summary: you find baran’s instagram and talk to her about why ai is harmful.
taglist: @somemetallyillbitch @killah28 @bigstupids @lovvrr @mil1an @noprophet @escapereality4music @angryoilslick516 @mxtokko @abbotitts @wewerewildandflourescent @likesomethingidk @longfulforlee @winstonhelp @sadoutlaw @theworldscalamity @bsttwice @randomstuff02sblog @beingniceisntahobby @geekyandgay98 @cmckaysdollpuppy @banginglikeahurricane @hehehehahahohohuhu @eatmykittycatt @midnitewaves @dixondeer @moonshoesdekarios @secretlyurfemmwife — i attach my taglist to any series of mine. send your username to my inbox or comment to be added/removed.
summary: with robby taking a sabbatical, a new attending comes in to cover for him. a beautiful, hot, smart milf attending.
taglist: @somemetallyillbitch @killah28 @bigstupids @lovvrr @mil1an @noprophet @escapereality4music @angryoilslick516 @mxtokko @abbotitts @wewerewildandflourescent @likesomethingidk @longfulforlee @winstonhelp @sadoutlaw @theworldscalamity @bsttwice @randomstuff02sblog @beingniceisntahobby @geekyandgay98 @cmckaysdollpuppy @banginglikeahurricane @hehehehahahohohuhu @eatmykittycatt — i attach my taglist to any series of mine. send your username to my inbox or comment to be added/removed.
summary: you end up getting into a casual arrangement with your older woman work crush cassie mckay.
taglist: @somemetallyillbitch @killah28 @bigstupids @lovvrr @mil1an @noprophet @escapereality4music @angryoilslick516 @mxtokko @abbotitts @wewerewildandflourescent @likesomethingidk @longfulforlee @winstonhelp @sadoutlaw @theworldscalamity @bsttwice @randomstuff02sblog @beingniceisntahobby — i attach my taglist to any series of mine. send your username to my inbox or comment to be added/removed.
you're seriously the best mel writer here, especially with the smut, you capture her essence in something that a lot of fans dont view her capable of, it never feels out of character
can i humbly request mel x healthcare!reader🙏🏻 not necessarily someone in the ER but someone that worked on a patient w her, like the delivery episode that had a nameless OBGYN
xoxo
✉️ AWWW you are so kind! I'm just doing my part & trying to keep some of the wlw mel community alive :,) means the world to me that you have nice things to say about my writing :,) love u nonie! but yes! ofc <3 hope u enjoyyyyy xx so many kisses to u
demure! inaccurate medical info, reader is kind of stand-offish but she's soft at heart <3, mentions of pittfest, mentions of a praise kink (reader talks mel through a procedure), garcia antics, not proofread wc 2.9k
If you were being honest, you didn’t hate being called down to the ED.
You liked to think that you were down to Earth despite the reputation preceding your profession. The whole concept of surgeons believing they were above those who treated disorders without getting knuckle deep in a body may have been true for some; you’d certainly met your fair share of superiors who reinforced that, but from your side, you knew that was the furthest from the truth.
Maybe it was because you were initially withdrawn before starting med school, before being matched, but you were an observer more than anything else. Didn’t talk much apart from answering questions or asking them–preferring to keep your personal life to yourself despite the two other girls that started residency at the same time as you, because there were things co-workers simply did not need to know. That reservation earned you quite a few props when you were still a student, your residents and supervisors always claiming you were a joy to work with when really you just shut up and got the job done instead of making inquiries about every little thing. You weren’t there to make friends; you were there to learn how to save people. Talking someone’s ear off wasn’t going to do that. Learning favorite foods and preferred activities when off the clock wasn’t going to teach you how to handle peripheral nerves to address trauma and relieve chronic pain.
There was no interest on your side of things, so you tried not to take it personally when people in the department joked about your constant RBF. You had to remind yourself you didn’t know these people really, and they didn’t know you. That they were just getting caught up in their own minds, and what they perceived, maybe because of that superiority complex that would apparently sink its claws into you eventually.
But then, also, that was you assuming, not reading facts, which is what others did with you, and maybe that was why you didn’t get involved: people were too complicated.
Tensions could heighten in the operating room, with an individual’s life obviously on the line, but it also gave people too much time to talk. Which you didn’t necessarily hate, but it was like an itch on your foot that you could never really get–persistent and lingering with just enough presence to be agitating. It was off-topic and distracting for others, more specifically you, and it wasn’t something you understood.
Which was one of the reasons you actually liked the ER. There was never enough time for people to find tangents or philosophicals to go off on. It was simple statistics and facts, more often than not, the usual pattern of: new case, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment. You had to give credit that there was normally at least one thing that went wrong, but usually the only words exchanged were those of finding and verdict, everyone being so focused on the rapid influx of patients and things to do that there were no spare moments to discuss upcoming vacations or what everyone was having for dinner.
The people were erratic, but the environment was one you felt like you could thrive in.
And you thought you did a good job whenever you were called down. With the cases and the staff, even if you received lingering glances that you chalked up to your stoicism. But you weren’t mean. Straightforward, sure, but you never gave out playful insults like Garcia from general surgery or chewed newer residents out for mistakes like Baker from cardiology. That had to be something worth noticing. It wasn’t like you were down in the ED every day. Plus, not that many people cared enough to notice little things anyway.
At least, not until Mel.
The first time you met her, it wasn’t for the case you’d been paged for. But she’d still come up to you after you’d exited the trauma bay, ripping off the blue latex gloves and dropping them into the trash, rubbing hand sanitizer over your skin as she’d sped past you. Basically a blur to your eyes before she stopped, shoes squeaking on the tile before she’d whipped her head back around, braid following the movement.
Awkwardly, you could still remember the way you slowly moved, fingers still clasped as your brows furrowed and lips pressed together. Her eyes had flicked around behind her glasses almost as quickly as her limbs were apparently capable of moving, like you were some kind of spectacle, intrigue clear on her face. Her hands hovered gauchely by her hips as the corners of her mouth finally ticked up, making the corners of her eyes crinkle in the sweetest way that strangely made something in your chest squeeze.
“Hi,” she’d started, fully turning to face you. “We haven’t met yet. What’s your name?”
It had been her first day at the PTMC. She’d told you she was trying to meet and remember every single person, every new face that she saw in the ED. She was intense the first time you met her, in the way sunlight could be too bright sometimes, and you felt like any longer than half an hour with her would require you to curl up in your room, alone, for double that. You could appreciate the effort, though. Especially when transitioning to such a chaotic place.
So, you’d given her a half smile and your name, accompanied by a brief, ‘Good luck.’
And you’d seen her later that evening after the absolute disaster of PittFest, shuffling through the staff parking lot with her hands tucked into her pockets. You weren’t sure what had compelled you to approach her, taking part of your habit that you needed to break where you would near someone and remain close until they noticed you first. Mel didn’t seem to care, though. It was like part of her had dulled, a complete contrast from what you’d seen that morning, and strangely, it was the first time you found yourself concerning over someone’s life outside of Pittsburgh Mercy.
You’d given her your number if she needed anything.
She texted you the next day, telling you that things went much better than yesterday’s meltdown. Even if you hadn’t specifically asked for it. It was like she saw right through your front to that piece of your mind that was caught on her, catching itself up with worry, and identified that, maybe, it could morph into something more if she was just persistent enough.
But even a week later, with text message threads plaguing both of your phones, you still hadn’t worked with her. Somehow, your curiosity about her remained.
The ED is clearly short-staffed, more than usual, when you arrive, elevator doors sliding open to reveal the long white hallways that stem from the central nurse’s station. They’re lined with spare gurneys that contain patients who are more often than not sleeping. When some try to stop you as you pass, you pay them no mind, pretending like their words are too quiet for you to pick up on as you fix your scrub cap–one you’d received from the resident in your department that had gotten you for Secret Santa the previous year, a dark plum with doodles of moons and stars over the fabric.
“Well. Look who finally decided to rejoin polite society.”
You don’t bother to hide your eye roll at Garcia’s remark, shrugging on the surgical gown with a sloppy knot before reaching for a pair of gloves. Polite was not a select word for her. “What’ve we got?” you venture instead, glancing over to Robby as you round up to the patient’s head. A man, balding thankfully, so at least you wouldn’t have to deal with hair.
Out of the corner of your eye, you see the man nod, eyes directed elsewhere. When you follow his gaze, your eyes meet Mel’s. The expression that flickers across her face is akin to the stutter that occurs in your chest. Eyes that flutter before widening as her mouth opens for a split second, with her lips pressing back together when she swallows. The lighting is harsh, but beneath her dirty-blonde strands pulled back into that braid she’s so fond of, you think the tips of her ears turn pink. You look away quickly, back to the patient.
“29-year-old male that took a fall doing household work off a ladder,” she rambles off hastily after her pause, shifting closer to you to the point where you can feel her presence on your right side. Hovering. Something warm and unfamiliar to you that you would usually push away from. “There’s a depressed skull fracture sunken 8 millimeters actively pressing into brain tissue, according to CT and the neurological exam. Minor CSF leak out of the wound–”
“Alright,” you say softly with a tiny nod, mind already moving miles a minute as you shift your front towards hers to let Mel a bit closer to you. “We’re gonna elevate the bone.” She doesn’t look at you despite this being the closest you’ve ever been. You don’t pick up any kind of scent on her, but you notice the way her tongue keeps darting out to wet her lips. The work of her throat as she swallows and the tiny freckle under her right eye. “Sound familiar?”
Mel’s brows raise a bit, but she still nods, movement of her hands jerky as she lifts them–that same speedy pace you’d first seen her with. Around the two of you, a few of the nurses bustle through the trauma bay, prepping the tray of materials you would need. Your focus stays on her, though–the increased rate of breathing, how her eyes keep darting around, the slight tremor in her hands as you hand her the scalpel, your other hand indicating where to cut over the scalp with your pinky.
“Everything okay?” you ask her softly as she makes the incision, perfectly curving the blade around the injury site as she lets out a small breath from her mouth.
Her work is steady. Her hands move swiftly with a kind of assuredness her face seems to lack as she keeps her eyes glued to the patient. “Mhm,” she hums, setting the scalpel down.
“Okay,” you say slowly, eyes lingering on her face before one of your hands moves to grip her knuckles with your fingers. You feel her body stiffen next to you, but there’s no resistance as you guide her to pull the scalp flap back. “Fractured bone wedges tightly together, so you’re gonna make a burr hole right next to the fracture,” you trail off as you let go of her, leaving her hand right where she should work as you retrieve the surgical drill. “You’re doing good, but I’m right here if you need anything.”
A muscle in her throat flexes, her mouth turning down at the corners as her eyes flutter. Still, it’s like the rest of her body is disconnected from whatever’s going on in her own mind as she makes the small hole, earning another mumble of approval from you.
“Good,” you whisper, leaning a little closer to her as you look over the spot. “Alright, grab that elevator next to you,” you instruct, not paying mind to how she jolts to follow the direction, coming to assume that’s simply how she works. It went along with her normal movements, and as long as she capably finished the trauma, you would be satisfied.
Satisfied from watching her complete the work by herself, but you find yourself reaching for her hand again. Her bicep hovers near your chest, your chin almost on her shoulder as you help her ease the tool to use the upward leverage against the depressed fragments. “Just… gentle pressure– Like that, yup.”
“Do I have to hold it?” Mel asks, voice a little airy as you watch her work. Her fingers flexing beneath the gloves, your eyes glued to the way they curl and how her brows furrow as she concentrates.
“No,” you mumble as her honey colored eyes finally flit briefly to yours. Something in your knees weakens as you fight to not let your gaze fall to her mouth. “I’ll suture the dura mater and then keep the fragments together with tiny biocompatible plates and screws– Look back down, you’re doing great.”
“Sorry,” Mel breathes, jaw clenching as she eases the last piece back into place before slowly removing the instrument and looking back to you.
“Good job,” you say with a nod of approval before taking her place to begin your suturing. Mel remains close by you, close enough that if you concentrated enough on her, you could almost imagine the soft puffs of air from her breathing brushing over your neck. “It’s like doing a puzzle,” you continue, feeling like you need to fill the sudden quiet apart from the gentle beeping of monitors.
When you glance up, the weight of eyes from both Robby and Garcia has something bristling inside of you. Garcia’s smirking a little, arms folded over her stomach with a kind of smug expression on her face, and Robby is just blatantly staring.
“Oh,” Mel utters, but you sense the way her eyes never leave your profile. “I don’t like doing those kinds of things.”
You glance at her before looking back down to make another suture. “Detail-oriented things?”
She shakes her head, and you see the corners of her mouth lift out of the corner of your eye. “Tiny things? They kind of freak me out, I don’t know.”
A small hum leaves you as you tie off the stitch, “Which is why… you’re down here.” You return her smile with a brief lift of your own lips before getting started on securing the bones. “You guys can go,” you add, along with an undisguised glare in Garcia’s direction.
“I didn’t say anything,” she says, lifting her hands in mock surrender with that stupid grin still on her mouth. Your eyes track her as she exits the trauma bay before flicking back over to Robby, who copies her action of showing you his palms, but with an added shake of his head, before he’s directed out of the bay as well.
With a tiny huff, you return to your work. Mel doesn’t move.
Still hovering, still watching.
Gradually, you tilt your chin to look at her again, her own eyes instantly shooting up to the ceiling like it was the most interesting thing in the world.
“Mel,” you say softly, watching as her eyebrows twitch up when her eyes lock with yours again. “You did good.”
“Thank you,” she chirps, her hands coming together in front of her chest so she can fidget with her fingers. “This is my first neurosurgery case here,” she continues as your hands remain busy with the screws over the final fracture piece. “Which is sort of alarming since the parts of the brain are so intricate, so it’s relieving that it was a skull fracture– Not that– Not that skull fractures are good, but–”
She lets out a long sigh before falling silent.
“But it was less pressure,” you finish for her, the relief of your understanding evident on her face as her shoulders seem to relax, her hands dropping to hand in front of her.
“Yes,” she confirms. Then, quieter, “And I’m glad it was you that assisted."
That annoying pitter-patter of your heart resounds in your chest again. You would have to get that checked out. You clear your throat as you finish, finally stepping back and away from her. “Rinse that with saline and close the incision with surgical staples,” you say, tone soft and a little short as a kind of nervousness surges through you.
You had to get out before you said something stupidly soft.
“Thank you!” Mel calls as you rip your gloves and PPE off, running your freed hand over your forehead before pushing one of the doors open without another word. The ER hasn’t slowed, it never will, but it’s oddly easier to breathe out here. A slow sigh is pushed from your lips as you harshly shove your hand under the dispenser for hand sanitizer, the liquid splattering a little when you clap your hands together.
“You guys are sweet–”
“Shut up,” you mumble, focusing on rubbing the alcohol into your knuckles and between your fingers as Garcia falls into step beside you.
She doesn’t get the message. Or, no, she definitely does, she just ignores it for the opportunity to tease.
“She was nervous ‘cause you were touching her, y’know,” Garcia remarks, snark in her tone, and that grin on her mouth was going to drive you back up to your department, never to return if she was anywhere in the vicinity. “Mel doesn’t struggle with nervousness during procedures.”
“She did well,” you offer quietly.
Garcia scoffs, “Considering you were talking her through it, she did amazing.” You purse your lips together, restraining from snapping at her as your hands fall to your sides, the elevator thankfully coming into view as you cringe internally. “Question–”
“Don’t want it.”
“–Do you normally talk that much to people who have a praise kink?”
Heat spreads over your face, but you keep your chin up. Eyes forward. “Maybe I just don’t like talking to you,” you grumble as you finally reach the elevator.
It’s like Garcia’s laugh follows you all the way back up to neurology. That, and the feeling of Mel’s hand in your own.
let my love keep you safe now - baran al-hashimi x reader· ༻𐫱༺· 1.9k words ·༻𐫱༺· med school!au (part four)
fic summary: you have been dating your girlfriend, baran, for about 6 months when she asks you to come with her to celebrate nowruz and meet her family. suffice to say, you’re scared shitless.....
tags: tooth rotting fluff, soft!baran, baran is a middle child, mentions of seizures, kissing, suggestive but it's blink and you'll miss it
You hadn’t been looking for Darius intentionally as you made a lap around the crowded Al-Hashimi house, but you found him nonetheless, in the kitchen, cleaning glasses. At first you didn’t go in, because who retreats to the kitchen to clean during a family party? but maybe he just needed something to do with his hands. And you had enough experience in the past two hours with being overwhelmed with the amount of people in the house that you decided to go in.
Darius, Baran's oldest brother, was enormous. He was taller than Cyrus and Arash by a few inches and broader than both of them put together. Like Babak, he had Baran's exact same jaw and long lashes and big eyes. That comforted you, even with the knowledge that similar appearance had no bearing on personality.
Looking like her didn't mean he'd like you the way she did. But. A girl could dream.
You had been wanting to introduce yourself to him all night and kept getting pulled sideways by someone else.
"Hey," you said from the doorway. "You're Darius?"
"Yeah."
"I'm Y/N. Sorry it took me so long — Arash keeps intercepting me."
"Sounds right," he said, and kept doing the glasses.
You came in anyway, leaning against the counter on the other side of the kitchen. There wasn't really anywhere else to go with the conversation so you just stood there for a second, which was fine. You were okay with quiet. Baran had told you once, way early on, that this was one of the things she liked about you, and you'd daydreamt about it more times than you'd admit.
"Do you need a hand?"
"I'm almost done."
He finished, dried his hands, and folded the dish towel over the oven handle. Then he just stood there too.
You both looked out the window above the sink. Some of the cousins were in the backyard arguing about something with a level of intensity that suggested teams had been chosen and grievances were being aired. From the living room Babak said, very loudly, "That's literally not how football works," and three people started talking over him at once.
"It's a beautiful house," you said.
"Mm."
"The haft-sin especially. Your mom's?"
"She sets it up herself every year." He opened the cabinet above the fridge, took down two glasses. "Won't let anybody touch it."
"I believe it."
He poured himself more scotch and held the second glass out to you.
You shook your head. "If I have another drink your aunt's going to beat me at cards again."
"She's been hustling people since 2009."
You laughed outwardly but inwardly cheered with joy. It had been looking grim for a moment there, but he was normal! He was joking with you! You’d been really ready for this to be hard.
"She talks about you," he said after a minute.
"Good things, hopefully."
"Some."
You smiled despite yourself.
He took a drink. "How long have you two been together?"
You smiled proudly. "Six months."
"That's not that long."
Your smile faltered a little, your heart fluttering nervously in your chest again. “Sure. I guess not.”
October flashed through your mind. Three weeks in, Baran calling her mother, and the sting that you hadn't even known until today. Then, the weight of her hand in yours in the driveway, squeezing three times. I. Love. You.
"But I—" you started, and then had to find the words. "I don't think the timeline is really the point. For us."
"The last person she brought home made it eight months," he said. "Then left when it got complicated."
You felt something chilling in the room. So much for this being an easy interaction.
"What made it complicated?" you asked. You had enough self-preservation not to assume.
His expression turned suspicious. "You don't know?”
"....I guess not. I'm not sure what you're referring to," you said carefully.
He held your gaze for another second, then looked back at the dish towel. "Never mind."
You felt your heart pulse a little faster in your chest. "If there's something you believe I should know…."
Darius was quiet as he set down his scotch, picking up a napkin to wipe the dampness the chill of the glass had left on his palms.
"She hasn't had an easy time trusting anyone since she left home," he said.
"I know," you said. "She's working on that."
His eyebrows went up slightly.
"We both are," you amended.
He looked back out the window half-wistfully and half-dismissively, and in the silence your mind followed the thread of the conversation to where it was pointing and you realized, quietly, what he meant.
"The seizures," you said. Not planning to, exactly — just following the thread. "Is that what you mean? When you say complicated?"
Apparently that was a shocking statement for you to make though you really weren't sure why. Darius’ expression was fixed firmly on yours.
"She told you about them?”
"In November," you said carefully, suddenly aware you'd walked into a room you hadn't known was there. "Should… she not have? I haven't told anyone, if that's—"
"No, it's fine," Darius said, shaking his head. "I’m just surprised. She usually keeps that stuff locked down. Her last boyfriend didn't even know the half of it."
You blinked. “Oh. Well, yes. We’ve talked about it on multiple occasions.”
"Damn. She usually just avoids it entirely," Darius shrugged, taking a sip. "Guess she actually trusts you."
You thought about Baran in your apartment three months ago, cross-legged on your bed, hands held still. There's something I want to tell you.
You saw some of that solemnity in Darius now. He really did have Baran's eyes. The emotion in them that was so beyond familiar to you.
"She was five," Darius said. "When she got sick”
You nodded. You remembered the story. “How old were you?”
He took another swig of his drink. “Ten.”
You frowned, hands coming off the counter so you could fidget with your fingers. Ten years old.
“That’s very young.”
He shrugged.
“Do you remember it well?”
He turned the glass slowly in his hand. "I remember the hospital and she was all worked up because she didn’t understand why she kept losing time. Why she'd be somewhere and then not be somewhere." He stopped. "She still hates not knowing when it will happen."
"I know," you said softly.
"Do you?"
"Yeah." You watched Baran across the room, the ease of her, the bright unhurried sureness that you loved so much. "She doesn't talk about it a lot. But sometimes I can tell she's thinking about it. When she's tired especially. She gets a little quieter."
Darius said nothing.
"She's the least fragile person I've ever met," you said. "I would never dare treat her like she is. She wouldn’t even let me if I tried. But I know to take it seriously. I have since November."
The room was loud around you both. Arash somewhere across it was apparently doing a bit that had three of your cousins in pieces. Setareh was calling something from the kitchen. The football commentary drifted from the other room.
Darius uncrossed his arms.
"She doesn't have to do everything alone," you said.
Darius chuckled fondly. "I don’t disagree, but fair warning. She's been like that since she was four. So, good luck to you.”
“I’ll keep trying.”
“Power to you. Let me know how it goes."
You smiled. "I will."
—
You told Baran all of this in her childhood bedroom that she’d pulled you into for some quiet before the actual dinner part of the party started, sitting on her beanbag with your shoes off and your feet up on the edge of her bed and the party still audible through the walls of the house.
You told her about the window and the drink and the question he'd asked you, and the moment with the walnut, and she listened to all of it with her elbow on the door and her chin in her hand, watching you adoringly.
"Well, Darius said he likes you," she said. "In case you were wondering."
"I figured," you smiled. Then, because you wanted her to know: "I mentioned the seizures. Not in a — I wasn't trying to prove anything, it just came out. I'm sorry if that was—"
"Hey." Baran reached over and took your hand. "Stop."
You stopped.
"That doesn’t matter to me,” she reassured you, playing with your fingers. “I trust you with that part of me, which also means if you tell someone I trust that decision. I know you wouldn’t ever misuse that information.”
You smile with downturned lips, kissing her wrist.
“Oh, and thank you," she continues. "For going over to him. You didn't have to do that."
"I didn't know I was doing anything," you said honestly. "I just saw a guy who looked like you and thought it was a safe bet."
Baran laughed, sudden and soft. She turned your hand over in hers, traced the lines of your palm with one finger.
"Thirty-three people," she said quietly.
"Thirty-two people now," you corrected. “I can scratch your scary brothers off the list.”
"How do you feel?"
You thought about it. The kitchen and the walnuts and Setareh's laugh. Arash inserting himself everywhere. Babak at the door, grinning. Darius at the window, going still.
"Like I don't want to leave," you said.
Baran squeezed your hand once, then tugged you up off the beanbag. You yelped a little bit at the force as you stumbled, slamming down on her twin-sized bed right next to her. She wasted no time in rolling you onto your back and climbing over your body.
The mattress dipped under Baran's weight, the twin bed creaking slightly as she straddled you. Her dark curls frame her face like a halo in the dim light of her childhood bedroom and she looked so stunning like this, hovering over you with those big brown eyes full of something warm and possessive.
Your eyes sparkled, fingers wrapping around her waist. “Hello.”
“Hi,” she breathed. Her dark curls fell around her face like a curtain as she cupped your cheek with one hand, the other braced beside your head.
Her face hovered inches above yours, dark eyes searching — always searching, like she needed to make sure you were comfortable every time. Then her mouth crashed into yours, hungry and warm.
You kissed back just as fiercely, hands sliding up the thin fabric of her top to press against the small of her back. The weight of Baran in your lap was familiar by now, the curve of her hips, the swell of her chest, the feel of her always-warm fingers on the back of your neck.
When she finally pulled back an inch or two, it wasn't far enough for you to stop chasing after more kisses. You caught at least one more on instinct before Baran smirked against your mouth.
"You're nervous," she breathed into your mouth.
"No I’m not," you lied automatically.
"Mhm? What’s this?” Her palm then pressed against the left side of your chest, your traitorous heart beating erratically through your blouse.
Baran's smirk widened as she felt the frantic rhythm beneath her hand, pressing her palm a little firmer just to feel it leap again.
“You’re cute,” she grinned, pecking your cheek. “Why are you so worked up?”
You opened your mouth to say something smart, but nothing came out except a tiny exhale that sounded suspiciously like a whimper.
Baran's teasing grin only grew as she watched you unravel under her touch.
She kissed your cheek again, then lower, grazing the corner of your jaw with soft lips-before finally landing on yours in another slow kiss.
This one wasn't gentle for long though; it deepened almost immediately when Baran tilted her head and slipped her tongue into your mouth.
The absurdity of it — the fact that you were making out on Baran’s childhood bed like horny teenagers while her entire extended family lounged just downstairs — should’ve been mortifying, but Baran’s mouth was just a little too skilled and all logic evaporated when her tongue slid against yours.
Baran let out a quiet sigh against your mouth before kissing you harder. Her fingers curled into the fabric of your blouse as she shifted lower on top of you... closer... closer…
Her door suddenly rattled with the force of the knock, deafening FBI-level pounds.
You both jumped apart so fast Baran nearly fell off the bed entirely.
“GAYS!” Arash boomed with glee, “You guys don’t have to eat each other, Maman made a ton of fucking food!”
Baran scrambled to sit up, her cheeks instantly pink.
"Fuck—Arash!" she hissed loudly, quickly trying to re-button up your top.
The doorknob jiggled ominously. "Open the doooooor," Arash demanded cheerfully.
“Go back downstairs!”
“You got five minutes before I send Baba up!”
"I'm going to kill him," Baran huffed, then sat back on her heels to make sure you looked put together once more.
You did. Baran, however — sweating, hair everywhere, swollen lips — totally did not. She did still look beautiful, though, under the chandelier of her room with the periodic table on the wall and the polaroids and medals hung on the corkboard.
If only her whole family wasn’t one floor below you. The hilarity of it all made the laugh come out of you properly: tickled, happy, helpless and real.
After a second, despite herself, Baran laughed too.
She pressed her forehead down against your collarbone and just stayed there for a moment, shoulders shaking. You put your hand in her hair. Let her catch her breath.
"We should go down," she said into your shirt.
"We should. We’re already being slow."
"Baran." Arash again, muffled through the door, sing-song. "Baaaaaran. The rice is getting cold—"
"One minute," she called back, lifting her head. Her lipstick had transferred very slightly to the corner of your mouth. She wiped it away with her thumb, carefully, and then smoothed your collar down with both hands.
You looked at her. She looked at you.
"Okay," she said quietly. "Let's go eat."
Baran took your hand as she pulled you up, laced her fingers through yours, and didn't let go. You went out the door together into the noise and the warmth and the smell of beef drifting up the stairs, and Arash took one look at the two of you and opened his mouth—
"Don't," Baran said.
He grinned so wide his face barely contained it, and wisely said nothing at all.
Pairing: Cassie McKay x F!Reader
Summary: After a long day you drop off flowers for your not-quite girlfriend only to get roped into dinner with her father.
Tags: fluff, overwhelmed Cassie, defining the relationship, reader is curvy (could just be read as not-skinny, dealer’s choice)
After the eighth date, Cassie let you take her up to your apartment above your shop. It was full of rugs, old books, half melted candles. The apartment held a cozy feeling that seeped deep into her bones.
The moment you opened the door, you were the perfect gentlewoman. You had offered her something to drink, lit an incense stick and then proceeded to crawl on her lap and make out with her like it was the end of the world. Your silky, satin skirt (the one that kissed every line and curve of your body, making Cassie’s mouth water), despite being longer than your knees, had fully bunched up around your waist.
It could have been due to Cassie’s hands seeking out more of your warm skin to touch and feel. Every move against you being electric, like she had just stuck her hand on a live wire. She was twitchy and shaky in all the ways that belied enjoyment and anticipation.
“You feel so good,” Cassie managed to say, between attacks from your lips.
“Please keep touching me, baby,” you replied. Your lips trailed under her jaw and Cassie couldn’t hide the shiver you caused. “Fuck that’s so hot.”
“You’re so hot,” Cassie grumbled. She played with the hem of your sweater. “May I?”
“Please,” you sighed, leaning closer to her body.
Cassie’s hands slipped under your sweater and you jumped at their chill, but didn’t complain. It didn’t take long for them to warm against your body heat. There was a split second where you panicked about what Cassie was thinking about you and your body. It wasn’t small or stick thin. You weren’t lithe like Cassie herself. Any fear flew away the moment Cassie squeezed you and said,
“Fucking beautiful, oh my god.”
“Baby,” you whined.
She readjusted so you were reclining against your couch while she hovered over you. A thin gold chain dangled in front of your face and you said,
“I think I believe in hypnotism now.”
“Why’s that?” She asked, still caging your body with hers.
“With that chain and those hands, I think I’d do anything you’d tell me to do right now. Probably thank you for it,” you nearly whispered. Keeping eye contact you hooked a leg around her hip, not even to pull her down but to add another point of contact between your bodies.
“Keep telling me stuff like that and I might believe I can,” she laughed.
“Have I mentioned how much I love your voice?” You asked. “I could listen to you read the shampoo bottle and it would be one of the hottest things I’ve ever heard.”
“You’re giving me an ego, sweetheart,” she croaked.
“Good,” you replied kissing her again.
Time dilated as you both held each other, alternating from makeouts to gentle kisses to soft touches. It was all pg-13; Cassie had been clear about wanting an emotional connection before sex. You were fine with that, though your vibrator had been receiving more of a workout lately.
Dating Cassie was fun. She was fun. She was clever and had a subtle wit about her that snuck up on you. Every touch of her hands made you smile. Being near her was so exhilarating you couldn’t imagine needing an adrenaline rush.
It was like every opinion you agreed on and every story was funnier than the last. She adored her son and seemed to care desperately about him. While she hadn’t said much about his dad, you got the impression that their coparenting was a bit tense. On the first date she had disclosed her addiction and minor criminal record.
“I want everything to be on the table before we move forward,” she had said.
“Do you plan on any more assaults?” You had replied.
“No,” she said with a quirk of her mouth.
“Then I’m good until you suggest otherwise.”
After her disclosure you never purchased alcohol with her and had thrown out any random beers or white claws that may have haunted the back of your fridge. It’s not like you drank enough for it to really impact you. And now with her back in your apartment you felt good that there was nothing in your space that might make her feel uncomfortable.
“You look really good on my couch,” you told her in between kisses, laying face to face. Her nose lightly brushed your own.
“Your couch is stupid comfortable,” she replied making you giggle.
“When do you have the relieve your babysitter?”
“I have another few minutes before I start getting grumpy texts from my dad,” she laughed.
“He sounds like a laugh,” you told her.
“He’s really great. I’m fucking lucky,” she said. Her arm trailed up your waist, settling on your ribs. Her thumb brushed the underside of your breast.
“I hope you know that the moment you leave, I’m going to grab my vibrator and cum so hard to the thought of going down on you,” you told her simply.
Her eyes dilated and she inhaled sharply.
“You’re really testing my self control here,” she murmured placing a soft kiss against your lips.
“Nope, not asking for anything more. Just reminding you that I’ll jump your fucking bones when you’re ready—when we’re both ready,” you said. “Until then, do not think I am not a fan of making out on my couch.”
“Making out with you is certainly my new favorite pastime,” she hummed, her tongue tracing the seam of your lips.
“I think it’s an underrated experience,” you sighed. “I could do this for the rest of my life and be content. Even if I’d go through vibrators like a motherfucker.”
Cassie snorted and rolled you over so you were draped on top of her, face buried against her neck. You both relaxed against each other, but right when you were about to doze the alarm on her phone went off, signifying that the date was over and she had to get back to her son.
You whined as she sat up.
“Harrison goes back to his dad’s next week,” Cassie told you conversationally. She was sliding her belt back through her pants. You didn't even remember it coming off. Her sweater followed. You did remember that coming off to show her tank top and more specifically her shoulders.
Collapsed against the back of the couch you watched her dress and check for her keys and phone. God she was so hot.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she said.
“Like what?”
“Like you want to eat me.”
“I’m not a liar, Cassie,” you replied simply. When she was ready you stood and walked her to the door.
To your surprise (and undignified squeak), she pushed you against the door jam and kissed you soundly.
“I really like you,” she said.
“I really like you, too.”
“Next week, maybe we could have an overnight date?” She asked.
You grinned. “Yes please.”
-- -- --
Cassie was leaning over the computer looking at baffling test results.
“You know,” Dana said slowly.
“I really don’t,” Cassie replied. “How the fuck does she have a normal white blood cell count.”
“Not what I was talking about,” replied Dana.
“Wait, what?”
“You’ve seemed chipper the last couple weeks.”
“I had Harrison,” Cassie told her.
“Uh-huh, I don’t think Harrison gave you that hickey,” Dana whispered.
“I don’t have a hickey,” Cassie scoffed. She had explicitly asked you not to leave visible marks. So while she did have a hickey a couple inches under her collarbone above the swell of her tit, she knew there wasn’t one where Dana could see.
“You should pull up your shirt,” Dana whispered.
Cassie immediately straightened and yanked the tank top up under her scrub shirt. Fuck, who all had seen that? A surreptitious glance around suggested no one else was paying attention to her. She didn’t mind people knowing about her personal life, necessarily. God knows, it had blown up at work more than once. But she kind of wanted to keep this to herself until she knew what it was.
“Thank you,” Cassie replied stiffly.
“Someone new then?”
“Yeah, she works near one of the street team stops and she asked me out,” Cassie whispered out of the side of her mouth.
“Why do you sound surprised by that?” asked Dana.
“I’m not exactly on the younger side of forty anymore,” Cassie laughed.
“So?”
Cassie paused. “Maybe I’m just nervous that she’s more interested in dating a doctor or something.”
Cassie briefly thought about the hungry look that lived on your face while she was getting dressed the other night.
“Or maybe I’m just letting nerves get to me,” she amended.
“That sounds more likely,” Dana agreed. “Can I see a picture?”
Cassie’s eyes scanned around looking for any eavesdroppers. Sighing she pulled her phone out of her pocket and showed Dana a photo of you at the small, amateur theater show you both went to. You had on a sleeveless dress that showed your art covered arms and jewelry laden chest.
“Wow,” Dana whistled. “She’s something. Is it serious?”
“Not yet, maybe soon.”
“Well, if it’s serious by the time my Christmas party rolls around, you better bring her,” Dana said.
“If it lasts that long, I will. But you know how dating is when you’re a medical worker and a mom.”
“Technically, I don’t. But I’ve seen it. The difference is that you’re not self destructive.”
“Well, not anymore.”
Dana walked away chuckling.
For the past six years whenever Cassie’s interest and energy aligned she had sought out companionship. Most of the time in one night stands or short flings. It hadn’t every felt like something she wanted to last longer than a few dates. But now with you….
Well, she knew she was holding off on sex because she was afraid of repeating her avoidant patterns. She really, really liked you and didn’t want you (or her own brain) to be content with just a hookup.
But, she was still looking forward to next week when she could finally get her hands on you. Maybe she’d ask about exclusivity, maybe she’d try and label it before she chickened out—or hid her feelings by going down on you, more realistically.
-- -- --
The drop off with Chad was, as always, emotionally exhausting. She had just gotten home from an overnight shift and brought Harrison his lunch he had forgotten. Her dad had offered to take him, but Chad would likely use that as ammunition for their next custody hearing, so she took a short nap and drove Harrison to the police station after school for the switch.
Cassie tried not to react when she saw Chad’s latest controversially younger girlfriend in his passenger seat. It was a shame he wasn’t a completely shitty dad, only a shitty ex-partner, because the way he copied Leonardo DiCaprio’s dating patterns made her cringe. Harrison, while still mostly unimpressed with his dad, didn’t hate spending time with him. Once her residency ended in a year she was going to petition for 50/50. The lawyer (her dad still paid for, she chafed at that) had said that consistency and patterns were key to success. Harrison would also be old enough to make a statement.
While she would not coach or ask her son to make a statement in her favor, she was pretty confident in what he would say.
Anyways the cluster fuck of the day meant that the plans with you that Cassie had looked forward to were dead in the water. There was no way she had the emotional or physical energy to be present tonight. With a heavy heart, she texted you asking for a rain check. Often this was the was the reality check for dating medical workers—plans were heavily dependent on how exhausted and emotionally drained they were.
To her surprise, you called.
“Hey?”
“Hey, I only have a couple minutes between customers,” you prefaced. “I’m totally fine with a rain check. But if you want to come over I’ll cook and we can sit on my couch doing nothing but watching shitty reality TV all evening.”
It sounded tempting but, “I really want to be in my own space. If I didn’t live with my dad, I’d invite you over.”
“Alas,” you replied. “Can I do something nice for you?”
“Like what?”
“I dunno drop off a cupcake at your house or something.”
“My dad will be home.”
“I’ll bring him one too. Gotta make a good impression.”
“Thinking of sticking around for a while?” Cassie asked with a smirk in her mouth.
“Keeping my options open,” you replied in your trademark cheeky tone.
“Yes, you can do something nice for me,” she told you.
“Perfect. Go home and get some rest. It sounds like it’s been a long day. I’ll miss you,” you said.
“I’ll miss you, too.”
And it wasn’t hard for Cassie to imagine saying “I love you” instead.
Still, Cassie went home and took an extra long shower before finally collapsing into her bed. She was so tired that she didn’t even need to draw her black out curtains. The moment her head hit the pillow she was out. Blissfully asleep without a dream or care in the world.
When she finally awoke, there was a dried line of drool on her cheek and the sky was dark outside. Looking at her clock, only a couple hours had passed—meaning her sleep schedule wasn’t completely fucked.
She stood, her back cracking like bubble wrap. For a moment she just stood, trying to reorient her brain to being awake. The older she got the harder these mid-afternoon naps were on her brain. At a snail’s pace, Cassie slowly stretched out her body—allowing all the tension that had been building to leak out. It wasn’t quite yoga but it would do for tonight.
Right as she walked downstairs to pillage something from the fridge she heard voices. It was rare for her dad to have someone over without giving her a heads up. Then again, she hadn’t looked at her phone before leaving her room. Actually, she wasn’t even sure if her phone made it out of the bathroom from when she had to listen to her pump up playlist to keep her awake during the shower.
Cassie heard a familar sounding laugh and turning the corner into the kitchen was surprised to find you sitting in her kitchen while her dad made dinner.
“Hey,” you said. “Your dad caught me dropping some stuff off for you and rightfully wanted to know why a random woman was leaving flowers and desserts on his doorstep.”
Neil snorted and said, “She didn’t want to come in, but I insisted.”
You looked at Cassie over Neil’s shoulder and mouthed, “Sorry.”
Cassie just gave you a small smile and walked over to you, sliding her arms around your waist, plastering herself to your back. She gave you a soft kiss on the cheek before separating. It wasn’t that she hadn’t wanted you to come over, but it was a cockblock—romance block—to be at your girlfriend’s house, except it’s actually her dad’s house.
Cassie was looking for something to drink when she caught the thought. She had called herself your girlfriend, not something that either of you had discussed. But it had been over a month and Cassie certainly wasn’t seeing anyone else. A wash of cold fear ran through Cassie as she thought about how you might be seeing other people.
“She’s a bit of a bear when she wakes up from a nap,” Neil told you, in response to Cassie’s lack of verbal greeting.
“Don’t worry, I can talk enough for the both of us. Please continue the mini-golf story, Neil,” you said.
Cassie groaned, still not quite able to form words to protest. She heard you snicker. With a can of soda she slid onto the barstool next to you, overlooking the rest of the kitchen where her father seemed to be making some kind of stir fry.
“Well, Cassie was an insistent and independent seven year old. Which meant when she knocked the ball into the foliage she was hell bent on grabbing it herself. Her mother and I watched, obviously, but all the sudden we heard her little ferocious shout and we found her stuck. She wasn’t crying or even upset. Instead she was trying to unhook her tshirt from some fencing with the anger of a badger,” Neil laughed. “We didn’t even realize until that night she had punctured her shoulder on the fence.”
“Do you have a scar?” You asked, wiggling your eyebrows. Cassie rolled her eyes but pulled up the sleeve of her shirt. There was a tiny white pucker mark.
“Why are you telling her my terrible childhood stories?” Cassie finally asked. Her mouth finally felt connected to her brain.
“Because it seemed rude to go get the baby photos,” her dad replied glibly. You chuckled.
You pushed a vase of sunflowers towards her and she plucked the card from the bouquet. They were gorgeous. There was a delayed realization that she hadn’t owned that vase before today. It meant you had purchased the flowers and a vase for her. Chad had never purchased flowers, but if he had, she couldn’t have imagined him including a vase.
The note read:
“Sorry today was so shit. You’re very cool and very hot. xx”
Cassie felt her face warm with the care you so often doled out on her. It was hard not to jump you right then and there, even with her dad in the kitchen.
“Wait, did you bring stuff from Alma’s bakery?” Cassie asked, seeing the white branded box on the kitchen island.
“Yeah, I remembered you said it was your favorite. I wasn’t sure what you got, so I just got an assortment,” you replied.
“I already had the apricot tart,” Neil announced.
“He said you didn’t like them and I was too scared to stop him,” you whispered. Cassie laughed and threaded her fingers through yours.
“He loves apricots,” Cassie replied. She did actually like the apricot tart, but was more than happy to let her dad have it. A small way to show her gratitude for his love and help over the years.
“If you want some alone time, I can head out,” you told her.
“No, I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “Sorry, you had to meet my dad so early.”
“He’s really charming,” you said. “I see where you get it from.”
Cassie snorted. That was not a widely held opinion by any of her ex’s. Her dad was an excellent judge of character, something Cassie had only developed in the past ten years or so. If Neil liked you, it made Cassie feel a little better about eventually asking for something serious.
“Should I plug my ears?” Neil asked.
“Of course not, dad,” snorted Cassie.
“So you aren’t talking shit?” He asked, turning around with a grin.
“Never,” you said, crossing your heart. Neil laughed and finished the stir fry.
The three of you ate a simple dinner together. After which each person grabbed a pastry (Cassie went for the eclair while you grabbed the lemon tart—she filed that away for later) and then Neil whipped out the puzzle they had been working on.
Despite how boring Cassie thought it must seem to you, you listened intently to her father’s insane puzzle strategy and nodded like you gave a shit about his color theory and pile methods. Ever the good sport, you dutifully helped sort the pieces, sharing funny stories about your customers and neighborhood.
“When I was protesting against the union busting in the 70s, we could have used business support like yours,” Neil declared.
“Please don’t get him started on the union,” Cassie sighed.
“Their decline has resulted in significant consequences for the working and middle class,” he protested.
Then to Cassie’s horror, you both began to discuss the economic consequences of the decline in unions and labor protection. She had lost you to the political ramblings of her father. He had grown up in rural Pennsylvania with a coal miner dad and laundress mother. Then he was the first in the family to go to college. Then to law school. He spent most of his career fighting for worker’s rights.
It’s one of the many reasons he hated Chad. The Ashcrofts owned a lot of businesses, especially shipping and restaurants. While they had less of a stranglehold on the city nowadays, their family had been the thorn in Neil’s side for most of his career. Chad supposedly ran the business now. (Though both Neil and Cassie suspected it was in name only. Since he had spent most of his twenties and thirties managing his family's various restaurants instead of doing anything actually business related. He was basically an overgrown child.)
So you were the direct antithesis of a man her father despised. He acknowledged that Chad loved his grandson, but thought him largely oafish. Without a single indication from her father, Cassie could tell he held you in high esteem even after such a short amount of time. Though she also suspected he managed to get enough information out of you for a background check.
When he finally went to bed, Cassie pulled you to the couch and curled up in your arms.
“He’s going to do a background check on,” Cassie said as they sat in the dim glow of the lamp. They had turned the TV on, but the menu was all that showed.
“I figured that out when he asked for the city I was born in,” you laughed. “I’m kind of obsessed with him. Is that weird?”
“No, all my friends loved him growing up,” Cassie laughed.
“Is that what I am? A friend?”
Your tone was lighthearted, but it wasn’t hard to hear your actual question about that.
“I hope not,” Cassie said.
“Are you…” you trailed off and Cassie felt your tension in the arms wrapped around her. “Are you seeing anyone else?”
“Nope, not even if I had time.”
You laughed at that. “I’m not either.”
“Would you be interested in making that permanent?” Cassie asked. “Wait, that sounds like I’m proposing. Will you be my girlfriend?”
“Fuck yes,” you said.
Cassie tilted her head up and kissed you.
“Are you okay that you won’t meet Harrison for awhile?”
“Absolutely. That is not my decision. You do what’s best for him. Although, very gay of us that I met your dad on our…eighth date I think?”
“Want to move in?” Asked Cassie playfully. You snorted and settled back against her.
“Do you want to talk about your shit day?”
“Harrison’s dad is a dick and work was long,” Cassie said simply.
“I’ve always wanted to ask this: did you pull anything out of someone’s butt?”
“You’ve always wanted to ask?”
“I am not a normal person, Cass.”
“I like the nickname.”
“I’m glad but don’t dodge the question.”
“No we had no anal foreign bodies,” Cassie sighed.
“Anal foreign bodies?” You laughed. “I could not be a doctor. How do you keep a straight face?”
“Practice and also recognizing that this is the most embarrassing moment of their lives. But in the break room sometimes we do giggle.”
“Will you tell your new girlfriend the next time something insane ends up in someone’s butt?”
Cassie huffed quietly and tightened her grip around you. “Yeah, I’ll tell my new girlfriend. As long as she promises to keep using whatever soap I’m smelling.”
“Want one?”
“Can’t wear scented stuff to work.”
“Bummer. Live vicariously through me then,” you said.
For the rest of the night the pair of you curled up together on the couch. It was early hours in the morning when you finally left. She crept upstairs trying to ensure she didn’t wake her dad, but saw his bedroom light on. The door was cracked and she saw him reading his book with the big noise canceling headphones on. It was cute. She wasn’t sure if it was for her privacy or his comfort.
She pushed open the door and he glanced up. He slid off the headphones and put the book down before saying,
“Did she leave?”
“Yeah, what are you still doing up?”
Cassie sat next to her dad in bed, leaning her head against his shoulder.
“Couldn’t sleep. I think I was too happy.”
“Happy?” Laughed Cassie.
“Well, yes,” he said. “Even in your post nap zombie state, you lit up when you saw her in the kitchen. She’s bright, funny, and has a lot of correct opinions.”
“That all seem to agree with yours,” she pointed out.
“Neither here nor there.”
Cassie laughed again.
“I’m glad you liked her. We…she’s…we’re official now.”
“You deserve good things, honey,” Neil said, leaning his head against hers.
Cassie just hummed. It was hard to believe sometimes, after the nightmare she had been for nearly seven years. But now she has lived sober longer than not, and it was becoming easier to believe that she wasn’t the misery she had once felt like and inflicted on others.
“Thank you for helping me achieve them,” she whispered quietly. “You don’t suck as a dad.”
Neil laughed. “Such kind words from my daughter. How was fuck-face?”
“Chad has a new girlfriend now that the last one’s brain is fully developed,” Cassie sighed.
“Hate that guy,” her dad grumbled.
Cassie just smiled and continued leaning against her dad.
Summary: Dana has been trying to find the right time for weeks now, if she could just make everything go perfectly for once. Alternatively: 4 times Dana tries to propose, and the 1 time she finally does.
CW: fluff, 4+1 trope, description of allergic reaction, reader wears makeup and has hair long enough to pin back
WC: 6.3k
Sequel to Three Weeks.
A/N: this request is from @tiredbisexualwithadhd 💛 Thanks for the request and the idea and for being so patient, I hope it lives up!
━━━━━━━━━━━ ♠ ━━━━━━━━━━━
The emergency department feels like it’s trying to tear itself apartment.
Patients are arguing in the waiting room, one is throwing a fit in triage, and hospital staff are running through the emergency department so frantically that they’re nearly colliding with each other.
Dana barely notices. “Has anyone seen Dr. Garcia?” she calls openly into the ED.
“She’s over in radiology.”
“Of course she is.” Dana runs a hand over her face. “Okay, don’t let her go back upstairs yet, Mohan needs her for a consult. Where’s Langdon?”
Dr. Whitaker pauses, having been speed-walking past the nurse’s station when Dana asks. “I think I saw him headed toward the break room a minute ago.”
“Tell him I need him to pick up another patient asap, he’s not as fast as he used to be.”
“Dana.”
“What?”
Robby appears beside her with a coffee in hand and an expression that’s way too calm for the state of the emergency department around them. “You’re yelling,” he says.
“I’m aware,” Dana says, smoothing a hand over a few stray strands of hair that have falling out of her claw clip.
“You’re scaring my med students.”
Dana leans back just far enough to look past him to see one of said med students immediately look away.
“Good, fear builds character.”
Robby chuckles at that, leaning against the workstation counter as he watches Dana sign off on another chart. “You seem more stressed than usual,” he says before taking a sip of his own coffee.
Dana rolls her eyes. “Not everybody can disappear on a three month sabbatical when they start spiraling.”
He shrugs. “Some of us develop healthier coping mechanisms than others.”
Dana levels him with a look. “Name one.”
“I bought a motorcycle.”
“And then you never wear a fuckin’ helmet, that’s not healthy, Robinovich.”
Robby watches her for a moment before saying calmly, “I think work isn’t the only reason you’re stressed.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He shrugs, taking another sip of his coffee before answering. “Don’t act like we both don’t know what’s hiding in the bottom of your backpack right now.”
Dana freezes before rounding on him, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You going through my stuff now?”
“No,” he says quickly, “I just know you’ve been carrying it around ever since you bought it because you can’t figure out how you’re going to do it.”
Her eyes are still narrowed in suspicion when she sags in defeat. “Is it that obvious?”
“To anyone who knows you? Yeah.” Robby leans in with a smug little smile. “How long has it been now?”
Lips pursing, she sighs. “A week.”
He looks taken aback. “You’ve been carrying an engagement ring around the hospital for a week?”
“Lower your fuckin’ voice,” Dana hisses, looking around to make sure Princess and Perlah aren’t listening in. “I just haven’t had time.”
“You haven’t had time to figure out how you’re going to propose to your girlfriend?”
“Don’t call her that,” she snaps, running a weary hand over her face. “This is a big deal and I just wanna get it right.”
Robby watches her cautiously for a moment before landing a heavy hand on her shoulder. “You know she’s going to say yes, right? You’re overthinking this.”
“I am not.”
“You are.”
Before Dana can continue to argue, someone from the nurse’s station calls her name urgently.
Robby steps aside so she can move past him, but he catches her arm briefly before she goes. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think she’s gonna care where you ask.”
There’s no humor in the laugh Dana gives him in response, and she doesn’t even look at him as she says, “Easy for you to say.” Then she disappears in the direction of the nurse’s station, more stressed than she was before.
Robby is left smirking to himself as he watches her go, and is still in the same spot he’d been standing in when the automatic doors to the ambulance bay slide open, this time with no paramedics rushing in.
Dana doesn’t even notice. She’s halfway across the department, slamming down the red phone to announce the chest pain that’s coming in via ambulance when she looks up and sees you.
You’re stepping through the doors balancing at least three pizza boxes in your arms, with plastic bags hanging from both wrists, and two cardboard drink trays balance precariously on top of the boxes.
Suddenly, you have the attention of the entire department at once.
“Is that food?”
“Please tell me one of those coffees is mine.”
“You’re my favorite person.”
You laugh breathlessly. “If somebody could maybe help me before I drop all of this, that’d be great.”
Langdon appears from nowhere (which brings an immediate scowl to Dana’s face), relieving you of the drink trays, and Mateo is on your left, lifting the pizza boxes from your arms, leaving you with only the bags around your arms.
“Oh my god, are those donuts too?”
“You people work like fifteen-hour shifts, you don’t eat unless somebody makes you,” you laugh. “Trust me, I know the drill. Help me get all of this to the break room.”
You follow Langdon and Mateo, laying it all out on the tables in the lounge and quickly snagging Dana’s coffee from the tray before anyone else digs in. You weave your way out of the room just as the rush of doctors and nurses start heading in past you. Some clap you on the shoulder as they pass, murmuring a sincere “thank you.”
You make your way back to the nurse’s station and slide up beside Dana, sliding the coffee toward her. “This one’s yours.” Medium roast, two sugars, with a splash of oat milk. You don’t have to say it and she doesn’t have to ask, you know how she likes it. “You didn’t have breakfast this morning.”
“It’s been a busy day.”
“Mmm,” you nod in agreement, more placating her than anything. “When is it not?” From your own bag hanging from your shoulder, you pull a small paper bag, folded over on itself. Inside is an everything bagel, toasted, with cream cheese.
Dana suddenly feels disconnected from the rest of the ER. The sounds of footsteps and her coworkers around her fade into the distance, because this - this stupid coffee handoff in the middle of the emergency room feels unbearably intimate and she could kiss you right here if she knew she wouldn’t pay for it later with hospital gossip.
You notice Dana staring off into space and your expression twists into concern. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she says too quickly. But her eyes travel toward the hallway leading to the lockers. She could go get it, right now. Right now would be good.
You tilt your head, trying to get into her line of sight. “Dana?”
The thought arrives to her, sudden and without warning, to ask you. The ring is fifty feet away, she could do it now, in the ER, surrounded by some of the people she’s closest to -
“Shit, I gotta get back.” You’re looking down at your watch, a grimace on your face.
Dana’s heart plummets. “What?”
“I’m already pushing it on my break,” you say apologetically. “I just wanted to make sure you ate something.”
Dana squares her shoulders, irritation blooming in her mind. Not at you, of course, but at her own indecisiveness. “Right now?” she asks.
You’re surprised by the question. Dana isn’t usually one to want you to stick around, she usually does her best to keep you out of her ER. “Yeah?”
Robby is watching the entire interaction with thinly-veiled amusement, like this is the best reality show he’s ever seen. He saw all of it happen in real time, the moment that Dana very clearly decided this could be it.
You reach out, your hand landing on Dana’s arm. “Don’t look at me like that,” you say with a smile. “I’ll see you tonight when you get home, alright?” You lean in and kiss her cheek quickly, acutely aware of how much Dana is not fond of PDA.
She opens her mouth and it almost looks like she’s going to argue with you for a moment, but in the end, nothing comes out. If she asks you to wait, you’ll know something’s up, and if she runs to her locker for the ring, you’ll definitely know something is happening. So instead, she just watches as you back out of the department, waving goodbye to the rest of the staff while several people yell thank-yous after you.
That was it. The moment had been right there, and she let it slip through her hands.
━━━━━━━━━━━ ♠ ━━━━━━━━━━━
The next attempt is made four days later.
The apartment is low-lit and warm, with music playing from the Bluetooth speaker connected to your phone in the kitchen, where you’re posted up, making dinner. You’d seen Dana’s location begin to move from the hospital about twenty minutes ago and started food right away, knowing she’d be both tired and hungry when she got home.
And you’re right.
On the other side of your apartment door, standing in the hallway that leads to your apartment, Dana stands on the other side of the door with her key in her hand, heart racing and mind moving a million miles per hour.
Because tonight, she’s going to ask. No more waiting for a perfect moment, or rehearsing in her head until she talks herself out of it. And no more carrying around this stupid ring, it’s just begging to be stolen. She’s just going to do it and get it done.
She unlocks the door and steps into the apartment.
“Hey,” she calls out into the apartment as she drops her bag on the floor in the entryway.
“In here,” she hears you call from the kitchen.
Dana walks further in, rolling her shoulders out of her jacket as she goes, hanging it on the coatrack behind the door. And as she rounds the corner into the kitchen, she sees you.
You’re wearing only a sports bra and pajama pants that sit dangerously low on your hips, your body is so soft that it should be illegal at the end of a day like the one she’s had. Barefoot, unbothered and relaxed in a way Dana could only dream of being right now. You’re stirring whatever’s in that pot on the stove with one hand, scrolling through your phone with the other.
Dana stops in the doorway, completely forgetting what she came home with the intention of doing.
You look over your shoulder at the sound of her footsteps shuffling in. “You look like you got hit by a truck,” you tease.
“I feel like I got hit by a truck,” she says flatly. “Whatcha making?” She cranes her head to get a look at the pot.
“Pasta,” you say, the tiniest bit of tension lacing your voice at what you know is to come.
Dana pauses. “…you break the noodles again?”
“They don’t fit in the pot otherwise!” you whine, childlike, waving around the spoon you were using to stir. “Besides, you’ll eat it anyways.”
“I’ll eat it anyways,” she repeats with a laugh.
She saddles up next to you, one hand reaching out and settling on your back against your bare skin, and you unconsciously lean back against the warmth of her palm. Dana doesn’t usually dawdle after work, she almost always disappears to shower right away, which is your first clue that something is off.
“Bad shift?” you ask, glancing over your shoulder at her.
“Long shift,” she corrects with a sigh.
You nod, understanding the difference without asking for details, because you know she won’t want to give them when she’s tired like this. “Go. Shower. Food will be almost ready when you’re done.”
Dana nods, even though she doesn’t want to go shower. If she leaves this room right now, she might lose her nerve, and then who knows if she’ll find it again? Nevertheless, the ick at the thought of staying in her scrubs for much longer wins out, and she disappears into the master bath for the fastest shower she’s ever taken.
She makes it back in record time, not quite feeling as refreshed as she usually would after a post-shift shower, but better than still smelling like sick people.
You don’t even have to turn around to know she’s returned. “I got that sauce you like, the one with the -”
“Sun-dried tomatoes,” Dana says, finishing the sentence for you.
“Yeah, that one, I remembered this time!”
You don’t see the fond smile that crosses Dana’s face as she stares at your back. “Of course you did.” You don’t even hear the weight in it. You’re already hustling around the kitchen, plating both her food and your own.
This is it, she thinks. The exact moment, when there’s no interruption, just the two of you in the kitchen, in soft clothes.
Dana takes a deep breath. “I was thinking -”
You cut her off with a yawn.
Well, you don’t cut her off, not in the rude way that interrupting would. But you yawn and it stops her in her tracks as you stretch your limbs and roll your shoulders.
“Sorry,” you say quickly, blinking it away. “I just can’t shake the tired today.”
The words stall in Dana’s throat and she curses internally as the moment fades away.
You move past it like it’s nothing, because you don’t know that it’s not nothing for her. “Okay, we need to eat, like, right now, because I need to sit down before I fall asleep standing up.”
“…alright.”
You pause, glancing over at her. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
But you’re looking at her like you always do when you know she’s not telling the whole truth, a scrutinizing, questioning look on your face. But instead of pushing her for the truth, you kiss her cheek as you pass with both plates full of pasta in your hands and head toward the living room.
“Good,” you say, “because I missed you today.” You set the plates down on the coffee table, clearly already having decided that tonight was the night to forego the formality of your dining room table and instead eating on the couch.
Dana joins you a second later, settling into the spot next to you as you talk. You talk about your coworker, you talk about the traffic on your way home from work. The mindless topics that couples talk about after they’ve been together for so long that there are no more big topics left.
And yet, you’re the one talking.
Now don’t get you wrong, that isn’t uncommon at all. Most days, Dana comes home too exhausted to keep up conversation, and frankly, she’s tired of talking at other people. It’s nice to come home and listen to the pleasant tone of your voice as you tell her about anything and everything that crosses your mind. She usually even asks you to keep talking when you stop, when you’re worried about talking too much.
But you can see that something’s on your partner’s mind. Dana doesn’t usually wear her emotions on her face, except for those moments when she’s too tired to hide them, and that’s where you find yourself now.
You move a little on the cushion, angling yourself towards her. “What?”
Dana blinks like she’s coming back to the conversation, like she had forgotten you could see her. “Nothing.”
You laugh, because that’s the least nothing “nothing” ever. “Dana.”
She sighs, pursing her lips. “You ever think,” she starts thoughtfully, “that maybe people make too big a deal out of things?”
You raise an eyebrow. “That’s vague.”
Dana smiles, looking down at her bowl. “Yeah, well…” The ring is still in her bag, but she could go get it. Or she could ask and then go get it. No, no, she needs it first, she can’t ask without presenting you with a ring.
You wait patiently for her to continue without pushing.
Dana swallows, trying to find the words. “I just mean…sometimes people spend so much time trying to make a moment perfect that they end up missing it entirely.” She laughs shortly, moreso at herself.
Maybe this is it. Maybe she doesn’t need the speech she practiced in the car a few days ago, maybe she doesn’t need candles or reservations, maybe she just -
You yawn again beside her, sleepily enough that your head tips toward her shoulder afterward. “Sorry,” you mumble. “Keep going.”
Dana’s face melts into a smile. “You’re falling asleep,” she says, nudging you with her elbow.
“I’m listening,” you insist, but it’s weak.
She looks down at the top of your head for a moment before choosing to go on. “I’ve been thinking that lately that maybe there are some things I don’t say enough.”
“Mhm.”
Dana’s thumb brushes against your arm as she reaches to touch your skin. “I think maybe…” she starts again, but the sentence trails off. Not because she’s lost courage, but because she feels your weight heavier against her side.
When she glances down, even leaning forward to look at you, she finds that your eyes have closed and your breathing has evened out completely.
Her expression twists in disbelief. “Seriously?”
You do not respond. You can’t, because you’re fast asleep, still with a nearly-full bowl of pasta in your lap.
━━━━━━━━━━━ ♠ ━━━━━━━━━━━
For once, the emergency department is quiet.
Multiple people would slap Dana if they even knew she was thinking the q-word, but she can’t help it. There’s no way it isn’t on everybody’s mind. Chairs is under control for once, nobody’s bleeding in triage, and nobody in the entire department is actively dying. It feels unnatural.
Dana leans back in her chair in the nurse’s station while rough-drafting next month’s nurse rotation schedule because for once it’s calm enough in here that she doesn’t have to do it at home.
Robby slides up beside her, leaning against the desk and glancing around the department suspiciously. “I don’t trust this.”
Dana doesn’t look up, adjusting her reading glasses. “Neither do I.”
“It’s too calm.”
“Well, because you said that, it won’t be for long.”
“Maybe everybody in the city decided to stop making bad decisions all at once,” he jokes.
Dana tsks and the slight shift in her posture causes the weight in her scrub pants pocket to shift. Her hand reaches down to steady it automatically before she can even think about it.
The movement doesn’t go unnoticed by Robby. “What is that?” he asks slowly.
“Don’t,” Dana warns, her eyes never leaving the schedule.
“Are you carrying it with you right now?”
“I always carry it.”
“No,” Robby corrects, sitting up straighter. “Usually you carry it in your backpack, today you’re carrying it in your pocket.”
Dana finally glances up at him, pulling her reading glasses off her face and lifting an eyebrow.
Robby’s face breaks out into a smile. “Oh my god,” he says. “You’re actually gonna do it.”
Looking back down at the schedule in front of her, Dana can’t help the smug smile that begins to make it’s way across her face, giving her away instantly. “Tonight,” she confirms. “I’ve decided, I’m done overthinking it. I just need to do it.”
“That’s very grown up of you,” Robby says, clapping a hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t ruin this for me.”
The red phone rings and Robby, closest to it, picks it up without hesitation. He listens for a moment before hanging up. “EMS incoming, allergic reaction with epi administered in the field. Three minutes out.” He pushes up off the desk with a stretch. “Nothing good ever lasts.”
Despite Robby’s comments, allergic reactions aren’t usually complicated once epi’s been administered, especially if done quickly. While epi-pens are handy, they only delay issues, and most allergic reactions are standard aftermath procedure rather than acute emergency.
The paramedics are wheeling a stretcher inside the bay doors quickly, though nobody is running, the lack of urgency confirming that this is most likely aftermath.
“Shellfish exposure at her workplace,” one of them is saying. “Patient self-administered epi-pen approximately eight minutes prior to arrival. Airway remained open throughout transport but hives have been worsening -”
Dana freezes, recognizing the jacket on the stretcher. Because she hates that jacket, she only ever keeps her mouth shut about it because she knows that specific shade of golden yellow is your favorite -
Everything else in the ER fades into white noise as Dana catches sight of you sitting upright on the stretcher. Your skin is flushed, with blotchy hives climbing up your neck, and you look terrified as your eyes scan the inside of the ER, looking for her.
Dana is at the side of your stretcher in an instant. “What happened?”
One of the paramedics starts to answer, telling her your vitals, about your airway, but she waves him off with a hand in his face, looking at you expectantly.
“Mandy brought food in,” you rasp. “There was shrimp in one of the dishes, she forgot I was allergic and I didn’t ask.”
“How much did you eat?” she demands.
“Not a lot.”
Dana is silent for a moment as she assesses you. “Get her into North-3, I want another set of vitals and respiratory on standby.”
The paramedics obediently move you into said room, Dana beside the stretcher the entire way. She helps with the transfer, despite your insistence that you can move yourself from the stretcher to the bed without help.
You’re stable, that’s the important part. Your oxygen levels are good, your blood pressure is recovering, the swelling never even fully compromised your airway. The second dose of antihistamines is already making the hives fade from the angry red to a just slightly pissed-off shade of dark pink.
Logically, Dana knows all of this. But emotionally, she’s one tight breath away from ripping apart your coworker with her bare hands.
“You need to stop glaring at her monitor,” Robby says from beside her.
Dana doesn’t look away from your room. “I’m not glaring.”
“Are too.”
Through the glass, you’re sitting upright in the hospital bed, blanket pulled over your legs while you scroll absently on your phone. You look exhausted, and you’re still flushed.
“She’s okay,” Robby adds.
“I know.”
That doesn’t stop her from drifting towards North-3 every few minutes, checking on you. Just in case.
Once, while she’s watching you from her normal spot inside the nurse’s station, you look up and catch her eye through the window and smile brightly at her, like you aren’t sitting in a hospital bed after being brought in by ambulance. Like this is normal and fine.
And there it is again: that unbearable warmth in her chest every time you smile at her - no, every time you look at her. The ring box presses against her thigh from inside her pants pocket again. Tonight, that little voice in the back of her mind whispers.
She looks at you again, at the hives scattered across your neck, at the hospital gown and the bracelets around your wrists: the hospital details, the red allergy warning, and the yellow Fall Risk one sitting just above the red.
Absolutely not, you would kill her.
If Dana proposed to you while you were sitting in an ER bed covered in hives, you would never let her live it down.
Of course this would happen today.
“I’m starting to think the universe might have it out for you.” It’s meant to be empathetic, but all Robby’s really doing right now is pissing her off.
“I’m glad my suffering is entertaining for you.”
“No, no,” Robby says, trying to hold the smile off his face. “I’m just imagining you trying to propose while she’s hooked up to a pulse ox. You know she’d still say yes, so why are you making such a big deal of this?”
“That’s not the point.”
No, it isn’t. Dana doesn’t want you to say yes out of fear or adrenaline, and certainly not just because you’re relieved you aren’t dead. She wants you laughing in your kitchen, or warm in your shared bed, it doesn’t matter as long as you’re safe. She wants the moment to just belong to the two of you and apparently the universe keeps taking that personally.
━━━━━━━━━━━ ♠ ━━━━━━━━━━━
Three weeks pass before Dana tries again.
Three weeks of the ring sitting in the bottom of her backpack to make sure that you don’t come across it accidentally. And it’s not because she’s changed her mind, definitely not, but rather because apparently every time she decided to propose, the universe responded by waging war. Either on your life or her psyche.
Dana calls it “pattern recognition.”
Robby calls it “avoidance.”
“You do know that your girlfriend surviving an allergic reaction is not a sign from the universe, right?” he’d said at one point, when she told him she was taking a break from the pressure she’d been putting on herself.
“Don’t call her that.”
And now somehow, despite all of that, Dana is standing in your shared bedroom buttoning the cuffs of the black blazer she’s wearing over her dress tonight with hands that are just a little too shaky, while trying very hard not to think too much about the velvet box hidden inside the pocket of this very jacket.
Tonight. Again. For real this time.
You appear in the bedroom doorway halfway through Dana wrestling with the cufflinks. She should’ve been smart enough to do this without putting the jacket on first.
Dana looks up briefly from her cuffs to you and does a double take, stopping her wrestling with the jacket to stare.
You don soft blue satin, with sleeves low enough on your shoulders that the sight of your collarbone almost causes Dana to forget her own name. Your hair is half pinned back, with just the tiniest bit of makeup on.
Beautiful.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” you ask with narrowed eyes.
Dana recovers quickly. “You look nice, am I not allowed to look at my own partner?”
Your laughter fills the room as you step further inside the bedroom, reaching out to help Dana finish buttoning her cuffs. “You look good too.”
Dana looks down at the dress that had been your idea. Black with long sleeves, not overly formal, but short enough that she had to wear opaque tights with it in case she happened to be on one knee at any point this evening. She didn’t really feel like flashing the entire restaurant. She lets you fix the collar of the jacket, your fingers smoothing along the base of her throat.
“Are you nervous?” you ask casually.
Dana almost chokes on her own spit. “What?”
“You’re doing that thing with your jaw,” you say, gesturing toward her mouth. “You grind your teeth when you’re stressed, I can see you clenching.”
She forces herself to unclench immediately, and you grin like you caught her doing something embarrassing.
You giggle at the look on her face before leaning in to kiss her. “We’re just going to dinner,” you mumble against her mouth.
Well, for you it’s just dinner. For Dana, this evening feels balanced on the edge of changing the rest of her life. Luckily for her, you pull back before she can spiral too hard.
“Ready?”
The restaurant is perfect for the occasion, the one you don’t even know about. It’s got low lighting and real candles on the tables and live piano music from somewhere in the restaurant. It’s the kind of place where the menus don’t list prices because if you have to ask, you probably can’t afford it. The kind of place where people get engaged.
You love it. It’s like a romance movie.
“Dana,” you whisper as the hostess leads you to a table, “this place is insane.”
Dana nods with a smug smile that doesn’t at all give away the fact that she spent two weeks trying to get this reservation. When you reach your table, she pulls your chair out for you before you can even reach for it yourself.
You grin up at her after taking your seat. “You’re being weirdly gentlemanly tonight.”
The waiter appears almost immediately with water, menus, and a bottle of wine that Dana doesn’t remember ordering but apparently selected during the online reservation process.
Everything is perfect. The restaurant is beautiful, you look incredible, the ring is in the pocket of the jacket that hangs on the back of her chair. Everything is lined up exactly the way she planned it, but somehow, Dana feels less prepared than ever.
Casual conversation, you’ll have dinner, and then the proposal around dessert. It’s easy.
Except the waiter interrupts twice while Dana’s trying to ask you about your day, and then your order comes out totally wrong, and the couple beside you is having what sounds like the final argument before a divorce.
When your food finally comes out (correctly this time), you’re studying Dana over the rim of your wine glass as you take a sip before finally deciding to say something. “Okay.”
“Okay what?”
“You’re being really weird tonight, what is up with you?”
Dana’s hands twitch toward her jacket pocket before she can stop herself, like she didn’t even mean to. You don’t seem to notice, or if you do, you don’t say anything about it.
“Are you okay?”
She hates how much she wants to answer that question honestly. Because the truth is that she’s terrified. Not that you’ll say no, she knows you’re going to say yes. But that somehow, she’ll fail to explain what this means to her. That the words she has won’t feel big enough, and that this moment, as planned and rehearsed as it is, still won’t hold the enormity of how much she loves you.
“I’m okay.”
You don’t look convinced.
But before either of you can continue, the waiter reappears carrying another tray, and everything goes wrong at once.
It happens very fast. There’s an apology as someone bumps into the waiter, a metal tray slipping from a flat hand, and the tilt of a wine glass, and suddenly red wine spills directly down your front. Pale blue, now complimented by a deep red.
Every table around you freezes. Even the couple at the table next to you pause their argument to watch.
“Oh my god,” the waiter breathes, horrified.
Dana’s eyes go wide.
And you burst out laughing. Not polite or embarrassed laughter, but full belly laughter as you stare down the front of your clothes.
“Well,” you say as soon as you can get a breath in, wiping your eyes to avoid your mascara running down your face. “At least nobody can accuse this place of having small pours.”
The waiter looks like he’s literally about to die from embarrassment.
Dana stares at you, taking in the wine dripping down your dress and the candlelight catching your genuine smile and the way you’re trying to reassure the waiter instead of getting upset. And her shoulders slump as she relaxes for the first time all day. The perfection is ruined.
Thank god.
━━━━━━━━━━━ ♠ ━━━━━━━━━━━
You escape from the restaurant almost immediately. Mostly because the moment the initial shock wears off, your embarrassment catches up to you all at once and you both agree it’s time to get out of there.
So the waitstaff boxes up your food and you decline the free dessert, but you do accept the restaurant’s horrified offer of a discount, getting 40% off the food you’re definitely going to go eat at home on your couch.
You make it home in record time, Dana driving like a bat out of hell so that you don’t have to sit in wet clothes longer than necessary. But even as you pull into the apartment parking lot, you’re both laughing, and Dana realizes something important: that this, you rambling beside her in ruined clothes while takeout cools in the back seat of the car, feels way better to her than the version of the night she worked so hard to plan.
As soon as you’re back in the comfort of your own apartment, you disappear into the bedroom, and you strip out of your ruined clothes while bundling them in your arms. Dana slips into the kitchen to get your food out of the boxes and onto plates, and she lays her jacket across the island to hang up later. The ring box is still tucked safely inside the pocket, waiting.
“Babe? Is this shirt yours or mine?”
Dana looks toward the hallway, but you don’t appear. “Depends, are you gonna give it back if you put it on?”
“…no.”
“Then it’s yours.”
“Great, thanks!”
Dana smiles to herself as she plates both your food and her own, and it still looks just as good as it did in the restaurant.
You emerge a minute later wearing one of Dana’s oversized t-shirts and a pair of pajama shorts so short that wearing them in public would be a hazard. Your hair is messy where you’d slipped your old clothes off without worrying about fixing it.
Dana looks up and catches sight of you, and there it is again, that feeling, and suddenly she isn’t listening to you anymore, she has no idea if you’re even talking. Everything has gone very quiet inside her.
You notice. You notice everything about her. “Hey, are you okay?”
She takes a deep breath, closing her eyes. “I was going to wait for something else.”
The fork is halfway to your mouth when you pause. “Wait for what?” you prompt.
“I thought…I kept thinking if I didn’t do it perfectly…then it wouldn’t mean enough.” She sighs again, opening her eyes to look at you. “But that’s not how you and I work.”
You put your fork down. “You’re not making any sense right now -”
“You take care of me.”
You blink at the sudden interruption, so out of left field. “I mean, yeah, you do the same for me.”
“No,” Dana says, shaking her head. “You bring me food when I forget to eat, you wait up when I’m late even though you’re tired. And you don’t just do it when it’s easy, you do it when it’s scary. When I’m not…the easiest to be around. When I shut down or get in my head or pretend I’m fine when I’m not.”
You open your mouth to respond, but Dana shakes her head again. “Let me finish.”
She takes another breath, still shaky. “I’ve been thinking about this for a long time now, since I took some time off last year,” she admits. “About how you’ve shown up for me in every part of my life I didn’t think anyone would want to stick around for.”
She doesn’t have to say it out loud: you know how much it hurt her when Benji told her he couldn’t continue to watch her burn herself out at the hospital anymore, that it was him or her career.
“I’ve been trying to do this for weeks,” she says. “And I realized tonight that there’s just never gonna be a perfect moment. There’s always gonna be something that interrupts us, or messes things up, or ruins the mood.”
Dana lifts her jacket from the island and digs into the pocket, and this time she doesn’t hesitate as she places the box on the island between the two of you. There are no candles or fancy restaurant, no onlookers there to witness. Just the two of you in a kitchen that smells like takeout.
“I’m not going to ask you a question.”
That makes you pause, and you eye her cautiously as you wait for her to continue.
“Because I already know the answer,” she continues. “I want to spend my life with you, and I’m hoping you want that with me too.”
For a long minute, you just stare at her, and she returns the eye contact expectantly. Your breath catches once, then again almost immediately.
“Oh my -” you start, but your voice breaks halfway through and you take a frustrated breath to try and steady yourself.
Dana’s eyebrows lift. “Hey.” That’s all she says, like it’s her version of “it’s okay.”
Your eyes flick down to the box on the counter and then back to her, then back to the box again. “You -” you try again, but this time your voice actually cracks. “Oh my god.”
Her expression twists into concern. “Hey. Hey, it’s okay, don’t cry.”
But you’re already shaking your head, tears stinging at your waterline, laughing at your own absurdity. “No, I just -” you try to swallow the lump in your throat. “I can’t believe you waited until I changed into pajamas.”
That catches Dana off-guard. “What?”
You gesture down at yourself, like it’s obvious. “I was in nice clothes. Ones you made me put on, ones that survived wine. And you let me change into this ratty shirt and -” your voice pitches up a little, incredulous even through tears, “-this is when you decide to do it?”
Dana stares at you, her own eyes wide. “…that’s your takeaway from this?”
You laugh again but it’s wet now, and you’re made completely a mess. “You are unbelievable,” you say as you step toward her, your hands coming up to her face. “I love you so much.”
And this time, when she leans in and kisses you, it doesn’t feel like interruption or timing or luck or anything else that tried to get in the way before. It’s just right.
Pairing: Cassie McKay x F!Reader
Summary: After a long day you drop off flowers for your not-quite girlfriend only to get roped into dinner with her father.
Tags: fluff, overwhelmed Cassie, defining the relationship, reader is curvy (could just be read as not-skinny, dealer’s choice)
After the eighth date, Cassie let you take her up to your apartment above your shop. It was full of rugs, old books, half melted candles. The apartment held a cozy feeling that seeped deep into her bones.
The moment you opened the door, you were the perfect gentlewoman. You had offered her something to drink, lit an incense stick and then proceeded to crawl on her lap and make out with her like it was the end of the world. Your silky, satin skirt (the one that kissed every line and curve of your body, making Cassie’s mouth water), despite being longer than your knees, had fully bunched up around your waist.
It could have been due to Cassie’s hands seeking out more of your warm skin to touch and feel. Every move against you being electric, like she had just stuck her hand on a live wire. She was twitchy and shaky in all the ways that belied enjoyment and anticipation.
“You feel so good,” Cassie managed to say, between attacks from your lips.
“Please keep touching me, baby,” you replied. Your lips trailed under her jaw and Cassie couldn’t hide the shiver you caused. “Fuck that’s so hot.”
“You’re so hot,” Cassie grumbled. She played with the hem of your sweater. “May I?”
“Please,” you sighed, leaning closer to her body.
Cassie’s hands slipped under your sweater and you jumped at their chill, but didn’t complain. It didn’t take long for them to warm against your body heat. There was a split second where you panicked about what Cassie was thinking about you and your body. It wasn’t small or stick thin. You weren’t lithe like Cassie herself. Any fear flew away the moment Cassie squeezed you and said,
“Fucking beautiful, oh my god.”
“Baby,” you whined.
She readjusted so you were reclining against your couch while she hovered over you. A thin gold chain dangled in front of your face and you said,
“I think I believe in hypnotism now.”
“Why’s that?” She asked, still caging your body with hers.
“With that chain and those hands, I think I’d do anything you’d tell me to do right now. Probably thank you for it,” you nearly whispered. Keeping eye contact you hooked a leg around her hip, not even to pull her down but to add another point of contact between your bodies.
“Keep telling me stuff like that and I might believe I can,” she laughed.
“Have I mentioned how much I love your voice?” You asked. “I could listen to you read the shampoo bottle and it would be one of the hottest things I’ve ever heard.”
“You’re giving me an ego, sweetheart,” she croaked.
“Good,” you replied kissing her again.
Time dilated as you both held each other, alternating from makeouts to gentle kisses to soft touches. It was all pg-13; Cassie had been clear about wanting an emotional connection before sex. You were fine with that, though your vibrator had been receiving more of a workout lately.
Dating Cassie was fun. She was fun. She was clever and had a subtle wit about her that snuck up on you. Every touch of her hands made you smile. Being near her was so exhilarating you couldn’t imagine needing an adrenaline rush.
It was like every opinion you agreed on and every story was funnier than the last. She adored her son and seemed to care desperately about him. While she hadn’t said much about his dad, you got the impression that their coparenting was a bit tense. On the first date she had disclosed her addiction and minor criminal record.
“I want everything to be on the table before we move forward,” she had said.
“Do you plan on any more assaults?” You had replied.
“No,” she said with a quirk of her mouth.
“Then I’m good until you suggest otherwise.”
After her disclosure you never purchased alcohol with her and had thrown out any random beers or white claws that may have haunted the back of your fridge. It’s not like you drank enough for it to really impact you. And now with her back in your apartment you felt good that there was nothing in your space that might make her feel uncomfortable.
“You look really good on my couch,” you told her in between kisses, laying face to face. Her nose lightly brushed your own.
“Your couch is stupid comfortable,” she replied making you giggle.
“When do you have the relieve your babysitter?”
“I have another few minutes before I start getting grumpy texts from my dad,” she laughed.
“He sounds like a laugh,” you told her.
“He’s really great. I’m fucking lucky,” she said. Her arm trailed up your waist, settling on your ribs. Her thumb brushed the underside of your breast.
“I hope you know that the moment you leave, I’m going to grab my vibrator and cum so hard to the thought of going down on you,” you told her simply.
Her eyes dilated and she inhaled sharply.
“You’re really testing my self control here,” she murmured placing a soft kiss against your lips.
“Nope, not asking for anything more. Just reminding you that I’ll jump your fucking bones when you’re ready—when we’re both ready,” you said. “Until then, do not think I am not a fan of making out on my couch.”
“Making out with you is certainly my new favorite pastime,” she hummed, her tongue tracing the seam of your lips.
“I think it’s an underrated experience,” you sighed. “I could do this for the rest of my life and be content. Even if I’d go through vibrators like a motherfucker.”
Cassie snorted and rolled you over so you were draped on top of her, face buried against her neck. You both relaxed against each other, but right when you were about to doze the alarm on her phone went off, signifying that the date was over and she had to get back to her son.
You whined as she sat up.
“Harrison goes back to his dad’s next week,” Cassie told you conversationally. She was sliding her belt back through her pants. You didn't even remember it coming off. Her sweater followed. You did remember that coming off to show her tank top and more specifically her shoulders.
Collapsed against the back of the couch you watched her dress and check for her keys and phone. God she was so hot.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she said.
“Like what?”
“Like you want to eat me.”
“I’m not a liar, Cassie,” you replied simply. When she was ready you stood and walked her to the door.
To your surprise (and undignified squeak), she pushed you against the door jam and kissed you soundly.
“I really like you,” she said.
“I really like you, too.”
“Next week, maybe we could have an overnight date?” She asked.
You grinned. “Yes please.”
-- -- --
Cassie was leaning over the computer looking at baffling test results.
“You know,” Dana said slowly.
“I really don’t,” Cassie replied. “How the fuck does she have a normal white blood cell count.”
“Not what I was talking about,” replied Dana.
“Wait, what?”
“You’ve seemed chipper the last couple weeks.”
“I had Harrison,” Cassie told her.
“Uh-huh, I don’t think Harrison gave you that hickey,” Dana whispered.
“I don’t have a hickey,” Cassie scoffed. She had explicitly asked you not to leave visible marks. So while she did have a hickey a couple inches under her collarbone above the swell of her tit, she knew there wasn’t one where Dana could see.
“You should pull up your shirt,” Dana whispered.
Cassie immediately straightened and yanked the tank top up under her scrub shirt. Fuck, who all had seen that? A surreptitious glance around suggested no one else was paying attention to her. She didn’t mind people knowing about her personal life, necessarily. God knows, it had blown up at work more than once. But she kind of wanted to keep this to herself until she knew what it was.
“Thank you,” Cassie replied stiffly.
“Someone new then?”
“Yeah, she works near one of the street team stops and she asked me out,” Cassie whispered out of the side of her mouth.
“Why do you sound surprised by that?” asked Dana.
“I’m not exactly on the younger side of forty anymore,” Cassie laughed.
“So?”
Cassie paused. “Maybe I’m just nervous that she’s more interested in dating a doctor or something.”
Cassie briefly thought about the hungry look that lived on your face while she was getting dressed the other night.
“Or maybe I’m just letting nerves get to me,” she amended.
“That sounds more likely,” Dana agreed. “Can I see a picture?”
Cassie’s eyes scanned around looking for any eavesdroppers. Sighing she pulled her phone out of her pocket and showed Dana a photo of you at the small, amateur theater show you both went to. You had on a sleeveless dress that showed your art covered arms and jewelry laden chest.
“Wow,” Dana whistled. “She’s something. Is it serious?”
“Not yet, maybe soon.”
“Well, if it’s serious by the time my Christmas party rolls around, you better bring her,” Dana said.
“If it lasts that long, I will. But you know how dating is when you’re a medical worker and a mom.”
“Technically, I don’t. But I’ve seen it. The difference is that you’re not self destructive.”
“Well, not anymore.”
Dana walked away chuckling.
For the past six years whenever Cassie’s interest and energy aligned she had sought out companionship. Most of the time in one night stands or short flings. It hadn’t every felt like something she wanted to last longer than a few dates. But now with you….
Well, she knew she was holding off on sex because she was afraid of repeating her avoidant patterns. She really, really liked you and didn’t want you (or her own brain) to be content with just a hookup.
But, she was still looking forward to next week when she could finally get her hands on you. Maybe she’d ask about exclusivity, maybe she’d try and label it before she chickened out—or hid her feelings by going down on you, more realistically.
-- -- --
The drop off with Chad was, as always, emotionally exhausting. She had just gotten home from an overnight shift and brought Harrison his lunch he had forgotten. Her dad had offered to take him, but Chad would likely use that as ammunition for their next custody hearing, so she took a short nap and drove Harrison to the police station after school for the switch.
Cassie tried not to react when she saw Chad’s latest controversially younger girlfriend in his passenger seat. It was a shame he wasn’t a completely shitty dad, only a shitty ex-partner, because the way he copied Leonardo DiCaprio’s dating patterns made her cringe. Harrison, while still mostly unimpressed with his dad, didn’t hate spending time with him. Once her residency ended in a year she was going to petition for 50/50. The lawyer (her dad still paid for, she chafed at that) had said that consistency and patterns were key to success. Harrison would also be old enough to make a statement.
While she would not coach or ask her son to make a statement in her favor, she was pretty confident in what he would say.
Anyways the cluster fuck of the day meant that the plans with you that Cassie had looked forward to were dead in the water. There was no way she had the emotional or physical energy to be present tonight. With a heavy heart, she texted you asking for a rain check. Often this was the was the reality check for dating medical workers—plans were heavily dependent on how exhausted and emotionally drained they were.
To her surprise, you called.
“Hey?”
“Hey, I only have a couple minutes between customers,” you prefaced. “I’m totally fine with a rain check. But if you want to come over I’ll cook and we can sit on my couch doing nothing but watching shitty reality TV all evening.”
It sounded tempting but, “I really want to be in my own space. If I didn’t live with my dad, I’d invite you over.”
“Alas,” you replied. “Can I do something nice for you?”
“Like what?”
“I dunno drop off a cupcake at your house or something.”
“My dad will be home.”
“I’ll bring him one too. Gotta make a good impression.”
“Thinking of sticking around for a while?” Cassie asked with a smirk in her mouth.
“Keeping my options open,” you replied in your trademark cheeky tone.
“Yes, you can do something nice for me,” she told you.
“Perfect. Go home and get some rest. It sounds like it’s been a long day. I’ll miss you,” you said.
“I’ll miss you, too.”
And it wasn’t hard for Cassie to imagine saying “I love you” instead.
Still, Cassie went home and took an extra long shower before finally collapsing into her bed. She was so tired that she didn’t even need to draw her black out curtains. The moment her head hit the pillow she was out. Blissfully asleep without a dream or care in the world.
When she finally awoke, there was a dried line of drool on her cheek and the sky was dark outside. Looking at her clock, only a couple hours had passed—meaning her sleep schedule wasn’t completely fucked.
She stood, her back cracking like bubble wrap. For a moment she just stood, trying to reorient her brain to being awake. The older she got the harder these mid-afternoon naps were on her brain. At a snail’s pace, Cassie slowly stretched out her body—allowing all the tension that had been building to leak out. It wasn’t quite yoga but it would do for tonight.
Right as she walked downstairs to pillage something from the fridge she heard voices. It was rare for her dad to have someone over without giving her a heads up. Then again, she hadn’t looked at her phone before leaving her room. Actually, she wasn’t even sure if her phone made it out of the bathroom from when she had to listen to her pump up playlist to keep her awake during the shower.
Cassie heard a familar sounding laugh and turning the corner into the kitchen was surprised to find you sitting in her kitchen while her dad made dinner.
“Hey,” you said. “Your dad caught me dropping some stuff off for you and rightfully wanted to know why a random woman was leaving flowers and desserts on his doorstep.”
Neil snorted and said, “She didn’t want to come in, but I insisted.”
You looked at Cassie over Neil’s shoulder and mouthed, “Sorry.”
Cassie just gave you a small smile and walked over to you, sliding her arms around your waist, plastering herself to your back. She gave you a soft kiss on the cheek before separating. It wasn’t that she hadn’t wanted you to come over, but it was a cockblock—romance block—to be at your girlfriend’s house, except it’s actually her dad’s house.
Cassie was looking for something to drink when she caught the thought. She had called herself your girlfriend, not something that either of you had discussed. But it had been over a month and Cassie certainly wasn’t seeing anyone else. A wash of cold fear ran through Cassie as she thought about how you might be seeing other people.
“She’s a bit of a bear when she wakes up from a nap,” Neil told you, in response to Cassie’s lack of verbal greeting.
“Don’t worry, I can talk enough for the both of us. Please continue the mini-golf story, Neil,” you said.
Cassie groaned, still not quite able to form words to protest. She heard you snicker. With a can of soda she slid onto the barstool next to you, overlooking the rest of the kitchen where her father seemed to be making some kind of stir fry.
“Well, Cassie was an insistent and independent seven year old. Which meant when she knocked the ball into the foliage she was hell bent on grabbing it herself. Her mother and I watched, obviously, but all the sudden we heard her little ferocious shout and we found her stuck. She wasn’t crying or even upset. Instead she was trying to unhook her tshirt from some fencing with the anger of a badger,” Neil laughed. “We didn’t even realize until that night she had punctured her shoulder on the fence.”
“Do you have a scar?” You asked, wiggling your eyebrows. Cassie rolled her eyes but pulled up the sleeve of her shirt. There was a tiny white pucker mark.
“Why are you telling her my terrible childhood stories?” Cassie finally asked. Her mouth finally felt connected to her brain.
“Because it seemed rude to go get the baby photos,” her dad replied glibly. You chuckled.
You pushed a vase of sunflowers towards her and she plucked the card from the bouquet. They were gorgeous. There was a delayed realization that she hadn’t owned that vase before today. It meant you had purchased the flowers and a vase for her. Chad had never purchased flowers, but if he had, she couldn’t have imagined him including a vase.
The note read:
“Sorry today was so shit. You’re very cool and very hot. xx”
Cassie felt her face warm with the care you so often doled out on her. It was hard not to jump you right then and there, even with her dad in the kitchen.
“Wait, did you bring stuff from Alma’s bakery?” Cassie asked, seeing the white branded box on the kitchen island.
“Yeah, I remembered you said it was your favorite. I wasn’t sure what you got, so I just got an assortment,” you replied.
“I already had the apricot tart,” Neil announced.
“He said you didn’t like them and I was too scared to stop him,” you whispered. Cassie laughed and threaded her fingers through yours.
“He loves apricots,” Cassie replied. She did actually like the apricot tart, but was more than happy to let her dad have it. A small way to show her gratitude for his love and help over the years.
“If you want some alone time, I can head out,” you told her.
“No, I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “Sorry, you had to meet my dad so early.”
“He’s really charming,” you said. “I see where you get it from.”
Cassie snorted. That was not a widely held opinion by any of her ex’s. Her dad was an excellent judge of character, something Cassie had only developed in the past ten years or so. If Neil liked you, it made Cassie feel a little better about eventually asking for something serious.
“Should I plug my ears?” Neil asked.
“Of course not, dad,” snorted Cassie.
“So you aren’t talking shit?” He asked, turning around with a grin.
“Never,” you said, crossing your heart. Neil laughed and finished the stir fry.
The three of you ate a simple dinner together. After which each person grabbed a pastry (Cassie went for the eclair while you grabbed the lemon tart—she filed that away for later) and then Neil whipped out the puzzle they had been working on.
Despite how boring Cassie thought it must seem to you, you listened intently to her father’s insane puzzle strategy and nodded like you gave a shit about his color theory and pile methods. Ever the good sport, you dutifully helped sort the pieces, sharing funny stories about your customers and neighborhood.
“When I was protesting against the union busting in the 70s, we could have used business support like yours,” Neil declared.
“Please don’t get him started on the union,” Cassie sighed.
“Their decline has resulted in significant consequences for the working and middle class,” he protested.
Then to Cassie’s horror, you both began to discuss the economic consequences of the decline in unions and labor protection. She had lost you to the political ramblings of her father. He had grown up in rural Pennsylvania with a coal miner dad and laundress mother. Then he was the first in the family to go to college. Then to law school. He spent most of his career fighting for worker’s rights.
It’s one of the many reasons he hated Chad. The Ashcrofts owned a lot of businesses, especially shipping and restaurants. While they had less of a stranglehold on the city nowadays, their family had been the thorn in Neil’s side for most of his career. Chad supposedly ran the business now. (Though both Neil and Cassie suspected it was in name only. Since he had spent most of his twenties and thirties managing his family's various restaurants instead of doing anything actually business related. He was basically an overgrown child.)
So you were the direct antithesis of a man her father despised. He acknowledged that Chad loved his grandson, but thought him largely oafish. Without a single indication from her father, Cassie could tell he held you in high esteem even after such a short amount of time. Though she also suspected he managed to get enough information out of you for a background check.
When he finally went to bed, Cassie pulled you to the couch and curled up in your arms.
“He’s going to do a background check on,” Cassie said as they sat in the dim glow of the lamp. They had turned the TV on, but the menu was all that showed.
“I figured that out when he asked for the city I was born in,” you laughed. “I’m kind of obsessed with him. Is that weird?”
“No, all my friends loved him growing up,” Cassie laughed.
“Is that what I am? A friend?”
Your tone was lighthearted, but it wasn’t hard to hear your actual question about that.
“I hope not,” Cassie said.
“Are you…” you trailed off and Cassie felt your tension in the arms wrapped around her. “Are you seeing anyone else?”
“Nope, not even if I had time.”
You laughed at that. “I’m not either.”
“Would you be interested in making that permanent?” Cassie asked. “Wait, that sounds like I’m proposing. Will you be my girlfriend?”
“Fuck yes,” you said.
Cassie tilted her head up and kissed you.
“Are you okay that you won’t meet Harrison for awhile?”
“Absolutely. That is not my decision. You do what’s best for him. Although, very gay of us that I met your dad on our…eighth date I think?”
“Want to move in?” Asked Cassie playfully. You snorted and settled back against her.
“Do you want to talk about your shit day?”
“Harrison’s dad is a dick and work was long,” Cassie said simply.
“I’ve always wanted to ask this: did you pull anything out of someone’s butt?”
“You’ve always wanted to ask?”
“I am not a normal person, Cass.”
“I like the nickname.”
“I’m glad but don’t dodge the question.”
“No we had no anal foreign bodies,” Cassie sighed.
“Anal foreign bodies?” You laughed. “I could not be a doctor. How do you keep a straight face?”
“Practice and also recognizing that this is the most embarrassing moment of their lives. But in the break room sometimes we do giggle.”
“Will you tell your new girlfriend the next time something insane ends up in someone’s butt?”
Cassie huffed quietly and tightened her grip around you. “Yeah, I’ll tell my new girlfriend. As long as she promises to keep using whatever soap I’m smelling.”
“Want one?”
“Can’t wear scented stuff to work.”
“Bummer. Live vicariously through me then,” you said.
For the rest of the night the pair of you curled up together on the couch. It was early hours in the morning when you finally left. She crept upstairs trying to ensure she didn’t wake her dad, but saw his bedroom light on. The door was cracked and she saw him reading his book with the big noise canceling headphones on. It was cute. She wasn’t sure if it was for her privacy or his comfort.
She pushed open the door and he glanced up. He slid off the headphones and put the book down before saying,
“Did she leave?”
“Yeah, what are you still doing up?”
Cassie sat next to her dad in bed, leaning her head against his shoulder.
“Couldn’t sleep. I think I was too happy.”
“Happy?” Laughed Cassie.
“Well, yes,” he said. “Even in your post nap zombie state, you lit up when you saw her in the kitchen. She’s bright, funny, and has a lot of correct opinions.”
“That all seem to agree with yours,” she pointed out.
“Neither here nor there.”
Cassie laughed again.
“I’m glad you liked her. We…she’s…we’re official now.”
“You deserve good things, honey,” Neil said, leaning his head against hers.
Cassie just hummed. It was hard to believe sometimes, after the nightmare she had been for nearly seven years. But now she has lived sober longer than not, and it was becoming easier to believe that she wasn’t the misery she had once felt like and inflicted on others.
“Thank you for helping me achieve them,” she whispered quietly. “You don’t suck as a dad.”
Neil laughed. “Such kind words from my daughter. How was fuck-face?”
“Chad has a new girlfriend now that the last one’s brain is fully developed,” Cassie sighed.
“Hate that guy,” her dad grumbled.
Cassie just smiled and continued leaning against her dad.
y’all only like night shift because their flaws have been exclusively implied in very missable throw away lines (and towards people y’all don’t sympathize with anyway).
ellis told trinity nobody gave a shit how tired, traumatized, or exhausted she was when trinity was on the fourteenth hour of her twelve hour shift. a season of that, to more universally sympathetic characters, will NOT be palatable to a lot of gen z. ellis doesn’t care if junior residents are overworked, she doesn’t coddle or encourage. she is a tough love, ‘put me in coach,’ rub some dirt on it kind of person, and the gen z viewership will become overly critical of her life philosophy that demands a lot of grit.
shen is insensitive and detached. robby was wondering where his step son was, there was a mass casualty rolling in, and shen was relaxed enough to sip on his dunkin. he was bothering robby about if he could get thanksgiving and christmas off that year. shen’s blasé attitude will start to grate on people as he extends that lack of fucks given to more patients and coworkers than just robby.
jack is not the woke guy everyone projects him to be. i believe they kept him far away from the ICE episode because the writers had no truly satisfying answer to how jack’s character would act in that situation. this man participated in imperialism for free college and healthcare (or for valor which is even worse). he continues to listen to police scanners and joins SWAT. he is on the side of the establishment as it relates to exerting force. he may have unpacked some conservative values, but there will be nuance there that will make black and white thinkers very uncomfortable.
the night shift doctors characterization is much less developed, but the seeds of complexity are there. ellis hates whining, shen is largely emotionally removed from any patient outcomes, jack is a mess of contradictions. people just can’t pick up on that because they watch the show while scrolling through their phone.
you. don’t. want. night. shift. you want to know less about the characters so you can continue to project your values onto them.
this is very true for most people. unlike ME, who wants those fuckers and their big fat ugly flaws on blast. give me more mentally ill assholes doing mentally ill asshole things. so i can write fanfiction making them even worse. i deserve it.
CW: intense emotional confrontation/arguments, relationship conflict and reconciliation, guilt, crying, references to past financial distress, smut (explicit sexual content), scissoring/tribbing, soft dom!Yolanda, partially-resolved ending
WC: 4.2k
Part V
Terms and Conditions Masterlist
A/N: My tags are doing weird things so I’m sorry to anyone I missed out whose tag didn’t work!
──────── Null and Void ────────
By the time the bus crosses the Birmingham Bridge, your hands are shaking so badly that you nearly rip the stack of papers just to stop them from slipping out of your grasp.
PAID IN FULL
ZERO BALANCE
The words have been burned into the back of your eyelids for the last forty minutes.
Every pothole that the bus hits causes another wave of fury to wash over you.
Outside the window, Pittsburgh is wet underneath an overcast sky. Rows of brick buildings are streaked with rainwater, pedestrians with umbrellas hurrying along sidewalks trying to get out of what looks to be the start of a nasty storm. Normally you like the city, you like this specific bus ride across town, but today it feels like it’s taking too long.
Your knee bounces violently the entire ride.
Once, the older woman sitting across from you gives you a wary look before shuffling her purse closer to her side.
You don’t even blame her, you know how you look from the outside. You’re pissed and you look it. You’re not hurt, not emotional, furious. The kind of anger that causes steam to come out of ears in cartoons.
Because how fucking dare she?
You spent ages trying to stitch yourself back together after she ended things, after she broke them. Weeks of dragging yourself through the mud of shifts with aching ribs and an empty bank account and the humiliation of almost reaching your goals, almost having everything you ever wanted, just for her to throw you away like you were trash. Lying trash. And now this? Now you find out she’s been quietly dropping hundreds of thousands of dollars into your life like some guilty millionaire playing god from a distance?
The mortgage paperwork crinkles in your fist, the paper giving way to your angry fingers.
She doesn’t get to do this, she doesn’t get to walk away from you and still control things in your life. She doesn’t get to decide what happens to you after making it clear she didn’t want to be involved with you anymore.
The bus finally lurches to your stop and you shoulder-check someone in your effort to get off as quickly as possible.
Cold air and rain slaps you in the face immediately. You hope it’ll cool you down enough to stop you from committing a felony in the lobby of Yolanda’s building (it doesn’t).
Eight months. Eight months of Yolanda insisting on rules and boundaries and professionalism and emotional distance, only to - only to pull some shit like this the second she loses control of the situation.
You shove through the revolving doors hard enough that one of them swings too fast behind you and hits you right on the butt. And for one awful moment, looking at the inside of the lobby feels so familiar that it actually hurts you. You used to come here at least three nights a week, sometimes more.
Richard is inside tonight instead of standing outside the doorway. Not a huge surprise with the rain. “There she is,” he says as he pushes his glasses up his nose. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
You stare at him for a second, still breathing hard from anger and the slight uphill walk from the bus stop.
His forehead crinkles in confusion. “Everything okay?”
“No.” Your hands tighten instinctively, nearly crushing the paperwork. “Is she home?”
Richard hesitates just long enough to catch the look on your face. Because apparently you currently look like someone about to either start crying or kill a person, and even you aren’t sure which is more likely.
“…long day?” he offers cautiously.
You laugh, and it sounds unhinged even to your own ears. “Something like that.”
His hand reaches for the security desk phone. “Want me to call upstairs for you?”
“No,” you say quickly. “No, I’m not giving her the chance to avoid me.”
Understanding dawns across Richard’s face. Not understanding-understanding, obviously, he has no idea what actually happened between you and Ms. Garcia. But there’s enough pieces of the puzzle to understand that this is relationship business. Ugly relationship business.
“…right,” he says.
You can pretty much see him debating in his head whether or not it’s a terrible idea to let you upstairs without calling the police. But then he sighs, his shoulders slumping just a little as he makes a decision he knows could get him in trouble. “She got home maybe an hour ago.”
“Thanks,” you mutter tightly.
Richard gives you one last look of uncertainty as you stalk off toward the elevators.
The ride up feels endless, and catching yourself in the reflection in the mirrored walls looks strikingly different from the last time you took this elevator. Your hair is wet from the rain, sticking to your forehead and your face and your neck. Your jaw is clenched so tight that you can practically see the vein in your forehead about to burst from stress. You barely recognize yourself.
When you step off the elevator on Yolanda’s floor, for just a moment, another memory flashes before your eyes uninvited: Yolanda half-asleep and barefoot, opening the same door you’re staring at right now, late at night in soft gray sweatpants and that stupid white loose button-down that doesn’t even count as leisurewear. And she smiles at you, soft and unguarded in a way you were rarely ever allowed to see her.
Your heart pounds uncomfortably in your chest and you crush the feelings that memory brings with it immediately.
No, absolutely not.
You did not ride a Pittsburgh city bus across town in the rain to get sentimental. You came here furious, to demand answers. You came here because Yolanda Garcia does not get to buy her way out of guilt and call it kindness.
Your hand tightens into a fist and then you pound on her door hard enough to rattle the frame.
The door opens almost immediately, and standing there is Yolanda in lounge pants and a black long-sleeve shirt, hair damp like she’s just gotten out of the shower, and for a split second, her whole face seems to soften at the sight of you. Like she’s relieved.
But then she sees your expression and the relaxed expression disappears immediately. “What happened?”
You shove past her before she can say another word. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
Yolanda stumbles sideways in surprise as you storm into her home. The familiar smell of her coffee hits you immediately, rushing your senses like an old memory, and it only makes you angrier.
Behind you, the door clicks shut.
You whirl around to face her. “What the hell is wrong with you?” you demand.
Yolanda inches back in surprise, caught off guard by the sheer force of your anger. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, don’t do that,” you snap. “Do not stand there acting confused.” You hurl the stack of papers onto her kitchen island hard enough that one of them slides across the marble and off the countertop, coming to rest at her feet.
Her eyes follow the falling paper, catching on the PAID stamp across the bottom. And in her face, you see it: the tiniest hint of guilt. She bends down to retrieve it, and as she straightens, her expression smooths out in a way you’ve seen a thousand times before. “You took a bus across the city to scream at me?”
“You paid off my fucking mortgage!”
Yolanda folds her arms across her chest defensively. “You were drowning.”
“That’s none of your business anymore!” Your volume increases, loud enough that if you don’t stop, you know she’ll have angry neighbors.
“You were going to lose the house.”
“And?”
“And?” she repeats incredulously.
“Yes, ‘and,’” your voice continues to rise. “You made it very clear you wanted out, Yolanda! You don’t get to walk away from me and then still try to insert yourself when you feel guilty about it!”
“I do not feel guilty.” The lie is both instant and obvious.
You stare at her, then laugh once, mockingly. “Wow, that’s bullshit.”
Yolanda’s lips purse. “You think I did that because I pity you?”
“What else am I supposed to think?” you shoot back at her. “You ended things because my life was - because I was too messy for you, remember?”
“That is not why I ended things.”
“Really? Because from where I’m standing, it looked like you took one look at my situation and ran for your life.”
Yolanda’s eyes flash with anger that rivals your own now. “That is untrue and unfair.”
“Unfair?” You point violently toward the paperwork spread out across the island. “You paid off my fucking hospital bills.”
“You couldn’t afford them!”
“That doesn’t mean you get to swoop in and fix everything!”
“Somebody fucking had to!”
The apartment goes dead silent, even your own breathing stops. Yolanda freezes too, like she didn’t mean for that to come out.
Your stomach twists, and you laugh harshly, bitter and without humor. “There it is.”
Yolanda shakes her head, exasperated. “That isn’t what I meant.”
“No, I think it is.” Your voice thins, your anger fraying around the edges, though the knot doesn’t unwind. “You think I can’t handle myself, is that it?”
“You are twisting my words to make me seem like the villain.”
“And you’re acting like you can buy your way out of your feelings!” Both hands fly to either side of your head, holding your temples. “You hurt me, Yolanda! And the worst part is that I still don’t even hate you for it now.”
“You don’t?” You miss the uncharacteristically soft tone of her voice, too busy word-vomiting to hear her.
“I tried so hard to hate you,” you rant, beginning to pace her kitchen. “But I had to keep all of my anger to myself because of that stupid contract, I couldn’t talk to anyone about it! Do you know how alone I’ve felt? I blocked your number twice, and then unblocked it again just in case, I even paid some Etsy witch forty dollars to put bad energy into your life -”
“You what?”
“- and somehow you’re still in my head all of the time!”
Yolanda’s mind seems to blank at the silly revelation. “Is that why I keep losing patients..?”
Your brain doesn’t skip over that one. “I killed people?!”
“You paid someone to curse me.”
“That’s not the point,” you argue, pointing at her before she can say another word. “Do not derail me right now.”
But Yolanda is still staring at you in disbelief. “Oh my god.”
“Stop focusing on the witch!”
“I’m trying, but you’re making it hard!”
“You don’t get to swoop in and save me anymore.” Your voice drops to a whisper, the flame that was your anger fizzling out. “You can’t reject me and then still treat me like I belong to you.”
“You do not belong to me.”
“You’re acting like I do!” you insist, your tone almost pleading. “I didn’t as you for this.” You gesture toward the papers.
“I know you didn’t!” Yolanda suddenly yells, the force startling both of you. “Jesus Christ, I know you didn’t ask!”
The kitchen falls silent again.
Yolanda drags a hand over her hair, her control over even herself wavering in a way you’ve never seen from her before. “That’s the problem,” she says. “You never ask for anything.”
You stare at her. “Are you serious? The problem is that I’m not greedy enough for you?”
She begins to pace now, too, as if your roles have swapped. “Do you know what it was like when I found out?” she demands. “Learning that you weren’t spending any of what I gave you on yourself? Realizing that you were probably rationing groceries while sleeping in my bed?”
Shame courses through you, hot like fire. “Don’t.”
“No, because apparently nobody in your life loves you enough to say it to you!” she snaps. “You act like needing help is some kind of failure.”
You scoff. “That’s rich, coming from you.”
“I ended things because I thought I was taking advantage of someone who was desperate.”
“You weren’t taking advantage of me!”
“Well how the hell was I supposed to know that? You never told me!” Yolanda laughs bitterly. “Do you know what I’ve been doing over the last couple of months?”
“Apparently committing white-collar financial crimes, how did you even get the information to pay these bills?”
“Obsessing over you,” she shoots back, ignoring your question. The dam cracks, and despite her visible annoyance over her own confession, she keeps going. “I try to sleep and I wonder if you’re cold because your heat’s been shut off. I’m at work wondering if you’re ignoring your ribs hurting because you can’t afford another hospital bill.” Her voice roughens. “I pick up a stranger in a bar,” she hisses, “and say your fucking name with her mouth between my legs.”
Your breath catches in your throat and you try not to look hurt at the humiliation.
Yolanda’s eyes are sharp as they lock onto yours. “Do you understand how humiliating that is?” She circles the island toward you slowly. “This isn’t guilt,” she spits. “If it were just guilt, it would’ve gone away already.”
Your heartbeat is hammering in your neck as she approaches. “Yolanda -”
“And the worst part is, you still won’t ask me for anything,” she cuts you off. “You would rather drown than need someone else, and you say I’m emotionally stunted.”
“That is not true.” You glare at her as she reaches you.
“Then ask me for something.”
You blink rapidly. “What?”
“Ask me for something,” Yolanda repeats. The intensity of her stare nearly has you withering. A few months ago, it would have. “Anything you want, anything at all. Just ask.”
Your throat is suddenly tight and dry with the weight of her demand, because the implication of what she’s saying is impossible to misunderstand.
Ask for me.
“I can’t,” you whisper as your eyes begin to burn. “You can’t ask that of me.”
She’s so close that you’re almost nose-to-nose, and you don’t miss the confusion that flickers across her face. “Why not?”
You huff and look away, like a wounded animal. “Because you don’t get to put me through all of this and then make demands.”
Yolanda’s breath is not on your face as she sighs through her nose. “I’m standing here, telling you that I will give you anything you ask of me.”
“After you left.”
You can see on her face how deeply your words register with her in the way that her expression hardens: the softness of her mouth pulls down into a frown, the way that her eyebrows draw together.
“What am I supposed to do, Yolanda?” Your voice shakes so badly with the thread of unshed tears that you’re forced to whisper. “Beg you to stay this time? How would I even know you mean it?”
Yolanda stands there unresponsive for a moment, her eyes trained on you as she considers her words carefully before deciding to say them: “Let me prove it to you.”
Silence follows because you don’t know what to say, and she uses that to continue.
“I know I can’t undo what I did,” she says. “I can’t take it back. But I am telling you right now that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since.” Her eyes search your own. “But I need you…I need you to ask.”
You take a shaky breath, searching her face for any insincerity, anything that she could use against you, any trace of the woman you spent eight months with.
When you don’t find it, you let the breath out.
“Yolanda,” you start, completely unsure of how to even ask. “Please -”
That’s it. Surrender. The trust you offer her blindly, without being sure she won’t hurt you again.
Yolanda doesn’t let you finish whatever you were going to say next. Both of her hands fly to your jaw, tilting your head at the exact right angle to kiss you. You make a sound against her mouth and it tastes like relief, disappearing into her like she’s been waiting too long to hear it.
Her lips are warm against your own, and insistent as they guide your mouth open so she can slip her tongue inside your mouth. You clutch at her shirt where it bunches around her waist, refusing to let go even as she pulls you blindly toward the hallway that leads to her bedroom.
You can’t open your eyes once you reach the bedroom, worried that once you do, the spell will be broken and you’ll feel the hurt once more.
Her hands slide down your body, mapping your skin like she’s memorizing you anew until she reaches the hem of your shirt, pulling it up and off your body. Cool air hits your skin for only a second before her hands replace it, still hot from her shower, sliding up your ribs to cup your breasts.
You gasp into her mouth. She groans in response, her thumbs brushing over your nipples until they harden under her touch.
“So fucking perfect,” she mumbles, breaking away from your mouth so she can trail her lips down your throat and over your collarbones. “Missed this so much, missed you.”
Clothes come off in a stumbling haze, both yours and hers. Her shirt hits the floor, then your pants, and by the time you actually reach the bed, you’re both naked. The sight of her body stops you in your tracks, her skin glowing in the low light that’s barely tricking in from the nearly-set sun, her curls still slightly damp but not dripping but a stray droplet here and there, which trails between her breasts without a thought of what it does to you. She’s beautiful. She always has been, but your memory of her these last few months pales in comparison.
Yolanda doesn’t give you time to overthink this. She guides you down onto your back on the mattress, crawling over you until her hair tickles your cheek. The heat of her body sinks into yours as she lays flush against you, your breasts brushing and her hips settling between your thighs.
You whine at the contact. Reaching blindly toward the nightstand next to her bed, you’re surprised when her hand catches your wrist, stopping you.
“Not tonight,” she mumbles against the skin at the valley of your breasts. “Need to feel you against me.”
She sits up and hooks one of your legs over her hip, rolling you slightly to align your bodies until your slick heat meets her own. The first glide of her folds against your own pulls a moan from your throat, head tilting back against her pillow. She’s soaked, burning hot, and the feeling of her wet skin against your clit makes your back arch.
Yolanda sets a slow, grinding rhythm, one hand braced beside your head while the other grips your thigh, holding your legs open for her. Each roll of her hips into your own sends sparks up your spine and you lift your hips to meet her, to match her rhythm. You can feel everything: her wetness coating you, the way her clit rubs against your own when she gets the angle just right.
“Look at me,” she demands, softly and without malice.
You do, your eyes opening as you lift up onto your elbows. Her dark eyes are locked on your own, curls falling against her face like a halo, her lips parted as she visibly pants.
There’s no emotional wall this time, and how could there be? Not once in the entire time you spent together was she ever skin-to-skin with you like this, like it was a vulnerability she couldn’t afford.
You rock up to meet her, desperately chasing the friction that stokes the fire in your belly. Your hands roam her back, pulling her down against you, forcing her back to bow to keep up the slide of her slick against yours. Your nails lightly scratch against her skin and she growls - like, actually growls - at the feeling, and it only fuels her to grind down harder against you.
“Fuck - Yolanda -” You bury your face in her neck, mouth latching onto the pulse point in her neck so hard you know it’ll leave a mark. And you revel in the way she doesn’t pull you away, the way she would’ve in the past, with a stern warning to “not leave marks where anyone could see.” Just the thought that she’s allowing you to mark her has the pleasure coiling tighter and tighter in your core.
“I’ve got you,” she rasps, shifting her angle so her clit drags over yours just right with every thrust. “Let go, baby, I’m not going anywhere.”
The newness of his feeling, of her truly here, skin to skin, open and vulnerable and heart cracked open, is the final straw that sends you over the edge. Your orgasm crashes over you in waves, your thighs shaking around her as you cry out against her neck.
Yolanda follows seconds later, her own hips stuttering and a low and guttural moan vibrating through her chest as she grinds through her own release. Her slick heat pulses against you, and you have no idea if it’s your own slick or hers that coats both of your thighs.
You stay locked together afterwards, trembling and breathing hard. Yolanda collapses on top of you, tucking her face into the crook of your neck, legs tangled between yours. Your fingertips stroke over her back in slow passes, soothing the rapid thud of her heart against your own.
After a long minute, she moves, sliding just enough off you to grab at the water bottle on the nightstand, offering it to you first. Knowing how thirsty you always are right after sex. When she catches your eyebrow quirking up, she shrugs. “Old habits die hard.”
You take it, sipping the water while coherent thoughts come racing back in. But it isn’t until you’ve handed the water back to Yolanda and she’s getting her fill that you actually speak.
“Yolanda,” you say quietly.
The tone of your voice has her pausing, capping the bottle so she can look at you.
You swallow hard. “I don’t know what this is now.”
She finishes screwing the lid on. “What do you want it to be?”
You’re surprised at the question, which feels more like an offer. “I - I can’t -” You can’t finish the thought, but you don’t have to. She knows.
I can’t ask for this.
Yolanda takes a deep breath, looking up at the ceiling while she does so, like she’s centering herself. “I can’t promise that I’m going to do this perfectly,” she says softly. “Or that I’m going to be exactly what you need right away.”
Right away.
Your eyes lift at the same time she looks down at you. She holds your gaze like she’s forcing herself not to look away. And she probably is.
“But I am here,” she goes on. “And I’m trying. And I…I’m not leaving you again just because I don’t know how to do it right yet.”
Yet.
You sit up to meet her, to be at the same level. To avoid her looking down at you, both metaphorically and literally. “I don’t know if I can do this again,” you admit. “I don’t know if I could survive it.”
Yolanda sets the water bottle on the bedside table again, and then settles back next to you on the bed. “I meant what I said,” she says. “I want to prove it. I just…don’t know exactly how to do that yet.”
A long silence settles after that, one you don’t break with continuing a discussion that won’t be solved tonight.
The only surefire thing you know right now is that this is not how you expected this to go, but you’d be lying if you said the weight on your chest that’s been following you since that day in the hospital, the dark cloud that’s been following you ever since, isn’t lifting just a little.
Because Yolanda is here, accepting you for you, and not what you can offer her, or what she can offer you. And you know that there will be a bigger conversation, about privacy, and about what this means for you two and what the future holds. But right now, as you both lay back down in her massive mattress, pressed up against each other in a way that the available space doesn’t require, it feels like everything is going to be okay.
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