurts to look at you. His eyes wander along the curve of your waist and the way your chest seems to rise and fall with every panting breath.
"Hi," you say, looking at him and smiling a little nervously. You feel self-aware under his gaze.
"Hi," Eddie echoes, chuckling. You‘re so cute. "You're so—God, you're so beautiful."
You shake your head sheepishly and bite back a beaming smile, thinking he’s only trying to butter you up. "Eddie—"
"No, I mean it. You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Have been since we were kids. I used to think it wasn't fair, you know? That someone could be that pretty and that smart and that funny. Like you got all the good qualities and the rest of us just had to deal with it."
You can feel your face heating up increasingly and all you can do is laugh, though it comes out a little shaky. "Stop..." You don‘t want him to stop. You could listen to him flattering you forever.
"Never." He pulls you back down into a kiss, skin against skin now, and the feeling of it makes both of you gasp into each other‘s mouths. Eddie's hands roam your back, feeling the realness of you in his arms after years of not daring to even dream about this exact moment.
You kiss him deeply, slowly, like his trailer is a capsule and you have all the time in the world. Your hips roll against the now obvious stiffening bulge in his jeans and Eddie groans into your mouth, his hands sliding down to grip the flesh of your thighs.
"Eddie," you breathe when he pulls back and leans up to kiss sloppily down your throat, on a mission to find the exact spot that makes you shiver. "Eddie, I want—"
"What?" He pulls away to look at you, wanting to hear you say it. "What do you want, sweetheart?"
Sweetheart. You gulp at the pet name. You could absolutely get used to hearing that come out of his mouth. "You," you admit. "I really want you. Please."
Eddie's heart is pounding so hard he thinks it might break through his ribs. He shifts, carefully lifting you with him as he stands up from the couch. You wrap your legs around his waist automatically, giggling against his neck as he carries you down the short hallway to his bedroom with surprisingly sturdy arms.
"Very smooth, Munson," you tease.
"I have my moments," he grins, shouldering open his bedroom door. He’s suddenly very aware of the mess that is his room—clothes strewn across the floor, dice scattered on the nightstand, sheets crumpled up and bed unmade—but you don’t seem to care whatsoever, so he forces himself not to either.
He lays you down on his bed gently and you look up at him with a painful amount of trust, love and want. This is real, he realizes. This is actually happening.
You reach for him and he leans in, covering your body with his, kissing you slow and thorough and pouring every ounce of passion he has into it. Your legs wrap around his waist again, pulling him even closer. He feels a spark in his chest at the taste of your mouth and the softness of your skin and the little sounds you make when he kisses that spot just below your ear.
His hands, calloused from years of strumming guitars, tremble as they reach up to frame your face for a moment, his thumbs stroking your cheeks. He can feel the damp tracks of earlier tears. The sight of you half-naked in his bed, surrounded by band posters, scattered cassette tapes and an ashtray overflowing with butts on the nightstand is a real, physical manifestation of every daydream he’s ever stifled in his mind.
He kisses you again, even deeper. His lips travel from your mouth, down the column of your throat, feeling the frantic pulse there. Eddie’s taking his sweet, sweet time, his hands sliding down, fingers sneaking underneath your arched back to reach for the clasp of your bra. He hesitates for a fraction of a second, searching your sparkling eyes for any sliver of hesitance. When he only finds certainty, his fingers fiddle with the clasp. He struggles for a few moments, tongue poking out in concentration, before finally clicking it open.
Then he pulls the straps down your shoulders and frees you of it fully, tossing it aside to join the chaos on his floor. The sight of you, bared to him in the dim light from his bedside lamp, literally steals the air from his lungs. He just stares, drinking you in, his expression one of reverent awe.
"You’re so pretty," he praises again because he finds himself simply unable not to.
You look away shyly, feeling both utterly exposed and appreciated under his gaze. "Thanks."
Eddie smiles. Slowly, he lowers his head, his mouth finding the swell of your breast, his tongue tracing a slow, worshipful circle before closing his lips around your nipple. A low groan vibrates in his chest. His other hand slides down your side, over the curve of your hip, gripping the fabric of your skirt. He bunches it in his fist, dragging it upward, his knuckles brushing against the skin of your inner thigh teasingly.
His mouth is hot and insistent on your skin, his teeth grazing your nipple with a thrilling edge that makes your back arch off the bed. A choked-out gasp escapes you, your fingers tangling in the wild curls at the nape of his neck, holding him there desperately.
"Oh, shit—Eddie…"
He releases your peaked bud with a soft, smacking sound, his dark eyes lifting to meet yours. They’re blown wide, almost black with want, but there’s so much vulnerability swimming in them. He kisses a burning, worshipful trail up your sternum, back to your mouth, and swallows the sound you make when he nips at your bottom lip.
He pulls away again and his hands, trembling slightly, finally focus on the waistband of your skirt. His rings are cold against your heated skin when he slides the fabric down your legs, casting it aside like the measly blockage it is. He moves with a sudden, desperate grace, trailing kisses down the center of your stomach, his tongue flickering against the sensitive skin of your hip bone, until he reaches the waistband of your panties.
He rids you of those as well and shifts, kneeling between your thighs and draping your legs over his shoulders. He finds you glistening wet with arousal. The cool air of the trailer kisses your exposed skin for only a second before his mouth replaces it. He leans down, his dark curls spilling over your lap, shielding the rest of the world away. When he first tastes you, a mix of a groan and a sigh vibrates in his throat.
"Fuck," he breathes against you, the curse going straight through your core. His hands spread your thighs wider, palms pressing firm against trembling muscles. His tongue swipes a slow, experimental stripe through your folds, and the taste explodes across his senses. A ragged groan tears from his throat as he does it again, deeper this time, nose bumping against your aching clit.
You squirm on the mattress at that, fingers tangling in his wild curls. He moans against you, the sound sending fresh tremors through your body. "Eddie—"
"Shh. Let me," he murmurs into your pussy, lips finally sealing around your clit to suck gently. His ring-clad fingers dig into your hips, holding you as still as he wants you while his tongue flicks rapid circles. Every twitch of your muscles feeds him.
His eyes flick up to watch you, lashes low as your thighs quiver around his ears. The sight unravels him completely—Hawkins High’s prettiest cheerleader and his former best friend whom he‘s been in love with forever, drunk on his mouth. He doubles down, dragging his tongue through your soaking wet folds deliberately, speeding his movements up a little. Every nerve in his body screams to devour. But he‘ll be patient, he‘ll allow you to bask in the feeling.
"That’s it," he rasps, pulling back just enough to watch his own spit glisten on you. His breath fans over your swollen flesh. "Oh, Jesus Christ. Look at you," The word scrapes raw from his chest. He sounds genuinely awed. He seals his mouth over your clit again, his tongue fluttering rapid-fire against the sensitive bud until your back bows off the mattress.
Your fingers tighten in his hair, almost yanking with overwhelm. He groans—half pain, half triumph—and presses two fingers against your entrance.
"O–Oh! Please—" you whimper, and the sound goes straight to his cock, straining against his jeans. He pushes his digits in slowly, knuckles twisting as he curls them upward and rubs, his mouth never leaving your clit. Every thrust of his fingers matches the rhythm of his tongue, stretching you just shy of enough.
He feels it the second you tip—there‘s a flutter around his fingers and a loud hitch in your breathing. Eddie pins your hips down with his forearm, refusing to let you buck away, and swallows every pulse of your climax like communion. Only when you go boneless and fully pliant against the mattress does he ease off, pressing soft, reverent kisses to your inner thigh. His fingers slip out of you with a lewd squelch.
"So good, baby. You taste so good," he praises, dragging the back of his hand across his slicked mouth. He kneels between your trembling legs, hands trembling as he reaches for his belt buckle impatiently.
Before he can undo the belt completely, your hand quickly covers his, stilling the frantic motion. His eyes snap to yours, wide and startled. For a moment, he‘s terrified that he‘s gotten too ahead of himself. His breath catches as your fingers gently push his aside. Both to his surprise and major relief, you take over the task of undoing the worn leather.
The metal teeth of his zipper sound unnaturally loud in the quiet trailer. He’s holding his breath, watching you with a mixture of awe and disbelief. When you hook your fingers into the waistband of his jeans and boxers, pushing them down over his hips just enough to free him, he flinches slightly, a soft, choked sound escaping him. He‘s still kneeling on the mattress while you bow forward, his scent filling your senses completely.
"Sweetheart, you don‘t gotta—"
His protest is weak, half-hearted. He’s fully hard, his cock flushed and straining against his stomach. You can see the rapid pulse in his throat, the way his knuckles are white where they grip the edge of the mattress.
You press a soft, open-mouthed kiss to his navel. He jerks as if he’s just been shocked.
"You deserve this," you whisper against his skin, your breath ghosting over him. "Just let me."
He lets out a shuddering exhale, his head falling back as he squeezes his eyes shut. "Shit," he breathes, the word full of surrender. He shifts on the mattress and guides you along gently until you switch positions—his back against the headboard, you kneeling in between his legs.
You don’t take him into your mouth all at once. You start with the tip, a slow, tentative lick that has his entire body tensing already. A low groan rumbles in his chest. You swirl your tongue around the head, tasting his musk, before taking him deeper, inch by careful inch. Your hand wraps around the base, stroking in time with the shallow bobs of your head. You look and feel like a goddamn dream. There‘s no other way to describe it.
His hand reaches up, hovering near your hair as if afraid to touch and take control. "Christ..." he groans. His hips give an involuntary, tiny thrust, and he immediately stills them, a pained sound in the back of his throat. "Shit—sorry, sorry—"
You only hum encouragingly in response, the vibration against his dick making him curse again. His fingers finally sink into your hair. Not to guide you, but to simply hold on. You can feel the tension coiling in him, the way his muscles tremble with effort. You work him with your mouth and hand, learning his rhythm and the places that make his breath catch. Just as he feels himself begin to teeter on that edge, he pushes you off of him carefully. He‘s gasping and his dick is throbbing to an almost painful extent. As much as he loves the wet heat of your mouth, he really needs to finally be inside of you.
Without another word, he pulls you up until your lips meet again in a messy, desperate clash of teeth. He groans into your mouth, his hands coming up to cradle your face, and his thumbs stroke your cheeks in a way that is gentle enough to contrast with the frenzy in his kiss. Your shared taste is the most intoxicating thing he’s ever known.
He doesn’t speak anymore. Words have failed him. Instead, he moves with a sudden, decisive urgency, rolling you gently onto your back amidst the rumpled sheets. His jeans and briefs are kicked the rest of the way off, landing somewhere on the floor with a soft thud. He leans away from you and opens up the top drawer of his nightstand, fishing out a packaged condom lurking in there. You try not to work yourself up over the prospect of him having had other girls in this exact same position before.
He tears the wrapper open with his teeth, slipping it on his shaft. He settles between your thighs properly then, his weight a welcome anchor. The hard, heated length of him presses against your soaked entrance, and you both gasp at the contact.
He braces himself on his forearms, his face inches from yours. His hair forms a dark curtain around you, and his expression is one of raw reverence.
"Look at me," he whispers, his voice rough as gravel. "Please. I need to see you."
You do as he says and look straight into his eyes, an immediate grin making its way onto your face. He looks incredibly gorgeous like this, the pale moonlight bathing his features in a bluish hue.
You’re about to comment on how pretty he is, but then he’s already pushing forward, stealing the air from both your lungs. The feeling is overwhelming, a perfect, stretching fullness that makes your eyes flutter shut for a second before you force them open, locking back onto his gaze. He’s watching you with an intensity that borders on painful, cataloging every flicker of sensation that crosses your perfect face.
He bottoms out, hips flush against yours, and goes still, trembling with the effort. A bead of sweat traces a path from his temple down to his jaw. He’s breathing hard, his chest rising and falling against yours.
He whispers your name in a ragged sigh. He dips his head, pressing his forehead to yours, his eyes squeezed shut. "You feel... shit, you feel so good. Like heaven." He‘s not even exaggerating. The way your velvety walls clamp down on him has him cursing under his breath before he‘s even started moving properly.
He begins rolling his hips. It’s not a frantic, pounding rhythm, not yet. Instead, it’s deep, rolling thrusts that grind against every sensitive sweet spot inside of you. Each stroke is deliberate. The only sounds in the room are the faint creak of the mattress and your shared, panting breaths.
His mouth finds yours again in a searing kiss, then trails down your jaw to your neck, where he sucks a mark into your skin that both of you know will bruise. He wants it to. He wants to see physical proof of you choosing him marked onto your skin. One of his hands slides down to grip your hip, his fingers digging in possessively, while the other tangles in your hair.
The trailer's thin walls do little to muffle the sound of the old springs groaning under the weight of years of repressed wanting. Slowly but surely, Eddie‘s movements shift from that reverent, slow grind into something more desperate. Every time his hips slam home against yours, there’s a fleshy, heavy sound that echoes in the small room and drowns out the distant crickets as well as the blurring memories of Tyler McKinney’s bullshit party.
He pulls his head back, his dark curls matted with sweat against his forehead, and he just stares at you. His eyes are wide, glassy with a mix of pleasure and pure, unadulterated shock around the fact that this is actually happening.
He rasps out your name. "F–Fuck, you’re... you’re so fucking perfect. I’m gonna lose my goddamn mind." He’s not just talking about the physical sensation, though the way your slick pussy grips him with every pulse is enough to make his vision blur. He’s talking about the fact that it’s you. The girl he‘s always loved and whose proximity he stopped thinking he‘d be in ever again anymore. And now you‘re underneath him in his bed, being pounded like your life depends on it.
His hands slide from your hips, rings cold against your skin as he pins your wrists above your head. He’s not being rough to be mean; he’s being rough because he needs to feel you and know that this isn't some fucked–up hallucination his brain is making up. He buries his face in the crook of your neck, his teeth grazing the skin right where your pulse is hammering. He keeps leaving dark blossoms of color because he truly doesn‘t give a shit about the possible later fallout. He thrusts deeper, harder, his body tense with the unadulterated want of staying inside you forever.
"Jesus fuckin' Christ," he pants, his pace quickening until the bed is practically dancing with your movements. His body is trembling, his muscles corded and straining as he tries to maintain some semblance of control. But the way you’re looking up at him with your glassy, unfocused eyes is breaking him bit by bit. "Oh, shit— talk to me, sweetheart. Please, fuckin'–." He’s pleading. He just really needs to hear your voice.
Your jaw slacks. You can feel your orgasm coming on. That and a creeping, gnawing guilt for how you’ve hurt him with your decisions. You can physically sense the weight of every time you chose a preppy asshole over your best friend pressing down on you. It all comes crashing down along alongside the pleasure and it’s an overwhelming, suffocating tide of emotion that forces the air from your lungs in a high-pitched sob. You reach up, your fingers digging into the sweat-slicked skin of his shoulders, pulling him down until his ear is pressed against your lips.
"I love you, Eddie," you chant, the words tumbling out of you in a frantic, vocal flood that matches the pulse of your body tightening around him. "I love you. I love you... I’m sorry, I’m sorry—" The apology is a raw, strained thing that cuts through the haze of the moment. You’re crying now for likely the millionth time tonight. You repeat the words over and over, desperate for him to hear the genuine, undeniable regret coarsing through you. You’ve been such a coward, hurting him when he’s always been there for you. And the fact that he’s here, towering over you, holding you and making you feel things you‘ve never even dreamt of feeling before, makes the tears flow even quicker.
Eddie lets out a groan that serves as a visceral reaction to your words. Hearing you apologize—hearing the girl who was the only bright spot in his miserable childhood say she loves him while she’s coming apart under him—is simply too much. He doesn't want your apologies; he wants you. You‘re all he‘s ever wanted.
He redoubles his efforts, his thrusts becoming heavy and punishingly deep like he‘s trying to physically drive the guilt out of you, his teeth sinking into his own bottom lip to keep from sobbing himself.
"Don't—shit, don't say you're sorry," he gasps, his voice cracking as he catches your face in his hands, his rings biting into your skin. "Just stay. Just—ah—stay with me." He’s right on the edge now, his body vibrating with the force of his own impending peak.
He can see you unraveling, the apologies catching in your throat and your eyes searching his for a forgiveness he already gave you the second he saw you crying on that bench. He needs to push you over that final precipice. He needs to drown out your regret with a pleasure so absolute that you won't be able to remember anything except how fucking good he‘s making you feel.
He shifts his weight, one arm braced beside your head to keep from crushing you, while his other hand slides down through where your joined bodies connect. His calloused fingers find your clit, sensitive and swollen from your earlier orgasm, and begin to work it ruthlessly.
"Cum for me," he pleads, his voice a whiny vibration that shivers down your spine. "Give it to me. Need’a feel you cum around me—God, please. Cum with me, sweetheart."
You’re continously repeating his name now, your apologies melting into a frantic, breathless litany of "Eddie, Eddie, please." The combination of his weight on top of you, the depth of his length inside of you and the relentless friction of his fingers over your most sensitive spot is the final straw.
You arch your back, your fingers clenching so hard into the muscles of his shoulders that your nails leave crescent indents into his skin. The release hits you unlike anything ever has before. It’s a blinding explosion of sensation that radiates from your core and, even if only momentarily, washes away the lingering sting of those years of silence. You’re shaking, your walls spasming around him in tight, rhythmic pulses that feel like they're trying to pull him even deeper. Eddie watches it all and doesn‘t blink once, his eyes wide and glassy, relishing in the sight of you completely undone by him.
That tight, desperate clenching of your body shatters his own fragile restraint. He thrusts and buries himself as deep as he can possibly go, his forehead dropping to your shoulder as his own climax rips through him. It’s a stellar, exhaustive release, every ounce of his longing and frustration and love pouring out of him and into you. He’s gasping for air, his body heavy and trembling as he collapses against you, careful to shift his weight to his elbows as to not crush you but needing the contact, needing the reassurance that you’re still there, beneath him, real and breathing and finally, finally where you were always supposed to be.
The following silence is thick, interrupted only by the sound of two sets of lungs trying to remember how to work. Eddie doesn't move for a long time, hiding his face in the curve of your neck. He feels the cooling dampness of your tears and sweat, and then he pulls back just enough to look at you. His expression is familiarly soft. He reaches up, his fingers brushing a stray hair from your forehead. Your hair is a mess, your makeup completely smudged from earlier tears and kisses, and you've never looked more perfect to him.
You have a shit ton of things to talk about. You have to figure out how you‘re going to be moving forward—whether or not anyone will know about you, whether or not you’re fully ready to escape the confines of peoples’ expectations and the sparkling reputation you’ve constructed around yourself yet. What you do know, though, is that you‘ve learned from your mistakes, and you want Eddie by your side through it all. You‘re sick of having to pretend otherwise.
You know it had to be him. Despite everything, it was always going to be him.
Simply thinking about Jack Abbot correcting your posture.
He’s a doctor, so sure it starts there, in the territory of alignment and strain and long-term damage, all the tiny indignities a body absorbs when nobody’s paying proper attention to it.
And he worries about you, of course. Worries about the set of your neck and the rounded drag of your shoulders, about how you curl in on yourself over your charting like the screen might swallow you whole, about how you hunch over your phone texting those ridiculous little emoticons and memes he glances at with visible suspicion.
So he makes an effort to fix it.
A broad hand behind your chair, angling it closer to the desk until your spine has no excuse but the lengthen. Two fingers slipped beneath your chin when you’re bent out of shape around your phone on the couch, tilting your gaze upward until the vertebrae stack properly and the ache in your neck eases. Even in transit — plate to sink, fridge to stove — he stops to cup your shoulders, easing them from your ears with a downward glide of his thumbs.
A silent reward hums through the touch: a silent good girl, there you go.
“Sit up, sweetheart.” “Uncross your legs.” “Laptop higher.” “Relax your jaw.”
He knows he’s a perpetual nuisance, aware he sounds like someone’s dad, can practically hear the eye-roll you swallow every time.
He also knows it embarrasses you, especially at work, where your face goes warm when he corrects you within earshot of other people. And it isn’t that he sets out to make you squirm, though he’d be lying if he said he got nothing out of that quick little fluster he can pull from you with a word, a hand, a look.
It’s just that once he notices you folded in on yourself for too long, something in him firms. His voice drops into that clipped, authoritative register, flipping a switch to brisk certainty and command, and by then it’s already too late to pretend you’re not going to listen.
So when he catches you slouched at the station again, practically kissing the monitor, he doesn’t hesitate.
Steps in behind you. His palm fits against the ridge of your upper back, heat seeping straight through the thin cotton.
“Up.”
You mutter, “I hate you,” eyes never leaving the vitals grid, and Jack takes it as the green light it is.
His thumb glides from back to shoulder to nape. The opposite hand curves under your jaw’s hinge, guiding your head until your spine clicks back to neutral while the entire nurses’ station pretends their screens are riveting.
Public proof that your posture, and maybe the rest of you, answers to Dr. Abbot’s touch far faster than to your own irritation.
“There’s a whole skeleton under all that,” he observes dryly. “Try using it.”
You bat at his hand, a half-hearted slap. “Stop manhandling me at work.”
He ignores that, drops the chair one notch (ignoring your surprised squeak too), angles the monitor to proper eye level, then squares your shoulders with both palms. A measured squeeze follows, equal parts reassurance and warning.
“Better,” he decides. “And if I catch you bent over that phone again, I’m taking it.”
He likes the line of you best when he’s the one arranging it.
You figure that out later, breathless and flushed, forehead buried in his sheets while he kneels behind you, two sure hands repositioning your ass in the air like he’s smoothing kinks from an instrument only he can tune.
“Uh-uh,” he grunts, and you’re too far gone to know what he means until his palm presses between your shoulder blades and eases you down, down, down, your hips staying high as your face sinks into the pillow. “Arch for me — c’mon, deeper bend, don’t cheat your lower back.”
Your breath catches when he palms the dip he’s just created, fingers splaying and then he’s sliding his cock in your folds slow. It earns a pleased mewl from you, angle perfect because he’s engineered it that way.
Every push has a tiny corrective tap — shoulders down, knees wider, perfect girl — until your pussy clenches and drips all over his rigid stomach and he finally lets you break form, hips snapping while his palm settles, triumphant, at the very spot that first straightened you hours ago.
MARIA NOTE hello this is my trying out little blurbs/drabbles bc this random thought rlly evoked something in me... don't know how to feel it ab. it feels naked without my fun graphics but alas! and the tiny text??? what do we think?? yes or no i'm in the middle right now so feel free to share opinions... it looked a little strange as regular but idk i'm lowkey having an existential crisis over this ok bye
when the codys plan a heist for a luxury gentlemen’s club in los angeles, the last thing pope expects is to connect with the club’s most coveted and profitable dancer. right away, he feels there’s something different about you. little does he know, you aren’t working there of your own free will. your father is indebted to the club’s owner, and his life and yours are on the line if you don’t keep bringing in money until the debt is paid.
warnings/tags: canon level violence, strip club/nightclub setting, shitty and abusive men (not pope duh), death (not reader or anyone in the cody family), reader knows how to pole dance, reader is afab and goes by she/her pronouns, love at first sight vibes, reader is kinda a man-hater but it’s justified, some angst and some fluff, pov switches, reader goes by a stage name but her real name is never stated, no use of y/n, possible strip club inaccuracies, kissing, not explicit smut but mdni, pope is protective af, no baz or smurf, takes place after lena gets adopted but pope is still living in baz’s old beach house. flashbacks are italicized!
author’s note: woooo-weeeeee. my longest fic ever. holy shit. i cannot believe it is finally done. thank you endlessly to @fru1t4fr0gs and @thethyri for reading over this for me and letting me talk about it for weeks and weeks. this is by far the most challenging fic i have ever written and at times i wondered if i should just give up on it, but i’m very glad that i kept going and can share it with you all. i hope you love it as much as i do.
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Tonight was supposed to be your first Friday night off in years.
In hindsight, you had been an idiot to not realize that’s too good to be true. Friday and Saturday nights are always Solstice’s busiest nights, and you aren’t exactly in a position to pick and choose your shifts. Weekends are mandatory for anyone who brings in decent money, and you’re no exception.
You should’ve known it was a simple scheduling error, an oversight from whichever manager had been responsible for this week’s schedule, but the thought of getting take-out and spending your Friday night catching up on a few of your favorite shows that you’ve neglected the newest episodes of had been too tempting for you to think about questioning why your name wasn’t listed under Friday, as it usually is.
Then, at 9:15 pm, precisely fifteen minutes after your shift's typical start time, your phone rang. Right away, a ball of nausea wound tight in your stomach. You didn’t even have to look at the screen to know whose name was displayed across it.
You also knew better than to risk not answering.
“Yes?”
“Where the fuck are you?”
Silas is pissed. That’s nothing new. Silas has been in a perpetual state of pissed off since the day you had the misfortune of meeting him. Pissed is his default.
“Not at work.”
A loud, sarcastic guffaw sounds from your speaker. “Yeah, I fuckin’ see that. Why the hell do you think I’m calling you? To ask about your overall wellbeing?”
“Oh, I’d never think that,” you mutter under your breath, too low and quick for him to make out over the roar of R&B music that blares in the background. “I wasn’t on the schedule tonight,” you say more clearly, digging your nails into your palm in an effort to keep your voice level.
“Yeah, and your buddy Trevor is getting his ass chewed out for that, too,” Silas spits. “You always work Friday nights. The only exception was the time you got food poisoning because I didn’t want you shitting on a customer during a dance. You know that.”
Damn it. Trevor is your favorite of all of the floor managers - the only one who talks to you like a human being. Why couldn’t it have been Gregory? That pervert getting in trouble would almost be worth this phone call and whatever punishment Silas has in mind for you not being at work right now.
“It’s not my fault that Trevor fucked up the schedule,” you say, voice still lethally calm. “I show up when I’m told to. Nothing more.”
“I don’t give a rat’s fat ass whose fault it is,” Silas hisses. “And I’m telling you to show up now, so you better get here before ten o’clock or—”
You don’t want to hear whatever he’s about to threaten you with. It could be anything from not letting you perform a solo routine on center stage tonight to taking a bigger cut of the money you make from private rooms…to even worse.
“Okay, okay. Jesus fuck. I’m on my way.”
You hang up before his voice can give you a migraine before you even arrive at the club.
Forty minutes later, after doing your hair and makeup in record time, throwing on the first cute lingerie set you can find that’s clean, and speeding at least ten over the speed limit the entire drive to the club, you show up with less than five minutes to spare.
Luckily, Silas is nowhere to be found when you enter through the back door. You know that he’ll bitch at you some more whenever you see him, but right now, you’re relieved to start your normal rounds while he’s otherwise occupied. Likely smoking himself to death with a hotdog-sized cigar in his office.
You walk the main floor, making small talk with a few regulars that aren’t complete pieces of shit as far as men who frequent strip clubs go. You book your first private room of the night, and Gregory is a little too happy to inform you that Silas will be taking sixty percent of your earnings tonight as opposed to the standard fifty.
As annoying as that is, you can’t help but feel a little relieved. As far as punishments go, a ten percent increase in his cut is mild. Last time you were reprimanded (for not fucking smiling enough), Silas added an additional five grand to the already exorbitant amount of money that your father owes him.
The exorbitant amount of money that just so happens to be the very reason you are working in this shithole in the first place.
Not even two hours into your shift, and you’re already over it. So over it that you offer to take out a bag of trash for the bartenders just as an excuse to get some fresh air for two fucking minutes.
This part of Los Angeles isn’t exactly quaint - there’s a near constant stream of car horns blaring and police sirens wailing but it’s white noise to you at this point. At least the night air is a nice reprieve from the stench of cheap weed and cheaper cologne even for only a moment.
It says a lot that you consider hanging out by literal dumpsters more appealing than being inside.
You should’ve been out of here a long time ago. It wasn’t supposed to take more than a year to clear the debt that isn’t even your debt to clear.
You didn’t even know that your dad was sick. Not until you came home from college on a random weekend, hoping to surprise him, and found him far thinner and more frail than you had ever seen him, hooked up to a dialysis machine to keep himself from dying of kidney failure.
He’d tried his hardest to keep it all from you. He didn’t want you to worry, didn’t want you to drop out of school to take care of him. He tried to handle the medical bills that accumulated rapidly on his own for as long as he could.
And when he accepted that he couldn’t, he got desperate.
He thought Silas was just a lender. Someone who would help him stay afloat long enough to get a transplant, recover, and get back to work. He didn’t realize exactly what kind of man he had borrowed from until Silas showed up at his house, uninvited and unannounced, waltzing right in like he owned the place.
So vividly you can remember the look of shame on your father’s face when Silas revealed the truth, and the panic that quickly bloomed when he looked directly at you and said the words that changed the trajectory of your life.
“You failed to mention that you have a daughter,” Silas purrs. “She sure is pretty. You know, I think she’d do real well working in one of my clubs. Yeah, she’d be popular. Make me a lot of money. How does that sound? You wanna help your poor, sick daddy out?”
Your dad had instantly refused, pleading with Silas to just give him a little more time, but you could tell that Silas wasn’t really asking. He was telling you what you were going to do. And because you were scared, for your own life and your father’s, you agreed.
Here you are, three years later, with no true end in sight.
The club’s back door screeches open, and you know that your ninety seconds of the closest thing you can get to peace around here has come to an end.
“The hell are you doing out here?” Silas booms, interrupting the relative quiet of the alleyway. “It’s almost time for you to go on center stage. You’re lucky that I’m even letting you go on at all tonight. I wasn’t planning on it, but there’s a group of guys in there requesting you.”
You resist the urge to roll your eyes. The last thing you want is for him to change his mind at the last second and give your solo slot to one of the other girls. “I’m coming. I was just taking out the trash.”
You take a step to walk past him, but he blocks the doorway, his clammy hand shooting out to catch you by the elbow. His grip isn’t quite hard enough to bruise, but still makes bile churn in your gut.
“Don’t get cute with me,” he spits. “You’re already on thin ice tonight.”
You don’t say anything, biting your lip to hold back the overwhelming desire to spit in his face. Silas leans in, his breath foul with the stench of whiskey and cigar smoke.
“Maybe you’ve forgotten what’s at stake here.” His fingers tighten just a fraction around your arm. Just enough to make you wince. “Maybe your dad needs a reminder.”
You taste iron from where your teeth break the skin of your lip. “I said I’m coming.”
Silas snorts, satisfied for now. He lets go of your arm with a shove that is more dismissive than violent and turns back toward the door.
“And try not to fuck up your set,” he snaps over his shoulder. “Those guys in there are blowing their money on you. Don’t make me regret doing you any favors.”
And then he’s gone, letting the metal door slam closed behind him before you can follow him inside.
You stand there for a moment, breathing in and then slowly exhaling when movement from your peripheral vision catches your eye.
Great. Just what you fucking need right now. An audience. Men, of course. Two of them. Just close enough to have heard every word.
“What are you looking at, boys?” You call, voice void of emotion as you make direct eye contact with the stocky, curly-haired one.
He’d be cute, you think, if he wasn’t the kind of guy to spend his Friday night outside of a strip club. The sandy blond looks slightly surprised that you’re acknowledging them, but his buddy remains stoic.
You jerk your chin towards the door Silas slammed behind him.
“The show’s inside.”
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Pope all but forced Deran to switch tasks with him at the last second.
Originally, he was supposed to be the one keeping a close eye on Silas Leary, Solstice’s owner, while Deran scopes out the club’s main floor for the heist that Craig, of all people, is orchestrating.
He shouldn’t be surprised. A luxury gentleman’s club based heist is quite possibly the most Craig heist possible.
But now, instead of watching the balding, sweaty jackass who had berated you in the alleyway not even ten minutes ago, he’s watching you on stage.
You’re more pleasant to look at, at least.
He’s never really seen anything quite like it - the way you dance. This isn’t his first time at a strip club. His brothers have coerced him into going to strip clubs before, though every time prior to tonight was for pleasure, not business. Still, he isn’t unfamiliar with the scene. He’s watched women pole dance before, but not like this.
You’re the only thing in the room that he can concentrate on. For the entirety of the five minutes and some change that your set lasts, he forgets that he’s technically here for recon. He and his brothers made this trip to Los Angeles to get a feel for the building’s layout, to see how operations work, to check out the security systems…not watch the strippers.
He tells himself he’s keeping up appearances. It would be weird to not watch you. Everyone in the room is - even the other dancers, though they watch with less enchantment and more disdain than the patrons.
The song comes to an end all too soon, and Pope continues to watch as you make quick work of collecting all of the bills that had been thrown onto the stage. He stands just a few feet away, close enough that he can see the body glitter dusted across your chest sparkle in the glow of the neon stage lights.
When you stand up, thick stack of cash in hand, your gaze locks with his for one tense but fleeting moment. The look in your eyes is the same as when you had made direct eye contact with him outside the club.
Just as fast as you had appeared on the stage, you then disappear, leaving Pope staring after you.
He thinks back to what he and Deran had witnessed in the alley. He had instantly recognized Silas Leary from pictures he’d seen online, so he and Deran hung around to witness the brief interaction, hoping to get some idea as to what Silas is like in person before entering the club.
It came as no shock to Pope that his reputation precedes him. Harsh, volatile, cruel seemingly for the sake of being cruel. That isn’t what made Pope freeze in place in the alley. It’s what Silas had said to you.
“Maybe you’ve forgotten what’s at stake here. Maybe your dad needs a reminder.”
And your response. You didn’t agree or disagree. Didn’t fight him on it. You looked Silas dead in the eyes, expression unreadable, and barely flinched. Like you had heard the threat a thousand times before, like you were used to the way he grabbed you by the arm. Like it hardly even phased you.
Pope’s first instinct had been to intervene, but he knew doing so would have tanked the job before it began. He couldn’t risk drawing attention to himself and Deran, and deep down, he also knew that stepping in would have likely made things worse on you, too, in the long run.
So he watched from the sidelines, feeling more at peace than ever at the prospect of stealing loads of money from someone, knowing Silas Leary deserves what’s coming for him.
Deran knew it, too, playing it off with a joke that sparked an idea in Pope’s head.
“Shit. You think she hates the fucker enough to help us rob him?”
Pope had said nothing at the time, but he was unable to shake the thought. The entire time that he watched you on stage, the look of unadulterated hatred on your face kept replaying in his mind.
But for just a few minutes, as you danced on the center stage, you seemed different than you did in the alley. Different than you did when you were collecting the dozens of tens, twenties, and hundred dollar bills off of the stage floor. For a few moments, Pope saw himself in you. The way you seemed to completely dissociate while you performed, like there was no one else in the room but you and nothing else mattered. In his own way, he’s been there. With skateboarding, and with boxing. For him, those things are escapes.
He can’t help but wonder if that’s what dancing is for you. An escape from this place.
He supposes there’s really only one way to find out - if he’s right, and if Deran could possibly be right, too.
Good thing Craig had suggested they all bring plenty of cash with them. To keep up appearances, he had said. If you’re going to a strip club, you should always have cash on you. This is just recon, but you never know.
He’d smirked when he said it, as if he already had plans to spend said cash in ways that weren’t relevant to recon, but he still made a fair point.
Pope’s eyes scan the crowded room, searching through all of the dancers and customers in hopes of finding someone who might be of some help. He notices a short, pudgy, middle-aged man who appears to be scolding another dancer.
Gregory, Pope sees that his name tag reads once he approaches him.
“The dancer that just finished up on stage,” Pope asks him, “What’s her name?”
A creepy, almost unsettling smile grows on Gregory’s face. “Oh, that would be Soleil. Why? You want a room with her?”
What Pope wants is to wipe that perverted look off of his face, but rationally he knows that would be counterproductive right now, so he settles for a curt nod. “Yeah, I do.”
“Half hour? Or a full hour?”
Pope knows that he’s supposed to meet his brothers and nephew where they parked a couple blocks away in less than an hour, so he isn’t really sure why he lets the next words come out of his mouth, but for whatever reason, he does.
“Full hour.”
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Gregory barges into the locker room without so much as knocking.
You’re dressed (as dressed as you possibly can be in a place like this), just counting the money you made from your solo set, but his sudden presence still unnerves you.
“You’ve got a private room,” he barks, not bothering to be subtle with the way his beady little eyes trail up your legs. “Room two. Full hour. This guy asked for you after watching your solo performance, so you better not disappoint him.”
You cram the rest of your money into the locker and snap it shut, trying not to give Gregory the satisfaction of seeing how irritated you are - at the way he thinks he owns this place and can enter a changing room without knocking, and especially at hearing you have to do another private room. For a full hour.
You don’t bother asking who the private room is with. You’re confident it’s one of the men who had convinced Silas to let you go on center stage tonight. A group of four or five sat as close as possible to the front, several familiar faces throwing bills at you every few seconds. Any given one of them looks like the type to drop six hundred dollars on an hour-long private room.
“Oh, I’ll try my hardest,” you breathe sarcastically. “Now can I have a second to freshen up? Alone?”
“Hurry,” Gregory snaps. “He’s waiting for you.”
You wait until the door clicks shut behind him to curse under your breath. Sometimes, you think you might hate Gregory as much as you hate Silas - if that’s even possible.
After reapplying your lipgloss and spritzing on a little more perfume, you reluctantly make your way to the private room where you’ll spend the next hour of your life.
At least once it’s over, it’ll be after midnight, which means the rest of the shift likely won’t be quite as busy, and you’ll be able to go home soon—
“Hi,” you chirp, slipping into the room with a forced smile and your best customer service voice. “I’m Soleil. Thanks so much for booking a room with me tonight. And what’s your na—”
You freeze as soon as you turn around from shutting the door behind you, the question dying on your tongue.
Not one of the men from the eager group that sat right next to the stage. You do recognize him, though. He too had stood close to the stage, by himself.
One of the men from the alley.
“Oh,” you quip, voice rising an octave. “You’re—”
“Pope,” he interrupts, and you’re thankful for it, because you didn’t really even know where you were going with that sentence. “My name is Pope.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Pope,” you smile, taking a tentative step closer to where he stands awkwardly in the middle of the room. “Would you like to sit down?” You ask, gesturing towards the couch behind him.
He nods. You hover for a moment, giving him space as he lowers himself stiffly onto the couch. He looks around with uncertainty, like this entire process is completely unfamiliar to him and he isn’t sure what exactly he is supposed to say or do.
“Let me guess,” he starts, settling into the velvet couch. He runs his palms over jean fabric that conceals his bulky thighs. “Your name isn’t actually Soleil?”
You snort a laugh as you take a seat in the empty space beside him. You tuck your legs beneath you, one arm relaxing across the top of the couch, your hand coming to rest just behind his head. Instinctively, your fingers inch towards the base of his skull to toy with the reddish brown curls there, but you stop yourself at the last second, instead smoothing your fingertips over the soft, velvet material of the couch.
Normally, you wouldn’t hesitate to show physical affection for such high-paying clientele - that is what at least 95% of them are here for, anyway - but something about the way he stiffens at your sudden closeness makes you think twice before touching him.
“That depends,” you counter. “Is Pope actually your name?”
He turns his neck to look you in the eye - now close enough that you’re able to see his hazel irises and the light dusting of freckles across his skin.
Pretty, you think - even if he is the kind of man to spend an asinine amount of money on a nearly naked and complete stranger’s attention, you can’t deny that he’s pretty.
“No,” he says lowly. He pauses, swallowing. “Pope’s just a childhood nickname. My real name is Andrew.”
“Andrew,” you repeat with a slow nod. “And which would you prefer that I call you?”
A slight blush appears on the apples of his cheeks. “You can call me whatever you want to.”
It doesn’t really make a difference to you, considering you’ll likely never see him again after the hour he paid for comes to an end, but you can’t help but think the way he blushed when you said Andrew was oddly endearing.
“Well, Andrew,” you hum, “you are correct in assuming that my name is not really Soleil. That’s just the stage name I chose to go by.” You nod towards the sign on the opposite wall that spells Solstice in neon, cursive lettering. You give a small shrug. “I thought it pairs well with the name of the club. Soleil at Solstice.”
There’s something close to a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. “I’m sure you’re already aware that soleil means sun in French.”
Yes, you are aware of that, but you’re slightly surprised that he knows that. Most men that come here don’t know their left from their right.
“That it does,” you agree. “Kind of ironic, actually.”
His eyebrows pinch together a bit. “How so?”
Because there isn’t actually any sun in a place like this. A dark, dystopian fucking hellscape.
But you can’t say that, of course. God forbid you say anything even slightly negative about this place and word somehow gets back to Silas. That would be your third strike of the night, and he’d likely tack on an additional twenty grand to your father’s outstanding balance for the hell of it.
You instantly regret saying anything at all.
“Oh, nothing.” You shake your head in dismissal. “Just meant the only thing that’s bright here is the strobe lights.”
He stares at you for an extended moment before responding, his gaze heavy on you. “I wouldn’t say the only thing.”
You exhale a breathy laugh, your cheeks warming more than they should at the sentiment. It fills you with a bit of shame, really - the fact that you’d feel even slightly flustered over a vague compliment from a stranger paying for your company.
“So, Andrew…” you say, breaking the brief but loaded silence that had settled between you. “You paid for this room. What would you like to do in it?”
You dread what comes next. You always do. The kind of “dancing” that you hardly even consider dancing. The stripping, the touching. There’s supposed to be boundaries, of course, but most men think that if they’re paying then that gives them a right to cross them.
But private rooms are part of the job. Silas has made that clear from day one. He lets you perform your solo routines because they generate too much revenue to deny you the one part of the night that you don’t absolutely despise - but your sets last five, maybe ten minutes at most. Your shifts run about six hours. That leaves five hours and fifty minutes to keep the money flowing if you want to keep Silas appeased, which means doing every soul-sucking part of the job you hate: the floor dances, the private rooms, the mandatory mingling and endless flirting.
Every now and then, though, someone will book a private room and pleasantly surprise you.
“I just wanna talk,” Andrew says simply. “If that’s alright with you.”
You have to hold back the urge to sigh in relief. Talking you can do. And the fact that Andrew doesn’t reek of body odor and stout liquor like the majority of your customers makes the thought of conversing with him for the remainder of the next hour even less painful.
Six hundred dollars (well, significantly less once Silas takes his sixty percent cut…) and all you have to do is sit and talk to a decent looking man who isn’t belligerently drunk? You’ve had far worse nights.
“Of course,” you smile, and for once it isn’t completely forced. “You’re paying. If you want to talk, then we talk.”
Andrew is silent for a moment, as if he’s considering what to say next. His stare is unyielding, but not in the way that would normally make you cringe so hard that you risk breaking a tooth. Instead, it feels like he’s really looking at you. Not Soleil, but you.
“I watched your set earlier,” he says when he finally speaks. “That was very impressive. How long have you been dancing?”
Ah. Yes, you had noticed him towards the very front of the crowd when you finished your routine. He’d looked every bit as serious and solemn as he had when you first saw him in the alleyway earlier tonight.
“Dancing? Since I was four. Ballet, tap, jazz, lyrical…” You list off all of the weekly classes you remember taking throughout your childhood. “Pole dancing, though? About three years.”
Andrew looks surprised by the answer, his brows lifting slightly and hazel eyes widening. “Only three years? I would’ve thought a lot longer than that. Is that how long you’ve worked here, then?”
You nod, retracting your arm from where it had been resting behind his head now that it’s clear that - for whatever reason - Andrew is only interested in conversation. You let yourself relax a bit, relieved that you don’t have to put up the usual facade that makes most men swoon.
“Yeah, right at three years now. I practice a lot at home, though. I even got a pole for my apartment. If you work here, you’ve really gotta know your way around a pole, so…I’ve put in the hours.”
He looks impressed at that - or maybe surprised. Or maybe something else entirely. You aren’t sure. You can’t read his facial expressions or his body language nearly as easily as most of the men that enter this room.
“Wow,” Andrew hums with what appears to be a nod of approval. “That’s dedication. You must have really wanted to work here to put so much effort into learning such a specific skill.”
You barely manage to hold back a cackle at that. If he only fucking knew.
You give a half shrug, playing it off. “What can I say?” You sigh. “Guess I really needed the money.”
It’s the truth. Not the whole, disgusting, gritty truth, but it is accurate. As accurate as you can be without trauma dumping and jeopardizing your life…and your father’s.
Andrew nods, looking down at his hands splayed across the tops of his thighs. “Yeah. I get that. I’d be lying if I said that I haven’t made money in some unconventional ways.”
That piques your interest. “Oh? Anything you’d like to share with the class?”
He exhales a small laugh before bringing his eyes back to yours again. “As long as you promise not to tell anyone. If I tell you, it can’t leave this room.”
You make a motion with a hand across your mouth as if you’re zipping your lips and throwing away the key. “My lips are sealed. Pinky promise.” Then, for good measure, you hold out your pinky finger to him in offering.
He stares at your littlest finger for a long moment, the slightest hint of a smirk beginning to tug at the corners of his lips again before he finally lifts a hand of his own, pinky finger upright. He wraps the digit around yours, giving it a firm squeeze before slowly pulling away.
“Years ago,” Andrew starts, “I robbed a bank. It didn’t go as planned, and I spent a few years in prison for it.”
You blink, and wait for him to laugh, or say that he’s kidding. But then five, ten, fifteen seconds pass, and he’s still looking at you with the exact same unreadable expression.
“You robbed a bank?” You ask incredulously. “Jesus, I thought you were going to say that you sold pictures of your feet online or something.”
He doesn’t smile or flinch, just holds your gaze for a second longer. “Yeah,” he says simply. “I wouldn’t say that I’m proud of it, but I did.”
You know that your face must give away your surprise. His revelation should freak you out - if he’s capable of bank robbery, what else is this stranger capable of?
Maybe you’ve become somewhat desensitized to the concept of people going to extremes for money. Your dad. Silas. Even you. A few years ago, you never would have imagined that you’d be here right now. But you have your reasons, and you are. Even though it isn’t your first choice, you wouldn’t want anyone to judge you too harshly for doing what you feel you have to do.
You don’t know Andrew’s past. You have no idea what happened in his life that led him to make the decision to rob a bank. It probably wasn’t because he woke up bored one morning and decided that it sounded like a fun thing to do. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and you know that all too well.
“Well,” you huff a laugh, “I can’t say that I really blame you. I mean, I’d never be able to execute something like that, but it’s fun to fantasize about on occasion.”
“On occasion?” Andrew repeats in a low, curious tone. His brows lift in question. “Like when you’re here?”
You snort, shaking your head. “Please, if I was planning a bank robbery every time that I’m here, I would’ve been locked up years ago. But this place…” You trail off, searching for the right words for what you want to say but know you shouldn’t, “this place can get to you sometimes. Makes stupid ideas sound less stupid. No offense.”
Andrew makes a noise somewhere between a laugh and a hum. “No offense taken.”
The rest of the hour drifts by far easier than you expect. Andrew tells you some stories from his time in prison, and about how he grew up not too far from here, in Oceanside. He talks about his siblings, looking down at his lap when he reveals that he’s a twin, but his twin sister, Julia, passed away somewhat recently. You try not to talk too much about yourself, but when he asks you questions, you answer as honestly as you can - telling him that you had been in your third year of college when you started working here, and that one day, when the time is right, you’d like to finish your degree.
By the time a knock sounds at the door signaling that the hour is up, you’re almost startled. It barely feels as if sixty minutes have passed.
“Huh,” you muse, rising from the couch as he does. “That went by a lot quicker than time usually does here.”
Andrew is silent for a moment, his gaze lingering on your face, still as serious as when you had first made eye contact with him in the alley. Then, he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a small envelope.
“Here,” he says quietly, holding out the envelope for you to take. “This is for you.” He pauses. “Just you. Not your boss.”
Your eyes shoot up to his in surprise. Not at the fact that he’s offering what you presume to be a tip, but at the last three words. Not your boss.
When your brain catches up, you accept the envelope, clutching it in both hands. “Thank you,” you murmur, trying to keep an even, neutral tone, though you’re sure your face betrays you. “It was, uh…it was nice to meet you, Andrew.”
He gives a small, polite smile as he takes a step towards the door. “It was nice to meet you, Soleil.”
Only when he reaches for the doorknob do you stop him by uttering a single word. He looks back over his shoulder, his eyebrows raised.
You repeat yourself once more. “That’s my name,” you clarify. “My real name.”
He says your name softly. Barely audible. As if just testing how it feels to say it. Then, with a slow nod, he turns the doorknob and exits the room without another word, leaving you staring after him.
Only after his footsteps fade down the hallway do you open the envelope and find that he has given you a thousand dollars.
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“You’re joking, right?”
Jay’s voice fills the silence that had settled over Smurf’s living room following Pope’s suggestion.
“No,” Pope says, trying not to let impatience slip into his tone. “I’m not joking. I really think she would be willing to help us.”
The three men take turns looking at each other before turning their stares back to Pope.
“The stripper?” Craig snorts. “That’s your big idea? I mean, I love strippers as much as the next guy, but you can’t be serious right now.”
“It was technically Deran’s idea.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Deran pipes up.
“When we saw her in the alley,” Pope says, like it’s obvious. “You asked me if I think she hates her boss enough to help us rob him. The answer is yes. I think she does hate him that much. I think she hates that whole place that much.”
No, you hadn’t blatantly said so, but you didn’t need to. He could see it in your eyes, and hear it in your tone. It may as well have been written across your forehead.
“Jesus Christ, man, I wasn’t being serious.”
“Still,” Pope implores, “I spent an hour talking to her. It’s clear she doesn’t want to be there. And after what we witnessed in the alley? It wouldn’t surprise me if she doesn’t really have a choice in the matter.”
His brothers and nephew are silent again, exchanging glances amongst each other.
“She’s been there for three years,” Pope continues. “She knows the layout. She knows when Silas comes and goes. And I’m willing to bet she knows exactly where that safe is and how to get to it, too.”
“So she hates her job,” Craig shrugs. “Doesn’t mean she’s cool with risking a felony charge.”
Pope shakes his head. “She didn’t seem too put off when I told her that I’ve done time for armed robbery.”
All three voices erupt at once.
“You told her what?”
“Why the hell would you do that?”
“Dude, are you insane?”
“I wanted her to know that she can trust me,” Pope says simply. “And she reacted fine. More than fine. She seemed to understand.”
Jay clears his throat. “Look, if we do this, she can’t be a liability. She needs to know what she’s doing, and she needs to keep her mouth shut.”
“She will,” Pope says instantly. “I know she will.”
Deran squints. “How? You spent one hour with her. You don’t actually know her.”
Pope meets his eyes with an unblinking stare. “You think I’d risk all of our asses if I wasn’t sure? I know enough to know that I’m not wrong.”
Pope’s stare is locked on Craig. It’s his operation and therefore he gets the final say. If it were solely up to Jay, or even Deran, he wouldn’t think there’s a chance of getting them to agree. But Craig’s a little riskier than they are. If he thinks there’s even a slight chance that it’ll increase the odds of the job being a success, he’s likely to agree.
“Fuck it,” Craig finally mutters, shaking his head. “Fine. We’ll try it your way. But we aren’t sharing our cut with her. If she gets anything, it’s coming out of your share. I’m not sacrificing my payday because you have a crush on the stripper.”
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Pope knows a guy who knows a guy who somehow knows everything about everyone. And if that guy doesn’t know, he has ways of finding out.
Well, technically Smurf knew him, but Pope uses that connection to his advantage.
The information doesn’t come cheap, but Pope needed to know with absolute certainty before waltzing back into Solstice and asking you to help him rob your boss.
Except now he isn’t just asking for help pulling off the heist. He’s going to ask for help pulling off an execution, because he doesn’t just want Silas Leary’s money, he wants him dead.
It may have cost him three grand, but Pope now has confirmation that his suspicions were correct and somehow worse than he had thought. Not only are you essentially being trafficked, but you’re doing so because your life and your father’s are on the line.
Now he knows, without a doubt, just how desperate you must be for a way out. And even though he’s only met you one time, Pope wants to give you that way out.
If only you’ll be willing to take it.
Pope makes the hour and a half long drive from Oceanside to Los Angeles again the very next night without any confirmation that you would even be working, but it’s a chance he’s willing to take. Craig and the others want to get on with the job, and Pope wants to get you away from the likes of Silas Leary as quickly as possible.
He goes over it all in his head the entire drive to the club. Everything he knows about you, from what he had witnessed the moment he first saw you in the alley, to every word you said to him in the private room, to what the private investigator informed him of.
But that’s not all he thinks about. He also thinks about the way your pinky finger felt wrapped around his when you offered the symbolic gesture to keep his secret, and the intoxicating smell of your perfume that he had to fight the urge to inhale the entire hour that you sat beside him on that tiny couch. He thinks about how sweet it sounded to hear you say his name, his real name, and how it sounded even sweeter when you told him your real name.
Maybe Craig is right. Maybe he does have a crush. That’s the most logical explanation for why Pope suddenly no longer cares how much money he pulls from this job. There will always be another job - if he wanted to, he could rob another bank by himself next week. He cares more about getting you out of the unfortunate predicament you’re in, and ensuring that Silas can never bring harm to you or anyone else ever again.
When he arrives, it’s close to midnight and the club is packed. He can barely get through the dense crowd of dancers and patrons that occupy the main floor, his eyes carefully scanning the crowd as he makes his way to the bar, where he orders a beer to keep up appearances until he’s able to spot you.
He waits for over half an hour. He doesn’t move from his seat at the bar, where he has the perfect view of center stage, the main floor, and the doorway to the hallway that leads to the private room he shared with you last night.
Just observing it all is overstimulating. From the loud music that pulsates through Pope’s barstool, to the neon strobe lights that make his eyes throb, to the smell of bodies and liquor that hangs heavy in hot club air, he doesn’t know how you have done it for three years without losing your sanity. Even just sitting here, all Pope can think about are all of the germs on every surface of this place.
When you finally appear at the mouth of the small hallway that leads to the private rooms wearing a pale pink, ruffled bodysuit that looks like it was custom made for you, Pope momentarily forgets why he’s here.
He watches as your eyes flicker around the main floor of the club, as if you’re dreading stepping back into the chaos of it all. When you finally glance towards the bar, your gaze locks with his and Pope’s skin warms at the way your face lights up with surprise. He offers you a small smile and wave of his hand, and that’s all you need to walk the short distance to where he sits.
“Andrew,” you breathe, coming to stand next to where he sits. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”
“Soleil,” he greets, a teasing edge to his tone. He almost lets your real name slip out, but thinks better of it at the last second. He isn’t sure why you trusted him enough to let him know your real name after only an hour together, but he gets the feeling that isn’t something that you tell just anyone.
“I didn’t expect to be back so soon, but…” He trails off momentarily, glancing around the crowded room. There’s too many people. He has to speak too loudly in order for you to hear him over all of the voices and loud music, and he doesn’t want to risk anyone overhearing. “Are you busy right now?”
You shake your head. “No. I just finished up a private room. I’ve already done my solo set for the night. I was just going to walk around, make conversation with some regulars. Why? Are you…wanting a room?”
Pope can’t help but think you sound a little hopeful. But maybe that’s wishful thinking on his part. You are doing your job, after all.
“Yeah, I am,” he says, standing up beside you. “If you have time.”
You nod with a smile that reaches your eyes. “Of course.”
He follows as you lead him down the hallway, straight to the exact room that the two of you occupied last night. As he does, a terrifying thought occurs: you might say no. You might get scared, and deny everything, and refuse to help. You might tell him to get lost, and he doesn’t know where the hell that would leave him. But as he walks into the room after you, he swallows that thought down, and focuses on what he does know: you want to be here even less than he does.
“I’m really glad to see you,” you say as you shut the door behind him. “And I’m not just saying that because you tipped me a thousand dollars. Thank you, by the way. That was very generous of you.”
Pope takes a seat on the couch, the exact same spot he sat twenty-four hours ago, though he feels significantly more nervous now than he did then. “No need to thank me,” he murmurs. “I really enjoyed talking to you.”
You take a seat beside him, relaxing against the couch. “Is that why you came back? To talk more?”
He nods. “It is. If that’s okay with you.”
“More than okay with me. Is there anything in particular that you’d like to talk about tonight, Andrew?”
He hesitates for a second. He spent half the drive here rehearsing exactly what he was going to say to you to ensure that this would go as smoothly as possible, but now that he’s sitting beside you, he has forgotten how to string two words together.
He clears his throat slightly. “Can I ask you something?”
Your eyebrows twitch in curiosity. “Sure.”
“If you could walk out of this place tonight and never come back, would you?”
A small laugh escapes you, and you instantly drop his gaze, looking down at your hands in your lap instead. “That’s a hell of a question. You know, most people that get me alone in this room just ask me if I have a boyfriend or what my favorite position is.”
Pope watches you for a moment. “Well, I’m not most people.”
You look back up, your lips pursed. “No,” you agree quietly. “You’re definitely not.” You pause just long enough to make Pope wonder if you’re going to say anything else at all. “Yeah. I would. What makes you ask?”
He exhales slowly, only mildly surprised by your honesty. “I heard what happened in the alley yesterday.”
You’re visibly taken aback, your body going rigid and your eyes going wide, and he can understand why. In the entire hour you spent together last night, he didn’t bring up the incident in the alley. You probably assumed he hadn’t been able to hear what Silas had said, or that he at least hadn’t thought anything of it, but now here he is, bringing it up unprompted.
“Oh,” you start, your voice unnaturally high, “that was just—”
He cuts you off by shaking his head. “I’m not asking you to explain anything to me,” says lowly. “But I know who Silas is. That’s why me and my brothers came here last night. We were supposed to come here, get information, and leave.”
You don’t move as you stare at him in silence, either too stunned or too scared to speak. He continues so you don’t have to.
“But then I met you. And now I can’t just pretend I didn’t see that.”
You study him for a long moment. “What kind of information?”
“Remember when I told you that I did time in prison?”
Your eyebrows scrunch together before realization blooms across your face a fraction of a second later. Instinctively, you change your position on the small sofa, putting more space between the two of you. “Jesus,” you hiss. “You were going to rob—”
You don’t finish your sentence, looking from Pope, to the door just a few feet away, to a security camera in the corner of the room.
“You’re lucky that thing doesn’t have audio,” you spit under your breath.
Pope holds back a laugh. “I know it doesn’t have audio. I know what I’m doing.” He pauses, then offers a small, almost shy smile. “Most of the time.”
“Oh, most of the time?”
Pope shrugs. “Most of the time.”
You sigh, running a hand down your face as you look around the room again.
“Look,” you whisper, “I don’t care what you and your brothers do to Silas, but I can’t get involved.”
Pope doesn’t respond right away. He was expecting you to say something along those lines. But you aren’t screaming at him to get out, or running away to find a security guard, so he still feels hope.
He murmurs your real name for the first time since you had first told him what it is last night. It causes your expression to soften the tiniest bit, a glimpse of vulnerability appearing in your eyes.
“I know that he’s got something over you. And I swear I can help you, if you’ll let me.”
You purse your lips as you stare at him, as if searching for any sign that he could be lying to you.
“I know you don’t know me,” Pope adds delicately. “I wouldn’t blame you for not trusting me. I’m just asking you to hear me out.”
Another beat of loaded silence. “Okay,” you say, barely audible. “But we can’t talk about this here. It’s too risky.” You nod towards the door. “I don’t get off until three.”
“That’s okay,” Pope says, and he hopes that his relief isn’t too evident in his tone. “I can wait.”
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When you first noticed Andrew sitting at the bar, grinning as if just waiting for you to walk in the room, you would’ve assumed that would be the most surprising thing to happen to you tonight.
That assumption proved to be dead wrong, because five minutes later, he revealed that he’s planning to rob your boss.
(Correction: he’s planning to rob him, and knows that he’s a huge piece of shit who is blackmailing you).
The surprises don’t stop there, though. Next, you surprise yourself by inviting a practical stranger into your home.
Your self-preservation skills have always been lacking. That was evident the day that you willingly agreed to work for Silas to help pay off your dad’s debt instead of fleeing the state of California and never looking back.
But this might just break the record for most reckless and foolhardy thing you’ve ever done.
Andrew waits for you in the parking garage down the block from the club until you get off just after three o’clock in the morning. Your body is exhausted, but your mind has never been more awake as you drive back to your apartment with him tailing you in his truck.
Your thoughts reel with all of the ways that this could go disastrously wrong.
You do not actually know this man. You’ve spent less than a collective two hours with him. Your gut tells you that he’s being honest, but is it worth the risk? He’s a bank robber. A convicted felon, who apparently comes from a crime family. Is it possible that you could just be trading one Silas for another? Andrew claims he can help you, but how? And at what cost?
Moments after you arrive at your apartment, Andrew pulls into the parking spot directly next to yours and then follows you wordlessly to your unit.
You have every intention of telling him to make himself comfortable on your couch and offering him fresh coffee. It is well after three o’clock in the morning - most people who don’t work the nightshift would be asleep at this time. But as soon as your front door clicks shut, you suddenly forget all pleasantries.
“You said that you know he’s got something over me.” You stand before Andrew in your small kitchen, looking him dead in the eye. “How much do you know, exactly?”
He meets your gaze with an equally level stare. It isn’t harsh, but it is hard for you to read. You’re quickly learning that to be the norm with Andrew. Difficult to read.
“I know enough,” Andrew says calmly. “I know Silas is a loan shark. I know you’re working for him to pay back money that you didn’t borrow.”
You nod slowly, dropping your gaze to the floor as you lean against your kitchen counter. “And how do you think you can help me with that, exactly?” You glance back up. “Don’t get me wrong, I would love to believe you, but I just don’t see how you and your brothers robbing the guy magically frees me of him. I mean, if he were to find out that it was you, and that I’ve even talked you outside of the club, he would—”
“He wouldn’t find out,” Andrew cuts you off, voice even and low. “I would make sure of that.”
“How?” You take a step towards him without thinking, your hands clasped in front of you. “How would you make sure of that? If you know why I’m working for Silas, then I’m assuming you know about my father. It isn’t just my life on the line here, Andrew.”
His hazel eyes soften at that. “I do know about your father. I also know there’s a lot of people stuck in situations like you and your father, because of Silas. A lot of people who would all be better off if Silas…wasn’t around anymore.”
Your eyebrows lift halfway up your forehead. “Wasn’t around anymore?” You echo. As soon as they leave your lips, the implication becomes clear.
Wasn’t around anymore. Gone. Deleted. Erased.
Andrew doesn’t verbalize a response. He just watches you from where he stands an arm’s length away and waits for you to process what he’s telling you.
That he’s offering to kill Silas. Or have him killed. You don’t really know. There’s a shrill, high-pitched ringing in your ears that’s making it impossible to think clearly.
You finally manage to get two words out. “You’re serious.”
It isn’t posed as a question.
“I am,” Andrew says simply. “If you want me to be.”
You snort at that, because what the fuck are you supposed to say? “Yeah, off with his head!” and “oh no, please don’t hurt him!” somehow feel equally wrong.
You look to the floor again. And then around the room. To your houseplants that need watered, and then to last night’s dishes that still need to be put in the dishwasher. Anywhere but Andrew’s intense, unyielding honey colored stare that you could probably get lost in if it weren’t for the bizarre circumstances for which he is in your apartment right now.
Finally, you exhale. “I think…I want some coffee.” You turn to the espresso machine behind you, and then glance at Andrew over your shoulder. “What about you?”
He looks surprised for a split-second, then nods. “Yeah. Coffee sounds good.”
Upon your invitation, Andrew takes a stiff seat on your couch while you use the few minutes that it takes you to brew and prepare the drinks to attempt to process what the fuck has transpired since the two of you entered your apartment.
It does little good. You still have just as many questions as you did on the drive home. Even more now. Andrew is offering to kill for you? Has he killed before? Was he really in prison for bank robbery? Or was it something else? Should you be trying to secretly dial 911 on your watch right now?
Probably. If you were smart. But you’re not smart. You’re desperate, and Andrew might just be offering you a way out on a silver platter.
Although it could come back to bite you in the ass, right now, you’re willing to be an open book. You meant what you had said to Andrew at the club tonight - you don’t care what he and his brothers do to Silas. Rob him, or worse…he deserves it. And after the hell he has put you, and your father, through these last three years, you have very little hesitation helping Silas get his karma.
“Hypothetically,” you start, sitting down on your small loveseat directly across the table from him. “Let’s say I agree to this…walk me through it. How would you and your brothers…go about this? What would you need from me? And what about…afterwards? What would I owe you?”
The questions pour out of you faster than you can stop them.
Andrew’s brows scrunch together. “You wouldn’t owe me anything,” he says, like it’s obvious. “I’m not Silas. I just want to help you. And if you have any information that could potentially help us, then that would be great, but if not…I still want to do whatever I can to get you out of this mess.”
He says every word so sincerely that it makes you feel silly for even thinking otherwise.
Of course he isn’t Silas. You might not know Andrew very well, but you know that he isn’t Silas. Silas takes what he wants with zero regard for anyone but himself. Andrew has given you every opportunity to express discomfort, to change your mind, to tell him to fuck off. Even now, if you told him to get lost and never contact you again, you don’t doubt that he’d honor your wishes.
Andrew stares so heavy that you swear he can see right through you. His voice is low and steady when he speaks again. “You don’t deserve what Silas is doing to you. But he does deserve what’s coming to him.”
You don’t know if the next words out of your mouth mean that you’re crazy, or just desperate.
“What kind of information do you need?”
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Pope didn’t want to leave you in Los Angeles, but he had to come back home to Oceanside to work out all of the details of the heist with his brothers.
He knows you’re capable of taking care of yourself. You’ve been doing it for years. You don’t need a man that you met two days ago playing bodyguard. But he’d be lying if he said that the thought of you working even one more shift at Solstice, or the thought of you being in close proximity to Silas, or the thought of a random sleazebag laying so much as a finger on you in that place doesn’t make his blood burn white-hot.
He takes comfort in knowing that after tonight, you only have to step foot into that place one more time. And that time, he will be there, too.
Still, he hates knowing that as he sits on his couch in Oceanside, you’re at the club in LA. Pope had suggested that you call out tonight, but you had shot that idea down quickly. You explained that you always work Sunday nights, and you didn’t want to risk drawing any negative attention to yourself before the heist that is now planned for this upcoming Friday night.
Currently, it is 3:46 in the morning, and Pope is wide awake, even though he shouldn’t be, and thinking of you, even though he probably shouldn’t be doing that, either. He wonders if you’ve made it home from work yet, and if your shift went okay or if Silas was there tonight…and he subconsciously grits his teeth at the thought of that.
He manages to hold out until 3:58 before he finds your name in the recently added section of his contacts and presses call.
You answer just after the first ring.
“Andrew,” Your voice pours from his speaker softly, slightly hoarse. “Is everything okay?”
Right away, he’s relieved at the lack of background noise. No music blasting and no drunk frat guys yelling over it. No car horns honking or sirens wailing. It’s safe to assume that you have made it home already.
“Everything’s fine,” he answers. “I just wanted to make sure you got home safely. See how your shift went.”
You exhale a hum of soft laughter. “Just walked through the door a few minutes ago. Work was busy. Really busy for a Sunday night. I’m glad it’s over. Almost.”
“Almost,” he agrees. “At least you’re off for the next few days. The next time you step foot in that place, it’ll be the last.”
There’s a brief pause before you speak. “As long as everything goes according to plan,” you murmur, and Pope can hear the nerves in your voice.
“It will,” he assures you. “Let us worry about that, alright? You just try to relax in the meantime.”
You snort. “Easier said than done.”
“Keep yourself busy so you don’t think about it too much,” Pope suggests lightly. “Do you have any plans this week?”
“Not really,” you grumble. “Los Angeles isn’t really my scene. I wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for…” You trail off momentarily. You don’t have to finish the sentence. “Anyway. I go to work, I go home, and sometimes I go to the beach. That’s about it.”
“You like the beach?”
“I do,” you hum. “It’s one of the very few things I like about living here. My apartment is only about a twenty minute drive from Venice Beach. Well, really more like forty with all of the traffic…”
Pope is silent for a moment. During those few seconds of silence, he can hear waves crash against the shore just beyond the front door of the small beachfront house. If he were to step outside and walk mere yards, his feet would touch sand. He can glance out of the window in front of him and see moonlight dance across the water. There’s nothing separating him from the ocean but the walls of the house.
“I live right on the beach, you know,” Pope says, going for casual but probably failing. “The beach is my front yard.”
“Really?” You chirp. “God, that must be nice. I mean, you saw where I live in LA. Just about anywhere beats this shitty apartment, and the shitty traffic, and all of the endless noise, but living on the beach? I can only imagine how peaceful that is.”
There’s an idea forming in Pope’s mind, and he knows it’s irrational and naive, but he has already offered to kill for you after knowing you for one day, so how crazy could anything else really be?
“You ever been to Oceanside?”
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Against your better judgment, later that day you drive to Oceanside with the address Andrew sent you typed into your GPS.
You almost turn around at least a dozen times.
You don’t want to turn around, but what little common sense you possess nearly convinces you to do so. What would you say if one of your coworkers told you that they have packed a bag and are going to stay with a mysterious man who booked a private room with them only forty-eight hours ago, tipped them a thousand dollars, came back the very next night, and revealed that he’s planning to both rob and kill your boss?
You would tell them that the next time you see them, it’s going to be on a missing person’s poster or a Dateline episode.
Yet here you are. Doing exactly that. Because for reasons you do not fully understand, Andrew makes you feel safe. Maybe you’re just so used to feeling unsafe that true safety has become a foreign concept to you. Maybe your judgment is clouded. But when he told you that he has a spare room and offered it to you for the days leading up to the heist, it hardly took any convincing for you to say yes.
Now, less than twelve hours later, with only a duffel bag in your passenger seat stuffed full of beach attire and toiletries, you’re driving to him.
Andrew had offered to come get you, too. And even though you ultimately insisted that you were fine with driving yourself to Oceanside, you can’t deny that the offer made your whole body feel irrationally warm and fuzzy - the fact that he’d be willing to make a third trip to Los Angeles in the last three days because you had made an off handed comment about your distaste for LA traffic.
You’re excited. Not only to get away from the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles for a few days, but also to see Andrew again. This time not inside a private room at Solstice or in your tiny apartment at four o’clock in the morning. You’re eager to get a feel for who he really is outside of the club environment, to see how he is when he’s somewhere that he’s comfortable, to learn about the man who has done nothing but surprise you time and time again since you met him only days ago.
When your car’s GPS announces your arrival, you don’t have to question whether or not you’re at the right place. He’s waiting for you on the front porch.
Like every time that you have seen him so far, he wears a short sleeve button-up shirt and a grave expression that would make you question if he’s actually glad to see you if it weren’t for the fact that he wastes no time trotting down the porch steps to greet you at your car.
He opens your door for you before you have the chance.
“You weren’t exaggerating when you said that the beach is your front yard,” you laugh, grabbing your duffel bag from your passenger seat that Andrew immediately reaches to take from you. “If you were any closer, you’d be in the water.”
When you stand up, Andrew shuts your door behind you and then rubs the back of his neck with his free hand, his cheeks flushing slightly. It dawns on you that this is the first time that you’ve seen him in the daylight. Before now, you’ve only seen him in the neon fluorescents of the club and the low lighting of your apartment in the middle of the night. But now, in broad daylight without so much as a cloud in the sky, you feel like you’re really seeing him for the first time.
You already knew he has freckles, but now you could count every single one, if you wanted to. You knew that his eyes were hazel, but now you can see the tiny flecks of gold around his irises. And you thought that he was pretty the very first time you saw him in the alley, but you can’t help but think he’s even prettier in the sunlight.
“I may have said that to make you want to come,” he admits sheepishly. “But it wasn’t a lie.”
Your own face warms at the admission. “Well, clearly it worked. I came.”
Andrew’s mouth upturns slightly at the corners, his eyes crinkling around them. “Come on,” he nods towards the house. “I’ll show you around.”
The place is relatively small - a single story two bedroom, but in comparison to your studio apartment, it feels like a castle. And it’s clean. Spotless, actually. You hadn’t been expecting a pigsty by any means, but the exceptional tidiness is still a pleasant surprise. There’s not a decorative pillow out of place or so much as a dirty dish in the sink.
He carries your bag to the doorway of the first bedroom and lets you enter before him.
“This is the, uh…” Andrew trails off for a fraction of a second, searching for words, “This is the guest room. All yours while you’re here.”
You take in the appearance of the small room. Like the common areas of the house, it’s clean, but there’s certain characteristics that stand out to you. A pastel pink, floral comforter. A stack of children’s books on the dresser. A handful of small clothes hangers in an otherwise empty closet, and a ladder of pencil markings on the wall right beside it. At first, they look like random scratches in the paint, but as you take a step closer, you realize that they are height measurements. Each spaced a few inches apart, with dates scribbled next to each line. Some of the handwriting appears more feminine, whereas the more recent markings seem childlike.
You glance at Andrew over your shoulder, where he still stands in the doorway, watching you. “Do you…have children?” You ask, curiosity getting the better of you.
His gaze shifts past you, to the pencil markings in the far corner of the room. “No, I don’t,” he answers, a hint of melancholy in the words. “This room was my niece’s, but she doesn’t live here anymore. I just…can’t bring myself to erase it.”
Judging by his tone and dejected expression, he doesn’t seem particularly eager to talk about the subject, so you don’t press it any further, instead locking the information away with everything else you’ve learned about him in the last few days.
His childhood nickname is Pope. He had a twin sister named Julia. He drinks his coffee black. He has a niece, and as of last summer, she was approximately 45 inches tall. He did time in prison for armed robbery, and he’s prepared to kill someone for a woman he barely knows.
You offer a small nod. “Well, it’s a really nice place. Thank you, again. For inviting me. You have no idea how glad I am to be away from LA, even for a few days.”
Andrew’s expression softens. “You don’t have to thank me,” he says, voice calm in a way that you’re quickly growing to find very comforting. “I’m happy that you’re here.”
You plop down on the edge of the mattress and grin up at him. “So, what’s the plan for today? You gonna show me around Oceanside?”
“I was planning on it.” He leans against the doorframe, his thumbs in his pockets as he smirks at you. “We can do whatever you want. Go to the beach, the pier, just ride around. We do need to go to the grocery store at some point so I can grab some things for dinner.”
Your eyebrows lift in surprise. “We can do whatever I want and you’re going to make me dinner? You’re quite the host, Andrew.”
He blushes at that, the apples of his cheeks turning a pretty shade of pink. The thought crosses your mind right then and there - you would never in a million years guess that he’s capable of doing what he plans to do later this week just by looking at him. This blushing, thoughtful man who has been nothing but respectful and considerate of you since the moment you met. He’s going to put a permanent end to the problem that has plagued you for years?
There’s more than one side to people, clearly. But that doesn’t bother you. Not in the slightest. In fact, you’re interested in getting to know every side of Andrew Cody. The soft-spoken version of him standing before you, and the version of him capable of the kind of violence you’ve only ever let yourself fantasize about.
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Oceanside is - quite literally - a breath of fresh air compared to Los Angeles.
It isn’t exactly a small town, but it feels like one by comparison. There’s less people, less noise, less traffic, less smells. The ocean is five minutes away no matter where you go.
Los Angeles may be less than a two hour drive from Oceanside, but it feels like it’s worlds away. You feel like you can actually fucking breathe here.
By the end of your very first day here, you dread ever returning to LA. To Solstice (even for just one more shift). To your cramped, overpriced studio apartment that you’ve tried your hardest to make feel like home but never really has.
But here? Oceanside? Even just a few hours after your arrival, you can tell that this is a place that could easily start to feel like home to you. Partially due to the relaxed nature of the beach town, and partially due to the curly-haired man who is currently cooking you dinner as you watch from across the kitchen bar.
“Whatcha gonna make for dinner?” You ask as Andrew pulls into the grocery store parking lot.
He puts the truck in park and unbuckles his seatbelt before turning slightly to face you. “That depends entirely on what you’d like to eat.”
You had tried to insist that you were fine with whatever, but Andrew is quite convincing when he wants to be. He had refused to leave the grocery store until you told him what to make for dinner. Not wanting to be an inconvenience, or high maintenance, or too picky, you suggested the first relatively simple and inexpensive meal that you could think of on the spot.
Now, you sit across the counter from him, watching as he cooks fettuccine alfredo for the both of you.
As hard as you try not to let your eyes wander, you can’t stop yourself. Andrew seems oblivious, and if he notices he doesn’t say anything, but your eyes are drawn to his broad shoulders, thick arms, and bulky chest. His curls are wind-blown and skin sun-kissed from an afternoon spent walking on the beach near his house, making his freckles more visible than ever.
He catches you smirking at him as he’s plating up the food. A bashful grin appears on his face. “What is it?”
You shake your head with a small shrug. “Nothing. You’re just…not at all what I thought you’d be when we first met.”
Andrew’s eyebrows arch slightly. “You mean the kind of guy that normally books private rooms with you at the club?”
You snort a laugh. “Yeah, something like that.” You pause, grinning. “I mean, obviously most of them don’t recruit me to help them rob my boss…” Andrew chuckles lowly at that. “But they also don’t cook me Italian food and let me stay at their beach house.”
“What can I say?” Andrew slides your plate across the counter. “I’m full of surprises.”
You can’t disagree with that.
Andrew takes a seat beside you and the meal is eaten in companionable silence for the most part, giving your thoughts time to stray to all of the things that you have tried your hardest not to dwell on too much since you arrived here today.
You’ve tried not to think about what’s to come at the end of the week, and all of the ways that it could go disastrously wrong. As hard as you try to think positively, you can’t help but worry about someone getting hurt. Andrew, or one of his brothers, or a random dancer at the club who somehow gets caught in the crosshairs, or even yourself. Your brain conjures worst case scenarios, causing visions of anyone other than Silas dying to replay on a loop until you snap yourself out of it.
But with Andrew sitting next to you, it’s a little easier to silence those scary thoughts and replace them with better ones. Like maybe, just maybe, if this whole operation doesn’t go to shit, there could be more moments like this.
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Pope isn’t particularly eager for you to meet his family, but he knows it’s bound to happen sooner or later. Especially if he hopes to maintain a regular presence in your life once this week is over.
He doesn’t expect you to want the same, but he does hope.
So, on your second day in Oceanside, he bites the bullet and drives you both to the family home after asking his brothers and nephew to meet there to go over everything for the heist a final time.
You assure him you don’t mind, but you’ve never met his family before. He’s slightly comforted by the fact that he never has to worry about you meeting Smurf, but there’s still Deran and Craig, who act like teenagers more than half the time.
“Look,” Pope stops you with a gentle hand on your arm before he reaches for the front door, “If they say anything inappropriate, or weird, just ignore them. They’re children. We’re just here to go over the plan and then we’ll leave, I promise.”
You exhale a laugh. “I can assure you that I’m used to inappropriate and weird, Andrew. They cannot possibly be any worse than the men that I have dealt with on a regular basis the last three years.”
He hesitates a moment, his hand still on your arm as he watches for any sign of reluctance, but you give none. Grudgingly, Pope opens the door and lets you enter before him.
Inside, there’s less noise than Pope expects, and it gives him the tiniest bit of hope that everyone will be on their best behavior. He leads you through the house, where the two of you find Craig, Deran, and Jay already gathered in the living room.
All three pairs of eyes immediately land on you as soon as you and Pope enter the room.
“Holy shit,” Craig laughs. “She actually exists.”
Deran snorts. “I told you she does.”
“Still,” Craig shrugs. “I didn’t believe that she would actually be willing to hear Pope out and not immediately run screaming to the cops.” He stands then, walking the short distance to where you stand beside Pope, extending a hand to you in offering. “Craig, by the way.”
“Ah,” you sigh, briefly shaking his hand. “The mastermind behind this operation, I hear.”
Craig winks, clicking his tongue. “You’ve heard correctly.”
Jay and Deran then introduce themselves, clarity blooming on your face as you recognize Deran from the brief encounter in the alley. You’re perfectly friendly, but the tension in your shoulders and the way that you clasp your hands in front of you doesn’t go unnoticed by Pope.
He can’t blame you for being nervous. You are in a room full of criminals, all of whom are strangers to you - himself included - to plot not only the financial but also physical demise of the man who has made your life hell for years.
Anyone sane would be nervous. But it speaks volume to Pope how much trust you’re putting in him (and how desperate you must be for any chance at freedom, no matter how risky it may be).
With a featherlight hand on the small of your back, Pope nods to an empty section on the couch for you to take a seat. He sits directly beside you, just close enough for the side of your thigh to brush against his.
Craig immediately launches into the logistics of the plan for Friday night. Jay is to disable all security cameras inside and around the perimeter of the club, and then waits with the getaway car. After the cameras have been disabled, Craig, Deran, and Pope will all enter through the basement. Once they are in the safe room, Pope is to signal to you through a discreet communication device that you’ll wear in your ear.
“…and then you’ll tell your creepy floor manager…”
“Gregory.”
“Gregory,” Craig repeats, “that you saw a customer open the basement door and go downstairs. But only if you know that Silas is distracted at the time. We don’t want Silas coming down before we make Gregory open the safe.”
“Right,” you nod. “So then Gregory opens the safe, Deran takes the money and leaves, you and Andrew make Gregory call for Silas to come downstairs, and then…?”
“And then Craig and I take care of the rest,” Pope answers simply. He doesn’t want you worrying about the specifics as to what happens once Silas enters the basement. The less you know at that point, the better. “Whatever you do, you stay upstairs. Finish your shift just like you would any other night. By the time you get off, it’ll all be finished.”
You’re silent for a moment, glancing around at each of the men in the room before you turn your head just enough to look Pope in the eyes. “Are you sure there’s nothing else I can do to help? Kinda feel like I’m not really pulling my weight here.”
“We’re sure,” Pope says before any of the others have a chance to speak up, his tone final, leaving no room for objection. “Between the information you’ve given us and what you’ll say to Gregory, you’ve done more than enough.”
You glance down to where your hands are interlocked in your lap. Then, in a smaller voice with a humorless laugh, “Enough for you to kill a man for me? To risk going back to prison?”
The question makes him forget that the two of you are in a room with three other men. He instinctively reaches out, placing a hand on top of both of yours. Your eyes dart down in surprise to where his hand rests on yours and a thick silence settles over the room before Pope slowly retracts his hand before answering you with absolute resolution.
“Yes,” he implores. “I’ve told you once, and I’ll tell you again. You don’t have to do anything to earn this. I’m offering. Because I want to.”
He wants to for you. Since the moment he first saw you in that alley and he stood and watched as Silas grabbed you by the arm, a part of him has wanted to ensure that Silas never touches you again. That desire has only grown stronger since meeting you, talking to you, and getting to know you these last few days. The only thing that could possibly stop him from sending Silas to an early grave is if you personally begged him not to, and even then, Pope would still want to with every fiber of his being.
You stare at Pope, pursing your lips, and he halfway expects you to argue. But he doesn’t drop your gaze, doesn’t even blink, and eventually you exhale a shaky breath.
“Let’s do this, then.”
⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆
“You nervous about tomorrow?”
You’re hardly able to make out the words over the crashing of waves against the shore and the squawking of a seagull just a few yards away from where you and Andrew sit on the beach.
You turn your gaze away from the sun that has started to set over the Pacific Ocean to find that Andrew is already looking at you.
“Of course,” you admit with a breathy laugh. “Are you nervous?”
Andrew lifts his shoulders in a small shrug, looking back out to the water. “We’ve pulled off more complicated jobs than this before. Not too long ago we infiltrated a military base. A strip club is nothing compared to that.”
Your eyes widen in surprise, as they tend to do anytime you’re learning new information about the man sitting beside you. “A military base?” You echo in disbelief. “Jesus. How exactly did you guys even get into this kind of thing, anyway?”
Robbing banks. Offering to kill a man for a woman he’s only just met. And apparently, infiltrating military bases. That kind of thing. The kind of thing that should send you running in the opposite direction but for some reason makes you want to lean in closer.
Andrew shakes his head, a quick snort of laughter escaping him. “Our mother,” he answers. “She taught us everything we know. I’ve been doing this since Craig and Deran were still in diapers.”
“Jesus,” you mumble. You don’t know the exact age difference between Andrew and his brothers, but he can’t possibly be all that much older than them. He was just a kid. “And you…enjoy it?”
Andrew thinks about it for a moment, leaning back with his palms pressed into the sand. “I wouldn’t say that enjoy is the right word. It’s just all that I’ve ever known.”
You nod slowly, contemplating the words. This lifestyle is his baseline for normal. If you struggle to remember what life was like before you got dragged into working at Solstice only a few years ago, you can only imagine the complex feelings that come with being groomed into an entire lifetime of crime.
“Have you ever thought about what else you would do?” You ask hesitantly. “If you weren’t doing this?”
Again, he doesn’t answer right away. You watch as his eyes narrow in thought, his stare locked on the pink and orange horizon ahead of you. “I’ve thought about it,” he murmurs, a hint of restrained emotion in his tone. “Never for long enough to act on it, but…maybe I’d open a skatepark. Eventually settle down, start a family of my own.”
“Really?” You can’t hide the surprise from your voice. You aren’t quite sure why the answer surprises you as much as it does - you did literally just meet this man less than a week ago, but you didn’t exactly peg him to be the chasing toddlers, Pee-wee soccer game on a Saturday morning kind of guy. “You want to have kids?”
“Maybe one or two,” he shrugs. “I probably won’t, though. It’s just something I like to think about sometimes.” He pauses. “What about you? What are you gonna do when this is all over?”
That’s a question that you’ve been asking yourself for years. Up until now, it has only felt like a distant fantasy. Even now, you’re trying not to get your hopes up too high for fear that it won’t work out. That things will take a turn for the worst. That someone will get hurt, that Silas will somehow get away and find out what you’ve tried to do. Even with freedom almost close enough to touch, you won’t let yourself believe it’s yours until you’re actually holding it in your hand…and until you are, it’s difficult to imagine what life could possibly look like.
You exhale. “I’ll probably start by visiting my dad. I haven’t seen him in a while. I wanna let him know that me and him are gonna be okay. And then…” You trail off momentarily, “and then I’m gonna get the fuck out of LA. Maybe go back to school eventually,” you shrug. “I guess I haven’t let myself think about it too much either.”
Andrew hums in thought at the response. Then, he sits up straight, pulling his knees awkwardly to his chest and looking at you with the same serious expression that you’re no closer to being able to read than you were the night you first met him.
“You’re always welcome here. If you need a place to stay while you figure out what you wanna do.”
The offer warms you more than the evening California sun. Not only the words, but the way you can’t help but think he sounds nervous, and maybe a little hopeful, when he speaks them.
And because you don’t know how to express your gratitude in words, you place your head on his shoulder, instead. He tenses in surprise for a fraction of a second, then relaxes into the embrace, nuzzling the side of his cheek against the top of your head.
“I do like it here,” you hum. I like you, too, you think to yourself. “I might have to take you up on that.”
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“Cameras are officially offline. Soleil, if you can hear me, cough two times.”
Jay’s voice pours through the tiny communication device that Andrew had helped place in your ear only an hour ago. You’re able to make out Jay’s words, but they’re muffled, as the club is already extremely busy tonight - which you’re far more grateful for than you usually would be. Tonight, the more noise, the better. Boisterous laughs and obnoxiously loud music means that patrons and dancers are less likely to hear anything out of the ordinary.
As inconspicuously as possible, you raise your arm and cough twice into your elbow.
“Good,” Jay replies. “Everyone keep to the plan. Pope, let us know when you guys are in.”
The line then goes silent, leaving you to attempt to act calm, cool and collected for however long it takes Andrew, Craig and Deran to get into the basement and then the safe room without being caught.
You haven’t even been here for an hour yet, and you already feel the need to reapply deodorant due to the intense nervous sweats that you’re currently experiencing. You’ve already been to the bathroom twice because your stomach is so tied in knots that you are convinced you’re going to get sick.
Maybe you should have listened to Andrew and called out tonight. He had tried to assure that they would find a way to make everything work without you there, but you stubbornly insisted on helping.
What if your anxiety gets the best of you and you get sick on center stage tonight? What if someone notices how antsy you are? What if your earpiece falls out while dancing?
Oh, that’s just a hearing aid. I somehow went partially deaf in the last few days.
It doesn’t help that Silas is exceptionally irritable tonight, barking at every dancer and employee for every little thing. You spend the first part of the night maintaining as much distance between yourself and him as you possibly can while also keeping a careful eye on him. It’s sheer dumb luck that no one requests a private room with you during the first hour of the night so you’re able to monitor both Silas and Gregory from a reasonable distance while simultaneously conversing with customers.
And, if you were having any second thoughts about playing a part in Silas’ demise, those go out the window the minute that he approaches you that night.
You’re standing at the bar, waiting on some drinks for a table you have been entertaining, when he eases up beside you. Call it a sixth sense, but the way that your skin crawls at the sudden presence tells you it’s him before you even glance over.
“Enjoy your days off?” Silas asks, voice low enough for only you to hear. You cut your eyes in his direction to find him smirking at you, the look in his eyes making it clear that he isn’t just making friendly conversation.
“I did,” you answer shortly, eyeing the bartender to see where she’s at with the Jack and cokes. Not that it’s any of your concern, you bite back.
Silas hums, swirling the ice in his glass. “I’m glad to see you tonight, you know. I was starting to worry that maybe you skipped town.”
Your hands clutch the edge of the bar to steady yourself, your stomach sinking. He doesn’t know. There’s no way that he knows. How would he know?
“Am I not allowed to go out of town for a few days when I’m not working?” You snort, trying to play it off, hoping your horror isn’t displayed across your face. You don’t deny it, because if he’s bringing it up, then he already knows. You just don’t know how much he knows. “I have to run my vacation plans by you now?”
A low chuckle escapes him as he takes a slow sip of his drink. “What’s in Oceanside, anyway?”
Fucking hell.
Just as the last word leaves his lips, and the room around you seems to freeze, the bartender slides the tray of drinks across the counter to you. Your hands are shaking, but you force yourself to pick it up. You’re vaguely aware of Andrew whispering your name in your ear, his voice panicked, but you can’t respond yet.
“The ocean,” you spit, turning around and walking away with the drinks before Silas can say another word.
When you’re halfway across the room, Andrew’s voice pours through the communication device again.
“Are you okay? What the hell was that?”
You still don’t risk responding. You drop the drinks off at the table with exaggerated pleasantries and quickly excuse yourself before the men have a chance to drag you into whatever it is they’re now animatedly conversing about. A fleeting glance in the direction of the bar lets you know that Silas is now occupied by a customer, and only after confirming that his attention is no longer on you, do you take off in the direction of the employee bathroom and lock the door behind you.
“Andrew?” You hiss under your breath. “How much of that did you hear?”
“All of it,” Andrew answers right away. “How the hell does he know?”
“I have no idea,” you whisper, sitting down on the closed toilet. Now that you’re alone and can begin to process what the hell just happened, your heart is racing and your body is shaking and you’ll be lucky to walk back out of this room without collapsing. “I haven’t told anyone about my trip to Oceanside. He must have someone keeping tabs on me when I’m not here.”
The realization makes bile churn in your gut. He’s watching you. Even when you’re not here, he’s watching. He knows when you come and when you go, and he knows where you go. Who fucking knows how many times he’s had someone spying on you when you were just buying groceries or getting your nails done or—
“Breathe,” Andrew says, somehow able to detect your panic without even seeing you. “He’s just trying to scare you. He might know that you went to Oceanside, but he doesn’t know our plan. This doesn’t change anything, okay? We’re already in. We’re doing this. And you won’t have to worry about him anymore after tonight.”
You inhale, then exhale, then repeat, trying your hardest to convince yourself that what he’s saying is true. You know he believes it, and you trust that he wouldn’t lie to you, but right now the small amount of self-preservation that you possess is screaming at you to abandon ship.
But then you think of Andrew, in the basement, only one floor separating you from him. You think of all he’s risking by what he’ll do for you tonight. You think of your time spent together in Oceanside, and how you long for more, and how that isn’t a possibility unless you leave this bathroom and do what you came here to do.
One more deep breath. “Okay,” you exhale. “Okay, I’m okay.” It sounds like you’re trying to assure yourself as much as you are him.
“Good,” Andrew encourages softly. “We’re in the safe room now. No sign of anyone down here. I need you to get Gregory to come downstairs now, okay? Remember the plan?”
Even though he can’t see you, you nod. “I remember.”
Just in case someone is standing outside the door, you flush the toilet and turn the sink on momentarily for the sake of keeping up appearances as you take in your own appearance. Your makeup is slightly patchy from beads of sweat that have gathered on your forehead, but all things considered, you look normal enough.
You pause with your hand on the bathroom doorknob, taking one last, steadying breath before reentering the main floor of the club. A large group of men are huddled around center stage as another popular dancer performs her solo set, and sensuous music blasts loudly through the room.
Silas has moved from his seat at the bar, relocating to a far corner where he sits conversing with a table of regulars with his back to you. Good. And as for Gregory….
Gregory stands next to one of the newest dancers, who currently looks as if she’s being held hostage by whatever Gregory is saying to her.
Now or never, you suppose, forcing one foot in front of the other as you walk across the room.
“Hey, Angel,” you greet her with a cheerful voice and smile, hoping it sounds genuine. “There’s a guy at the bar asking for a private dance with you. I told him I’d send you over.”
Right away, she looks relieved to be freed from her conversation with Gregory. “Thanks,” she breathes before heading in the direction of the bar.
Gregory starts to walk off - knowing that you won’t engage in casual conversation with him like the newer hires who feel obligated to - when you speak up.
“Hey, I saw a guy trying to open the basement door just a minute ago,” you tell him, relieved when the words come out with just the right amount of faux concern. Gregory immediately looks in that general direction, beady eyes narrowing as he tries to find who you could be referring to.
“He was jiggling the handle,” you continue, hoping it prompts him in that direction.
“A guy?” He repeats. “What guy? What did he look like?”
You shrug. “Never seen him before. He was about your height, middle aged, short black hair.”
Gregory’s eyes dart between you and the hallway behind you. “Okay,” he huffs, taking a step away from you. “I’ll tell Silas—”
“I already told him,” you blurt without thinking. “He’s busy. He told me to tell you to check it out.”
To both your surprise and relief, he doesn’t question you further. He just huffs in annoyance, muttering something under his breath about having to do fucking everything around here and storms in the direction of the basement stairway.
For the briefest of moments, you almost feel bad for him. Then, you remember all of the times he has walked in on you and other dancers in the changing room, or tattled on you to Silas for not smiling enough, or stared directly at your tits with zero shame, and then your guilt disappears just as quickly as it had appeared.
You aren’t quite sure what Andrew and his brothers plan to do with Gregory. You didn’t ask, and you aren’t going to. You figured that Andrew would likely give you the same answer he has to the majority of questions you’ve asked over the last few days: the less you know, the better.
You do your best to appear subtle as you watch Gregory approach the door that leads to the basement of the club. He glances around, seemingly looking for the mystery man that you had made up a description of on the spot. When he sees no one that looks as you had described (because of course he doesn’t), he jiggles the handle to find it still locked. Your stomach sinks as you worry that Gregory will chalk that up to good enough and turn around to report to Silas, but then he reaches into his pocket and retrieves a set of keys, still visibly muttering under his breath and shaking his head.
You breathe an audible sigh of relief when he opens the door and he slips into the stairwell without drawing any attention from Silas, who still has his back to the entire incident on the other side of the room.
“He’s coming,” you murmur under your breath, “Gregory is coming downstairs now.”
There’s a quick whisper of confirmation, so fast and low that you aren’t even sure whose voice it was, and then the line goes silent. Your part of the job is over, and you’re left to wait. Wait until you see Silas walk to the stairs when Andrew makes Gregory call for him. Wait as you hope that he never walks back up those stairs. Wait until you hear from Andrew, wait until your shift is over.
And waiting might just be the hardest part of it all.
⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆
“I’m gonna ask you one more time to open this fucking safe.”
Like a rat after a piece of cheese, Gregory had walked right into the trap. He clearly had not actually expected anyone to be down here, because he walked right inside the safe room, muttering to himself about not getting paid enough, where Craig and Deran snuck up behind him, overpowering him within seconds. He didn’t even have a chance to yell before a handkerchief was crammed into his mouth.
Popes gotta hand it to Gregory, though. He fully expected the cowering, sniveling little shit to open the safe the very first time the three masked men demand he do so. But so far, he has yet to cave. Even with the barrel of Pope’s gun pressed to his temple.
He’s trembling, and whimpering, and he has definitely pissed himself, but he is also refusing to put the code in the fucking vault. He’s loyal to Silas, even if he’s nothing else, and that makes Pope feel the slightest bit better about what he plans to do with Gregory whenever they no longer have any use for him.
Pope and his brothers like to avoid casualties if at all possible. But after all you’ve told him about Gregory and now how stubborn he’s being? Pope has a hard time feeling bad.
“I don’t fucking have time for this,” Pope grunts, pulling the Glock away from Gregory’s forehead and instead aiming it towards the lower half of his body. He tries to shout, tries to protest, but the cloth crammed inside his mouth makes it all sound like muffled gibberish.
Pope doesn’t hesitate to pull the trigger, sending Gregory crumpling to the floor with a shot to the thigh that has him screeching around the gag; a high-pitched, animalistic sound. Upstairs, the music continues to blast, the bass vibrating through the floor. Even if Pope’s gun didn’t have a suppressor, he doubts anyone would have heard the shot over all the noise in the club.
Craig and Deran yank Gregory back upright despite his cries of pain. “The next shot won’t be to your leg. You think we’re bluffing?” Craig bellows. “You’re gonna find out if you don’t open that fucking safe right now.”
Gregory frantically nods. Craig and Deran haul him forward, and he raises his bound wrists to the safe’s keypad and begins typing with shaking hands. After a few seconds, the safe door clicks open. Deran pulls Gregory out of the way, allowing Pope to open the door.
“Oh, fuck yes,” Craig laughs in relief at the sight inside. “This has gotta be even more than I thought.”
It is a lot - too much for Pope to take an accurate guess as to exactly how much, but it has to be in the hundreds of thousands. He can’t get too excited yet, though. Not when Gregory here is bleeding through his pants and you’re still upstairs with Silas.
Pope and Craig make quick work of emptying the safe, shoving the stacks of cash into backpacks that Deran and a soon to be masked Gregory will wear out of here to where Jay awaits with the getaway car while Pope and Craig deal with Silas. But first…
“You got your phone on you?” Pope asks Gregory.
Gregory nods with an unintelligible noise of confirmation through the handkerchief still in his mouth.
“Good,” Pope lifts a hand to remove the gag, pausing before pulling it out. “I’m gonna take this out now. You scream, you die. Understand?”
Gregory nods, eyes wide with fear. Pope then yanks the cloth out of Gregory’s mouth, and he immediately begins to hyperventilate.
“Where’s your phone?” Craig demands.
“Back - back pocket,” Gregory pants.
Deran reaches into the back pocket of Gregory’s pants, retrieving the cell phone and tosses it to Pope. Pope holds the phone up to Gregory’s face, letting Face ID unlock the screen. He goes through Gregory's call history and quickly finds Silas’ name.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Pope says coolly, looking Gregory dead in the eye. “You’re going to give your boss upstairs a call. You’re gonna stay calm, and tell him that you need him to come down here right now. When he asks why, you tell him there’s an issue with the safe. If he tries to question you, you pretend you can’t hear him over the music and reiterate for him to come down here. Am I clear?”
Craig speaks up before Gregory has a chance to agree or disagree. “If you try to warn him, you’ll be bleeding from your other leg, too. Or worse. Got it?”
Gregory nods with a panicked sound of agreement, and Pope presses Silas’ name. He answers after the second ring, pop music pouring through the phone’s speaker.
“What?” Silas barks.
Gregory doesn’t speak right away. He opens his mouth like he’s going to, but then closes it, his eyes darting between Pope, Craig, and Deran. Pope wiggles the phone in his face, giving Gregory a look that dares him to test his luck.
“Hey,” he squeaks. “I - uh - I need you to come downstairs for a minute.”
“What?” Silas snaps. “Why? What are you doing downstairs right now?”
“I…I…uhm—” Gregory stutters, his voice unnaturally shrill and shaky. He looks between Pope and his brothers again in hesitation, unable to force the next words out. Deran nudges Gregory’s ribcage with his gun in a reminder of what’s at stake.
There’s one last, loaded second of silence before Gregory opens his mouth and seals his fate…and yours.
“Soleil told me she saw a man going to the basement, I’m sorry Silas, they made me do it—”
｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡
You watch Silas from across the room the moment that he raises his cell phone to his ear.
It could be someone else calling him. Maybe it isn’t Gregory, yet. But it only takes about ten seconds for any doubt to fade away, because Silas looks over his shoulder, his eyes scanning the room until they lock with yours.
You try to look away, to play it off, to pretend you weren’t just watching him like a hawk, but it’s too late. He noticed. He definitely fucking noticed. And whatever was said to him during that short phone call, makes him stand up and head directly towards you.
“Why don’t we take a little walk?” Silas says, low enough for only you to hear. “There’s some things that we need to talk about.”
Your knees buckle and the room around you begins to spin. “I…have a private room in a few minutes. Can’t it wait?”
That’s a lie, but you’re trying to do whatever it takes to do what Andrew had asked of you. Stay upstairs.
“Nah, it can’t.” Silas glances around briefly before sliding a hand into his coat pocket. The movement looks innocent enough but then the unmistakable outline of a gun straining against the material catches your eye. You look back up, your blood running cold, and he’s smirking at you. “And I’m not asking.”
He doesn’t give you the chance to object before he grabs you by the arm and starts hauling you across the overcrowded dance floor, everyone too drunk and distracted to pay any mind to either of you.
“Where are we going?” You ask, trying to play dumb. You say the words loudly enough that Andrew, or anyone listening downstairs, will be able to hear.
He vibrates with low, chesty laughter. “I think you already know the answer to that.”
It takes every ounce of concentration just to put one foot in front of the other and keep yourself upright. Your thoughts are reeling with worst case scenarios. What will you find when you enter the basement? Did Andrew and the others get caught? Did Gregory have a gun on him? Is someone hurt? Once you walk down these stairs, will you ever walk back up?
Neither of you speak again until Silas opens the stairwell door, pushes you inside, and pulls it closed behind him.
“I’ve always known that you’re a flight risk,” Silas grumbles, steering you down the stairs with one hand gripping you by the shoulder and the barrel of his gun now pressed to the small of your back. You couldn’t escape even if you tried. “You really think I wouldn’t notice if you left town for four days? To fuck off to Oceanside?”
You don’t answer. His grip on your shoulder tightens enough that you’ll still feel the imprint of his hand hours later.
“The tracker that I put on your car sure came in handy,” he chuckles low, the sound sending chills down your spine. “Led me right to the Cody residence. I had to do a little digging after that, but imagine my surprise to learn that the Codys have quite the reputation.”
You reach the bottom of the stairs, and he shoves you up against the concrete wall and brings the gun to the side of your temple. You can’t stop the whimper that escapes your lips.
“I just didn’t think you would risk your dad’s life trying to pull some bullshit like this. Clearly I underestimated just how stupid and naive you really fuckin’ are.” He’s close enough that spit sprays across your face with nearly every word that he says.
“So this is what you are going to do if you want your sweet old daddy to live to see another day,” he murmurs, voice lethally calm in a way that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand straight.
Your dad’s face the night Silas first showed up at his house to collect flashes through your mind. The night that would eventually butterfly effect into you standing right here, right now.
“We’re going to walk in there exactly like this.” He presses the gun harder against your temple for emphasis. “And you’re going to tell whoever is in that room to put my money back where they found it. After they’ve done that, you’re going to tell them to get the fuck out of here unless they want to clean your brains off of my floor. And then I’ll deal with you after.”
He pulls the gun away, and the small device in your left ear suddenly feels impossibly loud despite the silence on the other end.
You can only hope that Andrew has heard every word and knows what is coming.
｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡
The door to the safe room is wide open, and you see Gregory’s motionless body crumpled on the floor before you even step foot inside, a bullet wound dead-center of his forehead.
The second thing you notice is that Craig and Deran begin to lower their weapons as soon as you, and Silas directly behind you with his gun still aimed at your head, come into view.
The third, and most concerning thing? Andrew is nowhere to be seen.
After you get over the initial shock of realizing that Gregory is dead, presumably killed by one of the boys after saying whatever the hell he said that made it click in Silas’ head that you have very much played a part in all of this, the realization that you have no idea where Andrew is and that Craig and Deran are surrendering their weapons hits you like a brick.
You were so, so stupid to have ever thought this would work. To have actually believed that things wouldn’t go to shit, that everything would go according to plan, that this would end in your freedom. Now it’ll be a miracle if you and every member of the Cody family makes it out of this building alive.
Where the hell is Andrew?
He wouldn’t leave his brothers behind. He wouldn’t leave you behind. You’re sure enough of that. Not if there were any other way.
“Well?” Silas barks, pressing the muzzle of the gun into your temple. “Tell them.”
But your mouth has gone bone dry. Andrew. Andrew. Where is Andrew—
Craig and Deran exchange a look that lasts a mere second before Craig opens his mouth to speak. “Look, man, we don’t want anyone else to get hurt. Let her go and we’ll leave. Just take it easy.”
“Easy?” Silas repeats incredulously. “You conspire against me, break into my club, kill one of my employees…” He tips his head in the direction of Gregory’s lifeless body. “…and you want me to take it easy?”
Craig and Deran are both silent.
“Kick the bags over,” Silas sighs, his patience already wearing thin.
“Do what he asks, guys,” you manage to force out. “He’ll let you go. Just give back the money.”
Another second of hesitation, another glance between themselves, and then they nudge the backpacks across the floor.
Silas laughs quietly from behind you. “Smart choice.”
It’s then that you notice Craig’s eyes shift past Silas, the movement too quick and minute for Silas to even register as he starts to reach down for one of the backpacks.
Then all hell breaks loose, and the following thirty seconds feel like something out of a fever dream.
One second, Silas’ gun is pressed against your head, and the next, it’s flying across the room with a shot that goes right through the wall. Your body gets propelled forward by a blunt force from behind you, and you go tumbling to the floor with a sharp cry.
When you look up, there’s chaos all around you, but most importantly, there’s Andrew.
The door to the safe room, which had been wide open just seconds ago, is now nearly shut. He had been here the whole damn time, just waiting for the perfect moment to pop out and strike Silas from behind.
Andrew drives into him like a freight train, wrapping both arms around Silas’ torso and carrying him into a metal shelving unit. The entire thing rattles violently on impact, random boxes and loose paperwork falling from the shelves and scattering across the floor. Silas lets out a startled, animalistic grunt, but he recovers surprisingly fast for a man pushing sixty.
Then Craig and Deran jump in, and the four men crash together in an aggressive tangle of limbs and curses. It all happens so fast that it’s impossible to tell who throws which punch and whose blood is dripping onto the concrete.
All you know is that you’re the reason that they called Silas down here in the first place, and you see someone’s gun on the ground, no more than an arm’s length away from you.
Before you can give it a second thought, you grab the gun and force yourself to your feet.
Your hands are shaking so hard that it looks as if you have Parkinson’s disease, and you’re terrified to take the shot for fear that you’ll hit anyone other than Silas, but every horrible thing he has said and done in the last three years is suddenly replaying in your mind as your finger dances over the trigger and you know without a doubt that you have to do what you’re most scared to do.
You yell. A deep, guttural sound that tears through you, loud enough to get the attention of all four men in front of you. Deran, who’s positioned slightly in front of a beaten and bloodied Silas, instantly moves out of the way, giving you a clear shot.
You hear Andrew say your name, you see Silas start to attempt to lunge towards you, but you don’t let either of those things stop you from squeezing the trigger.
Time slows down. Despite the fact that the gunshot hadn’t been very loud thanks to the suppressor attached to it, there’s still a shrill, high-pitched ringing in your ears.
For only a fraction of a second, you wonder if you hit him at all. Then, your question is answered when dark crimson begins blooming across the fabric of his cream colored button-down, just over his heart.
Silas opens his mouth to speak, but only blood comes out, and then he falls forward, collapsing on the ground beside Gregory.
You’re still aiming the gun right where Silas had been standing with shaking hands when Andrew takes a tentative step towards you.
“I killed him,” you whisper, voice trembling. “I killed him.”
Andrew slowly and carefully peels your hands away from the gun and takes it from you. You’re still glued to the spot, both your mind and body in shock from what just happened. From what you just did.
You killed him. You killed Silas. You killed someone. Murdered them. And yes, they deserved it, but you still fucking pulled the trigger and shot them in the chest.
“No, you didn’t,” Andrew murmurs, giving Silas a kick to the shoulder with his foot. Silas lets out a weak groan that makes you instinctively jump back. “He’s still alive.” Then, before you can spiral any further, Andrew aims the gun directly at the man lying on the floor and fires it again, hitting Silas in the head.
He turns to face you, holstering the gun. “See? You didn’t kill him. I killed him.”
“So much for not shooting him in front of her,” Deran grumbles as he picks up one of the backpacks and slides it on. Him and Craig begin to move around the room, but you aren’t paying attention to what they are doing, because your eyes are locked on the body on the floor in front of you.
Bodies. Plural. Two of them. Silas, and Gregory. And blood. A lot of it.
Andrew steps in front of you, blocking your view of it all.
“We need to clean all of this up now,” Andrew tells you gently. He raises his hands as if he’s going to place them on your shoulders, but stops himself at the last second, his hands hovering awkwardly for a moment before dropping them back to his sides. “I need you to do one last thing for me, and then this will all be okay. Okay?”
His voice is steady and calm, but his hazel eyes are serious and pleading, like it’s taking every ounce of his willpower to maintain composure for your sake.
You give him a shaky nod to confirm that you heard him.
“I need you to go back upstairs. I need you to keep watch and make sure that no one tries to come down here, and warn us if they do.”
You’re shaking your head before he finishes speaking. “What? No, no. I can’t go back up there. I can’t. I won’t be able to keep it together. I can’t pretend like—”
“You can,” Andrew interjects, voice firm. “It’s for your own safety, too. People will be suspicious if you disappear at the same time as Silas. You need an alibi. Go upstairs, show your face, book a private room or two, and pretend like everything is normal. Just for a few more hours.”
You swallow, inhaling and exhaling. What he says makes sense. All of the individual words make sense. But how the fuck are you supposed to walk back upstairs and act like everything is normal when you just killed a man?
Okay, Andrew technically killed him. But you still shot him in the lung. He would have eventually died from that alone even if Andrew hadn’t taken the gun from you and put a bullet in his brain.
“Just stay until the end of your shift to cover your own ass. Do you know if anyone noticed you come down here?”
“Uh—” you stutter, trying to remember everything that led up to this moment. “Uh, no. I don’t think so. The club’s really crowded tonight, everyone seemed busy and distracted.”
“Good,” Andrew nods. “You were never down here, okay? The cameras are offline, so you were never here.”
You nod, still unsure of how you’re going to will your legs to carry you back up those stairs, or how you’re going to keep the utter shock of what has transpired in this basement off of your face for the next few hours.
“What - what about you guys?” You ask him. “How are you going to get rid of all of this?”
Andrew shakes his head in dismissal. “You don’t need to worry about any of that. We’ll handle it. The bodies, the blood, the money, we’ll take care of all of it. Just go upstairs and keep an eye out for us.” He pauses, his eyes scanning your face. “You’ve trusted me so far, yeah? I just need you to trust me again for a few more hours.”
You have. You do. You don’t know if you trust yourself to not have a full blown panic attack in the middle of the club, but you do know that you trust Andrew.
You can’t quite bring yourself to verbally agree, but you nod.
Andrew takes a step closer and raises a tentative hand to your face, gently tilting your head to the side. “Earpiece is still in place,” he murmurs.
You expect him to pull away once he’s satisfied with his inspection, but he doesn’t. Instead, the soft pad of his thumb sweeps beneath your eye, wiping away a streak of smudged mascara. The touch is so tender that under different circumstances, you might have leaned into it. Might have closed the distance between you entirely. But right now, with blood still drying on the floor, all you can do is stand there and let him.
It gives you the much needed inspiration to get through the next few hours without completely falling apart, at least.
｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡
It takes every single last ounce of Pope’s self-restraint to not abandon Craig, Deran, and Jay to deal with the aftermath of the heist by themselves while he whisks you far the hell away from the city of Los Angeles in the middle of the night.
Truthfully, the only reason he doesn't do just that is because he doesn’t want it to come back to bite you in the ass.
He has to make sure everything is cleaned up. Everything. Every last drop of blood, every fingerprint, every strand of hair that could have fallen from your person to the floor of that safe room has to be eradicated before he feels comfortable leaving the club’s premises, and he sure as fuck doesn’t trust Craig or Deran to be as thorough as him. Deran lets his dish sponges get filthy and he doesn’t trust Craig to properly wash his own ass.
Finally, in the early hours of morning just before dawn, Pope can confidently say that the job is finished. Through the combined efforts of Craig, Deran, Jay, and himself, the safe room is cleaned spotless, the bodies of Silas and Gregory are disposed of, and the haul of cash makes it back to Oceanside.
Getting both bodies out wasn’t exactly easy, but Pope had planned for shit to go sideways. Jay was on standby in the getaway truck with an appliance dolly in case they were unable to retrieve the money from the safe while inside the club.
It was Craig’s idea, actually, to cram both bodies inside the safe and haul the entire thing offsite…to the middle of the fucking desert where all four men spent several hours digging a hole big enough for a six hundred pound safe.
No, things didn’t go according to plan, but they rarely do. It all proved to be worth it when the cash count ended up being just shy of half a million.
And if Pope’s share of more than a hundred grand wasn't enough to make the entire ordeal feel worthwhile, the relief on your face and the way you fling your arms around his neck when he shows up at your apartment later that day sure as hell does.
Maybe it’s a combination of everything that has happened in the last twelve hours and sleep deprivation, but it takes Pope a moment to register that you’re hugging him in your doorway. When he does, he wraps his arms around your torso and hugs you back, pulling you tight against his chest without a word.
“Sorry,” you breathe when you pull back, just far enough to look up at him. “I’m sorry, I…I’ve been so worried.”
He instantly feels guilty. He had sent you a singular text to let you know that they had left the city when they were on their way to the desert, but after that, he had been so preoccupied with disposing of Silas and Gregory’s corpses that he hadn’t provided you any further updates. He had been operating on autopilot, going through the motions of shoveling dirt, driving his brothers and nephew back to Oceanside, and then driving all the way back to Los Angeles after only a shower and two shots of espresso.
“No, I’m sorry,” Pope murmurs, reluctantly dropping his arms back down to his sides. “I should’ve texted, or called, I just…” He glances around to make sure that none of your neighbors are lingering around outside. You notice his hesitation and move to motion him into your apartment. He steps inside, only continuing once you pull the door closed behind him. “Just wanted to make sure everything was taken care of.”
“And?” You ask, biting your bottom lip in the way Pope has noticed that you tend to do when you are especially nervous about something. “Is it? Taken care of?” You add in a smaller voice.
Pope nods. “Yeah. Everything has been taken care of. There’s nothing that you need to worry about now. No one will ever find them.”
You audibly exhale in relief, your shoulders visibly relaxing as you lean against your kitchen counter and cross your arms over your chest. “Andrew, I…I don’t even know how to say thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me at all,” he says simply.
He’s told you already, but he’ll tell you again, he did this because he wanted to.
He saw you in that alleyway and knew you didn’t belong in that place. He saw you dance on that stage and knew that he had to talk to you. He had one conversation with you and knew that he would be willing to kill for you.
And he would do it all over again, even if he didn’t gain a penny from it all.
Which reminds him…
He pulls out a large, thick envelope tucked beneath the waistband of his jeans and holds it out to you. “Actually,” he clears his throat, “you can thank me by taking this.”
Your eyebrows scrunch together as you accept it from him. “What’s this?”
“It’s your cut.”
You pause before starting to open it. “My cut?”
“Yeah,” Pope shrugs. “Your cut from the money we pulled last night.”
You don’t even look inside before you’re trying to hand it back to him. “Andrew, no. I can’t take this. You killed a man - two men - for me, and then cleaned up the mess and dumped their bodies in the middle of the ocean—”
“Desert, actually,” he corrects softly, and your mouth snaps shut into a tight line, but he can tell by your eyes that you’re fighting a smirk.
“Still,” you implore. “You have done more than enough for me. Taking your money wouldn’t feel right. Not when you’ve already given me a second chance at life. That’s worth more than any amount of money ever could be, Andrew.”
God, he needs to go to sleep, because the last thing he should be thinking about right now is how much he likes to hear you call him by his name.
He hums a laugh, reluctantly accepting the envelope that you’re practically shoving against his chest, then takes a slow step towards you that leaves very little space between you. You’re slotted between him in front of you and your kitchen counter behind you, but you don’t appear the least bit put off by the tight space.
“Thought you said that you wanna get out of LA?” He murmurs. He reaches beside you, placing the envelope on the counter behind you. Then, instead of dropping his hand back to his side, it hovers for an awkward moment before falling to the edge of the counter, right next to your hip. He isn’t quite touching you, but if he moved his hand over a quarter of an inch, he would be. “Go back to school eventually? Start a new life?”
You’re smirking up at him now. “I did say that.”
He quirks a brow. “Then you’ll need money to do that.”
You’re silent for a moment, your eyes trailing over his face. You raise a tentative hand to his jaw, the soft pad of your thumb brushing a featherlight touch over a bruise that he had sustained in the brief but intense scuffle with Silas. Without thinking, he leans into the touch. The bruise is tender, but the feeling of your skin against his outweighs any discomfort.
“I thought you said that I’m always welcome at yours,” you hum. He opens his eyes to find you grinning slyly. It makes the back of his neck warm.
“You are,” he answers automatically. “Always. Is that…something you think you would want?”
You don’t answer with a yes, or a no, or even a nonchalant shrug. You just stare at him with that same soft, teasing expression as your eyes flicker between his eyes and his mouth, your hand still caressing his face.
There’s barely enough time for him to wonder if you’re thinking of doing what he has wanted but held back from doing since you pulled into his driveway in Oceanside before you lift onto your toes and press your lips to his.
His breath catches in his chest as your lips, tentative and impossibly soft, brush over his and every coherent thought leaves his mind at once. One moment, he’s standing in your kitchen trying to convince you to take sixty thousand dollars in cash, and the next he can’t remember how to breathe because the feel and smell and taste of you is overtaking his senses.
You linger just long enough for him to pull away if he wants to.
He does not. Of course he doesn’t.
His hand moves from the counter to your waist, and yours still resting on his jaw shifts to the back of his neck where your fingertips toy with the hair at the base of his skull. He leans down into the kiss, angling himself closer until there’s barely any space left between the two of you.
It’s soft, and hesitant, as if you’re both worried that if you move too fast, the moment will end all too soon. Warm lips move tenderly against his, your tongue sweeping lightly against his in permission that he eagerly grants.
It’s probably the last thing he should be thinking about in this particular moment, but he’s glad that he didn’t talk Craig out of his idea for a gentleman’s club based heist. Really, really fucking glad.
When you pull away, you release a small, breathless laugh that ghosts across his lips.
“Don’t worry,” you breathe, “that wasn’t me trying to say thank you or anything. I just wanted to do that.”
“Yeah?” He murmurs, brushing his lips over yours a final time. It isn’t quite a kiss, but it sends goosebumps down his spine nonetheless. “I take that as a yes, then? You’ll come to Oceanside with me?”
You nod, the tip of your nose nudging his. “I think Oceanside with you is exactly where I need to be.”
｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡ three months later ｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡
“Are you sure you can’t see anything?”
Your eyes are wide open, and all you see is pitch darkness. Andrew is apparently as meticulous at securing bandannas around a person’s forehead as he is everything else he does in life.
No surprise there.
“Honey, I’m positive,” you laugh, repeating yourself for the third time since you got home from class no more than five minutes ago. Andrew had been waiting to greet you, as he usually is, with a blindfold in hand. That part was unexpected, but you have quickly learned to expect the unexpected when it comes to Andrew. He never disappoints.
He had asked if you trust him (he knows that you do) and proceeded to secure the black cloth around your eyes before guiding you down the hallway to the spare room of yours and his new place, which he recently set up as a study room for you.
“Ready?” He murmurs, one hand on your lower back as the door creaks open.
You step into the room. “I don’t know. Am I?”
He chuckles softly, bringing his hands to where the cloth is tied behind your head and then pauses. “If you don’t like it, I’ll take it down.”
“Take it down?” You echo, brows scrunching beneath the fabric.
He answers by letting the cloth fall away from eyes.
What you see is the very last thing you expect.
Right in the very center of the room, directly in front of where you stand, is a dance pole. Damn near identical to the one you had in your Los Angeles apartment. The one you hadn’t bothered to bring with you to Oceanside, because you had been so eager to leave everything about your life there behind. Everything.
Or so you had thought, until very recently when you began to find yourself missing one, and only one, thing. Dancing.
Not dancing for money, not dancing for men, but just dancing. By yourself, for yourself.
You had mentioned it to Andrew in passing only yesterday, that you wish you had kept your dance pole when you packed your entire life into your car and happily drove from Los Angeles to Oceanside to be with him.
Now, not even a full twenty-four hours later, he has both acquired and installed one since you left for class this morning.
You don’t even realize that you’re just staring at the pole, wordlessly, until Andrew clears his throat.
“Like I said, I can take it back down. It isn’t a big deal.”
“What?” Your gaze snaps to him. “No, it’s not…it’s perfect. I was just thinking,” you murmur.
His eyebrows lift slightly. “What are you thinking about?”
Since you came to Oceanside three months ago, you and Andrew have taken things relatively slow in your relationship, aside from the obvious of living under the same roof.
Things started in such an unexpected and unconventional way, but once you got here, your newfound dynamic was able to settle with a sense of normalcy. You may have met in a strip club, killed your boss together, and had your first kiss all in a week’s time, but Andrew still took you out on a proper first date and has been nothing but patient with letting the relationship progress at a pace that you’re comfortable with - physically, mentally, and emotionally - while processing everything that you’ve been through in the last few years and starting your life over at the same time.
Never, in a million years, would you have expected such beauty to come from such trauma, but it did. Because of him, it did. He was the light waiting for you on the other side of the darkness.
You shrug, grinning softly. “About how much I love you.”
Andrew’s hazel eyes widen in surprise. It’s the first time you have said those three words aloud. It’s not the first time you have thought them, but it is the first time you have verbalized them.
After the initial shock fades from his face, it’s replaced with the grin that you’ve fallen in love with waking up to every morning. He takes a step toward you, closing the distance between you by taking your face in his hands and slotting his lips against yours. Your arms instinctively wrap around his thick torso, melting into his embrace as he kisses you in a way that is both familiar and takes your breath away.
He murmurs the next words out of his mouth against yours in between kisses, his voice low and sincere.
“I love you very much.”
⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆
thank you SOOOO much if you read to the end of this!!! as always, comments and reblogs are very much appreciated and will make me love you forever.
also, if anyone reading has watched season 2 of the punisher, i’m sure you caught the reference in the heist scene 😉
I could see him getting this when he just started in the military. Young, stupid, and way too drunk to make a smart decision of getting a tattoo that obscene.
You finally see it one night after too many drinks at the bar—you both getting close and touchy—finally realizing that the both of you have had the hots for each other for a long time. HR be damned.
You don’t even make it to the bedroom. Hair tossed, clothes strained from its previous position, and lips red and kiss bitten. You’re on your knees going for his belt buckle.
His cheeks flush a deeper red than they were before from the tequila you got him to buy at the bar. His hands are in his face as he lets out an embarrassed huff of a laugh at your wide curious eyes and growing smile.
“It was a long time ago,” he tells you in his gravelly voice.
You shrug your shoulders, “I like it.” pulling the waistband of his underwear to watch his cock spring free. It’s achingly hard, the tip flushed a dark peak with the tip leaking. Your mouth waters as your tongue eagerly licks the salty residue.
Jack’s head falls against the head of the couch as groan comes out of his mouth, deep and heavy as you finally enclose your lips on him. His hands go to you hair, he lifts his head up and watches you take him.
summary — the first rule of sleeping with your attending was to make sure it meant nothing. you’d been very good at that right up until you weren’t.
warnings — 8.1k words. 18+ Minors DNI!! (explicit sexual content, oral [m! recieving], unprotected p in v, power imbalance [attending/resident], friends with benefits dynamics, mild dom/sub dynamics, hair pulling, a lot of talking during sex, can be read as slightly coercive maybe?), hurt/comfort, commitment issues, fear of emotional intimacy, lightly implied widower undertones, age gap (jack’s 50/reader’s a resident, implied to be late twenties), jack jokes about paying for sex, alcohol
notes — this one started light in the beginning and ended pretty heavy like idk where all that came from i wrote the first half when i was in a better mood and finished it when i got this request and i guess i was just feeling like i wanted to make it hurt even more
Jack Abbot came with his perks. He’d taken you under his wing when you first joined the PTMC as a second-year-resident, and somewhere over the space of a year, he’d taken you to his bed. You’d built him as a man who lived in a sad bachelor pad with the way he’d taken you to his house after a shitty shift; no preamble, just a jerk of his head toward the parking garage and a raspy ‘come on’ that you’d followed like he was still your attending after-hours.
And fuck, you couldn’t lie and say it didn’t feel slightly good to see a floor-to-ceiling windowed penthouse and drink something amber and expensive after you’d spent the last few years of your life not seeing the other end of what your work could bring you. It was grim and improper, you knew, fucking your attending in the early hours of the morning before the sun fully rose, but you knew it was coming; half the ED had placed bets on it and Cassie and Javadi were yet to know they were right.
He’d taken you against the window the first time.
“You afraid of heights?” he’d asked, and the question moved through you like warm liquid rather than reached you. You’d shaken your head, or tried to. “No,” he’d murmured, your jaw in his hands. “Didn’t think so.”
He’d taken his prosthetic off after, wryly claiming that the position felt good but the leg disagreed. That had somehow lead to another round, slower the second time with him on his back and you set over him.
A part of you wondered often the sort of impression you’d given Jack, what he’d seen, exactly, that made him sure he could have you like this and keep it weightless. Whatever it was, it had to have been right to some degree because you’d spent more nights in his penthouse than your own apartment for the past six months without ever calling it anymore than what it was.
He was a better lay than you’d ever had. He was probably the best option around to get steam off while you worked your way through residency. It helped that he was your attending and you shared the same strange hours.
You kept the books carefully and columns balanced. Sex, sleep, the occasional terrible four a.m. meal that didn’t count because eating was maintenance, not intimacy. You never stayed for coffee — you took it to go — and you didn’t learn his middle name on purpose. You’d never seen the inside of his closet. You left before you could risk having to go to work together. A woman in trouble would linger, and you did not linger. Therefore.
But the stupid books had started running a quiet deficit you hadn’t accounted for. You knew exactly how he took his coffee. The toothbrush in the second drawer that you reached for now without looking, muscle memory in a place you’d sworn was temporary.
And even though you could admit that Jack knew his way around you and never made you ask twice for anything in that bed, that wasn’t the line item that worried you. Bodies learned bodies. It was that you’d stopped taking your coffee to go some mornings without ever noticing the change; you’d sit at his counter with a mug that was somehow yours now, and drank it there while he read something on his phone and never told you to leave. You’d started to become a woman that lingered, and even worse, one who liked to do so.
And that had to stop, because Jack had told you point-blank what this was on the first night while you were still putting on your shirt with his mouth print blooming under the fabric.
This doesn’t have to be a thing. I’m not looking to make it one. Is that alright?
He’d said the words while putting on his briefs, and you’d agreed too fast, because at that time, it had cost you nothing. You’d wanted a body and a break, and he was offering both. He’d been more honest than any man you’d let touch you. He’d told you the terms up front and never moved them.
So, you simply had to put yourself out of the arrangement.
Jack found you by your car in the parking garage. He’d put on his coat a heavy thing that should’ve swallowed him but instead he was able to fill out almost perfectly.
“Jack,” you said, trying to find an even voice as he closed the distance between you. Before he could even ask, you forced out, “I’m not going home with you.”
His brows furrowed and he looked confused. For good reason, you supposed. Friday mornings had become sort of a usual for you, the easiest compensation in your life for missing Friday nights.
“You good?” He stepped close and tipped his head, and you watched him give you a complete once-over, eyes dropping to your hands and the set of your shoulders like you were a patient. “You looked a little out of it today. Come — I’ll make you soup.”
You pinched your eyes shut at his words. “What’s that even supposed to mean — I was fine.”
“Don’t take it personal,” he said. “Come on, soup.”
“Seriously, I was fine.” You were almost offended now, which was clearly his intent, the bastard. “I’ve been awake for nineteen hours, I’m not sick —” You caught yourself getting pulled into it, defending your honor, exactly the kind of dumb circular thing you’d let him rope you into a hundred times because arguing with Jack was sometimes fun. You shut it down. “I’m not going home with you,” you said again, this time with a sharper edge.
He pursed his lips and crossed his arms over his chest, giving you another once-over as he recaliberated the situation in real time. “Did I upset you?”
“No, it’s not a fight,” you said fast. You dragged a hand down your face. “I’m not mad at you, Jack. I’m done with this. The whole — all of it.”
He tipped his chin down when you gestured vaguely with your finger between the two of you, at the whole abstract nature of you. Then, he said, “You’re calling it?”
“Yeah, very much,” you said, voice dropping a register as you leaned against the driver’s side door of your car. Then, when you saw how his brows furrowed and how he looked just slightly caught off-guard, you added, dumbly, “Sorry. I guess.”
He held your eyes a long beat, something working in his mouth, and then closed the last of the distance between you. His hand came up to your jaw, and you felt your face turn to liquid as you involuntarily leaned into it; his thumb dragged slow along your cheekbone and his gaze followed it, and you stood pinned to your own cold car door and let him, because telling him to stop would mean pretending you didn’t want it, and you’d never once been able to sell that lie for either of you.
“You mean it?” he asked, voice rough, and his forehead dropped to yours. When you nodded, he mimicked your movement. “Alright. Then let’s at least end it properly.”
When you showed no urgency to decline, his mouth found yours before you could decide whether you trusted yourself enough to end it properly. One of his hands stayed at your jaw while the other one fitted you back against the cold of the car. He smiled against your mouth, and you used your palm to push him by the chest.
He went back, just slightly, dropping his head to your forehead again. “I’m guessing that’s a yes?”
“One time,” you said quietly, almost in a whisper. “And then I mean it. It won’t change anything.”
“I believe you,” he said. “Last time, then. Make it count.”
Jack was making it obscenely difficult for you to make it count. The rhythm you’d settled into with him at around month two — the one where the two of you skipped the drink and went straight into his bed — had disappeared tonight. He just really needed a drink tonight, and then another, and then he really didn’t want to shut his mouth.
He poured the second one without offering you a top-up and stood at the window instead of coming to you, two fingers of amber catching the lamplight. You watched him and watched him, answering his questions until the two of you finally ended up in the bedroom.
He’d opened his mouth to argue something and you got his belt open instead slowly, and whatever he’d been about to say faded elsewhere. The city sat out past the glass, unblinking, that audience he never drew the blinds against. His hand found your hair, resting with his thumb at your ear, almost gentle and completely fucking distracting.
“Slow,” he murmured when you took him into your mouth, and the word came out scraped down to nothing. His head went back against the headboard. “Fuck.”
You went the opposite of slow; you knew that taking your time with it, acknowledging the last time of it all, would crack something open in your chest you couldn’t afford to have open. You did everything you knew undid him — six months of evidence, a body of proof — fast and certain, and the breath punched out of him and his fingers curled into your hair and the smug, talkative version of him went quiet for about four seconds.
“You — huh — last time. Really?” he managed to say, fingers tightening against your scalp, the blunt fingernails scraping against the skin. You slid your tongue down his length, and he let out a short groan, letting out a wrecked, “Good girl.” His hips lifted a fraction before he caught them, forcing himself still under your hands. “Good — yeah.”
You’d have smiled if your mouth wasn’t otherwise occupied, so you settled on humming around him. You let yourself think you’d won the quiet, and then his thumb moved against your temple slowly, and he ruined it.
“You really mean it?” he asked quietly, words aimed somewhere at the ceiling. “You’re done?”
You ignored him and kept your rhythm. It wasn’t a question you were going to dignify with him in your mouth and your resolve already pooled somewhere on his bedroom floor.
His hands flexed in your hair at the silence, then tugged, a frustrated little pull that went straight down your spine and that he absolutely felt you react to, because his thumb pressed flat behind your ear like he was talking to your pulse there.
“Don’t go quiet on me,” he said, rasp going uneven, breath catching somewhere between the words, his whole stomach drawn tight. You watched the muscle there jump when you took him deeper as his jaw worked. “You hear me. I know you — shit.”
You’d found the underside with the flat of your tongue you slowly dragged, and the sentence collapsed. His head dropped back and your eyes caught the tendon at his throat standing out. One of his heels dug into the mattress and you felt the tremor run up his thigh under your palm.
You’d have been lying if you said this wouldn’t be missed. Not the talking, but this, the privilege of watching Jack Abbot lose a fight with his own body, a man who controlled every room he stood in coming apart by degrees because of what you were doing. You pressed your thumb into the crease of his hip and felt him shudder. You took him to the back of your throat and swallowed and he said your name that came out of his mouth breaking.
“You’re really gonna — ” He inhaled sharply, hand fisting tighter on your head. “ — gonna do this and walk, you’re — ”
You pulled off of him with a slow, wet, and deeply unflattering sound and sat back on your heels and looked up at him, lips swollen, thoroughly out of patience, your hand still working him just enough that his hips chased it. His eyes were closed, and he let out a large exhale.
“Are you kidding me?”
He cracked an eye open, then shifted his head to the side against the pillow. “What?” he muttered.
“Why won’t you shut up?” You squeezed deliberately and his jaw clenched against the noise that almost got out of him. “You’re acting like a child.”
“Acting like a child,” he huffed, head tipping back. “I’m pretty aged out of the tantrum bracket.”
“Could’ve fooled me.” You dragged your thumb up the length of him slowly. “You’ve been throwing one since we got off.”
His hand left your hair and closed around your wrist instead — the one still working him — stilling it, and then he was pulling with his unarguable strength, drawing you up over him until you had to crawl up his body or be dragged.
You ended up straddling his waist. He stayed flat on his back beneath you, one arm folding behind his head while the other spread warm and heavy over your thigh, and he looked up at you with his chest still heaving and the gray stark at his temples.
“Better,” he muttered. “Neck was startin’ to go, watching you be stubborn down there.” The hand on your thigh slid up slowly, settling at your hip, thumb working a lazy circle into the bone. He tilted his chin up slightly. “What’s this really about?”
You went still because you had too much of an answer, and it was the sort of one that you didn’t believe could survive being said out loud over a man who’d made it clear exactly what this was on day one.
“You know,” you said.
“Maybe. But humor me.” His eyes stayed on your face, looking patient as ever, as the circle of his thumb continued moving. “Thought we had something nice going and now — ” He tilted his head slightly against the pillow. “So, what’s going on up in that pretty little head of yours?”
“I want more than this,” you said plainly. “That’s what’s in my head. I want the whole thing — the relationship and dates and stuff. I think I’ve got enough time to — get into that.”
“Yeah?” he said, voice coming out in a breath His thumb stilled on your hip. He looked up at you and his other hand came up and pushed a piece of your hair back off your cheek.
You had to press your lips together, because you obviously weren’t expecting him to offer, and yet you’d been holding your breath anyway.
“Yeah,” you said. “I do.”
His hand stayed on your cheek a moment longer, the pad of his thumb resting just under your eye. Then his hand dropped back to your hip where it was safe.
“You should,” he said after a moment, swallowing. “Get into that. You’ve got the time.”
“That’s it?”
“What do you want me to say?” His hands flexed at your hip, his hips still beneath yours and the want still humming under all of it. “Not gonna talk you out of one thing you actually deserve. Even I’m not that selfish.” His brows furrowed, like he’d just processed his own words. “Most days.”
His hand left your hip and found your waist, and then he was turning you, guiding you off of him onto the side on the mattress beside him, leaving the two of you laying facing each other in the gold dark. His thigh slid between yours.
This close, you could see everything you usually didn't get to study: the silver threaded through the stubble at his jaw, the small white seam of an old scar through one eyebrow, the way the lines around his eyes weren't from laughing. He had one arm folded under his head and the other draped heavy over your hip, fingers spread at the small of your back, and he just looked at you, the want and the conversation both still hanging in the air between you, neither resolved.
“S’it somebody at work?” he asked. “Has to be. You don’t have time yet to meet anyone who isn’t.”
You shook your head slightly against the pillow, and your brows furrowed together at the idea. “No — no one. I haven’t met anyone yet.”
He huffed. His eyes dropped from yours to somewhere near your collarbone, then came back up.
He turned his face toward the pillow for a second, as if to hide his face from you, then met your eyes again. “You’d rather have no one than me, huh?”
“Wow,” you breathed out in almost a gasp. You pulled back an inch against the pillow to look at him properly. “Now that’s mean, Jack. I can find someone, you know.”
“Yeah?” His brow lifted, scar catching the light. “Course you can.” His hand slid off your hip and down, palming the back of your thigh, drawing your knee up over his. “Always hear someone in the hospital talking about you.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“M’not.” He hitched your leg higher, fitting himself into the space it opened, and you felt the blunt heat of him press where you were already aching for it, rubbing slowly against your folds. “I mean it. It’s about time you got out from this old man.”
“Don’t call yourself that.”
He dragged the length of him through you again, catching you over and over where you wanted him and not giving it. “It’s what I am. Fifty, boring life, no good to you past this.” His mouth ghosted the corner of yours, breath warm and uneven. “You should be out with someone who can give you the whole thing. I’ve already done my time.”
You could do it again, you wanted to say. You could be the whole thing. But the words sat behind your teeth, because you already knew what he’d say and do if you’d said them, and you couldn’t take hearing it kindly. Especially not with him notched against you like this when it was supposed to be the last time.
You let your hand find his jaw instead, the rough of the stubble, the silver, and you watched his eyes flicker at the touch, at how your lips moved from one side to the other as you tried to keep the words down. It seemed like he’d understood whatever you didn’t say.
“Yeah, baby,” he muttered and pressed his thumb to the back of your thigh, eyes fluttering shut at the touch of you. “I know.”
He pushed in then, slow, all the way, mid-breath like it was just the next thing between you. The shudder rolled clean through him as he sank into you, his exhale breaking ragged against your mouth. Your spine arched off the mattress. His arm hooked under the small of your back and dragged you flush, no space left, no air, the two of you pressed chest to chest in the gold hush.
“Fuck,” he breathed against your mouth, holding there, buried to the hilt and not moving as he felt you clench around him. “Spoiling me rotten and then telling me you’re leaving.”
“Shut up now — ”
He drew back slow and sank back in deep, and the sound you made came out somewhere against his shoulder. Each roll of his hips pressed you up the sheets. “Get me used to this and then — what? Go hand it to someone who hasn’t earned it.” He laughed brokenly against your throat. “Selfish girl.”
You got a fistful of his hair and pulled, hard enough that his breath stuttered. “Go find — someone else yourself,” you said through your teeth, because opening your mouth seemed like something embarrassing would follow. “You’re not lacking options — ”
“But I like having my cake,” he breathed, and there was almost a laugh under it. “Eating it, too.”
“Gross,” you mumbled against him.
One month was meant to be enough time. Lying awake the first week, you’d assumed it’d take thirty days to unlearn a person. It had worked on the obvious things. You’d stopped reaching for your phone at the end-of-shift and stopped seeking him out by the lockers. You’d slept in your own bed and not found it lacking, mostly. But nobody warned you that being in a car for four hours would call it all into question.
One month of calling him Dr. Abbot across the bay, crisp and so weightless, handing him a chart without your fingers brushing his. You’d gotten good at it. Then Robby floated the conference. Some emergency medicine thing four hours upstate; a block of credits, a hotel with a conference rate, a chance to put PowerPoint slides between yourself and the actual work for two days. Dana volunteered the department van before anyone could think of a reason not to, already half out of her scrubs spiritually, determined to get a few days of being a person instead of a charge nurse.
Like these things usually did, the seating assembled itself, which was to say it was assembled badly. Robby drove while Dana drove shotgun. Trinity somehow won the entire back row. And the middle row was you, Dennis, and Jack.
You in the middle, because the universe worked in fucked-up ways. In this case, the universe was named Dana.
“You’ll fit,” Dana had said, and pressed a duffel of granola bars into your arms like a consolation prize, steering you into the gap between the two men before you could mount a defense.
You fit pressed thigh-to-thigh with Jack Abbot for four hours up interstate, his arm slung along the seatback behind you because there was genuinely nowhere else for a man his size’s arms to put it, the heat of him bleeding through your sleeve like a low fever. You knew that arm. You knew the weight of it, the places where his hand fell when it wasn’t thinking about where it fell. It was a quarter-inch from touching you, which was worse than actually touching you, and you suspected he knew that, too.
The van pulled out of the lot at five in the morning. Dennis had his headphones in before the drive even started. Up front, Dana was already arguing with Robby about the music. Trinity was sprawled in the whole back row to herself, scrolling on her phone.
Thirty minutes into the drive, Jack broke the seal.
“Excited?” he asked, eyes still out the window, profile flat and bored as anything. His voice was pitched low enough that it lived in the space between his mouth and your ear and nowhere else.
You kept your head tipped back against the seat. “More excited about sleeping in a comfortable bed than the conference.”
His brows narrowed as he turned to look at you. “Some Marriot-adjacent mattress? You’re aiming low.”
“It’s horizontal and not on-call. I’m easy to please.”
“Since when?” he drawled, bone-dry, eyes going back to the window. But his thigh had pressed a degree closer against yours, a shift you couldn’t call a thing without admitting you were keeping track. Up-front, Dana won whatever argument she’d been having and something with a heavy bassline filled the van. Jack let the noise ring and leaned half-an-inch closer that nobody would ever catch. “You used to say my sheets were scratchy.”
“For a man with that penthouse, they were scratchy — ”
“Finally,” he breathed out, satisfied, like he’d been fishing for exactly that and reeled it in. Something in his face eased and you hated, a little, how much you wanted to have done that. “I almost forgot you’d been in it.”
God. You hadn’t forgotten anything. That was the whole problem. You knew the place, the cold floor on the way to the bathroom, the exact freckles on his chest up close. You knew he wore a ring you had never once asked about and he’d never once explained, and that you’d both kept your eyes politely off the subject the way you keep your eyes off a wound that wasn’t yours to dress. You knew all of it, and all you could do was keep promising yourself it didn’t count anymore.
“Can we stop at the next exit?” Trinity said from the back. “I need coffee and the bathroom. In that order.”
Dana hummed. “There’s a Sheetz coming up in ten. That good?” She looked through the map on her phone. “Everybody go when we stop. We’re not pulling off twice.”
“Works for me,” Robby said.
Dennis plugged out one of his earphones and glanced over everyone in the car. “We’re stopping?”
“Yup,” Dana confirmed. “Bathroom, snacks, ten minutes, back in the van. Whitaker, you want anything, you decide now.”
Dennis considered, then put his earphone back on, apparently deciding the whole thing was beneath the commitment.
Jack leaned in from beside you, barely. “Single stall in the back of those places, you know?” he said, voice low, barely audible over the music. “There’s a lock on the door and everything.”
You kept your eyes on the windshield in front of you. “Weird thing to know off the top of your head.”
His thigh pressed warm against yours through the curve of an off-ramp that didn’t strictly require it. “How much would it take?” His eyes flickered back out to the window, even as his shoulder now pressed up against yours. “You and me in there. Ten minutes. Name a number.”
“Can’t be bought.” You forced your eyes to the windshield. “Sorry. Not for sale.”
“No?” His voice dipped, amused. “Everybody’s got a price.”
“Not me.” You turned your head and found him already closer than he’d been a second ago. “You really think you could afford me?”
“Could take a run at it.”
“Wouldn’t get far.”
“Fifty,” he said, and you could see the slight grin crawling onto his lips.
You let out a short laugh, then immediately pressed your mouth over your lips before it became any louder. “I don’t get out of bed for fifty dollars, Abbot, let alone on my knees.”
“Oof.” He winced, mock-wounded, dragging a hand over his chest. “Expensive date.”
“It’s never a date with you.”
He bit his lip at that, eyes raking over you, the grin caught behind his teeth. “Right. Hundred, then.”
“I’m gonna report you to HR. You’re my attending.”
“Good luck with filling out the history we have for that.”
You turned to look at him, and let your mouth curl. “You really think I’m the sort of girl to do it in a gas station bathroom?”
You watched the grin go still on his face, watched his eyes drop to your mouth and drag back up, the warmth in them tipping into something darker. “Would you?”
You scoffed, shaking your head. “In your dreams, Jack.”
“Frequently,” he said, not missing a second. “Vividly, too.”
You leaned in enough to feel his breath catch. “Keep dreaming, then. It’s all you’re getting.”
You sat back before he could answer, fingers playing with the seatbelt, sweet as anything.
“Christ.” He dragged a hand down over his jaw, his head tipping back against the seat and looked at you sideways through the gray morning light, and the bit fell off his face. “Missed you.”
Before you could even process the words with his attention on you, because he was who he was, his jaw worked once and looked back out the window, ending it himself before you could, handing the silence back to you to do with it what you pleased.
Your chest squeezed just slightly at that, and you had to be the one to force yourself to look away, catching sight of Dennis’s head bumping against the window as he soundly slept, oblivious, lucky.
At some point past the gas station you lost the fight with your own exhaustion. Nineteen hours of being awake before the drive, and the van was warm, and the bassline had mellowed into something Dana hummed underneath her breath, and the road had gone smooth — almost hypnotic — interstates often did when they’d gone out of the clutches of the city. You’d meant to stay awake. You’d made the small private rule about it, too; you went under anyway, somewhere between a stretch of dead farmland and the next, your head listing by degrees toward the warm solid thing on your left because your body, again, moving without giving a single shit about how you felt.
When you surfaced, it happened slowly. The light had changed; it was full morning now, white and flat through the windshield. Your cheek was pressed against something that rose and fell in a long, even rhythm, and your brain took its time arriving to the fact of it. You’d fallen asleep on Jack's chest. One month clean and your face was tucked into the seam of his jacket like it had never stopped being there.
You weren’t proud of how you didn’t want to move just yet, so you didn’t move.
You could feel his breathing under your cheek, slow enough that he might have been asleep, too. There was a smell to him you’d made yourself forget and were now remembering, completely against your will. It was nothing fancy, just clean cotton and something warm. The Gatorade bottle you’d been clutching was in the cupholder against your knee now, and you had no memory putting it there. Which meant there was a slight chance Jack had worked it out of your sleeping hand at some point so it wouldn’t tip into your lap, and set it down.
You cracked one eye to assess the damage to your dignity. Dennis had leaned in the same stretch of road, toward you, hood up and mouth open, gone to the world. And somewhere in all that, Jack’s arm, the long span of it along the seatback, had come down around you with his hand had ended up resting flat on the top of Dennis’s skull, holding it off your shoulder, fingers spread over the kid’s hair like a melon he was deciding whether to buy.
You’d furrowed your brows at the arrangement, reeling, when the camera shutter went off.
Jack came awake all at once. He always did; he was never groggy, never had a transition. It was like there was an off and on button to him, as though his nervous system had been trained somewhere that didn’t allow the luxury of waking up slowly. He clocked it in a half second: the phone, you against his chest, the unexplained weight under his own palm. He followed his arm down to where his hand was cradling a sleeping resident’s head and his face crumpled slightly.
He smacked it off, open-palmed, off the top of Dennis’s skull.
“Ow.” Dennis jolted awake, flailing upright, a crease pressed into his cheek from your sleeve. “What — Dr. Abbot — what —”
“Wrong shoulder, kid,” Jack said.
“I wasn’t —” Dennis took in the angle for himself and recoiled. “Sorry. God. Sorry.”
You’d started to sit up to peel yourself off Jack’s chest and salvage some dignity to sit back into the cold neutral air of your own seat where you belonged. His palm came up to your forehead and pushed you back down against him.
“Not you,” he said. His hand stayed flat on your forehead. “You’re fine where you are.”
You reached up and pulled his hand off your forehead, sitting up out of the warmth of him.
“C’mon,” he said quietly, under the music, softer than a command.
You paused with your hand still around his wrist and turned to look at him full-on. He was already looking at you, none of the previous needling present in his face.
You shook your head once, a small gesture. You didn’t trust the words to come out the way they needed to, so you let your face carry it instead.
He held your eyes a second, then his jaw shifted slightly and the corner of his mouth went to a worn-down half of a smile. He gave you the smallest nod. His eyes fell shut and he tipped his head back with a small shake of his head as he eased his wrist out of your hand.
You put your hands in your lap where they couldn’t get you in trouble, and stared out at the flat white morning coming up over the interstate, and made sure to not look at him again.
The conference threw a networking event the first evening, which meant a low-lit ball room, a cash bar charging eleven dollars for wine that came from a box, and a couple hundred physicians standing around in lanyards pretending they’d be here without the boxed wine.
You’d lost the group almost immediately. Dana was drawn to a cluster of people she knew in a previous life; Robby to someone he’d done a residency with; Dennis to the food; Trinity to one of her college buddies. It left you working the edge of the room with a plastic cup of wine, doing a slow orbit as you read badges, when a man peeled off a nearby conversation and aimed at you.
He was older. Closer to Jack’s range, give or take. He had silver coming in at the temples and an unbothered ease that made you wonder if he’d ever had it hard. His badge put him outside Columbus. He had a good face and seemed aware of it without leaning on it, and no wear that graced his features; a man who slept fine, you assumed, and didn’t own a single thing he refused to speak about.
“Pace yourself with that,” he said, tipping his own glass in the direction of yours. “It comes up to you pretty quickly.”
“Bit late for that,” you said, lifting the cup up an inch. “This is already number three.”
“Then I’m too late to save you and might as well make it worse,” he said, offering a hand. “Mark. Philly. I run the shop out there.”
You introduced yourself. He had a good handshake, dry and brief, none of the holding-on the men sometimes did at these things.
He tipped his head to look at your badge. “Pittsburgh Trauma. You like it?”
“Most days.”
He shrugged. “Anybody who says every day is lying or hasn’t been doing it long enough.” He took a sip and let his eyes come back to your face. “Let me guess. Senior resident. Somebody made you come.”
You were going to say something back—you had something, you’d half-built it—and then there was a hand at the small of your back. You knew the weight of it, the breadth, where the fingers fell. It settled low against your spine and stayed, warm through the dress.
“Mark,” Jack said from beside you. He had a club soda in his free hand and an easy nothing on his face. “Jack Abbot. Pittsburgh.”
“Jack.” Mark did a quick thing, the hand, the half-step Jack had folded into the space between you without seeming to take it, the way you hadn't stepped out from under his palm. Something recalibrated behind his face, pleasant and unhurried. He stuck the hand out anyway. “I think I’ve read you —” He referenced one of Jack’s studies you knew all too well, something he’d handed over to you once in his bed like it was a bedtime story.
“That’s me.” Jack took the handshake. His thumb moved once at your spine, where the angle hid it from the third person entirely. “Philly? You inherit the department or build it?”
“Little bit of both. Mostly inherited the problems,” he said lightly. “You enjoying the conference?”
“It’s a conference,” Jack said, lifting his glass half-an-inch. Then, his head tilted in your direction. “You know this one’s my best trauma resident? I’d put her on anything. Watched her run a procedure last month half the seniors I came up with couldn’t have called that fast.”
“That so?” Mark looked at you again, interest sharpened. “He doesn’t seem the type to hand those out.”
“He’s nice to everyone.”
“She’s underselling it.” Jack’s hand spread a degree wider at your back, the heel of his palm settling into the dip of your spine, fingers easy along your hip. “You’ll be reading her name in a couple years and remembering you met her here, of all places.”
It got the laugh Jack wanted it to. Mark took a sip, easy, regrouping, and you watched him do the math the way smooth men do—fast, behind a pleasant face—and land on a play.
“Well.” He tilted the glass toward Jack. “I won’t monopolize you. I’m sure you’ve got the room to work — everybody wants a minute at these things.”
The thumb that had been moving at your back stilled, and Jack’s features crossed into something amused as he narrowed his brows at the man.
“S’alright,” he said pleasantly. “Got everyone I need right here.”
Mark recaliberated again, watching him take Jack’s measure one more time; the hand, the half-inch of space that hardly qualified as space. You watched him arrive to the easy conclusion that whatever was happening here had been decided before he ever walked over.
“Fair enough,” he said, setting his empty cup down at the nearest high-top. “Pleasure. Good luck with the residency.” He nodded at you, then to Jack. “Abbot.” And then he was gone, folding back into the room, off to find the next conversation that wasn’t already spoken for.
Jack’s hand was still on your back, and you stepped out from under it. You turned to face him, and felt the thing that had been climbing in you all night finally find a target.
“Why would you do that?” you asked, shaking your head and pressing your lips shut to keep yourself from saying anything more.
“Do what?” he said mildly, the glass loose in his hand.
“Don’t.” You kept your face arranged for the room, tamping down your voice so it wouldn’t carry over to strangers. “You know what you did. You’re not stupid.”
“I said you were good at your job.” He had the gall to look reasonable. “Becuase you are.”
“That’s not what it was and you know it — thank you.” Your jaw tightened. “You don’t get to walk over and put your hand on me when I’m talking to another man and act like — ” Your fingers moved between the two of you, a small and sharp movement. “ — like you’ve got any claim. We agreed to this a month ago.”
Jack’s lips pressed in a thin line at the words, and his eyes raked over your face. “He’d have you in his bed by ten,” he said, calmer now. “Guys like that — it’s their whole game at places like this. One night, gone by checkout. You didn’t lose anything worth keeping.”
Your brows furrowed at that, and you felt something go hot in your neck. “Yeah?” you asked, voice going quieter. “Isn’t that what you were?”
He looked away for a second, one hand coming up to rub over the bottom half of his face. “If you can’t tell the difference between me and a guy like that,” he said evenly, and there was something genuinely stung underneath as his eyes met yours, “then I really don’t know what to tell you.”
“Maybe there isn’t one.”
His face twisted at that, and he let out a disbelieved laugh. “That’s how you think of me?”
“That’s not — ” You stopped, because his face had knocked something loose in you and you had no idea what you thought anymore. “That’s not what I said.”
“It sounded a hell of a lot like it.” He shook his head. “Six months and you’re putting me next to a guy you met ten minutes ago. Alright.”
“Jack — ”
“You wanted it, too. Okay?” When you let out a small ‘what?’ he continued, “You heard me. You’re acting like you just went along with it, and you never once asked for more either.” His voice had dropped low, and he’d walked closer to you before you even realized. “You never once asked for more until the night you walked. So don’t put it all on me.”
“I asked,” you said, voice cracking just slightly, and you looked around the room to see if anyone was close to you. “You were the one who told me to go find someone else. You said you’re no good past what we were doing.”
“I said it because it’s true,” he said quickly, dragging a hand down his face. “I’m not the guy you build the rest of your life around. I tried to do the decent thing.”
“Then stand on that,” you said. “You don’t get to tell me to find someone and stop it the second anyone shows up. Pick one. You don’t get to keep me in your life like this forever because you can’t stand to either let me in or go.”
“I’m trying to do right by you,” he said roughly.
You pressed two fingers above your eyelid, shaking your head. “Why are you doing this?” You shoulders came up to your ears. “I don’t — it was never going to be us, Jack. You said so yourself. I don’t get why — I need to move on.”
He closed his eyes at that for a moment. “I know you do,” he said quietly, the fight gone all out of him. His eyes flickered down to his hand for a second, then made a loose fist out of them. “I — can we go somewhere else?” He leaned in slightly, body stiffening up. Reading the hesitation on your face, he said, “Please.”
You’d watched him avoid the word in a dozen rooms, so you nodded slowly and forced yourself to not look too hard at why. You couldn’t, because if you stopped to let yourself consider it, it’d make your body hurt even more, and you’d still do it.
The stairwell was the only door on the floor that wasn’t a room or a lobby. It was fire-exit cold, raw concrete, a fluorescent light overhead. The reception came up through the floor as bass and nothing else, the words gone out of it. The door sucked shut behind you both and took the noise with it. You both walked four floors up, apparently neither of you being ready to do anything about it. And then there was simply the buzz of the bad light and Jack, six months and one month and four floors and a whole conference away from you, standing with his back to the cinderblock and his hands jammed in his pockets.
You crossed your arms and your eyes involuntarily flickered up to the ceiling because you weren’t sure you could talk. But when he let the silence drag on, too, you said, “Jack — ”
“Did you want it to be me?” he said immediately, like your voice had spurred him into action.
“What?”
“The whole thing you said you want. Dates, the rest of it.” His body was stiff against the wall. “Was that — did you ever imagine me, or just, someone else. Someone who would.”
You took in a shaky breath. “You.” It came out more plainly than you’d expected, like your body had been ready to be rid of it, to place it somewhere in the open. “I left because I wanted more — with you, and you made it pretty clear I could never have that.”
His hands jammed in his pockets. The light buzzed overhead, that sick fluorescent flutter, and somewhere four floors down the reception kept going, two hundred people who'd never know this was happening over their heads.
“I don’t think I can give you that,” he said.
“Okay.” You forced yourself to nod, and your eyes went hot. “Thanks for telling me that, then.”
He raised a palm just enough that it caught in your eyesight. “I didn’t — didn’t say I never wanted to. Don’t think that.” He tilted his neck up to meet your eyes properly. “Wanting you that way wasn’t hard. I’ve been doing that against my own advice the entire time.”
He'd come off the wall a step without seeming to know he'd done it, and his face had lost the arrangement it usually wore, the bored set of it, and underneath was something you'd caught glimpses of and never the whole of. His eyes shifted to the wall, the stenciled number, anywhere but you.
“I did years of this already. And it ended about as badly as it could end.” He laughed wryly, no humor in it. “I stopped letting myself want things — I thought it’s a lot easier to get through a night if there’s nothing you’d be hurt to lose.” His muscles tensed on his face, the lines deepening as he pinched his eyes shut and shook his head. “Feels like I’m losing you, and it hurts like hell.” He looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t know when it happened. It wasn’t meant to.”
You pressed a finger against the underside of your eye then, determined to catch anything that could possibly leak out.
“But you don’t know if you can do it,” you said, words coming out shakily.
He tugged his bottom lip between his teeth and shook his head slowly. “No,” he said honestly, and it was worse than any lie he could’ve told. “I don’t know.”
You nodded again, because there was nothing else for you to do.
“But — but, I don’t wanna lose what I’ve got with you,” he admitted, voice dropping into something shameful. “I know that the nights you’re not on are longer. And if I can’t have you, I want you to know you do that for me. It started being pretty serious a long time ago — for me, too.”
The light fluttered overhead and you let the finger drop from under your eye, gave up on holding it, let whatever wanted to come just come. Somehow, they were words you’d always wanted to hear and yet they arrived wrong, off-rhythm. You’d kept careful track of everything he wouldn’t give you, a whole running tally of it, and he'd just gone and paid the entire balance in one breath in the worst-lit room, and the awful part — the part that made your blood run even hotter — was that it counted. It counted, anyway.
“So what do we do with that?” you said. “I don’t — I don’t know where that leaves us.”
He was quiet for a moment. You watched him sit in the question instead of dodging it, which was new, which was maybe the most he’d ever given you in one night.
“I’d want to try,” he said finally, words careful, like he was setting something down that might break. “Not the old way. I mean the other thing. What you wanted.” He let out a breath. “If you still want it. I wasn’t very great the first time, and I’m out of practice, too.”
You wiped your cheek, and winced as you felt your hand scrub at your skin a little too roughly. “You were okay with it a month ago — ”
“It hurt,” he said immediately. “It hurt, you walking out. I didn’t have anything better than to let you, but don’t — don’t think it didn’t.”
He moved when you didn’t respond, stepping closer than the conversation needed. His hands came up and settled at your arms, just below the shoulders, loose, holding you in place or holding himself there, you couldn't tell which, maybe both.
“Let me try,” he said roughly. His thumbs moved once against your arms. “I want to learn this with you.”
You looked up at him. He held it — your eyes, the closeness, all of it — instead of glancing off the way he had all night. You realized distantly that this was a sort of contract you’d be signing, and he was laying out the option for you to not do so.
“You can’t disappear on me,” you said instead of considering the second option, “when it gets hard. I don’t ever want to feel like I made up something I didn’t.”
He nodded stiffly. “If I do, you can drag me back out.”
His forehead came down, to the top of your head, his chin resting in your hair, his arms folding the rest of the way around you like he'd finally run out of reasons not to. You felt him breathe out, the whole tense length of him going down an inch against you.
“Just let me try,” he said again, into your hair, voice a whisper. “Please. I’m asking. I don’t do that a lot.”
SUMMARY: After weeks of begging from Jake and Robby, you finally agree to supervise Jake and Leah at Pittfest. Nothing could prepare you for the tragedy that occurs on the day, and nothing can stop you from trying to help Leah even as a bullet rips through your own body. All that keeps you going is adrenaline and the voice of your husband over the phone.
NOTES: Gun violence, mass casualty event, gunshot wounds (non-fatal to reader), Leah’s death, references to past trauma (combat, wife death), survivor guilt, alcohol references, angst, 5.5k words.
REQUESTED BY: @maxinebxrnes !
A/N: At risk of sounding insane, I loved writing this. This is exactly my kind of angst/comfort. I know Trinity is on her first day and I did not write it as such but she’s my babygirl so. We ball!
NAVIGATION | PITT MASTERLIST | KO-FI
You nearly stayed at home. That is the stupid thing your brain keeps circling after Pittfest. Not the gunshots, not the blood, not even the screams of pure terror. Just the fact you stood in your kitchen for ten full minutes debating whether you could really be bothered to deal with loud music and overpriced drinks and crowds of drunk university students.
Jake had begged you to come, and Leah had joined in after. Apparently the two of them ‘needed normal adults present’, as per Robby’s request, to stop Jake attempting something humiliating in front of Leah’s friends.
“You are aware I work nights in an emergency department,” you had told him flatly. “This is the last place I want to be, buddy. And not a lot about me says normal adult.”
“You’re more normal than Abbot.”
Jack had still been half asleep when you left the house, one arm hooked lazily around your waist while you sat at the edge of the bed and tried to tug your shoes on.
“Tell Jake if he gets arrested I’m not bailing him out,” he mumbled into your shoulder.
“You like Jake.”
“He’s still an asshole sometimes.”
You laughed quietly and leaned down to kiss him anyway. Jack barely opened his eyes for it, just pulled you closer with a rough hand against your hip and kissed you slow enough to make you consider calling out sick from life entirely to be in this moment forever.
“You staying in bed all day?” you asked against his mouth.
“Mm, absolutely.”
“Jealous.”
“Should be, but I wish you were here with me.” His thumb brushed once beneath your jaw. “Text me when you get there, sweetheart.”
You texted Jack, and then you forgot your phone existed for the next two hours.
PittFest is chaos in the way all music festivals are chaos. Sticky floors. Warm beer. Suncream and sweat and bass vibrating through your ribs hard enough to feel sick with it. Jake and Leah disappear into crowds every five minutes only to reappear holding different food.
You mostly just watch them. Young and stupid and happy. Leah keeps taking blurry pictures of Jake while he complains about it dramatically, which only makes her laugh harder. She slips easily into your space too, arm linked through yours while she talks over the music about gossip you barely follow.
It feels normal. God, it feels painfully normal.
Jake’s midway through telling you both some ridiculous story when the first gunshot goes off.
Nobody reacts properly at first. A sound too sharp to belong there. Then another follows. Then screaming. The crowd shifts all at once.
Panic spreads faster than fire. One second people are dancing and laughing and filming videos on their phones, the next they are shoving each other hard enough to fall trying to get away. Your stomach drops instantly.
“No,” Leah whispers.
Training is ugly sometimes. Instinct before thought. Your brain already cataloguing exits and cover and casualties before the fear even catches up.
“Down,” you snap.
Jake grabs Leah instinctively. Another gunshot cracks through the air, too close for comfort. People are crying. Running. Somebody slams hard into your shoulder trying to push past and you nearly lose your footing.
Then Leah jerks violently beside you. For one hopeful second you think that she just tripped. Then you see the blood, and Jake screams her name, and everything narrows.
You hit the ground beside her so fast your knees crack painfully against concrete. Leah’s staring at you in confusion more than pain, hands shaking as they press instinctively against her abdomen. You don’t need a medical degree to know that there’s too much blood already.
“Oh my God,” Jake chokes. “Oh my God.”
“Pressure,” you order immediately. “Jake, pressure now.”
He freezes. Completely freezes.
You grab his wrists and physically force his hands over the wound. Blood spills between his fingers instantly.
“Look at me.” Your voice sharpens hard enough to cut through panic. “You do not move your hands.”
Leah makes a soft, terrified sound. “It hurts.”
“I know, sweetheart.” Your chest feels tight suddenly as you smooth a hand over her hair, trying to offer comfort in an impossible situation. “I know.”
Gunshots still sound somewhere nearby. Your pulse pounds so hard it makes you feel sick. Jake is breathing too fast. Full panic and shock setting in right in front of you.
“She’s gonna die she’s gonna die—”
“No.” You catch his face hard between both hands. “Not happening. Stay with me.”
People keep running past. Nobody stopping to check if you need anything, if the girl on the floor who is far too young to be in this position is okay. You understand why. Fear makes people cruel without meaning to.
Your phone vibrates against your hip in your pocket. You answer immediately.
“What’s wrong? Is something happening over there? I heard something but didn’t get the details. Are you okay?”
“There’s a shooting.”
Silence. Not real silence. You can hear the hospital behind him faintly. Voices. Movement. A monitor somewhere. Still, something inside him goes absolutely still.
“Where are you hurt?”
You blink hard. “I’m not—”
Another gunshot. Closer. You duck instinctively over Leah. Something tears through your upper arm. The pain arrives hot and brutal a second later. You suck in a sharp breath.
“Sweetheart?”
Your hand flies to your arm automatically and comes away slick red.
“Oh,” you say faintly.
Jake stares at you in horror. Jack’s voice changes instantly. Lower. Controlled in that terrifying way he gets when something is catastrophically wrong.
“You’ve been hit.”
“Just my arm.”
“How bad.”
You press hard above the wound, vision swimming unpleasantly for a second.
“Through and through, I think.”
“Listen to me carefully.” Every word clipped precise now. Doctor mode. “Can you move your fingers?”
You flex them. “Yeah.”
“Good. Keep pressure on it.”
Leah cries out suddenly and your attention snaps back to her. Blood soaking through Jake’s hands faster now. You shrug your jacket off one-handed and bunch it hard against Leah’s abdomen to reinforce pressure. Jake’s shaking so violently he can barely keep hold.
“Jake.” Your voice softens despite everything. “Need you to stay with me, honey.”
“I can’t lose her.”
The fear in his voice cuts straight through you.
“You won’t.”
“I’m sending units your way now,” Jack says through the phonee. “Stay on the line with me.”
You know he’s already moving while he talks. Already taking over. Organising. Commanding. The image of him striding through the Pitt with that expression on his face flashes painfully through your mind. You want him here so badly your chest aches with it.
Another scream sounds somewhere nearby. Leah’s skin is turning grey. Jake looks close to vomiting.
Your own arm throbs violently. Blood slipping steadily between your fingers no matter how hard you press. You promise yourself that you won’t pass out, not here, not while they still need you.
“Sweetheart.” Jack again, quieter now somehow. “Talk to me.”
You swallow hard. “She’s losing too much blood.”
“How’s her breathing?”
You check automatically. Wet. Uneven. Bad. Your stomach twists.
Jake sees your face change and immediately starts panicking harder. “No, no, no, tell me what to do!”
“You keep pressure there,” you say firmly. “You keep talking to her.”
Leah’s eyes find yours. Terrified. You smile anyway because people always look less frightened when medics smile at them.
“You’re alright, angel, I’m here.”
It feels monstrous saying it while blood pools beneath her body. Sirens finally echo somewhere in the distance. Too far away, too slow.
Your vision flickers strangely at the edges. Adrenaline only carries you so long before the body starts demanding payment. Jack must hear something in your breathing again.
“How much blood are you losing?”
“I’m okay.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
You almost laugh despite everything. “I’m fine,” you insist weakly.
“Sweetheart.” Warning this time.
You press harder against your arm. Your hand is slippery with blood. Leah’s or yours, you genuinely cannot tell anymore.
Jake suddenly grabs your sleeve hard. “There’s blood on your face.”
You touch your forehead automatically and come away red again. Your hearing feels distant for a second. You know that feeling. Jack knows it too apparently because his voice sharpens immediately.
“Stay awake.”
“I am awake.”
“You’re fading.”
“No I’m not.”
It’s a lie so obvious that even you hear it. The world tilts unpleasantly. You force yourself to focus on Leah instead. On Jake. On pressure and breathing and survival. Easier than thinking about the fact your husband is listening to all of this happen over the phone while trapped miles away.
“Baby,” Jack says suddenly, very soft now. Dangerous soft. “Listen to me, please.”
Your throat tightens painfully at the desperation in his voice. You can practically see him in your head. Jaw locked. Hand pressed against the back of his neck. Fury and fear buried underneath clinical calmness.
“I need you to stay conscious until the paramedics reach you, okay? You know the drill.”
Your eyes sting unexpectedly. “I’m trying,” you whisper. “I’m sorry. I’m really trying, Jack.”
Then Leah stops responding properly, and everything gets worse.
“Leah?”
No response.
Jake says her name again, louder this time, voice cracking apart so badly it barely sounds human anymore. Your stomach drops.
“Jake.” You force steel back into your voice despite the dizziness crawling steadily through you. “Talk to her.”
His hands are drenched red now. Blood pushed deep beneath his fingernails. He keeps looking at you like you might be able to undo this through sheer willpower alone.
“Leah, baby, c’mon.” His breathing stutters violently. “Please.”
You press trembling fingers against her throat again. Weak. Too weak. Your own pulse pounds hard enough to make your injured arm throb in time with it. Every heartbeat feels wet. Hot blood still slipping through your grip no matter how hard you hold pressure.
Jack’s voice crackles through the phone near your knee where you dropped it onto speaker. “What’s happening?”
You swallow hard. “She’s crashing.”
Silence. Not real silence. You hear movement behind him. Orders being barked across the ER. Metal trays clattering. The Pitt already preparing for the casualties heading their way.
Jack knows exactly what kind of scene you’re sitting in. Exactly how bad it probably looks.
“She conscious?”
“Barely.”
You can feel Jake staring at you, waiting for something. You hate this part, you have always hated this part. The space between trying and failing where everybody still looks at you hopefully.
Leah’s eyes flutter weakly. “Cold,” she whispers.
Jake breaks completely at that. His whole face crumples. Tears running unchecked while he bends over her like he can physically shield her from dying through proximity alone.
You grip the back of his neck hard. “Jake.” He looks at you immediately. “Need you to breathe.”
“I am breathing.”
He absolutely is not. His chest is heaving so fast you feel panic rising in yourself just watching him. The shock is setting in ugly now. His shoulder is still bleeding too, forgotten entirely beneath Leah’s worsening condition.
You grab the discarded sleeve of your jacket and shove it hard against his wound.
“Pressure there.” He obeys automatically, and you thank every cosmic force that might be out there.
Your vision blurs suddenly. You squeeze your eyes shut hard once and feel the world tilt sickeningly underneath you.
“Sweetheart?” Jack again. Immediate. Alert.
You hadn’t even made a noise. “I’m okay.”
“You keep saying that.”
“You keep pestering me.”
A horrible little laugh escapes him unexpectedly. Sharp with stress. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
You know that laugh. The one dragged out of him when he’s overwhelmed enough that humour becomes the only thing stopping him putting his fist through a wall.
Sirens are closer now. Leah makes another weak choking sound and your focus snaps back instantly. Blood bubbles faintly at the corner of her mouth. It’s bad enough that you already know where this is going. Jake sees your expression change again.
“No.”
You hate how small his voice sounds.
“She’s okay,” you lie.
“She’s not.” His face twists violently. “Don’t fucking lie to me like that. It’s fucked up.”
Your throat tightens. People think medics get used to this. They don’t. You just learn how to keep moving while it happens.
The first paramedics finally break through the crowd. Relief hits so hard your hands start shaking worse. One of them crouches beside Leah immediately while another reaches for you.
“I’m fine,” you snap instinctively.
The paramedic looks unimpressed. “You’ve been shot, ma’am.”
“Not dying though.” Your words slur slightly at the edges.
Jack hears it too. “Hey.” Sharper now. “Stay with me. Let them help you.”
The paramedic starts peeling your blood-soaked hand away from your arm and pain explodes through you white-hot and vicious enough to make your stomach lurch.
“Oh, fuck.”
“There she is,” Jack mutters darkly through the speaker. “Knew you were concussed or dying when you stopped cursing.”
Despite everything, your mouth twitches weakly.
The paramedic assessing Leah suddenly barks for more gauze. Jake flinches hard enough to nearly fall over.
“She needs transport now,” another voice says urgently.
Jake grabs Leah’s hand desperately while they start loading her onto the stretcher. He keeps trying to climb beside her despite the blood loss making him unsteady too.
“Sir, we need you checked out as well.”
“No.”
“Jake,” you say firmly.
He looks at you with tears streaking his face.
“I’m not leaving her.”
“You aren’t.”
His breathing catches painfully.
Your own head feels strangely heavy suddenly. Hard to hold upright. The paramedic wrapping your arm is talking to you but the words drift oddly in and out.
Jack’s voice cuts through the fog immediately. “What’s her BP?”
The paramedic glances towards the phone. “Who is this?”
“Her husband. Dr Jack Abbot.”
Something in Jack’s tone must land correctly because the paramedic answers instantly after that.
“Pressure is dropping.”
You hear the silence on the other end. Not empty silence, calculating silence. Dangerous silence.
Your chest aches unexpectedly at the thought of him hearing numbers instead of seeing you himself. Jack trusts his own hands more than anything else in the world. You know he hates this. Hates being trapped at the hospital while you bleed somewhere he cannot reach.
“They’re taking us to the Pitt?” you ask weakly.
“Yeah.”
Good. You need Jack. The thought arrives suddenly and honestly enough to hurt. Not Dr Abbot. Not your attending physician. Just your husband. Your Jack. The one who sleeps with one heavy hand spread across your stomach every time like he needs proof you’re still there.
Jake climbs into the ambulance beside Leah while they try to convince him to let somebody examine his shoulder properly. You force yourself upright too fast trying to follow and immediately regret it. The world blacks at the edges. Strong hands catch you before you hit the ground.
“Easy,” the paramedic says.
You feel weirdly detached from your own body now. Floating somewhere slightly behind yourself.
Jack’s voice sharpens again instantly through the phone. “She pass out?”
“Nearly.”
“Sweetheart.” Fear leaking through now despite all his control. “Talk to me.”
You try. Nothing comes out properly. Your tongue feels thick. The paramedic starts asking questions rapidly. Name. Age. Allergies. Orientation. You answer automatically between breaths while they push you towards a second ambulance.
Blood loss. Shock. Probably more injured than you first thought. Your arm burns savagely.
“You still with me?” Jack asks.
“Yeah.” Barely.
You hear Jack exhale quietly. “Good girl.”
The words hit you straight in the chest. So familiar. So him. Usually murmured against your skin in the middle of the night instead of through a phone while you bleed through dressings.
Your eyes sting unexpectedly. The ambulance doors slam shut. Everything becomes sirens and fluorescent lights and movement. A paramedic cuts your sleeve fully away and swears under his breath at the amount of blood.
“Looks worse than it is,” you mumble.
“That what you tell all your patients?”
Jack actually snorts faintly through the speaker.
“Yeah,” he says. “She does.”
You can practically picture him now. Leaning over a desk somewhere in the chaos of the ER. One hand braced against the surface hard enough to ache later. Eyes distant and furious all at once.
Somebody in the background says his name. You hear him switch instantly. “What’ve we got?”
Pure attending voice now. Steady. Cold. Commanding. You have seen entire trauma bays settle the second Jack walks into them, like everybody unconsciously trusts him to carry the worst parts. He comes back to you a second later, softer again somehow.
“Nearly there, baby.”
You close your eyes briefly. So tired suddenly.
“Don’t you dare,” he says immediately.
Your eyes open again. “Bossy.”
“Yeah.” No hesitation. “Especially with you.”
The medic checking your vitals suddenly goes very still looking at the monitor. Your stomach sinks.
“What?”
He looks up sharply. “Do you know how much blood you have lost?”
Nobody tells you the answer to that question. Which is answer enough on its own, really.
The ambulance feels too bright. Too loud. Every bump in the road sends pain shooting through your arm and shoulder hard enough to make your vision flicker. You focus on the ceiling instead. On breathing. On staying conscious long enough to get to the Pitt.
Jack keeps talking. You realise after a while he is doing it deliberately. Filling silence before it can turn dangerous.
“You remember Santos trying to tell me how to run a trauma bay last week? Pulling that shit again today.”
A weak laugh catches painfully in your throat. “She’s brave.”
“She’s annoying.”
“We like her. She’s fun.”
“Unfortunately.”
The medic beside you presses fresh gauze against your arm and you hiss through your teeth.
“Easy,” he says.
“Not my favourite word.”
Jack hums quietly through the speaker. “That’s true.”
Your chest aches with missing him. It feels stupid. He is only across the city. You have survived deployments and distance and night shifts and grief and all the ugly things life threw at both of you. Still, all you want suddenly is his hand around yours and his mouth against your forehead and the certainty that comes with him being close enough to touch.
You feel sixteen different kinds of exhausted.
“Leah?” you ask faintly.
The medic hesitates. Bad sign. Your stomach twists violently.
“She’s alive.”
Alive. Not stable. Not okay. Just alive. You nod once anyway.
The ambulance doors finally burst open into noise and fluorescent light. Controlled chaos already swallowing the ambulance bay whole. Stretchers moving. Nurses shouting vitals. Blood on the floor somewhere.
The Pitt. Home, in the worst possible way.
You barely make it two feet before spotting Jack. He is halfway across the bay giving orders to somebody when he sees you.
Everything stops.
Not literally. The ER still roars around him. Staff moving constantly. Sirens outside. Chaos everywhere. Still, something in Jack goes completely still the second his eyes land on you.
You have seen that look exactly twice before. Once overseas. Once after his wife died. It hits you hard enough to hurt.
“Jesus Christ,” he breathes.
Then he is there. Hands on your face first. Immediate. Grounding. Like he needs physical proof you are standing in front of him. His eyes move over you rapidly after that, taking in blood loss, sweat and tears, and the dressing wrapped round your arm already soaked through.
You watch anger flood him in real time. Not at you. At the situation. At the blood. At the fact you got hurt where he could not protect you from it.
“Hey,” you whisper.
Jack grabs the back of your neck and kisses you hard enough to shut you up entirely. Desperate. Furious. His hand shakes once against your jaw before he gets control of it again.
“You scared the fucking life out of me.”
The words come rough and low. You almost cry at the sound of it.
“I’m okay.”
“No, you are not.”
Pure Jack. Sharp enough to cut.
A nurse approaches carefully. “Abbot, we need—”
“Give me a minute.”
Nobody argues. You sway slightly where you stand and Jack’s entire grip tightens immediately.
“Woah, okay.” Softer now. “Easy, sweetheart.”
The adrenaline is disappearing. Fast. Your body suddenly feels unbearably heavy.
“Jake,” you manage. “Leah?”
“They’re in trauma.”
Alive then, at least for now.
Jack guides you backwards towards an empty stretcher with one hand firm against your waist. You can feel him slipping fully into doctor mode again despite the fear still sitting raw underneath it.
“Sit.”
“I can still help.”
“No.”
“Jack.”
“No.” Harder this time. “You’re done.”
You hate how emotional that makes you unexpectedly. You do not want to be done. You want to keep moving and helping and fixing because the second you stop everything catches up.
Jack sees it happen on your face instantly. Always does. His expression softens just slightly.
“Baby.” His thumb brushes beneath your eye before you even realise tears escaped. “Sit down before you drop down. Please.”
You obey mostly because your legs are beginning to shake badly enough that you genuinely might collapse. Jack kneels in front of you immediately to assess your arm himself despite multiple staff hovering nearby ready to do it for him.
His hands are steady. Only his jaw gives him away.
“You got lucky,” he mutters after peeling the dressing back carefully.
“Always do.”
He shoots you a look. Not amused. Blood covers his fingers now. Yours too. Familiar in the ugliest way. You watch him mentally catalogue damage with frightening speed.
“You should see the other guy,” you mumble weakly.
Jack stares at you for one long second before a broken little sound leaves him halfway between a laugh and something else entirely.
“Shut up, sweetheart.”
His forehead drops briefly against your knee. That scares you more than anything else has tonight. Jack does not fold. He bends maybe. Cracks quietly where nobody can see. Never folds, especially not in the Pitt of all places.
Your hand moves automatically into his hair. “Hey.”
He breathes once. Twice. Then straightens again before anybody else notices. Professional mask back in place.
“You’re getting fluids and scans,” he says flatly. “And if you try arguing with me I’ll sedate you myself.”
“There he is.”
His mouth twitches despite himself.
The curtain nearby suddenly gets shoved aside and Trinity stumbles through looking wrecked. Blood dried across her scrubs, hair a complete mess.
“Fuck,” she says immediately. “What do you need?”
The words slam straight into your chest. Jack stands instantly. “It’s okay. I’ve got her.”
Trinity looks at you then and visibly pales. “You’re bleeding through that.”
You glance down. The fresh dressing is already red again. Jack notices at exactly the same moment and something inside him finally snaps.
“Get me another pressure dressing now,” he barks sharply at a nurse nearby. “And where the hell is her trauma consult?”
You stare at him slightly dazed. Trinity does too. Jack never raises his voice unless things are bad. Seconds later, Trinity is called away to treat another casualty, and you watch Jack pale as if he needed that extra lifeline in the room just this once.
“I’m stable,” you try weakly.
Jack rounds on you so fast it almost startles you.
“You do not get to tell us you’re stable while bleeding through gauze every five fucking minutes.”
The nurse returns quickly with supplies while Jack drags a hand hard over his face like he regrets snapping immediately.
“Sorry,” he mutters roughly without looking at you.
Your chest aches. “Jack.”
He crouches back in front of you again, pressing fresh gauze carefully to your arm this time. His touch gentler now. Almost unbearably gentle. He presses one quick kiss against your forehead.
“Don’t move.”
“Bossy.”
“Yeah.” His hand squeezes the back of your neck once. “You married me anyway.”
Jack exhales slowly. The attending disappears first, but your husband stays.
“You scared me,” he says quietly.
No sharpness left in it now. No irritation. Just honesty stripped raw. Your chest aches immediately.
“I know.”
Jack pulls the stool closer and sits in front of you with a pained wince before carefully peeling back the soaked dressing around your arm. His touch stays precise but impossibly gentle at the same time. You know all the versions of him by now. The trauma doctor. The exhausted veteran. The husband who wakes instantly from nightmares with his hand already reaching for you.
This version is frightened. You feel it in every careful movement.
“You should’ve let somebody help you sooner,” he mutters while inspecting the wound.
“There were people worse off.”
Jack’s eyes flick to you with a frown. You look away, standing by that ugly instinct to keep going until your body physically gives out because somebody else always needs more.
“Sweetheart.” His voice softens dangerously. “You were bleeding through your clothes.”
“I know.”
“You nearly collapsed in the ambulance bay.”
You swallow hard. He starts flushing the wound carefully with saline and pain burns viciously through your arm. Your face tightens automatically.
“Sorry, baby.”
“You didn’t shoot me.”
“No, but I’d still like to kill whoever did.”
That nearly earns a laugh from you. Exhaustion hangs too heavily for humour now. Adrenaline burned off enough to leave everything underneath exposed and shaking.
Jack notices immediately. “You dizzy?”
“Yes.”
“Nauseous?”
“Little bit.”
“Head?”
“Hurts.”
“Good. Means you’ve still got one.”
You snort softly at that despite yourself. Jack’s mouth twitches faintly in quiet satisfaction before settling again. His hands are steady.
“You sounded scared on the phone,” you say quietly after a moment.
Jack keeps his eyes on your arm while wrapping fresh gauze into place. “I was terrified.”
The honesty knocks straight through you. “You never sound scared.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is with everybody else.”
His hands pause briefly. “You aren’t everybody else.”
Emotion climbs sharp into your throat so fast it hurts. Before you can say anything, the curtain suddenly jerks open.
Jake stumbles inside looking destroyed.
Your stomach drops instantly.
Blood has dried down the front of his shirt. His eyes swollen raw from crying already. He looks barely upright.
Jack stands immediately. “What happened, buddy?”
Jake opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. Then suddenly he folds in on himself completely.
“She died. Leah died.” The words break apart halfway through. “She died and I wasn’t there and she was asking for me and I wasn’t fucking there—”
“Oh, Jake.”
You are moving before you even think about it despite the pain ripping through your arm instantly. Jake drops heavily into the chair beside your stretcher and puts both hands over his face like he physically cannot hold himself together anymore.
“I left her,” he chokes out. “I shouldn’t have left her.”
“No.” Your voice comes sharp automatically. “No, honey.”
Jack glances at you once before stepping back slightly, giving you space. Jake’s shoulders shake violently beneath your hand when you touch his arm.
“They said she coded again and they couldn’t get her back and I wasn’t there—”
“You listened to medical staff,” you say firmly, throat burning already. “You were injured too.”
“I should’ve stayed with her.”
Guilt. Pure, ugly survivor’s guilt already setting in. You know the shape of it intimately.
Jake starts crying harder. Full body shaking with it now. Young and heartbroken and completely lost. Something inside your chest caves painfully inward at the sound.
“She was scared,” he whispers.
You think suddenly about Leah lying on the concrete with blood soaking through your jacket. Her tiny voice saying how cold she felt. Jake holding pressure with shaking hands because you told him to.
Jack rests one hand briefly against the back of your neck. Grounding. Steady. You lean into it automatically while keeping your other hand wrapped around Jake’s wrist.
“You stayed with her,” you tell him softly. “You hear me? You stayed.”
His face twists apart completely. “I loved her.”
The room goes painfully quiet. Jack looks away briefly. You know why. Leah’s death hits him too. Every loss does, no matter how hard he tries to bury it beneath protocol and movement and work.
The hooks of the curtain scrape against the pole as Robby pulls it to step inside. Exhaustion hangs off him in visible waves. Blood on his scrub top. Eyes hollowed out by the night.
He takes one look at Jake. “Come on, kid.”
Jake looks up at him with a completely shattered expression. Robby crosses the space quickly and grips the back of his neck firmly. “C’mon.”
Jake doesn’t move. “I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can.” Robby says it quietly. Certainly. Like fact.
Jake wipes violently at his face. “I left her.”
Robby’s expression tightens for one brief second.
“No,” he says firmly. “You got shot trying to save her.”
Jake starts crying again anyway. Robby pulls him gently upright after a second, keeping one steady hand between his shoulder blades.
“Come sit with me for a minute.”
Jake looks back at you once before leaving. Lost. Apologetic somehow. You squeeze his hand weakly.
“This isn’t your fault.”
His face crumples again at that before Robby finally guides him back out into the chaos beyond the curtain. The second they disappear the room feels heavier somehow. Jack turns back towards you slowly. You realise suddenly your cheeks are wet too.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
He moves immediately, stepping between your knees and pulling you carefully against his chest despite the IV line and bandaging. You go willingly, forehead pressed hard against him while everything finally catches up at once.
The gunshots. Leah. Jake crying. Jack hearing you bleed over the phone unable to reach you.
Your body starts shaking properly. “I couldn’t save her,” you whisper brokenly.
Jack’s arms tighten instantly. “That wasn’t on you.”
“I knew she was dying.”
His hand cradles the back of your head carefully.
“I knew.” Your voice cracks painfully. “I still kept lying to him.”
Jack pulls back just enough to look at you properly. “You gave him hope while she was alive.”
Your throat burns. You start crying harder at that. Quiet, ugly crying pressed into the front of Jack’s scrub top while he holds you through it without hesitation. Nobody ever talks about this part properly. The aftermath. The helplessness. The guilt medics carry around in their pockets like spare change.
Jack knows though. Of course he does.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs against your hair.
The words nearly finish you off entirely. Eventually, your breathing evens out again enough that he can guide you gently back onto the stretcher. His hand never fully leaves you.
“You need scans before I take you home,” he says quietly.
Home. The word lands soft. You look up at him tiredly. Really look. Exhaustion carved deep into his face now that the crisis is slowing. Tiny flecks of blood still near his jaw. Eyes red-rimmed from stress and lack of sleep and fear.
“You need rest too.”
Jack huffs quietly. “Yeah, well. You first.”
Your mouth twitches weakly. You love him so much it feels unbearable sometimes.
Later, after scans and stitches and far too much arguing over whether you can walk unassisted, Jack finally gets you home sometime near dawn.
The house is dark and still, as safe as you need it to be. Jack helps you out of your ruined clothes with unbearable gentleness before settling you carefully into bed. Clean shirt pulled over your head. Pain medication pressed into your palm. Water forced into you until he looks vaguely satisfied.
Then finally, after stripping off his bloodstained scrub top and unfastening his prosthetic with the exhausted familiarity of routine, Jack gets carefully into bed beside you.
The second the mattress dips, you move towards him automatically. Your face tucked against his throat. One arm curled carefully around his waist while he wraps himself around you just as instinctively.
For a long time neither of you speak. Jack’s fingers move slowly against your spine.
“You awake?” you murmur eventually.
“Yeah.”
Your eyes sting again suddenly. “Jake’s gonna blame himself forever.”
Jack goes quiet for a moment. “Probably.”
Honest. Always honest with you.
“He shouldn’t.”
“No.” His arm tightens slightly. “Neither should you.”
The emotion lodged in your chest aches horribly.
Outside, somewhere beyond your windows, the city keeps moving.
Inside, wrapped tightly around each other in the dark, the two of you finally stop trying to.
— COME AND JOIN MY TAGLISTS !
ALL FICS: @ilocuras24 @the-annoying-fan @paankhaleyaaar
summary: you've always kept things casual. it's just easier that way. you've got a roster, a routine, and absolutely no intention of changing—until you realise you've made one very inconvenient mistake: falling in love with dr. jack abbot.
notes: okay, this took way longer than it should have because i burnt out trying to make all the "medical stuff" absolutely perfectly, then when i picked it back up i feel like the rhythm changed a little? hopefully for the better? i'm not sure if it's worth the wait, but i really hope y'all still enjoy! and as always, please let me know what you think!
warnings: swearing, blushing, italics, fwb type situation, jealousy, implied age gap, reader is in serious denial, medical descriptions, medical procedure descriptions (not graphic), most definitely incorrect medical information, sexual references, implied sexual relationships, making out (on shift), and one irritatingly handsome and unreasonably reasonable night shift attending.
word count: 15620
“Hey—oh, thank God.” You kick the door shut behind you. “Can you wait for me? I just need, like, five minutes.”
Ellis sighs. “Really? I was just about to leave.”
“Five minutes,” you say again, already moving toward your room.
You don’t bother shutting the door. You just drop your bag at the foot of your bed, pull the faded old U.S. Army shirt over your head, and shove your sweatpants down. Then you grab a fresh set of scrubs and pull them on, tying the drawstring quickly before opening your bag to check for your badge and stethoscope.
“Aren’t you gonna shower?” Ellis calls from the living room.
“We showered before I left,” you say, “but I didn’t have a clean pair of scrubs.”
Ellis gags. “Gross. Why’d you have to say ‘we’?”
You sling your bag over your shoulder as you step out of your room, grinning.
“Because we had some really great shower sex too.”
Ellis makes a dramatic vomiting noise as you both head out the door, her keys jingling as she turns to lock it.
“I thought Deran was your usual Thursday morning appointment,” she says.
You shrug. “Scheduling conflict.”
She turns and starts down the hall, glancing at you from the corner of her eye. “You are the schedule.”
“I’m restructuring,” you say lightly, falling into step beside her. “Don’t think Deran’s making the cut.”
Ellis doesn’t say anything else. She just watches you for a second—eyes narrowing, brows drawing a little tighter—before shaking her head and turning toward the fire stairs door. You both make your way down to the parking garage in silence, crossing the dimly lit basement until you reach Ellis’ car.
The drive to the hospital isn’t long. Ellis fills most of it complaining about a patient she handed off to McKay this morning who insisted his diagnosis was wrong because he’d googled it—and she’s still muttering angrily by the time she pulls into the hospital parking lot.
“I swear,” she says, yanking the parking brake a little too hard, “if I hear the words ‘but I googled it’ even once tonight, I’m going to lose my mind.”
You snort softly as you climb out of the car, slinging your bag over your shoulder before shutting the door. You both head inside through the ambulance bay, keeping out of the way of an arriving trauma as the paramedics wheel the gurney through—something about chest pain, you overhear.
“Trauma one’s open,” Dana calls.
“Dr. Toomarian, with me.”
Your head snaps up at the sound of Jack’s voice, your gaze landing on him beside the gurney as he guides it through the trauma bay doors, that familiar mask of focus already in place.
Then he looks at you, something flickering across his face.
“Hey—don’t disappear. I need to talk to you after this.”
You lift your hand, pointing a finger at yourself. “Me?”
He nods once before turning into the trauma bay, the glass door swinging shut behind him.
“Ooh,” Ellis murmurs as you both turn down the back hall. “You’re in trouble.”
You roll your eyes. “Yeah, right.”
“Maybe he’s restructuring,” she adds, the corner of her mouth lifting. “Think you’ll make the cut?”
You shoot her a flat look. “Very funny.”
Ellis smirks as she opens her locker, shrugging her bag off her shoulder and shoving it inside. You do the same—moving on autopilot as you sling your stethoscope around your neck, clip your badge at your hip, and stuff your backpack in your locker before shutting the door.
You head back toward the hub side by side, both peering into the trauma bay as you pass. The patient is stable now, half-conscious on the bed while Jack gives orders and Jesse preps for transfer to a room for monitoring. Dr. Robby is in there too now, looking as tired as always with his arms folded and protective glasses pushed up on top of his head.
“Evening, ladies,” Lena says from behind the nurses’ desk. “Get a good sleep?”
“Always,” Ellis replies as she grabs a tablet from the rack.
“Good enough,” you mutter, tipping your head back to read the board.
“Mm.” Lena peers at you over the top of her glasses. “Well, maybe you should start prioritising sleep over extracurriculars.”
Ellis snorts beside you.
“Lena,” you gasp, voice thick with mock offence. “I don’t—”
You stop short as Jack steps up beside you, offering Lena a polite nod before looking back at you.
“You have my badge.”
You frown. “What?”
“My badge,” he says again, already reaching for the badge at your hip.
He unclips it from your scrub pants and holds it up, brows lifting just slightly.
“Attending physician, huh?”
You shrug. “Thought it was time I got a promotion.”
He huffs out a small laugh, shaking his head as he fastens the badge to his scrub top and fishes your badge from his back pocket. Then he steps in closer, his fingers grazing your hip as he tugs on the waistband of your pants and clips the badge where his had been.
“Try to keep track of it,” he mutters, already turning away.
You don’t respond. You just roll your eyes and turn back to the nurses’ station, where Lena is still watching you over the rim of her glasses, utterly unimpressed.
“You didn’t even notice?” Ellis asks.
You lift one shoulder. “I just grabbed it off the floor.”
“Okay,” Lena mutters, glancing back down at her chart. “I’m choosing not to know.”
Ellis shakes her head. “You’re unbelievable.”
“I know,” you say, tipping your head back again to read the board. “But you love me.”
She snorts, not even looking up from her tablet.
“Come on.” You bump your shoulder against hers. “Let’s go check out the elbow dislocation in One.”
“Fine,” she sighs, “but I’m not doing traction.”
You roll your eyes for what feels like the umpteenth time as you start moving, heading toward the North corridor with Ellis at your heel. When you pull back the curtain at North One, the man lying there is exactly what you expected—mid-twenties, gym shorts, red with embarrassment and trying not to wince even though the shape of his shoulder is very wrong.
“Alright, Mr. Donovan,” you say, pulling on a pair of gloves. “Let’s have a look at that shoulder.”
His eyes flick up to your face, the faintest hint of a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Are you a doctor?”
“Sure am,” you reply as you step closer to the bed. “And with me is Dr. Ellis. She’s going to help me get that bone back in place, but first you’re going to have to tell us how you did it.”
He grimaces as you gently prod his upper arm.
“Yeah—uh—I was just at the gym,” he starts, voice strained.
“Benching?” Ellis asks.
He nods. “Yeah.”
“Let me guess—personal best?”
He nods again. “Yeah. How did you—”
“Happens more often than you think,” you cut in, your fingers finding the pulse at his wrist. “Move your fingers.”
He wriggles them slowly.
“Any numbness?”
He shakes his head.
“I was just putting the bar back,” he says. “My arm twisted a bit and it just… popped.”
You glance over your shoulder at Ellis, and she nods.
“Okay, Mr. Donovan—”
“You can call me Chase,” he interrupts, the corner of his mouth lifting a little higher.
You nod once. “Alright, Chase. We’re going to give you something for the pain and a muscle relaxant so it’s easier to get it back into place. Then Dr. Ellis and I are going to do the reduction.”
“Will it hurt?”
“Not much,” Ellis replies. “Maybe a little discomfort, but it’ll be quick.”
“Okay,” he mutters, wincing again as he tries to shift in the bed.
You look at Ellis. “Fentanyl and midaz?”
She nods, already turning away to find a workstation.
“We’ll be back in about five minutes,” you tell Chase. “Just as soon as a nurse administers the medication and it has enough time to kick in.”
“Five minutes, huh? That’s just enough time for me to figure out how to ask for your number.”
You snort. “Let’s just get your shoulder back in first, then see how you feel.”
“Ouch,” he chuckles. “Is that your subtle way of saying you have a boyfriend?”
You hesitate, taking half a step back from the bed.
“Uh—no,” you mutter. “No boyfriend.”
He smirks. “So I have a shot?”
You shake your head as you turn away, a faint smile pulling at your lips. “Like I said—let’s see how you feel after I manhandle your humerus back into its socket.”
He doesn’t say anything else—just lets out a quiet breath of laughter as you turn and step out of the room.
Your gaze flicks up as you reach for the curtain, and only then do you notice Jack standing there—arms folded, shoulders set, his hazel eyes fixed on you like he’s waiting for something.
“Oh—hey,” you say. “Need me?”
He shakes his head. “Nope. Just doing the rounds. Want a hand with the reduction?”
“Nah, I’ve got Ellis,” you reply, starting back toward Central. “But you’re more than welcome to supervise.”
He scoffs, falling into step beside you. “You don’t need supervising.”
“I know.” You glance at him from the corner of your eye, a smirk tugging at your lips. “But I know how you like to watch.”
His mouth quirks, like he’s trying not to laugh.
“Careful,” he murmurs.
“Or what?” you tease, stopping just before the nurses’ station.
His eyes are a little darker now, the tops of his cheeks dusted pink.
“You don’t want to find out,” he says, his voice low enough that only you can hear.
Something twists low in your belly—and you get the sudden, distinct feeling that you do, in fact, want to find out.
“Abbot,” Lena calls before you can say anything else. “Trauma inbound—cyclist versus vehicle, ETA three minutes.”
Jack pauses for a half a second—then nods. “Alright, let’s prep Trauma Two.” He looks at you. “You in?”
You pull a face, all mock disappointment. “Oh, I wish I could, but I’ve got that reduction…”
He gives you a flat look, the corner of his mouth pulling just slightly. “Mm. Tragic.”
“Good luck, though,” you add, flashing him a grin.
You turn away before he does, moving around the hub to grab a tablet and find your next patient. It isn’t long before the paramedics come crashing through the ambulance bay doors with a groaning patient on the gurney—and you take that as your cue to get back to the shoulder dislocation.
“Alright, Chase,” you say, pulling back the curtain. “Let’s do this.”
He gives you a lopsided smile. “I was hoping I’d see you again.”
Ellis snorts. “Midaz is working.”
You laugh softly as you step up beside his affected arm, adjusting the bed slightly before pulling on a pair of gloves. Ellis does the same, moving into position on the other side and bracing one hand against his good shoulder.
You look at her. “Ready?”
She nods once.
“Okay, Chase,” you say, one hand wrapping gently around his wrist. “Stay loose for me.”
You place your other hand at his elbow and bring his arm out from his body, easing it into position.
“Hey—relax,” Ellis says. “Don’t fight it.”
He lets out a breath, the tension in his body easing.
“That’s it,” you murmur, starting to pull his arm outward.
You feel the resistance from the dislocation, holding his arm steady until—his shoulder drops.
Ellis nods. “Good. Now rotate.”
You carefully rotate his arm out, slow and controlled, until you feel a small shift—the soft clunk of the bone slipping back into place. Chase flinches, inhaling sharply, then—
“Oh—” He blinks. “Oh, that’s—that’s way better.”
You give him a small smile as you guide his arm back in, keeping it supported while Ellis grabs the sling.
“Move your fingers,” you tell him.
He does.
“Any numbness?”
He shakes his head.
“Good.”
You move aside as Ellis steps in with the sling, fastening it over his shoulder before adjusting the bed again.
“Comfortable?” she asks.
Chase nods slowly. “‘M tired.”
“Then have a nap.”
You peel your gloves off and drop them in the waste bin, squirting a pump of sanitiser into your palm as you turn back toward Chase.
“We’re going to keep you here for a bit, okay? Just to monitor you and get an X-ray to make sure everything’s back in place.”
“You’re leaving me?” he mumbles, eyes half-lidded.
You shake your head, letting out a quiet laugh. “I’ll be back in a bit to see how you’re feeling, alright?”
He mutters something else as his eyes slip shut, but it’s too soft for you to hear.
Then, after a beat, Ellis looks at you. “Gonna give him your number?”
You roll your eyes. “Um, no.”
“Why not?”
“Because I'm not—”
“Roster’s looking a little thin,” she says as she turns and steps out of the room.
You follow her, frowning. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She shrugs. “Not that I’m keeping track, but… by my count, you’re down to one.”
You let out a short, disbelieving scoff. “Okay—well, not that it’s any of your business, but Andrew moved to Canada, and Craig got back with his ex.”
She glances at you from the corner of her eye. “And you dropped Deran, so—”
“Like I said,” you cut in, lifting your chin just slightly. “I’m restructuring.”
“Restructuring,” she repeats mildly, “or retiring?”
Before the words have even landed, she’s gone—slipping into North Five with her tablet in hand and that stupid little smirk still curled at the corner of her mouth. You can faintly hear her greet the patient as the door eases shut, leaving you confused and alone in the middle of the North corridor.
Retiring?
You blink, your brows drawing tighter.
Retiring?
What the hell is that supposed to mean? Retiring from what?
From having fun? Having casual sex? Blowing off a little steam in the most enjoyable way you know how?
It’s not like you’re some irresponsible party animal—you barely go out, you only drink on occasion, and the hardest drug you’ve done since starting med school is ibuprofen. In fact, you’d argue that you’re the opposite of irresponsible. You take your casual sex roster very seriously. You don’t take risks, you make sure every single one of your partners has regular sexual-health check-ups, and you make sure to actually get to know them before you even sign them up.
Which is exactly why you’re not going around giving out your number to random patients.
You need to know someone before you start something casual. You need to know that they’re not going to ask for more, that they’re going to be mature and understand exactly where you both stand.
You need to know that you can trust them not to be irresponsible.
Because the last thing you need is some trigger-happy idiot who isn’t wearing a condom getting caught up in the moment and finishing inside you. Not that you ever go without a condom.
Except for...
Well—except for Jack.
But that’s different. He knows what he’s doing. You trust him—and you’re on birth control.
So it doesn’t really matter if, occasionally, he finishes—
“You good, or are you just going to keep staring into space?”
Your head snaps up, heat flooding your cheeks as you meet Henderson’s gaze.
“Uh—yeah, sorry, I was just—”
He chuckles. “No need to apologise—but if you’re bored, I could use an extra set of hands in Eight.”
You tilt your head. “Worth it?”
“Forearm lac. Exposed tendon.”
You nod. “I’m in.”
The next few hours blur together in a steady stream of night shift weirdness—a woman with a mystery rash whose story evolves from laundry detergent to poison ivy, someone who decided Gorilla Glue was a reasonable substitute for hair gel, a fish hook through a hand with the fish still attached, and a DIY dentistry job with half the tooth left and a lot of blood.
You barely catch a break until your patient in Central Twelve—when you and Ellis absolutely have to leave the room before you both burst out laughing at the mortified man who insists he slipped and fell on a Buzz Lightyear action figure. Because how else would it get stuck up there?
In your defence, you had managed to maintain some semblance of professionalism right up until Ellis muttered under her breath, “To infinity and beyond, I guess.”
That’s when you lost it—muttering the first excuse you could think of before slipping out the door and doubling over with laughter.
“Oh my God,” Ellis says, wiping the corner of her eye. “I love the night shift.”
You press a hand to your stomach, still aching from the laughter.
“Stop—” you gasp, shaking your head. “I can’t go back in there.”
“In where?” Shen asks, appearing in front of you.
You and Ellis both go still for a second, the laughter dying down as you exchange a look.
“Actually,” Ellis says, turning back to Shen with a smirk. “I think this case might be perfect for you, Dr. Shen.”
You nod. “Oh, absolutely. We could really use your expertise on this one.”
Shen frowns. “What’s the case?”
“It’s hard to explain,” Ellis says quickly. “You’re better off seeing it for yourself.”
Shen isn’t stupid, obviously, but he is incredibly curious—as most doctors are. So despite the fact that both you and Ellis are doing a terrible job of hiding your amusement, he takes the tablet from your outstretched hand and opens the door to Central Twelve.
Ellis’ eyes go wide, but before either of you can say anything else, someone calls your name across the department.
“Trauma One—get in here,” Jack says, waving a hand.
You let out a sigh, tipping your head back for a split second before jogging across Central to meet the paramedics.
“Twenty-four-year-old male—fell onto a plastic prop sword,” the first paramedic says, guiding the gurney into Trauma One. “Penetrating injury to the left thigh, object still in situ. Bleeding controlled, pulses intact, GCS fifteen. Fentanyl given en route, vitals stable.”
You almost snort when you realise the man is dressed in a pirate costume, his plastic cutlass wedged about four inches into his anterolateral thigh.
“Alright, we’ll take it from here,” Jack says. “Can you tell us your name, sir?”
“Josh,” the patient replies, his voice strained.
“Stabilise the leg,” you tell Mateo, moving into position opposite him. “On my count—one, two, three.”
You shift the patient from gurney to bed, and the paramedics clear out.
“Josh!”
A young woman rushes into the room, clearly from the same party—wearing what can only be described as a very short, very inaccurate interpretation of a nurse’s uniform.
“Oh my God. Is he bleeding out?”
Jack glances up, his lips twitching when he spots the woman. “I don’t remember approving that uniform.”
You shoot him a look. “Very funny, Dr. Abbot.”
His eyes linger on you for a beat too long.
“Not that I’d object,” he murmurs.
You arch a brow. “The nurses might.”
“I’m not a nurse,” the woman says, indignant. “I’m a sexy doctor.”
You look her up and down again, your gaze catching on the small, laminated name badge pinned to her chest with ‘Dr. Feelgood’ printed in bold pink letters.
You hum. “Right.”
“Still not the sexiest doctor in the room,” Jack mutters as he moves around the bed.
Your eyes flick up, meeting his for half a second, the corner of your mouth lifting just slightly before you catch yourself and turn back to Josh.
“Have you had anything to drink tonight, Josh?” you ask.
Somewhere behind you, Dr. Feelgood starts to answer for him, but Bridget quickly steps in and guides her out of the trauma bay.
“I’ve got a dorsalis pedis pulse,” Jack notes.
Josh groans, mumbling something unintelligible under his breath.
“We’re going to get you something for the pain, alright?” you say, watching Olive insert the IV. “But first, I need to know what happened and how much you’ve had to drink.”
Mateo carefully cuts up the leg of Josh’s pants, fully exposing the entry site.
“I—ngh—I fell on it—” Josh manages. “It’s not even—not even real—fuck—”
Mateo turns away quickly, hiding his amusement.
“What about alcohol?” you ask again.
“Like—two beers,” he replies.
“Any drugs?”
“No—ah—no drugs.”
You nod. “Okay. Let’s give another twenty-five of fent.”
“Can we get surgery down here?” Jack asks as he steps back from the bed.
Mateo moves to grab the phone. “Calling now.”
Jack nods, folding his arms and lifting his head to look at you. “Alright. What’s next?”
“Repeat neurovascular exam, stabilise the object, don’t remove it, and get imaging before anyone touches it.”
He nods again. “Good.”
You try to ignore the way he’s watching you as you move to the foot of the bed, going through the motions of the neurovascular checks a little slower than he had just a minute ago.
“Pulses still intact. Cap refill under two. No numbness,” you report.
“Good,” he says again. “Keep checking. If that changes, we move faster.”
You nod once before turning back to Josh.
“Do you know when your last tetanus shot was, Josh?”
He shakes his head faintly. “No.”
“Okay, tetanus booster—” you glance up at Jack, “and antibiotics.”
“Which antibiotic?”
“Cefazolin?”
He watches you for a beat, the corner of his mouth lifting just slightly—then he turns to Olive. “You heard the doctor. Get him some cefazolin.”
You drop your head, biting back a smile as you watch Mateo start to clean the entry site.
“Let’s flag contamination risk for surgery,” Jack says, pulling off his gloves. “And X-ray for—”
“Position and fragments,” you cut in, finishing for him. “And CTA left leg to clear the vessels before removal.”
He tosses his gloves in the bin and turns back toward you, brows raised.
“Alright,” he says, mildly amused. “I can see I’m no longer needed in here.”
You flash him a small, smug smile before turning back to the wound.
“Entry looks clean, bleeding’s controlled—let’s pack around it and get him to imaging.”
Mateo nods and moves to grab more gauze, helping you pack carefully around the plastic blade so it doesn’t shift during transport. Jack lingers just long enough to make sure you’ve got everything under control before he steps out of the room, slipping back into the quiet chaos of the night shift.
You and Mateo quickly finish stabilising the leg before the nurses prep him for imaging. They’re just about to wheel the bed out when Walsh arrives from the OR, fighting a smile when she sees the pirate impaled by his own sword. You give her a brief rundown as you pull your gloves off and squirt a pump of sanitiser into your hands. She nods along, asks a few questions, then mutters something about prepping an operating room while they wait for imaging.
When you finally step out of the trauma bay, you spot Jack standing with Lena at the nurses’ station. You don’t quite catch all of their conversation as you walk past to grab a tablet, but you do hear something about ETA three minutes and decide to make yourself scarce before you’re dragged into another trauma.
You scan the board briefly, pick your next patient, then head toward the South corridor, already pulling up the chart for South Twenty on your tablet. You’re halfway through the patient’s intake when—
You stop—then take two steps back, turning your head toward South Seventeen.
“Deran?”
The man in the bed glances up, blowing a lock of dark blond hair out of his eyes.
He smiles. “Hey, doc.”
“What’re you doing here?” you ask, despite the obvious.
He’s got his left hand cradled in his lap, wrapped loosely in an oil-stained rag that’s already soaked through in places, blood seeping into the fabric and drying in dark blotches. His knuckles underneath are split and swollen, his pinky finger sticking out at an odd angle, the rest of his hand already blown out around it.
“I was helping a friend with his truck,” he says, glancing back down at his mangled hand. “The prop rod slipped, and the hood came straight down.”
“Ouch,” you murmur, stepping forward.
He huffs out a short laugh. “Yeah. Ouch.”
“Mind if I take a look?”
“Go for it.”
You set your tablet at the foot of the bed and step up beside him, leaning in as you gently lift the rag to get a better look at what’s underneath. It’s not that deformed—just swollen, and his pinky finger is obviously broken, but otherwise it’s mostly just bruising and superficial cuts. At least he won’t need stitches—maybe some steri-strips and a splint—but you’re more concerned about the dirty rag he’s got wrapped around it.
“What d’you think?” he asks, the corner of his mouth lifting. “Am I going to make it?”
You tilt your head. “Maybe. If we act fast.”
He laughs softly, the sound ringing almost too familiar in your ears.
You straighten quickly, clearing your throat. “Do you—uh—have you seen a doctor yet?”
He shakes his head. “No. Just you.”
You nod once and pick up your tablet, flicking out of South Twenty’s chart.
“Cool. I’ll be your doctor—” You pause, glancing back at him. “Unless you think that’s a conflict of interest?”
His smile widens. “You mean the prettiest doctor in Pittsburgh’s gonna fix me up?”
You roll your eyes. “Just Pittsburgh, huh?”
“Well, I couldn’t say the world—that’d be way too cheesy.”
You snort. “All your lines are cheesy.”
He gasps. “All of them?”
“All of them,” you echo, keeping your eyes fixed firmly on your tablet.
“Wow,” he mutters. “Tough crowd.”
You shake your head, trying not to smile as you pull up his chart and make a quick note, effectively assigning yourself as his physician. Then you set the tablet back on the bed and turn to grab a pair of gloves.
“Alright, I just need to have a closer look before I can get you some pain relief.”
You nudge the stool closer to the bed and sit down, leaning in as Deran gingerly shifts his hand. You peel the rag back properly this time, murmuring an apology when he winces, and set the dirty thing aside before reaching for gauze and saline.
“This might sting a bit,” you say, already starting to clean the dried blood from his knuckles. “Let me know if you want me to stop.”
“Do I need a safe word?” he asks smugly.
Your gaze flicks up, unamused—then back down to his hand without a word.
“I’m gonna go with meatball,” he decides. “Because—”
“—your favourite thing in the world is a meatball sub from that deli on Carson,” you cut in. “I know.”
His brows lift. “Wow.”
Your eyes flick up again. “Wow what?”
He shrugs, wincing slightly as you turn his hand. “Nothing. I just… didn’t think you paid that much attention.”
You don’t look up this time, unsure what you could possibly say that wouldn’t turn this into a deeper conversation than you’re willing to have right now.
After a beat, Deran hums. “Still doing the whole unavailable thing, huh?”
You roll your eyes. “It’s not a thing, Deran. I work fifteen hours a day with hardly any phone reception, and my days off are spent catching up on paperwork and sleep. I am unavailable.”
“Yeah, I know,” he says, glancing back down at his hand. “I guess I just figured since I hadn’t heard from you in a while, maybe some lucky guy finally managed to sweep you off your feet.”
You scoff, focusing a little too hard on wrapping fresh gauze around his hand. “Yeah, well—you’d be wrong.”
He grimaces when you turn his hand again, being careful not to bump his pinky finger as you finish dressing the cuts. Then you gently set it back in his lap and start cleaning up, swivelling on your stool to toss the oily rag and all the bloodied gauze into the waste bin.
“Alright,” you say, turning back. “Lift your hand for me.”
He lifts it slowly.
“Can you move your fingers?”
His eyes go wide.
You give him a flat look. “Just try.”
His expression twists as he slowly flexes his fingers, letting out a low, pained groan.
“Okay, that’s enough,” you say, scooting forward again. “Any numbness or tingling?”
He shakes his head. “No.”
You reach out and press gently against the tip of his pinky—until it turns white—then watch the colour return beneath his nail.
“Cap refill’s good,” you mutter, more to yourself.
He winces again as he lowers his hand back into his lap.
“So, what’s the verdict—is my weekend ruined?”
You snort. “Not entirely. I’ll get you some pain relief and order an X-ray. We might have to reduce the pinky, but I want imaging before I touch it—I need to see exactly where the fracture is first.”
“Well then,” he says, smirking as he lifts his right hand and holds up just the index and middle finger. “Good thing I’m right-handed.”
It takes a moment for the joke to land. You tilt your head, frowning faintly as you stare at his fingers.
Then it clicks.
“Oh my God,” you laugh, grabbing his hand and forcing it back down. “What is wrong with you?”
He grins. “What? You said it yourself—my weekend isn’t entirely ruined.”
You shake your head. “I didn’t think you meant that.”
“Well,” he says slowly, leaning in, “I don’t have plans yet, but if you’ve got time between paperwork and sleeping, maybe we could—”
“Everything alright in here?”
You turn to see Jack stepping past the curtain. He stops at the foot of the bed and clasps his hands behind his back, eyes flicking curiously between you and Deran.
You straighten a little and nod. “Yep. All good.”
“Except my hand,” Deran adds, lifting his injured hand.
“Right.” You shake your head once. “Deran, this is Dr. Abbot—he’s the senior attending on shift tonight.”
Then you glance back at Jack.
“Crush injury to the left hand after a truck hood came down on it. Significant swelling through the fifth digit with an obvious deformity at the pinky, plus some superficial lacerations across the knuckles. Neurovascularly intact—cap refill’s good, no numbness or tingling. I’ve cleaned and dressed the cuts, and I was just about to send him for imaging before we decide if the finger needs reducing.”
Jack nods once. “Good. Any pain management?”
You stand and nudge the stool back, picking up your tablet from the end of the bed.
“I was just about to order some ibuprofen and Tylenol.”
He nods again. “Sounds like you’ve got everything under control.”
You give him a small smile before turning back to Deran. “Hang tight—I’ll come find you once I get your X-ray results.”
He pouts. “You’re just going to leave me here?”
You roll your eyes, already turning away. “Unavailable, remember.”
Jack slides the curtain shut before following you out, falling into step beside you as you head back toward Central.
“You know him?”
You glance up from your tablet. “Uh—yeah. Old friend.”
He lifts a brow. “Friend?”
You give him a look. “What do you want me to say?”
He shrugs, letting out a quiet laugh. “Friend works.”
“Good,” you mutter, stopping at one of the workstations and setting your tablet down.
Jack pauses beside you. “Meet me in Central Twelve once you’ve put the orders in.”
You frown. “Why?”
The corner of his mouth twitches.
“Because I’m your boss, that’s why.”
Then he’s gone, moving through the department with that faint hitch in his stride and an ass that absolutely should not look that good in scrubs.
You shake your head and turn your attention back to the computer in front of you, swiping your badge to log in. You quickly pull up Deran’s chart, make a few notes, and order the ibuprofen and Tylenol. Then, just because you can, you try to pull up Central Twelve’s chart—if only to annoy Jack by getting a head start—but there’s nothing in the system.
Great. Must be a brand-new patient.
You let out an irritated little sigh before logging off and grabbing your tablet again.
The door to Central Twelve is shut when you get there, which isn’t unusual, but immediately makes you fear the worst for whatever case Jack has waiting for you inside.
You take a breath, turn the handle—and freeze when you spot the empty bed.
“Shut the door,” Jack says, without looking up from the supply drawer he’s rummaging through.
You hesitate. “Am I in trouble?”
He sighs. “Do you ever just do what you’re told?”
You finally step into the room, shutting the door behind you before setting your tablet on the room cart.
“Sometimes,” you say. “Depends what’s in it for me.”
Jack straightens, turning toward you. “That’s a remarkably transactional approach to life.”
You shrug. “I believe in reciprocation.”
He takes a step closer. “That’s not what reciprocation means.”
“Really?” you ask. “Because last time I checked—in the shower, by the way—you were getting a pretty good deal.”
His mouth quirks. “Are you saying I owe you?”
You step forward. “Who’s keeping count?”
“Maybe I am,” he murmurs.
Before you can say anything else, his fingers catch the hem of your shirt and he tugs—just enough to pull you off balance. Then his mouth is on yours. Slow, deep, unhurried. As if there isn’t an entire emergency department waiting on the other side of that door.
He presses closer, his hand moving beneath your shirt, rough fingers digging into your hip as his mouth parts lazily against yours. His tongue slides along your bottom lip, pulling a breathy little sigh from the back of your throat as your fingers curl into the front of his scrub top. You tilt your head, leaning in, chasing more—and for a second it almost feels like he’s going to give it to you.
Then he pulls away.
Your lips follow instinctively, and he chuckles, taking a deliberate step back.
You blink. “What was that?”
He lifts a shoulder. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
He steps toward the door.
“Dr. Toomarian’s got a patient to present.”
You stare at him. “Seriously?”
He reaches for the handle.
“South Sixteen.”
Then he’s gone, and you’re left watching the door swing shut with something strange and unfamiliar stirring beneath your ribs.
That was weird.
Not unpleasant. Not by any means. Just... unusual.
It takes you a little longer than it should to remember how to move. How to suck in a full breath, pick up your tablet, and head back out into the chaos of the night shift past midnight.
The department is exactly as you’d left it. Patients complaining about pain that could have been prevented with a little common sense. Doctors running on nothing but caffeine and questionable protein snacks. And Lena in the middle of it all, her glasses perched low on her nose as she scans the tablet in her hand.
“Hey,” you say, stepping up to the nurses’ station. “Got anything easy for me?”
Lena glances over the top of her glasses. “Easy left three hours ago.”
You sigh. “Come on. There’s got to be something.”
Her eyes flick back down. “I’ve got a Ms. Callahan in Central Nine. Migraine, vitals are fine.”
“Perfect. I’ll—”
“I’ve got this one,” Jack says, appearing beside you. “Dr. Toomarian needs a resident in South Sixteen.”
You frown. “But I—”
“Now.”
You stare at him for a second, wondering how the hell a man can kiss you breathless one minute then start barking orders at you the next.
“Fine,” you mutter, gripping your tablet a little tighter. “But when I’m admitted for emotional whiplash, I want it documented that you’re the reason why.”
Then you turn and head for the South hall before you’re tempted to say something even less professional.
You don’t normally snap like that—especially not at an attending—but something about the last fifteen minutes has crawled beneath your skin and stayed there, impossible to ignore. Your pulse still hasn’t settled properly. Your cheeks are still warm. And every time you think about Jack’s stupid little half-smirk after he’d kissed you, you’re annoyed.
You just can’t figure out why.
He doesn’t normally kiss you in the middle of a shift.
He doesn’t normally order you around like you’re a lost med student.
And he definitely doesn’t volunteer to see migraine patients.
But you don’t normally get this irritated. Especially not at Jack. The two of you are always messing around. Playing games. Flirting. It’s what you do. So what’s so different about tonight?
“Hey.” Ellis grabs your arm, stopping you just outside of South Sixteen. “You good?”
You blink. “Yeah. Why?”
“You look like you’re contemplating homicide.”
“And if I am?”
“I’d be obliged to remind you that we’re here to save lives, not end them.”
“Damn. Guess I’ll just have to wait until after my shift.”
Her eyes narrow, the corner of her mouth lifting just slightly. “Is this about who I thought I saw being taken up to imaging?”
You frown. “Who did you think you saw?”
“Deran.”
“Oh.”
You glance over her shoulder at the empty bed in South Seventeen.
“That was fast,” you mutter.
Her brows lift. “Wait. You’re his physician?”
You shrug. “Yeah.”
“Isn’t that a conflict of interest?”
“Isn’t my life a conflict of interest?”
She stares at you for a moment, amusement tugging at her mouth. “It’s one of those nights, huh?”
You sigh. “Yep.”
She puts a hand on your shoulder. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
Then she gives you a brief nod and continues down the hall, humming a tune you don’t recognise as if to rub it in that she’s having a far more pleasant shift than you are.
You spend the next half hour alongside Nazely, talking her through a chest pain workup and reassuring the patient who’s convinced every twinge in his left arm is the beginning of the end. By the time you’ve reviewed the ECG for the third time and convinced him that googling symptoms at two in the morning isn’t a substitute for medical advice, you’re finally able to move on.
The shift settles back into its usual rhythm after that. Patients. Notes. Consults. A never-ending stream of questions from the new med student stuck on nights and equally never-ending complaints from people who should have gone to bed instead of doing dumb things that landed them in the ED.
It isn’t until two a.m. that you finally find yourself back at the nurses’ station with Ellis, sipping a vending machine energy drink she’d forced into your hand while the department enjoys a rare moment of relative calm.
“Shen said the Butt Lightyear guy went up for surgery.”
Lena tilts her head. “Butt Lightyear?”
“You don’t want to know,” you murmur into your drink.
“They tried removing it manually but were worried about the wings,” Ellis explains.
“The wings?”
She smirks. “Yeah. You press a button and the wings pop out.”
You shut your eyes. “Ouch.”
“Let me guess,” Lena says, peering over the rim of her glasses. “He slipped?”
Ellis nods. “Yep. Total accident.”
“Yeah, and the toy just happened to be completely covered in lube too,” you add.
Lena sighs. “Every day I learn something new against my will.”
You and Ellis both laugh as Lena turns away, seemingly done with this conversation—and the people of Pittsburgh judging by the defeated look on her face. You’re about to reach for your tablet to pull up the X-ray images off poor Butt Lightyear when a bright laugh cuts through the quiet hum of the department, drawing your attention toward Central Nine.
You narrow your eyes. “Why is he still in there?”
Ellis shrugs. “Not sure. I thought it was just a migraine.”
“Laughing pretty hard for someone with a headache,” you mutter.
Ellis glances at you. “Do you know who she is?”
“Nope.”
“Huh.”
You look at her. “What?”
She shakes her head. “Nothing.”
“I have no idea who she is,” you say, grabbing your tablet. “And frankly? I don’t care.”
Ellis nods. “Okay.”
“Good.”
Then you turn away before she can say anything else, heading toward the North corridor even though you have no idea which patient you’re actually on your way to see.
It isn’t long before you find yourself passing through Central again, peering into Ms. Callahan’s room to see if she’s been discharged yet. Which she hasn’t—but at least Jack’s not in there anymore. Not that it really matters to you, but you can’t imagine the rest of the department is thrilled about an attending wasting half the night on a migraine patient.
Ten minutes later, you walk past Central Nine again. Not because you’re looking this time—you’re genuinely just passing on your way to find a free workstation—but she’s still in there. And she certainly doesn’t look like she’s in pain anymore.
If you were her, you’d be demanding discharge papers by now.
The third time you glance at Ms. Callahan, she catches your eye, and you offer her a small, awkward smile before quickly glancing back down at your chart. The same chart you’ve been pretending to work on for the better part of fifteen minutes without writing a single coherent sentence.
“You know that’s Abbot’s ex, right?”
You blink. “What?”
Shen nods toward Central Nine. “Ms. Callahan. She’s Abbot’s ex.”
You glance back at the gorgeous blonde woman scrolling through her phone, not at all looking like someone suffering from a migraine.
“Oh.”
Shen nods slowly. “Anyway. He’s looking for you.”
You frown. “Who?”
“Dr. Abbot.”
“Why?”
Shen shrugs. “Didn’t say.”
You sigh. “Great.”
He watches you curiously as you log out of the computer and push your chair back.
“Did he say where?” you ask.
“South.”
You nod once. “Thanks.”
Then you turn and head toward the South corridor, but not without one last glance at the woman in Central Nine. The woman who apparently used to date Jack. The woman who, for reasons you still don’t entirely understand, is suddenly very difficult to stop thinking about.
You spot Jack standing beside the workstations in the middle of the South hall, frowning at something on his tablet. He looks tired now, his curls standing at odd angles thanks to the way he drags his hand through them after every stressful trauma patient—and he’s leaning his left hip against the side of the desk, shifting the weight off his right leg because three a.m. is always when it starts aching. Not that he’ll admit it.
“Shen said you wanted to see me.”
He glances up. “Your friend’s imaging came back.”
“And?”
“Hand surgery wants him,” he says, offering you his tablet.
You take it, glancing down at the X-ray images. “Fracture and tendon damage. Fantastic.”
You flip through the images and skim over the surgeon’s review.
“Okay. I’ll send him up.”
Jack takes the tablet back, his brows pulling together slightly.
“Have you eaten?”
You frown. “What?”
“Have you eaten anything tonight?”
“I had an energy drink.”
He stares at you. “That’s not food.”
You shrug. “I haven’t had time.”
“Make time.”
You roll your eyes. “Fine. I didn’t bring anything.”
He lets out a quiet sigh, glancing down at the tablet as he flicks out of Deran’s X-rays and brings up another patient’s chart.
“There’s a container in the fridge.”
You blink. “What?”
“Top shelf. Left side. Blue lid.”
Your brows lift. “You brought me food?”
He glances up again. “I brought extra food. It’s that pasta you like.”
As if on cue, your stomach grumbles. Loudly.
“Go eat,” he says. “I doubt surgery’s coming to collect your friend in the next twenty minutes.”
You want to argue. You really do. Because you don’t need to be looked after. You don’t need him to bring you food and make sure you eat and be all quietly caring like this. But God is this man a good cook, and you’d have to be an idiot to turn down free pasta at three o’clock in the morning.
“Fine,” you mutter, already turning away. “I’ll eat.”
“You’re welcome.”
You don’t look back. Because if you do, you might see the stupidly smug look on his face and it might make you smile. Then he’ll know he was right, and you absolutely cannot give him that satisfaction. So instead, you drop your gaze and watch your shoes move against the speckled linoleum until you reach the break room door.
You don’t even notice that someone else is in there until you reach the fridge and finally glance up.
“Oh. Hey.”
Ellis waves her fork. “Hey.”
You pull the fridge door open and immediately spot Jack’s blue-lidded tupperware.
You don’t answer. Not explicitly, at least. You just glance over your shoulder with what could be considered a very brief nod, then turn back toward the microwave and set the container inside.
“She’s his ex, by the way,” you say without thinking.
“Huh?”
You press the start button on the microwave before turning to face Ellis properly, leaning back against the kitchenette counter.
“The woman in Central Nine. Shen just told me she’s Jack’s ex.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Ellis stabs a piece of broccoli with her fork. “I know.”
You tilt your head. “How do you know?”
“I asked Dr. Abbot how he knew the patient,” she says, as if it were obvious.
“Oh.”
You glance back at the microwave, still humming, Jack’s container rotating slowly inside.
“What’d he say?”
Ellis sighs, stabbing a piece of carrot this time. “Just that they dated about a year after his wife passed, but he realised he wasn’t ready to move on yet, so he ended it. It was amicable. Now they’re friends.”
You frown. “Friends? He’s never mentioned her to me.”
Ellis finally looks up, something sharpening in her expression. “Why would he?”
You hesitate. “Because we’re—well, you know…”
Her mouth twitches. “I thought it was casual.”
“It is,” you say quickly. “I just thought he would’ve mentioned—”
“Does Abbot know who Deran is?”
You blink. “What?”
Ellis smirks. “You know, the guy currently sitting in South Seventeen? Mr. Thursday mornings, or—” she tilts her head, “I guess it’s former Mr. Thursday mornings now.”
“Well—not exactly, but that’s—”
The sharp beeping of the microwave cuts you off, and you turn quickly to silence it.
“That’s different?” Ellis offers.
You grab the container out of the microwave, shut the door, then yank open the cutlery drawer to grab a fork before turning back to face her.
“Yes,” you say firmly. “It’s different. Jack knows we’re not exclusive, but he doesn’t need to know who the other guys are.”
Ellis snorts. “Or were.”
You glare at her.
“Alright,” she says, leaning back in her chair. “Then why do you need to know who she is?”
You stab a piece of pasta. “I don’t. I’m just... curious.”
“You mean jealous.”
Your head snaps up. “I’m not jealous. I don’t care what he does when he’s not with me. He can sleep with whoever he wants. He can sleep with every bottle-blonde in Pittsburgh for all I care.”
“I am not,” you protest. “It’s casual. We both know that. If he wants out, he can just say so. I don’t need him. I don’t need anyone. I mean, sure, it’s fun when they’re good, but I am perfectly fine on my own. I don’t need someone interfering with my life. With my routine. I’m happy exactly the way things are.”
Ellis nods slowly. “Okay, Miss Independent. I get it.”
“Thank you.”
“Just to be clear,” she says, pushing her chair back, “you’re standing here eating his food because he told you to. Right?”
You open your mouth to argue, but she keeps going.
“Your hair smells like his shampoo. You walked into our apartment this morning wearing his shirt, and I’m pretty sure those are his socks.” Her gaze drops briefly to your feet before returning to your face. “You haven’t slept in your own bed once this week and, unless I’m forgetting somebody, you haven’t seen another guy in...” She pauses, pretending to think. “Wow. Almost four months now.”
You stare at her.
“And when you got that stomach bug last month,” she says, grabbing her container as she stands, “he called out of work just to sit on the bathroom floor with you for eight hours.”
She steps up right beside you, dropping her container in the sink.
“That’s not casual.”
The water runs for a few seconds as she rinses the container beneath the tap, then she sets it beside the sink and turns toward the door.
“Anyway,” she says lightly, reaching for the handle. “Let me know when you’re ready to admit you’re in love with him.”
Then she’s gone, leaving you alone with your pasta and your rapidly fraying nervous system.
You don’t move. You just stare at the door, trying to remember how to breathe. Trying to think about anything that isn’t that strange and unfamiliar feeling lodged beneath your ribs, insistent on being felt.
No.
It’s not—
It can’t be—
You would know if you were in—
Fuck.
You turn quickly and drop your container of food beside the sink before it ends up on the floor. Then you press both palms into the edge of the counter, as if that might somehow ground you.
This is ridiculous.
Ellis is just messing with you. She has to be.
You’re not in—
God. You can’t even think about that word.
You drag in a deep breath and grab the fork again, lifting it to your mouth.
It’s almost annoying how good it is. Infuriating, really. Because apparently being an emergency doctor, a SWAT physician, offensively attractive and unfairly charming isn’t enough. No. Jack Abbot just has to be an excellent cook too.
Jerk.
You finish the rest of the pasta as quickly as you can, trying not to be disappointed when the container is empty. Then you rinse it beneath the tap and set it beside Ellis’ tupperware.
Your heart is still beating a little too fast when you step out of the break room, and you have to shove your hands into your scrub pockets to keep them from shaking. You keep your head down as you make your way back toward South Seventeen, trying to focus on what you’re going to say to Deran and not how you may or may not feel about your attending.
“Hey,” you say, pulling the curtain back. “How are you feeling?”
Deran glances up. “Hey, doc. Long time no see.”
You squirt a pump of sanitiser into your palm and rub your hands together as you step up beside the bed.
“Been busy,” you say. “Are the painkillers working?”
He lifts his hand, wincing. “A little.”
You glance at the clock on the wall. “You could probably get some more soon.”
His brows pull together slightly. “Is that your way of saying I’m not heading home any time soon?”
You sigh quietly, dragging the stool closer to the bed and dropping down onto it.
“Not tonight, no. I’m sorry.”
He groans, tipping his head back against the pillow.
“I know,” you murmur, leaning in. “But one of our hand surgeons reviewed the images, and you’ve got a fracture right here.” You gently tap the base of his little finger near the knuckle. “I was expecting a break, but it’s lower than we’d like and close enough to the joint that this isn’t something we can safely reduce and splint in the ED.”
He lifts his head.
“There’s also some concern about the tendon around it,” you continue. “The finger was pulled pretty hard out of position, and the surgeon’s worried it may have damaged one of the tendons that helps it move properly.”
“What does that mean?”
“They’ll take you upstairs, get better imaging if they need it, and most likely repair everything at the same time rather than risk you losing function later.”
His brows draw tighter. “Repair?”
“The fracture. The tendon. Anything else they find once they’re in there.”
He lets his head fall back again. “Great.”
“You’ll be okay.”
“I know,” he says, the corner of his mouth lifting. “Just not exactly how I pictured getting to spend more time with you.”
You roll your eyes. “Really?”
“Will you be here when I wake up?”
You snort. “Hopefully not. If all goes well, I’ll be at home asleep.”
He sighs. “Damn.”
You push the stool back and stand. “Any other questions before I sign you off to surgery?”
He lifts his head, frowning slightly. “Yeah, actually. I wanted to ask you about that guy.”
You tilt your head. “What guy?”
“The one that came in here before. The attending.”
Your stomach drops.
“What about him?”
“I thought he was your boss.”
You fold your arms. “He is.”
“Huh.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s just—” He hesitates. “I don’t know. You just don’t usually look at your boss like that.”
You stare at him for a moment, trying to ignore the rush of your pulse in your ears.
“You sure you didn’t hit your head?”
His brows lift. “Wait. Did I hit a nerve?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
Your eyes narrow. “Why don’t you just focus on the fact that you need surgery? Do you need me to call anyone?”
He shakes his head. “I already called my mom.”
“Good,” you mutter, already turning away. “Good luck in surgery.”
“Tell your boss I said hi.”
“Bye, Deran.”
His laughter follows you out into the hallway, but you refuse to give him the satisfaction of looking back as you yank the curtain shut.
You shake your head as you start down the corridor toward Central, as if that might somehow knock your errant thoughts back into place. You can still hear your pulse, still feel the heat crawling beneath your skin, your scrub top suddenly too warm and too tight.
The lights overhead are almost painfully bright now, the way they always get in the late hours of the night shift—but tonight their glare feels personal. Offensive, even. As if those buzzing fluorescent bars are shining brightly on everything you’ve worked so hard not to acknowledge. Not to feel.
Not that you’re feeling anything.
At least, not whatever it is Ellis thinks you’re feeling.
You just need a minute. One minute of quiet to come up with perfectly reasonable explanations for every stupid little thing she pointed out. Then your mind can stop running circles and you can finish your shift, go home, and get some much-needed sleep.
By tomorrow, all of this is just going to feel ridiculous.
Because that’s exactly what it is.
Ridiculous.
“Dr. Abbot,” Bridget calls from behind the desk. “Can you take a look at this for me?”
You stop short halfway between South and Central, watching as Jack moves from one end of the nurses’ station to the other. Bridget is already holding up her tablet, pointing at something on the screen while Jack leans in, brow furrowing just slightly as he squints at it.
He needs to wear his glasses. You’ve told him this countless times. Yet for some reason, he insists on reserving them exclusively for news articles, novels, and recipes.
Apparently, the PTMC emergency department isn’t worthy of his clear vision.
Your stomach lurches as your traitorous thoughts remind you of the time he’d worn them during sex. The time he’d insisted on keeping them on as he settled between your legs because he wanted to see you properly. He wanted to see everything.
You shake your head again, trying to push the memory away.
Jack leans a little closer as Bridget starts explaining something you can’t quite make out. Not that you really care to hear what she’s saying. You’re too busy watching the way Jack’s left hand grips the edge of the desk, his weight shifting toward it, lessening the load on his right leg.
It must be really sore tonight.
He nods along, murmuring something low as he taps on the screen. You know what comes next before he even does it. He lifts that same hand and it drags across his jaw, tilting his head just slightly as he tries to concentrate on whatever it is Bridget’s asking—but he’s tired. You know he’s tired. From the set of his shoulders to the way he’s shifting almost all his weight off his right leg, you just know that he’s counting down the hours to the end of shift.
Maybe you should feel guilty for not letting him get enough sleep yesterday.
His left hand adjusts its grip, the tendon in his forearm flexing as it does and for some stupid reason, you forget how to breathe. Just for a second.
“You alright?”
You blink. “What?”
Henderson frowns slightly, suddenly standing beside you with his tablet in hand. “That’s the second time I've caught you completely zoned out tonight. What’s going on?”
“Uh—”
You glance back at Jack just as he looks up, his gaze meeting yours briefly, a small smile tugging at his lips—and your treacherous heart leaps. It actually leaps.
What the fuck?
You clear your throat. “Yeah. No. I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
Henderson—the perceptive bastard—glances toward the nurses’ station, and his eyes widen.
“Oh, shit. Did something happen between you two?”
Your stomach flips. “What?”
He gestures vaguely toward Jack. “You and Abbot. Did you break up or something?”
“What?” you say again, louder this time. “Why would you even—I mean, we’re not—we’ve never dated. Why would you think that?”
He tilts his head. “Really? I thought Ellis said—”
“Ellis?”
“Not just Ellis.”
Your eyes go wide. “Who else?”
He shrugs. “Everyone assumes you guys are together.”
“Together?”
He frowns. “You’re not?”
“No,” you say, almost too fast. “No. We’re not together, we’re just—it’s… casual.”
His brows lift, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Casual?”
“Yes,” you mutter, dropping your head into your hands. “Are you telling me the entire ED thinks Jack and I are dating?”
Henderson laughs. “Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever heard Shen mention it.”
Your head snaps up. “People talk about it?”
Henderson shrugs. “It’s gossip.”
You open your mouth, ready to deny everything, when—
“Trauma inbound,” Lena calls. “Male, twenties. Motorcycle crash. Hypotensive in the field. ETA two minutes.”
“Shit,” Henderson mutters. “That’s not gonna be fun.”
Jack glances over at you again, calling your name across the floor. “Trauma Two. Let’s go.”
You hesitate, taking a step back. “I—I can’t. Sorry.”
“It’s alright,” Henderson says quickly. “I can jump in.”
He’s already moving before he’s even finished speaking, weaving through the growing rush of staff converging on Trauma Two. You watch him for a second, taking another slow step back, then another—and just before you turn away, you glance at Jack.
He hasn’t moved. He’s still standing by the nurses’ station. Watching you.
Your stomach twists.
Then you turn away and keep walking down the corridor.
And fortunately for your rapidly deteriorating grip on reality, it isn’t long before Dr. Toomarian pulls you into a room to present a patient and you’re forced back into work mode.
The distraction helps, at first. You focus on the patient, answer questions, review scans, place orders, and for a few blessed minutes your brain remembers how to function. Then someone says Jack’s name and your pulse jumps for no reason. You hear a voice that sounds vaguely like Jack’s and your head snaps up. Someone calls for an attending and you catch yourself looking.
By the time you’re halfway through reviewing another chart, your pulse still hasn’t settled and you’re no closer to understanding what the hell is wrong with you, only increasingly certain that whatever it is, it’s getting worse.
Eventually you find yourself moving back through Central, your nose buried in your tablet as you scan the next patient’s intake form, determined to stay distracted. You’re just about to turn down the North corridor when you finally glance up—and there he is.
His brows lift, just slightly. “A word?”
Shit.
“Um. Sure.”
You tuck your tablet under one arm as you follow him around the corner toward the ambulance bay. Not quite all the way outside, but far enough from the nurses’ station that no one nosy can overhear.
When he finally stops and turns to face you, you’re reminded—quite aggressively—just how unfairly attractive Jack Abbot really is.
“What was that?”
You take a small step back. “What was what?”
He nods vaguely toward Central. “You completely dodged that trauma back there.”
“Yeah. Sorry.” You look away. “I just—I had a patient I needed to get back to.”
“We’ve all got patients,” he says, folding his arms. “But this is the ED. We treat the most critical patients first. That means traumas—you know that.”
You glance back at him, then down at your shoes. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m just... a little distracted tonight.”
“Distracted?” he echoes. “Is this about your friend?”
Your head snaps up. “My friend?”
“The one you just sent up to surgery.” His jaw tightens, just briefly. “If I’m being honest, I’m not even sure you should’ve been his physician.”
You frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s a conflict of interest.”
You scoff. “A conflict of interest? Seriously?”
He folds his arms a little tighter, making the sleeves of his scrub top strain around his stupidly thick biceps in the most distracting way.
“Yes.”
You lift your chin. “Alright. How’s Ms. Callahan, then?”
He blinks. “Who?”
“Central Nine. Your ex.”
He stares at you for a second.
“Who told you that?”
“It doesn’t matter,” you say quickly. “What matters is if you can treat your ex without it being a conflict of interest, then I can treat some guy I used to sleep with.”
The corner of his mouth twitches.
“So he’s not just an old friend.”
You tilt your head. “You knew that, Jack.”
For a brief moment, neither of you says anything. You can feel your pulse in your throat now, fast and uneven, and judging by the way Jack’s looking at you, you’re not doing nearly as good a job of hiding it as you’d hoped.
“Look,” you say, desperate to end this interaction. “I’m sorry I ducked the trauma. Really, I am. But Henderson was right there—it’s not like I left you hanging. I knew he’d jump in.”
Jack rubs a hand across his jaw, looking away for a second before glancing back at you. “You’re right,” he says. “I’m sorry. Henderson was there, I could have called either of you.”
You nod once, the knot in your stomach finally easing slightly.
“Guess I should stop playing favourites, huh?”
You frown again. “Favourites?”
He lifts a shoulder. “You’re always the first person I look for when I need a second set of hands.”
Heat rushes up the back of your neck, but you refuse to let him see it.
“What about Dr. Robby?” you ask, shifting your tablet against your chest.
He leans in slightly. “I’d still choose you.”
The words hit you square in the chest, settling somewhere deep behind your ribs. For a second, your lungs forget how to work entirely, and by the time you finally figure out how to breathe again, Jack is already gone.
You stand there for a moment, staring after him, waiting for your brain to catch up with whatever the hell just happened. Waiting for those words to make sense. But they don’t. Not entirely. They stay lodged in your chest even as you clear your throat and press a hand against your sternum, turning slowly back toward the chaos of the ED.
Whatever.
Maybe they don’t mean anything.
You shake your head as you glance down at your tablet, pulling up the chart you’d been focused on before all this. Before Jack told you he’d still choose you over his own best friend, who also happens to have more experience, more qualifications, and significantly better judgement than you.
Ridiculous.
You spend the next half hour cleaning gravel out of a drunk college student’s knee after he fell down the porch steps at a house party. Then you help Henderson with a nine-year-old girl who split her forehead falling from the top bunk of her bed, distracting her while he does the sutures. After that, you work through a mild pneumonia case with Nazely before treating a middle-aged man with a kidney stone. The orders, pain meds, scans, and paperwork all blur together, and by the time you finally check the clock again it’s almost seven.
“Shit,” you murmur, dropping down at desk near the nurses’ station.
You need to catch up on your charting if you plan on getting out of here any time soon.
“Hey.” Henderson sits at the computer across from you. “Little girl with the forehead lac just got discharged.”
You glance over at him. “Oh. Nice.”
“Her mom wanted me to thank you for helping her.”
You snort. “Between the drunk college kid and the old guy coughing up half a lung, it was my pleasure.”
Henderson huffs a laugh. “Apparently she’s been saying she wants to be a doctor since she was six.”
Your brows lift. “Really?”
Henderson grins. “And now she wants to be a doctor just like you."
“Yeah? Did you tell her not to go into emergency medicine if she values her soul?”
“Assuming you had one to begin with,” Robby cuts in.
You glance up just as he walks past, wearing that familiar half-smile of weary amusement with a coffee in one hand and his bag slung over his shoulder.
“And here I was worried you’d be in a good mood this morning,” you say, smiling sweetly despite your words.
His eyes narrow, but the corner of his mouth lifts a little higher. “Careful.”
You roll your eyes playfully, turning back to the screen in front of you as he continues through Central.
It takes exactly eight minutes before you’re interrupted again. Bridget taps you on the shoulder asking for your signature on a prescription, and just as you hand it back to her, the red phone rings. You watch Lena answer it with a tired sigh, both Jack and Robby looking up to hear what kind of chaos is inbound.
“Alright,” Lena says as she hangs up the phone. “Male, forties. Single-vehicle MVC. Hypotensive in the field, positive seatbelt sign. ETA four minutes.”
“I’ll take it,” Robby says, setting his coffee down. “Let’s prep Trauma One.”
He glances around the unusually empty floor.
“I’ll jump in,” you offer, pushing your chair back.
Henderson shoots you a look as you stand and turn toward the nurses’ station, pulling a pair of gloves from a box. It’s not that you really want to jump in on another case ten minutes before the end of your shift, but you haven’t had a trauma since Captain Stabby and his sexy doctor friend, and you’re starting to feel a little guilty about it.
“See,” Robby says, pulling on his own gloves. “There’s hope for you yet.”
You roll your eyes again as you follow him out to the ambulance bay, and it isn’t long before you hear sirens.
The ambulance careens in and pulls up right in front of you, the back doors flying open as the first paramedic climbs out, holding a tearful young girl in his arms. She couldn’t be older than four.
“Thirty-eight-year-old male, restrained driver in a single-vehicle MVC versus a tree,” the paramedic says. “Positive seatbelt sign, abdominal pain, hypotensive on scene, improved with fluids. GCS fifteen. Two IVs in place. Daughter was restrained in the back seat and appears uninjured.”
The second paramedic circles the van from the driver’s side and starts helping Robby lower the gurney.
Robby nods toward the daughter. “You check her out?”
“We did a quick assessment on scene, but we’ve been focused on Dad,” the paramedic says, still holding her.
“Alright. We’ll get somebody to take a look at her.”
The young girl starts crying harder as Robby and the other paramedic begin wheeling the gurney inside. You stay beside them, one hand on the man’s forearm as you watch his eyelids droop.
“Stay with me, sir,” you say, squeezing his arm. “Can you tell me your name?”
“Barry,” he murmurs.
“Where does it hurt, Barry?”
He winces. “My—my stomach.”
The gurney rolls through the second set of doors, and suddenly you’re back under the bright fluorescent lights.
“Abbot,” Robby calls. “Can you take a look at the kid?”
Jack appears before you can even glance over your shoulder.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he says, his voice soft as he gently takes the daughter from the paramedic’s arms. “Your dad’s in good hands. Come on, let’s get you checked out too.”
You continue moving with the gurney into Trauma One, where Jesse and Olive are already prepping monitors and equipment.
The paramedics help shift the patient onto the trauma bed before clearing out, making room for Jesse to start attaching monitors.
“Pressure one-oh-four over sixty-eight,” he reports.
Olive quickly cuts Barry’s shirt open.
“Seatbelt sign across the lower abdomen,” you say, pressing gently along his stomach.
He grimaces when you reach his left side.
“Left’s worse.”
Robby holds out a hand. “Ultrasound.”
Jesse hands him the probe as you squirt gel onto Barry’s abdomen.
“RUQ,” Robby says.
You glance up at the ultrasound screen. “Clear.”
“LUQ.”
“Clear.”
“Pelvis.”
“Nothing obvious.”
“Good,” Robby says. “FAST negative. He’s stable enough for CT.”
You turn to Olive. “CT chest, abdo, pelvis with contrast.”
She nods, moving toward the phone as the whole room finally takes a breath. The negative FAST isn’t a guarantee, but it’s a promising start.
Barry groans, trying to lift his head. “Where’s my daughter? Where’s Ellie?”
You press a hand against his shoulder.
“Hey, don’t try to sit up. Your daughter’s okay—she’s just outside with another doctor.”
“She’s okay?”
You nod. “She’s okay.”
He lets out a strained breath, settling back against the mattress and tipping his head back.
“Hold on.”
You move closer, gently pushing his hair back.
“Forehead lac,” you tell Robby. “About three centimetres.”
He glances over. “Alright. We’ll close it up before he goes to imaging.”
He strips off his gloves and reaches for a new pair while Jesse preps the suture tray. Olive is already cleaning up around Barry as you reach for some gauze to start cleaning the cut, gently pushing his bloodied locks of hair out of the way.
“Lidocaine,” Robby says.
You grab the syringe from the tray and hand it to him, more than happy to let your attending do the work while your adrenaline wanes and that familiar end-of-shift exhaustion sets in.
“Stay still for us, Barry,” you murmur, cupping the crown of his head. “This might sting a little.”
He winces as Robby injects the anaesthetic.
“Saline,” Robby says.
You hand it over before carefully plucking the last few stuck strands of hair away from the wound.
“How’s the pain?” you ask.
“‘S okay,” Barry mumbles.
“Forceps.”
You hand Robby the forceps, then the needle driver before he can even ask.
“Light,” he murmurs.
You reach up and adjust the luminaire until he raises his hand, signalling that it’s in the right spot. Then he pinches the edge of the laceration with the forceps and slides the needle through the skin. Easy. Effortless. Boring.
You glance up at the monitor, noting that Barry’s heart rate has finally dropped below a hundred.
“Scissors,” Robby says.
You grab the scissors from the tray and hand them to him, then go back to reading Barry’s vitals.
“You with us, Barry?” Robby asks.
“Yeah,” Barry murmurs.
“Can’t feel the needle, can you?”
“No.”
“Good.”
You let your eyes move slowly around the room, already holding gauze for Robby before he can ask for it. You feel him take it from your hand just as you turn your head toward the glass doors, gazing out at the beginning chaos of morning handover.
But it isn’t Ellis and Langdon arguing about God knows what that gets your attention.
Just outside the trauma bay, perched on the edge of a bed parked beside the nurses’ station is Barry’s daughter. Ellie, apparently. Her eyes are still red and puffy, but she’s not crying anymore. She’s got a pink hospital gift shop teddy tucked under one arm and her other hand wrapped around the tubing of a black stethoscope.
Jack is sitting on a stool in front of her, gently helping put the earpieces in her tiny ears with a soft smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. Her little hands grip either side of the headset, adjusting it with a very focused look on her face.
Jack hands her the chest piece as he scoots a little closer to the bed, then points to his chest. You can’t hear what he’s saying, but you can make an educated guess.
Ellie’s tiny hand grips the bell as she presses the diaphragm against Jack’s chest, a small crease forming between her brows. Jack is watching her with that amused little half-smile, his gaze soft, one hand braced lightly on the mattress beside her so she doesn’t topple backwards.
Ellie says something, and Jack nods, schooling his expression.
She’s taking her job very seriously right now, and Jack is taking her very seriously.
“Doctor.”
You blink, glancing back at Robby.
“Yeah?”
He gives you a look. “Scissors. For the third time.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
You hand him the scissors and watch him snip the tail on the second-last suture, then you turn your attention back toward Jack and Ellie. She’s giggling now, with the diaphragm pressed to Jack’s cheek as he gently shakes his head, laughing too.
“Forceps.”
You grab the forceps and hand them to Robby.
His eyes flick up. “You alright?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“You’re smiling.”
“No, I’m—”
Oh my God.
You are smiling.
You turn back toward Jack, and your stomach drops.
Oh my God.
You’re in love with Jack Abbot.
“Alright, Barry,” Robby says, peeling his gloves off. “We’re gonna send you upstairs for some imaging now, make sure we didn’t miss anything.”
You take one unsteady step back from the bed.
“Can someone call my wife?” Barry asks, his voice strained.
Robby nods. “I'm sure somebody already has, but I’ll check.”
Your hands shake as you pull your gloves off.
“What about Ellie? Can I see her?”
“Of course,” Robby says. “She’s right outside.”
Barry lifts his head slightly. “Am I okay?”
“Well, you’re talking to me, your pressure’s holding, and your FAST was negative. Those are all good signs.” Robby looks at you. “Isn’t that right, doctor?”
Your head snaps up. “Hm?”
He frowns. “You sure you’re alright? You seem—”
“I’m fine,” you snap, tossing your gloves in the waste bin. “I just—I have charting to do.”
Then you turn and march right out of the trauma bay, keeping your head down as you take an immediate sharp left. Ignoring the familiar voice that calls your name and makes your pulse scatter.
You don’t stop until you reach the picture wall. Only then do you drop down onto the bench, squeeze your eyes shut, and bury your face in your hands. You can’t scream. Can’t shout. Can’t drop to the floor and have a panic attack right here in the middle of the ED. So you just… breathe.
Okay. Maybe you’re being a little dramatic—but can anyone blame you?
You don’t want this. You can’t want this. You don’t have time for this.
Casual sex is easy. No strings, no stress, no reason to worry about anything other than saving lives and finishing your residency. That’s all you want.
Or… all you wanted.
Now?
Now you’re not sure what you want.
Of course you still want to save lives and survive your residency, but now you can’t imagine doing either of those things without Jack.
You can’t imagine another shift without knowing Jack is somewhere in the department. Or getting a difficult case and not being able to talk through it with him. You can’t imagine going home and not immediately texting him. Or having a bad day and not being able to talk to him about it.
You can’t imagine anything without Jack.
Which is terrifying.
Because it isn’t just sex anymore. It isn’t flirting or late-night texts or teasing glances across the floor. It’s the way he’s somehow worked his way into every part of your life without you even noticing. Every shift. Every conversation. Every stupid little story you save up to tell him later. He’s just there. Everywhere.
And now... he matters.
You sit up and drag in a deep breath.
You need to pull it together. This isn’t the end of the world. It’s not even a thing. It’s only a thing if you let it be a thing, which… you’re not going to do.
With another deep breath, you push off the bench and start heading back toward Central. All you have to do is finish your charting, then you can leave. You can go home, turn your phone off, and talk yourself off the ledge.
You just need a little space. A little time away from the hospital, away from Jack, and all these ridiculous feelings will—
“Hey. You okay?”
Your heart lurches, but you don’t stop.
“I was going to come over there,” he says, keeping his voice low, “but I didn’t want to—”
“I’m fine,” you murmur, without even looking at him.
His hand closes gently around your wrist, and your stomach flips so hard it’s almost nauseating.
“You sure?”
You finally stop, glancing up at him. At the concerned crease between his brows and the little downward quirk at the corner of his mouth.
“I’m fine,” you say again, pulling your arm out of his grip. “Seriously.”
He gives you a look. Not one that says he’s offended or at all upset by your attitude, but one that says he doesn’t believe you. A look that makes you feel far too seen. Far too known.
“I need to finish my notes,” you mutter, turning away before he can say anything else.
You turn down the North corridor and don’t stop until you reach the desks just outside the break room. Then you drop into a chair, swipe your badge to log in, and force your trembling hands to steady themselves over the keyboard.
It takes a significant amount of effort to focus on your charting. You stare at the blinking cursor for minutes at a time before finally managing to squeeze out a few—mostly coherent—sentences. You type Jack’s name at least five times without meaning to, and every time you do, your heart thuds obnoxiously hard beneath your ribs.
Fortunately, no one tries to interrupt you this time, and after forty painstaking minutes of glaring at that computer screen and forcing your wayward thoughts to stay on track, you finally finish.
Now you just need to handover your patients.
You find Langdon by the nurses’ station, standing just below the workboard with his hands in his pockets as he reads through the list of patients and their ailments.
“Hey.” You step up beside him. “You got a minute for handover?”
He glances at you. “Oh. Hey. Didn’t know there were still any night crawlers left.”
You frown. “Everyone’s gone?”
“Everyone but Dr. Abbot,” he says. “And you.”
Your eyes go wide. “Ellis is gone?”
He nods. “Saw her head out about fifteen minutes ago.”
You scramble to grab your phone out of your pocket, unlocking it to find two new notifications from Ellis. Seventeen minutes ago.
Ellis: Abbot said he’s giving you a lift, so I’m headed out.
Ellis: Need anything from the store?
Your stomach drops.
“Everything alright?” Langdon asks.
“Uh—yeah. Fine.”
You tuck your phone back into your pocket.
“I’ve only got two patients. Can you take them?”
He nods. “Of course.”
“Alright. Central Twelve came in with chest pain. Trops negative, ECG’s clean, waiting on the repeat. If that’s negative too, he can go home.”
“Mhm.”
“And South Nineteen’s the pyelo. Got fluids, ceftriaxone, feeling better. Medicine said they’d come see her, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
Langdon snorts. “Got it.”
You nod. “Great. Thanks.”
“Anything else?”
“Nope.”
He smiles. “Great sign-out.”
“I try,” you mutter, already turning away.
You hurry across the floor toward the lockers, pulling your phone back out of your pocket to type a reply to Ellis as you walk.
You: You’re dead to me.
You: And toothpaste.
When you finally reach your locker, you quickly key in the code and pull the door open. You don’t bother removing your stethoscope or badge, or taking time to actually put your jacket on—you just gather everything into your arms and slam the door shut again. Then you turn and make a beeline for the ambulance bay.
Maybe you can catch a bus home. Or—hell—you’ll pay for an Uber if you have to.
“Hey, slow down,” Dana says as you rush past the nurses’ station. “What’s the hurry?”
“Sorry,” you call over your shoulder. “Just—really need to get home.”
You’re moving too quickly for her to press you any further. Thank God. Because the last thing you need right now is Dana and her infuriating habit of knowing things she has absolutely no business knowing.
You keep your head down until you make it all the way outside, and only then do you finally feel like you can breathe. You nod to a patient having a cigarette by the garden bed before turning the other way, pulling your phone out to order an Uber.
Only, you can’t remember the last time you ordered an Uber. Do you even have the app?
“You ready?”
You flinch. “Jesus Christ.”
Jack huffs a laugh. “Not quite.”
You glance back down at your phone, clutching it a little tighter.
“I’m this way,” he says, nodding toward the other side of the parking lot.
You hesitate. “I—uh—I was just going to grab an Uber.”
His brows lift, but he doesn’t look all that surprised. “You were?”
You nod. “Yeah. I’m good. Thanks.”
“You sure?”
“Yep.”
You turn away, but he doesn’t leave. He just stands there, waiting, one hand holding the strap of his backpack that’s slung over his shoulder, the other buried in his pocket.
“Is there something going on that I should know about?” he asks finally.
“Nope,” you reply, too fast.
Then, for some ridiculous reason, you start walking.
“Where are you going?”
“The bus stop,” you say, without looking back.
He follows you. Because of course he does.
“You’re going to catch a bus?”
“Yep.”
He laughs again, but this time it’s more disbelief than dry amusement.
“I’m offering you a perfectly good, no strings attached ride home, and you’d rather catch a bus?”
That makes you stop.
You turn around. “No strings attached?”
He lifts a shoulder. “If that’s what you want.”
“What I want?”
“If you want me to just drop you off, I’ll just drop you off.”
You stare at him for a second, your pulse pounding in your ears.
“Just drop me off?”
He nods slowly, his brow creasing slightly.
“And then what?” you ask.
He tilts his head. “What do you mean?”
“Then you just leave?”
“If that’s what you want.”
Your throat tightens. “Stop saying that.”
He frowns. “Saying what?”
“If that’s what I want.” You drag a hand through your hair. “You keep saying it like this is entirely up to me. Like none of this has anything to do with you. Like it’s my choice and you don’t get to say anything or—or feel anything, and that’s not fair.”
He studies you for a moment, folding his arms across his chest in the most irritatingly distracting way.
“What are we talking about here?”
“I don’t know!” You throw your hands up. “This. Us. Whatever this is. I don’t know what we’re doing anymore, Jack. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with any of this, and you just keep showing up being completely reasonable all the time, which is really fucking annoying.”
His eyes narrow. “I’m... too reasonable?”
“Yes! God—” You laugh once, sharp and humourless. “Why are you always like this? Why are you always so calm about everything? We never talk about what you want. We never talk about how you feel. We just keep pretending everything’s fine and maybe that’s worked up until now, but I don't think it’s working anymore.”
“Okay,” he says evenly. “Tell me what’s not working, and we can talk about it.”
“Talk about it?” You stare at him. “Talk about what? There’s nothing to talk about, because this—this isn’t anything. This is casual, Jack. It’s supposed to be casual. And maybe that’s the problem. Maybe we’ve spent too much time together. Maybe we just need some space or—or something.”
His brows lift. “Is that what you want?”
You fold your arms, trying to reclaim some semblance of control. “Yes.”
Something that almost resembles amusement flickers across his face, but he schools it quickly.
“Okay,” he says again. “If you want space, I can give you space.”
“Seriously?” You let out another sharp laugh. “Of course that’s your answer. Do you see what I mean? This is exactly what I mean. I stand here and tell you maybe we need some space, and you’re just... okay with it? Just like that? No questions, no argument, no nothing.”
A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Do you want me to argue?”
“Maybe!” You throw your hands up again. “I don’t know, Jack! Maybe I want something. Anything. Just some indication that this means something to you. Because every time I say something, you just... accept it. You just nod and go along with it like none of this affects you at all. Like if I said I wanted space, you’d give me space. If I said I wanted to end this, you’d end it. If I said I never wanted to see you again, you’d just stand there being completely calm and reasonable and tell me that’s okay too.”
You let out a shaky laugh, shaking your head as you look away.
“And don’t tell me that’s not true, because you spent half the night in Central Nine with your ex and I spent the rest of the shift pretending I wasn’t paying attention to that, which is insane, by the way. Completely insane. She was a patient. You’re a doctor. I know that. I know I’m being irrational.”
You tip your head back, squeezing your eyes shut for just a second before looking back at him.
“And that’s the worst part, because I know none of this is actually about her. That’s the problem. It’s not about her at all. It’s about the fact that you’re always fine. You’re always so calm and so reasonable and so completely unbothered, and I don’t know how you do that.” You let out an unsteady breath. “It's like—like none of this matters to you. Like you don’t care. Like you could just walk away from everything, from me, and be completely fine.”
Your chest is rising and falling too fast now, your heart is beating so hard you’re almost sure he can hear it.
He doesn’t say anything right away. He just watches you, the corners of his mouth softened by something that looks suspiciously like fondness. And suddenly you’re struck by the horrible suspicion that he understands exactly what you’ve been trying so hard not to say.
“You think I could just walk away from this and be completely fine?” he asks, his voice soft. “You think I could walk away from you?”
He steps closer, the toes of his boots barely inches from yours now.
“When this started, it was casual. I knew that. I knew you were seeing other people. I knew you didn’t want a relationship—and if that’s still not what you want, then okay. I’m not going to pressure you into something you’re not ready for. I’m not trying to be overly reasonable, and I’m certainly not trying to make you feel like you’re losing your mind.”
The corner of his mouth twitches.
“When I ask you what you want, it’s not because I don’t care what happens. It’s because I do. It’s because I’d rather be patient than push you into something before you’re ready for it. And if space is what you need right now, then I’ll give you space.”
His gaze holds yours.
“But don’t mistake that for indifference. Because there’s no version of this where walking away from you is easy. There’s no version of this where I don’t care. And if one day you tell me that’s what you really want, then I’ll respect it. Not because it’s what I want. Not because what I feel doesn’t matter. But because I respect you.”
His expression softens again.
“Do you understand?”
You nod slowly, your throat suddenly too tight for words.
“Now listen to me.”
He lifts a hand and pinches your chin gently between his thumb and forefinger.
“I know you’ve had a long shift. I know you’re exhausted. I know you’re standing here trying to convince yourself you haven't completely lost your mind, and I’m not trying to make your day any harder than it already is—but I need you to hear this.”
His eyes search yours, earnest and unguarded.
“I love you too.”
For a moment, all you can do is stare at him. With your breath caught somewhere in your chest, your mouth slightly open, and your heart trying to punch its way through your ribcage.
His lips quirk. “You alright?”
“No,” you breathe.
And then you grab the front of his shirt and kiss him.
His hand drops from your chin to your neck, fingers pressing in just slightly as he kisses you back. Firm, unhurried, like he has all the time in the world and has decided, without hesitation, that he only wants to spend it on you.
He steps closer, tilting your head back as his mouth parts against yours. A soft, helpless little noise breaks at the back of your throat, and you can feel his lips curl in satisfaction. Then he kisses you harder, deeper, his other hand finding your waist as his tongue presses past your lips.
You step in until there’s nothing left between you. Nothing but hospital scrubs and the fact that you’re standing in the middle of a public parking lot right now.
And for a second, neither of you seems to care.
The hand at your waist slides higher, pulling you closer as his mouth moves slower. Not because he wants less, but because he knows he’s got you. Because after months of patience and uncertainty, he knows he can finally take his time.
Your fingers bunch tighter in the front of his shirt, and he smiles again.
“Don’t,” you murmur against his mouth.
He doesn’t say anything. He just kisses you again, gentler this time. A lingering press of his mouth against yours. Then another. His thumb brushes against your neck as he tilts his head, stealing one more kiss that feels almost unfairly tender after the way he’d just been holding you.
Then he pulls back completely.
You stare at him.
He stares back.
Your lips are still tingling, your hands are still fisted in the front of his shirt, and your heart is still beating hard enough to crack a rib.
The corner of his mouth lifts a little higher.
“Still catching the bus?”
You immediately let go of his shirt. “Shut up.”
He laughs properly then, letting you turn away and start marching toward one end of the parking lot.
“My car’s the other way,” he calls.
You stop, close your eyes, then slowly turn around.
Jack is still standing exactly where you left him, with his hands in his pockets and looking entirely too pleased with himself.
“Shut up,” you say again.
His smile only widens.
You roll your eyes and start walking again, brushing past him with as much dignity as someone can reasonably muster after having a complete emotional breakdown and then immediately making out with their boss.
You don’t need to look back to know he’s following you.
You just know.
And by the time you finally reach his car, you realise you’re smiling.
WHAT 2 year and 7k follower celebration event!
WHEN june 7 - june 13
TAGS #mariassummerinsantorini & #mariaversegetaway
THE EMAIL ❀ PASSPORTS ❀ PLAYLIST ❀ MAIN EVENT POST ❀ LET THE GODS DECIDE YOUR FATE ❀ MOODBOARD
DAILY DOSE OF VITAMIN SEA
SUNDAY❀ airbnb listing - day 1 recap
MONDAY ❀ what's in your suitcase? - day 2 recap
TUESDAY ❀ which pitt character do you hook up with on vacay? - day 3 recap
WEDNESDAY ❀ drunk texts - day 4 recap
THURSDAY ❀ build your drink - day 5 recap
FRIDAY ❀ the girls' digital footprint - day 6 recap
SATURDAY ❀ villa closet tour
UNPLANNED PIT(T) STOPS
airbnb rules
flight seat assignments leaked
claim your boarding pass
passport stamp reblogs
DRABBLES
— REBLOGS KEEP FANDOM ALIVE —
𖤓 fluff 𖦹 angst 𓇼 smut
MICHAEL ROBINAVITCH
𓇼 WATERMELON SUGAR robby makes eating watermelon look indecently seductive, and you’re convinced he’s torturing you on purpose.
𖤓 HELIOPHILIA one flimsy bikini, twelve ignored sun lectures, and robby decides to turn preventative medicine into a hands-on experience
𖤓𖦹 PHTHONUS during a midnight swim, robby watches you laughing in the water with whitaker and realizes just how ugly his jealousy can get.
FRANK LANGDON
𓇼 THE PERFECT DEATH you and frank get caught having sex in the outdoor shower when a coworker comes looking for it after the beach
𖤓 HINDSIGHT 20/20 langdon discovers you wear glasses!
𖤓 STRINGS ATTACHED (SOMETIMES) during a beach volleyball match, a wardrobe malfunction forces frank into an awkward rescue
𖤓 SEE SOMETHING YOU LIKE? during a night out, frank gets cornered by your relentless flirting and finds himself giving in more than usual
𓇼 GUILTY PLEASURE you hook up with frank while his girlfriend is upstairs and the line between pleasure and guilt gets very blurry, very fast.
𖤓 GOOD AS NEW frank tries to impress you with a stolen rental scooter. it goes about as well as expected. at least he helps take care of the damage.
𖤓 BRACHYURA langdon discovers your weakness: being correct. you discover his: needing to argue with you about it
𖤓 MRS. LANGDON HAS A RING TO IT after a swim leaves your hair tangled, frank ends up helping you brush it in the bathroom.
𖤓 IF SELENE IS LISTENING frank coaxes an overtired tired, tipsy you into his lap and takes over the job of being your caretaker
JACK ABBOT
𖤓 DIAMOND CUT after your engagement ring causes a small injury, you seek comfort from your favorite doctor
𓇼 A VERY PUBLIC OFFERING you and jack finally get a second alone on vacation, so he bends you over the balcony and fucks you while everyone else drinks downstairs.
𖤓 HERODEON you set out to explore athens alone, only to end up with an uninvited travel companion
𖤓 PARASITIC you get caught in a sudden rainstorm with jack
𖤓 TIGER SHARKS you lose your bikini top and decide to use jack as a human shield
𖤓 ANDROMEDA the girls keep trying to set you up on vacation. that is, until they find the senior attending in your bed and realize why you keep shutting them down
𖤓 LITTLE MISS PRIM-AND-PROPER when the crew discovers your secret tramp stamp, jack accidentally reveals he knows far more about it than he should
𖤓 MERLOT ON GRAY COTTON when your suitcase gets lost on the way to greece, jack abbot lends you clothes to get by. between nosy coworkers, spilled wine, and jack's teasing, the situation becomes much harder to survive than it should be.
𖤓 MISSED OPPORTUNITIES you're oblivious; jack's permanently flirting. turns out all you needed was a nudge (and a kiss).
𖤓 SISTINE CHAPEL you are trying to read on the beach. jack abbot is nearby shirtless. this proves to be a problem.
𖤓 VACAY-YOU on vacation abbot realizes the version of you from the er isn't the only one that exists
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