jocelyn

i want you more than any stupid song could ever say ᢉ𐭩 requests are open

[heaven4lostgirls]

you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love ᥫ᭡.

𝒿𝑜𝒸𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃 ── .✦

𝒷𝒶𝒷𝓎 𝒷𝑜𝓎, 𝒽𝑜𝓃𝑒𝓎𝒷𝑒𝑒

𝑔𝑜𝒹 𝒾 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓌𝒶𝓎 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓁𝑜𝑜𝓀 𝒶𝓉 𝓂𝑒

𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒾𝓉’𝓈 𝓉𝑜𝑜 𝒽𝒶𝓇𝒹 𝓉𝑜 𝒹𝑒𝓈𝒸𝓇𝒾𝒷𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓈 𝒾𝓃 𝒶 𝓌𝒶𝓎 𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝒻𝑒𝑒𝓁𝓈 𝒽𝑜𝓃𝑒𝓈𝓉

𝒷𝓊𝓉 𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓃 𝓌𝒽𝑒𝓃 𝒾’𝓂 𝓆𝓊𝒾𝑒𝓉, 𝒾 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒷𝒶𝒷𝓎, 𝒾 𝓅𝓇𝑜𝓂𝒾𝓈𝑒

𝓃𝒶𝓋𝒾𝑔𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃 ── .✦

[slasher-bunny-fics]

Andrew Cody and a partner that loves biting him

The first time it happened, Pope didn't really know what to do.

You'd been sitting there beside him on the couch in his apartment, watching the NatGeo documentary with him one minute, and then the next, your teeth were latched onto his shoulder, gentle cobbing movements clenching and unclenching your jaws around his skin like a cat.

Pope stared at you like you had three heads. You didn't seem to notice.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Pope's voice was devoid of inflection as it usually was, but you knew him well enough to tell that he wasn't mad. His brow was furrowed, head tilted and eyes wide and sparkly in that confused puppy dog way he had about him that he always vehemently denied.

"Biting you," you supplied unhelpfully, voice muffled around the skin of his shoulder.

Pope stared. "It's more of a gnawing motion," he said. You hummed affirmatively, attention going back to the documentary.

Pope's eyes returned to the screen, but he wasn't paying attention anymore. He'd had few hookups that didn't involve the exchange of cash and even fewer long-term relationships, none of which had involved the age gap that the two of you had. To say he lacked the experience to understand this behavior was an understatement.

Was this just a thing people did? Was this your way of taking out some secret aggression or resentment toward him? Your body language seemed normal otherwise.

"Is it normal for your partner to bite you?"

Craig looked at Pope the same way he'd looked at you when you first bit him. "What?"

Renn, however, looked endeared, her eyes softened in a way they never had when Pope was anywhere in the vicinity. "More than you'd think, actually. They have to be really comfortable around you to do that shit, though. Didn't know you had that kind of game, Pope."

Craig levelled an unimpressed look at her, glancing back and forth between Renn and Pope like he was trying to figure out if he was being pranked. "How come no girl's ever taken a bite out of me then?"

Renn rolled her eyes. "Cause you've rarely talked to the same girl twice, and you go days without showering."

"Hey!"

Pope tuned out the rest of their bickering, mind stuck on Renn's words. He knew, logically, that you felt comfortable with him. You ate with him, slept near him, and didn't mind having your back turned to him when you did things, all signs that you trusted him not to do anything to you when your guard was down. Of course, there were the more intimate things as well, kissing him, coming to him when you've had a bad day, eating food that he prepared for you, giving him the key to your place, letting him take care of you when you were sick and vice versa.

But it made the tips of his ears warm to think that you'd reached some new level of comfort and intimacy that even one of his brothers hadn't heard of before.

The next time you and Pope hung out was at your house. It was craft night, something that Pope would never dare breathe a word about to anyone but you, not because he was embarrassed but because it was sacred. If he told one of his brothers about craft night and they said anything short of reverent on the subject, he would simply be forced to start breaking bones.

Pope was halfway through a massive Lego set that he kept safe at your apartment, and you were crocheting a pair of couple's scarves. It was the end of the night when you both were in bed and doing your post-craft debrief.

You were talking about a particular stitch that was giving you trouble when you suddenly felt a foreign sensation on your arm. You looked down absent-mindedly, words stuttering to a halt as you did a double take.

Your boyfriend was biting your arm.

It was quite possibly the gentlest bite in history, his teeth barely grazing you. You stared at him with wide eyes, but he honestly didn't seem to be paying you any attention. He kept moving his head this way and that, chomping down at various velocities like he was testing things. "Um, Andy…Are you biting me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because we're comfortable with each other," he mumbled distractedly. He was getting more into it, grinding his teeth soothingly against the skin of your shoulder. Every once in a while, you felt the heat of his tongue laving across the area, tasting you with no sexual intent, though you had to try very hard to reel in the heat that pooled between your legs at the action.

"Keep going," he eventually said. "You were talking about the stitching for the scarves."

Congratulations, you've become Andrew Cody's new oral fidget toy.

It gets out of control fairly quickly. Biting quickly becomes a sixth love language in your relationship, and it's not uncommon for you or Andrew to show up places with bite marks or very strange-looking hickeys. His brothers are extremely weirded out. They've never seen or heard of this behavior before, though they think it's quite on brand. Only Pope could manage to find a significant other who was almost as weird as he was.

A/N: This was absolute dog shit, but I can't sleep and can't get Pope Cody out of my head, so I figured I may as well crank out something quick and test out the new laptop. I usually don't like writing drabbles, they're too short for me and don't fit my writing style, but I think I'll keep writing them just to get back into the swing of things if nothing else.

[heaven4lostgirls]

anytime someone utters a bad word about victoria javadi or samira mohan, an angel loses its wings

[samirasystole]

yeah i am forever mad that we don't get to see how samira changed during these four months under al-hashimi's leadership without robby present. how we won't get to see her reaction to him coming back and doing just as badly. their awkward tension and stunted communication. possible aborted apologies, samira going to al-hashimi as her attending and trying to avoid him, but wondering how he is regardless, hoping it's better but seeing that it isn't. samira's confidence having grown some, realising how hard it's been for her these past years under robby's supervision. him trying to find a time to talk to her and failing. al-hashimi seeing how much samira struggles with him being back but not wanting to overstep. some possible growth on all sides. sighs.

[of-apollo]

₊⊹ PITTFEST PHONE-CALLS !

PAIRING: Jack Abbot x Wife!Combat Medic!Reader.

SUMMARY: After weeks of begging from Jake and Robby, you finally agree to supervise Jake and Leah at Pittfest. Nothing could prepare you for the tragedy that occurs on the day, and nothing can stop you from trying to help Leah even as a bullet rips through your own body. All that keeps you going is adrenaline and the voice of your husband over the phone.

NOTES: Gun violence, mass casualty event, gunshot wounds (non-fatal to reader), Leah’s death, references to past trauma (combat, wife death), survivor guilt, alcohol references, angst, 5.5k words.

REQUESTED BY: @maxinebxrnes !

A/N: At risk of sounding insane, I loved writing this. This is exactly my kind of angst/comfort. I know Trinity is on her first day and I did not write it as such but she’s my babygirl so. We ball!

NAVIGATION | PITT MASTERLIST | KO-FI

You nearly stayed at home. That is the stupid thing your brain keeps circling after Pittfest. Not the gunshots, not the blood, not even the screams of pure terror. Just the fact you stood in your kitchen for ten full minutes debating whether you could really be bothered to deal with loud music and overpriced drinks and crowds of drunk university students.

Jake had begged you to come, and Leah had joined in after. Apparently the two of them ‘needed normal adults present’, as per Robby’s request, to stop Jake attempting something humiliating in front of Leah’s friends.

“You are aware I work nights in an emergency department,” you had told him flatly. “This is the last place I want to be, buddy. And not a lot about me says normal adult.”

“You’re more normal than Abbot.”

Jack had still been half asleep when you left the house, one arm hooked lazily around your waist while you sat at the edge of the bed and tried to tug your shoes on.

“Tell Jake if he gets arrested I’m not bailing him out,” he mumbled into your shoulder.

“You like Jake.”

“He’s still an asshole sometimes.”

You laughed quietly and leaned down to kiss him anyway. Jack barely opened his eyes for it, just pulled you closer with a rough hand against your hip and kissed you slow enough to make you consider calling out sick from life entirely to be in this moment forever.

“You staying in bed all day?” you asked against his mouth.

“Mm, absolutely.”

“Jealous.”

“Should be, but I wish you were here with me.” His thumb brushed once beneath your jaw. “Text me when you get there, sweetheart.”

You texted Jack, and then you forgot your phone existed for the next two hours.

PittFest is chaos in the way all music festivals are chaos. Sticky floors. Warm beer. Suncream and sweat and bass vibrating through your ribs hard enough to feel sick with it. Jake and Leah disappear into crowds every five minutes only to reappear holding different food.

You mostly just watch them. Young and stupid and happy. Leah keeps taking blurry pictures of Jake while he complains about it dramatically, which only makes her laugh harder. She slips easily into your space too, arm linked through yours while she talks over the music about gossip you barely follow.

It feels normal. God, it feels painfully normal.

Jake’s midway through telling you both some ridiculous story when the first gunshot goes off.

Nobody reacts properly at first. A sound too sharp to belong there. Then another follows. Then screaming. The crowd shifts all at once.

Panic spreads faster than fire. One second people are dancing and laughing and filming videos on their phones, the next they are shoving each other hard enough to fall trying to get away. Your stomach drops instantly.

“No,” Leah whispers.

Training is ugly sometimes. Instinct before thought. Your brain already cataloguing exits and cover and casualties before the fear even catches up.

“Down,” you snap.

Jake grabs Leah instinctively. Another gunshot cracks through the air, too close for comfort. People are crying. Running. Somebody slams hard into your shoulder trying to push past and you nearly lose your footing.

Then Leah jerks violently beside you. For one hopeful second you think that she just tripped. Then you see the blood, and Jake screams her name, and everything narrows.

You hit the ground beside her so fast your knees crack painfully against concrete. Leah’s staring at you in confusion more than pain, hands shaking as they press instinctively against her abdomen. You don’t need a medical degree to know that there’s too much blood already.

“Oh my God,” Jake chokes. “Oh my God.”

“Pressure,” you order immediately. “Jake, pressure now.”

He freezes. Completely freezes.

You grab his wrists and physically force his hands over the wound. Blood spills between his fingers instantly.

“Look at me.” Your voice sharpens hard enough to cut through panic. “You do not move your hands.”

Leah makes a soft, terrified sound. “It hurts.”

“I know, sweetheart.” Your chest feels tight suddenly as you smooth a hand over her hair, trying to offer comfort in an impossible situation. “I know.”

Gunshots still sound somewhere nearby. Your pulse pounds so hard it makes you feel sick. Jake is breathing too fast. Full panic and shock setting in right in front of you.

“She’s gonna die she’s gonna die—”

“No.” You catch his face hard between both hands. “Not happening. Stay with me.”

People keep running past. Nobody stopping to check if you need anything, if the girl on the floor who is far too young to be in this position is okay. You understand why. Fear makes people cruel without meaning to.

Your phone vibrates against your hip in your pocket. You answer immediately.

“What’s wrong? Is something happening over there? I heard something but didn’t get the details. Are you okay?”

“There’s a shooting.”

Silence. Not real silence. You can hear the hospital behind him faintly. Voices. Movement. A monitor somewhere. Still, something inside him goes absolutely still.

“Where are you hurt?”

You blink hard. “I’m not—”

Another gunshot. Closer. You duck instinctively over Leah. Something tears through your upper arm. The pain arrives hot and brutal a second later. You suck in a sharp breath.

“Sweetheart?”

Your hand flies to your arm automatically and comes away slick red.

“Oh,” you say faintly.

Jake stares at you in horror. Jack’s voice changes instantly. Lower. Controlled in that terrifying way he gets when something is catastrophically wrong.

“You’ve been hit.”

“Just my arm.”

“How bad.”

You press hard above the wound, vision swimming unpleasantly for a second.

“Through and through, I think.”

“Listen to me carefully.” Every word clipped precise now. Doctor mode. “Can you move your fingers?”

You flex them. “Yeah.”

“Good. Keep pressure on it.”

Leah cries out suddenly and your attention snaps back to her. Blood soaking through Jake’s hands faster now. You shrug your jacket off one-handed and bunch it hard against Leah’s abdomen to reinforce pressure. Jake’s shaking so violently he can barely keep hold.

“Jake.” Your voice softens despite everything. “Need you to stay with me, honey.”

“I can’t lose her.”

The fear in his voice cuts straight through you.

“You won’t.”

“I’m sending units your way now,” Jack says through the phonee. “Stay on the line with me.”

You know he’s already moving while he talks. Already taking over. Organising. Commanding. The image of him striding through the Pitt with that expression on his face flashes painfully through your mind. You want him here so badly your chest aches with it.

Another scream sounds somewhere nearby. Leah’s skin is turning grey. Jake looks close to vomiting.

Your own arm throbs violently. Blood slipping steadily between your fingers no matter how hard you press. You promise yourself that you won’t pass out, not here, not while they still need you.

“Sweetheart.” Jack again, quieter now somehow. “Talk to me.”

You swallow hard. “She’s losing too much blood.”

“How’s her breathing?”

You check automatically. Wet. Uneven. Bad. Your stomach twists.

Jake sees your face change and immediately starts panicking harder. “No, no, no, tell me what to do!”

“You keep pressure there,” you say firmly. “You keep talking to her.”

Leah’s eyes find yours. Terrified. You smile anyway because people always look less frightened when medics smile at them.

“You’re alright, angel, I’m here.”

It feels monstrous saying it while blood pools beneath her body. Sirens finally echo somewhere in the distance. Too far away, too slow.

Your vision flickers strangely at the edges. Adrenaline only carries you so long before the body starts demanding payment. Jack must hear something in your breathing again.

“How much blood are you losing?”

“I’m okay.”

“That wasn’t the question.”

You almost laugh despite everything. “I’m fine,” you insist weakly.

“Sweetheart.” Warning this time.

You press harder against your arm. Your hand is slippery with blood. Leah’s or yours, you genuinely cannot tell anymore.

Jake suddenly grabs your sleeve hard. “There’s blood on your face.”

You touch your forehead automatically and come away red again. Your hearing feels distant for a second. You know that feeling. Jack knows it too apparently because his voice sharpens immediately.

“Stay awake.”

“I am awake.”

“You’re fading.”

“No I’m not.”

It’s a lie so obvious that even you hear it. The world tilts unpleasantly. You force yourself to focus on Leah instead. On Jake. On pressure and breathing and survival. Easier than thinking about the fact your husband is listening to all of this happen over the phone while trapped miles away.

“Baby,” Jack says suddenly, very soft now. Dangerous soft. “Listen to me, please.”

Your throat tightens painfully at the desperation in his voice. You can practically see him in your head. Jaw locked. Hand pressed against the back of his neck. Fury and fear buried underneath clinical calmness.

“I need you to stay conscious until the paramedics reach you, okay? You know the drill.”

Your eyes sting unexpectedly. “I’m trying,” you whisper. “I’m sorry. I’m really trying, Jack.”

Then Leah stops responding properly, and everything gets worse.

“Leah?”

No response.

Jake says her name again, louder this time, voice cracking apart so badly it barely sounds human anymore. Your stomach drops.

“Jake.” You force steel back into your voice despite the dizziness crawling steadily through you. “Talk to her.”

His hands are drenched red now. Blood pushed deep beneath his fingernails. He keeps looking at you like you might be able to undo this through sheer willpower alone.

“Leah, baby, c’mon.” His breathing stutters violently. “Please.”

You press trembling fingers against her throat again. Weak. Too weak. Your own pulse pounds hard enough to make your injured arm throb in time with it. Every heartbeat feels wet. Hot blood still slipping through your grip no matter how hard you hold pressure.

Jack’s voice crackles through the phone near your knee where you dropped it onto speaker. “What’s happening?”

You swallow hard. “She’s crashing.”

Silence. Not real silence. You hear movement behind him. Orders being barked across the ER. Metal trays clattering. The Pitt already preparing for the casualties heading their way.

Jack knows exactly what kind of scene you’re sitting in. Exactly how bad it probably looks.

“She conscious?”

“Barely.”

You can feel Jake staring at you, waiting for something. You hate this part, you have always hated this part. The space between trying and failing where everybody still looks at you hopefully.

Leah’s eyes flutter weakly. “Cold,” she whispers.

Jake breaks completely at that. His whole face crumples. Tears running unchecked while he bends over her like he can physically shield her from dying through proximity alone.

“You’re okay,” he keeps saying frantically. “You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay—”

You grip the back of his neck hard. “Jake.” He looks at you immediately. “Need you to breathe.”

“I am breathing.”

He absolutely is not. His chest is heaving so fast you feel panic rising in yourself just watching him. The shock is setting in ugly now. His shoulder is still bleeding too, forgotten entirely beneath Leah’s worsening condition.

You grab the discarded sleeve of your jacket and shove it hard against his wound.

“Pressure there.” He obeys automatically, and you thank every cosmic force that might be out there.

Your vision blurs suddenly. You squeeze your eyes shut hard once and feel the world tilt sickeningly underneath you.

“Sweetheart?” Jack again. Immediate. Alert.

You hadn’t even made a noise. “I’m okay.”

“You keep saying that.”

“You keep pestering me.”

A horrible little laugh escapes him unexpectedly. Sharp with stress. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

You know that laugh. The one dragged out of him when he’s overwhelmed enough that humour becomes the only thing stopping him putting his fist through a wall.

Sirens are closer now. Leah makes another weak choking sound and your focus snaps back instantly. Blood bubbles faintly at the corner of her mouth. It’s bad enough that you already know where this is going. Jake sees your expression change again.

“No.”

You hate how small his voice sounds.

“She’s okay,” you lie.

“She’s not.” His face twists violently. “Don’t fucking lie to me like that. It’s fucked up.”

Your throat tightens. People think medics get used to this. They don’t. You just learn how to keep moving while it happens.

The first paramedics finally break through the crowd. Relief hits so hard your hands start shaking worse. One of them crouches beside Leah immediately while another reaches for you.

“I’m fine,” you snap instinctively.

The paramedic looks unimpressed. “You’ve been shot, ma’am.”

“Not dying though.” Your words slur slightly at the edges.

Jack hears it too. “Hey.” Sharper now. “Stay with me. Let them help you.”

The paramedic starts peeling your blood-soaked hand away from your arm and pain explodes through you white-hot and vicious enough to make your stomach lurch.

“Oh, fuck.”

“There she is,” Jack mutters darkly through the speaker. “Knew you were concussed or dying when you stopped cursing.”

Despite everything, your mouth twitches weakly.

The paramedic assessing Leah suddenly barks for more gauze. Jake flinches hard enough to nearly fall over.

“She needs transport now,” another voice says urgently.

Jake grabs Leah’s hand desperately while they start loading her onto the stretcher. He keeps trying to climb beside her despite the blood loss making him unsteady too.

“Sir, we need you checked out as well.”

“No.”

“Jake,” you say firmly.

He looks at you with tears streaking his face.

“I’m not leaving her.”

“You aren’t.”

His breathing catches painfully.

Your own head feels strangely heavy suddenly. Hard to hold upright. The paramedic wrapping your arm is talking to you but the words drift oddly in and out.

Jack’s voice cuts through the fog immediately. “What’s her BP?”

The paramedic glances towards the phone. “Who is this?”

“Her husband. Dr Jack Abbot.”

Something in Jack’s tone must land correctly because the paramedic answers instantly after that.

“Pressure is dropping.”

You hear the silence on the other end. Not empty silence, calculating silence. Dangerous silence.

Your chest aches unexpectedly at the thought of him hearing numbers instead of seeing you himself. Jack trusts his own hands more than anything else in the world. You know he hates this. Hates being trapped at the hospital while you bleed somewhere he cannot reach.

“They’re taking us to the Pitt?” you ask weakly.

“Yeah.”

Good. You need Jack. The thought arrives suddenly and honestly enough to hurt. Not Dr Abbot. Not your attending physician. Just your husband. Your Jack. The one who sleeps with one heavy hand spread across your stomach every time like he needs proof you’re still there.

Jake climbs into the ambulance beside Leah while they try to convince him to let somebody examine his shoulder properly. You force yourself upright too fast trying to follow and immediately regret it. The world blacks at the edges. Strong hands catch you before you hit the ground.

“Easy,” the paramedic says.

You feel weirdly detached from your own body now. Floating somewhere slightly behind yourself.

Jack’s voice sharpens again instantly through the phone. “She pass out?”

“Nearly.”

“Sweetheart.” Fear leaking through now despite all his control. “Talk to me.”

You try. Nothing comes out properly. Your tongue feels thick. The paramedic starts asking questions rapidly. Name. Age. Allergies. Orientation. You answer automatically between breaths while they push you towards a second ambulance.

Blood loss. Shock. Probably more injured than you first thought. Your arm burns savagely.

“You still with me?” Jack asks.

“Yeah.” Barely.

You hear Jack exhale quietly. “Good girl.”

The words hit you straight in the chest. So familiar. So him. Usually murmured against your skin in the middle of the night instead of through a phone while you bleed through dressings.

Your eyes sting unexpectedly. The ambulance doors slam shut. Everything becomes sirens and fluorescent lights and movement. A paramedic cuts your sleeve fully away and swears under his breath at the amount of blood.

“Looks worse than it is,” you mumble.

“That what you tell all your patients?”

Jack actually snorts faintly through the speaker.

“Yeah,” he says. “She does.”

You can practically picture him now. Leaning over a desk somewhere in the chaos of the ER. One hand braced against the surface hard enough to ache later. Eyes distant and furious all at once.

Somebody in the background says his name. You hear him switch instantly. “What’ve we got?”

Pure attending voice now. Steady. Cold. Commanding. You have seen entire trauma bays settle the second Jack walks into them, like everybody unconsciously trusts him to carry the worst parts. He comes back to you a second later, softer again somehow.

“Nearly there, baby.”

You close your eyes briefly. So tired suddenly.

“Don’t you dare,” he says immediately.

Your eyes open again. “Bossy.”

“Yeah.” No hesitation. “Especially with you.”

The medic checking your vitals suddenly goes very still looking at the monitor. Your stomach sinks.

“What?”

He looks up sharply. “Do you know how much blood you have lost?”

Nobody tells you the answer to that question. Which is answer enough on its own, really.

The ambulance feels too bright. Too loud. Every bump in the road sends pain shooting through your arm and shoulder hard enough to make your vision flicker. You focus on the ceiling instead. On breathing. On staying conscious long enough to get to the Pitt.

Jack keeps talking. You realise after a while he is doing it deliberately. Filling silence before it can turn dangerous.

“You remember Santos trying to tell me how to run a trauma bay last week? Pulling that shit again today.”

A weak laugh catches painfully in your throat. “She’s brave.”

“She’s annoying.”

“We like her. She’s fun.”

“Unfortunately.”

The medic beside you presses fresh gauze against your arm and you hiss through your teeth.

“Easy,” he says.

“Not my favourite word.”

Jack hums quietly through the speaker. “That’s true.”

Your chest aches with missing him. It feels stupid. He is only across the city. You have survived deployments and distance and night shifts and grief and all the ugly things life threw at both of you. Still, all you want suddenly is his hand around yours and his mouth against your forehead and the certainty that comes with him being close enough to touch.

You feel sixteen different kinds of exhausted.

“Leah?” you ask faintly.

The medic hesitates. Bad sign. Your stomach twists violently.

“She’s alive.”

Alive. Not stable. Not okay. Just alive. You nod once anyway.

The ambulance doors finally burst open into noise and fluorescent light. Controlled chaos already swallowing the ambulance bay whole. Stretchers moving. Nurses shouting vitals. Blood on the floor somewhere.

The Pitt. Home, in the worst possible way.

You barely make it two feet before spotting Jack. He is halfway across the bay giving orders to somebody when he sees you.

Everything stops.

Not literally. The ER still roars around him. Staff moving constantly. Sirens outside. Chaos everywhere. Still, something in Jack goes completely still the second his eyes land on you.

You have seen that look exactly twice before. Once overseas. Once after his wife died. It hits you hard enough to hurt.

“Jesus Christ,” he breathes.

Then he is there. Hands on your face first. Immediate. Grounding. Like he needs physical proof you are standing in front of him. His eyes move over you rapidly after that, taking in blood loss, sweat and tears, and the dressing wrapped round your arm already soaked through.

You watch anger flood him in real time. Not at you. At the situation. At the blood. At the fact you got hurt where he could not protect you from it.

“Hey,” you whisper.

Jack grabs the back of your neck and kisses you hard enough to shut you up entirely. Desperate. Furious. His hand shakes once against your jaw before he gets control of it again.

“You scared the fucking life out of me.”

The words come rough and low. You almost cry at the sound of it.

“I’m okay.”

“No, you are not.”

Pure Jack. Sharp enough to cut.

A nurse approaches carefully. “Abbot, we need—”

“Give me a minute.”

Nobody argues. You sway slightly where you stand and Jack’s entire grip tightens immediately.

“Woah, okay.” Softer now. “Easy, sweetheart.”

The adrenaline is disappearing. Fast. Your body suddenly feels unbearably heavy.

“Jake,” you manage. “Leah?”

“They’re in trauma.”

Alive then, at least for now.

Jack guides you backwards towards an empty stretcher with one hand firm against your waist. You can feel him slipping fully into doctor mode again despite the fear still sitting raw underneath it.

“Sit.”

“I can still help.”

“No.”

“Jack.”

“No.” Harder this time. “You’re done.”

You hate how emotional that makes you unexpectedly. You do not want to be done. You want to keep moving and helping and fixing because the second you stop everything catches up.

Jack sees it happen on your face instantly. Always does. His expression softens just slightly.

“Baby.” His thumb brushes beneath your eye before you even realise tears escaped. “Sit down before you drop down. Please.”

You obey mostly because your legs are beginning to shake badly enough that you genuinely might collapse. Jack kneels in front of you immediately to assess your arm himself despite multiple staff hovering nearby ready to do it for him.

His hands are steady. Only his jaw gives him away.

“You got lucky,” he mutters after peeling the dressing back carefully.

“Always do.”

He shoots you a look. Not amused. Blood covers his fingers now. Yours too. Familiar in the ugliest way. You watch him mentally catalogue damage with frightening speed.

“You should see the other guy,” you mumble weakly.

Jack stares at you for one long second before a broken little sound leaves him halfway between a laugh and something else entirely.

“Shut up, sweetheart.”

His forehead drops briefly against your knee. That scares you more than anything else has tonight. Jack does not fold. He bends maybe. Cracks quietly where nobody can see. Never folds, especially not in the Pitt of all places.

Your hand moves automatically into his hair. “Hey.”

He breathes once. Twice. Then straightens again before anybody else notices. Professional mask back in place.

“You’re getting fluids and scans,” he says flatly. “And if you try arguing with me I’ll sedate you myself.”

“There he is.”

His mouth twitches despite himself.

The curtain nearby suddenly gets shoved aside and Trinity stumbles through looking wrecked. Blood dried across her scrubs, hair a complete mess.

“Fuck,” she says immediately. “What do you need?”

The words slam straight into your chest. Jack stands instantly. “It’s okay. I’ve got her.”

Trinity looks at you then and visibly pales. “You’re bleeding through that.”

You glance down. The fresh dressing is already red again. Jack notices at exactly the same moment and something inside him finally snaps.

“Get me another pressure dressing now,” he barks sharply at a nurse nearby. “And where the hell is her trauma consult?”

You stare at him slightly dazed. Trinity does too. Jack never raises his voice unless things are bad. Seconds later, Trinity is called away to treat another casualty, and you watch Jack pale as if he needed that extra lifeline in the room just this once.

“I’m stable,” you try weakly.

Jack rounds on you so fast it almost startles you.

“You do not get to tell us you’re stable while bleeding through gauze every five fucking minutes.”

The nurse returns quickly with supplies while Jack drags a hand hard over his face like he regrets snapping immediately.

“Sorry,” he mutters roughly without looking at you.

Your chest aches. “Jack.”

He crouches back in front of you again, pressing fresh gauze carefully to your arm this time. His touch gentler now. Almost unbearably gentle. He presses one quick kiss against your forehead.

“Don’t move.”

“Bossy.”

“Yeah.” His hand squeezes the back of your neck once. “You married me anyway.”

Jack exhales slowly. The attending disappears first, but your husband stays.

“You scared me,” he says quietly.

No sharpness left in it now. No irritation. Just honesty stripped raw. Your chest aches immediately.

“I know.”

Jack pulls the stool closer and sits in front of you with a pained wince before carefully peeling back the soaked dressing around your arm. His touch stays precise but impossibly gentle at the same time. You know all the versions of him by now. The trauma doctor. The exhausted veteran. The husband who wakes instantly from nightmares with his hand already reaching for you.

This version is frightened. You feel it in every careful movement.

“You should’ve let somebody help you sooner,” he mutters while inspecting the wound.

“There were people worse off.”

Jack’s eyes flick to you with a frown. You look away, standing by that ugly instinct to keep going until your body physically gives out because somebody else always needs more.

“Sweetheart.” His voice softens dangerously. “You were bleeding through your clothes.”

“I know.”

“You nearly collapsed in the ambulance bay.”

You swallow hard. He starts flushing the wound carefully with saline and pain burns viciously through your arm. Your face tightens automatically.

“Sorry, baby.”

“You didn’t shoot me.”

“No, but I’d still like to kill whoever did.”

That nearly earns a laugh from you. Exhaustion hangs too heavily for humour now. Adrenaline burned off enough to leave everything underneath exposed and shaking.

Jack notices immediately. “You dizzy?”

“Yes.”

“Nauseous?”

“Little bit.”

“Head?”

“Hurts.”

“Good. Means you’ve still got one.”

You snort softly at that despite yourself. Jack’s mouth twitches faintly in quiet satisfaction before settling again. His hands are steady.

“You sounded scared on the phone,” you say quietly after a moment.

Jack keeps his eyes on your arm while wrapping fresh gauze into place. “I was terrified.”

The honesty knocks straight through you. “You never sound scared.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is with everybody else.”

His hands pause briefly. “You aren’t everybody else.”

Emotion climbs sharp into your throat so fast it hurts. Before you can say anything, the curtain suddenly jerks open.

Jake stumbles inside looking destroyed.

Your stomach drops instantly.

Blood has dried down the front of his shirt. His eyes swollen raw from crying already. He looks barely upright.

Jack stands immediately. “What happened, buddy?”

Jake opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. Then suddenly he folds in on himself completely.

“She died. Leah died.” The words break apart halfway through. “She died and I wasn’t there and she was asking for me and I wasn’t fucking there—”

“Oh, Jake.”

You are moving before you even think about it despite the pain ripping through your arm instantly. Jake drops heavily into the chair beside your stretcher and puts both hands over his face like he physically cannot hold himself together anymore.

“I left her,” he chokes out. “I shouldn’t have left her.”

“No.” Your voice comes sharp automatically. “No, honey.”

Jack glances at you once before stepping back slightly, giving you space. Jake’s shoulders shake violently beneath your hand when you touch his arm.

“They said she coded again and they couldn’t get her back and I wasn’t there—”

“You listened to medical staff,” you say firmly, throat burning already. “You were injured too.”

“I should’ve stayed with her.”

Guilt. Pure, ugly survivor’s guilt already setting in. You know the shape of it intimately.

Jake starts crying harder. Full body shaking with it now. Young and heartbroken and completely lost. Something inside your chest caves painfully inward at the sound.

“She was scared,” he whispers.

You think suddenly about Leah lying on the concrete with blood soaking through your jacket. Her tiny voice saying how cold she felt. Jake holding pressure with shaking hands because you told him to.

Jack rests one hand briefly against the back of your neck. Grounding. Steady. You lean into it automatically while keeping your other hand wrapped around Jake’s wrist.

“You stayed with her,” you tell him softly. “You hear me? You stayed.”

His face twists apart completely. “I loved her.”

The room goes painfully quiet. Jack looks away briefly. You know why. Leah’s death hits him too. Every loss does, no matter how hard he tries to bury it beneath protocol and movement and work.

The hooks of the curtain scrape against the pole as Robby pulls it to step inside. Exhaustion hangs off him in visible waves. Blood on his scrub top. Eyes hollowed out by the night.

He takes one look at Jake. “Come on, kid.”

Jake looks up at him with a completely shattered expression. Robby crosses the space quickly and grips the back of his neck firmly. “C’mon.”

Jake doesn’t move. “I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can.” Robby says it quietly. Certainly. Like fact.

Jake wipes violently at his face. “I left her.”

Robby’s expression tightens for one brief second.

“No,” he says firmly. “You got shot trying to save her.”

Jake starts crying again anyway. Robby pulls him gently upright after a second, keeping one steady hand between his shoulder blades.

“Come sit with me for a minute.”

Jake looks back at you once before leaving. Lost. Apologetic somehow. You squeeze his hand weakly.

“This isn’t your fault.”

His face crumples again at that before Robby finally guides him back out into the chaos beyond the curtain. The second they disappear the room feels heavier somehow. Jack turns back towards you slowly. You realise suddenly your cheeks are wet too.

“Oh, sweetheart.”

He moves immediately, stepping between your knees and pulling you carefully against his chest despite the IV line and bandaging. You go willingly, forehead pressed hard against him while everything finally catches up at once.

The gunshots. Leah. Jake crying. Jack hearing you bleed over the phone unable to reach you.

Your body starts shaking properly. “I couldn’t save her,” you whisper brokenly.

Jack’s arms tighten instantly. “That wasn’t on you.”

“I knew she was dying.”

His hand cradles the back of your head carefully.

“I knew.” Your voice cracks painfully. “I still kept lying to him.”

Jack pulls back just enough to look at you properly. “You gave him hope while she was alive.”

Your throat burns. You start crying harder at that. Quiet, ugly crying pressed into the front of Jack’s scrub top while he holds you through it without hesitation. Nobody ever talks about this part properly. The aftermath. The helplessness. The guilt medics carry around in their pockets like spare change.

Jack knows though. Of course he does.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs against your hair.

The words nearly finish you off entirely. Eventually, your breathing evens out again enough that he can guide you gently back onto the stretcher. His hand never fully leaves you.

“You need scans before I take you home,” he says quietly.

Home. The word lands soft. You look up at him tiredly. Really look. Exhaustion carved deep into his face now that the crisis is slowing. Tiny flecks of blood still near his jaw. Eyes red-rimmed from stress and lack of sleep and fear.

“You need rest too.”

Jack huffs quietly. “Yeah, well. You first.”

Your mouth twitches weakly. You love him so much it feels unbearable sometimes.

Later, after scans and stitches and far too much arguing over whether you can walk unassisted, Jack finally gets you home sometime near dawn.

The house is dark and still, as safe as you need it to be. Jack helps you out of your ruined clothes with unbearable gentleness before settling you carefully into bed. Clean shirt pulled over your head. Pain medication pressed into your palm. Water forced into you until he looks vaguely satisfied.

Then finally, after stripping off his bloodstained scrub top and unfastening his prosthetic with the exhausted familiarity of routine, Jack gets carefully into bed beside you.

The second the mattress dips, you move towards him automatically. Your face tucked against his throat. One arm curled carefully around his waist while he wraps himself around you just as instinctively.

For a long time neither of you speak. Jack’s fingers move slowly against your spine.

“You awake?” you murmur eventually.

“Yeah.”

Your eyes sting again suddenly. “Jake’s gonna blame himself forever.”

Jack goes quiet for a moment. “Probably.”

Honest. Always honest with you.

“He shouldn’t.”

“No.” His arm tightens slightly. “Neither should you.”

The emotion lodged in your chest aches horribly.

Outside, somewhere beyond your windows, the city keeps moving.

Inside, wrapped tightly around each other in the dark, the two of you finally stop trying to.

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[shadeofpeach]

Control your brat

Pairing: Dr Frank Langdon x resident!girlfriend!reader (ft. Dr. Michael Robinavitch) Warnings: age gap reader could be younger cause of her attitude. physical violence, fistfight, cursing, mild chokehold, throat hold, bruises, cuts, and minor blood, unprofessional behavior, ER drama. Summary: your shift takes a violent turn when an insecure patient’s girlfriend accuses you of flirting with her boy.

Disclaimer: This story is pure fiction and written solely for entertainment purposes.

You had taken the case of a teenage boy brought in with a severe laceration on his leg and a possible concussion after a bike accident.

Standard procedure.

But his girlfriend, a girl no older than eighteen with eyes sharp with insecurity, made it anything but standard.

Every time you leaned in to check the boy's pupils, she stepped into your personal space. Every time you gently asked him to rate his pain on a scale of one to ten, she crossed her arms and glared.

"Is there a reason you're standing so close to him?" she finally snapped.

You paused. "I’m examining your boyfriend's injuries, miss."

"Yeah, well, you're smiling at him. You've been flirting with him since we got into this room. Do your fucking job and keep your hands to yourself."

"I am doing my job," you said, keeping your voice tightly controlled, though a pulse was beginning to throb in your temple. "I need you to step back so I can work."

"Don't tell me what to do!"

The commotion drew attention. Before you could escalate or de-escalate, Robby walked into the room. He took in the girl’s furious face, your rigid posture, and the boy looking desperately uncomfortable on the gurney.

"Everything alright in here?" Robby asked smoothly.

"Your doctor here is trying to hit on my boyfriend!" the girl shrieked, pointing an accusing finger at you.

"I'm not-"

"Doctor, why don't you step out and take five? I'll finish up here." Robby interrupted you, giving you a subtle nod.

You swallowed hard, your jaw clenched so tight it ached. "Fine."

You stripped off your gloves, tossed them into the bin, and walked out. You needed air. Real, cold, outside air.

You pushed through the double doors leading to the ambulance bay. The fresh air hit your face, but it did little to quell the heat rushing through your veins. "Fucking bitch making me angry," You murmured and leaned against the wall, closing your eyes, taking deep breaths.

You heard the doors swing open, followed by aggressive footsteps.

"Hey! Flirt!"

You opened your eyes just in time to see the girlfriend marching toward you, her face twisted in rage.

"I wasn't done talking to you-"

"Get away from me," you warned. "Go back inside."

"Make me, you bitch-"

Before you could react, her hand flew out.

Her fist connected hard with the side of your jaw.

Your head jerked sideways. Pain exploded across your face. Something inside you; weeks of brutal shifts, sleep deprivation, and the sheer audacity of being struck, just broke.

"You fucking crazy bitch!" you screamed.

You lunged. You didn't think at all. Adrenaline slammed through your system. You grabbed a handful of her hair, yanked her down, and landed a solid punch straight to her cheekbone.

She shrieked, clawing at your face, catching her nails along your collar. You dragged her to the pavement, knees slamming into the concrete. Hands pulled, fists flew, and insults were hurled back and forth in a blur of movement and violence.

You were completely blind with rage, operating purely on survival and unadulterated fury.

"Hey! HEY! Break it up!"

Strong hands suddenly seized you under your arms, hauling you backward with force.

"Get off me! I'll fucking kill her!" you spat, thrashing blindly, kicking out at the girl who was being dragged back by Jesse.

"Jesus christ, calm down girl," Jesse yelled, holding the girl who was still screaming profanities, her nose bleeding.

The hands holding you pulled you back against a chest. The scent of familiar cologne broke through the haze of your rage.

"I've got her. Jesse, get that girl inside," a deep voice barked near your ear.

Dr. Frank Langdon.

"Frank, let me go!" you shouted, still squirming, your fists clenched so tight your knuckles were white. "Let me fucking go!"

Frank didn't say a word. He kept a firm grip on you, practically half dragging, half guiding your body away from the ambulance bay.

He shoved open the door to an empty exam room, hauled you inside, and kicked the door shut with his feet.

"Frank-"

In a flash, Frank spun you around, backing you up until your spine hit the wall.

He stepped right into your space, his large hand coming up to wrap firmly around the front of your neck, not choking you, but holding you in place.

"Calm the fuck down, baby," Frank growled, his face inches from yours, his grip firm. "Look at me."

You blinked, your chest heaving, tears of pure adrenaline pricking the corners of your eyes.

"Hey, calm down," he said calmly, commanding you.

"Frank... she fucking hit me-"

"I know, baby," he rasped, his grip on your neck softening into a possessive squeeze, his thumb tracing the rising bruise on your jaw. "I know she did. I saw it. But you're a doctor, and you're completely out of your mind right now."

He leaned down, his breath fanning across your lips.

He didn't pull his hand away until he felt the violent rhythm of your breathing finally settle into something manageable. But the residual rage remained, vibrating right under your skin.

You were practically humming with bad energy, your body rigid, jaw locked, eyes blazing with fury.

Frank let out a heavy breath, his thumb sweeping over your lower lip one last time before he stepped back to lock the exam room door properly.

"Sit," he ordered softly, gesturing toward the stainless-steel exam table.

You didn't move for a second, glaring at the floor as if you could set it on fire. Then, you shoved yourself up onto the table.

Your legs swung rhythmically, knees knocking together, knuckles still bright red and raw.

Frank pulled up a rolling stool, wheeling it right near your knees so you were forced to look at him.

"Give me your hands first, baby," he murmured, reaching out.

You thrust your hands forward, refusing to make eye contact. Your knuckles were red from where you’d cracked her across the cheekbone.

Every time he pressed down, your whole body twitched, muscle tension practically radiating off you in waves.

"Seriously, baby, calm down," Frank muttered, eyes flicking up to assess your face. "Still want to go back out there and rip her hair out?"

"She split my lip and bruised my jaw," you spat out. "If Jesse hadn't pulled her off, I would've broken her fucking nose for being a jealous bitch."

"I know you would have, baby," he said, zero judgment in his voice. "I'm almost impressed, if I wasn't so busy trying to keep Robby from firing you on the spot."

"Let him," you snapped, leaning your head back against the wall, teeth grinding. "I don't care."

"Liar," Frank grunted softly. He discarded the gauze and picked up a clean swab, dabbing gently at the cut on your cheekbone.

You winced, a hiss escaping your teeth and tried to flinch away.

Frank’s large hand immediately clamped around your thigh, holding you dead in place. "Ah-ah. Hold still, sweet face."

"It stings," you muttered, glaring at him.

"That's what happens when you roll around on the concrete, baby," he replied, though his touch was gentle as he cleaned the tiny gravel scrapes near your hairline. "You're lucky she didn't catch you in the eye."

"I hit her harder," you grumbled.

Frank chuckled, curing your lip and shaking his head as he unwrapped an ice pack. "Yeah. Yeah, you did. You nearly knocked her teeth out, baby."

He leaned in to wrap around the nape of your neck, gently tilting your head up. He pressed the ice pack against your swollen jaw. You winced again, your body stiffening, but Frank didn't let go. He held the ice there, forcing you to meet his eyes.

"Look at me," he murmured, his thumb stroking the tender skin behind your ear. "This bad energy? Drop it. It's done. I'm handling the paperwork, Robby's probably discharging the kid, and that girl is getting escorted off by security before she can open her mouth again."

"Frank-"

"I mean it, baby," he cut in. "Drop it, and let your boyfriend fix you up. Okay?"

You stared at him, the angry heat in your chest slowly colliding with the warmth radiating from his hands. A sigh finally rattled out of your chest, your shoulders dropping.

"Okay," you whispered, leaning your forehead weakly against him.

Frank rested his chin on top of your head, his hand staying firm on your neck, holding you close while the ice slowly numbed the throbbing pain. "Good girl," he grunted softly, kissing your hair.

Then, the door opened and Robby stepped inside. He took one look at the scene: you perched on the table with an ice pack glued to your face, Frank hovering over you like a protective guard dog.

A smirk spread across his face.

"How's my little fighter doing?" Robby asked, leaning back against the doorframe with his arms crossed.

You shot him a glare through your good eye, though the effect was entirely ruined by the ice pack pressed to your jaw. "I'm fine, Robby."

"Yeah, you look great," Robby chuckled, shaking his head. "Jesse’s out there boasting to the staff that you’ve got a mean left hook. Said you almost took the girl's head clean off."

Frank didn't move an inch away from you. He kept his hand firmly planted on your neck.

"She started it, Robby," Frank grunted defensively. "The girl laid a hand on her first. Out in the bay."

"I know she did, Frank, I saw the security footage on my way over," Robby said, his softening. He looked directly at you, giving you a fatherly look. "For the record? You're off that case. And off the floor for the next two hours until that jaw stops throbbing and you stop looking like you want to punch whoever breathes wrong beside you."

"Robby, I can work-" you started, trying to sit up straighter.

"You're taking them, baby," Frank cut in smoothly, his grip tightening just enough on your neck to keep you rooted to the table. "Don't argue."

Robby stifled a grin, pushing off the doorframe. "Listen to your boyfriend. And your attending. I told security to escort the girl off, and her boyfriend is getting transferred to another hospital. No charges are being filed, but if I see you fighting someone on the ambulance bay again today, I'm assigning you to digital rectal exams for a month."

"Understood," you muttered.

"Good." Robby checked his watch, flashing a quick look between the two of you. "Ice it for twenty more minutes. And, Langdon? Try to keep your bratty girlfriend from starting any more underground fight clubs in my ER."

"HEY!" you screamed in offense.

"She's your resident, you know?"

"My resident. Your brat. Control her."

"No promises," Frank grunted back, smirking.

As the door clicked shut behind Robby, Frank let out a snort, bringing his gaze back down to yours. "You heard him, baby. Mouth shut. No more punches."

⋆｡˚☤🩺✧˖°.｡⋆💉

the pitt masterlistd

[mcybank]

⋮⟢ drabble: pope cody who was your scary best friend before he became your scary boyfriend

── ✦ pope who you’d probably met in a very normal, mundane setting. something like a park, somewhere the wood chips got into your socks and gave you a splinter. you’d been walking on the side of your foot for a while, trying to ignore it, until you asked the boy sitting in front of you on the bench for help with the wood chip stuck to the bottom of your foot.

he’d take your foot in both hands the way you’d hold a bird, turn it toward the sun, and get the splinter out with his thumbnail. he acted like he did this all the time. and then he’d have no clue what to do when your face crumpled, because it still stung.

“it’s out,” pope’d say dumbly, holding up the splinter to show you. and when just the mere fact of stating the removal of your pain didn’t work, he’d awkwardly pat your ankle once.

and when that also didn’t work – dramatic you – he'd sigh through his nose and just put your sock on for you. he’d put on your shoe for you, too, tie the laces in a knot, tight enough that you’d have to cut it off later, and give it one firm pat.

and then you’d just keep materializing over and over again to the point that pope was confused. all he'd done was help you take out a splinter and now it felt like you lived here, on this bench, next to him. forever, seemingly. he’d definitely realize you were the only person in the whole wide world that wasn’t anything like his family and had given him a semblance of attention. sure, he was confused why you’d done it in the first place. but i imagine that earlier – before he’d started dabbling further in his violence and the cody family work – he’d be more prone to accepting a stranger-turned-constant in his life. he still had some trusting instinct in him, choosing to believe you when you honestly told him you liked hanging out with him.

── ✦ pope who was sometimes very strange and didn’t know he was. he’d bring you rocks because you once said – while walking past an enormous house in oceanside – that the quartz gravel in somebody’s driveway was pretty. so naturally he picked up a random little rock from the gutter two streets over, wiped it on his shirt, and gave it to you.

he did it again and again and again because you found that you were more endeared than anything and had started keeping these rocks first in your pocket, then in a shoebox, and finally on your windowsill. you could’ve told anyone which came from where. so even if you didn’t particularly have a fondness for random rocks when you noticed the quartz gravel, you definitely grew one!

(pope who also later replaced said rocks with the real thing when he came into money he had no idea what to use for, only ever remembering how your older tastes had sometimes made you look through the window at the jewelers and your eyes had lingered too long on a little diamond necklace. he never saw the necklace, really, only noticed you wanting it. he knew how to take care of that)

pope who wasn’t really sure how a simple hangout worked, so when you’d asked him to come over later on saturday without specifying when, he sat on your porch step for two and a half hours. when your mother asked him if he wanted to come inside and eat something, he’d say no, because he was supposed to be hanging out with you, not your mother.

when you finally came, you just sat next to him on the step and stayed there, finding it all so natural.

── ✦ and when he’d begrudgingly agree to hang out with your other friends, it’d accidentally lead into him drawing them away from the both of you. he hadn’t even meant to do that (not at first, at least).

he’d watched your friend hand you some shitty snack and said something like “don’t give her those,” without any explanation, smacking the snack away from your hand gently (though the explanation was that you’d ate one of those and promptly threw up on the ferris wheel, and it’d put you off of them for life).

if someone asked if you wanted beer, he’d say “she’s driving.” you were?

if someone asked you if you were cold, he was already handing you his jacket, mentally beating himself up for not having noticed sooner.

he’d move his chair to face the door wherever he was sitting, because ever since he’d watched people break into their little trailer as a kid – smurf, always tangled up in some shit – he’d learned to stay alert. so people always thought he was rude when he randomly turned his chair away from the group while someone was speaking and they were forced to stare at his back.

── ✦ pope who during your surprise birthday party (that he was only invited to because everyone knew how mad you’d be if they didn’t invite your best friend since you were a kid) would just stand in the corner and watch everyone with a frown, and when it got too late he’d tell everyone that the party was meant to end at ten even though that was never decided. and everyone would leave because you’d just stand there beside pope being like “yup!”

and then you and pope would spend the next three hours bagging cans, wiping down corners, finding a nickel or two between the couch cushions because of how thorough the two of you were. that was the good part. he’d wait for that.

after, he’d say, “that was fun.” and you’d think he was talking about the party.

── ✦ pope who kept saying “i can take care of it,” whenever one of your friends mentioned someone bothering them. at first, they thought it was a turn of phrase – ugh, i’ll beat him up for you, but in pope’s language – until pope started asking where he worked, where he lived, and what his car looked like.

pope who had punched a guy for you, a boyfriend-of-a-friend, when he’d said something about you while you were in the bathroom. he’d asked the guy to go outside to smoke a cigarette, decked him, and come back with his hands in his pockets.

you were a little confused when your friends told you pope had gone out for a smoke, because pope doesn’t smoke, and because the six of them had squeaked it out at once.

he knew your friends knew, so when he came back, he’d just looked at all of them as he stood behind your chair as you and your friends sat in silence, tilting his head to the side to confirm whatever social contract he’d expected from them. then he’d simply shrugged and said, “he had to go home.”

── ✦ and when pope started noticing that you were being invited to hang out less with your other friends, consequently meaning he was being invited by you less with your other friends, he’d ask, “is it ‘cause of me?”

you’d immediately say “no!”

because even you hardly believed that it was because of him; pope was so good. he read the manuals for everything you got, peeled oranges for you – handed over in an unbroken coil, because a torn piece would've bothered him – fixed your bike chain, and made you the perfect sandwiches.

sure, he had a tendency to sometimes growl when a stranger got too close to you or a little puppy barked at you. sureee, he always had bruises on his knuckles without ever having a story for them (or rather, without giving one). and he sometimes glared when your girlfriends asked you to go on a double date. or appointed himself as the designated driver when they specifically asked you to have girls night.

on the occasion you actually did go, he’d sit outside in the car watching you through the window of some restaurant or bar.

he’d come in just once – after he saw a guy linger at your table for nineteen minutes and thought it was fucking girls night, waiting until the guy went to the bathroom – and when you gave him a questioning look he just pointed toward the bathroom, forcing an embarrassed shrug like he just wanted to take a leak.

maybe it was just a coincidence that you nor your friends saw the guy come out of the bathroom! pope stopped at your table on the way back, hands in his pockets, knuckles freshly pink, and said, “want anything?” and when you said no, he went back to his car.

“isn’t he so sweet?” you’d say to your friends, misty-eyed and dreamily, watching him sit in the parked car like he was a pretty sunset.

“the sweetest,” they’d say, three of them in unison like they’d been trained. you were completely unaware that they were in the midst of realizing you were a lost cause.

so obviously you could not, for the life of you, imagine that people wanted to not hang out with you because of pope. it was their loss, anyway, you thought.

pope was so relieved once he realized he wouldn’t have to spend time with other people, just so he could hang out with you.

── ✦ pope who took over their vacancy so quickly that you didn’t even consider it as a loss even for a day.

if you wanted to get drunk at a bar, he’d go with you and get a beer while you slammed three cocktails within an hour. he’d try to gossip with you when you asked him to “tell me something fun.”

“craig and renn had a fight.”

you’d light up because that was interesting. “good. he’s bad for her anyway.”

“yes,” he’d simply say.

and when you’d press for the details (what did they fight about? who started it? did anyone cry? on a scale of one-to-ten, how bad?), and he’d have none, he’d noticed how you’d slumped slightly, ever the nosy little thing he’d been hauling around for years, he’d frown. he genuinely had no more details to give you because he hadn’t cared enough to listen to craig’s tangent. but clearly you cared, so he’d say, “i’ll ask him.”

after he managed to get the hang of it – and found he liked it, talking shit, the whole nine yards of "but you didn't hear it from me – you’d both end up laughing.

and when you’d ask him for another story (because he had so many; the cody house was so weird), he’d say, “smurf woke up so late this morning,” thinking it held the same value as baz breaking up with his girlfriend at the time.

when you opened your mouth without saying a single word, stumped, he'd double down, "like ten," like you just didn't get it yet.

pope who somehow started filling every single shoe of the people in your life. pope, your girl best friend. pope, your mother (“did you eat?” “yes.”). pope, your dad, apparently, at some point (making it his mission to check your car).

pope, your dog (waits by the door and knows the sound of your car pulling in). pope, your bodyguard (constantly scaring away everyone, threat or not). pope, your financial advisor (“you don’t need to spend that kinda money on that.”) pope, your sugar daddy, immediately after (“fine. give it to me.” “what?” “i’m getting it.”)

pope, when you’d run him through the list, just looked at you confused and said, “someone’s gotta.”

once again, he was right. you’d gotten so lucky with pope, what were the odds of that? astronomical, you’d think, cheerfully. and then you’d wonder if he’d like one more shoe to fill.

[fru1t4fr0gs]

Three Years

Pairing: Andrew "Pope" Cody x Reader

Summary: You and Pope have loved each other since you were teenagers. And then he went to prison, and cut you off. No apology, no explanation, nothing. Just a sledgehammer to your heart and utter radio silence.

Three years later, he's out, and he wants you back.

Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI: Swearing, Mentions of drugs, Mentions of violence, Alcohol use, Gun use, It's Animal Kingdom there's a little bit of everything, Character death (not a main/canon character), Vague descriptions of mental illness (it's Pope), Smut!! Unprotected pinv (wrap it up guys!), Loss of virginity in a flashback, Brief Craig/Reader (they're besties though), Age gaps/timelines might be a little wonky but oh well, Mentions of abuse (reader’s dad is a bad man), Please let me know if I forgot anything!

Author's Note: I hope you guys enjoy this one! I wanted to experiment with flashbacks, and then this exploded out of my brain. Special thanks to @flowersforbucky for proofreading and dealing with my indecisiveness on the pictures and layout because she is the best!! Please let me know what you think!!

Word Count: 21k

-

The bar is dimly lit. Sticky. Loud.

The guy sitting across from you has nice eyes. Pretty, even. They’re a light blue, crinkled a little in the corners and looking at you with something like adoration. You try to appreciate it, you really do, but all you can see is naivety. Maybe you’re too cynical. More likely too damaged. Whatever.

You prefer brown eyes, anyway.

Warm brown eyes looking into your own. Large fingers tucking your hair behind your ear. The ghost of warm breath against your lips and a small curve of a shy smile as he leans closer and closes the distance between you-

You blink, and force a smile.

The guy across from you, Ethan or something, clears his throat. “So, do you wanna maybe-“

A beer hits the table, loud enough to make the man - though you should really call him a boy, with that collared shirt and combed hair and those innocent eyes - jump nearly a foot in the air.

“Move it, pal.”

Craig Fucking Cody stands above you, and you bite back a groan.

The boy stammers, pales at the sight of the gigantic, tattooed man beside you, and takes maybe a full twenty seconds to stammer out his next words.

“I-I…are you her…”

“Oh yeah, I’m her husband. Fresh outta the psych ward and everything. Now beat it, before I smash your head against the table.”

The boy bolts like Craig set the booth on fire, and you glare up at him.

“I was on a date.”

Craig laughs, like you were genuinely joking. “Not exactly your type.”

“You don’t know what my type is.”

“Pretty sure I do. I shared a wall with your type for most of my life.”

You clench your jaw. “What do you want, Craig?”

He sits across from you, all friendly familiarity, and smiles. “I need your help.”

“I don’t do jobs anymore.”

He raises his eyebrow, and glances pointedly towards Ethan in the corner of the bar, trying to save face by ordering himself another drink.

“I told you, that was a date.”

“C’mon, don’t lie to me. You think I don’t know when you’re working an angle?”

You narrow your eyes a little. “Okay, fine. I don’t do jobs with the Codys anymore.”

Craig’s smile falls a little.

Burning rubber in your nose. Panic in your throat. The shriek of the tires drowned out by your own voice as you grab frantically at the wheel.

“Baz what the fuck are you doing? What are you doing? Turn around!”

Baz’s hand darts out, and he slams you back against the seat so hard your teeth knock together. “It’s too late.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? We can’t just leave him-“

“We have to. He was too late. You know the rules. It’s him or all of us.”

You’re frantic. Panicked. You even start to yank at your own car door, like you might jump out and run back to the bank on your own two feet, and Baz slams you backwards again.

When he makes it to the house, you punch him in the face before you even get out of the car. He takes it, head whipping to the side like he expected this reaction from you. When you get out, you punch him again. It takes both Craig and Deran to pull you away.

“He’s out of prison, you know.”

You take a sip of your drink. “Good for him.”

“He keeps asking about you.”

Yeah, bullshit. “I’ll bet he does.”

Craig sucks his teeth, and seems to decide to pick a different battle.

“So, it’s a good job. You barely have to do anything. We just need your help with-“

“I don’t do jobs with the Codys anymore, Craig. Also, I don’t know if you realize this, but using my ex as an incentive to help you isn’t really boosting my interest.” Ex. Your ex. It still feels so weird to think of him like that.

Because he’s just…Pope. Andrew Cody. The love of your life since you were a teenager. Even when you were together, ‘boyfriend’ felt like too simple of a word to describe what he was to you. It was too intense for such a lame title. Too full of a love so deep it bordered on obsession.

And then it was all over. Just like that.

Craig is making a face. You frown back at him. “What?”

“It’s my job, okay?” He runs a hand through his hair, flexes his fingers on his beer. “And it’s good. I’ve worked my ass off at planning it, and Baz is out, so I just…I need it to go well. And it will go well if you help.”

You grip your drink a little tighter. Fucking Craig. Fucking asshole with the terrible decision making skills and good heart. Fuck him for being your friend. For making you care about him. For giving you that look that’s making you feel like-

“Fuck. Fine.” God help you. “Fine. Fine. Okay. Fine.” He grins at you, and you glare back at him. “But I don’t want to see Pope.”

Now it’s Craig’s turn to give you a look. “About that…”

-

Your outfit is so fucking uncomfortable you want to die.

Okay, maybe it’s not the outfit. Maybe it’s the anxiety twisting in your stomach so intensely you think you might vomit in the driveway of the Cody house.

You’ve been here since he went to prison. Since you broke up. Not for long - you haven’t exactly been in the habit of hanging out by the pool or anything - but whether you’re here for a minute or an hour this damn driveway always whips the memory of that horrible day back into your mind more violently than a slap.

-

“Put me down. Put me the fuck down I’m gonna-“

“Jesus, relax!” Baz throws his hands up, angry and defensive and so very punchable right now. Deran’s got you locked against him, feet kicking in the air like you might be able to land a blow if you just try hard enough. “I had to go! He got held up or some shit, and if the cops caught us the whole family would have gone down.”

“You just fucking left him there! We could have-“

“We didn’t have a choice. I made a decision. I saved our asses. We knew this was a risk. It always is.”

“Fuck you.”

“Yeah, yeah. Fuck me.” Baz runs a hand through his hair, and you know he’s heartbroken too but you couldn’t give less of a shit right now. His nose is still bleeding from where you clocked him a minute ago. “Fuck me for making the hard decisions for this family.”

Rage rises up in your throat again, threatening to choke you as you kick harder. “Boo fucking hoo. You left him! You fucking left him and-“

“Calm down.” It’s Deran’s voice now. Deran, who sounds choked up and is still holding you locked in a vice grip. The sound of it makes you look up at Craig, whose eyes are shining with tears, and…

Your feet drop back to the pavement, the sound and sight of the boys’ pain deflating you almost alarmingly quickly, and you pat the arm around you in both comfort and reassurance.

“Okay.” You breathe, shaky, and Baz’s shoulders drop.

“Okay.” He repeats, and the sound of his voice makes you grit your teeth. “Now that we’re all calm, we need to figure out what to do.”

-

He’s in the yard.

Three years later, and he’s just… in the yard. Standing there. Staring at you. And what did you expect? That he would drag himself out of a grave? Appear before you in an explosion of fire and blood?

He looks at you. You look at him. He doesn’t move an inch.

He looks good. Just as beautiful as the day you lost him. You hate him for it.

“Hi.” His voice sounds even lower than it used to. He looks bigger. Like he worked out a lot in prison.

You raise your eyebrows. Something curls deep in your core at the sight of him. Three years later, and you still can’t look at this man without feeling a physical reaction. “Hi.”

-

“You’re bleeding.”

You reach up, swiping the back of your hand over your lip and frowning at the smear of red across your skin, illuminated by the moonlight reflecting off the pool.

“You’re not the only one who can get into fights.”

Andrew Cody looks at you, with those dark eyes that always seems to see through whatever lie you try to  tell him or even yourself, but you meet his gaze with the defiance of a teenage girl who really doesn’t want to talk about it.

“Are you…staying here again?” He asks, standing still from his spot beside the pool. You’re on a chair. Your face hurts. Your body aches. You nod.

“Smurf says I can crash for a few days.” In exchange for help, of course. Help with jobs. Connections. Money. You don’t mind. It’s better than being home, or hiding out on the beach again.

He still hasn’t moved. “Are you…gonna stay in Craig’s room? With him?”

You almost laugh out loud. Craig, big and rowdy and often immature even for a teenager, is closest to you in age. He might be your best friend. He definitely has a crush on you, and you’re almost positive that Smurf is angling for the two of you to get together.

“Why? Would that bother you?”

“Yes.”

You look up at him. He looks down at you. Slowly, almost unaware that you’re doing it, scoot over on your chair to make room, and he takes the invitation. Your heart hammers in your chest.

His hand comes up. Fingers brushing over a bruise on your cheek and eyebrows twitching with…

“Stop looking at me like that.”

He doesn’t. “Like what?”

“Like you want to kill someone for me.”

“I do.”

“I know.”

He’s close. His thumb is still brushing over your cheek, and his eyes fall to your lips. You think he might kiss you. You don’t think you’ve ever wanted anything more.

But this…this house, as chaotic and dangerous as it may be, is the only somewhat stable thing you have right now. The only safe place to go when things get too fucked up at home. When your petty criminal of a father takes things too far, or debt collectors come banging on the door. Smurf lets you stay here, and Smurf is always working an angle. You’ve told yourself a thousand times that, in exchange for this, you’ll go along with whatever plan she has for you.

This is not that plan.

And yet, as his face ducks closer to yours, fingers curling in your hair, you wonder what it would be like. To feel Pope’s lips against your own. To feel his body against yours as he lies you down right here on this pool chair. You think, despite his violent tendencies and episodes of something your uneducated mind can only call insanity, that he would be gentle with you. Like he always is. You don’t have much experience with boys, but you think he would make sure that you felt comfortable. He’d probably kiss you through any nervousness, whisper reassurances into your skin as he peels off your clothing, make you feel safe the whole time and-

His lips brush over your own, and you pull back.

“I’ve gotta…go inside.”

He searches your face, and you know that his observant eyes see the want there. Still, he nods, and stays where he is as you pull yourself to your feet.

-

“We should talk.”

You laugh, humorless, and push past him into the house. You don’t get far before you feel his hand on your arm, turning you towards him.

“Let go of me.”

He does, but he tilts his head and furrows his brow in that intense way he has. The familiar sight makes you ache. “We should talk.”

“I think the time for talking passed somewhere around three years ago, Andrew.” You grumble, and he fixes you with an expression so filled with helplessness and pain that you almost crumble right then and there.

You ignore him, and push your way into the house. Craig whistles at the sight of your too-tight dress and heels, and Deran greets you with a familiar smile.

As you start to plan, to prepare for the day ahead, you don’t turn around. You don’t look at Pope. His eyes don’t leave you the entire time, and it’s almost physically impossible to keep yourself from leaning back against him like you have a million times, over the course of a million similar meetings.

But you don’t look at him, and when it’s time to leave, you storm out of the house before he has a chance to catch your arm again.

The job. Focus on the job.

You can do this.

-

You lost your virginity to Craig Cody two weeks after you and Pope nearly kissed by the pool.

You don’t know why you did it. Well, you do. It’s what Smurf wants. It’s what Craig wants. It’s what you should want. You and Craig are well matched. You love him in whatever way you do. He’s your best friend. You know how to keep him in check when he acts like an idiot, and he knows how to make you laugh when the weight of everything feels like it’s going to fucking crush you.

So you had a couple of beers at a party. You grabbed his hand before he could get too wasted. Even for a teenager, he’s already fucking huge. Handsome, too. You know the other girls stare at him. You should feel proud that he follows you like a lost puppy the moment you start tugging him towards his room.

It was awkward. And messy. And nothing like the movies say it’s supposed to be like. You know he tried to make it…special, or whatever. He was gentle. He asked if you were okay between kisses as he laid you back on his unmade bed and helped you out of your clothes. When he pushed in, you’d gasped and clawed at his back, and he’d mumbled apologies into your neck and waited until you nodded that you were okay, but he still moved just a little too fast. A little too clumsily. It didn’t hurt too badly, and it wasn’t exactly unpleasant the whole time, but you didn’t feel fireworks or any of the overwhelming pleasure you thought you were supposed to.

When it was over, he’d kissed you, and you’d smiled up at him, and then he’d rolled over and pulled you into his chest and laughed.

“That was awesome.” He breathed, and you nodded. “You’re awesome. Was it…did you?”

“Yeah.” You think you did. There was a minute, somewhere towards the end, when it had felt pretty good. Not the explosion of pleasure you’ve always heard about, but that’s fine.

“Awesome.” He kissed your forehead, and sat up a little. “Wanna beer?”

You’d smiled, heart swelling with affection that should definitely feel more…romantic than it does. But it’s still affection. You still care about him a lot. Maybe this is supposed to be right. “Yeah.”

~

Pope Cody hasn’t looked at you in a week.

Smurf seems more than happy with you sleeping in Craig’s room. With him wrapping an arm around you when you all sit on the couch together. He’s even developed a habit of ducking down and pressing a kiss to your cheek when you’re standing in the kitchen, or before he does a backflip into the pool. It’s fun. You think you can get used to it.

You haven’t had sex again. He’s asked, almost every night, but you’ve always come up with some kind of excuse and he’s always responded with nothing harsher than a disappointed smile. And yet, you both stay up almost all night every night, talking and laughing and playing video games like you always have since the day he first brought you to this house. This family.

But Pope won’t look at you, and you can’t ignore it anymore.

Because he came home from a job with a black eye and bruised knuckles, and now he’s standing in the yard and Smurf’s chastising him for being reckless is still ringing in the air. He didn’t talk. He didn’t argue. He just stared at the pool and refused to look at her. At you.

And now you’re alone with him, and everyone has left to go regroup or party or whatever, and he still. Won’t. Look. At. You.

“Andrew.” You rarely use his real name. He tenses, but he doesn’t turn around.

“Look at me.”

He doesn’t. You snap.

“Why won’t you look at me?” You grab his arm, and turn him toward you, and he pulls it away.

“Stop it.”

“No.” You grab him again, and this time he catches your arm, fingers around your wrist in a vice grip that is firm but nowhere close to painful. His eyes remain on the pavement.

“You haven’t talked to me since I got with Craig.” You say, and his jaw clenches at your words. You can see his cold expression, now, if not his eyes. He’s older than you, but his face still holds the smooth roundness of youth. He’s just as handsome as always. Your heart stutters a little, like it’s supposed to with Craig.

When he still doesn’t answer, you shove at his chest. The sudden movement makes him release your wrist, but he doesn’t budge. “Fucking look at me! Why won’t you at least look at me? Are you seriously this pissed off because I hooked up with him? Stop being an asshole and tell me why you’re acting like this!”

“Because it should have been me!” He finally snaps, finally looks at you, and the sharpness of his voice paired with the intensity behind his dark eyes is enough to nearly make you stumble backwards. “It should have been me. You know it should have.”

He looks almost crazed, now, shoulders hunched and fists clenched and feet moving towards you until you take an instinctive step backwards. The movement doesn’t stop him. He still comes closer.

“You…you let him touch you. And kiss you. And do all of the things I’ve…” he trails off, and your breath freezes in your lungs, “the things I’ve wanted to do since I met you.” His eyes drop to your mouth, back up to your eyes, and he’s close. So close. “It should have been me.”

You don’t move back again. You can feel the warmth of his proximity in the chilly night air. Your voice is too quiet to your own ears. “That’s…not the plan.”

He’s not breathing regularly. His hands are still clenched at his sides. He looks you over, like he’s trying to fight it, before something finally breaks.

“Fuck the plan.” His voice is almost a growl, and you don’t have time to respond before his hand is on the back of your head and his mouth is against yours.

The world explodes.

His lips are warm and rough, demanding and desperate and sending fire through every vein and pore in your body. You choke on a whimper, surprising yourself with the sound, and Pope groans in response as his tongue sweeps its way into your mouth. Your hands fly up, curling in the fabric of his shirt before moving up to his hair like you don’t know how to touch all of him at once. His own hands move down, lips only leaving yours long enough for him to grab the backs of your thighs to lift you against him before he’s kissing you again.

You don’t even register that you’re moving, too caught up in the desperation and the feeling of something hot burning in your core. He presses you against a wall, trails his lips down your throat until you’re gasping for air, before he kisses you again and moves deeper into the empty house.

And then he’s lowering you back onto his bed, crisp sheets smooth against your back, and you barely let him pull away enough to crawl over you before you’re kissing him again with so much need that it’s almost embarrassing.

His rough palms are sliding up beneath your shirt, breath turning shaky at the feeling of your skin against his, and it feels so good you think you might die.

“Is this okay?” He whispers, lips against your cheek, and you nod.

“Please.” You don’t know what you’re begging for, but the sound of it makes him moan as he pulls your t-shirt over your head and trails his mouth down over your collarbone.

His own shirt comes next. You roll on top of him, and kiss and bite down his chest until he’s tangling his fingers in your hair and pulling your mouth back up to his, rolling you both once more until you’re on your back and your hands are fumbling with his belt, unpracticed and clumsy, until he shushes you gently and reaches down to help you with a lingering kiss to your cheek.

“Tell me if it’s too much.” He rasps after a while, and you can barely breathe enough to tell him that you will. You settle for a nod, and his rough palm slides over your stomach, up over your body until he’s cradling your cheek.

“I’ve got you.” He whispers, and the soft words are almost comical with how hard he’s trembling with restraint. With how dark his eyes are, how intense his touch feels. “Breathe. I’ve got you.”

You nod, and when you smile he smiles back, shy and nervous behind that starved expression, and that one look alone makes you feel like you’re floating.

It’s nothing like Craig. It isn’t like Pope is a whole lot more practiced, or some kind of sex god or anything, but every movement feels so much more…right. He slides his hand beneath your thigh, guiding it around his waist and watching your face as your bodies join together for the first time, and the noise that pulls its way out of your throat barely sounds human.

His breath comes on a shaky exhale, eyes never leaving yours as he searches your face for signs of pain or discomfort, and when he finally starts to move you feel something coiling so tightly in your stomach it almost hurts.

Every slow thrust, every reverent touch, tightens that coil. Every kiss. Every whispered word against your skin as his fingers catch your own and he presses your joined hands into the pillow above your head.

You reach the edge so quickly it shocks you, free hand clawing at his back as you bite down on his shoulder and fireworks explode behind your vision.

The feeling is so intense that, for a moment, you forget where you even are. You forget your own name. All you know, all you feel, is Pope moving with you. Whispering praise and promises of adoration against your lips and throat. When he follows you into oblivion, it’s with a breathless moan of your name.

After, he holds you like you’re the most precious thing he’s ever touched. He traces his hands over your skin. He follows the caresses with his lips. And, when you finally remember how to breathe again, you giggle.

He pulls back from your throat with a raised eyebrow, a smile curling on his own lips, and nuzzles his nose into your cheek. “What?”

“I didn’t…” you didn’t know it could feel that good. You didn’t know anything could feel that good. “I…wow.”

He really does smile, now. He tucks you closer to him, barely letting you go as he pulls you beneath the blankets with him and curls his body around yours. Protective. Possessive, even. “Yeah.” He murmurs, pressing his lips to the side of your head. “Wow.”

-

The future Mr. and Mrs. Franklin need to be convincing. Happy. Overwhelmingly in love.

Your heels click against the dock. It takes years of practice and training from Smurf to keep yourself from fidgeting in your expensive dress. Pope’s eyes are on you, burning holes into your head from behind his sunglasses.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“You know like what.”

“You look nice.”

“Shut up.”

The door to the yacht opens, and you don’t have time to keep the argument going. Pope slides his arm around you, you grin wide, and he tugs you almost too-tightly into his side.

“Welcome!” The woman on the other side of the door is smiling in that fake and familiar way that people do when they’re trying to get a whole lotta money from rich people. “Mr. and Mrs. Franklin, right?”

“Soon to be.” Pope says, all confidence and practiced casualness. He catches your hand in his, the expensive ring glittering obnoxiously on your finger, and raises the back of your hand to his lips. You giggle like an airhead, tilt your head onto his shoulder, and grin up at him.

“Adorable.” The woman says, too emphatically, and you don’t miss the way her eyes rake over your ‘fiance’. You shouldn’t care. This isn’t real. He’s not… yours anymore. And yet, it’s hard to shake off the surge of possessiveness that nearly has you yanking him down and pressing your lips to his.

When she turns to lead you both into the yacht, you try to pull your hand out of Pope’s. He doesn’t let you go. You turn to glare, and he offers you a small smile and a squeeze of his fingers through your own.

Fine.

-

“I’m sorry. He refuses to see you.”

“I…” you blink, shake your head, and tell yourself you heard the guard wrong. “What?”

“Believe it or not, even prisoners have a right to refuse visitation. He said he doesn’t want to see you.”

You blink again. “That’s…that’s not true. That can’t be true.”

“You can try again next week, but in my experience you’ll probably have the same reaction.”

-

You try again the next week. And the next. You stop sleeping. You stop eating. You wait for a phone call. An explanation. You go to Smurf. You go back to the prison.

Six weeks later, he finally fucking agrees to see you.

You nearly rip the phone off of the wall. He doesn’t look right in a prison uniform. He doesn’t look like he’s been sleeping. “What the fuck, Andrew?”

At your use of his name, his real name, you swear you can see something like relief flicker in his eyes, like the sound of your voice is a drug he’s been deprived of for over a month. You’re about to keep talking, or even press your hand against the glass like some lame fucking cliche, the sight of his face lifting something heavy off of your soul.

“Stop calling.” He says simply, and your heart drops to your feet.

“What?”

“Stop calling. Stop showing up here. Stop.”

“I…” what? This isn’t happening. He wouldn’t do this. “What? Pope, Andrew, I didn’t leave you.” That’s almost, almost incriminating. You know that. But it could also mean anything. You’re his girlfriend, after all. He’s in prison. You’ve been trying to see him. You haven’t left him. The last thing they’ll probably assume is that you’re talking about leaving him to be arrested after robbing that fucking bank.

“I know.” He says simply, and meets your eyes. “I don’t care. Leave. Stop coming here. I’m not going to come see you again.”

You don’t know what to say. You don’t know how to breathe anymore. This is so fucking wrong and it doesn’t make sense and-

He places the phone on the receiver, stands up, and leaves.

That’s the last time you see Andrew Cody for three years.

-

“And here we have the reception deck. As you can see, the view will be absolutely spectacular, especially when you’re out on the water…”

Four exits. Three cameras. One, two…

“I’m so sorry. Is there a bathroom I can use?” You ask brightly, from where you’re hanging off of Pope’s arm. “Or I’m sorry, the head, right? Like they say on boats.” An airheaded giggle, a practiced bat of your eyes.

The moment you’re around the corner, you whip out your phone and start taking notes and pictures. Exits. Entrance points. Doors to the lower deck where Craig can-

“We need to talk.”

You actually yelp, whirling around and stumbling on your heels before Pope’s arm shoots out to curve around your middle and keep you from falling over.

“What the fuck are you doing?” You hiss, wide eyes shooting back towards the hall. “Now? Let me go.”

“You won’t talk to me. I have to-“

“So you’re gonna fuck up the job? They could be here any second. You’re supposed to be distracting them.” He’s lost his fucking mind. Clearly, prison has warped his brain and made him an irrational asshole who-

The click of heels against the hardwood floor. A familiar, professional voice calling out your fake names with too much curiosity and suspicion.

“Fuck.” You whisper, and start scrambling to pull away and hide your phone. “Fuck.”

In one swift movement, Pope snatches the device out of your hand, slides it into his back pocket, presses you against the wall and slams his mouth to yours.

Like always, even after all of this time, the feeling of his lips against your own sends a jolt of electricity through your entire body.

He kisses you like he hasn’t thought about anything else in the last three years. His lips move hungrily against yours, one large hand coming up to tangle in your perfectly-done hair as his body envelops yours until you can’t think of anything else.

His tongue traces over your lip, and you open for him instinctively until he groans and changes the angle so he can kiss you more deeply and it feels so fucking good you might-

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…interrupt.” A bright, awkward voice breaks you out of your trance, and you gasp as you wrench your mouth away from Pope’s. He doesn’t even turn to the woman, thumb pressing into your cheek as he traces it over your skin like he’s trying to re-memorize the feeling.

It takes a lot more effort than you want to admit to clear your throat and plaster a flustered and embarrassed look on your face. To fall back into the ditzy, wealthy fiance facade. To keep yourself from ignoring her completely and kissing Pope again to chase that euphoric fucking feeling for as long as you can.

“Oh geez. I’m so embarrassed.” You reach up, and pinch Pope’s cheek just a little too hard with one manicured hand, feigning bright affection. “I just can’t keep my hands off of him, you know?”

“It’s so nice to see a couple so…in love.” A tight lipped, professional smile. Another glance at Pope that has irritating possessiveness curling in your chest again. You don’t have a right to feel that way. Not anymore. Not even after…whatever that was. “Would you two like to continue the tour?”

-

When Craig found out, he punched Pope in the face.

Pope punched him back.

When you lurched forward, prepared to jump between them and stop the bullshit macho display, Smurf had stuck her arm out and pushed you back.

“Let them fight. They need it.” She said, voice even, and kept her eyes on her two sons as they wrestled each other near the pool.

“This is bullshit. They-“

“You know,” she interrupts, still not looking at you. “When I took you in off the street, I wasn’t expecting you to stir up so much trouble.”

You freeze, heart stilling in your chest. She could send you back to your family. Your father. Being thrown out on the street would be bad enough on its own, but Smurf doesn’t work that way. If she wanted to really hurt you, she would.

“I didn’t mean to…stir up anything.”

She looks at you now, assessing. “I believe you.” She hums, and pulls her arm back. “Go break them up now, baby. See if you can fix your mess.”

-

“What the fuck was that?”

“A distraction.” Pope’s hands are on the steering wheel. His eyes are on the road.

“And before that? Cornering me in the hallway when I’m trying to gather fucking intel?”

He frowns. His fingers flex on the steering wheel. “It’s been three years.”

“And whose fucking fault is that?”

His brow furrows like he genuinely doesn’t understand why you would ask that. “The…U.S. prison system.”

“You know exactly what I mean. Don’t be a dick.”

“I’m not being a dick.”

“Pull the truck over.”

He does look at you, now, and you can see surprise in his eyes from where they’re visible over his shades. “No. Why?”

“I’m walking. Pull the truck over.”

He turns back to the road. One hand drops off the steering wheel, like it might come to rest on your thigh the same way it has in almost every car ride for years, before he catches himself and returns it to its original spot. “You can barely stand in those shoes.”

“So I’ll take them off. Pull over.”

“Just let me talk to you. Please.”

“No.”

His head drops back against the seat, jaw clenching in frustration, and you feel a surge of pride that you still seem to be the only person who can break through his little bubble of stoicism. Yeah, take that asshole. Be as exasperated as you want.

You don’t speak to him for the rest of the car ride.

-

Craig’s nose is bleeding. His feet are in the pool. He’s holding an ice pack to his eye.

“Do you hate me?” You ask, feeling almost childish for the question.

He laughs. Actually laughs, like you just said something ridiculous.

“Nah. Couldn’t if I tried, I think.”

You frown. “Then why did you…”

He shrugs, takes a sip of his beer, and smiles at you. “I mean, he did fuck my girlfriend. I’d be a little bitch if I just let him get away with that.”

“I’m not your girlfriend.”

“Well, not anymore.”

“I was never-“

“C’mon. I’ve got a shiner and a broken nose. Don’t hit my ego, too.”

You laugh, and shake your head. “You’re an idiot.”

He holds up his beer in a silent cheers, and there’s nothing but affection in his eyes as he takes a swig. No pining. No longing. Not even hurt or betrayal. Just…affection.

You smile at him, and your heart swells in that way you once tried to convince yourself was romantic attraction.

“I thought Smurf was gonna throw me out.”

He frowns now, and shakes his head. “She won’t. And if she does, Pope and I’ll just come with you.”

You smile again. You know it doesn’t reach your eyes. Craig leans over, and bumps your shoulder with his own.

“No matter what, that asshole’s not gonna hurt you again. You’re gonna be okay.”

“And if Pope ever fucks up, I’ll be here. I know I’m the best sex you’ve ever had, anyway.”

You snort. “Craig-“

“Ego, remember? Lemme have this.”

You poke him in the bruised ribs, and he hisses in pain before he laughs again.

You believe him.

-

When you get back to the house, you lurch out of the car before he can even reach for you. You stumble on your heels, kick them off of your feet in the yard, and storm into the house.

“Woah, hey there Hurricane Lady.” Craig’s grin falls the second he sees your face. “Shit. What happened?”

“Nothing. Here’s the phone. It’s got the pictures. Exits. All of that shit.” You want to snap that maybe Craig could have just done this himself, having gotten himself a job there, but you know that he doesn’t get access to the same places you just did. “I’m off the job.”

“What?”

“She’s not off the job.” Pope’s voice, from the door, makes you prickle.

“You don’t get to decide whether I’m on or off the job.” You whirl, and glare. “You don’t get to decide shit about me. Not anymore.”

“Jesus.” Deran blows out a breath, eyes on Pope. “You didn’t tell her, man?”

“Tell me what?”

“She won’t let me tell her.” Pope looks frustrated. Pained, even. Like he has any fucking right to be.

“Tell me what?!”

“Just tell her.”

“I’ve been trying-“

“Tell. Me. What?”

“He cut you off in prison because the cops were coming after you.” Craig says, and the words shut you up. “They were investigating your involvement. He had to cut ties so you didn’t incriminate yourself.”

Oh. Oh.

‘Pope. Andrew. I didn’t leave you.’

“Can I talk to you now?” Pope’s voice is low, and he’s doing the head-tilt thing, and you swear your lips are still tingling from his kiss.

You stare. He stares back. You open your mouth. Close it.

And then you walk into his room.

You don’t even need to turn around to know he’s following you. You hear Craig whistle the wedding march behind you, and you flip him off over your shoulder.

Pope’s old room is empty. The bed is made like it always was before.

“Beautiful. So beautiful. All mine…”

He whispers the words into the flushed skin of your neck, reverent and laced with gravel as his body moves against yours like it was made to. You gasp his name, and he groans as he moves faster.

Some party rages down the hall. The sounds of it are distant and inconsequential. All you can hear is his shallow breathing. His whispered promises of love between presses of his lips to any part of your skin he can reach. You love him so much it hurts and you’re going to-

You shake the memory off. Clear your throat. When you turn to him, he’s looking at the bed like he’s remembering something similar. Well, there are a lot of memories like that in this house. In the house the two of you shared later. In his truck. By the pool. In the pool. On the beach. At the-

Fuck.

“Talk. You wanted to talk, so talk.”

He watches you. You watch back, tense.

“They were looking for a reason to arrest you. The cops thought they might have identified you on that job a few months before. The one at the dispensary.”

You just keep staring at him. He shifts on his feet. “I couldn’t tell you. They were listening to everything. I figured…it was the only way to keep you out of prison.”

“Three years.”

Guilt flickers across his expression. Something like desperation follows. His fingers flex by his side. “I didn’t know when they stopped investigating you. Just when they stopped asking me questions.”

“Three. Years.”

“I missed you every day.” He moves closer, hesitant, like he’s trying to make sure you don’t bolt. “Every fucking minute. I thought about you all the time. It…it killed me, to walk away like that. I still think about the look on your face. I…” his jaw clenches, and he reaches towards you.

You should pull back. You should slap him, maybe. You know he would let you.

“You risked the job.” You try. Try to find something to cling to your anger. Your hurt. You missed him so much and all of that pain doesn’t just go away with one explanation.

“Fuck the job.” He whispers, hand sliding up over your cheek. “It’s been three years.”

And then he’s kissing you. Rough. Hungry. Desperate in a way that makes your knees threaten to give out because holy shit nothing has ever felt as good as Pope Cody’s skin against yours.

For a moment, you forget. You forget to be angry and hurt and painfully confused in favor of tangling your fingers in his curls and dragging him closer to you. He groans, the sound rough and borderline desperate, and his hands drop to your waist, lifting you clean off your bare feet to spin you both until he has you pinned against the wall.

His chest is pressed against yours. His hand is moving down to the hem of your dress, and you think you can feel his fingers shaking as they skate up over your skin and a shiver falls down your spine.

But it isn’t enough. This isn’t enough. It feels so good that it kills you to pull away. But his fingers are sliding up the inside of your thigh and if they reach their intended destination there won’t be anything in the world that will be able to stop you. To stop him, either, if how hungrily he’s kissing you now is any indication.

Because his kiss doesn’t make up for the hours you spent alone, in the house you once shared, staring at a phone that wouldn’t ring. How humiliating it felt to cry yourself to sleep with your mind filled to the brim with questions that you would never have answers to.

His mouth is gliding over your jaw, down over your throat, and his grip on your waist is so wonderfully tight and his fingers are so close to where you need him so badly it hurts and-

You shove him away, breathless and flushed and almost shaking with hunger, and his dark eyes have never looked so predatory.

“You…you can’t do that.” You whisper, and he looks like he’s about to do exactly that again at any moment. You hold up a hand, warding him off, and force yourself to steady your breathing. “No, you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to just show up again and kiss me like that.”

“I’m sorry.” He starts, expression filled with a genuine pain.

“You made me think, for three years, that you didn’t love me anymore.”

“I’m sorry.” He moves closer like it’s instinct, and you back up a little more into the wall, and he looks like he’s about to drop to his knees before you. “I’m so fucking sorry. I did it to protect you. I promise. I couldn’t think of any other way.”

You push past him, and walk out the door.

For once, he doesn’t follow.

-

“Where is she?”

You’re not here. You haven’t come since he got out. 

“She doesn’t really come around anymore, man.” Craig shrugs, like it’s casual, like your absence isn’t digging a hole into Pope’s soul even as he sits here by the pool and you should be here but you’re not and he fucking hates it. He should have apologized to you ten times over by now. You should be here with him.

“She comes around every now and then. Watches Lena. Grabs a beer with me on Tuesdays and surfs with us if we ask nicely.” Craig leans back, and Pope fights the urge to lean forward and beg for more information. “She doesn’t talk to Baz, though. I think the most I’ve seen them interact is her flipping him off or some shit.”

Yeah, sounds like you.

“So, you gonna talk to her?”

Yes. Of fucking course he is. He’ll be on his knees begging the second you’re in the room.

But you don’t come. You don’t show up at the house anymore. You changed your number, and he can’t call you. Despite what Craig said, it’s almost like you’ve made yourself into some kind of ghost, too far away for him to reach anymore.

When he was in prison, he would fantasize about the day he got out. In most of those fantasies, you were waiting for him at the house. In a good few of them, you weren’t wearing much clothing, but that part can be easily attributed to how long he went without seeing you.

Nevertheless, you were there. And he would take you into his arms, and you would smile and tell him you understood why he had to do what he did, and everything would be perfect.

But now, he has to track down your new house. On the beach, and not too far from his new place, but he doubts you know that.

He watches through your window and doesn’t even register that it might be a little fucked up of him. He makes sure you get home safe. Waits until he sees you climb into bed and flick off your lights, and often spends a good long while imagining all of the times he would be right there with you. How he would tuck you into his chest, and the two of you would have whispered conversations like you were still teenagers living in Smurf’s house and trying not to be overheard.

He doesn’t go to the door. It’s not the right time. Not yet. It isn’t like it has to be perfect, but… but it’s been three years. Three years of torture and an isolation that almost killed him. That may have killed a part of him, somewhere deep down where even he can’t reach. As badly as he wants to stand on your porch and beg and plead for you to understand, to love him again, he isn’t sure he would be able to handle you slamming a door in his face. He’s not sure he would be able to let you, and that thought alone almost frightens him more than anything else.

Not yet. The job. When Craig brings you in on the job, that’s when he’ll see you. Talk to you. Make you forgive him.

Just…not yet.

But that doesn’t mean he can’t keep an eye on you, until then.

-

The effort it took to get Ethan the Finance Bro to talk with you after Craig ruined it the first time is almost making this particular job too much of a pain in the ass.

It’s a little tricky to balance the work you have to put into the boat job with your own plans, but your own jobs are a little less complex than the ones enacted by the Cody boys. Less reward, sure, but it’s safer and easier. Find out a few things about Finance Bro Ethan’s rich dad, get access to an account or two, make a couple of unnoticeable transfers, and bing bang boom. You can afford rent and to fix your car, and maybe even a nice pair of shoes while you’re at it.

He’s jumpy. You have to smile a little more brightly at him, hold his hand across the table and bat your eyelashes as you insist that your friend from before is just terrible at making jokes, and he’s finally relaxing enough to-

His eyes trail up over your shoulder, and stop.

“Leave.” And that’s Pope’s low, furious voice. It is dripping with danger.

Ethan looks at you. Back at Pope. You smile, wide and sweet, and refuse to turn around. “Ignore him.”

“Do that, and I’ll cut your ears off.”

Son of a bitch.

“He’s joking.”

“Three.”

Ethan starts to scoot out of the booth.

“Don’t.” You say, jaw clenching and smile still forcefully bright.

“Two.”

And he’s gone. Just like that. Out the door and ruining your plans completely.

“Fucking Codys. Do you have any idea how hard it was to get him to talk to me again?”

“Who was that?”

“I had to bend over backwards to keep him from being terrified after Craig’s bullshit. This bra is so uncomfortable. You fucking-“

His hand comes down on the back of your chair, and he leans closer to you with a deadly and dark expression. You don’t flinch. You don’t even come close. In all the time you’ve known him, in all of his scariest moments, he’s never come anywhere close to harming you. The possibility simply doesn’t register in your mind. “Who was that?”

You look at him, deadpan. “My boyfriend.” It couldn’t be farther from the truth, but you may as well piss him off a little.

It works. His jaw clenches, and he leans a little closer. “I’m serious.”

Fine. You give up. “He was a mark. I’m on a job.”

“You’re already on a job.” Pope’s frown deepens, angry eyes moving up to the door again. “That guy was staring down the front of your shirt.”

“That’s kind of the point.” You glance down at your low cut top, at the aforementioned uncomfortable bra, and when Pope does the same you can see something twitch in his jaw. Feel his hand tighten imperceptibly on the booth behind you before he looks back up at your face.

“We’re leaving.”

“No, you’re leaving.” You correct, irritated, and move to turn away from him.

He catches you, turning you back towards him with a look so intense it makes your heart drop. “Come home with me.”

You pause, knocked off-kilter by his proximity and the desperation in his gaze. He looks…dangerous. Like a man in a desert who has been deprived of water for too long, and is starting to lose it enough to follow that water to a bar and ruin her weeks of work.

And yet, it’s annoyingly difficult to care. Not when it would be so easy to bring your hand up, curl your fingers in the soft curls on the back of his neck, and pull his lips down to yours. So, so easy, and yet…

You start to move back, and his hand catches your chin, thumb sliding over your jaw in that familiar and devoted way that always makes your toes curl a little. He saw it. He saw the hesitation. The want in your expression matching his own, and he’s too far gone to let it go.

“Come home with me.” He repeats, soft and close enough that his nose nearly brushes your temple. “We can do jobs together. Like we used to. You don’t have to…do this.”

You spent so long being a team. Being with him. Every job, every move, it was all with Pope and the Codys and while you can do these smaller jobs alone perfectly fine, you want…

Him. God, you want him. Not just sex, either. Though after three years and the way he’s standing so close you can feel the warmth radiating from him, you’re having a hard time not jumping his bones in the middle of this bar. You want to wake up with him in the mornings again. You want to watch him wash the dishes in that particular and concentrated way he has. You want to sit on the beach with him at night, and talk about everything and nothing until the sun peeks over the horizon.

His nose skates down your cheek. The noise of the bar fades away. Your eyes flutter closed as if of their own accord, head tilting to the side, and he makes a low noise as his fingers leave your face to move down your arm.

“I’m sorry.” He murmurs, lips pressing against the line of your jaw, and your next breath comes as a shaky exhale. His hand slides around the curve of your waist, and the angle of his body above yours is intoxicatingly overwhelming. He kisses your jaw again, a little higher, a little closer to your ear, and you melt. “I’ll apologize a thousand fuckin’ times, okay? Just come home with me. Let me show you how sorry I am.”

Your body relaxes beneath his, and you feel his mouth trailing over your skin like he couldn’t give less of a shit about the rest of the world around you. It’s so familiar. So nice. So warm and-

Goddammit.

“Stop.” You push on his chest, and he moves back with a genuinely pained expression. “Stop it, Pope. You just fucked up a month of work for me. I’m not going home with you.”

The look on his face would break your heart, if there was anything left of it to break.

You don’t say another word.

You just leave.

-

The girl sleeping on the couch is the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen.

Craig brought you here a few hours ago. Said something about you taking on three guys by the beach who were trying to rough him up over weed money. You hit the biggest one with a baseball bat. They knocked you out before Craig could take them down.

Smurf hadn’t said much when Craig walked in, eyes bright with lingering adrenaline as he’d placed you on the couch, but she’d seemed impressed when Craig had explained what happened. She’d told him to leave you on the couch for now, and to make sure you didn’t get any blood on her furniture. Your face is bruised. Your sneakers are dirty. You’re wearing a flannel that’s way too big and has holes in it.

“I think she’s been sleepin’ on the beach.” Craig says, brow furrowing a little as he looks down at you. You’re so still you could be dead. Pope wonders what color your eyes are, and then wonders why he wondered that.

“Junkie?” He asks, and resists the urge to brush the hair out of your eyes. Like Julia, maybe. Maybe you know her, wherever she might be right now. Maybe you already have that connection to him. Maybe…

Craig shakes his head. “Nah. Not a junkie. I dunno if she’s homeless, either. I just kinda see her around sometimes. She pickpockets tourists. Seems good at figuring out which ones are the L.A. douchebags.”

Pope frowns. Your face twitches a little, but you don’t wake.

“She’s hot.” His younger brother observes, and Pope’s frown deepens. “And badass. You shoulda seen her, dude. She went at them like a fuckin’ demon. She doesn’t even know me.”

You look so angelic, curled in on yourself on the couch with sand in your hair and dirt under your fingernails, that he finds it hard to believe.

Hard, but not impossible. Because there’s something about you, and the bruises on your face that look so much like the ones that often adorn his own, that screams…fighter. Survivor. Protector.

And he hasn’t even spoken to you yet, but there’s something else there. Something deep down and warm and intrinsic that he can’t exactly pinpoint but certainly can’t ignore.

His.

-

When you wake up, he’s watching you. He knows he probably shouldn’t be. He probably looks creepy, or whatever everyone says, but he can’t seem to pull his eyes away from the rise and fall of your breathing. The way your face twitches every now and then in sleep. The way your hair spills over the couch cushion. He wants to brush it away, but he’s afraid to wake you.

Your eyes flutter open. They’re beautiful.

And those beautiful eyes move dazedly around the room before they land on him, and widen. You bolt up, and hiss in pain as whatever injuries you sustained in that fight no doubt scream in protest.

You look at him. Look around. Look back at him.

Carefully, he passes you the baseball bat from his room. Craig said you had one before. You’re in a strange new place. It might make you feel safe.

You close your fingers around the handle, and watch him like a hawk as you pull it over to you.

“Where am I?” He likes the sound of your voice. Even cracked with sleep and shaky with nerves, it sounds as pretty as the rest of you.

“My house.” He says simply, cocking his head to the side. “Craig brought you here.”

Craig is passed out in his room down the hall. You took a while to wake up. You frown, and rub your head a little.

“Why did you do it?” The question leaves him before he can think, curiosity lying heavy in his chest. People in Oceanside don’t just help other people like that. Not when it could put them in the same state you ended up in.

“Three to one didn’t seem like fair odds.”

Pope takes this information, and holds it close to his heart. Keeps it there like a flame he’ll never let go out.

You sit in silence for a minute before he speaks again.

“Do you want a sandwich?”

You look up, surprised, and your lips quirk upwards just the smallest bit.

“Sure.”

-

The knocking is loud. Very loud. Angry, even.

When Pope opens the door, there you are.

Fuck, it’s like you don’t even know how beautiful you are. He’s always been surprised by that. Sure, you use your looks and pretty smiles to work people on jobs, but when that persona is lowered and you’re just…you, the sight of you could make him drop to his fucking knees.

“You fixed my door.”

He’s shirtless. It’s early. Your eyes drop down to his chest before they fly back up to his face, and he is two seconds away from yanking you into the house and taking you right here in the front hall.

Shit. Three years. Three long, long years of nothing but his hand and memories of you. He’s devolved into a fucking animal. All he can think about is ripping that t-shirt off of you. Of lifting you onto the table right here and dropping to his knees, hearing the noises he can pull from you when he buries his face between your-

“You fixed my door.” You repeat, angrier now, and he furrows his brow as he forces himself out of the fantasy.

“Yeah.”

“Pope, you don’t know where I live.”

His brow furrows a little more.

“Fine, I haven’t told you where I live.” Oh, that’s what you mean. Right.

“It was creaking.”

“How many times have you broken into my house?”

Seven. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Andrew.”

You should know better than to say his name. His real name. The sound of it shoots something molten through his veins, and his hand tightens on the doorframe.

“We’re broken up. You can’t break into my house.”

“We’re not broken up.” The fact comes easily. Simply. There’s no plea behind it. No question at all.

“We’re broken up. You broke up with me.”

“No, I didn’t. I said stop coming around. I didn’t break up with you.”

“Whatever you did, it was three years ago.”

“And you’re not in prison.” He wants to ask why you’re not getting it, but he knows that you do. Even if most wouldn’t, you know how he thinks. You’re just being deliberately obtuse because you’re angry. But he’ll spend the rest of his life apologizing to you, if that’s what you need. “I’m out. We still love each other.”

“You don’t know that I still love you.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Tell me you don’t.”

You open your mouth, like you just might try it, before closing it again and trying another tactic. He’s always found it…cute. The way you try to deflect your feelings like this. And he’ll never try to pretend that he doesn’t love how easily he can call you on it. There are two things in this world that Andrew Cody is absolutely confident in: jobs, and you.

“You fucked up my job.”

“You hate those jobs. They bore you.”

Your eyes narrow, and you’re gorgeous when you’re angry. “I don’t have a backup plan anymore. I need the boat job to go well.”

You’re stalling. You don’t want to leave. “It will.” He raises an eyebrow again. Your eyes drop back down to his bare chest, and it sends a thrill through him. “Want some breakfast?”

“No.” You’re still standing here, and he knows you too well to let you leave just yet. The tension crackling through the air, emanating from you and directing itself at him, is so fucking obvious it almost makes him grin.

“Coffee?”

You hesitate. Frown. “Fine.”

And with that word, you cross the threshold, and kiss him.

-

Your first job with the Cody family went well. Really well.

Smurf shocked all of them by inviting you in, building up her tests of your skills and your loyalty to the family until she suddenly just…made you a part of it. Sat you down at the family meeting with them and told you what your part in the job would be.

Baz protested. Deran was quiet. Craig, however, was thrilled. Pope is pretty sure his brother likes you a little too much, and he hates the way it makes jealousy and possessiveness curl black and vile in his throat. He hates the way Smurf seems to assess this. The way she watches you keep Craig in line and encourages the two of you to spend time together.

But you did well. Really well.

And then, after dinner, you disappeared.

Pope found you up the street, sitting on a small curve of beach and watching the moon like you were greeting an old friend. He’d hesitated to join you, like he might be interrupting, but…

“Hi.”

Shit. “Hi.”

“Wanna sit down?”

Yes. So fucking badly. He’d do anything in the world to just be close to you. “Do you want me to?”

“Yeah.”

He hesitates. You look back at him, illuminated by moonlight and so gorgeous it stops the breath in his lungs, and pat the sand beside you.

He sits, and you rest your head against his shoulder. Like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

“Are you…okay?” Do you expect him to function correctly right now? Do you expect him to be able to string a thought together? You’re so warm. So soft. He doesn’t have experience with this kind of thing.

“Oh yeah.” You hum, fingers curling in the sand beneath you. “I mean, if you’re asking if I’m upset about you holding an unloaded gun to my head while I pretended to freak out, don’t worry. I’m fine.” You mean it. Smurf would be impressed.

He could cover your hand with his own, right now. You might even let him. You might let him curl his fingers around yours, and even flip your palm to rest it against his. Your soft skin against his rough callouses, pillowed by the sand beneath you…

“So what’s wrong?”

You hum, and he feels it vibrate through his shoulder. “I don’t know. Smurf, the job, everything just feels like it’s going too well.”

“Too well?”

“Things change. They hurt when they change. It’s too…good.” He starts to say something, though he isn’t sure what, before you continue. “That’s why I like coming out here, though. I like looking at the water. It’s why I slept on the beach when things got too shitty at home, you know?”

He turns his head, and it brings his face so close to yours that he almost chokes. You don’t even look up, just keep watching the waves crash on the beach as you continue.

“It sounds kinda cheesy, but the ocean is so…big. And no matter what’s going on with me, no matter how bad things seem, it makes it all feel smaller, you know? All that ocean, everything going on beneath the surface, and whatever bullshit’s happening to me just feels…inconsequential. More manageable, I guess.”

Oh God. Fuck. He loves you. He loves you so much.

His hand, knuckles still bruised from some fight he got into earlier this week and already so much bigger than your own, covers yours. You stop picking at the sand, but you don’t pull away.

“I’ll always be here.” He murmurs, some part of him terrified that you’ll jump away from him. He means it. He really does.

And you mean it too, when you turn your palm and slide your fingers through his, and murmur back. “Thank you.”

-

It’s a fucking whirlwind.

You don’t know what possessed you. What you were thinking. Just that you are magnetized to this man, and he’s standing there looking at you like he knows every thought in your head and like he loves you more than anything in the world and you can’t spend another second without his lips against your own.

He meets you just as hard, hand coming up to grip at the hair at the base of your skull as you walk him backwards into his house. You realize, vaguely, between the blur of lips and teeth and desperate hands, that you haven’t even seen the inside of it yet. Even now, it’s weird for there to be any aspect of Pope’s life that you don’t know about.

The tour, however, is going to have to wait. Because Pope has you pressed against the counter and you barely have time to gasp his name before he’s lifting you onto it, tugging your shirt up over your head and tossing it aside before ducking down to trail desperate kisses over your neck. You tangle your fingers in his hair, and pull his mouth back up to yours, biting down on his lip until he groans and reaches down to start tugging your pants over your hips.

“Bedroom.” You manage, somewhere between a choked moan and a drag of your nails down his muscled back that has him sinking his teeth into your throat.

“Three years.” He replies, the words a starved growl, as he rips your pants and underwear down over your legs. All you can do is nod your understanding and drag his mouth back to yours, hands leaving his face to reach down and tug his sweatpants over his hips.

He pulls back, just enough to press his lips to your ear, and you can’t help but whimper when he murmurs his next words.

“Tell me you want this.”

You curl your fingers in his hair, pull him closer to you, and barely manage to gasp out a soft confirmation of “I want this, Andrew” before he’s pushing into you and it is everything you’ve missed for too long and it feels so good you might fucking die.

You gasp, and hold him tighter, and he breathes a shaky exhale into the hollow of your throat as he goes very very still.

You make a soft noise, needing more, and he understands immediately because he knows every inch of you better than he knows himself.

“Three years.” He murmurs again, hoarse and apologetic as his hands grip the counter on either side of you. You realize what he means through the haze of lust, and a bubble of laughter tears its way out of your throat. The sudden movement makes him hiss, cursing softly against your throat as his hands fly up to grip your hips. You clamp your lips together in an attempt to stop your giggling, and when he pulls back to look at you he starts laughing too.

And then, still smiling, he kisses you slow and deep, and begins to move. The moment he does, all humor flies out the window, and you gasp as you lock your legs around his hips and scramble for purchase against his back.

It’s fast and desperate, like he really and truly can’t help it, and it is absolutely perfect. Fuck, it’s everything you have ever needed in your entire life and more. You cling to him, wrapped in his arms and burying your face in his neck to try to muffle cries that might wake the entire Strand. He doesn’t stop, but his grip tightens as he adjusts his movements to grind deeper, fingers tangling in your hair to pull your head back from his shoulder until you can feel his ragged breaths against the shell of you ear.

“Yeah?” He whispers, hoarse and smiling and already wrecked as the force of his movements makes stars explode behind your vision. Then, closer, his nose against your temple and his grip almost bruising on your skin. “Yeah?”

You just nod, and hold on for dear life as you fall over the edge with a cry of his name, and he follows right after you with a choked moan of yours.

For a moment, you both just try to catch your breath, wrapped in each other’s arms with your legs shaking and Pope’s shoulder warm against your forehead. He kisses the side of your head, soft and loving, and huffs a laugh into your hair as he pulls back to press his lips to yours.

“I missed you.” He whispers, and you’re smiling too.

And then, without warning, he hoists you into his arms and starts walking.

“Where are we going?” You ask, still laughing, still smiling, still blissed out beyond words.

He kisses your forehead, your cheek, and kicks a door open. “Bedroom.”

-

Once the initial violent desperation has faded, Pope takes his time with you. He works you apart piece by piece, like he’s relearning every inch of your skin. He kisses every new scar. Every familiar freckle. He makes you forget every word that isn’t his name, tells you he loves you until he’s hoarse with it, and you do the same to him. In the confines of his room, in this new house on the beach, you forget about every morsel of pain you’ve felt in the past. Every tear you’ve shed. Every lonely moment.

At some point, when he’s trailing slow kisses up the inside of your thigh and your fingers are tangled in his curls, you manage to come back to yourself for half a second.

“We’re not back together.” You murmur, and he looks up long enough to raise a dark eyebrow at you.

“We’re not.” You repeat, and he gives you another look, this time with both eyebrows, before nudging your thigh further aside. He doesn’t speak, and he doesn’t need to, because in the next five seconds you completely forget how to form coherent thought.

-

The sun is setting by the time you’re both too exhausted to continue. A few minutes ago, you broke apart long enough to make your way to the shower, where you’d lasted about five minutes before he’d slipped in behind you. You managed to hold back long enough to shampoo each other’s hair before lathering off had turned into kissing beneath the stream, which had turned into…well, into you pressed up against the wall, his chest against your back and his teeth buried in your shoulder as your fingers clawed against the tile and your vision turned white for the umpteenth time today.

Now, his fingers card through your still-damp hair, and you wonder vaguely if you’ll ever walk again.

“Holy shit. We haven’t done that since…” you trail off, brain as mushy as your muscles seem to be, and you feel Pope’s proud smile against your forehead.

“Three years and forty nine days.” He supplies, and you can’t hold back your giggle. “Day after the jewelry store job.”

“Right.” Christ, it really is a miracle that you survived three years apart when you used to go at each other like coked out bunny rabbits. “Forgot about that.”

“I didn’t.”

You swat at his chest, and he tucks you closer to him, tilting your chin up to press his lips to yours.

-

For the first time in three years, you wake up in Andrew Cody’s arms.

And he’s asleep. He’s soundly, completely asleep. He’s always been a light sleeper, but despite that there are certain circumstances that have been known to knock him out like a log.

He’s completely out now, arms wrapped tightly around you and deep breaths tickling the top of your head.

There was always so much chaos in your lives. So many things that could go wrong at any moment, so many risks taken every single day. There was Smurf’s manipulations, Craig’s irresponsibility, Deran’s tendency to disappear and worry everyone, Julia being gone, and Baz…well, Baz being a raging douche most of the time. All of it was always so much, but right here, right like this…this was always where you felt safest. All of the insanity would always be a million miles away, blocked out by the circle of Andrew Cody’s arms.

Which is probably why it feels like a physical stab to your chest when you carefully wiggle out of them.

He grunts, one arm reaching out as if searching for you, but he doesn’t wake.

You allow yourself one moment to stare at him. One long, aching moment. He’s so beautiful in the moonlight that he almost hurts to look at.

And then you slip on one of his tshirts, wiggle into your jeans, and disappear out the door.

You don’t bother pulling your shoes back on, letting the sand cushion your feet as you wander down the beach, and listening to the waves crash against the shore.

He’ll wake up soon, and he’ll find you. And when he does, he’ll pull you back into his arms and the two of you will sit on this beach like you used to. Watch the waves and the stars like you used to. You’ll talk, and he’ll apologize, and he isn’t very good with words but you’ll understand him and you’ll forgive him. Just like that.

You’re not ready for that.

So you pull out your phone, and dial the only other number you have on speed dial. The only number besides Pope Cody’s.

“Where the hell have you been?” Craig shouts into the phone, mirth lacing his voice even through the tinny speaker.

You glance down at Pope’s t-shirt. Plain white. Too big for you. Soft and draped over your body like a flag with his name on it.

Oh well. “You’re gonna give me a whole lotta shit for it.”

He laughs, and you hear a bottle clink somewhere on the other side of the phone. “So why’re you callin’ me?”

“Cause I’m crazy, I guess. Or an idiot.”

“Or both.”

You hum, and bend down to scoop some sand into your palm, letting it trickle between your fingers as it falls back to the earth. You’re confused, and still hurting, and your heart aches heavy in your chest. In moments like this, you’ve always wondered what it would be like to have one of those girl best friends in rom-coms. The kind who would split a bottle of wine with you on the couch and talk for hours about boys with you. That must be nice. You wonder if they really exist, somewhere where life is normal.

Well, you don’t have that. You have Craig Cody.

“I’ve gotta go off grid for a minute.” You say, and trail your eyes back towards Pope’s darkened house. You have minutes before that light flicks on, and you cave. “Wanna get drunk?”

Craig blows out a long breath, and you can almost see him raising his eyebrows and resting his elbows on his knees.

“Sure. Where are you?”

-

Pope hasn’t seen you in three days.

Deran is the one who called him, frustrated and concerned and grouching about you not being able to handle your liquor.

“It’s weird, dude. The balance is gone. She’s not talking him out of shit anymore. They’re just kinda ramping each other up.” He hears the clink of bottles. Shouting in the background. Maybe, somewhere, your laughter. “Whatever you did, come fix it. Because your girlfriend is doing body shots on my bar and I’m not about to get shut down because those two are acting like fucking idiots.”

“I didn’t do anything.” He’s already grabbing his keys. You fell asleep in his arms, for fucks sake. You spent the entire day letting him whisper apologies and promises of love into your skin. He thought you were good. It felt like everything was back to normal, and then you were just…gone.

Sure, there was a moment where you insisted you weren’t back together, but when that sentence is quickly drowned out by “Oh God oh God Andrew please don’t stop” it’s a little hard to let the words sink in.

He’d searched the beach for hours. Called your phone even when it became blatantly obvious that you’d turned it off. He went to Craig’s house, and his brother wasn’t there. You didn’t take your car when you disappeared. He’s been worried sick about you and now you’ve been on some kind of bender?

“You did something.” Deran doesn’t seem to be grasping the gravity of this situation. Everything was fine. Why are you still upset? “They haven’t done this kind of shit since you dumped her in prison.”

“I didn’t fucking dump her.” He needs to focus on not breaking too many traffic laws, but he senses a few irritated comments coming his way. Annoyed as Deran may be right now, he fucking adores you almost as much as Craig does, and Pope can hear genuine worry in his tone.

“You should probably look up the definition of dumping, dude. Telling her to fuck off and not talking to her for three years is pretty-“

“Just tell me if she’s okay.” The words come out harsh. A snap of anger in the quiet car.

“Just get here.” The phone clicks off, and Pope almost throws it out the window.

-

Everything is nice and fuzzy, and you’re having a very fun time.

You don’t have anywhere near Craig’s tolerance, nor his penchant for anything stronger than alcohol and weed, so this ‘bender’ hasn’t exactly consisted of you partying straight through like he has. In fact, it took until tonight for him to pull you off of his couch and tell you to stop wallowing and have fun.

And you had listened. Oh boy, had you listened.

You started at Craig’s house, letting him amp you up and remind you to get angry between shots of tequila.

“Holy shit, just say it. Say it already!” Craig stands, waving the shot in front of your face before shoving it forward. “Are you mad? Sad? C’mon, quit bein’ such a closed book! Who the fuck is that helping?”

“I’m angry!” You take the shot, down it, and sputter.

And then you smash the glass against the wall.

“There she is!” Craig shouts, enveloping you in a drunken hug, and you let the rage build in the safety of your friend’s arms as you start to giggle like a fucking lunatic.

“Gimme another.”

He whoops, lets you go, and grabs the bottle.

And then you went to the Cove, and drank margaritas and let Craig convince you to get angrier. Angry because Pope left you. Because it hurt so bad it felt like a piece of you had broken off, and angry because he showed back up and brought all of that pain with him and just expected it all to be better.

And eventually, you ended up in Deran’s bar, hammered and laughing and trying to remember why you were mad in the first place.

That is, until Pope Cody shows up.

You’ve seen him look scary before, with that furrowed brow and those shark eyes, but now he looks downright murderous.

That’s okay. You can be angry too. You are angry.

“We’re leaving.” He says, simply, wrapping an arm around you before you shove him off.

“Nuh uh.” You step back, and his frown deepens.

“Dude, lay off. She’s just blowin’ off some steam-“

“What the fuck are you doing, man?” Pope stands too close to Craig. Looks way too angry. He doesn’t get to be mad. He broke your heart. He left you alone.

“What’re you doing?” Craig, larger than Pope and already too drunk and coked out to think rationally, matches the furious energy. “You think you’re cool just walkin’ in here and making her go home?”

Something twinges in your drunken mind. Tells you to step in. To stop this.

But you’re too late.

“Maybe I’m sick and tired of pickin’ her up off the floor because you did some shit to make her bawl her fucking eyes out.” Craig shoves Pope. Hard. “Seriously man, what’s the fuckin’ matter with you? You think she deserves this shit?”

Pope punches him in the face.

You just stand there for a moment, drunk and shocked, and it takes a good moment of them brawling and shoving each other into the bar before you realize that you should get in the middle of this.

Someone, some guy who was flirting with you a while back, tries to grab you and pull you away. You slam your elbow into his face, and he releases you long enough for you to leap onto Craig’s back, yanking him away from Pope just in time to feel your back slam into the corner of the bar hard enough to make you lose your grip.

You fall back, feel something smash beneath you, and groan as a bolt of agony shoots through your body. Fuck. Fuck, that’s gonna leave a mark.

The fight stops. The bar goes quiet.

Hands pull you up, slurred apologies spilling past Craig’s lips in a panic as he sets you on your feet and looks down at you with a horrified expression. You’ve had worse, sure, but the bruise isn’t gonna be pretty and you know damn well he’s gonna feel guilty about it tomorrow.

You look up at him, reach up to pat his chest…

And puke on his shoes.

You hear him mumble a quiet “oh, fuck” before he’s shoved aside, and Pope is there. Pope, who is scooping you up into his arms without a word and carrying you out of the bar.

“Sorry.” You mumble, and he doesn’t respond, but he squeezes you a little more tightly to him and that feels like enough.

He places you down in the passenger seat of his truck, and presses his lips to your forehead before he moves to the drivers side.

You’re suddenly very, very exhausted. You thunk your head against the window, and close your eyes as the engine starts.

You feel Pope’s hand on your leg, warm and comforting and familiar.

It feels like home.

-

“Look who finally decided to come home.”

Your father’s voice is nails on a chalkboard. A skin-prickling, hatred inducing rasp that makes your entire body tense.

“This isn’t home.” You drop your keys on the counter. It’s not home. It never has been, but now that you have a real home the difference has never been more obvious to you.

You left your home tonight. Left the warmth of Andrew Cody’s arms. He hadn’t woken, as exhausted after the job as you were, but he’d hummed sleepily into your neck and tried to squeeze you closer as you’d wiggled your way out of his embrace.

Your father scoffs, and doesn’t look up from the TV. “You think that place is home? You whore yourself out to that psycho Cody and now you can’t give half a shit about the guy who raised ya?”

It’s your turn to scoff. You don’t answer. He keeps going.

“You think that crazy kid loves you? You think you’ll get to leave and run off into the sunset with him? The ticking time bomb ain’t gonna love you. None of ‘em are. I know Smurf. She’s keepin’ you around because that shithead prefers to fuck you over going berserk and killin’ everyone in the house. They don’t give a shit about you. They use you. S’all you’re good for, anyway.”

That hits you. Harder than it should.

No. No, he’s wrong. He’s an asshole, and he’s wrong. Andrew Cody loves you more than life itself. There’s no question there.

…Right? It’s not like you even know what love is, being raised by this of shit. And Pope’s love is…obsessive. You don’t mind it. You like it, actually. But-

No. Fucking no. You’re not letting him get in your head. You can’t.

Because there’s Craig. And Deran. And even Baz, sometimes. Smurf likes you, and she most certainly sees you as a pawn, but… but Craig is your best friend. Craig laughs at your jokes. Hugs you so tightly your ribs might crack sometimes. Stays up to talk to you for hours by the pool.

And Pope loves you so much that it consumes him. Even you can’t doubt that. The way he looks at you, the way he touches you, the way he kisses you like he’ll never be able to get enough. His shoulders relax when you enter the room. His smile is the brightest thing you’ve ever seen. You even wake up to him watching you sleep, sometimes, tracing his calloused fingers over your skin with his eyes half-open like he’s fighting sleep just so he can look at you a little longer.

And the last time your father took things too far, the last time you came back with bruises…

You’d spent an hour talking Pope down from coming over here. You’d spent longer convincing Craig and even Deran to stop fucking encouraging him to, to stop insisting that they’ll help him end this asshole.

That’s love.

And that gives you the strength, the courage, to move over to your father and lean one hand on the back of the couch, glaring daggers into his eyes.

“The only reason you’re still alive, is because of me.” It sounds like a fucking growl, so angry and unlike you. “Don’t forget that.”

Your father just smiles, like you’re wrong and he knows it. You want to punch him. You want to prove him wrong, and let Andrew kill him.

You walk out the door, instead.

-

He sits you on the edge of his bed, and it’s just like before. Like every time you’ve been drunk or even sick since you were kids. He kisses your cheek, asks if it’s okay, and when you nod he pulls your t-shirt up over your head, quickly replacing it with one of his own. Your pants go next, and then he tucks you beneath the blankets of his bed and brushes your hair from your face.

He hesitates to pull his own shirt off, wonders if you might be too drunk and upset to want him near you. You never have before, but he’s realizing pretty quickly that before is more removed from the present than he expected it to be. Three years in prison, daydreaming every day about coming home to you and explaining why he did that he did and having you forgive him right away was…well, a daydream. He may have been able to lose himself in the fantasy of your unconditional love and forgiveness for three years, but you were here. Alone. Wondering what you did wrong and missing him on a level completely separate from his. He didn’t experience any of the confusion. The lack of understanding. The pain that comes with that.

You reach out, and push the hem of his shirt up. He pulls it over his head, a slave to your needs and whims, and helps you unbuckle his pants until he’s sliding into bed beside you and pulling you into his arms.

“You’re mad at me.”

You tilt your head into his hand, and nod.

His heart breaks, eyes softening and hand smoothing over your cheek as he leans closer and presses his forehead against yours.

“Why?” He asks, a genuine desperate pain cracking the word as it leaves his throat. “I thought…I thought we were good.”

You make a soft noise, and lean against him a little more.

He whispers your name, presses a kiss to your cheek, and inhales deep, trying to memorize your scent.

“I’m not good at this. You always tell me.” Another kiss. Fingers curling in your hair. “Tell me what to do. Tell me how to make you stop hurting.”

You curl a little closer.

“You left me.” You finally whisper. “You promised you never would, and then you left. I worried about you for three years.”

He pulls you closer. Feels tears prickle in his eyes and guilt churn in his stomach.

“I went to the beach, and it didn’t feel better, because you weren’t there.” Your fingers curl against his chest, right over his breaking heart. “I thought you didn’t love me anymore. For three years.”

Fuck. “I’ll never stop loving you.” If he holds you any more tightly, it might hurt the bruise on your back. He’s gonna fucking kill Craig for that, accident or not. “Never.”

And then, quietly, almost a whisper as you drift off but just loud enough for him to hear it and almost die right there, “…I don’t know if I believe you, anymore…”

-

The boat job goes well. Really fucking well. Save for Marco cutting a woman’s fucking finger off, everything goes off without a hitch.

And you’re proud. Really fucking proud. Craig was always capable of this kind of thing if he just applied himself, and here you all are. Richer than before and still riding that all-too-familiar adrenaline high.

“Geez, Pope really did a number on you.” You reach up now, poking lightly at his black eye. He flinches, and huffs out a sheepish laugh. You saw this coming when you decided someone would have to beat Craig up, and Pope volunteered a little…emphatically. But still.

“Pretty sure he’s got some pent up anger.” He rubs the back of his neck, eyes scanning over you. “How’s your back?”

You cringe, and resist the urge to rub the still-bruised area. “It’s fine. The hangover was worse.”

Craig looks like he’s about to turn you around inspect the injury himself, but one glance over your shoulder to where Pope is no doubt glaring from across the bar is enough to make him cave with one last guilty look. He’s apologized maybe a hundred times for the mistake, and you’ve forgiven him every time. After all, he didn’t mean it, and you’ve definitely had worse. “Damn, how bad?”

Your head is pounding, and you just barely managed to make it into the bathroom before the rest of last night’s tequila expels itself from your stomach.

Not five seconds later, you feel a large hand curl in your hair, pulling it back into a makeshift ponytail while another palm rubs small circles on your back.

“Oh, the humanity.” You whimper, pulling back to lean against the wall. You flinch at the movement, and give Pope a miserable look. “Christ, did I get hit by a truck last night?”

“You broke up a bar fight.”

“Why the fuck would I do that?”

“It was…between me and Craig.”

You frown, and try to piece the fuzzy memories together. “Did you kill him?”

“No. He fell back against the bar with you on his back, so I’m going to.”

Ah, that’s where the pain is coming from. You look him over, shirtless and beautiful and achingly familiar, but…

“Have you slept?”

He frowns, and looks like he’s fighting the urge to reach for you. “No.”

Ugh. This is stupid. Bad idea. You should leave. You are not together anymore. You will not-

“Okay. My head hurts. You need to sleep. Back to bed, big guy.” You reach out, and make grabby hands at him, just like you’ve done a million times before. Every time you were hungover, every time you were sick, or even one time when you just twisted your ankle trying to dive into the pool.

His smile is so full of adoration and relief that it nearly makes you cry. He doesn’t hesitate, moving to scoop you into his arms with a soft grunt of “c’mere…”

He lays you down, and you pull him with you, tugging the covers around you both before tucking yourself into his chest and reaching up to scratch your nails lightly over his back in the way that’s always made him melt.

“I love you.” He murmurs, warm fingers brushing through your hair. “I’m sorry-“

“Shhh. Go to sleep.” You press your lips to his shoulder, and feel him shiver a little at the feeling. “Head hurts, and you need to sleep.”

He takes a moment to speak, but then he nuzzles his nose into your hair and drops his arms down to pull you closer to him. “Okay.”

“I’ve had worse.” You smile, and clink your beer against Craig’s. “Thanks, though. You did fucking amazing today.”

Your friend’s smile, despite the damage to his face, lights up the entire room. “Fuck yeah I did. You did, too.”

“Aw, shucks.” You grin, and it’s just like before. Just like when you were kids, riding the adrenaline high together and laughing your way through the car chases and the gunfights despite Pope and Baz and even Deran’s concern. You nudge him, and smile a little wider as you gesture towards the door. “Renn’s here.”

He turns, and the way his eyes light up makes your heart swell impossibly more. That, right there. That’s how you look at Pope. How he looks at you. That little spark behind his eyes is exactly what he’s always deserved.

“You two back together?”

“Nah. I mean, I dunno. Maybe. We’re…you know.”

You clink your beer against his, and meet his eyes. “Just don’t fuck it up again, okay? You’ll be fine. Don’t overthink.”

His eyes trail behind you, to where Pope is most certainly still watching you, and he raises a pointed eyebrow.

You scoff. “Shut up.”

-

That’s the problem with good things. They always end.

You’re at the bar, sitting beside Pope like you have after a thousand jobs, and despite your conviction to keep your heart safe you can’t help the way it melts when his hand covers yours, large fingers threading through your own.

“Do you wanna go home?”

You hum, and lean into his side despite yourself. It was a pretty big day, after all, and nothing sounds better than curling up in bed with him and sleeping until noon tomorrow.

You open your mouth to agree, feeling his thumb trace lightly over your knuckles, and-

Your phone dings. A specific ringtone. One that makes you feel like an anvil has been dropped into your stomach.

“I’ll be right back.” You murmur, and when Pope’s brow furrows you lean forward and press your lips to the corner of his mouth. Not quite a kiss, but close enough that his hand squeezes yours one last time. “Just gotta go to the bathroom, first.”

You leave before he can follow.

-

“You look like shit.” You greet the old man in the alley with a frown, crossing your arms and standing a good few feet back. He does. Your father, piece of shit that he is, has probably pissed off a debt collector or two again, judging by the bruises on his face and arms. You have no sympathy for the man who once left similar marks on you.

“Heard your psycho boyfriend is outta prison.” His retort makes you grit your teeth. “Still sluttin’ yourself out to the Codys?”

“What the fuck do you want this time?”

“Just an exchange. Heard about that boat robbery today.” Fuck. “Wouldn’t be too great for good ol’ Dope’s probation if someone were to put in an anonymous tip, would it?”

“Pope had nothing to do with that.”

Your father smiles, all stained teeth and greedy eyes. “Shouldn’t be a problem, then.”

“Fuck you.”

“How ‘bout we make a trade? I don’t gotta call nobody, and you help cover my debt.”

You want to kill him. You hate him so much it makes you feel sick. “Like I said, fuck you.”

You turn to walk inside, and the move is a mistake. Fingers close too-tightly on your wrist, and before you know it you’re being slammed against the alley wall with your arm twisted agonizingly tightly behind your back. You bite hard on the inside of your cheek to keep from crying out, and remind yourself to breathe through the pain.

“Thought I raised you better than that.” The fingers on your wrist feel like they’re going to snap it in half. You want to bite something back, preferably something poetically sarcastic, but you can’t let your voice betray the pain you’re in. All these years, and you hate that he can still hurt you. “You got three days, kid. Sure you can spend enough time on your knees to get the money out of the crazy one. Maybe the cokehead, too.”

He lets you go with a shove that makes your cheek scratch against the wall, and you turn to glare defiant daggers as he walks away.

-

“Where did you go?” Pope’s dark eyes are curious, almost innocent as he reaches up to pull you closer to him by your hips.

You move back a little, and his brow furrows with concern. “I need my cut.”

“Yeah. You’ll get it when we-“

“I need it now.”

He stands, and you step back when he looks you over, but you’re too late. He knows you too well.

His hands are on your waist, tugging you close to him, and his fingers fly up to the scrape on your cheek. Down to pull up your sleeve, exposing angry red marks in the shape of fingerprints.

“Where is he?” He asks, voice dripping with danger, and you try to pull away but he just grips you more firmly. His grip is gentle, and you know he would let you go in a second if you asked, but he’s not letting you run from this. “Is he here?”

“Not anymore.” His fingers are curling around your arm, pulling it up to inspect your wrist. His eyes are almost black, and his jaw is clenched so tightly you’re worried he might crack a damn tooth. “Hey, Andrew. Look at me.”

His eyes don’t leave the bruises on your arm. “I should have killed him.”

“Beating him half to death caused enough problems.” Piece of shit that he is, your father has one too many connections in Oceanside, and the damage control from when Pope snapped on him years ago nearly got all of you arrested or killed.

It’s been proven safer to just give him what he wants, and try to keep it as secretive as possible, lest Pope or even Craig try to pound him into the pavement again.

Speaking of which, Pope is still holding you too tightly. You reach up, and turn his face towards yours. “I’m fine. We’re fine. Let’s…” God, you’re supposed to keep up with this ‘not together anymore’ thing, but “can we just go home?”

He melts. His eyes soften, and his arms slide around you to pull you closer to him. You feel his cheek against the side of your head, his hand sliding gently up over your back, and you melt too.

“Yeah. Yeah, let’s go.”

-

Split lip. Black eye. Ringing ears.

God, everything hurts. That asshole really did a number on you this time.

Bruised if not cracked ribs. A slight limp from where your leg hit weird when you were tossed across the floor. An aching arm that was grabbed a little too hard.

“Holy shit.” Craig. Craig’s voice, as familiar as your own.

“I got hit.” You worked on this lie. Practiced it the whole limping walk down here. “…by a car.” As bad as it is this time, it might be the only thing that’s believable.

“You’re a shit liar.” Now you know that’s not true, but your friend is already by your side, holding you up and helping you walk into the house. “I’m gonna kill him.”

You’ve definitely got a black eye. Your lip is swollen and bleeding. It’s becoming more exhausting to take stock of your injuries than it would be to note what isn’t hurting.

“Don’t. Just…don’t.” You wince on a step, and when Craig huffs and tries to scoop you up you swat him off.

“Fuck that. You look like you’re about to keel the fuck over.” He frowns, concern lacing every one of his features. “You’re not going back there.”

“I hit him with a fuckin’ frying pan.” You mumble, knocking your head against his shoulder. “So I figure I’m not welcome back any time soon.”

“Smurf is gonna shit.” He mumbles, and leans you back against the kitchen counter to inspect your face. “Fuck, Pope is gonna blow a gasket, dude. How are you gonna explain this to him?”

“I don’t know.” You mumble, reaching up to push the hair out of your face. All you want to do right now is see him. To be held by him and to maybe even just lay down in his twin bed and feel him tuck you into his arms. You’ve been with him for a little over a year, now, and it still feels like you’ve been dating for a week. Like your relationship is just one never ending honeymoon phase. Even these last few days, helping your father out with his bullshit scam, you’ve missed him so much it’s almost concerning.

Fuck.

“Beer, please.” You mumble, and when Craig hands it to you you take a moment to rest the cool glass against your bruised cheek. “I don’t know. I’ll tell him I got in an accident.”

Craig’s answer is immediate, lifting your arm to show the bruises in the shape of fingerprints dented into your skin. “Yeah, real fuckin’ believable.”

You pull you arm back, panic rising in your throat. “Okay. I…give me a sweatshirt.”

“He’ll just take it off.”

“Fuck.” He’s right. You shouldn’t have come here. You should have hidden out on the beach for a few days like you used to, and waited for some of these injuries to fade. Fuck. “I’ve gotta go.”

“Fat fuckin’ chance.” Craig grabs you, more firmly than usual, and keeps you still against the counter. “You think I’m gonna let you walk outta this house while that asshole is still breathing? Look, I ain’t Pope, but I’m not gonna let you into a situation where you could-“

You sense him before you see him. You didn’t even hear the door open.

“Get. Away. From. Her.”

Shit.

“Shit.” Craig releases you, and takes three large steps back like he might be attacked by a mountain lion.

Pope is on you in a second, one large hand cradling your bruised face, and in a moment you can see in his eyes that he’s not entirely there. That line in him has snapped, like it has on those nights you’ve found him in the yard, distant and empty and staring at the moon. When you’ve pulled him from fights, and he took a minute to even remember your name. Took him longer to remember his own.

“Please.” You whisper, reaching up to slide your fingers through his hair and force him to look at you. “Please be okay about this.”

He doesn’t answer you. He just moves his hand over your face, looks at you with those murderous eyes, and presses his forehead against yours.

“Where is he?”

“Pope. Andrew. Please.” Your heart cracks on his name, and he grips you more tightly. “Please, just take me to bed.” You turn his face to yours, squeeze your eyes shut. “I just wanna go to bed.”

And he does.

One hour later, he leaves that bed. You don’t open your eyes. Keep your breathing slow and steady as you feel him kiss your forehead, then your cheek, sliding his fingers through your hair like pulling away from you is physically painful.

But he does, and you feel him stand. You hear him leave.

And you let him.

Two hours later, he walks through the door of Smurf’s house with blood on his knuckles and sweat on his brow.

You’re waiting for him in the hall.

You look down at his hand. Back up to his eyes.

“Is he dead?” Your voice is quiet. He doesn’t look guilty, but he doesn’t look away from you, either.

“No.”

You just nod, and move forward to slide your hand over his cheek. He leans helplessly closer to you.

“Next time you do that,” you murmur, guiding his lips down to your own as his swollen knuckles curl against the back of your borrowed shirt, tugging you closer to him, “take me with you.”

He releases a shuddering breath, and his kiss is so full of love and devotion that it buckles your knees.

-

A warehouse is a cheesy place to meet. The fact that the asshole brought backup makes it worse. Granted, you brought Pope, Craig, and Deran with you, but…well, they’re more here for emotional support. And because they wouldn’t let you come alone.

When you got home, you told Pope everything. The threats, the money you’ve sent him, the amount of time he’s still been able to keep you under his thumb despite how hard you’ve worked to break away…

To your surprise, he hadn’t snapped. He hadn’t stormed out of his house to find the old man. He’d…

He’d kissed you. He’d wrapped his arms around you, tilted your head back, and kissed you.

You make a muffled noise against his mouth, eyes flying open in surprise before fluttering shut as your body melts into the embrace before your mind can even catch up.

When you finally break for air, still confused but certainly unable to complain, you blink your eyes open again.

“What was that for?”

He just kisses you again. Slow. Warm. Wonderful. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here.” He whispers, lips moving down to your jaw. Your neck. “I’m sorry you had to be so fuckin’ brave on your own.”

“Andrew, I…” this is a much different reaction than you were expecting. You haven’t mentally prepared for it. Your mind is still on the defensive.

He shushes you. Pushes his hands up under your shirt to trace them over your skin. “I love you. You don’t wanna be together? That’s okay. We can do whatever you want.” He kisses the hollow of your throat, scrapes his teeth against the sensitive skin, and you make a soft noise in the back of your throat that has him tightening his grip on you. “I’m not going anywhere, and you’re not dealing with this alone.”

You’re not alone. He’s not going anywhere. Never again.

You believe him. You really, really believe him.

“Take off your clothes, please.”

He smiles against your collarbone, and trails his nose up your throat until his lips are hovering over your own. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.” You’re already tugging at his shirt, already pulling him down to kiss you, and he meets you with a hunger that feels like a satisfied craving. “I love you. I trust you.” The words are murmured between kisses, “now please take off your clothes.”

“Christ, it’s like you think you’re Tony Soprano or some shit.” You grumble, feeling surprisingly petulant despite the intensity of the situation. Your father has connections, sure, but you grew up with Smurf Cody. The comparison between the way he operates and what you’re used to is absolutely insane.

Your father is a drunk, and an asshole, and he thinks he’s tough shit. You happen to know what it looks like to actually know what you’re doing. Shocker, that you’re the one who makes the actual fucking money. Even less shocking that he makes most of his income leeching off of you.

Well, not anymore.

“I told you to come alone. You brought your fuckin’ guard dog.”

“Yeah, you’re one to talk.” You gesture to the man beside him, the wall of muscle holding the gun and glaring at you like this is a gangster movie and he genuinely believes himself to be the most badass character. “Did you give your Steroid Humunculus his pay already, or is he gonna be banging on your door in a week looking for it?” You’re guessing the latter, if past experience is anything to go by.

“Enough.” Your father snaps, like he has any authority at all. It makes you furious. “Tell the psycho to leave.”

“Call him a psycho one more time, and this time it won’t be him who beats you to a fucking pulp.”

“Are you threatening me, you little shit?”

“Like father, like daughter.”

“I should teach you a fuckin’ lesson-“ he starts toward you, only to back up when Pope steps forward. His jaw ticks, fury flashing in his eyes, and you hear the click of something loading in the cavernous room.

It all happens so fast.

In all the times this kind of thing has happened, all of the times he’s made threats, it’s always been diffused. He’s always held up a gun, maybe loaded it, and said some bullshit until money was tossed his way.

This time, he brought the wrong backup. And that backup panics.

The man raises the gun, and aims it at Pope.

You move before you think, jerking instinctively in front of him and pushing him back, already beginning to move towards the money to end this bullshit. They always point the gun. Always shout a threat. Always shut up when they see the money and-

And then the gun goes off.

-

You wake to an empty bed.

Your first instinct is to reach out to the space Pope usually occupies, hand sliding over the cool sheets like you might be able to pull him out of thin air. It’s not morning, and the house is silent. If there was some kind of emergency, he would have woken you.

Huh.

The mystery doesn’t stay a mystery for long. You shuffle into the yard, and there he is.

Naked. Staring at the moon.

He seemed fine last night. Well, as fine as Pope Cody can be. A little more quiet, maybe. A little clingier than usual, and that would be saying something, but fine.

“Hey, handsome.” You hum, casual and sleepy, and move to stand beside him. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t break his eyes from the night sky. “What are we looking at?”

“Everything.” He murmurs, absent, and you can already tell that he isn’t here. Isn’t entirely inside his own head. That’s alright. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, and it probably won’t be the last. At least he’s not smashing anything with a hammer.

“Sounds like a lot.” You move to stand in front of him, lifting your hand to brush your fingers through the soft curls on the back of his neck and turn his gaze down to yours. “How ‘bout you just look at me instead?”

When his eyes meet your own, still hazy and distant, his breath catches in his lungs. His hand moves up, guiding yours so he can press his cheek into your palm like the touch is some sort of coveted blessing. You smile, soft and gentle, and bring up your other hand to mirror the first and cradle his other cheek.

“You’re an angel.” The words come out as a reverent whisper. He’s not trying to flatter you, not trying for pretty compliments, but rather stating a fact. Like he often does, when he’s in this state.

“Not quite.” You press your lips to the underside of his jaw, and you feel a shiver travel through his entire body. “But I appreciate the compliment.”

Large hands hover over your waist, and his eyes don’t leave you. “Can I…touch you?”

You nod, and bring his forehead down to rest against yours as his arms slide around you, tugging you against him as calloused fingers trail up beneath your sleep shirt, the touch just as familiar as the rest of him.

“Will you come to bed with me?” You ask softly, moving your own hands down to smooth over the skin of his chest. “I’m not an overly jealous person, but I’d prefer to keep this view for myself. Don’t wanna share with the neighbors.”

“I’ll do anything for you.”

“Tell me that again in the morning when I remind you to take your meds, okay?”

He follows you back inside, and allows you to pull him back into bed with you. Allows you to pull the covers up around you both as he envelops you in his arms, and trails his lips along your hairline as he whispers soft words against your skin. You can’t make them out, but you wonder from his tone if they might be some kind of prayer.

“I love you.” You murmur, and his arms tighten around you. “Every part of you. You know that?”

“I don’t deserve it.” He whispers, and you pull back to look at him.

“You do.” You kiss his nose. His cheek. “You really, really do.”

-

For a moment, you think a car might have backfired somewhere nearby.

It’s not like you don’t know what a gun sounds like. Fuck, with your childhood, you could recognize the sound faster than your own voice. And yet, in this moment, your mind can’t seem to keep up. Can’t seem to process exactly what just happened.

You feel like you got punched in the stomach. There’s an intense, knock-the-wind-out-of-you pressure, and then…

Your hand comes up to the point of that pressure, to the dull burn, and comes away red.

“Fuck.” Your father breathes, and then he starts shouting. “Fuck! You idiot! What the fuck did you do?!”

You’ve heard that voice before. When he’s lost an exceptionally lucrative bet. When a deal has gone wrong. That’s the tone of a man who is losing his meal ticket, not even close to the tone of a concerned father.

You didn’t even get to do your little speech. Your whole ‘fuck you, I owe you less than nothing and this is the last time you’re getting a cent from me’ speech. You were kind of looking forward to it.

Your whole body feels a little numb. When your knees finally give out, warm arms wrap around you before you can collapse.

“No. No no no no no!”

Now that…that isn’t concern either. It’s worse. So much worse. It’s the realest and most raw fear you’ve ever heard.

There’s too much blood. Fuck. So much blood. It’s spilling out between your fingers faster than should be possible. Vaguely, you remember when you were small, and the faucet broke at whatever house you and your dad were squatting in at the time. You were so scared of his ire, of him blaming you for the burst, that you’d tried to hold it together with your small hands until your entire body was soaked.

Andrew Cody is gathering you into his arms, lowering you to the ground, and the pain is starting to slice it’s way through the shock and it is absolutely fucking overwhelming.

“It’s okay. It’s okay. I’ve got you. You’re gonna be okay. Look at me. C’mon, y-you’ve gotta look at me.”

Your father is still yelling at the guy who shot you. Screaming about the money. Not about you. The sound is loud, cutting through the ringing in your ears, and Andrew’s arms tighten around you.

“Close your eyes.” The words are murmured by your ear. Soft and warm and gentle despite the chaos. When he speaks again, his voice is shaking. “Close your eyes, sweetheart. It’s gonna be okay.” He rarely calls you that. This must be bad.

When you do, you hear a gun fire, and the shouting stops.

Your eyes fly open, and you try to turn towards the sound of two bodies hitting the floor, but Pope is there before you can move, dropping a gun to the pavement and cradling your face in his hands.

“Don’t look at that. Look at me. Look at me, okay? You’re gonna be okay.”

He shouts for Craig. For Deran. Everything is still in a sharp, dizzy sort of focus.

-

“Holy shit. What happened?”

Craig is hunched over the toilet. There’s a bottle of tequila on the floor.

He turns his face towards you, hair messy and cheek resting against his arm. “Go away.”

“Nah.” You’re already sitting beside him, tugging his hair into a ponytail and tying it off.

“M’a fuckup.” He mumbles. “Jus’ a…drunk idiot. Deran said.”

You hum, and rub a soothing hand over his back. “Definitely acting like one.”

“See?” He tilts his head miserably back into his arm. “Even you say it.”

“Shut up. You know that’s not what I’m saying.” You move over to the bottle, and take a swig before throwing the rest into the trash. “Hey, look at me.”

He does. He looks like he might have been crying.

“You’re one of the smartest people I know, you know that?”

“You’re not funny.”

“I’m not lying.”

He looks at you now. Really, really looks at you. “You gotta stop seein’ the best in me.”

“Too late. You done puking?”

He grunts, and you reach down to help him stand with a significant amount of effort and bitching that he weighs a million pounds.

And you get him into bed, and even tuck him in, and before you leave to go back to Pope’s room he catches your wrist.

“I love you.”

You stop, and furrow your brow.

“Not in like, a weird way. M’not tryna fuck you or anything. I don’t even know how…” he frowns, and releases you to rub a hand over his face. “I dunno how to say it.”

Your heart swells, in that familiar way, and you laugh a little as you move over and sit on the edge of his bed. “I think you’re telling me I’m you’re best friend.”

“Well, obviously. S’more than that, though. You don’t…you don’t think I’m a fuckup. You actually like me.”

You think back to that kid on the beach, surrounded by three angry assholes and fully prepared to stand his fucking ground. The kid who you were knocked out defending. Who didn’t think twice before he brought you back to his home. To the only safe space he knew. Who brought you into his family.

Who loved you like you loved him, and wasn’t sure what it meant. Who assumed, as teenagers do, that it might be romantic. Who didn’t think twice when he realized that it wasn’t romantic, and still pushed his pride aside and kept on loving you. And even now, budding your own ways into adulthood together, he’s drunk and still trying to put into words that he loves you platonically.

“You have the biggest heart.” You say, honest and raw, and his hazy blue eyes fill with tears again. “Even if you can be an idiot sometimes.”

He swipes his hand over his eyes, and tries to hide a sniffle. He looks young like this. He’s only in his early twenties, sure, but he looks younger than that. Vulnerable in a way only you ever really get to see.

“Promise you won’t go anywhere.” He mumbles, like he’s nervous to say it.

He smells like puke, and he’s sweaty, but fuck it. You hug him, making sure to flop down on top of him a little so he groans miserably before he wraps a large arm around you to pat your back.

“Can’t get rid of me if you tried, jackass.”

-

Craig is freaking out. He’s in the back of the car, where Pope is still holding you, and he’s freaking out.

Oh, no. That won’t do, will it? You take care of them. You always do. You keep Craig level-headed, and you keep Andrew from freaking out. Or…or is it the other way around? It’s concerningly difficult to think. You feel like you’re floating.

“Almost there. Almost there. Don’t leave me, okay?” God, Andrew Cody’s voice is the best thing you’ve ever heard. You want to sink into it, but he’s shaking and you can hear tears in his voice and you’re supposed to fix that.

“Drive fucking faster!” Craig is pushing on your stomach too hard. It hurts. You wheeze, and he doesn’t let up. “Deran, the IV isn’t working. It’s not working, she’s too fuckin’ pale.”

He’s covered in blood. You can’t see Pope, but you think he is too. Everything is tainted a horrible shade of red, and it’s getting really hard to think.

“M’here.” You try, scratchy and raw. “M’here. You’re okay. Don’t…be a dumbass.”

“Fuck. Fuck, don’t die. Please don’t die. Look at me, okay? Look at me.” You try, but Pope is whispering near-nonsense into your hair and trembling so hard it’s almost starting to hurt more than the pressure on your stomach. Still, Craig brushes the hair from your face, and you can see tears tracking their way down his cheeks. “They’re all dead, okay? All those assholes are dead. You’re not going with them, you hear me? You’re not going with them.”

There’s shouting. There’s panic. It’s all fading. Pope’s lips are warm against your skin, and the sound of his voice is soothing and…

-

“I love you.”

The words are whispered into your hair, so soft that you almost don’t hear them through the haze of sleep. But you’re awake, now. He doesn’t know it, but you’re awake.

You blink, and feel his fingers trace slow, warm patterns over the bare skin of your back.

“I love you.” He whispers again, just as low and just as quiet.

You shift, and he goes very, very still.

“Hi.” You whisper, pulling back, and he looks fucking terrified.

“…Hi.”

“You just said you loved me.”

“I…thought you were sleeping.”

You reach up, and turn his face to yours. Feel soft curls between your fingers.

“How long have you been telling me you love me when I’m asleep?”

He’s silent. He doesn’t look away.

“Andrew?”

“…a while.”

You smile, and the way his eyes spark at the sight makes your heart melt. “I love you, too.”

His hand flies up almost too fast, cradling your cheek and brushing his thumb over your cheekbone as he stares into your eyes with an intensity that makes your blood tingle in your veins. “You do?”

“Yeah.” How could you not? How could he not know? “Of course I do.”

-

A sharp sting brings you back, this time. You think someone might have hit you.

“Fuck, thank God. You looked like…shit, okay. Pope, let her go. You’ve gotta let her go, man.”

“Where were you?” He’s whispering against your cheek, and he’s out of his mind. Shit, he’s really out of his mind. His arms are still around you, and he’s speaking like he used to when things got really bad. When whatever was in his mind snapped, and it would take you hours to bring him back to you. “Where did you go? Don’t go. Take me with you.”

Every instinct, every cell in your body, tells you to fight. To stay here. To be here with him. To make this better.

But you’re losing time, and he’s not letting you go.

“Don’t touch her.” Lips on your temple. Your cheek. Arms tight around you. “Don’t touch her. Don’t take her away.”

You try to speak, but convulse instead. The sight of it seems to trigger something, and Craig starts to yank you out of Pope’s arms in such a panicked rush that you whimper as another bolt of agony fires through you.

Andrew holds you tighter. Your mouth tastes like copper. You feel blood trickling past your lips.

“Fuck it. Fuck it. Deran, hold him down.” Craig says, and he’s still crying and you should fix that, before he reaches forward and slams Pope’s head against the window. The arms around you go limp as he loses consciousness, and then you’re being lifted out of the car.

“I got you. It’s okay.” You choke out a soft noise, grab at his arm, and he just tucks you closer to him. “Pope’s okay, too. Everything’s gonna be fine, yeah? Just…just don’t die. Please, please don’t die.”

You’re so tired. You want Andrew. If you’re going to drift into oblivion, he should be here. But…

-

When you open your eyes, it’s to a cracked ceiling and a heavy, distant pain in your stomach.

You feel the drugs in your system. Blurred and heavy and warm. Tijuana. They managed to get you to Tijuana. And you’re alive. Bullet wound in the gut and all, and you’re alive.

Andrew Cody is beside you, head resting on his hands like he may have been living up to his nickname and praying. When you stir, he does too, red-rimmed eyes blinking open and looking at you like you’re the only other person in the world. There is so much relief in his gaze that the sight makes you feel dizzy.

“Hi.” You murmur, hoarse, and reach up to tap gently at the side of his head. “Are you here?” You remember his mumbled words against your skin. The way he needed to be knocked out before he would let you go. He can go so far away, sometimes. But he looks like he’s here now. He looks like he’s your Andrew.

He nods, and catches your hand to press his lips to your palm. His breath shudders on a silent sob.

“I thought…I thought you were-“

“I think we should get married on the beach.” You cut him off with a gentle squeeze to his hand. “S’that okay?”

He looks at you, at your stomach, and back at your face like he’s trying to judge how full of painkillers you are. “You wanna get married?”

“Do you?”

“Yes.” There’s no hesitation. Not an ounce of it. “But you’re on-“

“I know. Still want to. I can ask you again when I’m off them, if you want.”

“I think you should.” He murmurs, but he’s smiling. It’s a small, hesitant thing. Like he was pretty sure, not too long ago, that he would never smile again. Like he’s already re-learning the expression.

“Mm.” You squeeze his hand, and lean your head back against the pillows. “You wanna marry me?”

“Since I first met you.”

“Softie.” You turn your head, and furrow your brow a little. “You never asked, though.”

“I planned it.” He admits, tracing his thumb over your knuckles. “Bought a ring.”

“When?”

“Five years ago.”

You raise your eyebrows, and say again, “you never asked.”

“Never found a perfect time.”

“Mm. Sorry for stealing your thunder then.”

He squeezes your hand, and brings it up to his lips so he can trail kisses over your knuckles. He looks back up at you after a moment, and his dark eyes are so beautiful. “I killed your father.”

Those four words should definitely make you feel something. Anything. Instead, you just feel a surge of love for the man before you. “Okay.”

“I’m glad I did it.”

“I know.”

And, like he just can’t help it anymore, he moves forward and presses his lips to yours. You kiss him back, and wrap your arms around his neck even as the movement makes you wince. Worth it.

“Can we get married now?” You ask, the words muffled by his lips, and he smiles down at you.

“When the drugs wear off.”

You frown, and shrug. “Okay. Can we go home?”

“When they say you can.”

Hm. “Can we have sex?”

He laughs. It’s a beautiful sound. “Go to sleep.”

“You’re no fun.”

“Promise I will be.” He kisses your cheek. “For the rest of your life.”

“I like where this is going.”

“I’ll never leave you again.”

“Keep talkin’, Cody.”

“When we get home, I’ll stock the fridge with that ice cream you like.”

“Take me now.”

The love in his eyes is so beautiful, so pure, so raw, that you know without a doubt that those eyes alone were worth living for. “Go to sleep.”

-

You and Pope rent a house in Tijuana for a while. There’s no need to go back to Oceanside. Not yet. Smurf doesn’t love it, but she doesn’t fight it. It wouldn’t be great optics, after all, for her son’s girlfriend to be recovering from a bullet wound while her father, whom Pope has nearly killed before, was recently found dead in a warehouse.

He fusses over you endlessly. He barely lets you stand on your own, even when you’re fully capable of doing so. You wake up to him watching you sleep more often than ever, and he barely spends more than a minute not touching you.

It’s nice. Really nice. Kind of like a honeymoon before the honeymoon. Just with less sex due to an annoying bullet wound, and a little more crankiness from you than usual due to both of the former issues.

But you stay up all night on the beach, talking until the sun rises and making out like teenagers. You try to make breakfast, burn it, and get to ogle him from your spot on the counter as he makes it for the both of you. You plan for the future, count down the days until your wound is healed, and just…enjoy being happy. No jobs, no strings, no stress.

A little over a month later, you wake him up by rolling on top of him, the familiar pain in your stomach reduced to much less than a dull ache.

His eyebrows raise before his eyes even open, a sleepy smile curling on his lips as his hand trails down your back and your lips move to press teasing kisses down his neck.

“Good morning.” You hum, and he seems more than happy to return the sentiment. “I officially think I’m healed enough for…strenuous activities.”

He makes a low noise, and kisses you slowly. Hungrily. You grin, triumphant and happy, and feel his hands come up to shift you on top of him, sitting himself up against the wall and-

And pulling back.

You actually whine, chasing his lips with your own, but he holds you firm with a smile so wide it’s almost silly.

“I have another idea.”

“It’s been over a month, Andrew. I challenge you to name one thing better than sex right now.”

His smile grows impossibly wider. He reaches into the pocket of his sweatpants, mischief sparking in his sleepy eyes like he was hoping you’d say something like that, and…

And pulls out a ring.

“Oh.” You breathe, eyes locked on the little diamond in his palm. It’s simple. Beautiful. Perfect.

“Bought a new one.” He says, hand coming up to brush your hair back from your face.

You grin. He grins back.

“You make a compelling argument.”

He kisses you, and you kiss him back.

You suppose you have time for two things today.

[man1cpixiedreampuppy]

rabbot being really concerned when they see bruises on dennis and they won't drop it so eventually he just goes "i like when older men beat me, ok? :/ yeahhh now we're all uncomfortable, hope you guys are satisfied."

[apfelkernchen]

Daddy’s not sick. He’s just stupid

Dr. Jack Abbot x (female) reader | Dr. Jack Abbot x you

Summary: You can take the dad out of the emergency department but you can't take the emergency department out of the dad.

A/N: I'm no longer updating the taglist because Tumblr has been glitching way too much lately. If you don't want to miss any updates, feel free to turn on notifications for my posts! <3

Link to "You stole my cart" master list (1)

Link to "You stole my cart" master list (2)

Previous chapter: Interlude: Sir, I’m going to need to see some identification

--- --- ---

Jack peeked outside the window, frowning. The weather had become a real problem - it was typical February weather: cold, windy, rainy and - just fucking unpleasant. Especially if you had a highly active toddler running around who wanted to go to the playground no matter what. He was glad he only had five toes left to potentially lose to frostbite - even though he’d had a nightmare just yesterday where his prosthetic leg had frozen onto his knee. In his dream he had to thaw it out with a hairdryer before he could get it off.

His brain was weird.

He shook his head slightly then looked back at the laptop screen. He was just scrolling through his email account - and then he stopped.

An email from the PTMC. Subject: Your Test Results Are Available

He clicked on it:

Dear Mr. Abbot Your laboratory results from your recent Post-Vasectomy Semen Analysis are now available. Please log in to your patient portal to review your results. If you have any questions, please contact your healthcare provider. Kind regards, Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center Department of Urology

He swallowed hard. 

Uh-oh. 

The moment of truth.

He didn’t want to think too hard about that appointment - him, alone in that sterile room, a specimen cup in front of him and just the sheer pressure to deliver - but he was really interested in the results. He was just fucking hoping all the pain had been worth it.

He logged into his patient portal and clicked on the attached report. He scanned the numbers.

Interpretation: No sperm identified (azoospermia). Findings are consistent with a successful vasectomy. Recommendation: Based on this specimen alternative contraception is no longer required unless otherwise advised by your treating physician.

Jack stared at it for a moment longer. He felt - weird. In a good way. Mostly. He knew that this was the result he had been hoping for. And still - it felt weirdly strange to know that he wouldn’t be able to get anyone pregnant now - especially not you.

He took a long breath, rolled his shoulders and looked up. “HONEY!”

“Yeah?” You stood in the bathroom, getting ready for the day - later than usual because you had been exhausted, sleeping for ten hours straight.

“I’m officially shooting blanks now!”

That was met with silence. A moment later you appeared in the doorframe, looking confused. “Um - what now?”

He gestured toward the screen. “I got the lab results. It’s official. The vasectomy worked.”

You started to smile. “Oh, wow, that’s great news. So we officially can get rid of the condoms then?”

“Fuck yes” he breathed out, his eyes shining. “We really need to celebrate that properly.”

“Oh, wow.” You laughed. “Let’s see how I feel tonight. My back’s still killing me.”

He immediately frowned. “No wonder, you carried these big-ass shopping bags yesterday - I told you you could just leave them in the car and I’d fetch them.”

You waved it off. “Anyway. I need a couple of minutes and then I’m ready. We could probably go outside for a bit? Maybe just the park? I can’t stomach an indoor playground today - the thought of fifty kids screaming and running around would probably trip me over the edge.”

Jack grinned. “Yeah, get this. Get yourself ready and we’ll see. Where’s Lizzie?”

“Playing in her room” you said with a shrug then walked back into the bathroom.

Jack looked back at the screen. 

Azoospermia.

He let out a sigh then opened the next mail. It was from your mom, which immediately made him sit up straighter on the sofa. It was a very detailed question catalog - he counted seventeen questions - about the wedding. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

He was halfway through reading it when Lizzie waddled into the living room. She was unusually quiet - normally she arrived like a tiny hurricane. Loud. Fast. Carrying at least one object in her tiny hand which she’d smack against the floor, the wall or him.

Now she just climbed onto the couch beside him with a tiny serious face and leaned against his side. That alone was enough to make him look up. He put the laptop away immediately and took a look at her. 

“Hey Bean.” He brushed a hand over her curls. “You okay, princess?”

She looked up at him with big green eyes. “Izzie sick.”

Jack froze. “What?”

She nodded once. “Izzie sick.”

Immediately every emergency physician instinct in his body activated. He sat up straighter, turned fully toward her, already scanning her over and placed a hand on her forehead. “Okay, baby, what hurts?”

Lizzie blinked at him. “Izzie very sick.”

“Okay. You’re sick. I hear you. But what hurts, Bean?” He placed a hand on her stomach. “Does it hurt here?”

She continued to stare at him.

Jack cleared his throat. “HONEY?”

“Yeah?” Your voice came muffled from the bathroom.

“LIZZIE SAYS SHE’S SICK.”

You appeared in the doorway almost immediately. “Sick?”

Lizzie looked between both of you now, suddenly receiving the attention of two parents. She put her thumb into her mouth.

Jack touched her forehead again. She didn’t feel warm. No fever, he added to his mental checklist. “Bean, tell Daddy what hurts.”

She frowned like she was thinking hard about it, then leaned against him more dramatically. “Izzie sick.”

He let out a quiet, frustrated sigh. “Okay” he murmured mostly to himself, then glanced over at you. “Any vomiting? Diarrhea? Did she eat normally? Bean, do you have a headache?”

“Jack.” You really tried to hide your smile.

“She’s quieter than usual.”

“Jack.”

“Do you have a stomach ache, Bean?” He rubbed his own stomach. “Does your tummy hurt?”

“Husband.”

“She said she’s sick but it’s impossible to give a proper diagnosis if she doesn’t say what hurts.”

Lizzie watched him closely now. Her hand flew to her stomach, her brows furrowed and her lip started to wobble. “Izzie sick?” Her eyes got shiny.

“Oh, baby.” Jack pulled her onto his lap immediately. “Hey, Bean, princess, sweetheart, it’s okay. Don’t cry. Daddy is taking care of your ouchie, okay?”

Her face crumpled completely and a moment later she was crying - actual devastated sobs and big tears, her face pressed against Jack’s chest.

You had to turn away for a second because the situation was becoming absurd. Jack was too absorbed with in doctor mode that he didn’t notice what Lizzie was clutching in her tiny fist.

Instead he rubbed her back, looking mortified. “No, no, no, Bean, hey, tell Daddy what’s wrong, huh?”

She just sobbed harder into his shirt.

Jack swallowed hard. “Maybe we should bring her to the Pitt, get her checked out.”

You finally stepped in. “Jack.”

“What? Is she bleeding somewhere?” He leaned forward, checked the back of her shirt, looking alarmed.

“No.” You shook your head. “She just wanted you to play doctor with her.”

“She’s crying.” He stared at you like you had three heads.

“Yeah, because you panicked.”

That left him stunned. You pointed to the toy stethoscope clutched in her tiny hand.

Jack looked from you, to the stethoscope, back to you - and finally to Lizzie. “Bean, do you want to play doctor with Daddy?”

She wailed loudly. “Izzie siiiiiick.”

You sat down beside them, stroking her back. “Baby, are you hurting anywhere?”

She shook her head, hiccuping. “... no.”

Jack stared at her. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

You lost the fight and laughed outright. Lizzie peeked up to you, her crying slowly fading. 

You pressed a kiss onto her head. “You’re fine, baby. You’re not sick. You just want Daddy to be the doctor, right?”

She hiccuped again, then nodded. “Daddy Dana.”

Jack dropped his head back against the couch with a groan. “Oh my god, Bean, I was worried sick.”

She turned her head to him immediately. “Daddy sick?” Her eyes widened.

You nearly choked on your laughter.

When Jack didn’t answer right away she scrambled from his lap and ran out of the room. A moment later she appeared again, holding her little doctor kit, half-open, with the contents leaving a trail behind her. She put it on the ground and picked up a bandage. She climbed back onto his lap and smacked it right on his cheek. “Izzie Dana.”

Jack looked deeply betrayed by the entire situation for a moment - then his face softened. Apparently he couldn’t stay mad at his primary physician - especially when she was his daughter who just stuck a bear-shaped bandage right on his face.

“No, Bean” he muttered. “Daddy’s not sick. He’s just stupid apparently.”

She stared at him and touched his face sympathetically. “‘kay.”

“Maybe you lost some of your intelligence with your sperm?” you suggested, still laughing. “Maybe you’re just a little stupid now?”

He shot you a nasty look. “You’re a minx.”

Lizzie cuddled him. “Daddy dupid.”

That started the next laughing fit. “Lizzie, no, you can’t say that.”

“Daddy dupid” she repeated, nodding along.

Jack cradled her head, still shaking his head. “Five minutes ago I was worried we’d end up in the Pitt again with her. Now I’m only worried she’ll run around daycare telling anyone her dad is stupid.”

You shrugged. “It could be worse.”

“How?”

“She could run around telling people you’re shooting blanks.” You grinned.

He groaned.

Lizzie looked up. “Banks.”

You started laughing again. “Close enough, Bean. Close enough.”

--- --- ---

You wanna keep reading? - Next part is coming soon, I promise.

--- --- ---

Tag list: @itjustpunkpizzabae, @theariesview @michasia24 @bye-bye-gremlings @tyghvbuijknmopkl @momdancingtomcr @alexxavicry @rainforestfrogss @starkgaryan @moistointments @rossy1080 @abzidabzy @weepingwhispersengineer @cherryybombsworld @woodxtock @letstryagaintomorrow @romanticpursuit @nicelittletriptotheforest @teenytinylilcrawdaddies @camie18 @thewillowarchive @fortjackson @eugene-emt-roe @nicksolemnlyswears @sarah-fuckyou @beepitybeepboop @amnatreal @goldfishenthusiast67 @karleyyyjaeee @starsmoonn @doesanyonereadthis @introvertedphilomath @noellealexisss @sweetwanderlust05 @eugene-emt-roe @lovehadlovelost @amacphet @asparklysoul @shinyskeletonsky @givemethemaknaes16 @artemis-the-ace @marvelsimps @anyasthoughts

[shadeofpeach]

Words you can’t unsay

Pairing: Dr. Jack Abbot x nurse!girlfriend!reader Warnings: heavy angst, hurt, verbal aggression, age gap (20 years age difference), violence, argument, immature behavior, blood, injury, crying. Summary: ​what begins as a reprimand spirals into a painful argument, exposing the fragile fault lines of your relationship. Disclaimer: This story is pure fiction and written solely for entertainment purposes.

.⁠‧₊˚ part 2 ; fixing us (soon)  🎀 Based on a part of this request  🎀 

You knew you shouldn't had done it.

It was reckless but it has to be done.

Jack hadn't said a word since he pulled you out of Trauma 2 by the arm.

He stood with his forehead pressed against the door, his hands on the door, breathing heavily, trying to hold back everything he had to say about what you had done. Struggling between his professional side and his lover side.

The age gap between the two of you had always been something you both navigated quietly, the twenty years of wear, loss and hard earned medical instincts that gave him those faint silver threads at his temples.

Usually, that difference felt like a safe harbor.

But tonight, right now, it felt like a burden.

"Jack-" you started, your voice trembling as you held the bleeding wound on your forearm.

"Don't," he snapped, his voice was cold, sharp, and vibrating with danger. You had never seen him direct at you that way.

He finally turned to face you, stepping into the center of the room. His jaw was clenched so hard the muscle jabbed against his skin.

"What were you thinking?" he asked, pointing a finger directly at you, his voice trembling despite his best efforts to keep it steady. "Answer me. What in God's name was going through your head back there?"

"The, the patient had a knife! He was escalating, and security was at the other end of the floor-"

"So you stepped in front of him?!" Jack raised his voice, a sharp laugh bursting from his throat before turning deadly serious again. "You stepped into the reach of an intoxicated patient holding a fucking knife, bare handed? Without gear, without training, without waiting five bloody seconds for back-up?!"

"He was going to hurt a nurse!" you shouted back, the adrenaline still coursing hot through your veins. "I was right there! I reacted!"

"You didn't react, you acted like a reckless child with a savior complex!"

The words hit you. You flinched, the sting of the insult cutting deeper than the actual slice on your arm.

Jack instantly closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, pressing two fingers to the bridge of his nose. But when he opened his eyes again, the fury hadn't faded, it had just shifted into something far darker, laced with terror.

"You could have been killed," he whispered, his voice dropping, trying to calm himself down. "Do you understand that? One inch to the right, one sudden movement, and he would have stab you on the chest. And I would have been dragging your body onto a gurney. I would have been the one running the code on my own girlfriend."

"I made a decision-"

"It was a stupid decision!" Jack slammed his hand down on the metal table. You flinched, with a mix of fear and hurt. "It was completely undeniably reckless! You aren't invincible. You think you're helping, but all you did was put yourself in fatal danger!"

He ran both hands through his hair, pacing the narrow length of the room. The angry on his face was agonizing to look at.

"This isn't a fucking videogame, he stabs you and you're gone," Jack murmured, his voice cracking slightly as he stopped pacing, looking at you with eyes that were red rimmed and filled with agony. "You can't do something so impossibly stupid, so utterly careless with your own life..."

He paused, swallowing hard, his chest heaving.

"I hate it when you're like this" he breathed, the words heavy and devastating. "How easily I could lose you because you don't respect how fast a life can end in this place."

Tears finally welled up in your eyes, slipping down your cheeks. "Jack, please..."

"No," he said softly, holding up a hand, refusing to let you touch him even as his own hands shook violently. "I need you to listen to me. I love you, baby. I love you so much it frightens me every damn day. I cannot watch you throw yourself into a fire just to prove you're brave. If you ever, ever, do something like that again, I won't be able to keep doing this."

He stood there for a moment, watching you cry.

Then, he reached into the cabinet, pulled out a strip of sterile bandages and an antiseptic wipe, and walked slowly over to you. "Come here,"

As his hand brushed against your skin, you pulled your arm back sharply, taking a sudden step away from him.

"Don't," you choked out, wiping the tears from your cheek with your shoulder. "I can do it myself."

Jack stopped, his hand hovering in mid air. A deep frustration crossed his features, pulling his brow down tight.

He had reached his absolute limit, the adrenaline and sheer terror of the night twisting his patience thin.

"Don't be immature," Jack said, his voice dropping into a firm tone. "Stop acting hysterical. You're bleeding, sit down and let me fix it."

The words immature and hysterical sliced through you, burning far worse than the cut on your arm.

The built up fear, the humiliation of being berated like a child, and the weight of his anger all exploded at once. You were done with him tonight.

"I said I can do it!" you gasped out, your voice cracking into a choked sob. You shoved at his chest, hard enough to pus him and make the boundaries clear. "Just go away! Leave me alone!"

Jack froze, taking a step back, shocked by the pain in your voice. But before he could say another word, the door opened.

Outside, Shen was by the doorway, listening. When he heard your voice, he step in. He took in the scene instantly: you backed from Jack, chest heaving and sobbing hysterically, and Jack standing over you with bandages in hand, looking stormily defensive.

Shen didn't hesitate for a second.

"Jack," Shen said, his voice was completely non negotiable as he stepped directly between him and you. "Out. Now."

"Shen, this isn't-" Jack started as he looked at him.

"I said out, Abbot," Shen interrupted, pointing firmly toward the open door. "You're done in here. I'll take care of her."

Jack looked from Shen back to you. You wouldn't meet his eyes, your head turned away as quiet sobs tore from your chest.

For a second, the anger in his eyes vanished, replaced by the realization of how he had just hurt you.

With a tight nod, Jack swallowed hard, set the bandage strip down and walked out without another word.

The rest of the night shift passed in a cold fog.

Shen had cleaned and bandaged the cut on your arm, giving you a little speech before sending you back out to work.

For the remaining four hours, you actively avoided Trauma Bays, took the long way around the nurse's station, and kept your head down whenever his figure in scrubs moved through the hallway.

Jack did the same. Whenever you were in the same general area, his presence felt impossibly heavy, but he never approached.

When 7 AM finally rolled around, you clocked out, feeling bruised down to your bones. You walked out to the parking garage, cold morning air biting at your face.

You half expected him to have left without you, but there he was.

Jack was leaning against the passenger side of his car, holding two paper cups of coffee from the cafeteria. He always drove you home after your shift. It was a rhythm you’d built together, a quiet ritual of transitioning from the madness of the ER back to normal life.

Neither of you spoke on the drive. The silence in the car felt suffocating.

When he finally pulled up outside your apartment building, Jack cut the engine. He didn't unbuckle immediately. Instead, he rested his hands on the steering wheel, staring straight ahead through the windshield before turning to look at you when you opened the car door to leave.

"Can we talk?" he asked quietly as you where already walking to the building with wet eyes. "Please."

You turned around, nodding slowly. You didn't want to bring him inside, so you two stayed in the hallway outside your apartment door, key resting heavy in your palm.

Jack stood a step away, his hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets.

"I shouldn't have raised my voice at you," Jack began, taking a breath and looking at youy. "And I shouldn't have... used those words. I was... terrified. I was out of my mind with fear, watching you put yourself in front of a blade like that. But I handled it wrong."

You swallowed down the lump in your throat, trying to keep your voice steady. "You spoke to me like I was a child, Jack. You called me immature and hysterical."

"Because you were acting on pure emotion!" Jack said, stepping a fraction closer, though his tone was defensive despite his apology. "You're a talented healthcare worker, but you lack the experience to know when a situation is beyond your pay grade. You rushed in without thinking about the consequences. That is impulse. That is a young and reckless reaction, and I can't just ignore it because it hurts your feelings to hear it."

His words settled over you heavily.

He is apologizing for how he said it, but not for what he thought.

Standing there, looking into his eyes, you saw it clearly. He didn't see an equal who had made a high stress judgment call in a chaotic trauma center. He saw a young, naive girl he had to manage and protect from her own foolishness.

The age gap between you wasn't just a number to him right now; it was a wall he was using to put himself above you.

A cold clarity washed over the anger, leaving behind an ache.

"You really see me like that, don't you?" you whispered, the realization pulling a broken breath from you. "Just a young, immature girl who doesn't know any better."

Jack blinked, panic entering his eyes by the calm of your voice. "That's not what I'm saying-"

"It is," you interrupted, shaking your head gently. "You think I'm too young to understand the risks, and you think you're the only one in this relationship who has any wisdom. Profesional and personal talking."

"I'm trying to keep you alive!" Jack snapped softly, reaching out to touch your arm, but dropping his hand when you took a small step back. "I care about you. I love you. But I've been doing this for longer than you've been in medicine. I know how this ends when people get careless."

"I know you love me," you said, tears brimming in your eyes again. "And I love you, too."

Jack let out a breath, his shoulders dropping slightly in relief. "Okay. Good. Then let's just go inside, get some sleep, and-"

"No," you said firmly, lifting your chin. "We need space. I need space."

Jack froze, his forehead furrowing. "What does that mean?"

"I'm not breaking up with you. But I see how you see me during some shifts. I'm going to ask to be switched to day shift for a few days," you said, your voice remarkably steady despite the tremble in your hands. "I need to work without you staring over my shoulder waiting for me to to fail and you need time to decide if you actually respect me as an adult, or if you just see me as someone you have to babysit."

Jack stared at you, stunned into silence. For the first time all night, the authority drained out of his posture, replaced by vulnerability.

"Day shift?" he repeated quietly, the reality sinking in. "We won't see each other at work. We won't even have the same sleep schedule."

"I know," you replied feeling your heart break and a tear escaping your eyes. You turned the key in the lock and opened your apartment door. "I don't liked how you talked to me tonight. I understand your point but I think that's what we need right now."

You stepped inside, but paused.

You looked back at him standing alone in the hallway. Despite everything, the sadness and terror in his eyes was still raw.

You leaned forward, rising on your tiptoes to press a soft kiss against his cheek.

Jack’s breath hitched. His hand shot forward, wrapping tightly around your waist, pulling you against him so suddenly it felt like a silent plea. He squeezed your waist with a desperate warmth, his whole body shaking as if he were trying to convince himself you were still whole and unhurt. For a fleeting second, he buried his face in the crook of your neck, his uneven breath felt hot against your skin.

He wanted to hold on. He wanted to pull you back inside the safety of his arms, but the unspoken wall of his condescension still stood cold and immovable between you.

You gently placed your hand over his wrist and slowly pushed back.

His grip loosened with agonizing slowness, his fingers lingering on your waist as if letting go was tearing something out of him. He lifted his head, his eyes glossy, and completely shattered by the realization that his own need to protect you had pushed you away.

"Get some sleep, Jack," you whispered, your voice breaking on his name. "I will... I will text you later. Okay?"

His hand finally slipped off your side.

He didn't speak. He couldn't. He just nodded.

You stepped into the safety of your apartment and pulled the door shut. The click echoed down the hallway, leaving him standing in the cold alone. Regretting all he has said.

⋆｡˚☤🩺✧˖°.｡⋆💉

the pitt masterlist

Let me know if you want to be tagged on part 2

[amphib0e]

・┆𝑱𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒐𝒖𝒔 𝑻𝒚𝒑𝒆

Andrew ‘Pope’ Cody x Reader Drabble

cw: fluff!! andrew is jealous of a stuffed bear teehee, he just wants to be held, sweet baby!! let me HOLD YOUU

Andrew had no need to be jealous about anything in your relationship. He knows you love him- hell, if you didn’t you wouldn’t have put up with his outbursts the last few months you two had been together.

But now, he couldn’t help but be jealous over the scruffy teddy bear curled up against your sleeping form. His grip tightened against the arm of the plush chair he sat in, not too far from the couch you were currently napping on, the midday sun leaking in from the mesh curtains that floated against the window. The bear’s beady eyes stared back into his cloudy hazel ones, his breathing labored slightly.

Andrew knew you kept plushies, you even had a few favorites, but this one had a grip on you like no other.

You had found it at a thrift shop you dragged him to last week, all beaten and worn out, but for some reason you saw potential in it. You’d washed it, sewn together what you could salvage of it, and after that it's practically been glued to your side every time you sleep.

This is where the jealousy stirred. Usually when you slept, Andrew was who you came to for a cuddle, who held you close and made sure you were cared for, loved even.

Now his number one enemy was some plushie that you clung to so tight, even when Andrew laid beside you, curled up against your back with an arm strung around your waist in a tight embrace.

He stood silently from the armchair, crossing the short distance to now stand in front of you. He reached out, surgically removing the plushie from your arms and placing it on the side table before wrapping your arms around his broad shoulders, crawling on top of you against your sluggish grunts.

Your face scrunched up at the sudden movement, eyes blinking open in a bleary state, a disgruntled noise escaping as Andrew dragged his arms underneath you, cuddling up closer to your chest before settling his full weight on top of you.

“Andrew, what’re you doing, honey?”

“You don’t need that.”

“Don’t need what?”

“That toy. I’m supposed to be the one you hold to sleep.”

That woke you up more, eyebrows reaching your hairline as an incredulous smile took over your face, a breathy laugh following. Andrew looked up at you with a fixed glare, not directly for you but at the fact that you were laughing at what he said.

“Honey, Andy..are you jealous of a stuffed animal?”

“…Kept looking at me weird. Like it knew what it was doing.”

“OH MY GOD YOU’RE JEALOUS!”

Andrew’s cheeks burned bright red as he hid against your neck, the heat on his cheeks warming the skin there as your chest rose and fell in laughter. A pout formed on his lips as he squeezed you tighter, his curls brushing against your chin. You brought a hand up to his hair, scratching along the loose curls at the base of his neck as the laughter died down, leaning your chin on top of his head.

“If you wanted to cuddle you could’ve asked, y’know?”

“I know but you looked so peaceful, didn’t wanna wake you up.”

“Yet you did, but ‘s okay, now I have my favorite cuddle buddy with me.”

a/n: RAGHHHH ANDREW LET ME LOVE YOUUUU- im half way through s4 of animal kingdom and i LOVELOVELOVEEEE himmmmm 💕 i hope you guys enjoyed this little drabble!!

© amphib0e 2026

𝓃𝑜 𝓇𝑒𝓅𝑜𝓈𝓉/𝒸𝑜𝓅𝓎𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓂𝓎 𝓌𝑜𝓇𝓀

[amphib0e]

pope + vibrator = <𝟑 .ᐟ

wc: 1.3k

cw: sub! pope, f! reader, kinda dom! reader, pope finds your vibrator, hints of hyperspermia, overstimulation, very loose pwp, aftercare, pet names, andrew being a #goodboy as per usual, given consent

a/n: sorry for the small break in content !! work has been beating me down lately ughhh, and apologies if the ending was a bit rushed- BUT i hope you all enjoyyyy, xoxo

andrew hadn’t meant to go through your things, really, it was an honest mistake! well, more like a morbid curiosity, but he really didn’t mean to!

he was putting away your clean laundry, neatly folded and ready to take their rightful place in the mess of what you call a dresser. the top shelf wasn’t the worst.

the underwear drawer. the warmth filling his cheeks spread to his chest in a sense of pride- proud of you for keeping everything neat. well…as neat as you could. mismatched socks folded into each other, a few pairs of panties spread out instead of being neatly folded, and a few pairs of ripped stockings shoved to the back and forgotten about when they needed to be in the trash.

he made quick work of organizing the fabrics, adding the clean pairs neatly in their respective places, before moving on to the next few drawers.

those were full of your typical clothes- shirts, tank tops, jeans and shorts. easy enough to go through, just put the assigned clothes with their matching counterparts before moving on.

the last drawer was where he felt his jaw tighten in soft annoyance.

the pajama drawer. where you sifted through and threw clothes around constantly. a heap of silk, cotton, and a few of his old shirts he let you “borrow” (you had swiped them from him when spending the night at his place, he was just too whipped to scold you over them. that and seeing you in his clothes drove him absolutely insane).

he smirked at the thought, holding onto the handles of the drawer before beginning the same task he’s been at for the last 45 minutes. sleep tops on one side of him, sleep shorts and pants on the other, and whatever miscellaneous tops and bottoms he pulled out behind him.

he reached for one of his old shirts that was shoved further in the back, grabbing onto the bunched up fabric with a bit more force than necessary before recoiling at the sudden vibrations coming from the offending shirt.

“i guess you found my night time helper, huh?”

he turned to face where you stood in the doorway, chest moving a bit faster at the sudden fright, eyebrows almost touching his hairline, eyes wide and filled with curiosity at your statement.

“your..what?”

“my vibrator, andrew. thought i hid it well enough, but you caught me.”

andrew’s face heated up once more, flushing down the tanned sides of his neck, hands twitching at his side. you sidled up beside him, reaching in and turning off the offending object in question, pulling out the pretty pink massage style vibrator before rolling it between your palm and fingers and then presenting it to him like it was a prized possession (which it is!).

andrew’s face grew a few shades darker, mind reeling with lewd imagery of you sprawled out in the middle of your shared bed, legs spread wide, the vibrator pressed heavily against your clit, calling out his name in the empty that he usually occupies beside you , causing his pants to tighten too fast for his liking. his throat bobbed, clouded hazel eyes meeting yours in a familiar hungry stare.

“use this little piece of heaven when you’re out on a job for a few days…you wanna try it?”

his shoulders squared back at the idea, head tilted in faux apprehension, eyes glazed over at the idea.

“you want to try it on me?”

“i mean, i have thought about how you’d react to it if you let me use it on you..so yeah, i want to try it on you.”

…and that’s how he ended up laid out on the mattress, pants discarded somewhere across the room, boxers shoved below his heavy balls, shirt pulled up to rest under his chin. you sat between his thick thighs, peppering kisses across the taut muscles of his built abdomen before sitting up on your haunches.

the vibrator sat heavy in your hand, hovering just a few inches above the head of his cock that laid at attention, curving towards his stomach.

“you ready, andy?”

“mhm, yeah..”

“aww, no need to be scared, baby. i’ll go easy on ya, mkay?”

you cooed softly at his response, leaning over so that your face hovered over his cock before trickling a bit of spit down his shaft, using your free hand that rested against his thigh to spread the saliva against the area, paying extra attention to the weeping slit, mixing the pre with your spit for extra lubrication.

andrew whimpered at the sudden contact, twitching against your palm, hips rutting against the contact before you pulled your hand away, causing another stuttered whine to leave his parted lips before they formed a frustrated pout, eyebrows furrowed together in frustration.

the silicone head of the vibrator made contact with his flushed head again, this time with a little more force, teasing along the slit to collect more pre before pressing the button that switched the toy on.

the sudden vibrations caused andrew to jolt, the lowest setting sending waves of pleasurable sensations throughout every nerve ending in his body.

his arms jerked around slightly from where they sat, hands gripping the sheets, thighs tensing up slightly from where you sat between them. his hips bucked erratically, chasing after the vibrations each time you pulled the toy away, whining nasally through his nose, pants shaking in his chest as he gripped the sheets harder and harder.

“such a good boy, andy. so good for me, baby, yeah?”

andrew nodded along to your voice, curls whipping around, some plastered to his forehead with the sweat that collected there.

you moved the toy along his shaft, clicking the plus button when you reached the base to increase the strength of the vibrations, causing his legs to begin twitching with the sudden rise of the vibrations.

“fuck! fuck, i’m close, please, sweetheart, please, can i cum? can i cum? i’m so close, fuck.”

andrew’s hips chased after the toy as you dragged it along the prominent vein on the underside of his cock, a smirk permanently fixated on your lips as your eyes were focused on the muscles that clenched along the expanse of his stomach.

“be a good boy and cum for me andy.”

your hand dragged the vibrator back to the underside of the head of his cock, clicking the increase button once more. andrew’s chest rose and fell rapidly, his hips thrusting up against the toy in your hand.

his thighs flexed once more, the abs decorating his stomach clenching before his hips stilled. ropes and ropes of cum flew from his cock, a heavy groan, almost a growl, fell from his lips as his hips thrusted with each release.

your hand smoothed over the flexed muscles in his thighs, watching as his head was thrown back, the muscles in his throat working overtime to suck much needed air into his lungs as his orgasm continued to rip through his body.

a pool of his spend collected along the valley of his stomach, one rope shooting so far up that it slid down the middle of his chest.

only when his cock began to soften, his body shaking uncontrollably, and the threat of unshed tears from overstimulation did you turn the toy off.

andrew’s body deflated against the soft sheets, his sweat slick back cooling against the material as his hands finally unlatched from their strong hold before he carded them through his messy curls.

you trotted off to the bathroom, grabbing a wet rag before coming back and wiping up the mess that was spilled all over his stomach and chest.

once he was cleaned up, you tossed the rag in the direction his pants had flown to earlier, settling into andrew’s side as he shuffled his boxers back up his hips, his shirt still hiked up under his chin, allowing the bronzy skin of his chest and stomach to dry in the chilled ac of your bedroom.

“did such a good job, andy. did you enjoy yourself, honey?”

“yeah..can we..can we try that again some other time?”

“of course, baby. any time you want.”

© amphib0e 2026

𝓃𝑜 𝓇𝑒𝓅𝑜𝓈𝓉/𝒸𝑜𝓅𝓎𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓂𝓎 𝓌𝑜𝓇𝓀

[seizethegay420]

Frank Castle be careful I'm so serious being Peter Parkers parental figure is a dangerous job

[heaven4lostgirls]

happy birthday peter parker! rewatching spider-man: brand new day today in your honour!

[heaven4lostgirls]

jack: i miss my husband :(

robby: ??? we’re not married—

jack,sighing loudly: I SAID I MISS MY HUSBAND >:(

[mcybank]

Dirty Work — Andrew ‘Pope’ Cody

pairing – andrew ‘pope’ cody x fem!reader

summary – you’d spent months loving andrew in the shadows because it was the only way to keep him. he knows smurf rots everything she gets her hands on, and you had to learn that as long as she’s still holding the leash, loving him in the dark was never going to be enough to keep him out of it.

warnings – [ 8.1k ] infidelity/emotional betrayal (no cheating, but reader sees pope with another girl), established relationship, reader and pope’s dynamic is Slightly Toxic (secret relationship, and it’s implied he’s the one who decided it), smurf and her Horrible Antics (sending women to pope), reader wishing smurf dies (Obviously!), talks about pope dissociating during unwanted contact, mentions of animal kingdom canon violence but nothing shown on page, reader’s lowk a crybaby, a Lot of this is her reflecting on the relationship, lots of hurt, no comfort/very Little comfort, pope mean and defensive for a few seconds, pope groveling and sad immediately, TWO seconds of pope being happy and domestic (savor it!!!)

notes – who is the AH or does NAH or ESH hmmm i thought i knew where this was gonna go but don’t know if i pulled it off buuuut i rly wanted to write this idea! also inspired by ‘dirty work’ by steely dan it’s what i listen to while i clean my messy room bc double entendre !!!

Your fingers had been singing an unmistakable itch for the last three hours that, on any other day, you would’ve considered to be born out of something medical. You knew better, for you’d diagnosed this months ago. It lived in the pads of your fingers and flared in proximity to Andrew Cody, and the only treatment was contact, and it never quite mattered where. The back of his neck or the dip of his spine, the belt loop you were allowed to hook a finger through at his apartment, in the daylight, in front of the windows, where nobody died from it. Here, you had to keep your hands busy with a beer and stand the regulation distance from him (close enough to hear him breathe if he ever breathed loud enough to hear, far enough that no one watching would think the word ‘hers’). 

You’d kept rerouting your hand all night to your hair, to the can, to the chain between your collarbones that you wore inside your shirt at this house, because everything he’d given you lived inside something else. He’d handed it to you in a little box, at arm’s length, watching your face like you may refuse the box. When you’d lifted it out, he’d said, “If you don’t like it – ” and never finished the sentence, because you already had it on. 

Across the room, Smurf held a glass of bourbon that caught the dim lights every time she laughed. It was a prop, you knew so. It was the same as the huge gold chain she wore around her neck. It was a prop like the arm she drifted around whichever son drifted into range. You’d watched her do it to Craig twice tonight. You’d watched Andrew watch her do it, hands in his pockets with his spine so straight and rigid.

Deran had told you that, “You’ve been lookin’ so fuckin’ sad recently.”

He’d looked half-worried through his grin, and you had your answer ready. “Work’s just been a lot.”

He’d nodded and clinked his can against yours. You stood there an accumulation of your little lies, calendar lies, where-were-you-Saturday lies, each one costing a coin of something you couldn’t stop spending. You were getting better at that than you would’ve liked. Work had been a lot, and no you weren’t seeing anyone.

You’d said the latter to some girl making conversation by the pool. The “no” had come out before she’d even finished her question while thirty feet away stood the man whose bed you’d woken up in this morning. No. You weren’t seeing anyone.

You needed a minute. Craig was high off his shit – or, maybe, someone else’s – telling a story. Your mouth curved when his did. But the noise pressed in from all sides – the house made it possible to feel like you were within twenty walls instead of four – and you needed just about thirty seconds where you could stop pretending you weren’t in love with the eldest Cody in this house. How many seconds could you steal with him? Ninety, maybe. You’d take forty. 

Andrew’s door stood open, and it was a hand’s width of a gap. Through it, your eyes fell onto the gold lamplight laid down across the runner and that was the second you saw the shadows of movement play inside it. 

It’d irked you, the fact that the house he grew up in – the house where you’d flocked into with Deran and circled around Andrew for years before you knew you were circling – had never once held the two of you the way you were. You’d been safe in this house your entire life, in the shadows where Smurf registered you as a mindless stray. And then you’d gone and fallen in love with the eldest son, and converted yourself into the only contraband ever smuggled through this house without Smurf sniffing it out. 

You wanted – very badly – to hold Andrew. You wanted to get your hand around the back of his neck where he ran hot and press your thumb into that knot of muscle that never once in his life had come loose. You wanted to tell him that you loved him against his collar so his mouth would curve up just a degree like it always did. 

Your hand was on the door and then the gap was wider. It was when the gold of his lamp spilled fuller that you saw Andrew’s rigid posture at the edge of his bed, his back to the door. With a girl.

You could’ve sworn you’d seen her just earlier. She was someone from the party’s outer rings, someone Smurf had summoned out of the general dark. Andrew had told you she did that – “She brings girls around when she thinks I’m stressed.” 

You’d thought it was history when he told you, something she used to do. You supposed the past tense had been your invention – your brain cradling you unknowingly – and that he’d never conjugated it that way. 

Your breath came out heavy through your nostrils once, and you couldn’t be sure if you took a breath after that. 

She was talking to Andrew; you could see her mouth moving close to the side of his face. You could see the little nods she gave herself between words. Her hand was on his shoulder, and then it moved up the side of his neck to the place your own hand went.

You knew what that patch of skin felt like from the outside, warm as bread. You knew what your hand looked like there, you’d thrown your head back against the couch and watched as his shoulders lowered as your fingers worked into it. Hers looked the same. It made you sick, that it looked no different when she did it. 

Her fingers spread against his jaw and drew his face around toward her. It turned. A head is a heavy thing – Andrew’s had phantom in it besides, whole cemeteries of weight, Julia and everything this home had taken and done – and it came around under four of her fingers, easy as a door. All that weight, and she moved it with a wrist. 

You had to swallow down a lump so your voice wouldn’t yell out. Andrew’s secret, you had to tell yourself. You were Andrew’s secret, and if you did anything that showed you knew him better than the guy you sometimes talked to – if the space allowed it – then Andrew wouldn’t be happy.

His profile came into the lamplight and his hands closed on his lap, knuckles blanching, then opening again. He pressed them flat against his thighs. His shoulders were up around his ears. 

He shook his head once, the action so small you might have made it up. It was a fossil of a refusal.

She smiled – like he was growling at her from inside a kennel, fenced and adorable – at him. She kept her palm in your place and said something else, and his head stayed shaking its tiny trembling current of no, no, no. 

She shifted closer to the mattress. For some awful reason, you heard the bedsprings creak even though you could hear none of what she was saying.

His weight tipped just an inch – toward the pull of her hand – one of his hands came up off his thigh, crossed the small dark between their bodies, and found her waist and rested there. 

You found that nothing about his hand looked like the hand you knew, and that thought – the creepy, monstrous thought of something of Andrew’s that you’d thought was only ever yours to know being spent here, on another waist – had teeth. It bit you under your ribs, and there was a physical pinch that wrapped around your body.

Pope, you thought.

The name arrived from everywhere in this house, because the man on the bed wasn’t anyone you’d ever held. He’d never let you. Andrew was yours. Andrew had given you the chain that now felt like it was steaming up against your skin.

It was a little proof-of-ownership tag pressing its details into you at the precise moment his hand certified someone else’s waist. You’d worn it inside your clothes all night, hidden it like everything he gave you. It occurred to you that perhaps the girl’s hands on his neck was more public than anything the two of you had ever done. 

His hand had gone, had done this small obedient thing his mother intended it to do. Some part of you believed – stupidly, tenderly, for months – that you had gotten there. You’d had this dumb little faith that you reached whatever was underneath and embalmed it so thoroughly that Smurf could never truly put her fingers back on it. 

You hadn’t. You saw that now, that you hadn’t reached what lived under and made it yours in some way that predated his mother’s claim, that love didn’t go deeper than training. Andrew could love you when the air allowed it. The moment the air tangled with her breath, the love folded up and waited.

You were the newest thing in Andrew. You’d been pouring yourself into the top inch of a man and calling it the bottom.

You thought about it, nailed it into your stupid, stupid brain as your fingers closed on the steering wheel. You hadn’t even remembered getting into the car. 

If Smurf had him pliant the way you knew she could, Pope would be above the girl right now. 

You wondered if it was silly to carry that small little faith that Andrew wouldn’t fuck her. It felt childish in the face of the monstrosity. It was a girl’s faith. Silly girl, he’s not yours there.

You didn’t know. You’d left, coward you were. Now there was a room behind you that you couldn’t see into, and your brain – quick, disgusting – went right on ahead and finished it for you.

Even under it, you hoped that if it happened, it didn’t hurt Andrew. The enormous, completely ruined, loving part of you hoped that if he was in that room doing what she sent the girl for, then at least Andrew was spared.

You wanted the girl to be gentle with him, wanted her hands to be warm, wanted her to slow the way he needed. Because if his body had to be spent tonight on his mother’s errand, then let it at least be spent somewhere soft.

It had all the footage it needed; it remembered his hands in one fold, knew exactly what they’d do, and how that live wire running through your body would light up when they did. 

That wire was crossed now, the light going somewhere else, curling in on itself like a millipede when it dies. You’d learned that with Andrew on a documentary. You’d been half-asleep against him and he’d been all-awake, and the millipede had done its slow curl on the screen. He’d said, into your hair, “That’s how they go.” 

Now that was ruined, too, wasn’t it? Now that little curling death was with you, in your chest, in the car, everything he’d handed you turning in your grip and pointing back at itself. 

The weight of his mouth on yours. The weight of him going slack on you when he stopped holding himself up with his forearms. The sound, that little soft grunt. Your brain had all the memories, had held it close and swaddled it like something meant to be cherished forever. It was playing them on her, and you pressed the heel of your hand into your eye socket to make it go away. 

Coward. Coward, you could have stayed. You could have stood in the doorway of his childhood bedroom and let him see you. You could have been the thing that stopped his hands for him, and instead you’d taken your stupid soft feet and gone, and bought yourself this reel that you’d never get to see the end of. Your head would have to keep guessing the ending forever, generous with the details, cruel as Smurf herself.

You let out a full-fledged sob, dropping your head against the wheel as you pulled over on some side. You were crying about it and wishing Andrew well in it, hoping a stranger was being sweet to the man she was taking from you.

Your love – somewhere along the way – for Andrew had stopped including yourself. You’d have lain down under the wheels of it if it kept him warm. You think you would’ve given him away nicely, if it was what he had to do.

The waiting sat low and ugly in you and wouldn’t resolve. You were sure it wouldn’t resolve unless you popped something bad for you to go to sleep. You’d swallow just about anything just to feel different.

There was nothing in your apartment for you to swallow. The ceiling was the only thing that was moving – headlights, then gone, then another – and you could feel the sour taste the one drink had left in your mouth. You lay there and hated your own spit. You hated the chain warming against your sternum. You hated, distantly, the specific idiot you’d been for him tonight, brushing your teeth for him, choosing your earrings. 

He’d texted you an hour after you’d left, and then again. It was the grace of your routine. If you left without saying goodbye, it was normal. He’d show up whenever what needed to be done was done, and somewhere between then there’d be a text. Tonight, the first one had come in on schedule, lighting the ceiling blue for one second. 

Andrew: Home?

He’d sent another one forty minutes later. There usually was never a second text.

Andrew: Shouldn’t be long. You good?

Your thumb hovered, wanting to type out a ‘yes.’ Your hand wanted to answer him the same way his hand had wanted that waist, muscle memory greased and aimed. You watched your own body try to be obedient now, to the same thing that was killing you. So, you put the phone face-down on the mattress. 

You’d lay wondering if Andrew had done with the girl what his mother had sent her to him for. He could be inside her right now. Right now, while you lay here rationing your own breath. The thought went through you serrated, dragging its teeth. You let it, because some penitentiary part of you had decided that if you couldn’t know, you’d serve the worst sentence available.

You snorted softly to yourself through the tears. Wasn’t that the night’s filthiest joke? Smurf didn’t even have to know your relationship with Andrew to teach you how she could’ve hurt you. You were doing the work for her, free of charge, your brain cruel as the woman herself. 

He sent another one later.

Andrew: On my way

Andrew was looking at your silence and noticed, if you were lucky. Maybe he hadn’t.

You heard the graceless fumble as he used his spare keys hours later, the metal worrying the other metal. Andrew who’d cracked safes and still had a difficult time working his own girl’s front door quietly when he was spent. The bolt turned and you felt the air sing through the house, then heard the long nothing of him crossing it in the dark, no lights, because lights woke people. He’d learned that it was the polite thing to do – he never turned on lights, choosing whatever default setting a person had chosen – and the fact broke your heart on a normal night and tonight it just sat there like dead weight. 

You closed your eyes, never deciding to fake it but your body clearly wanted to. Coward, same as you. You arranged your face slack, and that was when you’d realized how every inch of your skin that could’ve scrunched up had been holding that position for the last three hours since you got home. 

The room took him in and the mattress went down under his weight. His boots came off one at a time, and then he was lowering himself into the bed with his arms taking the load so the springs wouldn’t talk. 

Somewhere along the way, Andrew’d stopped feeling the pressing need to shower before he got in bed with you. Eager, now. He used to scrub the day off before he’d let himself touch you, like he thought he’d track something in. It had taken you months to get him to stop.

Eager thing, you were, too. Dumb little wanting of wanting him now, now, now, after being starved of him for all the years he’d held himself back from you. The night he’d finally let himself climb into your bed smelling of work and himself, and let you have him unwashed, you’d understood it for the enormous surrender it was. Andrew laying down a guard he’d held since boyhood, trusting you now with the unrinsed version. 

You felt bile rise to your throat at the thought now. 

His knee found the back of yours, testing to see if you were awake. When he received no answer, his arm came over – the weight of it, God, the sheer heat and heft – and drew you back against the long line of him until there was nowhere left for the dark to get between you.

That rumbling inside you didn’t care what you’d seen; it only knew the heat of him against your back and wanted to turn to it. 

His face went to the back of your neck, and he breathed out. The breath went on and on and on, billowing raggedly against your skin at the end of it, everything in him coming down at once. You felt his body get heavier against you with the relief of having arrived. 

His hand found your fist under your chin and capped it, thumb going into the groove below your knuckles. His mouth moved on your nape, his lips resting there like they’d found home.

He breathed you in slowly, so rationing constantly. He never took anything at the rate he wanted. You could only feel the true rate underneath – in the pressure of his fingers when they curled and then remembered themselves and went flat, in the abortive flex of his arm that wanted to crush you to him and delivered, instead, a gentle cinching – held at the gate, metered out in doses he’d decided you could survive. 

You’d seen it as reverence for much too long. It had felt like being cradled by somebody who tried to remember you constantly.

Tonight, lying rigid inside his heat, you realized you’d only gotten halves of Andrew. The withheld remainder lived somewhere, didn’t it? Everything unspent had to go somewhere, and now you knew where. 

“Hate that house,” he murmured quietly. “Whole night. Wanted to get back here.” His thumb moved once in the groove of your knuckles. “To you.” 

His knee pressed into yours. “Shoulda left earlier,” he murmured, after a minute. “Looked for you after. Asked Deran – you were already gone.”

It’d taken so long to place Andrew into himself, for him to find the version of his body that could lie in a bed. Years he’d spent flinching. Years learning the flinch back down to nothing, learning the bed you were in was a place the past couldn’t reach through the floor and grab his ankle. His heart was going slow and unafraid against your spine. You’d built that heartbeat, he’d told you once. You’d built it with all of the halves Andrew brought you. 

You didn’t want it to go. You wanted to keep being the house he came into, the one where he was unclenched and humming with arrival, happy. You’d made a place out of yourself where he could fall into, and you were only now learning what it cost to be it.

You kept your breath long and level, which was the mistake. It was too level, too clean. Andrew’s thumb stopped for a second, and he blew out another soft breath against your skin. 

“Playin’ possum?” The corner of his mouth moved against your neck, and you could feel that little thing he’d started doing more, the closest to a grin he could get. “Nah. C’mon.” 

His arm cinched tighter to haul you back flush into him, and there was a low gruff of breath in your hair that was his laugh. His nose dragged up behind your ear and his hand slid off your fist to spread wide and warm over your stomach. 

“Waited up f’me?” he murmured, pleased, “and won’t even say hi. What sort of welcome’s that, huh?” He pressed a true kiss under your jaw, lingered there for a moment too long that you could feel his lips curve downwards against your skin, the frown arriving inside of the kiss. “Say hi.” 

His mouth dragged up from your jaw hesitantly, testing on your skin. His tongue touched down at the corner of your jaw – savoring the salt he thought was just your skin – and that was the exact second it went wrong on him. His lips flattened again, and you could feel his body go still as he held his breath against you. Andrew knew the taste of tears. 

He drew back an inch, enough to break the seal of his mouth from you, and the cool of the room rushed into the space where his warmth had been. 

His palm lifted from your stomach and came to your cheek and dragged a thumb – slowly, the pad of it rough – through the track running down toward the pillow, and stopped at the wet gathered at your lashes, and turned it. Against your back, his heart kicked once, then found a faster gear. A swallow went down his throat where it pressed to your shoulder, and his breath developed a small hitch at the top of each inhale. 

Andrew had never been one to keep his fear where you could reach it, but you could always feel it anyway. You felt it now, the tell of it thumping against your back.

He made a sound in his throat, like he was clearing it but instead only managed to lodge it more. 

“You’re crying,” he said, thumb at your lashes. “Why?”

His hand slid from your cheek to your jaw, cupped it, and pressed, suggesting a turn with a quarter-ounce of pressure. Then, he waited like he always did with you. He proposed, and you completed.

When you didn’t complete it, he applied the tiny pressure again, saying, “Please.”

You let him turn you, because you couldn’t not. That please had that boy in it, and because you were done being a coward in one direction only to be one in another.

You turned in his arms and saw his face for the first time, the memory of his hand around her waist surfacing behind your eyes even as you looked at him. For a second you saw both, his face here, creased and worried in the grey light, and his hand there, resting and obedient on skin that wasn’t yours.

He made a small, confusedly wounded sound in his throat as his eyes went back and forth along your face. His thumb wiped once at your cheek, catching what was leftover, and he didn’t even seem to know he was doing it. You leaned your cheek into his hold, and his palm came to your cheek immediately, brows furrowing. 

“What?” he murmured, and it came out in a breath like it’d been punched out of him.

You could feel his fingers curl to the shape of your face, cradling, the closest he could get to gripping without letting himself grip. Your jaw sat on the heel of his palm as his thumb brushed along your cheekbone while the pads of the others curled behind your hair. 

It was the sick tender wretchedness of it, letting the same hands that made you almost throw up bile only hours ago cup your face in the dark, leaning into it, because your body had never known what else to do with the enormous nearness of Andrew. You turned to him like a plant to the window even now, even knowing, and you hated that you couldn’t stop it. 

You heard his teeth clench together in your silence. His forehead came down, wanting to touch yours, and you let that, too. The weight of his head rested against your hairline and his breath billowed unevenly against your mouth. It was your first touch, you remembered with such tender cruelty. It was the only one he could do, his oldest word with you. 

“Somebody do something?” His thumb swept your cheekbone in haste, gathering another one you hadn’t even registered falling. 

Your throat wouldn’t work. His fingers curled behind your ear, pads pressing lightly, counting something.

His breath stalled at the top of an inhale, holding it there, and then it came out slowly as he moved closer, nose grazing yours just barely. His tongue peeked out slightly between his lips, and you felt his breath quilt. His head made the smallest motion against yours, no.

His palm flattened some hair back from your face, and his lips pressed to the bridge of your nose and you felt them tremble there. He pressed harder to stop it. When he pulled away, his lips twisted slightly. 

“I do something?” he asked, voice cracking in the middle. 

You opened your mouth, and your voice came out broken out of disuse. “How was the party?” 

His hand tensed up against your face and he tugged his lower lip between his teeth, eyes pinching shut. You felt the second he took his hand off your face like it was burning you, felt the exact millisecond he realized the hand he was touching you with.

Andrew, who reached for you like people did railings on staircases, curled his hands into a fist against the sheet beside you. The whole hand you knew so well – and not at all – held away from you like he’d decided he’d forfeited his right to it. 

“Bad,” he murmured. “I didn’t like it.” 

You breathed in sharply through your nose at Andrew being the picture of himself, always meeting the worst things in life with the smallest words. You pushed your face further into the pillow, leaving his head hanging with the tiny gap between. Even with his eyes shut, his lips twisted into a small frown. And even as your own heart felt like it was burning up with something ugly and violent, you wanted to press your mouth at the edge of his self-flagellating scowl. 

He sucked in a sharp breath and from the corner of your eye, you could see his fists curl tighter on the sheet. You heard the cotton strain under them, threads ticking. One of his fists came up and pressed its knuckles hard against his mouth, like he was stopping words at the gate.

Tell me, you tried to telepathically communicate. Tell me so I don’t have to say it for you. 

“How was it – ” he tried, coming out past his knuckles. His lip curled off his teeth a flinch, and his head one hard motion like it was shaking off a fly, hating the question. He put his fist back down and picked a spot on the pillow an inch from your face and spoke to it. “How was it for you?” 

“Andrew – ” He tilted his head to the side, brows furrowing at your voice, the tremble in it. You continued, forcing yourself to ask the question. “Did anything – ”

“I’m sorry,” he said, overlapping your voice. His head went back, throat curving long and pale in the light. From here, you could see the curve of his throat bob as he swallowed. His eyes had come open and found the ceiling, shining wet along the bottom lids as he blinked hard, furious little shutters. 

“I’m so sorry.” He kept going, repeating it. “Sorry. M’so sorry. Sorry, sorry,” he said, each one softer and faster than the last.

His hand came up and dragged down his own face, knuckles scrubbing at his jaw.

Your body, quicker than your heart, turned to stone. Your head reared impossibly back. If it was possible, you would’ve gone into the pillow. Your nose started to burn and you felt a new pressure build up in your eyes all over again, jaw clenching.

He looked down again, trying to meet your eyes when he felt your body go stiff. His hand came up off the sheet to cradle your face again, but just as quickly as he reached, he put it away. 

“I shouldn’t be here. Put my hands on you. Didn’t even –” he rambled on, voice crumpling. “Came here ‘cause I missed you so much – sorry. I’m sorry.”

Your mouth opened as you let out a breath, sounding close to a defeated laugh. Your wires were crossed and you suddenly felt the stab of a thousand sharp knives as the images that had been playing on repeat came to your mind again. 

“What happened?” you asked, tearing out through the middle of his words in a voice you weren’t sure even belonged to you.

When he continued apologizing, the words tumbling over yours, you said, “Did you – did you fuck her?”

His head came up and he looked like he’d been struck, horrified and gutted all at once; the answer was in the line between his brows before his mouth caught up. But you needed the mouth, you needed to hear the word, so you held his eyes with your whole body gone rigid.

“No,” he said, voice trembling on the word. “What?” 

That made your nose burn even more, the complete brokenness in his voice at the insinuation, discovering you believed him capable of. You had to roll your eyes to the ceiling to get away from his face, and that let the pool gathering at your waterline spill slowly once again down your cheek. 

“Why would you think that?” he asked, pushing his face closer to get back into your eyeline, hunting it, needy to be seen completely for the first time maybe his entire life. “Why would I do that?”

You turned your neck so your cheek fell onto the pillow and away from him. He made a pained sound at you turning away from him, also maybe for the first time in your life. 

“I would never do that,” he said, firming his voice. “Don’t want anyone else. Don’t want anyone,” he said, rougher, correcting himself in the same breath down to the barest true thing. “S’only ever been – doesn’t work like that with me. You know that. Doesn’t work with anyone that’s not – that’s not you. You know that,”

The words all came out like he was drilling it back into you, like he thought that some base mechanism in you had been accidentally tossed over the hours you’d been away from him, and if he said the words with enough torque he could reseat it, will it back true. 

It hadn’t been. The mechanism was still wired and running charged, so completely charged. You knew Andrew down to the bone, loved him down to the phantoms in his brain and the loving hadn’t dimmed a watt for what you’d seen. If anything it’d gone sharper, meaner, more itself, the way a burn brightens a nerve. You lay there charged to the teeth with it and it did you no good at all, because being wired for Andrew didn’t mean the same as having him, and tonight the gap between those things was the whole width of the bed. 

Loving him hadn’t been enough to keep his hand off another waist when his mother willed it there. You could know him to the bone and love him to the phantoms – you knew you would, forever – and still lose him to a pull that predated you by a womb and answered to a name that wasn’t yours. 

“What’d you do with her?” you murmured, voice falling onto the pillow under you, because God it was easier to focus on the girl than the shark of a mother behind her.

“I paid her,” Andrew said quickly, the words tumbling out in his haste to explain, “to tell Smurf it was done and go.” His breath came quickly through his nose. “Didn’t do anythin’ with her, I swear. It stopped – I stopped it. Just gave her cash and got her out the door.” 

There was a horror in the competence in the transaction, how he’d had a procedure to it. Was this the rest of your life? To protect your relationship from Smurf’s claws, was this what it would take – forever? A lifetime of Andrew keeping a folded stack of bills ready like a fire extinguisher, of the two of you building your whole love in the negative space around a woman who’d never been told once it existed? You saw the stretch out ahead, year after year of him coming to your door, of you lying awake wondering if tonight had been just like this, and something in you buckled at the length of it. 

“How –” you said, voice going small, embarrassment clawing at your throat. “How many times has this happened?” 

“A few,” he mumbled. 

Your brows rose, and you felt fresh heat crawl behind your eyes again.

“Since we’ve been – ?” His eyes went somewhere else, out past your shoulder. You tried again at the silence, pulling your brows back down so as to not let any more tears fall. “Andrew?”

“Doesn’t matter.” He shook his head, and his eyes found yours again. His tongue pressed into his cheek, molding a small hill there, and left. “They come. I handle it, they go. That’s all,” he said, leaning down just slightly as if to press the words onto you. “It’s handled.” 

There was a quiet sort of bell that rang in your mind the same second he hesitantly let his forehead drop back to yours, reaching, reaching, reaching for the same old ease. You pushed your arms up from your sides, palms finding his chest, stopping. You were shaking your head, eyes fluttering as you tried to slide the picture of Andrew – your Andrew – back into your mind, to feel it whole like it always did. 

His eyes went down to your palms as if to make sure he wasn’t imagining the weight. “Stop,” he murmured. “Please.” 

Your eyes forced themselves shut. “And it’s gonna keep happening.”

“I don’t care about any of them – ”

“I care,” you said. “I care that your plan was always just – hope I don’t find out. Say the plan, Andrew. There’s no part where it stops.” 

“You weren’t,” he said, voice going rougher. “You weren’t supposed to find it. Got nothing to do with you.” 

You knew one day Smurf was going to die. One fateful fucking day, she would. Andrew may not believe so, but even Smurf would rot into the ground some day, same as anything that lived. She wasn’t god, however she’d built herself into one in the person of him. She was just a woman who one day would face the same fate anyone else does, and the string she kept through Andrew’s ribs would go slack for the first time in his whole life. 

Fuck, you felt selfish. Was it so wrong to hope for an Andrew that only existed on the far side of his mother’s grave? To lie in your own bed wondering – her age, her habits – while her son shook beside you? You were wishing a woman dead so you could love her son openly. 

You always came up empty. Smurf could die tonight, next year, or tomorrow, and it wouldn’t matter. She took from Andrew without lifting anything heavier than an intention. A dead woman kept that kind of reach. The string through his ribs didn’t need her hands on the other end of it anymore, for it’d learned to pull all by itself. 

Andrew watched your face as you watched the stretch of your life you’d have if it kept going on just like this. “This is why. Anything to do with her’s only gonna hurt you.” 

You reeled back at that, pulling your body to sit up so quickly Andrew flinched away, making space. 

“This is why?” The sheet fell off you and the cold hit your shoulders, the cotton of your tank top doing nothing to help. “Andrew, I don’t like this.” 

“Stop,” he murmured, reaching a palm across the distance as he sat up, even though his jaw was clenched. “I know. I know you don’t, just –” 

“There have been girls who’ve been with you, god knows how many,” your voice cracked, and you had to crane your neck to look at the ceiling at the thought. “Why haven’t you just told her to stop sending them?” 

His jaw shifted, a flinch. His lips pushed out slightly, shoulders coming up into a small shrug like you’d just asked him to walk through a wall. “It’s nothing. I don’t do anything with them. It’s – two minutes of my life, Smurf thinks she won. It costs nothing – ”

“It costs me,” you interrupted, the words coming out of you louder than anything you’d said all night. You both froze at the sound of your voice, and his head snapped back to your face. Your fingers went up to find the chain around your neck, clasping. “You might be fine with it, but I’m not – not when you’ve been hiding this from me the entire time. I can’t spend my entire life wondering if there’s another girl – another chance for you to –”

“It wouldn’t – ” he started, shaking his head. “I’d handle it.”

“I’m tired, Andrew,” you said, head dropping slightly. “I don’t know how to deal with this.”

His breathing had gone shallow. His eyes were on your fist, and his lips were pursed like he was fighting himself out of saying something – the softness trying to surface as the fear shoved it back down – and after a moment, he said, “You knew what you were getting into.” 

“I knew about the jobs,” you said quietly. You breathed in one small pull through your nose and your fingers came off the chain.

“I knew about the guns under your pillow and how you do things you can’t tell me at three in the morning. I knew that and I have never once – ” you had to click your tongue to process the sudden disbelief at yourself, “ – asked you anything you didn’t want to answer.” 

He opened his mouth, as if to argue. You raised your palm, and his teeth clicked together audibly, obedient to your hand in a manner that on any other night would’ve undone you. 

“I didn’t know about the girls. How many times you must’ve come here after – ” Your voice shook, and you had to push yourself off the bed, away. Suddenly, you felt too aware of the enormity of Andrew. You’d welcomed it, loved it, made a home out of the sheer size of him. Now the bed felt too close to standing next to a parked truck. “I don’t know what else I don’t know.” 

Your arms crossed over your chest, hands gripping your elbows. You looked at the window, the parking lot lights coming through the blinds in stripes, and started flipping backward through the years like a rolodex to see if there were any hints. 

“There’s nothing else,” he said, voice going quieter. He’d moved himself to the edge of the bed, feet on the floor, palms fisting the fabric of his pants as he watched you. “Nothing else. I’ll tell you if it happens again.” 

“If it happens again,” you said, the words coming out through a resigned chuckle. “It’s going to happen again.” 

“What do you want me to say?” Your heart kicked as he said the words, his eyes wide and wet and lost. “I can’t – I don’t know what you want me to do. I don’t know what I can do that isn’t already – ” His hand vaguely motioned between the two of you. “I’m already doing everything. This is everything.”

“I want you to tell me when this ends.” Your own voice cracked throughout the entire sentence, your shoulders coming up to your ears as you folded yourself further away from him, like your asking the question was enough to fill the space. “I’d wait, Andrew. I’d wait forever if I knew there was – I just, if I’m staying, I need to know it’s going somewhere.”

He craned his head up to look at you then, brows furrowed and lips parted, and you watched how his breathing kicked up.

“Don’t,” he murmured, the words coming out more to himself than you. “Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“That,” he murmured, pulling himself off the bed. His hands hesitantly reached up to your face, both palms cupping unsteadily, as he dropped his forehead to yours. “Don’t gotta put an ‘if’ in it. Don’t. Please.”

You pressed your lips together, eyes clenching shut as you tried to pull away from his hold. His grip tightened just slightly, pressing his forehead impossibly closer into yours.

“Please. Hey. Please.” He tapped your cheek once desperately, forcing you to open your eyes. “Why’re you thinkin’ of leaving? Stop that – nothing happened. Nothing’s gonna happen.”

You let out a pained sound at the words, feeling yourself weaken in his desperation. Nothing happened, nothing was going to happen. No, it was going to be exactly how it was. The good, and the hiding it came wrapped in.

“S’good here,” he murmured. “Don’t take the whole thing for one night.”

Was this enough?

The selfishness, the greed crawled through your body like the largest organ. Was this enough for a life, to have Andrew when you could, while he lived another?

You’d continue trusting that the women got paid at the door. You’d continue learning about them at doorways, by accident. You’d get older inside a few hours’ worth of a man. There were women who did it – you knew there were, whole quiet populations of them, mistresses to marriages, to churches, to armies – who took the visiting hours and meant it when it was love. Maybe they were happy. Maybe the trick was to stop measuring and stop waiting on something. 

“We’re good,” he said again, voice going softer as his chin dipped slightly, and you realized he was repeating it because you weren’t. 

He took in a sharp breath of air at your silence, fingers moving from your face down to your arms.

Your eyes focused on his collar instead, at the top button of his shirt. It never sat right. You thought you’d fixed it about a hundred times without thinking, your fingers at his throat while he stood statue-still and let you, letting you be the only person allowed to be the one to fuss over him. Your hands stayed at your side. 

“I hate this,” he said after a moment. His thumbs moved at your elbows in small circles. “Hate that I made you cry.”

His arms went up again, over your shoulders, up the sides of your neck, until he was tilting your face in both hands up to him, thumbs sweeping under your eyes to clear it. His fingers were moving in haste now, the desperation overriding the second-guessing.

“Will you look at me?” he murmured, and you did.

His mouth came down to your cheekbone, then higher to the corner of your eye, kissing along the damage slowly. His hand loosely slid back into your hair, tilting your head to the other side, doing it again. His breathing was ragged against your skin as his body crowded you, chest brushing yours with every breath.

“Will you let me?” His mouth moved to your temple and pressed there, voice breaking slightly. “Will you let me make you feel better?” His nose dragged along your hairline and his lips landed just under your ear. “Know how. Please let me.”

You knew he would, he always did with every good intention. He’d make you feel better tonight like he’d made you feel better a hundred nights, and tomorrow you’d remember how much Andrew you had, and how much he kept. The next party would still come, and there would always be another better to make you feel because that was one thing he could manufacture and changing anything was not. 

You cleared your throat, and hated how his entire body perked up at the small sound. 

“I’m gonna sleep,” you mumbled, slowly prying your body away from his hold. 

You moved your body on autopilot and got onto the bed again, facing the window. The mattress dipped, and he placed himself at your back. 

His mouth pressed against your shoulder, then an inch higher at the curve of your neck. His breath shuddered against you. “Been so good to me.”

You sucked in a shallow breath, turning your face slightly to meet his eyes, “Andrew – ” 

His hand slid along your jaw and his mouth came down onto yours, swallowing his own name from your lips. He kissed you so slowly, hope running the length of it, as his fingers stroked whatever inch of skin it could find in its haste. 

You matched it, trying to move when he did, body feeling completely weightless. Somewhere in it, as his fingers reached up to your hair, your breath broke, one small wet hitch against his mouth, and the tear went hot, down onto his palm. 

Andrew halted against your mouth, then pulled away to angle his head to rest on yours. He let out a short breath through his nostril, and pressed one last peck against your lips.

“Don’t cry while kissin’ me,” he said, voice so broken. “Please.”

His thumb moved through the dampness collected on your cheek again, then pressed slightly into the track. His eyes went down to your mouth, and his throat moved as he swallowed hard. 

“It feels bad now?” he murmured, eyes trained to your cheeks.

“No,” you said quickly, hands finding his wrist. “No, Andrew.”

His thumb stayed there, and his eyes stayed down. His lips moved slightly as you watched his brows furrow in understanding, watched him not believe you.

“M’sorry,” he said quietly, jaw clenching. “Been hurting you all night. You’ve been crying all night–”

“No.” Your hand came up to his face, palm to his cheek, and he flinched into it. “No. It’s not bad – never been bad. You could never feel bad to me.”

“Look at you,” he said, voice coming out in a whisper. “Why’re you letting me be – ”

“Because I love you,” you said, leaning up slightly to meet his eyes properly. “I love you, and that doesn’t change just because – ”

You felt like you were both understanding it at once. His tongue came out to press against his own lip. He scrunched up his whole face – eyes screwing shut – before silently turning his face down and away, into the pillow, hiding even now. 

You took in a shaky breath, and your hand came up to land at the back of his head, palm curving to his skull. He rolled into you, knee knocking into yours. His arm hauled you in too hard and then flinched, correcting himself. His face pressed into your chest, into the cotton over your sternum, over the small shape of the chain, and the entire weight of his skull rested against your heart. You felt the warmth soaking to your skin as he let out a sob, pooling around the metal. His fists gripped your shirt at the ribs, both sides, holding on, and his shoulders moved in that arrhythmic way. 

“Please don’t leave,” he said, muffled against you. 

Your throat closed as you let out a close-mouthed sob, hands moving in his hair. “Stay tonight.”