honestly sometimes there's no better feeling than rereading a fic you've written and coming out of it going, "yeah that actually this DOES slap. exactly what i wanted to read. fucking nailed it."
Vampire rafayel x princess reader with knifeplay ahhhhhh 🙈🙈🙈🙈🙈
vampire! rafayel x princess! reader x knife play
a/n. allusions to arranged marriage! your honour, they are husband and wife! thank you for requesting this! hope you enjoy ❤️
event page | event masterlist
the moonlight spilled through the arched windows of rafayel’s chamber, casting silver pools across the castle floor.
you had secretly memorized the path to his quarters over the past weeks, ignoring the words of the servants to not venture into your husband’s wing without his permission.
so now you were in his chamber. your heart hammered against your ribs, but your hand remained steady around the hilt of the silver knife hidden behind your thin nightgown.
you were not afraid of him.
that was what you told yourself as you padded across the room, closer to where he was resting. that was what you told yourself, foolishly, when an inexplicably hot sensation had taken root the night you’d watched him sink his fangs into a maid’s neck.
barely hidden by the hallway’s curtains, she had moaned loudly, her fingers threading through his purple hair as he drank, her eyes fluttering shut in ecstasy.
you were not afraid of... the monster.
that was what you told yourself then as you stormed to your chambers, heart thumping increasingly due to — what you assumed — was fear.
now, you crept towards the big, slumbering coffin.
black velvet lined the interior, and there he was — rafayel, your arranged husband of two months.
his chest rose and fell with barely registered breaths, his white shirt hanging open to reveal his pale torso. rafayel was beautiful beyond compare, but also dangerous, that pleasant face hiding the cruelties of a violent beast.
you had to end him.
so you climbed into the coffin, your thighs parting to encapsulate his, the warmth of your core settling against the firm muscle of his lower abdomen.
kill him, you reminded yourself.
you smoothed the shirt aside, baring more of his chest. the knife caught the moonlight as you raised it, the silver blade glinting–
his hands slid up your thighs.
you gasped, the sound sharp in the dead silent room. his fingers, graced with sharp nails, were cool beneath the silk, and they gripped your scorching flesh with confidence.
your gaze snapped to his face just as his eyes opened — a pale blue, gleaming in the moonlight.
a slow smile curved his lips, and you saw the villainous tips of his fangs.
“good evening, princess.” he purred, his thumbs tracing lazy circles on your inner thighs teasingly. “to what do i owe the pleasure at such an hour? and armed, no less.”
the knife trembled in your grip. “i came to k–”
“to kill me?” he laughed softly, completing your sentence. “did you, now? i don’t recall climbing onto one’s lap being a killing technique.”
his fingers crept higher, brushing the edge of your undergarments. you flinched slightly, embarrassed, face flushing deeper at his reaction.
“ah, you’re trembling. how adorable.”
“i’m not afraid of you.” you whispered, but your body was stating otherwise — quivering, blushing, desiring.
“i know.” his voice dropped lower, more serious. “so tell me, wife– why are you here, knife in hand, straddling your vampire husband in his coffin?”
the blade lowered an inch. your lip caught between your teeth.
“i saw you.” you spat out in one breath. “with the maid. i watched you feed.”
his eyebrows rose, his insufferable grin returning. “and that inspired you to murder?”
“you’re a monster.”
rafayel’s hands stilled on your thighs. for a long second, he simply looked at you, his eyes searching your face, looking into the rhythms of your heart. a second pulsing sound blessed his ears, booming at a frequency only registered by him, coming from between your thighs.
oh, his poor wife. did she feel… neglected?
“and you are jealous–” he concluded out loud, earning an offended gasp from you. “of a blood maid.”
he sat up, leaning against the coffin wall, and the movement brought your faces inches apart. his breath ghosted across your lips, whispering a damning question.
“you wish to replace her, princess?”
rafayel plucked the knife from your limp fingers, twisting it in the moonlight, admiring the sharp blade.
“i wished to be gentle.” he mused. “to respect your human body.” his free hand came up to cup your jaw, his thumb brushing across your lower lip. “but you do not want that.”
before you could confirm, he dragged the flat of the blade down your arm, the metal cold against your feverish skin. then he tilted the knife and pressed just hard enough to part the surface of your flesh.
you hissed at the sting.
a thin line of blood welled up along your forearm, ruby in the moonlight. rafayel’s eyes fixed on it, his pupils dilating until the colour was nearly swallowed. he lifted your arm to his mouth, and his tongue swept across the wound in one long stroke.
all while watching you.
the sensation was electric.
his tongue was cool and soft, and the smell of copper bloomed between you. he groaned against your skin, raw and hungry, causing your hips to jerk against his lap. the friction sent a spike of pleasure through you both, two sounds of pleasure vibrating in the room.
“delicious.” he breathed against your arm, lips bloody. “you taste divine, my wife.”
his free hand found your hips once more, guiding you into a slow, grinding rhythm against him. the coarse fabric of his pants rubbed against your clothed pussy, and you whined shamelessly.
your body picked up the pace, rolling against him as he lapped at the cut on your arm, his fangs scraping against your wound.
“i wanted you unmarked.” he murmured, cutting your skin once more, digging deeper with the knife. “safe. away from my curse.”
his eyes were glued to the fresh reddish liquid that cascaded over your arm, adam’s apple bobbing with want.
“but you crave me. my bite.”
you dug your fingers into his shoulders, nails biting into pale flesh, as he slurped up the new wound, licking the blood like a starved man. the coffin creaked beneath you both, each roll of your hips pressing your clit against the print of his cock.
“ah, ugh– raf–”
he watched you with heavy-lidded eyes, reddened mouth stopping against your stained skin, choosing to drink in the lustful state you were in — pupils blown, thighs trembling, that coil in your belly ringing louder than ever.
“you’re beautiful like this.” he cooed, his tongue darting out to catch the bubbling drops of blood. “i could drink from you every night. would you like that?”
“yes.” you whimpered, nodding your head desperately.
his hand tightened on your side, his fingers sharp into your soft flesh. the silver knife was dropped on the floor, clattering against the stone — no longer needed.
“shall your husband indulge in a bite?”
“gods, yes. please, bite me. mark me, husband.”
and he did, cool hands dragging the neckline of your gown down, his lips finding the juncture on your neck. spreading his bloody saliva with his tongue, he marked the spot before piercing your skin with his fangs.
just like the blood maid, your hand jumped in his hair, pulling at the roots as rafayel drank hefty gulps of blood. you could hear his moans of pleasure as he took in your flavor, and you could hear your own being crashing down from the intense feeling, hips speeding up against him.
tags: @yuunileb, @txtworlddom, @xyzsbaobei, @loreleis-world, @demonicangelll, @dreamydaredevil, @glitterykingdomangel, @gardenialily, @weirdothatwrites, @cherrytokkiz, @brailsthesmolgurl, @happyshark2222, @velomira, @darkchococwoissant, @remnantsofgildedcages, @starswillseeus, @ninalove323, @lumichella, @amanehyuga, @txtworlddom, @milumier, @someonestopsoren, @lettushi, @jadeloverxd, @hellothisisnanaaa, @ops-esion, @thealunari, @maplewood-valley, @massivebanananut, @livanavier. if you see this and want to be added to the main taglist, please let me know!
The first rule of fandom is have fun. The second rule of fandom is find an enabler and become an enabler. Yes you should write that fic. What if it was even hornier? What if it was angstier? What if you wrote it just for me?
An elevator encounter, a growing connection at the gym, and a spark of jealousy set the stage for emotions that refuse to stay buried.
*Remember each LI has their own girl (see chapter one for reference) and there will be medical inaccuracies because I'm not a doctor, I just work with them, so if you are a doctor, a nurse or a med student don't judge me too much 🫣.
Chapter 1 here Chapter 2 here Chapter 3 here
By the time you finally stepped into the elevator, your feet were killing you.
The last procedure had lasted nearly six hours, and you were fairly certain you hadn't sat down once since the beginning of your shift. All you wanted was five uninterrupted minutes of peace before someone inevitably paged you back into an operating room.
The universe had other plans.
The doors were already beginning to close when a familiar hand slipped between them, forcing them back open.
You didn't need to look up to know who it was.
Dr. Zayne Li stepped inside without a word.
Of course. The universe hated you.
The doors slid shut behind him, trapping the two of you inside a metal box that suddenly felt much smaller than it had five seconds ago.
For a moment, neither of you spoke.
Zayne stood beside you with the same impossible composure he carried through every surgery. Freshly scrubbed out of a five hour cardiothoracic procedure and somehow looked exactly as he had at six that morning. His white coat was spotless and despite the fact that he'd spent the better part of the day operating on a human heart, there wasn't a single sign of fatigue on his face.
You found that deeply irritating.
Normal people looked exhausted after a case like that.
Normal people had dark circles.
Normal people slouched.
Zayne looked like he'd merely finished answering emails and annoyed to be sharing an elevator.
You should have remain silent. Unfortunately, you possessed survival instincts roughly equivalent to a raccoon digging through electrical wiring.
"You know," you said casually, staring at the floor numbers above the door, "most surgeons say thank you at the end of their surgery."
Without looking at you, Zayne replied, "Most nurses don't mistake doing their job for heroism."
Your eye twitched.
"There he is."
That finally earned you a sideways look.
"There who is?"
"The reason every surgical resident on this hospital has stress induced nightmares."
His expression remained completely unchanged.
"If a resident enters my operating room unable to distinguish between confidence and competence, fear is an useful educational tool."
The elevator climbed another floor.
You folded your arms.
"Other surgeons at least pretend to like the people they work with."
"Why would I do that?"
"It's called morale."
"Morale doesn't repair arteries."
"No, but it stops others from fantasizing about pushing surgeons down stairwells."
Zayne hummed, a thoughtful sound.
"As long as it's a fantasy..."
You stared at him.
"Did you just make a joke?"
"No."
"You did."
"If that's your standard for humor, I understand why you find Rafayel entertaining."
You let out an offended gasp. "Leave Dr. Qi out of this."
"He spends thirty minutes adjusting the lighting in his OR before every surgery."
"He says fluorescent lights wash him out."
"They're lights."
"And yet somehow you're still the more dramatic one."
His gaze narrowed slightly.
"You seem unusually committed to having the last word."
You smiled sweetly "That's because I'm usually right."
The look he gave you could have frozen lava.
"That's a..." the elevator suddenly jerked. Hard.
The floor dropped beneath your feet for half a second before the entire car shuddered to a stop.
The lights flickered once, then settled.
Silence.
You blinked. Zayne looked up.
The elevator didn't move and a terrible realization settled over you.
"No."
The elevator remained perfectly still.
"No, no, no."
You stabbed the close door button. Nothing. Then the floor button "Oh, you've got to be kidding me."
Zayne sighed. The sound carried the exhaustion of a man who regularly dealt with incompetent administrators and surgeons who thought protocols were suggestions.
"Pressing the button repeatedly will not magically repair the elevator."
"I know that."
"Then why are you doing it?"
"Because panicking feels better than standing still."
His expression remained blank. "That's not healthy."
"It is for me."
You reached for the emergency button and the operator answered almost immediately, assuring you that maintenance was already on it.
Five minutes, maybe ten. Fantastic.
When the line disconnected, you leaned your head against the wall "This is your fault."
Zayne looked offended. A rare achievement.
"My fault."
"Every time I'm trapped somewhere unpleasant, you're involved."
"That's statistically impossible."
"You make everything feel longer."
"So that's why."
"Uh?"
"You've spent weeks avoiding me."
Your stomach tightened, this was dangerous territory " I don't avoid you."
"You switched OR assignments three times this week."
"That was scheduling."
"You requested the changes."
"You checked?"
"I approved them."
You groaned. Of course he had, because apparently being chief of surgery meant monitoring everyone's movements like some terrifyingly attractive dictator.
"It's my job."
"There you go again."
"What?"
"My job. My department. My operating room. My hospital." you tried to mock the tone of his voice as best as you could.
"I'm responsible for what happens here."
"You don't own us."
"No." the answer came immediately, cold and precise "But considering how often you create additional work for me, I occasionally question whether you're aware of that distinction."
You stared at him in disbelief "I create additional work?"
"You challenge every instruction I give."
"Because half the time you're impossible."
"Half?"
"Fine. Most of the time."
"Why are you so eager to argue with someone you dislike."
The words landed harder than they should have, making the air between you change. Neither of you spoke for a moment, because the truth was— you didn't dislike him.
The elevator suddenly felt warmer. Too quiet.
"Why did you really switch assignments?"
The question caught you off guard, and judging by the way his gaze remained fixed on you, he knew it. Your pulse stumbled for a fraction of a second before you recovered.
"I already told you."
"You lied."
You let out a short laugh and shook your head. "You know, one of these days you're going to have to accept that not everyone is lying to you."
"No. I don't think everyone lies. I think you're avoiding the question."
You opened your mouth to argue, but nothing came out. Silence settled between you again, stretching longer than either of you seemed willing to break. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence but it was dangerous in a different way. It left too much room for memories to creep in.
A crowded bar after an exhausting day. Too many drinks, too many lingering looks and a different version of Dr. Zayne Li.
For weeks afterward, you'd both treated it like it had never happened. No conversations. No explanations. No acknowledgment whatsoever. Just two stubborn people pretending a night they both remembered perfectly had somehow slipped from existence.
The elevator chose that exact moment to jolt violently back to life.
The sudden movement threw you off balance, and before you could catch yourself, your hand shot out instinctively and so did his.
Your palm landed squarely against his chest, his hand closed around your wrist.
The world didn't actually stop, but it felt like it did.
The elevator continued moving, the machinery humming overhead as the floor numbers resumed climbing, yet your attention narrowed entirely to the man standing in front of you. His grip tightened slightly, steadying you before you could stumble, though for a brief second you couldn't tell whether he was trying to keep you upright or keep himself from moving.
Neither of you stepped away.
You became acutely aware of how little distance existed between you. Close enough to notice the tiny scar near his jaw that you'd somehow never seen in the harsh lighting of the operating room. Close enough to remember things you had spent weeks trying very hard not to think about.
His gaze dropped briefly to your lips before returning to yours.
The only thing you were aware of was Zayne standing impossibly close, his hand still wrapped around your wrist and his eyes fixed on yours with an intensity that made it difficult to remember how to breathe.
"You can let go now," you said finally, though the words came out far quieter than you'd intended.
His eyes didn't leave yours.
"If I let go," he replied, his voice low and infuriatingly calm, "you'll probably find a way to injure yourself before we reach the next floor."
You stared at him, disbelief fighting with a laugh that threatened to escape. "That's the best you've got?"
A faint flicker of amusement crossed his face, so brief you might have imagined it.
"I'm a surgeon, not a poet."
His answer made your stomach twist unexpectedly. Maybe it was the fact that it sounded more honest than anything he'd said all day. Maybe it was the way he was still looking at you, like he'd forgotten every excuse he normally used to keep people at a distance.
His grip loosened slightly, but neither of you stepped back.
The space between you wasn't much to begin with, yet somehow it felt as though it continued shrinking anyway. Every second that passed stretched longer than it should have, charged with the kind of tension neither of you were willing to acknowledge. You could feel the warmth radiating from him and for the first time since you'd met him, Dr. Li looked almost uncertain.
The elevator doors slid open with a cheerful ding.
"ZAYNE!"
Both of you jumped apart so quickly it would have been embarrassing if your heart hadn't still been trying to beat its way out of your chest.
Standing outside was Rafayel Qi, an iced coffee balanced in one hand and a patient chart tucked beneath the other arm. He took one look at the two of you and immediately froze. His eyes moved from your face to Zayne's, then back again, and you watched realization dawn in real time.
A slow, delighted grin spread across his face.
"Oh."
"No," you said immediately.
"Oh, absolutely."
"No."
"Oh, this is incredible."
Beside you, Zayne's expression flattened into the look he reserved for particularly irritating residents and administrative meetings that could have been emails.
"Move."
Rafayel ignored him completely and stepped into the elevator, still staring between the two of you like he'd just discovered the hospital's best kept secret.
"You know," he said thoughtfully, "from where I was standing, it looked very much like I interrupted something."
"You didn't."
"I did."
"We were just talking."
Rafayel scoffed. "You were standing close enough to share a breath."
"It was crowded."
"There were two people in this elevator."
Zayne pressed the close door button with enough force to suggest violent intentions.
Rafayel gasped dramatically. "Oh my God."
"Rafayel."
"The Ice King has feelings."
"Get out."
The warning in Zayne's voice should have been enough to make anyone run. Rafayel had no instinct for self preservation.
As the elevator doors began sliding shut again and Rafayel started walking backwards he pointed between the two of you with the excitement of someone who had just acquired premium gossip.
"Oh, I'm..."
"No, you're not."
"I absolutely am."
"They are not going to believe you."
Rafayel's grin only widened. "They will when I describe the eye contact."
The elevator doors slid shut before either of you could respond, cutting off Rafayel's laughter and leaving silence in its place once more.
You were staring at the floor number above the doors as though it were the most fascinating thing you'd ever seen, while Zayne stood beside you, looking straight ahead as if the last several minutes had never happened.
"He's not going to tell anyone. Rafayel enjoys collecting information far more than he enjoys sharing it. If he tells people, he'll lose the ability to hold it over someone's head."
You immediately tried to suppress the laugh that slipped out., pressing your lips together and looking away, but it was already too late.
When you glanced back, you caught the smallest reaction from him, the corner of his mouth had twitched upward and the sight hit you with surprising force.
That tiny crack in the perfectly controlled mask he wore every day felt far more dangerous than the almost kiss, the lingering eye contact, or the memory of his hand wrapped around your wrist.
You'd seen surgeons panic, you'd seen attendings lose their tempers, you'd even seen Zayne angry. But seeing him amused?
For the first time since the elevator had gotten stuck, neither of you seemed particularly eager to reach your floor.
Rafayel Qi had been having an excellent day.
Not just a good day or even a great day. An exceptional day. Potentially one of the greatest days in the history of modern medicine, at least as far as he was concerned.
Because after years of working alongside Dr. Zayne Li—Chief of Surgery, Professional Joy Vacuum, and arguably the most emotionally unavailable man in the entire hospital—he had finally witnessed something he was convinced most people would consider impossible.
The man had looked interested in someone. Interested.
He practically floated down the hallway after leaving the elevator, iced coffee in hand and enough gossip stored inside his brain to sustain him for the next week. The image replayed continuously in his head, growing more dramatic every time he remembered it. The eye contact alone deserved its own award. The tension had been thick enough to perform surgery on. And the way both of them had jumped apart the second the doors opened?
Absolutely magnificent.
He was already mentally composing an unnecessarily dramatic retelling for Caleb when he turned the corner toward the Burn Unit.
That was when his excellent day developed a problem.
Because you were standing near the nurses' station talking to Daniel Lee.
Rafayel stopped walking.
Daniel Lee. Anesthesiologist. Serial flirt. A man who treated the hospital like a dating app.
Lee was leaning against the counter with the confidence of someone who had never once been told to shut the hell up in his life.
And worse, you were smiling. It wasnt a big smile or a meaningful smile but it was a smile nonetheless.
Rafayel narrowed his eyes and took a slow sip of his coffee, then another, then a third.
He was a mature adult capable of observing a completely normal interaction without immediately inventing problems. But he was also Rafayel.
Which meant within twenty seconds he had already decided Lee's face annoyed him. A lot.
Rafayel wasn't exactly known for being selective when it came to romance. The nurses liked him. He liked the nurses. Everyone had a good time and everyone involved was a consenting adult who understood the arrangement. No heartbreak. No expectations. No emotional damage. Just mutual appreciation between attractive people and the occasional bad life decision.
It was a system that had worked beautifully for years.
So why, exactly, was Daniel Lee making him want to throw his coffee across the hallway?
His attention drifted back to you, and after a moment he realized what made the entire situation even stranger.
You weren't looking at Lee the way most people looked at Lee. You weren't flirting, you weren't hanging on every word, if anything, you looked mildly distracted.
One hand was holding a patient chart while the other pointed toward a photograph attached to the file. You were explaining something. Correcting something. Lee wasn't charming you. He was listening.
Rafayel knew that expression, he'd seen it hundreds of times before. You wore it every single time one of his patients was involved.
The first time he'd met you, he'd assumed you were impossible. The second time, he'd become completely convinced of it. Because nobody should have been that observant, nobody should have been capable of noticing every tiny detail that slipped past everyone else.
But you always did.
You remembered medication schedules without looking at charts. You noticed infections before symptoms became obvious. You caught complications before they became emergencies. You memorized treatment plans, family concerns, patient anxieties, and every detail that most people forgot the moment they left a room.
As a plastic surgeon, he viewed his work as art. Every skin graft, every scar revision, every procedure was a carefully crafted piece of restoration. He obsessed over aesthetics, symmetry, and outcomes months into the future.
But while he focused on what a patient would eventually become, you focused on what they needed right now, in your mind, both things carried exactly the same importance.
He'd watched you spend an hour comforting a terrified patient after a painful dressing change. He'd watched you argue with attendings twice your size because you thought someone deserved better pain management. He'd watched you advocate, challenge, correct, and occasionally threaten people in ways that made patients trust you immediately.
Most people backed down when Rafayel challenged them. You rolled your eyes at him. Corrected him. Ignored him. Sometimes all three in the same conversation.
The memory made him smile, which was deeply concerning.
He frowned into his coffee.
When had that happened? When had he started looking for you during rounds? When had he started inventing increasingly ridiculous reasons to visit the Burn Unit? When had your opinion become something he actively cared about?
Fuck no. Absolutely not.
This felt suspiciously like feelings. Real feelings, that came with emotional consequences and vulnerability and all the other terrible things he'd successfully avoided for years.
Across the hallway, Lee laughed at something you said.
The uncomfortable feeling blooming in his chest wasn't irritation. It wasn't annoyance. It wasn't even competitiveness. It was something much worse.
Unfamiliar and deeply inconvenient.
Jealousy.
Rafayel stared at the ceiling for a long moment.
"Unbelievable."
A passing resident slowed slightly.
"Doctor?"
Rafayel pointed dramatically toward the nurses' station.
"I've contracted a disease."
The resident immediately looked alarmed.
"What?"
Rafayel continued pointing.
"There."
The resident followed his finger.
"...The Burn Unit?"
"No."
"The nurse?"
Rafayel closed his eyes.
"Yeah."
Several seconds passed before the resident wisely turned around and walked away, not wanting to be involved in whatever crisis was unfolding.
Rafayel watched him leave before looking back toward you. Toward the concentration on your face. Toward the nurse who somehow managed to make one of the most dramatic surgeons in the hospital experience emotions he'd spent years avoiding.
He let out a long, theatrical sigh, the kind he usually reserved for tragic opera endings.
"Oh, this is awful."
He realized he wasn't interested in being liked. He wanted to be chosen. And that was significantly more terrifying than anything he'd seen in an operating room all year.
Caleb had always considered the gym his safe space.
Between the music, the clanging weights, and the occasional guy grunting like he was trying to lift a car, it was probably one of the loudest places he regularly visited. It felt familiar.
Unlike the hospital, where half his day involved paperwork and trying to convince patients that recovery required more than stubborn optimism, the gym made sense. Weight went up. Weight came down. Progress could be measured. Problems had solutions.
Which was why he was deeply offended to discover you standing in front of his squat rack.
"You're doing that wrong."
Caleb nearly dropped the bar.
There you were, dressed in workout clothes instead of hospital scrubs and somehow looking just as judgmental as you did during physical therapy consultations.
"You followed me here?"
You stared at him.
"I've been a member of this gym for three years."
"That's exactly what someone following me would say."
You rolled your eyes and took a sip from your water bottle "Your left knee is caving inward."
Caleb immediately looked down, then back at you, then down again.
"You saw that from over there?"
"I'm a physical therapist."
"That's creepy."
"It's literally my job."
"It's still creepy."
He knew you were right, his knee had shifted slightly during the last rep.
"You're overcompensating on your right side," you continued. "Probably because your hip flexors are tight again."
Caleb frowned. "My hip flexors are not tight."
"Caleb."
"They're not."
"Touch your toes."
"I can touch my toes."
"Then do it."
He hesitated and you smiled. A slow, victorious smile.
"Oh my God."
"I haven't even said anything."
"You don't have to." Caleb sighed before bending forward. His fingertips stopped embarrassingly short of where they were supposed to reach.
You immediately burst out laughing.
Caleb stared at the floor for a moment before standing back up.
"I don't appreciate being attacked in public."
"You walked directly into that."
"You set a trap."
"You set the trap yourself."
The smile on your face only grew and annoyingly enough, Caleb found himself smiling too.
It was a problem. A huge fucking problem.
Somewhere between arguing over rehabilitation plans and watching you bully orthopedic patients into actually following recovery instructions, he'd developed a habit of looking for you.
That was generally the point where a reasonable person acknowledged they had a crush.
Caleb had chosen denial but denial was harder when you were standing ten feet away, making fun of him.
"Are you smiling?" you asked.
"No."
"You are."
Caleb grabbed his water bottle. "You spend all day destroying my confidence."
"Your confidence is doing just fineee."
"It really isn't."
"You introduce yourself to patients by calling yourself the hospital's best surgeon."
"In orthopedics."
"You once corrected a magazine article because they called you one of the best."
"Because I'm not one of the best."
"Pfttt."
"I'm the best."
Your horrified expression was so funny he couldn't stop smiling.
"You're unbelievable."
"Yet you're here talking to me."
He leaned against the equipment beside him. "Every time I try to have a normal conversation with you, you immediately hide behind work."
"I do not."
"This is the longest conversation we've ever had that didn't involve a torn ACL."
A laugh escaped you before you could stop it.
There it was. That feeling, the one that had been getting steadily worse for months. Caleb liked being liked but what he wanted from you felt different.
It was ridiculous, because you humbled him on a near daily basis and that only made him want to spend more time around you.
You glanced at the clock on the wall. "I should probably finish my workout."
"Or."
"No."
"You don't even know what I was going to say."
"I do."
Caleb grinned. "You do?"
"You're going to ask me to spot you."
"Correct."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because you will turn a ten minute workout into a forty minute conversation."
"I don't see the problem."
"I do."
"That's because you're mean."
You started walking backward toward the cardio area.
"You'll survive."
Caleb watched you go and immediately followed.
"Are you seriously following me?"
"I'm walking in the same direction."
"Caleb." God he loved the way you said his name.
"There are only so many directions available."
The look on your face suggested you were seriously considering throwing a dumbbell at him and he found that a little charming.
He fell into step beside you, enjoying the sound of your exasperated sigh and the way you shook your head like he was impossible.
Yeah, he had a problem, a specific problem, with your name on it.
And judging by the fact that he was currently abandoning his workout just to spend another twenty minutes annoying you, it wasn't getting better anytime soon.
An: I feel like they were a bit ooc this chapter. Please do let me know if it feels that way. 😣
watching caleb's birthday banner pv gave me the sudden urge to watch a gundam series. idk what yet, probably unicorn, or hathaway's flash, or rewatch seed and seed destiny
Writers have two modes and they are "i haven't written in three weeks and i am rotting from the inside and everything feels wrong and i don't know who i am anymore" and "i wrote for four hours straight and forgot to eat and it's dark outside and when did that happen and i feel like a god" and there is nothing in between. no chill. no medium setting. just famine or feast and a very confused nervous system.
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