[i00que]

i00QUE'S IDENTIFICATION CARD .

EMPLOYEE DETAILS : she/her. eighteen. multifandom writer. british. requests open!

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💭 . thoughts

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[i00que]

MEMO ── BEAU / GUEST ROOM .

NOTES : beau arlen is your father's best friend and is asleep in the guest room all alone, just ripe for the taking.

WARNINGS : female reader-insert (no y/n) age gap, dad's best friend! beau arlen, dub con, male oral, waking him up with oral, cunnilingus, panties to the side, praise, sixty-nine position, overstimulation at the end.

CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL ── 18+ ONLY.

beau arlen lay sprawled on his back in the guest bedroom bed, the thin sheet barely covering his hips. his breathing was deep and even in sleep. you slipped inside, the door clicking shut behind you, and crept to the foot of the bed. the room smelled like him; soap, faint cologne, and warm skin.

you lifted the sheet slowly and crawled beneath it. his cock lay soft and heavy against his thigh. you leaned in, pressing your nose to the base first, inhaling the rich, musky scent of him. then you gave the head the softest kitten lick, just the tip of your tongue tracing the slit. another lick followed, slow and delicate, tasting the salt already beading there. you kept going with those light, teasing strokes, feeling him twitch and start to swell against your lips.

beau stirred. a low groan rumbled out of his chest. his hips shifted. another moan followed, deeper this time, as his cock hardened fully under your tongue. the sheet rustled when he lifted it. his eyes opened, heavy-lidded, and he looked down to see you between his legs, mouth wrapped around him.

“fuck, pretty girl,” he rasped, voice still rough with sleep. “you having fun down there? choking on this old man’s cock?”

you hummed around his length, the vibration making his thighs tense. you didn’t stop. you kept sucking, taking him deeper, your tongue swirling over the head with every slow bob of your head. beau’s hand slid into your hair, not pushing, just resting there, fingers tightening when you swallowed around him.

“jesus,” he breathed, watching you with dark, hungry eyes. “that’s it, baby. keep going just like that.”

beau’s gaze dropped lower, the corner of his mouth curving into a lazy, knowing smirk. “bet your pretty panties are all wet, yeah?” his voice stayed low and rough. “come here. let me see, baby.”

you crawled up his body on shaky arms, leaning in for a kiss, but his hands caught your hips instead. he dragged you forward without warning, pulling you straight over his face until your knees settled on either side of his head. the thin cotton of your panties clung to your folds, soaked through and nearly transparent, the dark patch spreading wider as you hovered above him.

beau groaned at the sight. he hooked one finger under the crotch of your panties and tugged them aside, exposing your slick pussy. his tongue dragged a slow, heavy stripe from your entrance to your clit, tasting how wet you already were. you gasped, hips jerking, but his grip tightened, holding you down so you had no choice but to grind against his mouth.

a broken whine slipped out of you. beau’s free hand slid up your stomach, over your chest, until his palm covered your mouth completely. his voice vibrated right against your clit as he spoke into your dripping cunt.

“don’t be too loud, sweetie. atta girl. be nice and quiet for me. you can do that, can’t you, pretty girl?”

his tongue pushed inside you, fucking you with slow, deliberate strokes while his nose pressed against your clit. every time another needy sound tried to escape, his hand pressed firmer over your lips, muffling you. your thighs trembled around his head, cotton panties stretched to the side, soaked and useless as he licked and sucked at your pussy like he had all night to keep you right there.

beau’s tongue kept working between your legs, slow and deliberate, when you twisted around on his face. your knees stayed planted on either side of his head while you stretched forward, lining your mouth up with his cock. the second your lips wrapped around the thick head, he groaned right into your soaked pussy, the vibration shooting straight through you.

you sank lower, taking more of him, sucking wet and eager while your hips rocked down against his mouth. his tongue pushed deeper, licking broad stripes through your folds before circling your clit again. every time you moaned around his shaft, the sound came out muffled and broken, your throat vibrating against him.

beau’s hands gripped your ass, spreading you wider so he could bury his face completely. one palm slid up your spine and pressed between your shoulder blades, keeping you pinned down on his cock. your soft cotton panties stayed shoved to the side, soaked and clinging to one thigh as you humped his tongue, grinding harder every time he sucked on your clit.

you bobbed your head faster, drool running down his length while you tried to stay quiet. his cock filled your mouth, hot and heavy, twitching against your tongue with every sloppy suck. beau muttered into your dripping cunt, voice low and rough, “that’s it, baby. keep sucking. don’t stop.”

your thighs shook around his head. you kept riding his face, hips rolling in messy circles while you choked yourself on his cock, the wet sounds of your mouth mixing with the filthy noises coming from between your legs. you can't help but clench around his tongue when he finally cums in your mouth, hips thrusting into your warm, wet mouth.

finally, you both slow down and let out breathless laughs into the silence of the sex scented room.

"im so fucked.." beau mutters into your pussy as his tongue starts to lap up the rest of your cum.

[i00que]

silly little poll for the next update of the persistence of familiar faces who do u want to see next? the dex’s are NOT included </3

doc holliday

riley detamore

mark callan

evan stafford

Voting ended onJul 20

[i00que]

MEMO ── RE4 LEON / HEEL FETISH .

NOTES : big bad leon subdued by a pair of heels.

WARNINGS : female reader-insert (no y/n) re4 leon kennedy, bondage, trampling, humlitation, degradging, heel fetish, cum eating, overstimulation, sub leon, dom reader.

CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL ── 18+ ONLY.

leon hangs suspended in the dim light, wrists bound tight above his head, ankles lashed to the chair legs so his thighs spread wide. his tactical pants lie in a torn heap on the floor, leaving him exposed and vulnerable. you stand over him in those sharp, glossy high heels, the pointed toe already nudging the underside of his balls.

"look at you," you murmur, voice low and mocking. "the big government agent, stripped and spread for a heel." you press the tip harder, rolling his balls against the leather. leon’s breath hitches, cock twitching despite himself. a bead of precum wells at the slit and you smear it across the leather with a slow drag.

he tries to close his thighs, but the ropes hold him open. you slide the heel upward, tracing the thick vein along the underside of his shaft until the point rests right under the head. leon’s hips jerk involuntarily, chasing the contact. you laugh softly and pull away, letting the cool air replace the pressure.

"pathetic," you say, tapping the heel against his inner thigh in sharp little strikes that leave faint red marks. "already leaking and i’ve barely touched you." you coo as you bring the shoe back to his cock, pressing the arch flat against the length and rocking it slowly, grinding the smooth leather over sensitive skin. leon’s head falls back, a broken sound escaping his throat.

you lift your foot again, this time resting the stiletto point directly on his frenulum. the slightest increase in pressure makes his cock jump and throb. "stay still," you order. leon swallows hard, muscles trembling with the effort not to thrust. you reward the obedience by sliding the heel down and pressing the ball of your foot against his balls again, rolling them with deliberate, humiliating pressure.

precum drips steadily now, trailing down his shaft and onto the leather. you drag the heel through the mess, smearing it across his cock before lifting the shoe to his face. "clean it," you command. leon’s tongue flicks out, licking the sticky fluid from the glossy surface while his cock pulses untouched between his spread thighs.

you lower your foot once more, this time pressing the pointed toe against his hole, teasing the rim without pushing in. leon whines, hips trying to rock forward, but the ropes keep him exactly where you want him. you circle the entrance with the heel, watching every twitch and shudder that runs through the former agent’s body.

"such a needy little slut," you taunt, voice dripping with contempt and satisfaction. "getting hard from being stepped on." you press harder, the tip threatening to breach him, and leon’s cock jerks hard, another spurt of precum adding to the mess on his stomach. you keep him there, balanced on the edge, heel poised and ready, while he gasps and strains against his bonds, completely at your mercy.

you press the cum-slick heel harder against leon’s twitching cock, smearing the sticky mess along his shaft in slow, deliberate strokes. the glossy leather drags over the overstimulated head, forcing another helpless spurt of precum to mix with the drying cum already coating it. leon’s thighs tremble in their bonds, every muscle locked tight as you grind the filthy heel up and down his length without mercy.

"look how sensitive you are now," you murmur, voice thick with cruel amusement. you angle the shoe so the pointed toe nudges beneath the swollen head, then drag it firmly across the frenulum. leon’s whole body jerks, a broken whine tearing from his throat. his cock throbs visibly, pulsing against the leather with every pass.

you keep the pressure steady, rubbing the cum-covered heel over every inch until his shaft glistens with the mixture of his own release and fresh precum. each stroke makes him gasp and twitch harder, hips trying to buck away from the overwhelming sensation even as his cock leaks more. the ropes creak as he strains, but he stays spread open exactly as you want him.

when the heel is thoroughly coated again, you lift it to his flushed face. "open," you order. leon’s lips part obediently, tongue darting out to lick the thick, salty mess from the glossy surface. you watch him lap at his own cum, cheeks burning with humiliation while his overstimulated cock continues to drip untouched between his spread thighs.

you lower the heel once more, pressing the cum-smeared arch flat against his balls and rolling them slowly, forcing another shuddering moan from him. every movement keeps him right on the edge, overstimulated and desperate, completely at the mercy of your heel.

[i00que]

003 . PROJECT ── MULTIPLE / FLAT CAP .

← PREV · NEXT→

NOTES : after your long, long day, you finally come home to your apartment. but there is a candlestick on the floor, the lock is broken, your windows are smashed and there is a man on your floor.

WARNINGS : alternate universe, no powers, set in two law firms, legal drama, reader-insert (no y/n,) everyone is a little in love with the receptionist, professional tension, playboy, introverts, extroverted reader, opposing counsel, character study, reader smokes, stress, anxiety, clients, multiple meet cutes, conflict of interest, wilson fisk, murder, blood, corpses, breakdown, stalking, the receptionist is having a very bad day.

CEO NOTES : this is much shorter than my regular chapters, but i've left you all for too long! hope you enjoy <3

CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL ── 18+ ONLY.

there is a pair of black pointed shoes lying on your floor. they were shiny a few hours ago, but now it is muted by the blood covering the soles, and there is a flat cap in his hand.

you stand in the doorway of your apartment and dare not move. the orange light from the street outside is coming through the smashed window and falling across the floor in long broken shapes, and the cold that comes with it lifts the edge of the curtain and drops it and lifts it again. there is glass scattered across the floor and a broken lock is hanging off the doorframe by a single screw with your beloved candlesticks lying in two pieces near the kitchen with something dark coating the broken end. 

but, you know those shoes, because you watched them cross your reception area four hours ago, watched the man wearing them walk toward your desk with his flat cap in his hand and his wife's empty food bag tucked under his arm, and the shoes were shiny then, properly shiny. now they are turned slightly inward on your floor with the blood dark and matte on the soles and his flat cap is held between two stiff, slightly white fingers, his coat is still buttoned all the way up, every button right to the collar. 

there is a smell, something sickly sweet and metallic sitting underneath the warm, lived in smell of your apartment. your coat is still on the hook and last night's mug on the counter hasn't been touched, nothing splattered with blood, glass or grime like the rest of your apartment. but it doesnt feel like yours anymore.

"oh god." it comes out of you before you have decided to make a sound, barely a voice at all, more like a startled gasp than anything real. 

"oh god– oh fuck. mr. chen–" your feet are moving and you take small stumbling steps forward into the apartment, the glass crunching under your shoes, your hands coming up in front of you, shaking so badly you can see them trembling in your own peripheral vision, reaching toward him without knowing what you will do when you get there. you take another step and the glass shifts under your foot before you drop down to your knees, the blood soaking into your clothes and skin, smearing the blood further and leaving two clean tracks to his broken, and bruised body. something in your chest does something enormous and terrible and primal, the sound that comes out of your is not a scream or a sob but something low and broken.

thick arms suddenly encase your waist, forearms pressing beneath the curve of your breasts as a man lifts your limp body up from the floor by half an inch, and the scream that tears out of your is full and raw and enormous in the small apartment, nothing like the broken sound from before.

and you fights with everything you has.

your elbow drives back hard into the body behind your, once, twice, connecting with something solid and you feels the grunt of it through the arms around your even if you doesn't hear it over the sound of your own voice, fight clearly kicking in as you finds your tongue, words and curses pouring out of your in a torrent that has nothing to do with composure or professionalism or any of the things you has spent three days being at Nelson & Murdock.

"get off me!" raw and furious and terrified in equal measure, your nails dragging down the forearms locked around your middle so hard that blood starts to pool, layers of skin ripping off of the man and being embedded under he nails. "get your hands off me right now. i will scream this building down– i will scream until every person on this floor calls the police and you will not get away with this! do you hear me?! you tell him i know, you tell him i know what he did and i know why and i am not going to disappear the way he wants me to! i am not going to—"

"it's me." the man’s voice was flat and even, close enough to your ear, to cut through the noise and your screams. "it's me, calm down–."

you doesn't stop. not immediately, your body doesn't trust the voice yet, your body running on something more urgent and primal than recognition. you drives your elbow back one more time and twists hard to the left, bending his wrist unnaturally with your body and gets one hand free and uses it to try to claw at the face of the intruder, your nail breaking against the skin, as you continues to kick and scream, blood flicking off of your shoes.

"receptionist." the word comes out of him low and tired, and then his head drops, his nose pressing into the soft spot beneath your jaw, the hard line of it finding the curve of your neck, and he breathes tyoure, just once, slow and deliberate, and you feels it more than hears it. “It’s dex, stop fighting.”

you goes limp, like a cord when its cut, and you lets yourself be held by him, his arms holding up your weight as your own hands wrapped over the forearms you had just scratched to shit.  your breathing comes in short, shallow gasps, like your lungs have forgotten what they're for.

"benjamin." his name is a croaked out plea, the letters sounding foreign on your tounge.

"dex." he corrects from behind your, his arms not loosening by a single degree. "it's me."

"his wife–" you says, into the air in front of your, and your voice sounds like it belongs to someone else, thin and stripped of everything. "you doesn't know. you's at home right now and you was going to make me food." 

dex says nothing.

"you likes me" you chokes on a sob, your voice breaking on the last word, cleanly and completely, and you lets go of dex’s forearms to press the back of your hand to your mouth and breathes through your nose. "you's going to wait for him to come home."

"i know." dex hums against your neck and his arms tighten fractionally around your, not a squeeze exactly, just slightly more pressure; an aggressive hug.

the stairwell door bangs open.

"dex, you cannot just run off like that without—" billy's voice arrives at full volume through the hallway before his body follows suite, and then his eyes move from dex, to your, to the open apartment door, to the smashed window, to the blood on your knees and your palms, and for the first time since you has known him, for the first time in what you suspect is a very long time for a man of his particular gifts, billy russo has absolutely nothing to say.

"i didn't do this." you say, your voice fractured and pointed at both of them, your hands coming up between yourself and billy like you're trying to physically present your own innocence. "you have to know i didn't do this. you both saw me tonight. i was at the jazz club. i was with frank. i got on the subway, i went straight home, i didn't— i wouldn't— he came to my office today and he was fine, he was completely fine, his wife made food and he smiled at me and i wouldn't—"

"okay, okay–" billy steps forward and his voice has dropped entirely out of its usual register, no performance in it, no charm, just something direct and warm. "we know. stop. we know."

"you have to believe me because i need someone to believe me right now and i can't call the police yet because i don't know what's happening and i can't—"

benjamin huffs like an annoyed dog and spins you in his arms, making sure you can stand on your own two feet before his hands come up to your face, both palms cupping your jaw and tilting your face toward his with a care that has nothing practiced about it, his eyes moving over you the way they move over everything except faster and without any of the professional distance, checking, cataloguing, looking for something.

"are you hurt?" he says, and his voice is low and stripped entirely of its usual containment, nothing in it except the question and the weight behind it.

"mr. chen," you say, because that is what is in you and it comes out before anything else can, and your voice is wrong, thin and high and belonging to a version of yourself you haven't met before tonight, and you watch something move across benjamin's face at the sound of it, something that goes deep and doesn't surface cleanly.

he looks past you and into the living room for a moment before dragging you away, shoes squeaking against the wooden floors as blood smears behind you in small, delicate pools.

"okay," he nods, "we're going to clean it."

you stare at him, mouth agape and glassy eyes, wide and unseeing. "what?"

"we're going to clean it." he says again, the same flat certainty he brings to everything, his hands still on your jaw. "make it look like he was never here."

"he deserves justice," you say, immediately, and your voice fractures on the word justice but the word itself stands firm. "he came to the office today to say thank you. his wife doesn't know where he is. she's sitting at home right now waiting for him to come through the door and you want to make him disappear like fis- fish wanted and give him nothing? no justice, no grave, no—"

"okay." dex huffs, hands dropping from your jaw and dragging down his face.

"okay?" you repeat, staring at him.

"okay." he says again, his face full of indifference and cold, uncaring flatness. "and?"

you open your mouth and close it again, "and?" you repeat.

"he's dead," dex says, simply, without cruelty, just plainly. "justice doesn't change that. you being in prison doesn't change that. his wife knowing doesn't change that."

billy sighs from the doorway, long and low, the sigh of a man who has had this argument with dex before in various forms and knows exactly how it ends, and you feel something rise up in you that is entirely overwhelming, and is full of justice and grief, and you step back from dex's hands and turn and walk back into the living room.

"hey—" billy starts.

but you are already crossing the floor, stepping around the glass, your shoes leaving small bloody prints, and you sink down onto the floor next to mr. chen and you sit there with your legs crossed and your hands in your lap and you look at him, properly, for the first time since you came through the door, and you let yourself look, not flinching away from the horror of his cold, clammy skin.

his face is peaceful in a way that seems wrong given everything else; his coat still buttoned, his flat cap still in his hand, fingers wrapped loosely around the brim the way they always were when he carried it, and his wedding ring catches the orange light from the window, a plain gold band, worn thin at the edges in the way of something that has been on the same finger for a very long time.

"we can't just get rid of him," you say, into the quiet of the apartment. "we can't."

billy comes to stand a few feet away, and he looks down at mr. chen for a long moment, his hands in his coat pockets, his face withdrawn and his body tense before he crouches down. he looks at the ring and at the flat cap still held in his stiff fingers, and then he looks at you.

"we'll write her a letter," he says, quietly. "mrs. chen. we won't say what happened or where. but we'll write her a letter. so she knows he didn't just disappear. so she knows it wasn't her. so she knows he was—" he pauses, searching for the word. 

you look at him.

"and we'll find him somewhere," billy says. "somewhere proper, not a dumpster, not a canal, somewhere he can be found and given back to her." he holds your gaze. "i know some people. it can be done quietly. she'll get him back, she just won't know all of it."

your throat closes.

"that's not enough," you say, voice small and soft, like if you were any louder you might wake mr chen up/

"i know," billy says. "it's what we have."

dex appears in the doorway of the living room, already assessing, his eyes moving from the window to the lock to the candlestick to the floor. he has his jacket off and his sleeves rolled up and there is a look on his face that is completely closed. he’s made a decision for all four of you.

"we need to go." he says, to you specifically. not a request.

"i'm not leaving him, dex." it was final, and concrete, how on earth could you just get up and leave the apartment and leave him here all alone?

"you're leaving him," dex says, flat. "you're leaving him and we're going to clean this and you're going to call murdock from the street and when he asks what happened you're going to tell him you came home and the window was broken and you called billy."

"and mr. chen?" you say.

"mr. chen was never here," dex says, and he says it without flinching, without softening it, and you hate it. you hate all of it, you hate that he's right and you hate that you know he's right and you hate this lovely man who was finally getting his just desserts now has to disappear like fish wanted, except for a letter and a quiet arrangement made by a corporate lawyer on a thursday night.

billy straightens the flat cap gently, settling it back properly on mr. chen's head the way it always sat, and the gesture is so careful and so without any of the performance billy usually brings to everything that it breaks something in you that wasn't already open, and you press your fist against your mouth and breathe as he stands up.

"come on," billy says, to you, gently, and reaches for your arm.

you don't move.

"come on," he says again, and this time his hand closes around your arm, properly, and you let him pull you upright because your legs are not going to do it on their own, but then he tries to steer you toward the door and something in you that has been holding itself together with nothing but stubbornness and adrenaline all night finally snaps, and you dig your heels into the floor and grab the doorframe with both hands.

"no," you say. "no, i'm not leaving him, i'm not just—"

"hey–" billy's arm comes around your waist and he lifts you, not roughly, but completely, your feet leaving the floor, and you kick until your heel connects with his shin, making him grunt but not let go, moving you toward the door while you grab at the frame and at his coat and at anything else within reach, your voice saying things that stop being words and start being just sound, just grief, just everything you don't have language for coming out of you in the hallway while billy holds on and dex steps past you both without a word and crouches down beside the broken candlestick.

"ben–" your voice is raw and you reach for him past billy's arm, one hand outstretched toward the apartment. "dex, please. please don't. please."

dex looks up at you from where he's crouching by the candlestick. his face is completely still. and then he says, quietly, with more gentleness than you have heard from him since he spoke: "i'll write the letter. i'll make sure it's right." a pause. "go."

billy carries you the rest of the way into the hallway and the apartment door closes behind you with a finative click. you slide down the wall to the floor again, and this time you don't have anything left to fight with, you just sit there in the hallway with blood on your knees and your palms with billy crouched in front of you. behind the closed door you can hear dex moving, quiet and methodical, taking care of something you couldn't take care of yourself.

then you call matt.

taglist: @mel-thefrog @tojisprincess @polorat @br0ke-b1tch @sikayeto @rainyblahaj @kvntybb @veryverytouchstarved @thexfoils  @dear-fifi  @plutos-orbit8 @bigsloppycrush @canupourme14theroad @fivedicksinatrenchcoat @clementinebutnottheorange

[i00que]

thoughts on eric northman and roman godfrey (requests pls)



[i00que]

MEMO ── POINDEXTER AND SOLDIER BOY / THE GOOD GUYS .

NOTES : the heroes are here to save you!

WARNINGS : female reader-insert (no y/n) age gaps, safehouses, bad men acting good, make outs, begging, brat dex, marking, cunnilingus, fingering, threesome, praise, degrading, male oral, eiffel tower position, ass slapping, multiple creampies, this is filthy.

CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL ── 18+ ONLY.

dex pulls you into the safehouse bedroom, hands already tugging at your clothes with shaky urgency. "i’m the good guy," he whispers against your mouth, kissing you hard, tongue sliding deep like he’s trying to prove it. his lips trail down your neck, sucking hard enough to leave dark marks blooming across your skin. "see? i’m taking care of you. let me be good."

ben watches from the doorway, thick cock already half-hard as he steps closer. dex drops to his knees, yanking your pants down and spreading your thighs. his mouth finds your pussy instantly, tongue licking broad and desperate between your folds. "taste so fucking good," he moans into you, fingers sliding in slow at first, then two at once, curling deep while his tongue flicks your clit. he sucks harder, marking the inside of your thighs with teeth and lips, leaving bruises as he eats you out like he’s starving.

ben moves behind you, hands gripping your hips as he kisses the back of your neck, then bites down, sucking a fresh mark into your shoulder. "heroes claim what’s theirs," he growls, fingers joining dex’s inside your pussy, stretching you wider while dex keeps licking and sucking. they work together—ben’s thick fingers pumping in and out while dex’s tongue circles your clit, both of them marking you with bites and hickeys across your chest and neck.

dex looks up at you with wide, needy eyes, lips shiny. "am i being good? tell me i’m good for you," he begs before diving back in, tongue fucking into your pussy while his fingers rub that spot inside you. ben kisses you again, rough and deep, one hand squeezing your breast as he leaves another mark on your collarbone.

you break away from the kiss the second the thought crosses your mind, and you can’t help the laugh that bursts out of you, sharp and mocking. "aren't both of you called ben? that’s fucking hilarious."

dex’s wide, glassy eyes narrow, but his cock twitches harder against your calf. "shut your mouth," he snaps, bratty edge creeping in. "or i’ll shut it for you."

ben chuckles into your ear, "let the little shit laugh. we’ll fuck the jokes right out of 'em." he spits into his palm and strokes his fat cock once before lining up. "gonna stretch this hole while dexie here watches and learns how a real man does it."

dex stands to his feet and shoves two fingers into your mouth, pressing down on your tongue until saliva coated his fingers. "i’m not watching, i’m participating," he hisses, already freeing his own cock and slapping it against your lips. "open for me, pretty."

you suck him down greedily while ben slams into your cunt in one brutal thrust. the stretch burns, but the rhythm quickly turns punishing. dex fucks your throat in short, desperate strokes, hips jerking like he can’t control himself. "take it for me, please- please-" he chants, voice cracking with need. "we’re saving you from yourself."

ben's hand cracks across your ass. "good guys don’t hold back," he grunts, pounding deeper. "we wreck what needs wrecking." his balls slap wetly with every thrust, slapping against your clit, making a loud whine escape your throat.

dex pulls out of your mouth just long enough to spit on your face, grinning when your eyes roll back. "call me ben and i’ll make you choke on it," he warns, but the bratty flush on his cheeks gives him away.

you laugh around ben's cock when he switches places, the sound muffled and filthy.

they trade you back and forth, dex's cock in your cunt now, with ben's thick length down your throat. both men keep up the self-righteous bullshit between moans. "we’re heroes," ben pants, fingers tangled in your hair. "doing what has to be done, aren't we sweet girl?"

dex's rhythm falters as he gets close, bratty whine slipping out. "don’t you dare laugh at me-" he gasps, but you do, the sound vibrating around the cock in your mouth. he cums first, flooding your cunt with hot spurts while cursing. ben follows seconds later, pulling out to paint your tongue and lips with thick ropes, grinning as he uses his thumb to spread it over your lips and chin.

both bens are still hard, already swapping positions again. "round two," ben mutters. "biiiiggg stretch- atta girl.."

[i00que]

MEMO ── MATTHEW / STARVING LITTLE LAMB.

NOTES : there is a devil amongst his flock, and he is a very, very bad priest.

WARNINGS : alternative universe, no powers, female reader-insert (no y/n) vampire reader, age gap, blasphemy, improper use of alters, biting, blood kink, biting kink, light coercion, guilt tripping, thigh riding, riding, vampire feeding, pain kink, masochist matt, creampie.

CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL ── 18+ ONLY.

the church air hung heavy with incense and the faint copper tang of old blood. you circled matthew slowly where he knelt before the altar, your steps echoing off the stone walls. he didn't rise this time. his head tilted slightly, tracking your movement by sound alone. the church was silent except for the faint creak of old wood and the steady beat of matthew's heart. you moved through the shadows like smoke, your hunger sharp and focused on the man kneeling at the altar. priest matthew murdock, blind to the world but not to the presence that approached him.

he stood as you drew closer, his cassock brushing the stone floor. "i know what you are," he said, voice low and steady. "i can smell the blood on your breath."

"you're not a very good priest," you said, voice low and teasing.

matthew's jaw tightened. his hands rested on his thighs, fingers flexing against the black fabric of his cassock. "i know my vows," he answered, voice steady but rough at the edges.

you crouched in front of him, close enough that your breath ghosted over his face. "then why is your heart beating so fast, father?" your fingers traced the edge of his stiff collar. "why can i smell how hard you already are?"

he swallowed. "temptation is not sin. giving in is."

you leaned in, lips brushing the shell of his ear. "but father... i'm just so hungry." your hand slid down his chest, palm pressing flat over his racing heart. "you wouldn't let one of your flock die, would you? would you really turn me away when i'm starving?"

matthew's breath hitched. you felt the tremor run through him. "i... i can't. it's wrong."

"wrong to feed me?" you shifted closer, straddling one of his thighs, letting him feel the heat of your body through your clothes. "wrong to let me drink from you? just a little?" your lips ghosted over his throat, not biting yet, just hovering. "i won't take too much. i promise. you'll still be able to preach on sunday."

his hands came up, gripping your waist like he meant to push you away, but he didn't. his fingers dug in instead. "this is blasphemy."

you didn't answer with words. you closed the distance, hands sliding up his chest until your fingers curled around the stiff collar of his shirt. with one sharp tug the fabric tore, exposing the warm skin of his throat. matthew's breath hitched but he didn't pull away.

"this is survival," you whispered against his skin. "and you taste so good, matthew. so warm. so alive." you rocked your hips once against his thigh, letting him feel how wet you already were. "please. just once more. let me bite you while i ride you. let me drink while your cock is buried inside me."

matthew groaned, the sound torn from deep in his chest. his resolve cracked audibly in the way his grip tightened, pulling you closer instead of pushing you off. "god help me," he muttered.

"he already sent you to me," you purred, fangs grazing his pulse. "now be a good priest and feed your starving little lamb."

"take it," he whispered.

your fangs sank into his neck without hesitation. hot blood flooded your mouth, rich and metallic, and he groaned, his hands gripping your hips. you drank deep, the taste of him sending heat straight between your legs. his cock was already hard beneath his robes, pressing against you.

you shoved him down onto the altar steps, straddling his lap. your hand worked between your bodies, freeing his thick cock from the confines of his pants. it sprang free, flushed and leaking at the tip. you didn't waste time. you sank down onto him in one smooth motion, your pussy stretching around his girth as you took every inch.

matthew's head fell back, exposing more of his throat. you rode him hard, hips rolling and bouncing, your walls clenching tight around his cock with every thrust. blood trickled from the bite marks on his neck and you leaned in again, sinking your fangs deeper this time. the fresh rush of blood coated your tongue while your cunt milked his shaft.

"fuck," he gasped, fingers digging into your ass as you rode him faster. each downward slam took him to the hilt, the wet sound of your pussy swallowing his cock echoing through the empty church. you bit again, lower this time, just above his collarbone, and matthew cried out, his hips bucking up to meet you.

blood ran in thin rivulets down his chest. you licked the trails clean, sucking at the wounds while your hips never stopped moving. his cock throbbed inside you, swelling thicker as you drank. you ground down hard, clit rubbing against his pubic bone with every roll of your hips.

matthew's hands slid up your back, pulling you closer as you fed. "more," he begged, voice rough. "bite me again."

you obliged, sinking your fangs into the soft flesh where neck met shoulder. blood poured into your mouth and you drank greedily, your pussy spasming around his cock. matthew's whole body jerked beneath you. his cock pulsed hard and he came with a broken moan, flooding your cunt with hot cum while you kept riding him through it, biting deeper, taking more blood as his orgasm shook through him.

you didn't stop until you'd wrung every drop from him, your own release crashing over you in tight, rhythmic pulses around his spent cock. blood and sweat mixed on his skin as you finally pulled your fangs free, licking the punctures closed with slow, deliberate strokes of your tongue.

[i00que]

003 . PROJECT── BETHELVERSE / DON'T BRING A GUN TO A KNIFE FIGHT.

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NOTES : the sky opens again, this time outside her building, and what comes through is not confused or charming or asking to be pointed home. what comes through is trained, armed, and has wade kinsella against the stairwell wall with a gun under his jaw before she has finished processing that it is happening.

WARNINGS : alternate universe, no power, reverse isekai, reader-insert (no y/n,) character study, angst, stress, anxiety, multifandom, wilson bethel characters, 'soulmates,' age gaps, reverse-harem, everyone is a little ooc, morally grey characters, angst with humour, domestic bliss, identity crisis, emotional damage, forced proximity (technically,) slow burn, jealousy issues, everyone is bad at feelings, set in london, guns, threats of violence, knives, threatening to stab an individual.

CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL ── 18+ ONLY.

rarely was there anyone in the hallway, it was poorly lit with carpets the colour of a wet digestive that smelt like other peoples cooking, boxed in by walls painted that shade of magnolia that landlords chose because it photographed as neutral and aged an odd piss yellow. a single bulb swung slowly back and forth above the three of them, throwing shadows that moved like something restless across the walls and the carpets. a banister ran along the left side, wood painted over so many times it had lost whatever shape it started with, worn smooth in the places hands had gripped it over years of people coming home tired. the fire door at the bottom sat slightly open, letting a cold that embedded itself into the old brick walls.

she had walked this stairwell every night for four years, one hand on the banister, her body doing it without her brain, and she had never once thought about how narrow it was, how close the walls sat, how the single bulb overhead left the corners in a darkness that moved every time it swung, because now it highlighted the identical men’s faces, and the gun that was now held by the stranger.

the gun had caught it, the metal gleaming in short warm flashes every time his hand shifted even slightly, the barrel picking up the light and throwing it back in a way that made it look almost decorative and pretty. it was shinier than she expected, the metal caught the single bulb with a clean bright gleam that had nothing cinematic about it, and it was heavier looking too based on the way the tendons in his forearm ran slightly taut, but not straining, showing his comfort. in the films, the guns looked light as people waved them around like extensions of themselves, casual and effortless, and this gun looked like it would hit the floor hard if he dropped it, like it would leave a mark, like it was made of something real rather than something made up of resin or rubber.

there was a scuffle, the word clone thrown back and forth, accusations of trafficking and government experiments, the other man saying something flat and certain about the government being good for nothing and how he always knew they were out to get him, delivered with the conviction of someone who had some very extreme thoughts on institutional trust, and neither of them listening to the other, or her.

the man was now holding the gun to wade’s throat.

wade didnt dare move with a firearm pressed up beneath his jaw. 

she had never seen wade not moving; in the three days since he’d fallen out of the sky he had been in constant low-level motion, fixing things, following her, making eggs, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet at the top of the bus stairs, some restless current running through him at all times, and right now it had gone completely quiet with a muzzle of a gun pressed up under his jaw, the soft skin giving way to the hard metal.

the man held his gun the way wade held a wrench, completely unconscious but utterly competent. 

he was towering over wade in the thin light, and the two inches between them should not have felt like as much as they did, but something in the way he carried himself added to it, his shoulders set forward and slightly down with the posture of a man who had never once attempted to make himself smaller for another person's comfort. 

she had never seen wade look small before.

he was two inches taller than wade, the shoulders on him were broader, broad in the way that came from just the accumulated physical result of years of work that had required it, and his thighs where he stood planted on the carpet were thick and solid and he was not moving, or shifting his weight nor adjusting, comfortable to stand where he was. 

his hair had grey in it, at the temples and through the scruff on his jaw, heavier growth than she might have expected, and the lines at the corners of his eyes were deep, but it only seemed to add to this odd dangerous and rugged appeal that he had. the blood on his lip had dried to a thin dark line along the lower edge of it, caught in the scruff on his chin and jaw, and he had not touched it in the entire time she had been watching him, which was almost as uncomfortable to if he had smeared it into his teeth; the fact he was so use to blood and whatever else on his face that he no longer bothered with it seemed like a quiet testament to the kind of life he lived.

there was dirt on his jacket which she could see from where she was standing, dark smears across the left shoulder and down the front of it. he smelled of cold wind and stale beer, the cold wind smell carrying from outside, from whatever he had come through to get here, and the beer smell seemed to come from his skin, like he had beer thrown onto him rather than drinking it, and he had a scent of something earthy like pine maybe, or soil, something that wasn’t coming from the south london. 

she watched it happen, watched him twist and turn the muzzle into the soft skin beneath wade's jaw, demanding answers that neither of them had, his voice low and flat and entirely without the register of a man who expected to be refused, and wade answering in the careful measured drawl of someone buying time.

she had to do something.

so she turned around, creeping backwards and ignoring the wide eyed, confused look wade casted her and pressed her back into her apartment door, feeling it give under her weight and turning straight to the kitchen, the soft glint of the kitchen knife block catching her eye. her hand found the largest knife in the block without looking, the handle cold and heavy in her sweaty palms, and then she walked back into the hallway and came up behind him, pressing the tip of the blade into the small of his back, hard enough that he could feel it and wouldn't be able to arch away from it.

he went still, almost like wild animal reassessing its situation, and she kept the blade where it was, her voice coming out low and even, considerably steadier than the hand producing it had any right to be.

"let him go and i'll take this out of your back. don't, and i'll drive it straight through you and you'll buckle like a little bitch."

a beat of silence.

then he smiled; she could see the edge of it in his profile, the slow satisfied curl of it as the fat of his cheeks adjusted slightly. he dipped his head towards her, turned slightly away from wade, and when he spoke his voice was different to wade's in a way she registered immediately and viscerally. it was a similar american root but stripped of everything wade's voice did with it, all the warmth and the drawl and the long soft vowels that leaned into themselves, replaced by something clipped and flat and dry. 

"i can feel your hand shakin', sweetheart."

a ‘sweetheart’ from wade would have been warm and slightly insufferable and she would have told him to stop. ‘sweetheart’ from this man was a flat stone dropped into still water, the same word doing something entirely different in a different mouth, and she pressed the blade harder against his back until the jacket fabric gave way slightly under the pointed tip and still pressed harder.

there was a long and deliberate pause, him dragging out the moment to make them both uncomfortable like it was a special skill of his.

"alright." a single flat syllable said with a dry drawl, almost sounding amused, "i'll let the clone go."

the gun came up as both hands went up, palms opened with the gun loose between two fingers, and wade moved the second there was space, his hand coming out and closing around the gun at the man’s fingers, who surprisingly let it go with no resistance.

"turn around." she said with firm persistence.

he turned around and he was grinning; the slow satisfied grin of a man who was finding the situation considerably more entertaining than anyone else in the hallway. his back was against the wall now, and she stepped forward and pressed the tip of the knife to his stomach and glared at him, her thighs shaking against each other and her hands shaking around the handle with her jaw set in a way she hoped communicated more certainty than the rest of her was currently producing.

he looked down at the knife slowly, with an amused chuff before he looked back up at her with a single raised eyebrow.

“name?” she didn’t ask, just demanded his name as she started to pierce through the t-shirt, a faint grunt escaping his lips as he frowned. apparently he liked this shirt.

“shane maguire. whats it to you little miss?” he glared at her as she continued to press the knife into him, one hand dropping to hold her wrist before the knife was embedded into his abdomen, “careful, don’t damage the merchandise.”

"hey." wade's voice, from somewhere behind her left shoulder, soft and careful, the drawl coming in slower than usual the way it did when he was managing something. "hey, darlin', i need you to listen to me for a second."

she did not look away from shane’s face.

"i'm listenin'," she said, to him, still looking at shane.

"i need you to put the knife down." a pause, wade choosing his words with more care than usual. "i've got his gun. he ain't gonna do anythin', i promise you that. i just need you to back up and let me talk to him."

"he had a gun to your jaw, wade."

"i know he did," wade said. "i was there for that part. i'd just like to find out why before we do somethin' we can't take back. also, we are in the middle of the hallway."

shane’s grin shifted, the amusement in it acquiring something that might, in another face, have been respect, and he looked at her with his whole body, relaxed and loose, not at all threatened by herself or wade.

"smart," he said, flat and dry, the word directed somewhere between her and wade. "you might want to listen to your man."

"nobody asked you." she snapped, with considerably more venom than she knew was possible.

his grin widened, showing sharp canine teeth that almost glinted in the thin light, the bigger predator showing off his own soft belly in something that looked too comfortable to be submission, and it made something greedy curl low in her gut before wade's hand closed gently over hers and eased the knife away so they could have ‘a civil conversation’ in her flat.

and that led them to where they were now.

shane is manspreading on your sofa like he has sat on it every day of his life, taking up considerably more than his fair share of it. his hands together, wrists encased by two fuzzy pink handcuffs that clearly dug into his skin, ankle crossed over his knee, the gun on the coffee table between you where wade put it after a brief and pointed negotiation about where it was going to live for the duration of this conversation. you sat in the chair opposite with your laptop open on your knees and your legs crossed with your eyes moving between the screen and his face, prepared to point a very real and very heavy weapon between his eyes. 

wade is talking and he has been for several minutes, the soft unhurried drawl of him filling the flat the way it has filled it for three days, and he is explaining, as clearly and as patiently as he can manage, what happened to him before he fell through the sky and landed on your corridor carpet and did not, as it turns out, have amnesia. you watch shane's face while wade talks. the grin that has been sitting on it since you pressed the knife into his stomach is doing something, slowly, incrementally, in response to wade's account of events, the satisfaction draining out of it degree by degree, replaced by something that looks almost like recognition, and the losing of the grin is making you happier than you feel you can reasonably justify.

you look back at your laptop before either of them catch you grinning like a school girl.

you go straight to chrome and start to look through wilson bethel’s movies and shows and then there he is.

SHANE MAGUIRE. UNTAMED, 2025

behind the laptop screen wade is saying something about bluebell, the sky, the rammer jammer on a thursday night, the drawl of him unhurried and careful, laying it out for shane the way he laid it out for you three days ago except without the amnesia theory complicating the middle of it. of which you’ll have to apologise for later.

you go back to the search results.

‘shane maguire is a key character in the netflix limited series untamed, portrayed by actor wilson bethel. he is introduced as a rugged, solitary park wildlife management officer with a background as an army ranger: he becomes a primary suspect in the death of "jane doe" due to his interactions with her before her death. his tense, underlying history with federal park agent kyle turner ultimately boils over into a brutal shootout between the two. it is ultimately revealed that shane was hired by turner's wife, jill, to secretly murder a man named sean sanderson.’

you read it twice, and then again, and once more. because there is no dead man on her couch, no bullet wounds or anything fatal on him at all (what a shame,) no shift from side to side, no groans or grunts from pain to be heard.

the sky might have saved his life. 

you look up at shane over the top of the laptop screen, and then you look back down at the screen, and then back up at him and find you've been caught as the smugness on his face shifts slightly.

"something wrong there sweetheart?" he says, flat and dry.

"stop calling me that." you say as you go back to his google page and carry on your research.

wade and shane are both looking at you. wade with the expression of someone trying very hard not to ask, and shane with the flat assessment that he appears to apply to everything, his ankle still crossed over his knee, and the smugness sitting on his face at a slightly elevated level from its usual resting state, as though he has drawn a conclusion that he finds privately satisfying.

you ignore them both.

you open up a google document, and start a table with two columns of good vs evil. which is probably too black and white for space and time ripping apart but you found that you didn’t care because space and time had ripped apart.

you start typing.

behind the screen wade says something low and careful in that soft drawl of his and you hear shane respond, clipped and flat, the two of them still doing the careful wary thing, and you look up briefly because the quality of wade's voice has changed slightly, less careful now, something underneath it that sounds like the beginning of genuine irritation rather than managed patience, and wade is looking at shane with an expression you have not seen on him before, something that has run out of the diplomatic version of itself and is getting ready to say so.

"you hired yourself out," wade says, the drawl slower than usual, each word placed with deliberate weight. "to kill a man."

"i did what i was paid to do," shane says, like its completely understandable.

"that's not somethin' a person says like it's a reasonable answer."

"i'm not asking for your opinion on it."

"well you're sittin' on her sofa in her flat with your gun on her coffee table so i think you're gonna get it where you like it or not."

shane looks at him with the flat unhurried assessment that appears to be his only setting, then at you, then back at wade, and then he slaps both hands on his knees with the decisive energy of a man who has reached a conclusion and is done deliberating.

"right," he says, standing, the full height of him reasserting itself in the room. "so that crazy bitch just tried to stab me—"

"i did stab you," you say. "a little." 

"—and now you want me to stand here and believe i've been teleported out of the continent." he looks at wade with the flat assessment, waiting for something that resembles a reasonable explanation.

"technically you were already out of the continent," wade says, "yosemite's in—"

"i know where yosemite is," shane snaps. "i live there. i live there, which is the point, which is where i should currently be, not in–" he gestures at the window, at the orange-lit london skyline, at the whole situation. "whatever this is. with you." he points at wade. "who has my face." his gaze snaps to yours, "and you, who pulled a knife on me!"

"you pulled a gun first!" you say, ignoring what a childish argument it was.

"that's different."

"how is that different?"

"because," shane says, with the flat patience of a man explaining something he considers self evident, "i didn't know what you were."

"we're people," wade says, cocky and bright, arms crossing with the ease of a sassy man, "that's generally the first assumption."

"not where i'm from."

"yosemite," wade says, tilting his head, the drawl stretching the word out slightly, "it's a national park. there are families there. with children."

"and bears," shane says, without inflection, like this is a point he considers equally relevant, "and people who don't belong in places they've ended up in." he looks at wade with the meaning of that sitting very clearly in the sentence. "i saw your face and i made a call."

"you made a call…" wade repeats, slowly, his arms dropping, something flattening in his voice at the ridiculousness of the argument.

"yeah."

"to put a gun under my jaw?"

"it worked out." shane shrugs with the complete unbothered delivery of a man who genuinely believes this.

"it did not work out!" wade says, and he looks at you with the expression of a man inviting corroboration, before pointing in your direction, voice all high and accusatory, "she stabbed you."

"a little." you repeat from behind the laptop, without looking up.

"she stabbed you a little!" wade confirms, gesturing at you with open hands, presenting the evidence before he crossed his arms.

"you live alone." you repeat as you read off of his wiki.

he looks at you, the assessment shifting slightly.

"in yosemite," you say, looking at the screen. "no neighbours. no city. just the wilderness and whatever comes through it."

something moves in his face, barely, just a degree of recalibration around the fact that you know something about him he has not told you.

"yeah," he says, and the carefulness in it is new, eyes flickering from the laptop to your face and then his face drops into an annoyed expression as he realises you are very clearly reading all of this information on him.

"so now you're in a city," you say, bringing your fingers up to count off on them, "eight million people, buses, sirens, different accents, different gun laws." you pause, looking at him over the top of the laptop screen. "sounds like the old dog needs to learn new tricks."

something works behind the flat of his eyes for a long moment, and then the corner of his mouth moves, slow and deliberate, the amusement finding its way into the grin like it has decided to allow itself.

"be careful with me sweetheart, unlike your boyfriend here i dont find your attitude so amusing.”

"he's not my boyfriend," you say, without looking up from the laptop.

"sure." shane says with dry amusement, eyes rolling back so far you wished they stayed like that.

"and i'll be as careful as i like," you say, closing the laptop slightly so you can look at him properly, "given that you are currently in my flat, in my city, with no passport, no documentation, no money, no contacts, and genuinely no idea how a bus pass works." you tilt your head. "you're a very capable man in a forest, shane. this isn't a forest."

something tightens in his jaw.

"i'll figure it out," his gaze drops from you and wade, finding the right corner of your flat fascinating.

"with what?" you say. "you going to track your way to the nearest tesco? read the weather patterns to find the tube?" you gesture at the window, at the orange-lit london skyline doing its indifferent thing. 

wade makes a sound from the chair that is very carefully not a laugh and does not fool anyone.

shane’s head snaps at the noise, glaring venom through his eyes at wade.

wade pointedly doesnt meet his eyes.

"you need us," you say, simply, looking back at the laptop, "which i appreciate is deeply unpleasant information for a man who has spent however long living alone in a national park by choice, but there it is." you open the laptop again. "so you can either be difficult about it, which you are clearly very talented at, or you can accept that for the foreseeable future the two people you are most likely to need are two bartenders."

the room is quiet.

"the handcuffs are a bit much," shane says, eventually, huffing as he glares at the fluffy, pink handcuffs that bite into his wrist, giving you and wade a pointed look.

"i’m sure you’ve used a pair before.” you huff.

he looks back at the handcuffs, flexing his wrists against the material of them with the disgust of someone who has worn actual restraints before and doesn’t like the fluff against his skin, or the bright pink. 

he almost looks insulted.

"take them off," he says.

"no." you say, to the laptop.

"they're cutting into my wrists."

"they're fluffy."

"they're pink," he says, like this is a separate and more serious charge entirely.

"i'm aware of the colour."

"take them off."

"i've said no twice already."

"take them off." he says again, the same flat insistence with the complete absence of any acknowledgement that you have already answered it twice, the stubbornness of a man who thinks annoying you into complaisance will work.

wade plops himself back down on the sofa and swings an arm over his eyes.

"they're genuinely not that tight."

"they're pink," he says again.

"would you prefer purple?"

"i would prefer none."

"i know."

"then take them off."

"you’re a brat."

"take. them. off."

"oh my god.." wade says quietly, to no one.

"take them—"

"FINE!" you shout, huffing as you slam the laptop with more force than strictly necessary. you cross the room and stand between his thighs as you work the handcuffs free, giving him a pointedly look the second they are off of him. he rolls his wrists once when they come loose, a single clinical rotation, just assessing. you straighten up and step back from him, just about to sit back down on your chair when his hand moves.

not to his jacket, but to his boots.

the glint of silver catches the fairy lights for half a second and your body kicks into flight or fight. you take three steps across the living room, your hand closing around the gun on the coffee table, and you bring both hands up, pointing at him the way you had seen it done, ignoring the weight pulling immediately at your wrists and your biceps. 

but shane was quicker.

of course he was quicker, the gun from his boot already levelled at your chest with the same complete unconscious competence as the hallway, and the two of you stood in the amber light of the fairy lights with a gun pointed in each direction and wade somewhere behind you had gone very still and very quiet.

shane looked down at his own gun now pointed back at him, and something moved across his face, his  expression becoming one of a man trying very hard not to find something funny.

"you gonna shoot me, sweetheart?" he said, the gun in his hand tilting slightly toward the one trembling in yours.

you say nothing and instead reach down with your thumb and click the safety off, the small hard sound of it cutting through the quiet of the room, and you take three steps forward until the muzzle is pressed flat against his sternum, his own pressed flat against yours.

you’re close enough now to feel the heat coming off him and smell the pine, and the stale beer, you wrinkle your nose at him and his eye twitches in annoyance.

"you're not going to shoot me." his voice comes out flat and low, almost intimate as his head dips forward slightly.

"say that again," you say, pressing the gun harder into his chest, "and find out."

something shifts in his jaw and his gun presses back into yours, putting more pressure on your skin, and starting to twirl the muzzle; a grin lifting his lips when you wince.

"you're a bartender." the amount of judgment that he’s managed to put into one sentence is enough for you to kick at his knees, but all you manage to get out of him is a grunt.

"and you're in my flat with your gun pointed at you, so i'd think very carefully about finishing that sentence."

"you've never fired a gun in your life." he huffs, finishing his sentence anyway against your warnings.

"i stabbed you earlier." you say.

"a little," his town is mocking as he squints his eyes before he huffs and rolls his eyes, seemingly annoyed that he’s now included himself in yours and wade’s humour. "lower the gun, sweetness."

"you lower yours."

"i will put you on the floor," he says, quiet and very certain, the voice of a man who has done exactly that to people considerably more equipped for it than you and is not making an empty threat.

"you won't." you say, equally quiet, equally certain. 

the gun is so heavy your wrists are burning but you do not move them an inch.

"you're insane." he sounds almost breathless as he shakes his head.

"you broke into my building?”

"i didn't break in," he says, the gun pressing harder, "i was trying to find somewhere that wasn't—"

"i don't care," you say, pressing back just as hard, "you pulled a gun on my– wade! you have multiple guns on your person, you called me sweetheart four times, and you are currently pressing a loaded weapon into my chest in my own living room, so whatever you were about to say about your reasons, i genuinely, deeply, do not care."

his nostrils flare.

your hands are shaking and you will not let him see it.

"wade." he says, not looking away from you.

"yeah?" wade says, from somewhere behind you, very carefully, not daring to move an inch incase one of you pulls a gun on him, again.

"is she always like this?" 

a pause.

"not with me." wade sounds almost wistful as he speaks, a small smile echoed in his speech.

something crosses shane's face, fast and complicated, and then his jaw sets again and the gun stays exactly where it is and so does yours.

"lower. the. gun." you say again, each word separate and deliberate.

"together?" 

"together." 

neither of you moves.

"i'm serious." you push the gun further into his breast bone to emphasise your point.

"so am i," his voice is rough but flat as he glares into your eyes, annoyed that he has to restrain a grunt.

you stare at shane and shane stares back  at you, both of you too stubborn to lower the guns so they stay exactly where they are with  the fairy lights catching off of the barrels and throwing small warm flashes across both your faces.

"three."

"two," you say.

"one," you say together, and you both lower them at the same time, and you both step back and away from each other. 

"still got two." shane says, and sits back down on the sofa like nothing happened.

"take the guns." you say, turning away from shane and holding yours out to wade without looking at either of them, "or else i might shoot him in his sleep."

wade takes it from you with the careful hands of someone handling something he would very much like to not go off, and then looks at shane, and after a beat that is precisely long enough to make clear this isnt a choice. shane holds his out too, and wade takes that one as well, and stands there with a gun in each hand looking between the two of you with a very uncomfortable expression.

you turn and walk into the kitchen.

the bags from earlier are where wade had dropped them just inside the door, the shopping from what felt like a different day entirely, and you start unpacking them, fast and without deliberation, each item finding its place, bread in the bin, eggs in the fridge, butter next to them, the soup in the cupboard with the rest of the tins.

the kitchen is quiet.

from the living room wade says something low and shane says something back, clipped and flat, and then it goes quiet again.

you decide the americans need a cup of tea and stick the kettle on, pulling three mugs from the cupboard, and you put your own sugars in yours and wade's without thinking about it, the muscle memory of three days of making wade tea sitting in your hands before your brain has caught up with the fact that you are doing it, and then you look at the third mug for a moment.

black, you decide. the wilderness man drank black tea, or he was about to, because that was what he was getting and he could take it up with someone who had the energy to care about it, which was not you.

you put the teabags in and waited for the kettle.

from the living room there was another low exchange, wade's drawl and shane's flat clip, and then the specific quality of silence that had started to mean the two of them had reached a temporary ceasefire and were sitting in it without knowing what to do next.

you poured the water.

you are stirring the last mug when wade appears in the kitchen doorway, leaning against the frame with the wood eating into his shoulder, his hip cocked and a small smile on his face.

"me and him'll take the living room tonight," he says, nodding towards shane where he sat in the living room.

"if that's what you want," you don’t look up as you speak, watching as the spoon catches the teabags and twirls it in the water.

"it's what makes sense," he sighs as he crosses the kitchen, using the doorway to push himself off of it as he reaches past you to pick up his mug from the counter and moves it by the sink.

then he steps back into you, the solid warmth of his chest presses against your back and both his arms come down to rest on the counter either side of you, caging you gently against the cabinets. he dips his head down until his nose brushes the outside of your ear, the warmth of his breath hitting the side of your neck.

goosebumps move up your arms immediately, breaking out across your skin fast enough that you are grateful he cannot see your face.

you stare at the twp mugs on the counter in front of you and you are acutely, overwhelmingly aware of every point of contact between you; his forearms bracketing yours on the counter, the broad solid warmth of his chest flush against your back, the heat of him coming through your clothes in slow steady waves, the specific proximity of his mouth to your ear, close enough that you can feel every warm exhale against your skin.

"i'll watch him the whole night," his voice at this distance is something different from the version of it you have been listening to for three days, the drawl stripped of all the grin and the performance, just the low quiet core of it settling at the side of your neck, "he's not going anywhere near your room and he's not leaving this flat. you've got my word on that."

you swallow.

"okay," you say, and your voice comes out steady, which under the current circumstances is the single greatest achievement of your entire week.

his chest stays right against your back with his breath warm against your neck as his fingers start to dance across the back of your hands, tracing the veins and bones and making shivers erupt from your hands and racing up the back of your neck and across your shoulders and down your spine. 

then he moves.

his head drops, just slightly, and his mouth finds the top of your cheekbone, his nose tracing your temple, his skin warm and his touches deliberate and unhurried, softly pressing his lips into the skin of your cheek and every nerve ending you have goes completely insane about it. your eyes close for one traitorous second, relaxing into his chest because wade has been here for three days; hes helpful, kind, warm, charming, funny and competent, and he’s the best thing you have in this shitty apartment. 

then all of a sudden you have a wave of ‘oh fuck,’ rush over you and spin around to slap him, tell him off, do something–

but he’s already danced off with a grin over his lips, winking when he catches your eye and the cold air of the kitchen rushes in to replace it and you feel the absence of him the way you felt the arrival of him, immediately and all at once, and he picks up his mug and shane's from the counter and he walks back into the living room without looking back.

you stand at the kitchen counter, both hands gripping onto the edge with goosebumps still moving across your skin. the ghost of his mouth still sitting warm on your cheek and you breathe in and you you breathe out.

you pick up your tea and you turn around to go to your room and you stop.

shane is watching you from the sofa.

one eyebrow raised, mug held loosely in both hands. the expression of a man who saw every second and finds it fascinating and will probably say something about it at the earliest possible opportunity and there is absolutely nothing you can do to prevent that.

you meet his eyes and glare at him.

he raises the eyebrow higher, slow and deliberate, the corner of his mouth pulling into the beginning of something insufferable.

you take a breath.

"right," you say, pulling yourself back into the room, back into the situation, back into the version of yourself that is managing things rather than standing in a kitchen being undone by a man's mouth on her cheek. "kitchen. both of you."

wade looks at you with the grin already starting. "both of us?"

"both of you," you say, with a flat authority and then point to the kitchen, "make dinner. everything’s been put away, wade knows where everything is." you look at shane. "you can chop things."

"i'm not chopping things.” shane says, shaking his head with an amused huff.

"you absolutely are," you say. "you need something to do with your hands that isn't a firearm and i need you on the other side of that wall, so." you gesture at the kitchen doorway with the flat authority of a woman who has made a decision and is not revisiting it. "in you go."

shane looks at you for a long moment with the flat assessment.

"i don't cook, honey." tutting like it was beneath him not to eat out of a damn can over a fire in the woods.

"wade does," you say with a tight little smile. "you can supervise!"

"i don't supervise either."

"then stand there and be quiet, i genuinely don't care, i just need you in a different room." you pick up the laptop. "you are like a dog that hasn't been socialised and wade is going to socialise you whether he wants to or not, and i am going to sit here and do something useful, so please," you look at him with the exhausted weight of the evening behind it, "go and be someone else's problem for twenty minutes."

something moves across shane's face, the assessment recalibrating, and then he stands, unhurried, with the energy of a man complying entirely on his own terms, and he looks at wade.

wade looks back at him with a flat expression of annoyance, huffing at the responsibility of babysitting a man who is older, bigger, stronger and annoying as fuck.

"c'mon then," wade says, with the resigned good humour of someone who has accepted the situation and is going to make the best of it, and he heads for the kitchen, and after a beat that is precisely long enough to make clear he is doing it because he wants to and not because anyone told him to, shane follows.

you hear the cupboard open. you hear wade say something low and practical about what is in the fridge. you hear shane make a sound of profound annoyance in response.

you sit on the sofa, pull the laptop open, and go back to the filmography.

DOC HOLLIDAY. WYATT EARP'S REVENGE, 2012

you pull up his wiki and comb through it, looking more any evil deeds that you might be saddled with if he shows up at your front door. doc holliday is a dentist, and he is dying of tuberculosis, late stage, the kind of dying that in 1878 was simply what happened to you and could not be helped, and underneath both of those things he is a gunslinger who has killed people, several people, with the same hands that pulled teeth. he is from 1878 which is not a learning curve it is a completely different civilisation. because how do you teach a man that women have rights and no one lives in the wild west anymore?

you put him in the good column, considering the time and his profession, because he wasnt a hired gun like shane maguire. you leave him there with a little add on that says: buy antibiotics 

and then moving onto the next.

RILEY DETAMORE. MATCH ME IF YOU CAN, 2023

a tech founder of a dating app in a romantic comedy. he is younger than both of the men sat in your living room, and based off the photos that come up, hes young and charming, the kind of person who built something from nothing and is now watching it come apart because of something he could not control. there is no murder, no guns, no psychological profile requiring its own subsection, just a man whose business is threatened and is trying to fix it.

you put him in good.

and you leave him there, because the worst thing the wiki has to say about riley detamore is that he made a dating app and someone wrote a bad blog about it, which is, relative to everything else on this list, practically saintly.

BENJAMIN ‘DEX’ POINDEXTER. DAREDEVIL, 2015

the first thing that comes up is bullseye. 

bullseye, the wiki explains, with the cheerful thoroughness of a page that does not know it is being read by someone with a vested interest in the answer, is the name associated with benjamin poindexter, psychopathic fbi agent turned assassin, a man with a neurological condition that gives him perfect aim, who can turn any object into a lethal weapon, who is recruited and psychologically manipulated by wilson fisk, who kills multiple people, who wears the daredevil suit, who ends the series in surgery having his spine reinforced with a metal alloy to restore his mobility after being nearly killed.

spine reinforced with metal alloy.

you find a image of him and you look at it for longer than is strictly necessary.

he is, the first thing you notice, not what you expected a psychopath to look like. you had a picture in your head, someone rougher, maybe a bruise here and there, scars, teeth missing without a tongue. but the face that arrives is not that. he is blond, going slightly grey at the edges in a way that has not yet committed to itself, and broad across the shoulders in the way that has become familiar to you over the course of this evening, and his jaw is set with a tension that looks like it has been there for a long time, the kind of tension that stops being something you notice you are carrying and starts being simply the way your face sits. 

but he is pretty like wade, still soft and handsome. you look at wade for a moment, and try to imagine him more hardened by the world, a bit rougher, less empathetic, more desperate, and feel a gut wrenching grief before you look away and back down to the wiki.

veteran, fbi, remarkable accuracy, mentally ill, needing structure and rules to maintain his sanity, who had built a functional life around the scaffolding of institution and routine and one woman's counselling sessions, and then the woman died. eileen mercer died and he stalked a coworker and then wilson fisk found him.

you read the rest of it, the convoy, the manipulation, the suit, the killing; a man manipulated into becoming someone's weapon and then discarded by the person who made him one, left on a hotel floor at a wedding, and you sit there for a moment with the weight of the whole arc of it, from structure and rules to maintain his sanity to having his spine reinforced with metal alloy.

you find a reddit thread without meaning to, by following one link too many, and the comments are clearly what happens when a character had gotten under enough people's skin that they could not stop talking about him.

the comments call him fbi dex, a nickname given from the fact he kept his job until the end of the show, a way to differentiate 2015 daredevil and 2025, born again daredevil.

you look at his face in the photograph again, at the jaw and the eyes and the pretty of him, still soft in the bone structure the way wade was soft, the same face worn into something tighter, more controlled, the damage sitting in him differently to the way it sat in shane, shane's damage being something he had metabolised and moved on from, and this being something that had not been metabolised, that was still very much present, still being managed, still requiring the structure and the rules and the careful calibration of a man who knew what happened when the scaffolding came down.

you type his name above the columns and then move on to daredevil: born again.

BENJAMIN ‘DEX’ POINDEXTER. DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN, 2025

you open the born again wiki.

he is bigger than the fbi version, that is the first thing, broader through the chest and the shoulders in a way that five years and an experimental spinal surgery involving a cogmium framework apparently produced, and the face is the same face but worn differently again, a scar across his cheek that the fbi version does not have, and he is in all dark blues and blacks, combat trousers, gun straps across his chest, the presentation of a man who has stopped pretending to be anything other than what he is, and there is something almost restful about that, the absence of the fbi suit, the institutional costume gone, just the thing underneath it dressed accordingly.

you read the wiki.

you read it slowly, the whole thing, the surgery, the cogmium spine, the institution, bullseye, acquitted, foggy nelson, rikers, fisk becoming mayor, the escape, the ball, hiding, the cia, and underneath all of it the thread of someone trying, in the specific way of a person who has very few options left, to balance the scales, to find something that looks like redemption even if it does not feel like it.

then you think about what episode he might come from. because the thing about the sky is that it just opens, and whatever it pulls through it pulls through from wherever it happens to be in the story at that moment. shane arrived with blood on his lip and a gun at his back and wade arrived mid-conversation in someone else's kitchen, and neither of them had any say in the timing of it.

what if it pulls this version through mid-surgery?

the cogmium framework, the broken spine, the surgery that the wiki describes as experimental, and you think about what mid-surgery looked like, about what arrived on your corridor carpet in that scenario, back ripped open, parts of his spine missing, under anaesthesia, probably very hurt and vulnerable, broken in ways you cant put back together with nail glue. you cant have a man with his spinal cavity open; because then you’d have to take him to the hopsital, you’d have to answer questions, his face would be all over the news and wilson bethel would have to answer some very difficult questions. 

then your chest does something that is not quite a panic attack but is heading in that direction, and you look around the flat, the living room, the kitchen doorway, and your eyes go to the knife block, which seems to be a repeated theme tonight, except this time they do not stop there.

any object.

the wiki said any object, both wikis, fbi and born again, any object becomes a lethal weapon with hi perfect aim. and you start to look around your flat with new eyes because the problem isnt just the knife block, the problem is everything; like the pen on the coffee table and the television remote and the coasters and the mug on the counter and the keys on the hook by the door and the fork that wade left on the draining board this morning and the straws in the glass on the windowsill and the actual physical contents of your flat which is, you are realising, essentially an arsenal if the person using it has perfect aim and no regard for the conventional definition of a weapon.

you close the laptop.

you open it again.

you close it again.

you put the laptop down on the cushion beside you and you look at the ceiling for a moment. wade had came through mid-conversation in a kitchen, shane had come through mid-crisis with blood already on his face. neither of them had any say in the timing and neither, by extension, will anyone else.

which means the version of benjamin poindexter who turns up at your address could be post-surgery, post-rikers, post-any number of things on that wiki, or he could be mid-surgery, which is a significantly more complicated situation than a man in a flannel shirt asking for bluebell or the rammer jammer.

you look around the flat.

you get up and then pick up the pen and put it in your bedroom underneath the wardrobe.

you move the keys into your bedroom.

you put the straws under the sink in your bathroom.

then you get up and you walk to the kitchen doorway.

wade is at the hob, actually cooking while shane is leaning against the counter with his arms crossed watching wade with the expression of a man who has been told to supervise and is doing it with the bare minimum of engagement. they both look up when you appear in the doorway.

"Shane?” you lean against the doorway, raising an eyebrow at him.

he raises his own at her, a grunt escaping him.

"hypothetically," you say, "if a man turned up here who was roughly your size, possibly broader, with a metal reinforced spine and perfect aim with any object in a room, could you get him into a dark room and keep him there?"

shane looks at you for a moment.

"yeah," he says, like this is a completely normal question.

"good," you say, turning to leave when wade’s voice stops you.

"what–" wade questions, from the hob, turning around with the spatula still in his hand. "what does that mean?! why does she need someone put in a dark room– who are we putting in a dark room?"

"nobody yet." you say, shrugging.

"yet?" wade repeats.

"potentially nobody ever," you say, "i'm just doing risk management."

"risk management.." wade says, in the tone of a man who has learned over the last three days that when you say things like risk management in that specific voice it means something significantly more alarming than the words suggest. "risk management for who exactly?"

"someone who might show up." you say.

“sweetheart.."

you look at shane. shane looks back at you with the flat assessment and something in it that is almost, almost, the beginning of professional interest.

"someone with perfect aim," you say. "with any object."

wade puts the spatula down on the counter. "any object?"

"any object."

wade looks at you, the spatula in his hand, the pan on the stove, the cutlery cupboard, the knife block and then looks back at you.

"hide the straws.." he says, voice solemn and serious.

"already done!" you nod, and you go back to the sofa and flick open the laptop.

EVAN STAFFORD. GENERATION KILL, 2008.

corporal, bravo company, first recon marines, iraq, 2003. you read through it all, pulling out the relevant details, and find that evan stafford is closer to your age than anyone else, hes young in the way that it sits badly next to the things that the wiki is describing; a marine in the invasion. you read about the war the way the wiki describes it, through the lens of men who were inside it, who had trained for something and been handed something different, who watched the decisions being made above them and had to keep moving anyway.

he killed people, he was a man who killed people because a government sent him somewhere and told him to but, there is a difference between a man who took money to put a bullet in someone specific, and a soldier. you decide that the difference matters, not because one is clean and the other is not, but because it tells you something about the architecture of a person, about what they are capable of choosing versus what they were put in the position of doing.

you stare at the wiki for a moment.

then you scroll back up to the top and notice a pattern in all of the characters that wilson bethel plays; the number of men on this list who have at some point been in the military or law enforcement or some combination of the two is significant, and you sit with that for a second.

"WADE!" you call towards the kitchen.

"YEAH?" he calls back, over the sound of something sizzling, far too loud for both yours and shane’s ears based on his little: “shut the fuck up!”

"were you in the military at any point, in any capacity?"

a pause.

"no, never got to" he calls back, something changing in his voice, "why?"

"wilson bethel plays a lot of soldiers," you say, to the living room, to nobody, to the general concept of your own life. "and assassins, and marines.” you look at the list.

there was no response from the kitchen.

"i'm just saying," you say, "that for a man with one face he has an extraordinary relationship with state sanctioned violence and i find that personally exhausting."

"she does this," wade says, pretending to talk quietly to shane from the kitchen,"she just says things to the room."

"i can hear you.”

"sorry sweetheart!” he calls back, a grin clearly on his face and all you can do is sigh and ignore him.

you look back at the laptop and you look at evan stafford's wiki and decide he’s good enough. 

you put him there and you move on, because you are against the war, have always been against the war, every war, and evan stafford did not choose iraq any more than wade chose your corridor carpet, and the flat moral clarity of the good and evil columns has never been less useful than it is right now.

onto the next.

MARK CALLAN. ALL RISE, 2019.

deputy district attorney in los angeles. you skim the wiki with the weary efficiency of someone who has been doing this for long enough that the categories have become automatic, and mark callan is, by the standards of this list, almost aggressively uncomplicated.

earnest about the law, genuinely invested in whether the system works rather than just whether he wins, no weapons, no murders, no spine surgery, no hired killings, no psychological profiles, no perfect aim with household objects.

you look at the good column and you feel something in your chest unclench by approximately one degree.

you put him there immediately.

you look at the full document, the good column and the evil column and the names above the columns. you look around your one bedroom flat with the shitty sofa, the kitchen where two grown ass men barely squeeze in and imagine five more, ten more and on, and on, and on.

you’re going to need a bigger flat.

for now you’ll wait for tea and hope to god no more come in.

taglist: @buildinguplikewaves @nghtwngs @diegoshako @isabellaswayer-blog @inbetween-styx @starlitflora @haal07erlj @dancing-storms @fivedicksinatrenchcoat @blynie247 @j-serp @claraswritings @kunarchist @dolcesaints @starghostty @thiyahoo @wondoras @manonwillpower @pearlvirag  @br0ke-b1tch @purpletalia @janyral @stelda @miriamckle @nbhrhn @nervousd @kneesofworship @s4ngel

[i00que]

if FBI dex and DDBA dex showed up at your door, which episodes would u want them to have come from 🤔

[i00que]

MEMO ── WINCHESTER'S / NEIGHBOURHOOD BOYS .

NOTES : the winchesters move in at the end of your street the summer you're twenty one, you begin to all get closer and closer. neither of them says a word to the other. you don't say anything either, not until you have to.

WARNINGS : alternative universe, no hunting, reader-insert (no y/n,) love triangle aspects, infidelity-adjacent dynamics, no established relationships, sneaking around, semi-public makeout scenes, age gap (twenty-five and twenty-one,) john winchester's canon-typical favouritism, angst, fluff, unrequited feelings, southern us setting, early 2000s period-typical references, castiel, hint of castiel x reader, cunnilingus, getting caught.

CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL ── 18+ ONLY.

the first time you saw the winchesters was the day the moving truck pulled up outside the old miller place, back before anybody on the street even knew their name. you'd been sat out on your own porch steps shelling peas into a bowl for mama when the truck rounded the corner, and it was dean who caught your eye first, out in the yard hauling boxes with his shirt already ruined for it, a once white tank top gone black and grey with oil and dust, hair mussed and roughened from the heat, sticking up at odd angles where he'd clearly dragged a hand through it more than once trying to get it out of his eyes.

you were still watching, more curious than you'd ever admit, when the yelling started, sam's voice carrying sharp across the yard, something about a box getting dropped, john's voice coming back louder still, clipped and hard in a way that made your shoulders go tense just hearing it from three houses down. sam stood there arguing back, all long limbs and stubborn set to his jaw even at that age, clearly not backing down even with his father looming over him, and it might've kept going if dean hadn't dropped the box he was carrying right there in the yard and jogged over between them, quick and easy like he'd done it a thousand times before, which you'd come to learn later he had.

you couldn't hear exactly what he said, something low and even directed at his father, a hand raised placating, and then he turned toward sam with something different entirely, a grin and a clap on the shoulder that seemed to take the fight clean out of the moment, and just like that john was heading back toward the truck grumbling and sam was standing there looking sullen but no longer shouting, and the whole yard settled back into something normal again like nothing had happened at all.

it was dean who noticed you then, sitting there on your porch with your bowl of peas forgotten in your lap, and he flashed a grin your way before jogging clean across the yard and up your walk like the two of you were already old friends, hand stuck out before he'd even fully stopped moving.

"dean winchester," he said, all easy charm despite the state of him, grease still smudged along his jaw and down one forearm, "that's my old man john, and the moody one back there arguing with a cardboard box is my brother sam. we're your new neighbors, so i guess you're stuck with us now."

you shook his hand, more amused than you probably should've been for a stranger covered head to toe in dirt on your own front porch, and told him your name, and he grinned wider like that was the best thing he'd heard all week, said something about how the street already looked friendlier than the last three they'd lived on, and by the time he jogged back off to keep hauling boxes you'd caught sam watching the whole exchange from across the yard, quiet and a little wary, though he gave you a small nod when your eyes met his, the kind of nod that would turn, months later, into something a whole lot more than that.

the screen door bangs against the frame the way it always does when dean comes through it too fast for the hinges to keep up, and you're up to your elbows in the sink helping mama rinse vegetables when he ambles into the kitchen like he owns it. he's built solid through the shoulders from years of hauling engine parts around the shop, tall in that broad, sturdy way rather than lanky, and his hair's cropped short and a little spiky at the front, still damp at the edges from wherever he cleaned up before coming over. his eyes are a deep, warm green, the kind that crinkle at the corners when he grins, and there's a smear of grease along his forearm he clearly missed, dark against the freckled tan of his skin. his mouth pulls into that slow, easy grin the second his eyes land on you, teeth white and even and just a little too pleased with themselves, like he's been looking forward to this exact moment all day.

"hiya, sweetheart," he drawls, already crossing the kitchen toward you without waiting for an invitation, and before you can get a word out he's leaning down and pressing a loud, sloppy kiss to your cheek, more enthusiasm than finesse, the kind that leaves an actual wet mark behind and makes mama click her tongue at him from across the kitchen without any real heat behind it. he straightens back up looking entirely too satisfied with himself, winks at you like he knows exactly what he just did, and then he's off again just as fast as he came, snagging a piece of cornbread on his way out to the porch where daddy and john are still going back and forth about the compressor, leaving you standing there with your hands still dripping dishwater and his kiss cooling wet against your skin.

you're still blinking after him, caught somewhere between annoyed and fighting a smile, when sam wanders in a moment later, quieter about it than his brother ever manages to be. he's taller than dean by a good few inches, still carrying a bit of that unfinished, gangly look in his limbs even at twenty-one, shoulders not quite grown into the height yet. his hair's longer, shaggy and a little unkempt, falling forward over his forehead in a way that makes him push it back with one hand every so often without seeming to notice he's doing it, and his eyes are a softer hazel than his brother's, warm and a touch shy in a way that doesn't match how tall he is. he takes one look at your face, the damp mark dean left behind, and huffs out something that's almost a laugh, soft and fond, shaking his head like this is nothing new. he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a folded tissue, hands it over without a word needed, just that same easy smile tucked into the corner of his mouth while you scrub at your cheek to get rid of the evidence.

"that's such a dean thing to do," he says finally, voice low enough that it's really only meant for you, leaning a hip against the counter beside you like he's got nowhere else to be. you mutter something back about how his brother's got no concept of personal space, and sam just shrugs one shoulder, easy and unbothered.

"somebody's got to clean up after him," he adds, reaching past you to grab a dish towel off the rack and drying the vegetable you just rinsed like helping you out here is the most natural thing in the world, like he does it every sunday, which he basically does now.

dinner gets called not long after, daddy hollering that the chicken's off the grill and mama shooing everybody toward the table with a dish towel like she's herding cattle, and you end up wedged between dean and sam same as always, the seating never needing to be discussed anymore. john takes the seat across from you, easy smile for your mama and a firm handshake for your daddy, all southern manners and gruff charm, the kind of man who fills a room without meaning to. it isn't until the food's half passed around that you notice the shift in him, small and constant, the way his eyes track dean without seeming to, sharp in a way that doesn't match the loose grin he's wearing for everyone else's benefit.

"pass the potatoes," john says, and when dean reaches for the bowl a half second slower than expected, caught mid conversation with bobby about a carburetor, john's voice drops just slightly, just enough for you to catch it under the noise of the table. "eyes up, son."

dean's hand moves fast then, passing the bowl without missing a beat, easy smile never slipping, but you catch the way his jaw tightens for just a second before it smooths back out, the kind of automatic correction that looks practiced, like a soldier snapping back into line rather than a grown man passing potatoes to his father at sunday dinner. nobody else seems to notice, mama already asking sam something about how his classes are shaping up for the fall, and sam answers easy and bright, launching into some story about a professor he's got, and john's whole face changes when he turns toward his younger son, softer around the eyes, proud in a way that doesn't require correction.

"that's my boy," john says, warm, reaching over to clap sam on the shoulder, and sam ducks his head a little at the praise, pleased and a little embarrassed by it, entirely unaware of how his father's attention had been fixed somewhere else entirely just seconds before. dean watches the exchange from beside you, still smiling, still easy, but there's something in the set of his shoulders that reads like he's used to disappearing in moments like this, like he's spent so long making sure sam never has to see the sharper edges of their father that he doesn't even think to resent it anymore, just absorbs it quiet and keeps the table running smooth.

you feel his knee press against yours under the table again, less playful this time, more like he needs somewhere to put his hand that isn't clenched around his fork, and you don't say anything, just let your foot rest against his ankle steady, something quiet passing between you that doesn't need explaining.

dinner rolls on loud and easy despite the undercurrent, the way it always does, bobby holding court about some fool at the auction house who tried to lowball him on a truck engine that ran clean as anything.

"i told him, son, you can try that with somebody who don't know a blown gasket from a hole in the ground, but that ain't me," bobby says around a mouthful of cornbread, waving his fork for emphasis, and daddy's already laughing before he even finishes, shaking his head like he's heard this story before and enjoys it every time anyway.

"you shoulda seen his face, bobby, i swear," john adds, grinning wide, "man about swallowed his own tongue when you quoted him double."

"well he shoulda known better," bobby grumbles, though he's clearly pleased with himself, reaching for the pitcher of tea and topping off his glass without being asked, comfortable enough in this kitchen that he might as well have grown up in it.

mama's still fussing, always fussing, pushing another helping of green beans onto sam's plate before he's even asked, the way she does with him more than anybody, like his height gives her an excuse to feed him twice as much as everyone else at the table.

"eat up, sam, you're all elbows and knees these days," she says, and sam laughs, soft and a little sheepish, taking the spoonful without argument because he learned a long time ago there's no winning that fight.

"yes ma'am," he says, and daddy chuckles into his glass, catching your eye across the table with the kind of look that says he approves of a boy with manners like that, always has, ever since the winchesters first showed up on the street looking a little rough around the edges and sam turned out to be the type who says please and thank you without being prompted.

dean's quieter through most of it, content to let bobby and john carry the noise, though he leans back in his chair at one point and throws out a comment about the truck bobby mentioned, some detail about the transmission that has bobby squinting at him with something like respect.

"boy actually listens when i talk shop," bobby says to the table at large, jerking a thumb toward dean, "unlike some people i could mention," and he casts a pointed look at john that gets a bark of laughter out of daddy.

"hey now," john says, holding his hands up, easy grin firmly back in place, the sharper edge from earlier folded away somewhere nobody else at the table ever gets to see, "i listen plenty."

"you listen to the sound of your own voice, is what you listen to," bobby fires back, and even john has to laugh at that, the whole table dissolving into it, mama wiping at her eyes and daddy pounding the table once with the flat of his hand the way he does when something really gets him going.

you catch sam's eye across the noise of it, both of you sharing a small private smile at the absurdity of grown men needling each other like schoolboys, and under the table dean's foot finds yours again, steady, grounding, like he's checking you're still there even in the middle of all this noise, and you press back against his ankle to let him know you are.

the table clears out slow after that, bobby and john and daddy drifting back out to the porch with fresh drinks, still ribbing each other about something, and mama starts stacking plates only for dean to reach over and take the stack right out of her hands before she can protest.

"you sit, mrs. l," he says, easy and warm, already balancing the plates against his forearm like he's done it a hundred times, which by now he has. "boys got it tonight."

mama makes a token protest, waves a hand like she ought to argue, but she's smiling when she does it, and she settles back into her chair with her tea instead, watching the three of you head into the kitchen with the kind of fond look she gets whenever the winchester boys make themselves useful around here.

you're up to your elbows in soapy water again within minutes, dean scraping plates before handing them off to you, sam drying and putting away with the kind of quiet efficiency that says he's spent plenty of evenings in this exact kitchen learning where everything goes. the radio mama keeps on the counter is playing low, some old country station daddy likes, and for a while nobody says much of anything, just the clink of dishes and the hum of the evening settling in around you.

"you missed a spot," dean says at one point, nodding toward a plate you just handed him, and when you go to grab it back to check he just laughs, low and pleased with himself, holding it just out of reach over your head.

"dean," you warn, reaching up for it, and he grins down at you, entirely too tall for this to be a fair fight, until sam reaches over without even looking up from the pot he's drying and plucks it straight out of his brother's hand.

"give it here, you're being ridiculous," sam says, mild as anything, handing the plate back to you properly, and dean just huffs like he's been personally wronged, going back to scraping the next plate with an exaggerated sigh.

"no respect in this house," he mutters, though there's no real heat in it, and you bump your hip against his to get him to shift over so you can reach the sink properly, which he does without complaint, close enough now that his arm brushes yours every time he passes you another plate.

sam finishes drying and starts putting things away in the cabinets, moving around the kitchen easy and familiar, and at one point he pauses beside you to grab a stack of bowls, close enough that his hand rests briefly against the small of your back as he reaches past you, gone again before it means anything anybody else could notice, though dean's eyes flick over just briefly at the movement, something unreadable crossing his face before he goes back to the dishes like he didn't see it at all.

by the time the last pot's put away and the counters wiped down, the kitchen's quiet except for the radio still playing low, and you're leaning back against the counter catching your breath from the both of them crowding you all evening, dean on one side already reaching for his keys off the hook by the door, sam lingering a beat longer like he's in no hurry to head back out to the noise of the porch just yet before they both dissappear.

the bell over the door jingles just as the lunch rush is finally starting to thin out, and you glance up from wiping down the counter to see dean shouldering his way in first, sam right behind him looking lighter than you've seen him in weeks, some of that constant tension around his eyes gone soft for once.

"guess who just aced his contracts module," dean announces to the whole diner practically, loud enough that old mr. hendricks looks up from his coffee two booths down, and sam's already shaking his head, cheeks going a little pink at the attention even as he can't quite fight down the smile pulling at his mouth.

"it wasn't that big a deal," sam mutters, sliding into the booth by the window, the same one you've unofficially claimed as theirs at this point, though dean's already talking over him before he can finish.

"it's a huge deal, he's been stressing about that thing for two weeks straight, wouldn't shut up about it," dean says, dropping into the seat across from his brother and grinning up at you as you come over with a couple of menus neither of them actually need anymore. "figured the man deserved pie. on the house, obviously."

"nothing's on the house, dean," you say, raising an eyebrow at him, and he just shrugs, unbothered, propping his boots up against the seat beside sam who kicks them right back off without even looking up.

"worth a shot," dean says easily, and sam huffs out a laugh, ducking his head, and there's something about the sight of him like this, loose and pleased with himself, that softens something in your chest you don't examine too closely.

"congratulations," you tell sam, meaning it, and he looks up at you properly then, that same shy warmth in his eyes that always seems to catch you off guard even though you've seen it a hundred times by now.

"thanks," he says, quiet, like it means more coming from you than it did from dean's whole announcement to the diner, and dean rolls his eyes at the both of you like he can see exactly what's happening and finds it both ridiculous and entirely predictable.

"so, pie," dean says, tapping the table, "and don't think you're skimping on my slice just because he's the genius today."

you go get the pie because it's easier than arguing, and when you come back with two plates dean's already talking again, something about a car that came into the shop that morning with a problem he's proud of himself for catching fast, and sam listens along easy, throwing in a comment here and there, and you linger at the edge of the booth a beat longer than you probably need to, tray tucked against your hip, half listening to dean and half aware of sam's knee pressing warm against yours under the table where nobody else can see.

the light's just starting to go gold and soft by the time you make your way over to the winchester place, that little wrapped something tucked into your pocket, not much, just a keychain you found in town with a little scale of justice on it, dumb and sentimental but it made you think of him the second you saw it. john's truck is gone from the driveway, off running some errand with bobby probably, and dean's truck sits there too though you don't spot him around anywhere, which suits you just fine tonight.

sam's out on the porch when you round the corner, folded into the old wicker chair with a textbook open on his knee that he's clearly not reading, staring off toward the treeline instead with that unfocused look he gets sometimes when his mind's somewhere else entirely. he catches sight of you coming up the walk and the whole look on his face shifts, softens, book forgotten as he sits up straighter.

"hey," he says, warm, closing the textbook properly now and setting it aside on the little table beside him. "wasn't expecting you tonight."

"figured you deserved a proper congratulations," you say, climbing the porch steps, "seeing as dean already ate half your celebration pie earlier."

that gets a laugh out of him, low and easy, and he reaches out to catch your hand as you get close enough, tugging you down into the space beside him on the wicker chair, too small for two people really but neither of you minding that in the slightest. you press the little wrapped gift into his palm before you can lose your nerve, and he looks down at it, surprised, turning it over careful in his hands like it's something fragile.

"you didn't have to do that," he says, quiet, working the paper open, and when the little keychain falls into his palm his mouth curves into something soft and a little disbelieving, thumb running over the tiny scales like he can't quite believe you thought of him enough to notice something so specific.

"i saw it and thought of you," you say, feeling a little exposed admitting it out loud like that, and sam looks up at you then with an expression that makes your chest go tight, something unguarded and entirely too fond for a boy who's usually so careful about what he lets show.

he doesn't say anything else, just reaches up to tuck a strand of hair back from your face, slow and deliberate, and then he's kissing you, soft at first, like he's testing whether you'll let him, and you do, easy, hand coming up to rest against his jaw as the kiss deepens, his hand sliding to the small of your back to pull you closer despite the awkward angle of the chair. he kisses like he reads, unhurried and thorough, like there's no version of this evening he wants to rush through, and when you shift to straddle his lap properly to ease the strain of twisting toward him, he makes a low sound against your mouth, hands settling firm at your hips like he's steadying himself as much as you.

the porch light hasn't even come on yet, dusk still soft and blue around you, and sam kisses you like he's got nowhere else in the world he'd rather be, one hand sliding up under the hem of your shirt to rest warm against your ribs, the other cradling the back of your neck like you're something worth being careful with. you lose track of time out there with him, the cicadas starting up loud in the trees, his textbook forgotten on the table, the little keychain still clutched loose in his other hand like he can't bring himself to set it down even now.

the marquee's lit up bright by the time dean pulls into the drive-in lot that saturday, some worn out western playing that neither of you particularly cares about, and he's barely got the truck in park before he's glancing over at you with that grin that means trouble, the one you've come to know means the movie was never really the point.

"back seat," he says, already reaching for the door handle, "windshield's got a crack right in the sightline anyway, terrible seats up front."

"you drove us here specifically for the back seat, didn't you," you say, though you're already climbing over the console to follow him, no real argument in it, and he laughs, low and pleased with himself, settling into the back with his knees bracketing yours the second you're both properly in.

"can't a man appreciate a classic film from a better angle," he says, though he's not looking at the screen at all anymore, hand already sliding along your jaw to pull you in, and the second his mouth meets yours any pretense of watching the movie goes clean out the window.

it's hurried from the start, more heat than patience, his hand fisting gentle in your hair while you climb properly into his lap, the gearshift long forgotten in the front seat, and he mumbles something against your mouth about how long he'd been waiting all week for this, words barely coherent between kisses, more breath than sentence. you kiss him back just as urgent, hands sliding up under his shirt to feel the warmth of his skin, and he groans low into your mouth, hips shifting up against yours like he can't help the reaction, one hand gripping your hip hard enough to bruise while the other cradles the back of your head like he's trying to keep you from ever pulling away.

"you have no idea," he mutters against your lips, breathless, "no idea what you do to me, sitting there all week acting like nothing's going on," and you laugh against his mouth, breathless yourself, telling him to shut up and kiss you properly instead of talking, which he does, dragging you back in deep and slow this time, though it doesn't stay slow for long, his mouth trailing hot down your jaw to your throat while you tip your head back to give him better access, the windows fogging up thick around you despite the cool night air outside.

somewhere on the screen the western plays on, gunfire and dramatic music neither of you registers even once, dean's hands mapping you out like he's trying to memorize every inch, mumbling half formed things against your skin that don't quite make sense but sound like they mean everything, and you're gasping his name at one point when his mouth finds a spot just below your ear that makes your whole body arch into him, his low chuckle vibrating against your throat in response.

by the time the credits roll two hours later neither of you has looked at the screen once, lips swollen and hair a mess, dean grinning at you dazed and thoroughly pleased with how the evening turned out, tugging you back in for one more slow kiss before he finally, reluctantly, starts the truck for the drive home.

the truck idles quiet in front of your house by the time dean pulls up, porch light left on for you same as always, the street gone dark and still around you both. he cuts the engine but doesn't move to get out just yet, one arm braced along the top of the seat, the other hand resting warm against your thigh where it settled sometime during the drive home and never left.

you sit there a moment in the quiet, still a little breathless from the drive-in, hair mussed and lips still tender from how thorough he'd been with you, and there's something about the stillness now, just the two of you and the hum of the engine cooling, that makes the question feel bigger than it probably is.

"you could come in," you say, quieter than you mean to, glancing over at him from under your lashes, feeling shy in a way that doesn't quite match everything you just did in the back seat not twenty minutes ago. "for a night cap. if you wanted."

his thumb strokes slow against your thigh where his hand still rests, and you watch something shift behind his eyes, that easy cockiness softening into something a little more sincere, like he's actually considering the weight of what you're asking rather than just running on instinct for once.

"i'd love to, sweetheart," he says, low, and leans in to press one more slow kiss to your mouth before reaching for the door handle.

the front door creaks louder than either of you remembers it being as you slip inside, both of you dissolving into quiet giggles almost immediately, dean nearly tripping over your shoes left by the door and grabbing your waist to steady himself, which only makes you laugh harder, pressing a hand over your own mouth to keep quiet with your parents asleep down the hall.

"shh," you whisper, not much better at containing it yourself, tugging him along toward your room with fingers laced through his, both of you stumbling once more in the dark hallway when dean's shoulder catches the edge of a picture frame, sending it wobbling against the wall with a soft clatter that has you both freezing, breath held, waiting for any sign of movement from your parents' room before collapsing back into muffled laughter and continuing on.

your bedroom door clicks shut behind you and dean's hands are back on your waist almost instantly, walking you backward until your legs hit the edge of your desk, and in one easy motion he sweeps his arm across it, sending papers and pens scattering to the floor without a second thought, entirely oblivious to the book resting there with the little flower tucked between its pages, sam's careful handwriting on the note beneath it, all of it swept aside in the dark along with everything else.

he lifts you easily onto the cleared surface, settling himself between your knees like he belongs there, and his mouth finds yours again in the dark, slower now than the frantic heat of the drive-in, more deliberate, like he's savoring having you somewhere quiet and private and entirely his for the moment. his hands slide up your sides, thumbs tracing slow along your ribs, and you wrap your legs loose around him to pull him closer, fingers threading up into his hair while he kisses you deep and unhurried, occasionally breaking away just to press his forehead to yours, breathing you in like he's still catching up from the truck.

his lips trail down your throat, open and warm, tasting the skin just below your ear before he sinks lower. dean drops to his knees on the floor without hesitation, hands sliding up your thighs to push your skirt higher until it bunches at your hips. he hooks his fingers into your panties and drags them down slowly, letting them fall around one ankle as he spreads your legs wider and leans in.

dean groans the second his mouth meets your pussy, the sound low and rough against your folds as his tongue drags through your wetness in one long stroke. he presses closer, nose brushing your clit while he licks again, slower this time, savoring the taste. "fuck, you taste so sweet," he murmurs into you, voice thick and muffled, the words vibrating against your skin. his tongue circles your entrance before pushing inside, fucking you shallowly with it while his hands grip your thighs to keep you open.

he pulls back just enough to speak again, lips shiny. "goddamn, baby… so fucking sweet for me." then he dives back in, sucking your clit between his lips and groaning louder, the sound hungry and desperate as he eats you like he's starving. his tongue works in firm strokes, alternating between licking broad and flat and flicking quick and sharp, every movement pulling more wetness from you that he laps up greedily.

your fingers find his hair again, threading tight as your hips twitch forward against his mouth. dean moans into your pussy at the movement, the vibration making your thighs shake around his head. he keeps his knees planted on the floor, shoulders broad between your spread legs, completely focused on devouring you.

the room's gone quiet except for the soft sounds of your breathing, dean's hands braced firm against your thighs where he's settled on his knees in front of you, skirt bunched up around your waist, when the sound of a door creaking somewhere down the hallway cuts through the haze of it all. you both go still at the same instant, and then comes the unmistakable shuffle of footsteps, your mama's voice calling out soft and half asleep, asking if that was you she heard moving around.

"oh, fuck—" dean breathes, already scrambling, and in one motion he's yanking your skirt back down and hauling you upright off the desk, both of you a tangle of stifled panic and barely contained laughter as he snatches his shirt off the floor.

"window, window," you hiss, already crossing the room to shove it open, and dean's there in a heartbeat, one leg already swinging over the sill with the ease of a man who's clearly done this exact maneuver more than once in his life. he pauses just long enough to grin at you, breathless and thoroughly pleased with himself despite the chaos, and leans back in to press one last quick kiss to your mouth.

"to be continued, sweetheart," he murmurs against your lips, and then he's gone, dropping down into the dark yard with barely a sound, and you're left standing there smoothing your skirt down with your heart hammering, just as your mama's knock sounds soft against the door.

"you okay, baby?"

"sorry! just got back, didn't mean to wake you." she mutters a small acknowledgement before walking away, turning off a hallway light on her way.

you sink back down onto the edge of your bed once the house has gone quiet again, chest still heaving a little from how close that was. it's only once your heart's stopped hammering that you notice the mess still scattered across your floor, papers and pens strewn every which way from where dean swept them aside without a second thought, and you get down on your knees to start gathering it all back up before your mama decides to come check on you again in the morning and finds your room looking like a storm blew through it.

you're halfway through stacking the papers when your hand closes around something small and soft, and you go still, pulling it out from beneath a fallen notebook to find a single flower, wilted now from however long it's been lying there forgotten on the floor, petals crushed slightly at the edges. your stomach drops before you even register why, some instinct already knowing what you're about to find, and sure enough, tucked beneath it is the book, sam's handwriting scrawled across a torn scrap of paper used as a bookmark, the words simple, just a little note about how he'd seen this and thought you might like it, how he hoped you'd let him know what you thought once you'd read it.

you sit there on your bedroom floor for a long moment, the flower held loose in your palm, the book open to that page in your lap, and something in your chest goes tight and aching in a way you weren't prepared for. you can picture him so clearly, the careful way he must have set it down, probably during one of the quiet evenings he stops by just to say hello, choosing his words on that little note with the same deliberate thoughtfulness he puts into everything, and instead it had sat there forgotten on your desk long enough to get swept onto the floor without you even noticing, crushed under something else entirely while you weren't looking.

you press the back of your hand against your eyes, breath shaky, and you don't fully understand the shape of what you're feeling, whether it's guilt or grief or something more complicated tangled up in both directions at once, dean's kiss still faint on your mouth and sam's careful handwriting blurring now in front of you, and for the first time all summer the quiet, unspoken nothing you've been living inside of feels less like something easy and more like something that's going to cost somebody something, sooner rather than later.

the walk over to the winchester place feels longer than usual that morning, book tucked carefully against your chest along with the flower pressed flat now between its pages, and you find him right where you knew you would, up in the treehouse with his long legs stretched out and another book balanced on his knee, sunlight dappling through the leaves onto his shoulders.

he catches sight of you climbing up and his whole face brightens, that soft grin spreading slow and easy, shifting over to make room without needing to be asked. "hey, wasn't expecting you this early," he says, setting his own book aside, and then his eyes catch on what you're holding and something flickers across his face, quick and uncertain, like he's not sure yet what it means that you've got it with you.

you settle in against his chest without a word, the familiar weight of his arm coming around you automatic now, and you feel him relax slightly once you're tucked against him, though there's still a question sitting unasked in the stillness between you. you set the book down open across both your laps, the little flower still nestled where it fell, wilted now but preserved carefully all the same, and you feel him go still behind you when he realizes what it is.

"i found it last night," you say, quiet, tracing your thumb over the corner of the page. "i'm sorry it took so long. it got knocked onto the floor, and i didn't see it till late."

his arms tighten around you slightly, and when he speaks his voice is low, careful. "you don't have to apologize," he says, though there's something in it that says he's relieved anyway, relieved you came, relieved you're here now with it held like it matters. "i just wanted you to have something. wasn't trying to make it a whole thing."

"i know," you say, tipping your head back against his shoulder to look up at him properly. "but it is a thing. it's a lovely thing. i just feel awful i didn't see it sooner."

he's quiet a moment, thumb tracing slow along your arm, and then he reaches down and turns the book to the page he'd marked, the one his note referenced, and starts reading it aloud to you right there, voice low and steady the way it always is, like nothing else in the world needs explaining, like this moment right here, you tucked against him with the flower between the pages, is enough to smooth over everything that almost went wrong.

you let him read a few more lines, his voice low and even above you, the treehouse warm with afternoon light and the smell of cut grass drifting up from somewhere in the yard below, before something in your chest tugs you to turn and look at him properly.

"hey, sam?" you say, soft, twisting slightly in the circle of his arm to face him.

he hums low in response, eyes flicking down from the page to meet yours, brows lifting slightly in question, and whatever you meant to say next dissolves the second you see the way he's looking at you, patient and warm and entirely unguarded.

you lean up instead, and he meets you halfway, the book slipping forgotten from his lap as his hand comes up to cradle your jaw, kissing you slow and soft, unhurried in that way that's entirely his own, nothing frantic or urgent about it, just the quiet certainty of two people who've spent all summer circling toward exactly this. his thumb strokes gentle along your cheekbone, and you melt into it, one hand curling into the front of his shirt, and neither of you rushes to pull away, content to stay just like that, wrapped up together in the dappled light with the book and the flower resting forgotten beside you.

you shift without breaking the kiss, climbing careful into his lap in the cramped space of the treehouse, and his hands settle firm at your waist to steady you, smiling against your mouth like he can't quite help it, the kiss going soft and unhurried between you both. your fingers slide up into his hair, tugging gentle at the ends, and he makes a low content sound at the back of his throat, tightening his grip at your waist just slightly, like he's trying to pull you even closer than you already are.

you pull back just enough to rest your forehead against his, both of you a little breathless, and you're smiling when you say it, still holding onto him, still close enough that your noses brush.

"i really like the book, thank you, sammy," you say, quiet, meaning it in every sense of the word, and something in his whole face shifts at the nickname, soft and a little dazed, that easy dimpled grin spreading slow across his mouth, lovesick in a way he probably doesn't even realize he's showing so plainly.

"yeah?" he says, voice a little rough, thumb tracing absent circles against your hip. "good. i wanted you to have something that was just, i don't know. ours."

you kiss him again for that, slow and warm, and he sighs happy into it, holding you like he's got no intention of letting the moment end anytime soon, sunlight dappling warm across you both while the whole rest of the world stays comfortably far away.

neither of you say anything as you break away and go back to reading the shitty little paperback in sam's hands.

the summer's stretched on long enough now that the evenings have started catching a hint of something cooler underneath the heat, cicadas still loud in the trees but the air a little kinder once the sun dips low, and sunday dinner unfolds the same as it always does, table crowded with too many plates and too much noise, bobby already three stories deep into something about a truck he's fixing up on the side.

daddy's got the radio going soft from the kitchen window, some old station he likes, and mama keeps circling the table topping off glasses nobody's asked her to top off, fussing over sam's plate in particular the way she always does, insisting he needs more than what he's taken even though he's cleared two helpings already. john's in fine form tonight, easy and loud with bobby, the sharper edges of him tucked away for the evening, and dean's stretched out beside you looking comfortable and content, arm slung loose along the back of your chair in a way that's become so ordinary nobody at the table so much as glances twice anymore.

you catch sam watching you a few times over the course of the meal, quiet glances that linger a beat too long before he ducks back to his plate, and every time it happens something warm coils low in your stomach, the two of you having spent the better part of the week trading looks like that across the diner counter, neither one saying much of anything out loud but both of you clearly circling toward wanting to.

once the plates are mostly cleared and the grownups have drifted their conversation into something slower, bobby refilling everyone's drinks whether they want it or not, you stand to gather up a few of the empty dishes, and sam's up out of his seat almost as fast, offering to help carry the pitcher back in for more tea, an excuse so thin it wouldn't survive a second of scrutiny if anybody at that table were paying proper attention, though nobody is.

the kitchen's dim and quiet once the screen door swings shut behind you both, just the hum of the fridge and the muffled sound of conversation still drifting in from the porch, and sam sets the pitcher down on the counter without much urgency, turning to find you already close, close enough that neither of you needs to say anything before he's reaching for you, one hand curling warm around your waist to pull you back against the fridge, the cool metal a shock against your spine through your shirt.

"we shouldn't," he murmurs, though he's already leaning in as he says it, breath warm against your mouth, no real conviction behind the words at all.

"probably not," you agree, just as unconvincing, tipping your chin up to close the last of the distance yourself, and then his mouth is on yours, soft at first, testing, before it deepens into something slower and a little sloppy, both of you clearly having thought about this more than either would admit out loud. his hand braces flat against the fridge door beside your head, the other cradling your jaw, thumb tracing slow along your cheekbone while he kisses you like there's nowhere else in the world he needs to be, soft little sounds passing between you every time you break apart for breath before he's leaning back in again, unable to quite make himself stop.

you lose track of time standing there against the fridge, his mouth slow and unhurried against yours, one of your hands fisted loose in the front of his shirt, and it isn't until the screen door creaks open again that either of you registers anything beyond each other at all, footsteps crossing the kitchen tile too late for you to properly pull apart before dean clears his throat, loud and pointed, from just a few feet away.

"well," dean says, arms crossing over his chest as he leans back against the counter, expression working hard for casual and not quite managing it, something tighter around his eyes betraying him even as his mouth stays curved in that familiar easy smirk. "guess i should've grabbed the tea myself."

sam pulls back fast, guilt written plain across his face, opening his mouth like he's about to try and explain something that doesn't really need explaining, but dean doesn't wait for it. he crosses the kitchen in a few easy strides, and before you can process what's happening his hand's closed firm around your waist, spinning you gently away from sam and pulling you flush against him instead, his mouth finding yours in a kiss that's hard and sure and over almost as fast as it started, leaving you a little dizzy in the wake of it.

he pulls back just enough to look at you, something unreadable flickering behind his eyes, that easy grin not quite reaching them the way it usually does.

"sam's off to college next week," he says, low, glancing past you toward his brother with an expression that's part challenge, part something rawer he's clearly trying to bury under the joke of it. "kiss him while you still can, princess."

and then he's gone, releasing you and heading for the door without waiting for either of you to respond, the screen door swinging shut hard behind him, his footsteps carrying off across the yard toward baby rather than back to the porch where everyone else is still sitting none the wiser.

you stand there in the sudden quiet, staring after him, chest tight with something you can't quite untangle, and when you finally turn back to sam he's already looking away, jaw tense, guilt sitting heavy and plain across his face, like dean's words landed somewhere a lot deeper than either of you were prepared for tonight.

"wait, please—" sam started, but you didn't want to hear it. he didn't tell you he was going back to college early, and now you'd upset dean as well, you just wanted to be left alone.

the porch is still loud with bobby's laughter drifting through the screen door, mama calling something out about dessert, but you don't go back to it. you set the pitcher down on the counter with hands that aren't quite steady, and instead of following either of them, you slip out the kitchen doorway into the hall and head straight for your room, closing the door soft behind you so nobody thinks to come check.

you sit on the edge of your bed for a long while, the noise of the dinner still carrying faint from outside your window, dean's voice absent from it now, and you can't stop turning over the look on his face when he said it, that easy grin stretched thin over something that clearly wasn't easy at all, and sam's guilt-stricken expression right after, like he'd been caught at something he didn't know how to feel good about anymore.

nobody comes looking for a while. eventually you hear mama's voice calling faintly for you, wondering where you got off to, and you call back something about a headache, which isn't really a lie, your temples pulled tight with the weight of an evening that started easy and unraveled into something you don't have words for yet. you hear footsteps on the porch some time later, the scrape of chairs, bobby's laughter fading as the winchesters say their goodnights, and you don't get up to see any of them off, just lie there on top of your covers listening to baby's engine turn over in the driveway next door, the sound of it pulling away into the dark, and you don't know which one of them it hurts more to imagine driving off angry.

the week bleeds by slower than it should, sam's leaving date creeping closer with every passing day, and he knocks on your door twice before he finally goes, standing there on your porch looking a little lost in a way that doesn't suit him, asking soft if you've got a minute to talk before he heads out. both times you tell your mama to say you're feeling poorly, some vague stomach thing that keeps you tucked up in your room instead of facing him, too much still unresolved and too tangled up in guilt over dean to know what you'd even say if you opened that door.

he doesn't push it either time, just tells your mama to pass along that he hopes you feel better, voice quiet enough that you can hear the disappointment threaded through it even through your closed bedroom door, and then he's gone, off to the fall semester, and the treehouse sits empty at the edge of the yard for the first time all summer, no shaggy head of hair to be found up there with a book propped open.

dean doesn't knock at all.

he still shows up to sunday dinner, same as always, easy laugh and loud stories for bobby same as ever, except now there's always somebody new on his arm, a different girl practically every week, tall ones and short ones, girls with dark skin and girls with pale freckled shoulders, girls who laugh at all his jokes and girls who seem a little baffled by mama's fussing over second helpings. he introduces each of them with the same easy charm, hand at the small of their back, that same white, gleaming grin flashed wide and practiced, like he's testing out a different version of easy every single time, like maybe if he tries enough of them one might actually stick and make the empty seat beside him at the table mean something again.

you sit there across from him every week watching it happen, his eyes flicking to you every so often over the shoulder of whichever girl he's brought this time, something unreadable and a little challenging in the look, like he's daring you to say something, to react, and you never do, just keep your face carefully blank and pass the potatoes like nothing about any of it bothers you in the slightest, even though it does, every single time, more than you'd ever admit out loud.

the year turns over slower than you expect it to, dean's absence from sunday dinners settling into something the whole street just quietly stops mentioning after a while, mama no longer setting an extra plate out of habit, bobby's visits growing a little less frequent too, like without the boys anchoring things the whole rhythm of the neighborhood shifted somewhere you can't quite name.

it's a tuesday afternoon, unremarkable in every way, when the knock comes at your door, and you're wiping flour off your hands from helping mama with biscuits when you pull it open to find a stranger standing there, dark hair mussed in a way that looks less like carelessness and more like he genuinely doesn't know what a comb is for, sticking up in soft tousled waves that catch the afternoon light. he's got striking blue eyes, pale and searching, the kind that fix on you with an intensity that feels almost startling for a man asking to borrow sugar, and he's dressed strange for the heat, a rumpled tan trench coat over a white shirt and loosened navy tie, like he got dressed for a different season entirely and never quite adjusted. there's something faintly boyish and awkward about the tilt of his head, a slight furrow between his brows like he's parsing every word you might say before you even say it.

"hello," he says, voice low and a little gravelled, formal in a way that doesn't match the sugar request at all, "i apologize for the intrusion. i was told your household might have sugar to spare."

before you can even answer, there's a holler from across the yard and dean comes barreling into view, closing the distance in a dead sprint before tackling the stranger clean around the middle, both of them stumbling half off your porch step with dean laughing loud and delighted, the stranger grunting in surprise but not remotely upset by it, like this is simply a thing dean does now and he's long since stopped questioning it.

"cas, buddy, you beat me to it," dean says, hauling himself up and slinging an arm around the man's shoulders, grinning that same white, easy grin at you like no time at all has passed since you last saw it across a dinner table. "this is castiel novak, new guy at the shop, best damn mechanic i've met since my old man. cas, this is her, the one i told you about."

you ignore the bubbling rage at how unaffected he seems by the year of silence you two have shared.

castiel studies you a moment longer than feels entirely comfortable, head tilting slightly, before offering a small, sincere smile, and you're still trying to find something to say to any of it when dean's already talking again, something shifting behind his easy grin, a little softer, a little more hesitant.

"sammy came home," he says, and your stomach drops clean through the porch floor before you even turn to look.

sam's standing at the end of your front walk, taller somehow, filled out in the shoulders in a way college apparently did for him, hair a little shorter but still soft around his face, and beside him is a girl, blonde and bright and lovely, her hand tucked easy into his, laughing at something he must have said just before they reached the gate. and then you see it, catching the light as sam lifts his hand to wave at you, a plain silver band settled unmistakable on his finger, and the pretty girl at his side, sam's voice warm and a little nervous introducing her as jess, his fiancée, like the word doesn't detonate something quiet and final in your chest the second it leaves his mouth.

you swallow hard around the sudden tightness in your throat, forcing your face into something easy, something that doesn't betray the way your whole summer just came rushing back up all at once, dean's grin and sam's careful hands and the treehouse and the truck's fogged up windows, all of it crowding in behind a smile you paste on like it costs you nothing at all.

"well," you manage, voice steadier than you feel, "y'all better come in before mama sees you standing out here and has a fit about hospitality."

sorry </3

[i00que]

MEMO ── BENJAMIN / MICHELIN STAR .

NOTES : michelin star chef benjamin poindexter cannot understand why a woman cooking nine dollar caesar salads on duct-taped equipment keeps turning down everything he offers her. the more she says no, the less it's actually about the job.

WARNINGS : chef au, fluff, reader-insert (no y/n,) slow burn, mutual pining, rich chef x poor cook, bad boss/toxic workplace, food descriptions, money gap, overstimulation, bondage with a belt, multiple orgasms, creampie, riding, dirty talk, aftercare, thigh shaking, repetition as a plot device.

CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL ── 18+ ONLY.

the first time he walked in you were three tickets deep and elbow deep in a stockpot that had been going since four that morning, skimming fat off the top with the ladle whose handle had snapped clean off in february and that you'd since wrapped in three full rotations of silver duct tape, because marv's idea of equipment maintenance was waiting for you to fix it yourself or stop complaining. the place did not take reservations. the menu was a single laminated sheet that had gone tacky at the edges from years of being wiped down with whatever chemical the dish pit had on hand that week, the kind of place people came to because it was close and cheap and the portions were big, not because anyone walked in expecting to be impressed.

he ordered the duck breast, eighteen dollars on a menu where most things hovered around twelve, the most expensive plate marv allowed because he'd read somewhere that one aspirational item made a menu look classier. marv bought the duck frozen and thought that was the end of his involvement. you were the one who scored the skin in a tight crosshatch and rendered it slow in a pan with a hot spot dead center that you'd learned to work around instead of asking anyone to fix, rotating the breast every ninety seconds by feel, listening for the exact hiss that told you the fat was rendering clean instead of scorching. you finished it in an oven that ran fifteen degrees low according to the thermometer you'd bought yourself because the dial lied, propping the door shut with a folded towel that lived on the handle permanently now, nobody questioning why anymore. while it rested you built a gastrique from the cheap vinegar marv stocked and a spoonful of fig jam you made yourself on slow afternoons because the bottled stuff tasted like cough syrup, reducing it down on a burner that only lit on the third try, finishing it off heat with a knob of butter to round the sharp edge. you sliced the duck on the bias, fanned it over a puree of celery root you pushed through a strainer by hand because the food processor's blade had gone dull two managers ago and marv refused to replace it, the gastrique drizzled in a controlled line, a few charred scallions laid across the top for bitterness.

he ate the first bite the way men who don't expect to be impressed eat things, slow, evaluative, his fork pausing over the second bite a fraction too long before he gave up the performance entirely and just ate, fast, focused, the specific hunger of someone who tastes food for a living and rarely gets surprised by it anymore. you noticed, because the place was nearly dead on a tuesday and you had nothing better to look at, that he was the kind of attractive that made you angry about it on principle, broad through the shoulders in a way that filled out a plain shirt better than it had any right to, jaw shadowed with stubble that looked deliberate rather than lazy, a thin pale scar cutting through one eyebrow you found yourself cataloguing before telling yourself to stop. you hated that you noticed. you hated more that you kept noticing anyway, every visit after, some small traitorous corner of you clocking the details while the rest of you stayed unmoved by anything he actually said.

marv started screaming at you from four feet away about ticket six, a table of two waiting on the burger, because apparently ninety seconds was an unreasonable amount of time to expect a patty to finish on a flat top with one burner running hot and the other running cold no matter what you set it to. you said yes chef in the flat voice that contained no actual chef in it and pulled the patty, building the burger fast, a smear of aioli you made yourself because the bottled mayo tasted like nothing, a slice of tomato, a fistful of arugula instead of the iceberg marv bought because it kept longer, the bun toasted on the same flat top so it picked up a little of the same fat the meat had just rendered.

he came back four days later and ordered the risotto, fourteen dollars, the dish marv liked to mention to investors because it sounded expensive to say out loud despite marv being constitutionally incapable of stirring a pot without abandoning it to scorch the second his phone buzzed. you built it the long way regardless of what it cost you in time on a night with no extra hands, toasting the rice dry until it smelled faintly of popcorn before the wine went in, then the stock one ladle at a time in a pot with a hairline crack along the rim that you'd learned to hold at exactly the right angle to keep it from leaking, stirring in a slow steady drag the entire twenty minutes risotto demanded if you wanted it to come out right instead of clumped or soupy. you finished it off heat with cold butter and a fistful of parmesan you grated yourself because the pre-shredded bag marv ordered melted wrong, the whole thing turning glossy and loose enough to spread on its own across the plate, a few sage leaves fried crisp and crumbled over the top for something bitter against all that richness.

he ate it the same way he'd eaten everything else, the stillness giving way to something closer to hunger, and afterward he found his way back to where you worked, leaning against a counter that wobbled slightly on one leg if you put weight on the wrong corner, with the easy assumption of a man who had never once considered that a room's rules might apply to him.

"how long have you worked here," he asked, while you broke down a case of lemons for the night's needs, the knife moving fast and steady against a cutting board so scored and warped it no longer sat flat on the counter without a damp towel wedged underneath it.

"three years," you said.

"why."

"because the job existed and i needed one."

"that's not what i asked."

"it's the answer you're getting," you said, scraping the peels into a container you'd repurposed from a tub of bulk mayo, and you heard marv somewhere behind you start in on the new line cook about a sauce that was, you happened to know, exactly the consistency you'd told him to make it, because marv liked finding someone to be wrong even when nothing was, especially when nothing was, since being right made him nervous about what else he might be missing.

his eyes flicked toward the noise and back to you. "and you stay for that."

"i stay for plenty of reasons that aren't him."

"name one."

you thought about the line cook he'd just heard getting yelled at, who had no other options this side of the city and would lose his apartment inside a month without this paycheck. you thought about the waitress who needed someone in the kitchen to notice if she came in quiet and pale with bruises dotting her like freckles, and cover her station without asking why. you gave him none of it.

"because i don't feel like leaving," you said, and moved on to the limes.

he came back the next week, and the week after, and the one after that, the offers climbing in increments that should have meant something, his questions shifting shape underneath the surface ones about salary and title, less about the job now and more about you specifically, what you wanted, what marv would have to do to finally cost you something you weren't willing to keep paying for free. you noticed the shift. he noticed you noticing. one night, late, the dining room empty, you stood at the flat top building a pan sauce off the fond left from the last order, deglazing with a splash of the cheap brandy marv kept behind the bar for nobody, scraping up the browned bits stuck to the metal with a spoon that had a chip in the handle, working in a spoonful of mustard and a slow stream of cream until it came together dark and thick, and he stood close enough that you could feel the heat off him competing with the heat off the burner.

"i don't understand you," he said, low, something underneath the flatness now that wasn't only bafflement anymore. "i've offered you a number that would let you walk out of here tonight and never look back. i've offered you your own station, your name on a menu people would actually drive for. i don't ask twice for anything. i've asked you eleven times."

"twelve, if you're counting honestly," you said, plating the order, the sauce poured in a slow ribbon along one side, finished with flaked salt because the dish needed one more thing to keep it from being only rich.

"twelve," he agreed, voice rough at the edges now. "and every time you say it like it costs you nothing."

"it doesn't."

"it should," he said, and for the first time the bafflement had something sharper underneath it. "you're wasting yourself somewhere a man can't taste the difference between his food and yours. i watch you work in a kitchen held together with duct tape and a propped oven door and i think about what you'd do with a real budget, real equipment, and i cannot understand why you'd choose this when the alternative is standing right in front of you."

"maybe i don't choose the expensive option," you said, turning to look at him fully, the spoon still loose in your hand, the dining room quiet enough now that you could hear the walk-in compressor cycling on, the seal that had been peeling for months letting in a hiss of warm air it wasn't built to handle. "maybe i choose what's mine. this place is falling apart and marv is a coward who steals credit and underpays everyone who isn't him, but the people in it are mine, and i don't hand mine over because someone richer showed up with a bigger number."

something shifted in his face, slower this time, less like recalculation and more like a man filing something away somewhere he actually intended to keep it. "that's a stupid reason to stay somewhere that's bad for you." he huffed, but the heat had thinned out of it, something quieter underneath now.

"probably," you agreed, turning back to the pass. "ask me again next week. see if it's changed."

he didn't leave. you could feel him still standing there behind you, close enough that the heat off the flat top wasn't the only thing warming your back anymore, and when you finally glanced over your shoulder he had that look again, the one that meant he was building toward something instead of just repeating himself.

"dessert."

"there's a menu for that too," you said, nodding toward the laminated sheet sitting at the host stand, gone soft and curling at one corner from god knows how many spills.

"i don't want the menu. i want you to make me something. anything. whatever you'd make if nobody was watching the cost on the ticket."

you considered telling him no on principle, the way you'd told him no to everything else, but there was a different kind of challenge sitting under the request, something less about money and more about whether you could actually back up everything he'd convinced himself you were capable of, and you found you wanted to answer that question for yourself almost as much as he wanted you to answer it for him. the kitchen had a lull, the kind that came right before the dinner rush properly hit, and you had maybe twenty minutes before the next ticket would demand all of your attention back.

you didn't have the ingredients for anything that belonged on a tasting menu. you had a walk-in stocked for a restaurant that sold twelve dollar burgers, a pantry with the basics and nothing else, and a freezer with a single bag of frozen cherries marv had bought in bulk for a cobbler special that never sold and that had been sitting there for two months going slightly frosted at the edges. you pulled the cherries and a stick of butter that wasn't quite cold enough and a half bag of flour you kept separate from the bulk stuff because the bulk stuff had gone slightly stale, and you started building something out of almost nothing, the way you'd been doing for three years in this kitchen, because that was the actual skill nobody on a menu ever priced correctly.

you put the cherries in a pan with a spoonful of sugar and a splash of the same cheap brandy you'd used for his sauce earlier, letting them break down slow over a low flame, the juice thickening and going dark and glossy while you worked the butter into the flour with your fingers instead of a tool, quick light movements so the heat from your hands didn't melt it before it needed to, a pinch of salt, a spoonful of sugar, just enough cold water to bring it together into a rough dough you didn't overwork. you rolled it out thin on a counter dusted with flour, cutting it into uneven strips by hand because precision wasn't the point here, the point was getting something onto a plate that tasted like it came from somewhere with real walls and a real oven instead of one propped shut with a folded towel.

the cherries went into a small dish, the pastry strips laid over the top in a loose lattice that didn't pretend to be tidy, brushed with the last of the butter and a scatter of coarse sugar you found in the bottom of a container that mostly held something else. you slid it into the oven that ran fifteen degrees low according to your own thermometer, compensating without thinking about it anymore because you'd done this calculation a thousand times, and while it baked you made a quick whipped cream by hand in a bowl that had been in this kitchen longer than you had, dented at one side, whisking until it held soft peaks, folding in a little vanilla and the smallest spoonful of sugar so it wouldn't compete with the fruit.

when the cobbler came out the pastry had gone golden and uneven and slightly burnt at one corner where the oven's hot spot always got it, the cherries bubbling thick underneath, and you didn't try to hide the burnt corner the way a nicer kitchen might have, just spooned a portion into a bowl that didn't match any of the others because nothing in this kitchen matched anything else, a dollop of the cream melting slow against the warm fruit.

you set it down in front of him without ceremony. "it's not michelin," you said. "i had cherries and twenty minutes."

he picked up the spoon like a man approaching something he'd already decided to be skeptical of, and you watched the same thing happen that had happened with the duck and the risotto, the evaluative chewing collapsing fast into something far less composed. he ate like he'd forgotten anyone was watching, which struck you as funny given how aware of being watched he usually was, shoveling in a second bite before he'd properly swallowed the first, a smear of cherry juice catching at the corner of his mouth and a crumb of pastry sitting forgotten on his chin, and for a man who ran three kitchens with a reputation for exacting precision he looked, in that exact moment, less like a michelin chef and more like an overgrown toddler who had gotten into something he wasn't supposed to have unsupervised.

"this shouldn't work," he said around a mouthful, not bothering to wipe his face, cherry staining the corner of his lip dark red. "the pastry's uneven. one side is burnt."

"i'm aware."

"it's better than half the desserts on my menus," he said, sounding genuinely annoyed about it, like the admission cost him something. "people pay forty dollars for a cherry dessert that took a pastry chef four hours and three failed versions, and you built this out of a freezer bag during a rush."

"i had practice," you said, watching him scrape the bowl with the side of the spoon to get the last of the sauce, completely unselfconscious about it, crumbs still sitting on his chin like he had no idea they were there and wouldn't have cared even if he did. "you learn to make things taste expensive when nothing around you is."

when the bowl was empty he set the spoon down with more force than the gesture required, jaw tight, and you realized somewhere in the last bite he'd circled back around to being annoyed at you specifically rather than at the dessert. "twelve times," he said. "you've told me no twelve times."

"i'm aware."

"i don't get told no," he said, and it came out almost petulant, a huff of breath through his nose like the unfairness of it was a personal insult he couldn't quite metabolize. "i offer something better. people take it. that's how it's supposed to go."

"sounds like a you problem."

"it's an everyone problem," he said, "you're being deliberately unreasonable," and he said it with a kind of wounded indignance that didn't match the size of him at all, broad and intense and currently sulking with cherry juice drying on his chin like a man personally wronged by dessert and rejection in the same five minutes. you almost laughed. you didn't let yourself.

he seemed to catch himself, the huffiness smoothing over fast into something more deliberate, his voice dropping into the lower, coaxing register he'd been trying out on you for weeks now, the one that was supposed to be charming. "you can call me dex," he said, like it was a gift, like the name was the thing standing between your twelve no's and a yes. "everyone who actually knows me calls me dex."

you looked at him for a long moment, at the crumb still sitting forgotten on his chin, the smear of red at the corner of his mouth, the expectant look underneath all of it like he'd just handed you something significant.

"get out of my kitchen, dex," you said, "and go run your three michelin stars somewhere that isn't my flat top," and you turned back to the pass without waiting to see his face do whatever it was about to do, because the next ticket was already up and the kitchen didn't stop running just because a man with cherry on his chin wanted to be looked at a little longer.

you didn't see him leave. you were three motions into building the next plate, sauce going down in a slow ribbon, when you heard the kitchen door swing shut behind you, and somewhere past it, you imagined, though you'd never admit to imagining it, the particular satisfied smirk of a man who'd just gotten exactly the kind of no he intended to keep coming back for.

he didn't come back the next week.

he came back two weeks later, expecting you, the way he'd started expecting you without ever quite admitting that's what the visits had become. you weren't there. you were three miles away under a blanket that smelled like the menthol rub you'd dug out of the bathroom cabinet, a thermometer somewhere in the sheets reading a number you weren't currently sober enough with fever to do math on. on a night when you had called out sick and the new hire marv had brought on the week before, a kid barely out of culinary school with more confidence than actual hands, was running your station because marv, predictably, had not thought to call anyone better. 

he ordered the duck. the same duck, eighteen dollars, the one dish on the laminated menu that pretended at ambition, and the kid took the ticket and did his best, which was not good enough, not even close, because three weeks of watching you work from the next station over was not the same as actually knowing the pan's hot spot or the exact hiss that told you the fat was rendering clean. he scored the skin too shallow. he panicked at the heat and pulled the breast early, leaving it underrendered and pale in patches, the kind of mistake that announced itself the second a knife went through it. he reached for the bottled balsamic glaze in the walk-in instead of building the gastrique, because nobody had taught him the gastrique, because the gastrique had never been written down anywhere, existing only in your hands and your memory and the muscle of having made it a hundred times.

the waitress said the kitchen door swung open with more force than a swinging door usually got, his voice low and controlled in the way that meant he was furious and had decided fury would land harder quiet than loud. 

"where is she." 

the kid actually stammered, spatula still in hand, duck breast sitting wrong and pale on the cutting board behind him, and marv came scrambling out of the office with the particular panic of a man who smelled a complaint forming and wanted to intercept it before it reached him. "sir, if there's an issue with the dish, i can absolutely—"

"i'm not talking to you," he said, not even looking at marv, his eyes scanning the kitchen with a focus that found nothing, no flour dusted forearm, no familiar shape at the flat top, just the kid and the empty station and the duct taped ladle hanging dead still on its hook.

"she's out sick," the kid said, fast, like getting the sentence out quickly might make the next thing land softer. "she's been out a few days."

something moved across his face that the waitress couldn't fully name when she told you about it later, something that looked less like the irritation he usually wore at being inconvenienced and more like a man rethinking his entire life. he looked at the duck again, the pale patches of skin, the bottled glaze pooling thin and wrong against the celery root, and pushed the plate an inch away from himself like it had personally disappointed him on a level past the food itself. 

"that's not her food," he said, to the kid, to marv, to the kitchen in general, gesturing at the plate without looking at it again, like he'd diagnosed the problem the second the fork went in and didn't need a second bite to confirm it. "the skin's wrong. the sauce is wrong. that's not how she does it."

"it's the same recipe," marv said, baffled, defensive, the way he got whenever anyone suggested the kitchen ran on more than just his oversight.

he didn't bother answering that. he stood there a second too long looking at the empty station, the bowl that didn't match any other bowl, the rag hanging off the hook where you usually kept it tucked into your apron, like the absence of you had a physical shape he could direct his frustration at, and then he asked, in a voice that had lost some of its usual control, whether you were okay, whether anyone had checked, whether the restaurant had any actual way of knowing if you needed something, and the waitress, watching from the floor, said it was the first time she'd seen him sound less like a man being denied something and more like one who'd just realized denial wasn't actually the thing bothering him. 

he left without finishing his sentence, the duck untouched on the counter, the door swinging shut hard enough to rattle the order wheel, and the waitress called you the second he was gone, and you picked up on the second ring, voice thick and nasal, propped against your pillows with the tv murmuring something you weren't watching.

"okay, so," she said, "i need to tell you what just happened, because i don't think he's okay."

you'd been back three days when the waitress leaned through the kitchen doorway with the specific look she'd started reserving just for this, eyebrows up, voice pitched low like she was reporting a weather event. "he's back," she said. "table by the window. same as every week apparently, she said he hasn't missed one since you were out."

you set down the knife mid prep, wiping your hands on the rag tucked into your apron string, and walked out through the swinging door instead of waiting for him to wander in uninvited the way he usually did, because you'd decided somewhere over the last three days, half delirious with fever and bored out of your mind, that you were tired of him treating your kitchen like an extension of his own.

he was sitting at the same table he always sat at, even though nothing about this restaurant assigned tables to anyone, posture too sharp for a place with sticky laminated menus and water glasses that didn't match, and when he saw you walking toward him something shifted fast across his face, relief arriving a half second before he visibly decided not to let it show.

"what do you want," you said, stopping at his table with your arms crossed, still in your apron, flour ghosted along one forearm.

he didn't answer that directly. instead he sat back slightly, jaw working, and said, "where were you," with a clipped edge that didn't quite cover the thing underneath it.

"sick," you said. "that's generally why people stay home."

"for two weeks."

"for as long as it took to stop being contagious and useless, yes."

he exhaled through his nose, a short frustrated huff, the same one you'd started recognizing as the sound he made when something hadn't gone according to whatever internal schedule he kept for the world. "you could have said something."

"i don't owe you an itinerary of my immune system," you said, though something in his voice, the actual edge of worry buried under the irritation, kept you standing there longer than you needed to instead of turning straight back around. "i had a fever. i slept. i'm fine now, which you'd know if you weren't currently interrogating me about it like i went missing."

"you didn't answer when—" he started, then stopped himself, jaw tightening like he'd caught the sentence a half second too late, like admitting he'd been checking at all cost him something he hadn't planned on spending. he tried again, voice flattening back into something more controlled. "are you actually okay now?"

you looked at him for a second, at the genuine tightness around his eyes that didn't match the careful neutral tone he was attempting, and felt the irritation in your chest soften by some small, irritating degree you weren't ready to admit to. "i'm okay," you said. "i'm back. i'm standing in front of you instead of in bed, which i'd think would satisfy whatever this is."

"it doesn't," he said, too fast, and then looked almost annoyed at himself for saying it that plainly.

he recovered fast, the way he always did, smoothing the moment over before you could call attention to it. "i want a banana milkshake," he said, with the abrupt, unbothered confidence of a man who'd never once considered that a kitchen might not have something simply because he wanted it.

"we don't do milkshakes," you said. "this isn't that kind of menu."

"last i checked you don't do cherry crumbles either," he said, "and yet."

you gave him a long blank look, the kind that usually made line cooks apologize for things they hadn't done yet, and he held it for exactly as long as it took for the corner of his mouth to give out, his whole face splitting into a grin that looked entirely too pleased with itself, like he'd been sitting on that line since the second the waitress told him you were back.

you considered telling him no on principle, the way you'd told him no to nearly everything for three months running, but the tickets were slow, the lull stretching out wide and empty in the particular way tuesday afternoons did. "fine," you said. "but i'm doing it because i have time, not because you asked nicely."

"you've never once seen me ask anything nicely," he said, already getting up from the table, falling into step half a pace behind you as you turned back toward the kitchen, trailing you with the easy unbothered persistence of something that had decided, a while ago now, that it was simply allowed to follow you wherever you went. you didn't tell him to stop. the tickets were slow, you had time, and some small ungovernable part of you had stopped minding the sound of his footsteps behind you weeks before you were ready to admit it out loud.

the kitchen wasn't built for a man his size. you noticed it freshly every time he came back here, the way his shoulders seemed to take up more air than they should, the way he had to angle himself slightly sideways to get past the end of the pass without knocking the order wheel loose, his thighs filling out the narrow gap between the counter and the walk-in door so completely that you had to brush past him at an angle just to reach the freezer, close enough to feel the heat coming off him through your shirt.

you pulled a few overripe bananas from the bin you kept specifically for things like this, soft and dark spotted, the kind that were too far gone for the dining room but perfect for everything else, and dropped them into the blender along with a few scoops of vanilla ice cream you'd made from scratch weeks ago and frozen in a deli container, a splash of whole milk, a pinch of salt to keep it from tasting flat, a few cubes of ice to thicken it without watering it down. you didn't reach for the bottled caramel marv kept behind the bar. you'd made your own months ago and kept it in a squeeze bottle at the back of a shelf nobody else used, dark and slightly burnt at the edges of its flavor in the way that made it taste like something rather than nothing, and you drizzled a careful spiral of it around the inside of the glass before you poured anything in, so it would catch and bleed down through the milkshake as it settled instead of just sitting flat on top.

he leaned in to watch the blender work, which put him directly behind your shoulder, close enough that you could feel the solid line of his chest nearly against your back, and when the blender cut off he dipped his head down toward your ear to ask, in a voice gone low and rough in a way that had nothing to do with volume.

“what’s in your caramel that makes it smell like that?”

you felt the question land somewhere low in your spine before you'd even processed the words, a shiver you didn't manage to fully suppress, his breath warm against the side of your neck, and you hated, distantly, how easy it was for him to do that without even trying, how little effort the man actually put into being a problem.

"butter," you said, keeping your voice flatter than you felt. "sugar. patience. things you probably delegate."

"i don't delegate the things that matter," he said, still right at your ear, low enough that the kid two stations over couldn't have heard it even if he'd been listening.

you poured the milkshake into the glass slow, the caramel swirling up through the pale yellow of it in dark uneven streaks, topped it with a little more on top because presentation mattered even for spite, and turned to hand it to him, which put you face to face with him at a distance that hadn't been a problem a second ago and suddenly very much was.

he took the glass, took a long pull through the straw without breaking eye contact, and you watched his throat work as he swallowed, watched something settle into his face that you recognized now, the same unwilling stillness that came right before he gave up on performing neutrality altogether.

"well," you said, crossing your arms, refusing to be the one who looked away first. "verdict."

he didn't answer right away. he took another pull, slower this time, and then he grinned at you, slow and pleased, the exact grin of something that had just gotten exactly what it wanted and intended to make sure you knew it. he finished the milkshake in long unhurried pulls, watching you over the rim of the glass the entire time, and when he set it down, empty.

"fuck,” he groaned, voice low and rough as his lips wrapped around the straw to get up the bits of froth at the bottom. “this tastes amazing.”

you ignore how tightly you squeeze your thighs together as you huff at him and roll your eyes at his theatrics.

he started coming around more after that, not just for you, though you remained, obviously, the load bearing reason, but for the rest of the kitchen too, in his own blunt and slightly overbearing way. he learned the waitress's name within a week and used it correctly every single time, which she found genuinely shocking given how many regulars couldn't manage that after months. he learned the kid's name too, the one who still couldn't get the duck right, and instead of being cold about it the way you'd expected, he started actually giving him small corrections when he was around, low and quick, not unkind.

“here, your pan's hotter on this side, rotate sooner than you think you need to.” 

the kind of thing he clearly hadn't bothered teaching anyone in years and seemed almost surprised to find himself doing now.

he tipped absurdly. you noticed it the third time it happened and then started noticing it every time after, slipping the waitress bills that didn't match anything on the check, leaving cash for the dishwasher specifically once he found out the dish pit ran two people short most nights, the kind of generosity that wasn't loud about itself but also wasn't subtle, since everyone working there had clocked within a month that the scary intense chef who showed up constantly was, in his own way, taking better care of the staff than the man who actually owned the place.

he made no effort at all to hide what he thought of marv. he didn't bother lowering his voice anymore when marv hovered nearby trying to insert himself into conversations he had no part in, didn't temper the flat, unimpressed look he gave marv every single time marv opened his mouth about vision or curation or anything else he liked to claim credit for. once, when marv tried to take credit in front of him for a sauce you'd built entirely from scratch off your own recipe, dex had simply said, without raising his voice at all, that he found it interesting how a man who couldn't dice an onion evenly managed to develop such a confident palate, and walked away before marv could find a response, and the kitchen had gone quiet for exactly as long as it took everyone to remember they weren't supposed to laugh.

he was doing it on purpose, you knew. building something here that wasn't only about you, threading himself into the fabric of a kitchen that wasn't his, learning its people, tipping its underpaid staff, undermining its useless owner in small public ways that cost him nothing and meant something anyway, like he'd decided that if he couldn't win you over directly he'd simply make himself impossible to fully extract from the place you'd built your stubbornness around, until the idea of him leaving felt almost as strange as the idea of him never having shown up.

he asked you the next day, showing up at his usual time but ordering nothing, standing at the edge of your station with a kind of deliberate casualness that didn't quite land given how rarely he managed casual about anything.

"come see the restaurant," he said. "mine. tonight, after your shift."

"why," you said, wiping down the counter, not looking at him directly, because looking at him directly after the milkshake thing yesterday felt like it required more composure than you currently had stocked.

"because you've spent three months telling me i don't understand what you do here," he said, "and i'd like the chance to show you what i do, instead of you just imagining it from a number on a piece of paper."

"i'm not imagining three michelin stars, dex," you said, and only noticed after it was already out of your mouth that you'd used the name, easy, unthinking, no weight on it at all, and you watched something flicker across his face at the sound of it, quick and pleased and gone again before he let it show too long.

"come anyway," he said. "i want you to see it."

you went after close, still smelling faintly of the fryer no matter how many times you scrubbed your hands, and the restaurant when you walked in nearly stopped you at the door. it wasn't loud about its money the way you'd half expected, no chandeliers, no excess, just clean lines and low warm light and a kitchen visible through an actual glass pass instead of a window that needed wiping down twice a shift. the staff moved like they'd rehearsed it, quiet and precise, knives going through vegetables in clean even strokes, sauces reducing on burners that all lit on the first try, every pan free of the dents and warps you'd spent three years working around without even noticing how much extra effort it cost you.

dex walked you through it with his hand hovering near your back without quite touching, pointing things out with the same blunt confidence he used for everything, the walk-in temperature logged automatically instead of guessed at, the knives sharpened every single morning by someone whose entire job was sharpening knives, a pastry station with more equipment in it than your whole kitchen owned combined.

"this is the one i told you about," he said, to a sous chef, to a line cook, introducing you by name like you'd already been folded into the place before you'd agreed to anything, and every single person he said it to looked at you with an expression that suggested they already knew exactly who you were, which meant he'd been talking about you here for longer than the milkshake bet would explain.

"you talk about me to your staff," you said, half question, half accusation, watching him for the flicker of discomfort you expected and not finding it.

"obviously," he said, like the alternative had never once occurred to him. "you're the only interesting thing that's happened to this restaurant in two years."

"that's bleak for your restaurant."

"it's accurate," he said, and led you toward the pass, where a young cook was finishing a dish that looked, even from here, more composed than anything you'd ever sent out, every element placed with a precision that made your own plating look almost careless by comparison, and dex watched your face while you looked at it instead of watching the food himself, like your reaction mattered more to him than the dish did.

"well?" he said, after a moment, voice quieter than the kitchen noise around you required. "still think i don't understand what you do?"

"i think you understand it differently," you said, which was as close to an honest answer as you were willing to hand him tonight, and he looked, for a second, like that was enough.

"cook with them tonight," he said. "please. just see if you like it."

you looked at him for a long moment, at the careful effort in the word please, a word you weren't sure you'd heard him use even once across three months of him demanding things in every other available register, and then you looked past him at the kitchen itself, gleaming and quiet and so far removed from the warped pans and propped oven doors you'd built your whole skill set around that it felt almost like stepping into a different trade entirely.

"i don't have a jacket," you said, which wasn't a no, and you both seemed to understand that immediately.

"we have extras," he said, already moving, already pulling one off a hook by the door like he'd planned for this exact possibility days ago, which, knowing him, he probably had.

he set you up at a station next to a guy named theo who barely looked old enough to be allowed near a stove this expensive, and the produce they handed you was the kind you'd only ever seen in photographs, fish so fresh it still smelled like the ocean instead of a walk-in, herbs cut that morning from somewhere that apparently grew them specifically for this kitchen. you worked a fillet of branzino under theo's careful, slightly nervous instruction, scoring the skin with a knife so sharp it barely felt like cutting, and you found your hands adjusting almost instantly to the better tools, the burner that held its heat exactly where you set it without any hot spot to compensate for, and there was something disorienting about how easy it was, how much less fighting the actual cooking required when the equipment wasn't actively working against you.

dex appeared at your shoulder before the branzino had even finished resting, close enough that theo found a sudden urgent reason to busy himself two feet further down the line. "make me something," he said. "off menu. whatever you'd make if i gave you everything in this kitchen and no ticket to follow."

"that's a dangerous offer in a kitchen this stocked," you said, but you were already looking past him at the walk-in, already cataloguing what you'd seen on the shelves during the tour, the kind of ingredients that would have been a once a year splurge at your own restaurant sitting here in casual, replaceable abundance.

you started with a scallop, the kind so fresh it barely needed anything done to it, searing it hard and fast in a pan that held its heat so evenly you didn't have to babysit it the way you would have at home, just thirty seconds a side until the surface went deep gold and the center stayed translucent and sweet. you built a brown butter around it while it rested, swirling the butter in the same pan until it browned and smelled faintly of hazelnuts, finishing it with a spoon of capers and a fistful of fresh herbs that theo handed you without you even having to ask, parsley and chive and something slightly bitter you didn't recognize until you tasted it and realized it was a varietal you'd never had access to before. you found a lemon that hadn't gone soft at one end the way every lemon in your own walk-in eventually did, zesting it directly over the pan at the last second so the oil hit the hot butter and bloomed instantly into something brighter than anything bottled could manage.

you plated the scallop simply, a smear of pea puree underneath that you'd thinned with a little of the pasta water theo had going for another order, the scallop set on top, the brown butter spooned around it in a loose pool, a few of the bitter herb leaves scattered across, a last scrape of lemon zest finishing it. it took you four minutes total, less time than it usually took you to talk yourself into starting something new, and you realized somewhere in the middle of it that your hands had stopped fighting the kitchen entirely, moving the way they only moved when you weren't thinking about the equipment at all anymore, just the food.

you set the plate down in front of him without ceremony, the way you always did, and watched him pick up the fork with none of the evaluative slowness he usually performed for you, going straight for it like a man who'd stopped pretending skepticism was required.

he ate it in two bites, longer than the dish probably deserved given how little there was, and when he set the fork down his face had gone through that same unwilling stillness you'd learned to watch for weeks ago, except slower this time, more thorough, like the scallop had managed something the duck and the risotto and the cherry crumble combined hadn't quite reached.

"four minutes," he said, like he didn't fully believe it even though he'd watched the whole thing happen. "you built that in four minutes."

"better tools," you said, echoing yourself from earlier, watching him carefully. "still figuring out the kitchen."

"the kitchen would take you four minutes to win over too, if you let it," he said, and there was something underneath the usual confidence this time, something quieter and more honest, like he wasn't only talking about the room anymore, and you didn't have an easy answer ready for that, which had started, lately, to happen more often than you were entirely comfortable with.

he set the plate down in front of him without ceremony, the way you always did, and watched him pick up the fork with none of the evaluative slowness he usually performed for you, going straight for it like a man who'd stopped pretending skepticism was required.

he ate it in two bites, longer than the dish probably deserved given how little there was, and then he sat with it for a second, jaw working, eyes narrowed slightly the way they did when he was running something through whatever exacting internal system he used to sort the world into correct and incorrect.

"the sear's uneven," he said.

you blinked at him. "it's not uneven."

"it's marginally uneven. the left edge caught about four seconds before the right did." he said it the way other people commented on the weather, no heat in it, just fact, already turning the plate a few degrees like the angle had personally offended him. "your pan's hotter on that side."

"your pan," you corrected. "i don't own this stove."

"i'm aware it's my pan," he said, like that made the flaw worse rather than better, picking the fork back up anyway to finish what was left, scraping the last of the brown butter across the plate with a kind of compulsive thoroughness, making sure nothing got left behind, lining the smear up almost symmetrically before he set the fork down a final time, angled exactly parallel to the edge of the plate. "i'm going to have that burner serviced tomorrow."

"because of a scallop."

"because of an inconsistency," he said, like the distinction mattered enormously and you were being deliberately slow not to see it. "i don't like inconsistencies in my own kitchen. it's the entire reason i have a pastry station that runs on a service contract and a sous chef who recalibrates the ovens monthly. four minutes and you still found the one flaw in my equipment that nobody else here has bothered to flag in two years."

"i wasn't trying to audit your stove, dex."

"well, you did," he said, and there was something almost wounded in it, the same petulant edge you'd heard the night of the cherry crumble, a man genuinely struggling with the unfairness of being both impressed and slightly humiliated in the same sixty seconds. "four minutes. you built that better than half the dishes on my tasting menu, on a burner you'd never touched before, and the one thing wrong with it was something i did, not something you did."

"that's not what i said."

"it's what's true," he said, flatly, like correcting himself was a separate, more important task than the conversation itself. he exhaled hard through his nose, the same short frustrated huff you'd catalogued weeks ago, dragging a hand back through his hair like the whole exchange had cost him something structural. "i offer you a kitchen with a service contract and ingredients flown in twice a week and you spend four minutes proving you don't actually need any of it, and somehow i still end up the one feeling like i lost."

"nobody said you lost."

"i know what losing feels like," he said, dark and certain, "i don't like it, and i particularly don't like it from a scallop," and the sheer aggrieved specificity of that sentence, the absolute conviction in his voice, made something in your chest go warm and unwilling all at once, because for a man with three stars and a service contract for his ovens, he sounded, in that exact moment, genuinely undone by a four minute dish you'd built mostly out of muscle memory and spite.

he’s silent as he stands up, undoes your jacket for you, grabs your hand and walks out without a word.

he walked you back, hand loose around yours the entire way, the night gone quiet and cool around you both, and when you reached the restaurant he didn't let go right away, standing there under the buzzing sign.

"i want to say something," he said, "and i want you to hear all of it before you say no, because i think you're going to want to say no immediately and i'd like sixty seconds before that happens."

"that's an ominous way to start."

"i want to buy this place," he said.

you went very still. "dex—"

"sixty seconds," he said, holding up a hand, and you let him have it, mostly out of disbelief. "not to gut it. not to turn it into something else with my name on the door. i don't want your kitchen, i told you that already and i meant it. i want marv gone. i want the walk-in fixed and the ovens that actually hold their temperature and a ladle that isn't held together with duct tape, and i want every single person currently working here to keep their job, with better pay, under someone who isn't a coward who steals credit. and i want you to run it. not me. you. your menu, your hires, your name on whatever you decide to call it. i'll be the money behind it and nothing else, if that's what it takes for you to say yes."

you stared at him for a long moment, the offer settling slow, nothing like the easy clean recruitment pitch he'd opened with months ago, nothing about a station with your name on a door that belonged to him. "you've thought about this."

"i've thought about very little else for two weeks," he admitted, and there was no smugness in it this time, just something plain and slightly unsteady. "i watched a kid ruin a duck breast twice because nobody ever wrote down how you do it, and i thought about how much you've built out of equipment that's actively failing you, and i couldn't stop thinking that you've spent three years protecting people from a man who doesn't deserve to be protected from accountability."

"and if i say no," you said. "if i tell you i don't want your money in my kitchen any more than i wanted a job in yours."

"then i walk away from the offer and keep showing up for your dishes." he said, simply. "i'm not buying it to win something from you. i'm telling you because i think you'd never forgive me if i did it behind your back, and i'd rather you be furious at me to my face for asking than furious at me later for not asking at all."

you thought about the waitress with the kid at home, the dishwasher whose job depended on nobody looking too closely, the line cook who'd never once been taught the gastrique because nothing here had ever been written down, all of it balanced for years against a stubbornness you'd built so carefully you'd nearly forgotten it was a choice rather than a fact about you.

"i want final say on everyone we keep," you said slowly, testing the shape of agreeing to something instead of refusing it for the first time in twelve weeks. "i want the menu to stay mine, not michelin, not yours. and i want you to actually disappear once it's done, not hover."

"i'm extremely bad at disappearing," he said, shrugging at his own inability to leave you alone, "but i'll work on it," and the grin that followed was different from the ones you'd catalogued before, less satisfied, more honestly relieved, like a man who'd finally gotten a yes he hadn't been sure was coming and didn't quite know what to do with the size of it yet.

he showed up at your apartment three days later, no warning, no text first, which should have annoyed you more than it did given how many times you'd told him texting first was a normal thing normal people did. he had a folder under one arm, plain and unceremonious, and when you opened the door he held it out before you'd even said anything, like the handoff needed to happen before either of you could get distracted by anything else.

"the deed," he said. "to the building. not just the restaurant lease, the whole building. it's in your name. only your name. i had the lawyers triple check that part because i know exactly what you'd assume otherwise."

you took the folder, flipping it open enough to see your own name printed clean across the top of the first page, no trace of his anywhere in it, and something in your chest went tight and warm and slightly disbelieving all at once. "dex."

"i don't want to own anything you're standing inside of," he said, simply. "i told you that the first night. i meant the building too, once i thought about it properly. you should own the walls along with everything inside them."

you looked up at him standing there in your hallway, broad and slightly too big for the doorway the way he always seemed too big for spaces that weren't built with him in mind, holding himself with none of the careful confidence he wore everywhere else, like he genuinely wasn't sure how this particular gesture would land and was bracing for whichever way it went.

you didn't give him time to brace for long. you set the folder down on the side table without looking where it landed and closed the distance instead, rising up to kiss him before he'd finished whatever sentence he might have been building to follow it with, and he made a low surprised sound against your mouth before his hands came up to your waist, steadying, like he hadn't quite let himself expect this even after everything.

"that's a yes, then," he said, when you finally pulled back enough to breathe, voice rough, that same unsteady relief from days ago bleeding through again.

"that's a get inside before i change my mind," you said, already pulling him by the front of his shirt over the threshold, kicking the door shut behind him with your foot, and he laughed, low and surprised and entirely unguarded.

you yanked him inside by the shirt and the door slammed shut behind you both. dex’s back hit the wall hard, your fist still twisted in the fabric, and he didn’t resist. his mouth crashed into yours before either of you could speak again; wet, hungry, teeth clacking. he kissed like he was starving, tongue pushing past your lips, one big hand already sliding down to grab your ass and haul you flush against the thick line of his cock straining in his pants.

“fuck, finally,” he growled against your mouth, voice low and filthy. “been thinking about you since the first time i ate in that ugly fucking resturant.”

you shoved dex hard toward the couch and he went willingly, that low dark laugh rumbling out of him as he dropped down and spread his thick thighs wide. you stripped in a rush; shirt, bra, jeans, and panties until nothing was left and you were climbing straight into his lap. his rough palms were already everywhere, sliding up your ribs to squeeze your tits, thumbs flicking over your nipples until you gasped into the next kiss.

dex’s mouth dragged down your throat, sucking marks into your skin. “gonna leave these all over you,” he muttered against the swell of one breast before biting down. “want the whole kitchen to know you let the chef between your legs.”

you ground down on the thick bulge in his pants and he groaned, hips jerking up. “get these off,” you ordered, already tugging at his belt. he helped, shoving his pants and boxers down just far enough for his cock to spring free—thick, flushed, already leaking at the tip.

instead of letting you ride him, dex flipped you onto your back on the narrow cushions. he grabbed both your wrists in one hand and yanked his belt free, the leather hissing as he looped it around your wrists and cinched them tight above your head. “keep those right there,” he said, voice rough. “you move and i stop.”

he dropped between your spread thighs and buried his face in your cunt without warning. his tongue dragged up your slit in one long, obscene lick, then he sucked your clit hard, wet sounds filling the small room. you moaned, hips twitching, and he laughed against you, the vibrations making your thighs shake.

“listen to that,” he said, pulling back just enough, lips shiny. “so fucking wet already. this pussy’s been waiting for me, hasn’t it? bet you touched yourself thinking about my mouth while you were sick.” he shoved two fingers inside you without waiting, curling them hard against that spot that made your back arch. his tongue went back to work, licking and sucking, noisy and relentless.

you tried to close your legs but he pinned one thigh open with his free hand, fingers digging in. “nah. you take it. gonna make you come until you’re crying.” he pumped his fingers faster, tongue flicking your clit in tight circles, the obscene squelch of your pussy loud in the air. every time you got close he eased off just enough to keep you hovering, then dove back in harder.

“dex fuck– please–” you whined, hips rolling up against his mouth.

“please what?” he taunted, voice muffled against your cunt. “want me to stop? or want me to ruin this pretty pussy so you can’t think straight tomorrow?” he sucked your clit between his lips and shook his head side to side, fingers never slowing. your first orgasm hit like a punch—thighs clamping around his head, a broken cry tearing out of you. he didn’t stop. kept licking through it, slower now but still insistent, fingers still working inside you.

“too much,” you gasped, wrists straining against the belt, hips jerking.

“bullshit,” he said, voice dark with amusement. “you can take more. this cunt’s greedy.” he added a third finger, stretching you, and went back to sucking your clit with wet, filthy noises. your second orgasm crashed over you faster, harder, your whole body jerking as you sobbed his name.

he groaned like it was the best thing he’d ever heard and suddenly his hips were jerking against the couch. thick ropes of cum spilled from his cock untouched, splattering across his stomach and the cushions while he kept his mouth locked on your pussy, tongue still working you through it. he moaned into your cunt, the sound vibrating through you as he came just from eating you out.

when he finally pulled his mouth off you, wiping his chin on your thigh, his cock was still twitching, still half-hard and messy. “look at the mess you made,” he said, dragging his fingers through your soaked folds and holding them up so you could see them glisten. “fuck… i could never replicate the taste of this sweet cunt in my kitchen. i want to collect every drop of you and make it a fucking glaze.”

he leaned in again, tongue dragging slowly over your oversensitive clit, and you whined, hips twitching up toward his mouth. “dex—please—i need you inside me—”

“yeah?” he teased, voice low and rough. “begging already? keep those hips moving like that and i might just give you what you want.” he licked another slow stripe up your slit, eyes locked on yours. “tell me how bad you want this cock while your wrists are still tied. let me hear it.”

you whined, hips rolling up toward his mouth even though your clit throbbed from overstimulation. "dex please! fuck me– i need your cock. shove it in me, fill me up, i can't take it anymore–"

he chuckled against your thigh, tongue giving one last lazy lick before he pulled back. "that so?" he wiped his chin on your skin again, eyes dark and hungry.

then you saw it. the thick streaks of cum smeared across his stomach and the couch cushions. your eyes flicked from the mess to his still-twitching cock, half-hard and glistening.

"wait." a shaky laugh slipped out of you. "you came already? untouched? just from eating my pussy? that's fucking pathetic, dex."

his gaze snapped up, sharp and heated. the glare hit you hard, but there was no real anger behind it, just raw, horny amusement twisting his mouth into a smirk. he didn't bother denying it. instead he shoved his pants the rest of the way off, leaned back against the couch, and spread his thighs wide again.

"get over here," he ordered, voice low and rough. "now."

you climbed into his lap with a great struggle, wrists still bound above your head. he gripped your hips hard, guiding you down until the fat head of his cock nudged your soaked entrance. you sank onto him with a broken moan, taking every thick inch until your ass met his thighs. he groaned, head tipping back against the cushions, fingers digging bruises into your skin.

"ride my cock, pretty baby" the grin on his face made you clench around his cock in rhythmic pulses, making his eyebrows crease, "move those hips, show me how bad you want it after all that begging."

you started rolling your hips, slow at first, then faster, grinding down to take him deep. every thrust made wet sounds fill the room. your tits bounced with the motion and he leaned forward to suck one nipple into his mouth, teeth scraping just enough to make you gasp.

"fuck dex." you whined, hips snapping down harder. "feels so good– please don't stop.."

he slapped your ass once, sharp and loud. "keep talking. keep begging while you fuck yourself on my cock. let me hear every filthy word." he thrust up to meet you, driving deeper, making your whole body jolt. "that's it, c’mon, ride me like you mean it."

you kept riding him hard, thighs already trembling from the effort, but dex's hands clamped tighter on your hips, forcing you down to take every inch. "fuck—keep going,” he begged as he thrusted up to meet you. "don't you dare slow down."

your moans turned into broken whines as he reached between you, thumb grinding against your swollen clit with every bounce. the overstimulation hit fast, your pussy clenching around his cock, walls fluttering from the relentless pressure. "dex– too much– i can't–"

"yes you can," he groaned, holding onto each cheek as he bounced you on his cock. "come on, soak my cock for me baby."

your third orgasm crashed through you, thighs shaking violently as you cried out, hips jerking uncontrollably. your cunt pulsed and gushed around him, juices dripping down his shaft and balls. he practically whined, eyes rolling back, and you felt him swell inside you with another load, his cock pumping deep as hot cum flooded your pussy in thick spurts. making his cock twitching as he filled you until it leaked out around his base.

he didn't stop even after cumming, dex kept rubbing your clit, forcing another wave of overstimulation. your body convulsed, thighs quaking so hard you could barely stay upright, bound wrists pulling against the belt. "ple– it– it’s too mu– much—"

he finally eased off, pulling you down against his chest. his cock stayed buried inside your cum-filled pussy as he softened, pressing gentle kisses along your neck, jaw, and face. soft touches replaced the roughness; lips brushing your temple, fingers stroking your back.

he stayed there, breathing hard, forehead pressed to yours, still half-hard and twitching. after a moment he reached up and loosened the belt, rubbing your wrists gently where the leather had bitten in.

"still turning me down?" he asked, voice low and teasing now, the filthy edge gone.

you smiled, lazy and wrecked as you sunk into his embrace while he loosened his belt from around your wrists, "ask me again tomorrow."

— end

[i00que]

002 . PROJECT── BETHELVERSE / IS THAT WADE OR PADDINGTON BEAR?

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NOTES : you decide that neither you nor wade should have to live out of your near empty apartment; so you take him out into central london. its going well until you get on the bus to go home and catastrophy strikes.

WARNINGS : alternate universe, no power, reverse isekai, reader-insert (no y/n,) character study, angst, stress, anxiety, multifandom, wilson bethel characters, 'soulmates,' age gaps, reverse-harem, morally grey characters, angst with humour, domestic bliss, identity crisis, emotional damage, forced proximity (technically,) slow burn, jealousy issues, everyone is bad at feelings, set in london, amnesia theory, competence kink, 'identity regression,' vehicular accidents.

CEO NOTES : i'm so sorry that this has been delayed, the heatwave in the uk has been absolutely inhumane and my dog was very, very poorly. thank you everyone for your support, i hope you enjoy!

CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL ── 18+ ONLY.

the smell hits you before you are even fully out of your room, butter and something faintly burnt at the edges, and you come down the hall already half awake, already in yesterday's t-shirt with your hair doing something you have not yet confronted in a mirror, already entirely unprepared for whatever is producing that smell, and you stop completely in the doorway of your own kitchen because what is producing that smell is wade kinsella, standing at your stove with his back mostly to you, shirtless, making an omelette with the unhurried competence of a man who has done this exact thing in this exact way several thousand times in a kitchen that was not yours.

he is wearing yesterday's jeans and nothing else, and the grey november light coming through the window above the sink is doing him absolutely no disservice, catching along his shoulders and down the line of his back, the kind of light that should by all rights be unflattering at this hour and is, infuriatingly, not, and the flannel shirt is folded with surprising care over the back of the kitchen chair, which means at some point between last night and this morning he has also located and successfully operated your washing machine, a fact that registers somewhere in the back of your mind as a problem for later because right now your mind does not have room for anything except the immediate and overwhelming fact of him standing there, spatula in hand, entirely at ease, as though a half-dressed man cooking breakfast in a stranger's kitchen were the most unremarkable thing in the world.

"what are you doing?" comes out of you flatter than intended, more bewildered than the question probably warranted, because the actual answer is obvious, he is making an omelette, you can see that he is making an omelette, what you actually mean is something closer to why are you like this and why is this happening in my kitchen at whatever hour it currently is and why am i finding it so difficult to form a complete sentence.

he turns his head without turning the rest of him, unhurried, the spatula still moving in the pan with the casual competence of muscle memory, and the grin that arrives on his face is slow and warm and entirely unbothered, the grin of a man who has clearly never once in his life questioned whether being shirtless in someone's kitchen required an explanation.

"mornin'," he says. "there's coffee there for you."

you do not move from the doorway. you are aware that you are staring, properly staring, the kind of staring you would have judged a stranger for doing at your bar, and you cannot seem to make yourself stop or look away or do anything other than stand there processing the full and uninvited reality of him in your kitchen in this state at this hour with this much ease.

"there's coffee," you repeat, slowly, as though saying it back to him will somehow make the rest of the situation make more sense, "and you're not wearing a shirt."

"didn't want to get it dirty." he says, nodding toward the flannel folded over the chair with the easy logic of a man who has clearly thought this through exactly as much as he is going to and considers the matter closed, and he turns back to the pan, tilting it slightly, sliding the omelette toward the edge with the kind of small unconscious flourish that tells you this is not the first omelette he has ever made and will not be the last, and you remain in the doorway, coffee mug entirely forgotten on the counter, trying to locate the part of your brain that was supposed to be in charge of saying something normal back.

you make it as far as the counter, mostly because the coffee is there and you need something to do with your hands that is not standing in the doorway being visibly undone by a man making breakfast, and in the act of reaching for the mug you let your eyes do the thing you have been very deliberately not letting them do since you walked in, take the whole of him in properly, the broad set of his shoulders narrowing down into a back that moves easily with whatever he is doing to that pan, the kind of build that does not come from a gym membership and a routine but from actual physical work, years of it, lifting and hauling and fixing things with his hands the way he has been doing in your flat since the moment he arrived, and there is a faint old scar along one shoulder blade that you notice and then immediately tell yourself you did not notice, and his stomach, when he half turns toward the counter for the salt, is not the kind of stomach built for a magazine cover, it is just solidly, unselfconsciously there, the soft trail of hair leading down past the waistband of yesterday's jeans, the whole of him put together like someone who has spent his life doing rather than posing, and you are still looking, you realise, a beat too long, exactly the moment he turns properly and catches your wrist.

before you can pull back he has flattened your palm against his stomach, right against the warm solid plane of it, skin and muscle shifting slightly under your hand as he holds it there, and you have approximately one full second to register the heat of him, the actual physical fact of him, before your brain catches up with your dignity and you snatch your hand back so fast you nearly send the mug off the counter doing it.

"what," you say, "the hell."

he is laughing now, properly laughing, the kind that comes up out of him easy and unguarded, his whole chest moving with it, watching you stand there with your hand pulled back against yourself like it has been burned, and there is not a single ounce of remorse anywhere in his face.

"whaaat," he says, drawing it out, all wide-eyed innocence that fools absolutely nobody, "your hands looked cold. i was helpin'."

"you were not helping."

"i was bein' a gentleman."

"a gentleman does not grab a woman's hand and put it on his stomach at eight in the morning."

"a gentleman in bluebell does exactly that," he says, turning back to the stove with the deeply satisfied air of a man who has gotten precisely the reaction he was hoping for, the muscles along his back shifting easily as he tilts the pan, "if her hands are cold and there's a solution right there available to her."

"there is a heater," you say. "there is a kettle. there are several solutions in this flat that do not involve your stomach."

"none of 'em as effective," he says, sliding the omelette onto a plate with a small flourish, and he turns around holding it out toward you, the picture of innocence, shirtless and entirely unbothered by it, the grin not having dimmed even slightly, and you take the plate because you are hungry and because taking it means you do not have to look directly at him for a second, which you very much need.

"sit down," he says. "eat your breakfast."

"i'm not sitting anywhere near you."

"you're gonna have to eventually," he says, entirely unbothered, already turning back to crack two more eggs into the bowl for his own, the easy stretch of him reaching for the carton on the top shelf doing nothing whatsoever to help your case. "it's a small flat."

you take the plate to the table and sit down at the far end of it, putting as much distance between the two of you as the furniture will allow, and you can feel him grinning at your back the entire time without even having to turn around and check.

he finishes his own omelette in the pan with the same unhurried ease he did everything else this morning and then crosses the kitchen with his plate, and instead of taking the chair at the far end where you have very deliberately positioned yourself, he sits right beside you, close enough that the broadness of his shoulder fills the edge of your vision, close enough that you can feel the heat coming off him in slow steady waves, the particular warmth of a body that runs hotter than yours and has spent the morning standing over a stove, and you have to actively resist the urge to shift your chair another six inches away because shifting your chair would mean admitting why you wanted to.

you huff, a short irritated breath through your nose, and you focus very hard on your eggs.

he eats beside you in comfortable silence for a few minutes, apparently unbothered by the amount of space he is taking up or the effect it is having, and you eat too, faster than necessary, the eggs disappearing in the specific determined way of someone trying to finish a task so they can leave the room it is happening in.

"i've got errands today," you say, eventually, mostly to the plate.

"yeah?" he says, immediately interested, turning slightly toward you, and you can feel the shift in his attention like a change in temperature. "what kind."

"shopping. you need clothes, you can't keep wearing the same shirt every day."

"i'm not arguin' with that," he says, and then, without any pause at all, with the immediate hopeful momentum of a man who has been waiting for exactly this opening, "i'll come with you."

"no."

"why not."

"because you're wilson bethel's exact double and i am not walking you through primark like a tourist attraction."

"i'll wear somethin'," he says. "a hat. you got a hat? i'll wear a hat."

"that is not the point."

"i'm goin' out of my mind in here," he says, and there is something underneath the cheerfulness now, something a little more honest, the same restlessness from yesterday morning, the man who told you he was not built for doing nothing and meant it. "i've fixed every loose thing in this flat twice over. i need to be somewhere that isn't these four walls for an hour, even if i've gotta wear a hat to do it."

he looks at you with the specific open hopefulness of someone who knows he is asking for something slightly unreasonable and is asking anyway, his whole face tilted toward you, easy and eager in a way that is almost, infuriatingly, like being looked at by a dog that has worked out exactly which look gets it taken on the walk, and you sit there with your fork halfway to your mouth and you think about the practical disaster of taking him anywhere in public, and you also think about the fact that he has not been outside in two days, and you put the fork down.

"fine," you say. "but you do exactly what i tell you."

the grin that breaks across his face is immediate and enormous, entirely undignified, nothing held back about it at all. "yes ma'am," he says, already pushing back from the table like the conversation might somehow be reversed if he does not move fast enough.

"sunglasses," you say. "a hat. and if anyone says anything to you, you smile and you keep walking."

you’re sure there is enough weirdo’s in london who are wearing sunglasses and a hat in november.

"yes ma'am," he says again, practically vibrating with it, and you watch him go to retrieve the flannel shirt from the back of the chair, and you think, not for the first time this morning, that you are going to regret this, and you eat the rest of your eggs anyway.

you go to your room to get ready properly, the actual getting ready rather than the thrown-together version from yesterday morning, and you are not three minutes into it before you hear the door push open and feel the dip of the mattress behind you, and you turn around to find wade sitting on the edge of your bed with his elbows braced behind him, completely at home, watching you with the unhurried interest of a man settling in for something.

"do you mind." you huff, holding the mascara wand an inch from your eye.

"not even a little." he says with a wide, toothy grin.

you decide it is not worth the argument and turn back to the mirror, tying your hair up first, the quick practiced motion of it, and then starting on your face, and you can feel his eyes on you the whole time, not invasive exactly, just present, steady, the attention of someone who has nowhere better to be and has decided this is where he wants to be instead.

like a determined and annoying dog.

you have the mascara wand halfway to your lashes when he says, easy and unprompted, "your eyes are real pretty."

your hand jerks and the wand catches you wrong, a black smear landing clean across your forehead instead of anywhere near your eye, and you stare at your own reflection in the mirror, mascara streaked above your eyebrow, and you whip around to look at him.

he is grinning. the full grin, unrepentant, watching you with a face that announces no remorse whatsoever and has quite a lot of satisfaction.

"you did that on purpose.” 

"i did not," he says, entirely too pleased with himself for that to be believable. "i just said a true thing at a inconvenient time. wasn't my fault your hand ain’t steady."

you wipe at your forehead with the back of your wrist, smearing it worse before you find a tissue and actually deal with it properly, glaring at him in the mirror the entire time, and he does not look even slightly chastened, just keeps watching you with his elbows on the mattress and his legs stretched out, settled in like the show is only just getting started.

you finish your face and grab your clothes off the chair and turn to face him properly, one eyebrow raised, the universal and unmistakable signal for get out so, and he doesn’t budge an inch..

"out." you say, pointing a finger at the door.

he settles back further onto his elbows instead, getting comfortable, and the grin tips into something slower, warmer, deliberately unbothered. "i got somethin' better to watch now, don't i."

"wade."

"just sayin'."

"i will burn your flannel shirt," you say, "and you will go outside today in nothing but a hat and sunglasses, and that will be entirely your own fault."

that gets him moving. he is up off the bed laughing, properly laughing, hands raised in surrender as he backs toward the door, "alright, alright, i'm goin'," and he is still laughing as he pulls the door shut behind him, and you stand there for a second with your clothes in your arms before letting out a heavy sigh, and then you get changed in something that might generously be called peace.

you go through to the bathroom afterward, toothbrush in hand, and you are not even halfway through wetting it before you hear the door open behind you and turn to find wade settling himself onto the closed toilet seat like it is the most natural perch in the world, elbows on his knees, watching you with the same unhurried attention as before.

"do you ever knock," you say, around the toothbrush.

"didn't see the point," he says. "door was open."

you decide, again, that the argument is not worth having, and you turn back to the mirror and start brushing, and you can feel him watching you do that too, which should not be as strange as it is, and you are halfway through when you hear him get up, and a moment later he is standing right behind you, close enough that you can feel the warmth of him at your back, and he reaches past your shoulder into the cup by the sink and pulls out the spare toothbrush, the one you keep for guests that has never actually been used by a guest until this exact moment.

he wets it. he puts toothpaste on it. and then he settles in next to you, shoulder to shoulder in the cramped little bathroom, and starts brushing his own teeth in the mirror right alongside you, like this is something the two of you do every morning, like it is not nearly as ridiculous as it objectively is.

you stop brushing for a second and just look at him in the mirror, toothbrush still in his mouth, completely unbothered, brushing away like he has done this in this exact bathroom a hundred times before.

"what are you doing," you say, the words coming out slightly garbled around your own toothbrush.

he takes his out for a second. "brushin' my teeth."

"i can see that. why are you doing it right now, right here, next to me."

"seemed like the thing to do," he says, with a shrug, and puts the toothbrush back in, and goes back to it, completely at ease, his bare shoulder bumping yours gently in the small space, the mirror showing the two of you standing there together like some kind of absurd domestic scene out of a film you would roll your eyes at if you saw it happen to anyone else.

you look at the two of you in the mirror for a long moment, him grinning around a mouthful of foam, you with the last traces of mascara cleaned off your forehead, and you think, not for the first time this morning, that this is deeply ridiculous, and you also do not move away, and you finish brushing your teeth standing exactly where you are.

you go to the cupboard for the hat and the sunglasses, already knowing without having to check that he has followed you, and sure enough by the time you turn around he has settled himself on the edge of your bed again, legs spread slightly, watching you with the same easy expectant patience he has had all morning.

you hold the hat out to him.

he looks at it like you have personally offended him.

"that's not gonna match my outfit," he says, gesturing down at himself, at the same flannel shirt he has now worn three days running, the single outfit he currently owns in its entirety.

"you don't have an outfit," you say. "you have one shirt and the jeans you arrived in."

"there's always an aesthetic to protect," he says, but he is grinning while he says it, clearly enjoying himself far more than the bit deserves, and he makes no move to take the hat from your outstretched hand, just looks at it, then at you, waiting.

you sigh, the long-suffering kind, and you step in between his knees because he is not going to take it himself and you do not have the patience to stand here negotiating with a grown man over a baseball cap, and you reach up and settle it onto his head properly, adjusting the brim with both hands, and he goes very still and very quiet while you do it, watching you with an expression that has lost some of its usual cheek, something steadier underneath it now that you are this close.

his hands come up, not to stop you, just to rest loosely on either side of you, and as you tug the brim down to a better angle you feel his fingers brush against the outside of your thigh, light, almost accidental, the kind of touch that could be nothing at all except for the way his hand stays there a half second longer than it needs to.

you step back the moment you register it, faster than the hat adjustment strictly required, and you hand him the sunglasses without quite meeting his eyes.

"there," you say. "put those on too."

he takes them, slower than before, and slides them on, and looks up at you from underneath the brim of the cap with an expression you cannot fully read behind the dark lenses, and he does not say anything clever this time, which is somehow more unsettling than if he had.

which only lasts for a moment.

"do i look pretty enough for the party?” wade’s grin couldn't be less cheesy and more proud as he looked up at you with his face covered.

"ridiculous," you shake your head as you walk out of your bedroom, grab your keys and wait for wade to follow after. "let's go."

the flat is quiet behind you as you lock up, and wade falls into step beside you on the stairs, the hat and the sunglasses sitting on him with all the subtlety of a man trying very hard not to look like he is trying very hard, and you decide, somewhere around the second flight, not to think too closely about how well it actually works, because right now it just needs to get the two of you out of the building without anyone stopping to ask questions.

outside, the cold hits properly, the kind that finds its way into your collar within the first ten seconds, and wade makes a small involuntary sound beside you, somewhere between a hiss and a complaint, his shoulders coming up toward his ears.

"it's cold," he says, like this is new information rather than the entire reason today's errand exists in the first place.

"it's november," you say. "in london."

"feels personal," he mutters, hunching further into the one flannel shirt he owns, and you start walking properly now, toward the main road, and you say, mostly to keep him oriented, "we're going into central. there's more choice there, more places that won't care who's browsing."

"central," he repeats. "how far's that."

"far enough that we're getting the bus."

he stops walking.

you notice after about three steps that he is no longer beside you and you turn around to find him standing stock still on the pavement, sunglasses slightly askew, staring at you with an expression of such pure, unguarded delight that you genuinely do not know what to do with it.

"a bus," he says. "a real one. like, a london bus."

"yes, wade. a bus. they're not exotic."

"i've seen 'em in films," he says, already moving again, faster now, falling back into step beside you with a new energy in it, something almost bouncing. "the red ones. double decker. is it gonna be a double decker."

"probably."

"can we sit on top."

"if you want."

"i wanna sit on top," he says, with the immediate decisive conviction of a much younger man, and you glance sideways at him, at the grin that has fully overtaken the careful neutral disguise face he was supposed to be wearing, and you think, not unkindly, that he currently looks less like a man trying not to be noticed and more like a child being taken somewhere good for the first time, which, you suppose, in his own way, he is.

you reach the stop and the board says four minutes and wade reads it twice, properly reads it, the little digital numbers ticking down, and he says "it knows when it's comin'" with the tone of a man encountering something genuinely impressive, and you do not have the heart to explain gps tracking to him right now, not on a freezing pavement at half ten in the morning, so you just say "yeah" and let him have it.

when the bus comes, red and looming and entirely ordinary to you and apparently spectacular to him, he goes up the steps to the top deck two at a time, and you follow him up to find him already settled at the very front, both hands flat on the glass like a kid pressed up against an aquarium tank, looking out at the road ahead like it is about to do something extraordinary.

"this is the best seat in the house," he says, as you sit down beside him.

"it's a bus, wade."

"it's a great bus," he says, with total sincerity, and the doors hiss shut below you, and the bus pulls away from the curb, and wade kinsella watches south london go by through the windscreen with the rapt, unembarrassed wonder of a man who has never once in his life pretended to be less impressed by something than he actually was, sunglasses sliding slowly down his nose, hat tipping backward, completely and helplessly delighted by all of it.

his excitement settles, slowly, the bus rolling on through streets he does not recognise, and after a few minutes he stops pointing things out and just looks instead, quieter now, taking it in without narrating it, and when he glances over and catches you watching him watch the window, something in his face goes a little sheepish.

"sorry," he says. "i know i'm bein' a lot."

"you're not being a lot."

"i am," he says, with the particular honesty he reaches for when the charm drops away on its own rather than being told to. "i can hear myself. it's just." he looks back out at the road, at the shopfronts going by, at a city that has never once needed his permission to exist. "there wasn't much like this in bluebell. nothin' moved that fast. nothin' knew when it was comin' before it got there. i've never seen half of what's outside this window and i don't really know how to not say somethin' about it."

you look at him for a moment, at the sunglasses pushed up into his hair now instead of on his face, at the hat sitting forgotten in his lap, and you reach over without entirely deciding to and rest your hand on his thigh, just for a second, just enough to say something you do not have better words for.

"i get it," you say. "it's a lot to take in all at once. you don't have to apologise for being excited about it."

he looks down at your hand, then back up at you, something quieter and more grateful settling into his face than the moment probably called for, and he does not say anything else about it, just nods once, and you leave your hand where it is a beat longer than necessary before settling back into your seat properly, shoulder against his, and the two of you ride the rest of the way into central like that, quiet, easy, watching the city go by together.

you get off the bus into the full sensory assault of central london on a saturday, the cold doing nothing to thin out the crowd, and the air hits you thick with the smell of roasted chestnuts from a cart on the corner mixed with exhaust fumes and someone's cigarette and, underneath all of it, the faint sweetness of pastry from a bakery doorway you pass, warm and buttery, gone again in three steps. the sound comes at you in layers, traffic and chatter and the distant tinny loop of christmas music already starting early from a shop with its doors propped open, a busker somewhere up ahead doing something with a guitar that is mostly drowned out by everything else, the specific roar of a city that never actually quietens, just shifts registers depending on the hour. you can taste the cold in the back of your throat, sharp and clean, and underneath it the ghost of someone's takeaway coffee as you pass close enough to catch the steam off the lid.

wade falls in close behind you almost immediately, the crowd doing what crowds do, pressing and shifting, and within a minute his chest is against your shoulder, his hand finding the small of your back, not gripping, just there and steady, the unconscious instinct of someone keeping track of you in a space too dense and too loud for him to fully read yet.

you reach back without looking and adjust his hat where it has started its now familiar drift, then check the sunglasses, nudging them back up his nose with two fingers, and he lets you do it without complaint, ducking his head slightly to make it easier, and you do this three more times in the space of two streets, the disguise apparently incapable of holding its position for longer than ninety seconds at a time.

"stop moving so much," you say, over your shoulder, mid-adjustment.

"i'm not movin'," he says. "everyone else is movin'."

"you're looking at everything."

"there's a lot to look at?!"

you are halfway through agreeing with him, mostly to yourself, when a man in a suit barrels past going the wrong way against the flow, shoulder catching yours hard enough to knock you half a step sideways, no apology, no glance back, already three strides on and reabsorbed into the crowd before you have even fully registered the impact.

wade's hand closes around yours before you have finished stumbling. it happens fast, no hesitation in it at all, his fingers lacing through yours and gripping tight, and he has already turned to glare after the man, jaw set in a way you have not seen on him yet, something sharp and immediate replacing the easy wonder from the bus.

"dick!" he says, loud enough that a woman nearby glances over.

"wade."

"he just walked straight into you and didn't even look back."

"it's london," you say. "people don't look back."

"that's stupid," he says, still glaring in the general direction the man went, even though he is long gone, swallowed by the crowd, and his hand has not loosened around yours at all, if anything it has tightened, and you go to pull free, mostly out of habit, the reflex of someone used to navigating crowds alone.

he does not let go.

"i'm fine–"

"i know you're fine," he says, finally looking back at you instead of the empty space where the man used to be, the sharpness in his face softening but the grip staying exactly where it is. "i'm still holdin' your hand."

"you don't need to hold my hand."

"didn't say i needed to," he says, already turning to keep walking, pulling you gently back into step beside him like the whole exchange settled something, "said i'm gonna anyway."

you sigh, the long-suffering kind, and you let him, because arguing about it in the middle of a packed pavement seems like a worse use of your energy than simply allowing it, and his hand stays wrapped around yours the rest of the way down the street, warm despite the cold, and you do not try again to take it back.

"right," you say, once the crowd thins out slightly and you can actually hear yourself think. "plan for today. clothes first, that's the priority, you cannot keep wearing one flannel shirt like it's a personality trait. then the chemist, you'll need basics, toothbrush that isn't borrowed from my emergency drawer, that sort of thing. then food shopping on the way back because the fridge is down to eggs and regret."

"sounds efficient," he says.

"it has to be. i'd like to get through all of it without anyone clocking you, which means we move, we don't linger, and you do not start a conversation with strangers."

"i don't start conversations with strangers."

"you started one with the bus driver."

"he asked where we were headed. that's just manners."

you do not get a chance to argue the point because a group of teenagers comes barrelling out of a shop doorway directly into your path, loud, phones up, entirely unaware that the pavement contains other people, and wade has you by the elbow and steered half a step sideways into a gap by a lamppost before you have even fully registered them as a threat.

"wade."

"they weren't lookin' where they were goin'."

"neither are you, currently, you're looking at me instead of where we're walking."

"i can do both," he says, already scanning the street ahead again, and sure enough two seconds later he tugs you gently the other way, around a woman with a pushchair who was never actually going to collide with you, threading you through a gap that did not strictly need threading through.

by the time you reach the first clothes shop you have been steered, diverted, and tucked out of the way of oncoming pedestrian traffic no fewer than six times, none of it strictly necessary, all of it done with the same unthinking instinct he used on the man who bumped you earlier, and you stop just outside the door and look at him properly.

"what are you doing," you say.

"what d'you mean."

"you keep pulling me out of the way of people who were never going to hit us."

he shrugs, a little sheepish about it now that it has been pointed out, the hat tipping slightly as he does it. "guess i'm used to keepin' an eye on things," he says. "crowded room, gotta know where everybody's headed. old habit."

"this isn't the rammer jammer on a friday night."

"feels about the same speed," he says, glancing back over his shoulder at the sheer density of the street behind you, the buses and the bikes and the wall of people moving in six different directions at once, and there is something almost a little overwhelmed underneath the joke, which you clock and decide not to push on right now, not in the middle of the pavement.

"clothes," you say instead, nodding at the door. "in. and let go of my hand for five minutes, you'll need both of yours to try things on."

he looks down at your joined hands like he had genuinely forgotten he was still holding it, and lets go, slow, almost reluctant about it, and follows you in.

the shop is one of the bigger ones, several floors, music too loud for a saturday morning, and you find a bench near the changing rooms and sit down with an armful of things you have already picked out, jeans, a couple of plain shirts, a jumper that will actually keep him warm, basic and unremarkable, exactly what you came in for.

wade disappears into the changing room with the whole pile and emerges roughly ninety seconds later in the first pair of jeans, doing a full turn in front of the mirror outside the cubicle, hand on his hip, head tilted, entirely too pleased with himself.

"what d'you think," he says.

"they're jeans, wade."

"but how do they look."

"fine. good. get the next one."

he disappears again. comes back in the jumper over a t-shirt, does another twirl, this one with an actual little flourish at the end, hip popped, grinning at himself in the mirror before he even looks at you for the verdict, and you have to physically stop yourself laughing because he looks, genuinely, like a teenager at a school formal trying on every option twice.

"it's nice," you say. "it suits you."

"i know," he says, far too smug about it, and disappears back in, and this happens four more times, four more outfits, four more twirls and hip-cocks and small delighted spins in front of the mirror, and by the fifth one you have started to just wave him through without fully looking up from your phone because the routine has become so predictable, the curtain, the swish, the twirl, the grin, the "well?"

"it all looks nice," you say, to the fifth one, without really checking. "they all look nice. you could wear a bin bag and it would probably work out fine for you, just pick the ones you actually like."

there is a pause, longer than the others, no immediate follow up twirl, and then his voice comes from behind the curtain, different in tone, a little uncertain.

"hey, uh." a beat. "i think i'm stuck."

you look up properly now. "stuck how."

"just. come here a second."

you get up, sighing, and you push the curtain aside without really thinking about it, already halfway through saying "what did you do" when you stop completely, the rest of the sentence dying somewhere in your throat.

he is not stuck in anything. he is standing there in nothing but a pair of plain black boxers, shirtless, the jeans he was supposed to be trying on discarded entirely on the floor of the cubicle, and he is looking at you with the most innocent expression he has produced all day, which is doing absolutely nothing to disguise what is actually happening here.

your jaw drops. you stand frozen in the gap of the curtain, eyes doing a full, helpless, entirely involuntary sweep of him before you can stop them, and for a solid two seconds you do not move, do not speak, do not do anything except stare.

then the grin breaks across his face, slow and victorious, the cat that got an entire dairy farm's worth of cream, and you come back to yourself all at once, stumbling half a step backward out of the cubicle so fast you nearly knock into a rail of jumpers, yanking the curtain shut behind you with considerably more force than necessary.

"wade kinsella," you say, to the closed curtain, voice somewhere between furious and strangled.

"yes ma'am," comes the entirely unrepentant reply from the other side of it, and you can hear, even through the fabric, that he is still grinning.

you stand there for a second longer, willing your face to stop doing whatever it is currently doing, and then you huff, loud and pointed enough that he can hear it through the curtain, and you reach in past the gap and grab the clothes he has actually decided on, the ones neatly hung back on their hangers, because of course he has hung them back up properly even mid-ambush, and you turn and walk off toward the rest of the store without waiting for whatever he is about to say next.

you find socks two aisles over, plain, sensible, a multipack because one man going through one pair a day is going to need several, and you grab underwear next, plain black, a size you guess at based on absolutely nothing reliable and decide is close enough, and you do not think about why you are blushing while doing it, you simply do not allow yourself to think about it, you just grab the pack and move on.

by the time you make it to the till he has wandered out of the changing room fully dressed again, mercifully, in the jeans and the jumper, and he is somewhere off to the side poking at a display of beanies with the open curiosity of a man who has never had the luxury of browsing for fun, and you leave him to it, joining the queue, putting everything on the counter, jeans and shirts and the jumper and the socks and the underwear, and the girl at the till rings it through without a flicker of interest, which you are deeply grateful for because that way she doesn't see the deeply pained expression on your poor face at the total.

you pay. you bag everything. you glance over once while it processes and he is now wearing one of the beanies, slightly too small, pushed back on his head, looking entirely delighted with himself in the little mirror on the display stand.

you collect him from the beanie display, peeling him away with a hand on his sleeve, and he comes easily enough, still wearing the too-small beanie until you point at it with a look and he takes it off, slightly reluctant about it, settling it back onto the display rack with something close to genuine regret, like he was already attached to the thing after thirty seconds of ownership.

"i need to pick up a prescription," you say, leading him back out into the cold and the noise. "chemist's two streets over, it won't take long."

he reaches over without asking and lifts the shopping bag straight out of your hand before you have even fully registered him doing it, the motion so smooth and unthinking that you do not catch it until it is already over, the bag already settled over his own shoulder instead of yours.

"i can carry my own bag, wade.” you say.

"didn't say you couldn't," he says, adjusting the strap, walking half a step ahead now to hold a gap in the crowd open for you the way he has been doing all morning, "just don't see why you'd need to when i'm right here and perfectly capable."

"that's not how that works. it's my bag. i bought the things in it."

"it's how it works in bluebell," he says, with the easy, unshakeable confidence of a man who has never once in his life questioned this particular point of etiquette and is not about to start now, "man don't make a lady carry her own bags if he's standin' right next to her with two good hands and nothin' better to do with 'em."

"i'm capable of carrying socks, wade."

"never said you weren't," he says, grinning sideways at you, clearly enjoying himself far more than the argument warrants, "i'm just better at it."

you give up, mostly because the alternative is wrestling a grown man for a bag of underwear on a public street, and you roll your eyes instead and keep walking, and he falls into step beside you again, content, the bag swinging easily from his shoulder like it weighs nothing at all.

"you're a southern gentleman," you say, half mocking, the words coming out warmer than you intend them to.

"i prefer 'raised right,'" he says, "but i'll take what i can get."

the chemist is busier than you expect for a saturday morning, the queue snaking back from the counter past the cough syrup and into the aisle with the plasters and bandages, and you join the end of it with wade close behind you, the bag still over his shoulder, and the line moves at the particular crawl of a chemist queue, slow and shuffling, everyone clutching their little baskets or their boxes or their prescription slips with the patient resignation of people who know there is no faster version of this experience available to them.

wade does not seem bothered by the wait. he never really does, you have noticed, something about him settles into queues and slow moments the way some people settle into a chair, easy, unhurried, using the dead time to look at things instead of resenting it, and he drifts slightly to one side to inspect the shelf of cold remedies, picking up a box, turning it over, reading the back with the same careful attention he gave the coffee machine and the phone and every other small piece of this decade he has encountered so far.

"what's a, uh." he squints at the box. "antihistamine."

"for allergies."

"huh," he says, and puts it back, and picks up another one instead, and you let him browse, glancing occasionally toward the front of the queue to track how close you are getting, three people now, then two.

it is somewhere around the two-people mark that you notice the woman just ahead of you turn slightly in line, the small idle movement of someone whose attention has wandered off her own basket, and her eyes land on the back of wade's head and stay there, lingering a beat longer than a stranger's gaze usually does, the particular hovering quality of someone trying to place a face without quite admitting to themselves that they are doing it.

she leans down to the little girl beside her, says something low you cannot catch, and the two of them dissolve into a fit of poorly disguised giggling, the daughter peeking around her mother's leg to get a better look, both of them clearly delighted by something neither is bothering to hide particularly well.

wade notices. of course he notices, he has noticed everything today, every glance and every gap in the crowd and every stranger who has looked twice, and he turns, easy and unbothered, full warmth, and gives the two of them a smile, the same unguarded one he has been handing out since the corridor, and the woman goes faintly pink at being caught and turns back around sharply, murmuring something else to her daughter that makes the girl giggle harder, and wade looks back ahead like nothing at all happened, already reaching for a third box of something on the shelf.

you hear it a moment later, low, not quite careful enough to stay private, drifting from somewhere behind you in the queue.

"hot ass blind guy. like that lawyer from that one show."

you close your eyes for exactly one second and let out a slow, exhausted breath through your nose, the particular sigh reserved for standing in a chemist queue with a man who apparently cannot exist in public for longer than ten minutes without being mistaken for somebody else entirely, and beside you wade glances over, missing the comment completely, catching only the sigh.

"you alright?" he says, the box of cold remedy still in his hand.

"fine," you say. "just queues."

"queues are the worst part of any errand," he agrees, with total sincerity, and puts the box back on the shelf, and the line shuffles forward another step, and you are, mercifully, almost at the counter.

wade's hand finds yours again as the queue shuffles forward, easy and unthinking, lacing through your fingers the way it has done all day, and he leans down slightly toward your ear, voice low, curious rather than nosy.

"what's the prescription for," he says.

"anxiety stuff," you say. "and whatnot."

he just hums at that, low in his chest, no follow up question, no comment, just an acknowledgement that settles something in you more than you expect it to, and he tugs you a half step closer instead, the bag still over his shoulder, and then huffs, short and irritated, as the sunglasses slide down his nose for what feels like the fortieth time today and the hat slips down low enough to catch in his eyelashes.

"this thing's got a vendetta against me." he mutters, tipping his head back to try and shake it loose without using his hands, which does not work, and you sigh, the long-suffering kind, and reach up and pull the hat off his head entirely, holding it up between you.

"it does look ridiculous." you admit.

"thank you."

"the glasses stay on though," you say, tucking the hat into the shopping bag instead, "your face is the issue, not your hairline."

"my hairline's never been an issue in its life," he says, but he is already pushing the sunglasses back up properly with one finger, nodding along, almost too eagerly, the nodding slightly erratic in its enthusiasm. "i'll behave. promise. no more hats, no more grinnin' at strangers, model citizen, that's me."

"you grinned at a woman and her daughter ten minutes ago."

"that was politeness."

"that was you showing off."

"can't it be both?" he asks, and you do not get the chance to answer because the queue has finally delivered you to the counter, and you step forward, letting go of his hand to dig your prescription slip out of your coat pocket, and you rattle off your details to the pharmacist on autopilot, name, date of birth, address, the same sequence you have given a hundred times before without ever once thinking about it.

it is only afterward, stepping back from the counter to wait for the box, that you notice wade's lips moving slightly beside you, quiet, almost to himself, and you catch the tail end of it, your street name, repeated once, low, like he is fixing it somewhere in his memory.

"what are you doing," you say.

"nothin'," he says, too quickly.

"you were saying my address."

"was i?"

"you were."

he has the decency to look slightly caught out, though not particularly sorry about it, and he shrugs one shoulder, easy, like it is the most reasonable thing in the world. "figured i should know it," he says. "in case i ever lose you in all this." he nods vaguely at the shop, the street outside, the whole sprawling unfamiliar size of the city beyond it. "this way i'd know where home is. how to get back to you."

you look at him for a second, the sunglasses slightly crooked again already, his expression doing the thing it does when the charm drops away on its own rather than being switched off, and you do not have a clever response ready for that one, so you just say:

"that's– okay" and turn back toward the counter as your prescription comes through, grateful for the excuse to look anywhere other than directly at him for a few seconds and swallow around the pit in your throat at the thought of wade being lost.

you take the box from the pharmacist and tuck it into your coat pocket, and wade falls back into step beside you as you head for the door, already reaching for the shopping bag again before you can stop him, settling it back over his shoulder like it never left.

"right, essentials next. there's a place a few doors down, cheap, but it'll have everything you actually need."

he follows you in, and you grab a basket at the entrance and start working through it efficiently, a toothbrush that is actually his own rather than borrowed from your emergency drawer, deodorant, a bar of soap, a face wash that promises everything and costs almost nothing, and a bottle of cologne so cheap the label sits slightly crooked on the bottle, and you load it all in without much ceremony because this is not the part of the day that requires deliberation, this is just the practical work of making sure a grown man has the basic things a grown man needs.

you turn around at some point to find he has wandered off.

you find him crouched at the back of the shop in front of a small fridge unit tucked into the corner you had not even clocked on the way in, the kind that sells sad little sandwiches at a markup that is somehow still cheaper than anywhere proper, and he straightens up with two of them in hand and drops them into your basket before you have the chance to object.

"no," you say, reaching to take them straight back out. "i'll sort dinner, you don't need to—"

"i'm not lettin' you," he says, easy, shifting the basket slightly out of your reach without making a show of it.

"wade, i've already spent—"

"i know what you've already spent," he says. "i was there for all of it. that's exactly why i'm not lettin' you add a proper dinner on top of it tonight." he nods at the sandwiches like the matter is settled. "eat the cheap sandwich with me now, and i'll cook you somethin' decent later, with what's already in your fridge, which costs you nothin' extra, on account of the cookin' bein' free and me bein' the one doin' it."

"that's not really how—"

"i'm already costin' you enough," he says, quieter now, the easy tone dropping into something a little more honest. "the clothes, the chemist, the bus fare, all of it. let me do this one small thing without you fightin' me on it. it's a two doll- pound sandwich. it's not gonna bankrupt either of us."

you look at him, at the basket, at the slightly squashed sandwiches sitting on top of the toothbrush and the cologne, and you think about the pit still lodged in your throat from the pharmacy, from this way i'd know how to get back to you, and you decide this particular battle is not worth fighting in the middle of a discount shop with a queue starting to form behind you.

"fine," you say. "but you're cooking."

"already said i would."

you pay at the till, the total barely registering against the morning's spending, and you step back out into the cold with the bags multiplying steadily in his grip.

"supermarket next," you say, checking the time. "actual food. the kind that doesn't live in a fridge by the till."

he falls into step beside you immediately, easy, already asking what you're planning on eating for the rest of the week like it is the most natural question in the world, and you walk on, the pit in your throat finally starting to loosen, just slightly, with every ordinary thing he says and his determination to hold all three bags.

you find the supermarket two streets over, bigger than the corner shop near your flat, properly stocked, and you grab a trolley because the basket would not survive a full week's worth of groceries for two people, and you work through it the way you always do, fast, efficient, the mental arithmetic running constantly in the background, price per portion, what is on offer, what will stretch furthest, the specific calculation of someone who has been doing this on a bartender's wage for four years and has it down to muscle memory.

wade trails along beside you, helpfully if somewhat randomly useful, reaching things off high shelves without being asked, reading labels with the same careful attention he gives everything, occasionally holding something up and asking "this any good" about products he has clearly never encountered before, and you answer most of them on autopilot while doing the actual work of meal planning in your head. 

you work your way down the aisles, the trolley filling slowly, and somewhere near the toiletries section your hand drifts toward a face cream you have walked past a hundred times before, the kind with the nice packaging and the nicer smell, and you actually pick it up this time, turn it over, read the label properly, something in you genuinely wanting it for a second before you check the price tag and put it straight back on the shelf without a second thought, the whole motion so practiced it barely registers as a decision at all.

wade, beside you, watches the whole exchange with visible confusion.

"you liked that one," he says.

"i did."

"you put it back."

"i did that too."

he frowns slightly, looking between you and the shelf like he is missing some crucial piece of information. "why."

"because i can't always buy whatever i want just because i like it," you say, already moving on to the next aisle, the explanation coming out plain and unbothered, just a fact of your life rather than anything worth dwelling on. "you like things all the time. liking something isn't the same as it making financial sense."

he is quiet for a second, processing that, and then he nods, slow, something settling into understanding. "yeah," he says. "i get that. plenty of things i wanted growin' up that just weren't in the cards." he says it simply, no self pity in it, just an acknowledgment, and you glance at him and find him looking thoughtful rather than upset, and you move on to the next thing on your list.

it happens again near the end of the trip, in the aisle with the wine and the nicer spirits, a particular bottle you always look at and never buy, sitting there with its proper label and its proper price, and you stop in front of it, the small huff escaping you when you check and find it is not on any kind of offer this week, the way it never seems to be exactly when you happen to want it, and you put it back on the shelf with the same practiced lack of ceremony as the face cream and keep walking, already moving on to the next item on your mental list.

you do not notice, immediately, that wade has stopped walking.

it is only a few aisles later, reaching for something on a higher shelf, that you realise he is not beside you anymore, and you glance back the way you came and do not see him, and you decide, after a beat, not to go looking, because he has spent the entire day wandering off to inspect things and reappearing a few minutes later none the worse for it, and you carry on with the list, crossing things off, working steadily toward the end of it.

he reappears a few minutes later, falling back into step beside you with the trolley, and there is something faintly, unmistakably pleased about him, a small private satisfaction sitting in his face which you do not ask about. you are too busy double checking the list, and he does not offer anything either, just falls into the easy rhythm beside you, and the two of you finish the last few items and head for the till.

the trolley is reasonably full by the time you get there, not extravagant, but properly stocked, bread and eggs and pasta and vegetables and the bits and pieces that will get the two of you through the week without him having to subsist on toast and whatever he can improvise, and the cashier starts scanning it through, and you watch the little display tick upward, the running total climbing item by item.

wade watches it too, leaning slightly to see the screen, doing the same mental tally you are, and when the cashier finishes and the final total appears he frowns slightly.

"that's it?" he says.

"that's it."

"that's the whole amount."

"yes, wade, that's the total."

he looks at the screen a second longer, something working behind his eyes, and you assume, mostly, that he is just doing the conversion in his head, dollars to pounds, the same way he has been quietly recalculating prices all day, muttering things like "that's near on ten dollars for a sandwich" under his breath at the chemist.

you tap your card, the payment goes through, and you start loading bags, and it is only once you are halfway through bagging the second one that he says, slowly, like he is working through something out loud, "so there's no tax added on after."

you pause, a tin of tomatoes halfway into the bag. "what?"

"the tax," he says. "back home it gets added on at the register, after the price on the shelf. you don't know what you're really payin' till the very end. but that—" he nods at the receipt the cashier is holding out, "that's just what it said on the shelf. the whole way through."

you take the receipt, glance at it, and realise, properly, what he means. "vat's already included in the price here," you say. "what you see on the shelf is what you pay. there's no surprise at the till."

he looks almost personally affronted by this information, blinking at the receipt like it has wronged him somehow. "that's it? that's the whole system? you just see a number and that's the actual number?"

"that's the whole system."

"that's the most sensible thing i've heard all day," he says, with real feeling, shaking his head slightly as you finish loading the last bag, "and i watched a video this mornin' about a phone that folds in half."

"you're only realising this now? we've bought things three separate times today."

"i wasn't payin' that close attention at the chemist," he admits. "i was more concerned with the glasses fallin' off my face." he takes the heaviest bags off you without asking, settling them over both shoulders along with everything else he has been carrying since the changing room, entirely unbothered by the weight of it. "but i gotta say, ma'am, not gettin' surprised at the register is a genuine improvement on my whole life experience so far today."

"glad london's impressing you," you say, dry, heading for the door.

"it's growin' on me," he says, falling into step beside you, "real slow, but it's growin'."

you head back out into the cold with the bags distributed between you, wade carrying the bulk of it without complaint, and you cut back through the busier part of central, the crowd thinner now than it was this morning, the day having mellowed into early afternoon, and somewhere along the route you pass a souvenir shop with its window display spilling out onto the pavement, postcards and union jack mugs and a whole shelf of stuffed animals wearing tiny coats.

wade stops dead in front of it.

"who's this little fella?" he says, already crouching slightly to get a better look at one in particular, a small bear in a blue duffle coat and a red hat, sitting there with its painted, faintly hopeful expression, and he picks it up before you can answer, turning it over in his hands with the same careful attention he gives everything new.

"that's paddington bear.”

"and what's paddington bear's whole deal?"

you find yourself explaining it without really meaning to, the bear from darkest peru, found at a train station with a label around his neck that says please look after this bear, taken in by a family who did not know him from anywhere, a stranger who turns out to belong somewhere after all, who just needed someone to give him a chance and a coat and somewhere to sleep, and wade listens to the whole thing with his eyes on the little plush bear in his hands, quiet, absorbing it properly, the way he absorbs most things when nobody is asking him to perform a reaction to them.

when you finish he is quiet for a second longer.

"sounds like the fella's goin' through the same thing as me," he says, eventually, soft, not a joke this time, no grin attached to it, just a plain observation made with a kind of gentle surprise at finding himself reflected in a children's stuffed toy on a london pavement.

you laugh, short and a little caught off guard by how accurate it is. "i'll show you the film when we get home," you say. "it's better than it sounds. you'll like it."

he puts the bear back on the shelf carefully, gives it one last look, and falls back into step beside you, the bags shifting on his shoulders, and you keep walking, the conversation already moving on to something else, the cold biting at your hands, the bus stop not far ahead now.

it is only a few minutes later, crossing at the lights, that he says it, easy, unplanned, slotted into the middle of an unrelated sentence about something else entirely.

"when we get home," he says, "i'll start on that dinner i promised you."

you do not say anything about it. you do not need to. but he catches himself a half second after saying it, catches the word sitting there between you, home, said so simply, so without hesitation, like it had always belonged to both of you and not just you, and when he glances over to see if you noticed, you find him already looking at you with something softer than the grin, something quieter, almost careful, waiting to see what you make of it.

you do not make anything of it out loud. you just keep walking, and he falls back into step, and the smile he gives you a moment later is small and warm and entirely unguarded, the kind he has not quite shown you before today, and neither of you mentions the word again the rest of the way to the bus stop.

you reach the bus stop with a few minutes to spare before the next one, according to the little screen wade is once again faintly delighted by, and you set the bags down at your feet and check the time, settling in for the wait, the cold immediately more noticeable now that you have stopped moving, the heat of walking fading fast in the kind of damp november wind that does not care how many layers you are wearing.

you shiver, properly, your shoulders coming up toward your ears the same way his did this morning, and you do not even fully register it happening until wade is already moving behind you, stepping in close enough that his chest presses against your back, solid and warm, blocking the worst of the wind without making any particular announcement of doing it.

"you're freezin'," he says, close to your ear.

"i'm fine."

"you're shiverin'."

"it's november."

"i know what month it is," he says, and you feel him shrug something off his shoulders, the flannel, the one he has worn every single day since the corridor, and he settles it around you from behind, draping it over your shoulders properly, tugging it slightly so it actually sits right instead of just hanging there.

"wade, you don't have to—"

"already done it," he says, simply, settling back in behind you, close again, his chest at your back, his arms coming to rest loosely either side of you, not quite holding you, just there, a wall against the wind that the flannel alone was not built to be. "you can give it back when the bus comes."

you pull the flannel tighter around yourself without really deciding to, the warmth of it immediate, smelling faintly of him now, of the cheap cologne from the chemist and something underneath it that is just him, and you do not say anything else about it, just stand there at the bus stop with his chest against your back and his shirt around your shoulders and the cold mostly held at bay, the two of you watching the little screen count down the minutes together in silence.

"better?" he says, after a moment.

"better," you admit.

he hums, satisfied, and neither of you moves apart for the rest of the wait.

the bus pulls up and wade goes to head for the stairs automatically, already half turned toward the upper deck out of pure habit from the journey in, and you catch his sleeve before he gets there, a small uneasy feeling settling low in your stomach that you cannot immediately explain, just a flicker of wrongness, the kind of instinct you have learned to trust after enough late nights walking home through streets that occasionally gave you a reason not to ignore it.

"not up there," you say. "let's stay down here."

he looks at you, reading something in your face, and does not argue, just follows you onto the lower deck instead, and you find seats in the middle, tucked in, facing forward, and you take the window side without really thinking about why, and he settles into the aisle beside you, the bags stacked on top of each other at your feet, boxing you in slightly, deliberately, though you do not consciously register doing that either.

the bus pulls away from the curb and you sit there, watching the street go by, and the uneasy feeling does not go away, just sits there, low and persistent, nothing you can point to, no specific face or sound or moment, just the particular tightness behind your sternum that means something in you is paying attention even though the rest of you cannot say to what.

wade notices.

he always notices, you are starting to realise, some instinct in him tuned to exactly this kind of thing, and he goes still beside you, the easy loose posture from the rest of the day tightening into something else entirely, his shoulders setting, his eyes starting to move methodically around the bus, the other passengers, the doors, the windows, the quiet efficient scan of someone checking a room for whatever it is that has made you tense.

"hey," he says, low, just for you. "what's wrong."

"nothing," you say, automatically, the reflex answer.

"you went stiff the second we got on," he says. "and you don't want to sit upstairs. somethin's wrong."

"i don't know," you admit, after a second, because lying to him about it does not seem to be working and also feels, suddenly, like a waste of the energy you do not currently have to spare. "it's nothing i can point to. just a feeling."

he does not dismiss it. that is the thing you notice immediately, the thing that settles slightly against the unease rather than adding to it, he does not tell you it is probably nothing, does not tell you to relax, just nods once, slow, and keeps scanning the bus anyway, methodical, patient, treating the feeling as data rather than nonsense, the same way you imagine he has treated a hundred uneasy feelings in a hundred bars on a hundred friday nights that turned out to mean something.

"okay," he says, quiet. "we'll just sit tight, then." his arm settles along the back of your seat, not quite around you, just there and present.

the bus rolls on through three more stops, ordinary stops, people getting on with shopping bags and headphones in and the particular blank patience of saturday afternoon travel, and nothing happens, and you start to wonder, somewhere around the fourth stop, whether the feeling was nothing after all, whether four years of closing up alone after midnight has simply trained a permanent low hum of vigilance into you that occasionally fires for no reason at all.

then it starts in your feet.

a frequency so low it does not register as sound, not at first, just a vibration that comes up through the floor of the bus and into the soles of your shoes, into your ankles, your shins, settling somewhere behind your sternum before your conscious mind has caught up with what it is, and wade's arm goes rigid against the back of the seat at the exact same instant, his whole body changing beside you, the loose easy weight of him hardening into something braced, which tells you immediately, with a kind of sick certainty, that he recognises this, that his body knew it before either of your minds did.

"that's—" he starts, low, urgent.

the windows rattle in their frames, every one of them at once, a sound like something vast shifting its full weight against the chassis, and the overhead lights flicker, once, twice, hold on a wrong quality of light, dimmer and somehow colder, draining every face in the bus of its proper colour, and the bus itself hesitates beneath you, the driver's foot visibly coming off the accelerator through the gap in the partition, his head turning, confusion already arriving on his face before the actual reason for it does.

the bus tips.

not a crash, not an impact, just the entire frame rolling hard onto its left wheels, the suspension groaning under a weight distribution it was never built to survive, and every body on board goes sideways at once, bags sliding from the overhead racks, a woman three rows up thrown into the aisle with a cry, someone's drink skidding the length of the floor and spraying across several seats in a long dark stain. wade's arm clamps around you before you can brace yourself, hauling you bodily into him, his shoulder absorbing the worst of the tilt as the two of you slide hard into the seat in front, and at the same moment, somehow, impossibly, his feet shoot out and pin the bags at the base of your seat against the metal leg bolted to the floor, holding them in place even as half the bus rearranges itself around you, some deep unconscious instinct in him apparently still tracking the groceries even now.

outside the windows, the buildings along the street are doing something they should not be doing.

cracks race across the glass fronts of the shops in fine branching lines, one pane after another, and then a window gives entirely, bursting outward onto the pavement in a wide glittering spray that catches the impossible white light pouring down from the widening seam directly overhead, and a second window goes after the first, then a third, the sharp percussive sound of it layering over the deeper structural groan of the bus and the rolling thunder that arrives with no lightning to explain it.

the rain comes all at once, no warning, no gradual build, just suddenly and completely there, hard and horizontal, hammering the windows, hammering the street outside, and through the open stairwell at the front you can see it falling in full sheets, lit a stark unnatural white by whatever is tearing open above, and the wind that comes with it rocks the bus again, harder this time, a gust that makes the whole vehicle creak along its length.

someone near the front is screaming, a high continuous sound that does not stop for breath, and the child a few rows back is properly wailing now, a sound that climbs above everything else in the bus, raw and frightened, and the woman who had her phone out has dropped it entirely, both hands locked around the seat in front of her, shouting something at the driver that gets swallowed whole by the noise. the driver himself has abandoned the wheel and is standing half in the stairwell shouting into his radio, every trace of professional calm gone from his voice, and further back a man is yelling at everyone to stay calm in a voice that is doing the precise opposite of that.

wade does not yell.

wade goes still in the way you are starting to recognise as entirely specific to him, the same contained stillness from the corridor two nights ago, his arm locked fully around you now, his feet still braced hard against the bags, his body angled slightly to put himself between you and the window, and when he speaks again his voice is low and even and pitched directly into your ear, deliberately calm in a way that is clearly costing him something to maintain.

"i've got you," he says. "i'm not lettin' go. just hold on."

the bus rocks once more and then settles, properly this time, all four wheels finding the road again with a final heavy groan through the frame, though it does not stop the screaming, does not stop the rain, does not stop the crack overhead from continuing its slow terrible widening, the white light sweeping across every face on board in long shifting bars, and wade kinsella holds onto you in the middle of it with both arms now, steady and immovable, the only still point on a bus full of people who have just discovered, all at once, that the world does not reliably follow its own rules.

then the windows go.

not one, not the slow branching crack from the shopfronts outside, but every pane on the bus at once, a single violent shattering that fills the air with glass, and you duck instinctively into wade's chest as he turns his shoulder into the spray of it, taking the brunt across his back, and you feel small fragments catch in your hair and along the back of your hand where it is not fully shielded, sharp little stings that you will not properly register as cuts until later, and the wind that comes through the empty frames is not like any wind you have felt before, it has weight to it, a physical pressure that pushes papers and loose belongings the length of the bus and out through the gaps where the glass used to be.

the road outside starts to crack.

you can see it through the ruined window, past wade's shoulder, the tarmac splitting in a long jagged seam that runs the length of the street, widening as you watch, dust and grit kicking up from the edges of it like something enormous is moving directly beneath the surface, tunneling, displacing, and a parked car near the crack tips sideways into the new gap with a grinding metal shriek before its fuel line catches and it goes up in a sudden orange bloom of flame that throws heat you can feel even through the broken window, acrid and chemical, the smell of melting plastic and scorched rubber rolling into the bus on the wind.

people are running now, abandoning the bus entirely, spilling out through the doors and the gaps where windows used to be, scrambling over each other in the aisle, the screaming continuous and layered now, dozens of voices instead of one, and somewhere close by a second car catches, then a third, the orange light of it flickering against the white tear in the sky overhead in a combination that makes no visual sense, that your eyes cannot quite process as a single coherent scene.

sirens arrive from several directions at once, the layered overlapping wail of multiple services converging, and through the gap in the door you can see the first ambulance mounting the curb, paramedics already moving before it has fully stopped, and a police car skids in behind it at an angle, blue light strobing across the wet road and catching in the falling rain like something underwater, and further down the street more lights are arriving, more sirens, more uniformed shapes moving fast through the chaos with the particular urgent choreography of people trained for exactly this and still visibly unprepared for the scale of it.

you can taste copper at the back of your throat, the specific metallic tang of adrenaline, and you can smell the rain itself now underneath everything else, the ozone sharpness of it mixed with smoke and melted plastic and the wet stone smell of broken pavement, and your hands are shaking against wade's chest, properly shaking, and you realise you are gasping, short fast breaths that are not quite getting you enough air, your whole body trying to process too much input at once, glass in your hair, his heartbeat slamming under your palm, the heat of the burning cars reaching you even through the broken window, the screaming, the sirens, the impossible white light still pouring down from the crack overhead onto all of it.

"hey." wade's voice, close, steady, cutting through. his hand comes up to the back of your head, careful of the glass, holding you against him. "breathe. i need you breathin'. we're gonna move when it's safe and not before, you hear me."

you nod against his chest, not trusting your own voice yet, and outside the bus the road keeps splitting, the cars keep burning, the sirens keep multiplying, and the sky overhead keeps tearing itself open wider, raining its terrible white light down over the whole catastrophic length of the street.

"we need to move," wade says, close to your ear, the only way to be heard over the screaming and the sirens and the rain hammering what is left of the bus, and he is already shifting you toward the nearest broken window, glass cleared from the frame as best he can manage with one sweep of his sleeve, his hand under your arm, lifting more than guiding.

"climb out," he says. "now. i've got you, just climb."

you go, your legs barely cooperating, your hands finding the frame and your knees scraping against the metal edge as you scramble through, and you land hard on the wet tarmac outside, the heat from the burning cars further down the street reaching you even from this distance, and you turn back just in time to see wade grab the bags from where they have been pinned against the seat leg this entire time, hauling all of them out through the window in one motion before vaulting through himself, landing beside you in a low crouch that he comes up out of in a single fluid movement, already reaching for your hand.

"this way," he says, and you do not ask why that way and not another, you just go, his hand wrapped tight around yours, the bags somehow still slung over his shoulders despite everything, and you start walking, fast, weaving around the wreckage and the people and the wet shattered glass scattered across the pavement, and your legs do not feel like your own legs, wobbling under you with every step, adrenaline burning through whatever was holding you upright a minute ago and leaving something shaky and unreliable in its place.

the sirens do not stop. they layer over each other, closer ones and further ones, a wall of sound that makes it impossible to hear anything else properly, your own footsteps swallowed by it, wade's voice when he says something to you arriving distant and flattened, like you are hearing it through water, and you do not try to answer, you just keep walking, his hand the only fixed point in a world that has gone loud and wrong and entirely unsteady beneath your feet.

the walk takes longer than it should and also somehow no time at all, the two of you moving on something that is not quite conscious decision anymore, just forward motion, street after street, the sirens fading slightly behind you and then not fading at all, and you do not really register arriving at your building until you are already in the lobby, the heavy front door swinging shut and cutting the worst of the noise down to something muffled instead of immediate.

wade drops the bags right there, all of them, the thuds barely registering against the ringing still happening in your ears, and then his hands are on your face, both of them, cupping your cheeks, tilting your head up so you are looking at him properly, and his mouth is moving, he is saying something, his eyes wide and searching yours, but the sound arrives muffled and underwater, distant, wrong, like the volume on the entire world has been turned down to almost nothing.

you blink at him. you cannot make out the words. you can see the shape of his concern, the tightness around his eyes, the way his thumbs are moving slightly against your cheekbones, but none of it has sound attached to it, and the fear of that, of not being able to hear him when he is right in front of you saying something that clearly matters, starts to climb up your throat alongside everything else.

then your ears pop.

it happens all at once, a pressure releasing somewhere deep in your skull, and the world rushes back in, the sirens still faint now through the heavy door, the sound of your own breathing, the sound of him.

"wade," you say, the word coming out cracked, and you focus properly on his face for the first time since the bus, on the cut along his jaw you had not noticed before, a thin line of blood there, dried at the edges, and your hands come up to grab his wrists where they are still holding your face. "are you okay. oh my god, you're bleeding, are you—"

he pulls you in instead of answering, both arms wrapping around you properly now, tight, his chin coming down against the top of your head, right there in the lobby with the bags forgotten at your feet, and you feel the breath go out of him in a long unsteady exhale against your hair.

"are you hurt," he says, finally, his voice rough, ignoring the question you just asked him entirely in favour of asking his own. "anywhere. tell me."

"i don't know," you say, into his chest, your hands still gripping his wrists, "i don't know, i think i'm fine, i just—"

he pulls back enough to look at you again, his hand tightening around yours to hold you in place beside him, and you turn to look at him, confused, your legs still shaking, wanting nothing more than the stairs and the door and the inside of your own flat, and he is looking at you properly now in the dim lobby light, his eyes moving over your face, your hands, the front of your coat, a slow careful sweep that you recognise from the bus, the same instinct that scanned the aisle and the doors and the windows now turned entirely onto you.

"hold on," he says, his voice still rough but clearer now, the worst of the underwater quality fading from your hearing the further you get from the street. "just. hold on a second. let me look at you."

"wade, i'm fine, we need to—"

"you're shakin'," he says, cutting you off, gentle but immovable, and he sets the bags down against the wall properly, all of them, freeing both hands, and he takes your face again, the same gesture from a moment ago except slower this time, more deliberate, his thumbs brushing along your cheekbones, checking, searching, his own breathing still not fully settled. "i need a second. i need to know you're alright before we go up there and i stop bein' able to think straight about anythin' else."

the muffled sound of the world is still going on somewhere behind the door, sirens and shouting and the distant smell of smoke that has followed you both the entire way home, and you let him look at you, let his hands move over your arms, your shoulders, checking for the things he cannot ask about properly yet

you stand there with him in the lobby, the bags forgotten against the wall, his heartbeat slamming under your palm where your hand has come to rest flat against his chest without you quite deciding to put it there, and you let him have his minute, and you take one of your own too, the two of you holding each other up in the quiet, ordinary, mercifully intact little lobby of your building, while somewhere out there the city continues to fall apart.

you both go up the stairs eventually, slow, quiet, neither of you in any hurry to rejoin the noise of the world outside, wade's hand still wrapped around yours and the bags balanced again over his shoulder, and you are three steps from the top of the final flight when he stops dead, his whole body going rigid in a way that has nothing to do with the bus or the street or anything that just happened to either of you.

"you've gotta be kiddin' me," he says, low, flat, disbelieving in a way that is somehow worse than panic.

you look past him.

there is a man standing outside your front door.

he is crouched slightly, working at the lock with something you cannot quite identify from this angle, and when he straightens to his full height at the sound of you on the stairs, he is taller than wade, properly taller, a couple of inches at least, enough that it registers immediately even from a distance, his shoulders set with a different kind of weight to them, broader through the frame in a way that speaks to a body built for endurance rather than charm. his hair is darker than wade's, damp and roughly pushed back from his face, threaded through with grey at the temples that wade does not have, and there is scruff along his jaw and cheeks, not the careful day-or-two stubble wade tends to wear but something heavier, unkempt, the look of a man who has not seen a mirror or cared to in some time. fine lines fan out from the corners of his eyes when he narrows them at you, the particular weathering of someone who has spent years squinting into actual sunlight rather than studio lighting, and there is blood at the corner of his mouth, dried dark, that he does not seem especially bothered by.

it is the same face as wade's underneath all of it, the exact same bones, the same jaw, but worn differently, harder, settled into something that has none of wade's easy warmth in it at all. where wade's stillness invites you in, this man's stillness does the opposite, a guarded watchful quality that assesses you both on the stairs with open suspicion rather than confusion, his eyes moving from you to wade and back again, calculating, the look of someone deciding whether the two of you are a threat before deciding anything else.

"who are you." he says, low, rough at the edges, no softness in it anywhere, his hand still resting on the door handle like he has not yet decided whether to let go of it.

beside you wade has gone rigid, his jaw locked tight, his whole face caught somewhere between recognition and dread, and you stand there on your own staircase between the two of them, your eyes moving from one face to the other, the same bones worn into two entirely different men, and the floor of everything you have spent the last three days convincing yourself drops out from under you all at once.

it was never amnesia. there is no wilson bethel underneath any of this, no actor waiting to be coaxed back out with a laptop and a gentle theory over coffee. wade kinsella has been exactly who he said he was since the very first sentence in the corridor, and the sky did not retrieve a confused actor and hand him a costume.

it has been opening, and it has been letting more of them through.

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[i00que]

002 . PROJECT ── MULTIPLE / YOU LIKE JAZZ?

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NOTES : turns out your dinner date is in a members only, underground jazz club with menu's that don't have prices and have burnt orange peels on their old-fashioned. then you meet a man at the bar and realise you might be in trouble.

WARNINGS : alternate universe, no powers, set in two law firms, legal drama, reader-insert (no y/n,) everyone is a little in love with the receptionist, professional tension, playboy, introverts, extroverted reader, opposing counsel, character study, reader smokes, stress, anxiety, clients, multiple meet cutes, conflict of interest, food is a love language, wilson fisk, james wesley, development of relationships, borderline sugar daddy matt, military benjamin poindexter, jazz clubs, stalking, buck cashman.

CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL ── 18+ ONLY.

the four of you get in the elevator together and the doors close on a wednesday evening that has had considerably more in it than a weekday normally should.

foggy leans against the back wall with his hands in his pockets and looks at karen. "you're coming straight from the wesley thing," he says, "or did you actually finish anything today."

"i finished plenty," karen says, not looking up from her phone. "i finished the thing you didn't want to finish."

"i don't know what that means."

"it means the reyes brief," she says. "which you left on my desk at four with a sticky note that said 'urgent, sorry, love you' which is not a legal instruction."

"it's a tone instruction," foggy says. "the brief needed warmth."

"the brief needed citations," karen says, "which i added, because someone had to."

frank, in the corner, makes a sound that is unmistakably amusement, brief and low, and karen glances at him with the particular satisfaction of someone whose joke has landed with the one audience member who doesn't laugh easily.

"don't encourage her," foggy says to frank.

"she's right," frank says. two words, flat, delivered without any apparent investment in the outcome of the conversation, and foggy looks genuinely wounded by the betrayal.

"you weren't even in the building," foggy says. "you don't know what the brief needed."

"i know you," frank says, which apparently settles the matter, because foggy makes a small defeated noise and looks at the ceiling, and karen's mouth does something that is almost a smile and is entirely smug, and you stand in the corner of the elevator watching this unfold with the pleasure of someone witnessing a long-running argument that nobody actually wants to win.

"how long have you three been doing this?" you ask into the silence of the elevator.

foggy looks at you. "doing what."

"this," you say, gesturing vaguely at all of them. "the sticky note. the citations. frank agreeing with karen just to make you suffer."

"i don't agree with karen to make foggy suffer," frank says.

"you do a little," karen says.

"i do a little," frank concedes, and the corner of his mouth does the thing it does, the very early beginnings of something, and you realise you have now seen frank castle's almost-smile twice in two days and both times it has happened in the presence of karen page being correct about something at foggy's expense.

"years," foggy says, answering your actual question, with a kind of fond exhaustion that suggests the years in question have been long and largely worth it. "karen showed up first. then me, a year later, give or take. frank's been of counsel for—"

"long enough," frank says.

"long enough," foggy agrees, like this is a complete and satisfying answer, and you understand that there is a specific kind of shorthand in this elevator that has been built slowly over a long period of time, the kind that doesn't need full sentences because everyone already knows how the sentence ends.

"and you've survived each other?" you say.

"we've survived worse," karen says, and there is something underneath it, brief and quickly folded away, that you clock without being able to place, the same quality the room got yesterday when fisk's name came up, and you don't push it because you are learning, slowly, which silences in this building you are allowed into and which ones you have to wait to be handed.

foggy seems to feel the shift too, because he straightens slightly and looks at karen and then at frank with an expression that is warmer and less performative than the bickering a moment ago, the look of a man taking inventory of the people he has ended up with and finding the inventory satisfactory.

"we have." he says, simply, and karen looks at him, and frank looks at the floor, and the elevator passes the third floor and groans on toward the lobby at its usual unhurried pace, and you stand in the middle of it thinking that you have been here two days and you are already being let into the edges of something that took these three years to build, and that you are not entirely sure you've earned that yet, but god knows you'll try.

the doors open on the lobby.

"alright!" foggy says, pushing off the wall, back to his usual register, easy and warm and already moving toward the door. "let's go find our missing host."

you follow him out and then stop dead in the middle of the lobby.

"fuck," you say. "matt didn't tell me where i was supposed to be meeting him."

foggy turns around. karen looks up from her phone. frank, halfway through the door, pauses with it half open and the january cold already coming through.

"he just said ninth street," you say. "i didn't think to ask which part of ninth or what the place was called or anything, because i was somewhat distracted by the fact that he handed me his personal card for the second time in two days, and now i have invited three additional people to a dinner that i cannot actually locate."

foggy stares at you. then he starts laughing, properly, the real one, the kind that takes a second to get going and then doesn't stop easily.

"it's not funny?" you say, outraged and horrified as you try and claw through your memory for any scraps of information matt had given you.

"it's a little funny," foggy says, wiping his eye.

"i have ruined the plan."

"there wasn't a plan," karen says, reasonably. "there was a vague intention to go to ninth street."

"matt's a lawyer," frank says, from the doorway, in the tone of a man stating an obvious fact that everyone else has somehow overlooked. "he'll find you."

"that's not comforting," you say. "that's the opposite of comforting. that implies he is somewhere on ninth street currently locating me through means i don't want to think about."

"he probably just means he's downstairs," karen says, checking her phone again. "matt doesn't usually wander far."

"downstairs," you repeat. "as in, downstairs from here."

"there's a coffee place two doors down he likes," foggy says. "and the deli. and the corner with the—" he stops. "actually, you know what, let's just walk."

"that is not a plan, foggy."

"it's the only plan we have," he says, cheerfully, already heading for the door, and frank holds it open the rest of the way, and karen falls into step beside you with the particular calm of someone who has clearly never once in her professional life been lost and does not intend to start being concerned about it on your behalf, and you follow all three of them out onto the pavement in the cold with the distinct feeling that you have, in fact, ruined the plan, and that nobody else in this group seems to think that matters even slightly.

you've barely gone ten feet down the block when you see him.

matt is standing outside, just past the building's entrance, cane in hand, jacket buttoned against the cold, facing the door with the particular stillness of someone who has been waiting and knew exactly how long he'd be waiting for. he turns his head before any of you have said a word, the directional attention finding you immediately even in a group of four, and for a half second his expression doesn't move at all.

then it does.

"oh–" he says, and it comes out light, surprised in the specific way of someone recalibrating a plan that has just acquired three additional people. "hey."

"hi," you say, slightly out of breath from the walk and the general chaos of the last ninety seconds. "i didn't have an address. i panicked. i may have invited the building."

"i can see that," he says, and the corner of his mouth moves, the particular movement you are starting to recognise as matt murdock's version of genuine amusement. "russo," he adds, to foggy, in the tone of a long-running joke that predates you by years.

"that's not funny," foggy says, automatically, the same way you said it's not funny ten feet back, and you wonder if this is just a phrase that gets passed around this building like a relay baton.

"where are we going?" karen says, practical as ever, already glancing at her watch.

"there's a place a few blocks down," matt says. "underground. jazz on wednesdays." he says it simply, like this is an unremarkable amount of information, and you watch karen's expression do something interesting in real time.

"an underground jazz club.” she repeats.

"it's good," matt says. "quiet booth in the back. they know me."

karen looks at him for a long moment. then she looks at you, and then at frank, who has the particular blankness of a man who has clearly never been to an underground jazz club in his life and has no intention of starting tonight, and then back at matt.

"yeah, no," she says, with the easy finality of someone who has made a decision and is at peace with it. "i'm going home."

"karen—" foggy starts.

"i have had a day," karen says, "that involved wilson fisk, james wesley, and three separate calls i made with my door closed. i am not finishing it in a basement listening to a saxophone." she says it without any real complaint in it, just plain fact, the tone of a woman who knows exactly what she needs and has decided to go get it. she looks at you and her whole face softens. "you go," she says. "have fun. don't let foggy order for you, he always gets it wrong."

"i do not always get it wrong," foggy says.

"you ordered me the wrong drink on my first day at this firm and you have never recovered from it," karen says, without looking at him, and then she steps in and kisses you on the cheek, brief and warm, smelling faintly of the coffee she's had since six this morning. "see you tomorrow."

"see you tomorrow, karen–" you say, slightly stunned by the gesture and the warmth of it landing somewhere you weren't quite braced for.

she gives matt a look that you can't fully decode, something between approval and warning, and then she waves the rest of you off with one hand, already turning toward the subway. "be good," she says, to all of you collectively, in the voice of a woman who does not actually expect this instruction to be followed and has made peace with that too.

you watch her go, coat collar up, bag over her shoulder, disappearing into the evening crowd with the specific competence of someone who always knows exactly where she's headed, which is apparently a quality you do not currently share with her.

"okay," foggy says, rubbing his hands together against the cold. "jazz club. lead the way, murdock."

matt turns, cane finding the pavement with the same easy certainty it always has, and starts walking, and you fall into step beside him with frank and foggy a pace behind, and you think that you came down in that elevator forty minutes ago worried about being alone with your boss at dinner, and now you are heading to an underground jazz club with your boss, his best friend, and a man who communicates primarily in monosyllables, because you panicked and invited the building.

the walk to the jazz club takes you down two blocks and across one intersection, and matt sets the pace without ever seeming to decide on one, the kind of walking that comes from doing the same route enough times that his body has stopped needing instructions from him.

"you remember the last time we did this," foggy says, to matt, apropos of nothing, the particular opening of a story that has clearly been told before and will clearly be told again.

"which time?" matt says.

"the bar exam," foggy says. "the night before. you insisted on going out."

"you insisted," matt says. "i said one drink."

"you said one drink and then you ordered three more and gave a toast about how the bar exam was, quote, a fundamentally flawed assessment of practical legal competence."

"it is a fundamentally flawed assessment." matt says, entirely unrepentant.

"you passed." frank says, from behind you, flat and dry.

"i did pass," matt agrees. "the exam was still flawed."

foggy laughs, the real one, and shakes his head. "i had the worst hangover of my natural life the next morning and you were somehow fine, which i have never forgiven you for."

"i wasn't fine," matt says with a grin. "i was performing fine. there's a difference."

"there is no difference," foggy says. "the outcome was identical. you took the exam looking like a person and i took it looking like i'd been hit by a bus."

"you still passed."

"barely. i blame you specifically."

"you blame me for a lot of things," matt says, and there's a warmth in it that goes back further than the firm, the particular ease of an argument that has been rehearsed and re-rehearsed and worn smooth in all the places it used to have edges, and you can hear, underneath the bickering, the actual decades of it.

frank says nothing through all of it, but at one point, when foggy gets to the part about the hangover, you glance back and catch the corner of frank's mouth doing the thing it does, brief and almost imperceptible, the sign that he has heard this story enough times to know exactly which part is coming and is still, somehow, finding it funny.

"how long have you three known each other," you ask, mostly to foggy, since he seems to be the one currently driving the narrative.

"matt and i, since law school," foggy says. "columbia. roommates for two years, which is either the best or worst decision i've ever made, the data's still inconclusive." he glances at matt. "frank, longer than that, technically, but differently."

"differently how?" you ask, however prepared to be told to butt out and stop being nosy.

"frank knew my dad." matt says, before foggy can answer for him, and there's something quieter in the way he says it, something that closes the door gently rather than slamming it, and you don't push, the same way you didn't push with karen in the elevator, filing it instead in the place where you keep things you're being handed slowly.

frank doesn't add anything to that, but he doesn't look away from it either, just walks with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the pavement ahead, and you think that whatever the shape of that history is, it's old enough and heavy enough that neither of them needs to say more than they already have.

foggy, sensing the shift the way he seems to sense most shifts in a room, brightens the temperature back up without missing a beat. "anyway," he says, "the point is, we've been doing this specific configuration, the three of us, for a long time. you get used to each other's nonsense eventually."

"is that what this is," you say. "nonsense?"

"it's affectionate nonsense," foggy clarifies. "very different category."

the pavement narrows where a delivery van has half-mounted the curb, and foggy, without breaking the flow of the sentence he's currently building about the affectionate nonsense category and its various subcategories, offers you his arm, elbow crooked, casual as anything, the gesture of someone who has clearly done this for plenty of people on plenty of uneven new york sidewalks and thinks nothing of it.

you take it, it's warm even through his coat sleeve, and steadier than you expected, and you navigate the narrow stretch of pavement with your hand tucked through his arm while he finishes his sentence about affectionate nonsense without any apparent awareness that he's just been doing two things at once, talking and holding you steady, with the same easy competence.

"see," foggy says, once you're past the van and the pavement widens out again, glancing down at where your hand is still loosely through his arm, "this is also a category of thing i do. i'm very good at multitasking."

"i noticed," you say, not letting go yet, because it's cold and his arm is warm and there doesn't seem to be any urgent reason to.

matt, a step ahead, doesn't turn around, but something in the line of his shoulders changes slightly, a small recalibration that you catch only because you've spent two days learning to read the back of his head almost as well as the front of it, and you wonder, briefly, what that particular adjustment means, and then you decide that's a thought for later, possibly much later, possibly never, and you keep walking.

eventually, matt stops and goes down a small set of stairs, holding a hand on the railing until you four get to an inconspicuous door with no sign, just a plain black door beside a shuttered dry cleaner's, and a man in a dark coat standing beside it who looks at the four of you with the neutrality of someone whose entire job is deciding who gets to go further than this point.

"murdock," matt says, before the man has even fully turned toward him, and the man's expression shifts, just slightly, into something more like recognition, the specific kind of recognition reserved for people who don't need to be reminded of their own membership status.

"mr. murdock," the man says, pulling the door open. "good evening."

you go down a narrow staircase that smells faintly of polish and something warmer underneath it, woodsmoke maybe, or candle wax, and the sound reaches you before the room does, low and unhurried, a bassline moving through the walls like something half-remembered. the staircase opens into a room that is dim in the specific way of places that have decided dim is a design choice rather than an oversight, the kind of low gold lighting that makes everyone in it look slightly better than they do under normal circumstances. there's a small stage at the far end where a trio is playing something easy and unbothered, the kind of music that doesn't ask you to pay attention to it and rewards you anyway if you do. the booths along the walls are deep and upholstered in dark leather, candles burning low on every table, and the whole room has the particular hush of a place where everyone present has already decided they belong there and doesn't need to perform that belonging for anyone else.

"matt," you say, quietly, as a host appears from somewhere near the bar already moving toward you with the recognition of staff who know a regular by the sound of his cane on the floor before they've even looked up. "this is members only."

"it is," he says.

"you're a member."

"i am."

"of an underground jazz club?"

"it's not that underground," he says. "you found it in eleven minutes."

"i found it because i followed you."

"that's still finding it," he says, and the corner of his mouth lifts in a grin.

then a well-dressed man with a small name tag appears, a familiar smile on his face. “good evening, mr. murdock, table for four?”

“yes, thank you, david.” matt says with the easy familiarity of a man who has been here often enough to know the staff by name, and you follow him through the room toward a booth near the back, foggy and frank a step behind you, both of them taking in the room with expressions that suggest they too are recalibrating something, though neither looks remotely surprised the way you currently are.

"you've been here before," you say to foggy, once you're seated, the booth deep and dark and candlelit, the music close enough now to feel in your chest rather than just hear.

"a few times," foggy says, sliding in across from you, shrugging out of his coat. "matt likes the quiet. and the bourbon list, allegedly, though i've never seen him actually order off it."

"i have a usual," matt says, settling in beside you with his cane folded against the booth, close enough that you're aware of the line of his shoulder near yours in the dim light. he mutters a soft thank you when david hands him a braille drinks menu.

"he has a usual," foggy confirms, like this is a piece of established lore. "frank's been once. hated it."

"didn't hate it," frank says, sliding in beside foggy, looking around the room with the flat appraising look of a man checking exits before he checks anything else. "thought it was loud."

"it's jazz, frank," foggy says. "it's supposed to be a little loud."

"it's quiet," frank says. "for jazz."

"that's the highest compliment frank castle is capable of giving a venue," foggy stage-whispers to you, and frank doesn't dispute it, just picks up the menu that's already on the table and starts reading it with the focused seriousness he brings to everything.

you pick up the menu and immediately understand why nobody else in the booth looked surprised by any of this.

there are no prices listed next to most of the dishes, which you have learned from prior exposure to restaurants that do this is never a good sign, and the ones that do have prices attached to them are numbers that make you sit slightly more upright in the booth. the cocktail list reads like poetry written by someone with access to extremely expensive spirits, things infused with smoked things and aged in barrels that previously held other, also expensive things, and the food section is full of words like tasting and reduction and foraged, none of which are words that typically appear on menus in places you frequent.

you do the math on a single small plate and feel your stomach drop slightly.

"i'll have the water," you say, mostly to yourself, scanning desperately for something, anything, that doesn't require you to take out a loan.

matt leans in, close enough that you catch the low warmth of his voice over the bass coming from the stage, close enough that his shoulder presses briefly against yours. "i'll pay for it," he says, simply, like this resolves the matter entirely and there is nothing further to discuss. "don't worry about it."

"matt—"

"order what you want," he says, settling back, completely unbothered, like he hasn't just said a sentence that is doing several things at once.

across the table, frank rolls his eyes, slow and deliberate, the kind of eye roll that takes real effort for a man who otherwise economizes on facial movement, and goes back to his menu without comment.

foggy, however, does not go back to his menu. foggy puts his menu down entirely and looks at matt and then at you and then at matt again with an expression of pure, delighted scandal.

"someone," foggy says, to the table at large, "is trying to get a best boss mug."

"foggy–" matt says, his voice already starting on a sigh.

"i'm just saying," foggy says, picking his menu back up with the satisfaction of a man who has scored a direct hit and intends to enjoy it. "world's best boss. number one employer. i'll have it engraved myself."

"i pay for dinner sometimes," matt says. "it's not a campaign."

"you paid for her lunch yesterday," foggy says. "and this morning. and now dinner. that's not sometimes, matt, that's a pattern, and patterns get noticed in this profession, we're lawyers."

"it's a working dinner," matt says, with the same even patience he's used on you twice today already, and you start to understand that this is simply how he handles being teased, absorbing it without rising to it, which only seems to make foggy more delighted.

"it's a working dinner at a jazz club you're a member of," foggy says, "that you didn't tell her the address of, so she had to invite the entire firm just to have backup."

"that was her idea," matt says, although he seems to shoot you an apologetic expression.

"because she panicked," foggy says, gesturing at you with his menu. "look at her. she's still panicking. she was looking at the price of a cocktail like it personally insulted her family."

"i was not!" you say, even though you absolutely were, and frank, without looking up from his menu, says, "you were," in the flattest possible register, and you decide that frank castle siding against you twice in one evening is somehow worse than once.

"i'm just saying," foggy continues, entirely undeterred, "this is a lot of best boss behaviour for someone two days into employing a person."

"i would do this for any new hire.”

"you would not!" foggy says, immediately, without hesitation, the certainty of a man who has known matt murdock long enough to call this exact bluff without needing to think about it. "you didn't take the second receptionist to a jazz club. you didn't take the third receptionist to a jazz club. nobody has ever been taken to a jazz club, matt, this is a first."

matt is quiet for a moment, the kind of quiet that has something underneath it, and the corner of his mouth moves in the dim candlelight, that particular small movement you've learned means more than it shows on the surface.

"order something nice" he says to you, instead of answering foggy at all, which you are starting to suspect is matt murdock's preferred method of ending a conversation he doesn't want to continue.

you look back down at the menu, at the foraged things and the smoked things and the number that made your stomach drop, and you think that you are absolutely going to order the least expensive item on this menu regardless of what matt murdock says.

you order the pasta, which is the cheapest thing on the menu and is somehow still more than you'd pay for a week of groceries, and matt, beside you, doesn't say a word about it, just orders his usual, and under the table, where nobody can see, you feel his knee brush yours, briefly, and you decide that you are absolutely not going to think about that until you are alone tonight, possibly for several hours.

the waiter who appears at your booth is the same david who greeted matt at the door, dark waistcoat, a small leather notebook held loosely in one hand, and the particular unhurried warmth of someone who has worked here long enough to know exactly how much performance a table actually wants and to calibrate accordingly.

"mr. murdock," he says, warm. "good to see you again. and friends." he looks around the table with genuine pleasure, the kind that seems to extend specifically to the fact that matt has brought people, plural, which you suspect is rarer than you currently understand. "can i start you with drinks?"

"the usual," matt says.

"the kentucky reserve, neat," david says, already writing, not even needing matt to confirm it, and matt's mouth does the small thing it does.

foggy leans back in the booth with the air of a man fully settling in for the evening. "i'll have the smoked rosemary old fashioned," he says, "and can you ask the bar to do the orange peel thing, the one where they—"

"flame it," david says. "of course."

"he remembers." foggy says, delighted, to the table.

frank, without looking up from the menu, says, "whatever beer you have on tap. no fancy shit.”

david's expression flickers with something that might be amusement, carefully contained. "we have a small batch lager from a brewery upstate," he says. "not trying particularly hard. mostly just very good."

frank grunts and shuts the menu.

david turns to you, notebook ready, pen poised, and you feel the particular pressure of being the one person at the table without an established order, without a david who already knows what you drink, and you glance once more at the cocktail list and its smoked things and aged things and you pick the one with the fewest syllables in its description.

"the elderflower spritz," you say, "please."

"excellent choice," david says, writing it down, and you cannot tell if he means it or if this is simply part of the job, but either way you feel marginally better about your selection.

"and for food," david continues, "are we ready, or would you like a few more minutes?"

"i think we're ready," matt says, and looks around the table with the directional attention that somehow includes everyone at once. "ladies first."

you look down at the menu one final time. "the pasta," you say. "the one with the brown butter and sage, and the—" you squint at the next line, "—foraged mushroom."

"a wonderful choice," david says. "we finish that one with a shaving of aged parmesan and a touch of truffle, if that's alright."

"that's alright," you say, with the particular calm of someone who has decided to simply accept that truffle is happening to her dinner and not ask further questions about what that means for the bill.

foggy goes next, ordering something called the seared duck breast with a cherry gastrique and a side of confit potatoes that he describes with the enthusiasm of a man who has clearly had this exact dish multiple times and has strong, settled opinions about it.

frank orders the steak, medium, no sauce, nothing else, four words total, and david writes it down without asking a single follow-up question, the efficient mercy of a waiter who recognizes a man who does not want his protein interfered with.

"and you, mr. murdock?"

"the branzino," matt says. "whole, if the kitchen's doing it that way tonight."

"they are," david says. "i'll let chef know. shall i bring some bread to start? we have the burnt honey butter tonight."

"please," matt says, and david nods once and disappears toward the bar with the particular gliding efficiency of someone who has been doing this for a very long time, and you sit back in the booth with the candlelight low and warm across the table and the bass still moving steadily from the stage and for a second you let your shoulders drop.

"burnt honey butter," foggy says, to nobody, with the deep satisfaction of a man anticipating bread. "this is why i come here."

"i thought you came here for the bourbon?" you say.

"i come here for several reasons," foggy says. "they're all valid."

frank, beside him, says nothing, but when david returns a few minutes later with a small basket of warm bread and a dish of something pale gold and glistening, frank reaches for it before anyone else does, with the quiet decisiveness of a man who has, despite his complaints about the venue, clearly been here before and clearly remembers exactly how good the bread is.

the bread arrives warm, steam still coming off it faintly in the low light, and the burnt honey butter is the kind of pale gold colour that looks expensive even before anyone touches it, which by this point in the evening does not surprise you in the slightest.

you reach for a piece and then sort of hold it there, looking at the butter dish, looking at the knife, looking at the general arrangement of things, with the particular paralysis of someone who is now too aware of her own hands to use them naturally, which is a fairly accurate summary of how you have felt since you sat down in this booth.

frank notices. of course frank notices. frank notices everything, quietly, from whatever angle he happens to be sitting at, and without saying anything about it he reaches over, takes the bread out of your hand, spreads a careful amount of the butter across it with the knife, and hands it back to you.

"thank you, frank" you say, slightly thrown by the gesture, the practical ease of it, the fact that he did it the same way he'd hand someone a tool they needed, no ceremony attached and give him a grateful smile.

"you looked like you were going to drop it." frank says, which is not exactly what happened but is close enough to the truth that you don't argue, and he goes back to his own bread, and you eat yours, and it is, predictably, extremely good, the kind of good that makes you understand why people pay for things like burnt honey butter in the first place.

the drinks arrive shortly after. your elderflower spritz is pale and fizzing gently with a sprig of something green floating in it, foggy's old fashioned arrives with the orange peel still smoking faintly from being flamed, which delights him as much the second time as the first, frank's beer comes in a simple glass with a clean head of foam, and matt's bourbon, neat, sits in front of him with the particular weight of a drink that has been poured by someone who knows exactly how much he likes in the glass and never varies it.

"alright," karen would have said, if karen were here, and matt seems to channel some version of that energy now, turning his glass slightly on the table without drinking from it yet. "the westfield notes."

you sit up slightly, grateful for the shift onto solid professional ground, something with edges you can actually hold onto.

"the timeline discrepancy," you say. "the corporate resolution approving the acquisition agreement came three weeks after the agreement itself was already signed and binding."

"which means," foggy says, leaning in, all the playful energy from a moment ago folding neatly away into the version of him that built a law firm from nothing, "the authority to enter into it either didn't exist yet or got backdated."

"or both," matt says.

"or both," you agree. "and either way, the acquiring party may not have understood that when they signed, which means there's an argument that they didn't have a complete picture of the risk they were taking on."

"which connects to the civil liability crossover billy mentioned," matt says, and something in his voice when he says billy's name is even and careful in a way that wasn't there with foggy's name a moment ago, the tone of someone keeping a professional distinction deliberately intact. "if the resolution was backdated, that's not just a contract issue. that's potentially a disclosure issue too."

"which is where it starts overlapping with hargrove," you say, and you feel the shape of it clicking together properly for the first time, the thing you'd been circling all afternoon without quite landing on. "if there's a pattern of authority being assumed or granted after the fact, across multiple matters, that's not a coincidence. that's a practice."

frank, who has been quietly working through his steak without much commentary, looks up at that. "a practice," he repeats.

"a habit," you say. "something somebody does because it's worked before and nobody's caught it yet."

the table goes briefly quiet, the kind of quiet that has weight in it, the bass from the stage filling the space where conversation was a second ago, and you look around and see foggy's expression has gone serious in the particular way it did yesterday when fisk's name came up, and frank's jaw has set slightly, and matt is very still beside you, the same stillness from this morning when you told him about wesley's call, the stillness of someone doing several things behind a face that isn't showing any of them.

"you think this connects to fisk," matt says. quiet. not a question exactly, more an invitation for you to say the thing you're already thinking.

you look at him. you think about the related party field, and wesley's call, and billy's careful be careful on the phone this afternoon, and the way nobody in this booth has so much as flinched at a jazz club bill that could probably feed a family for a month, and you think that maybe all of this, the lunch orders and the cards and the foraged mushrooms, is easier to sit with than the actual shape of what you found in that file.

"i think–" you say, carefully, "that it might."

the table goes quiet in a way that has a quality you've started to recognise, the particular hush that drops over a room when a certain name is about to be said and somebody decides, mid-breath, not to say it.

foggy glances toward the door, briefly, almost without meaning to. frank's eyes move once around the booth, the bar, the staff moving between tables, a habit you suspect he's had for a lot longer than two days. matt doesn't move at all, which somehow communicates the same thing as everyone else's small careful glances, just compressed down into stillness instead.

"he has people," frank says, low, not quite a whisper but close to it, pitched to carry exactly as far as this table and no further. "everywhere. waiters. drivers. people who owe him things."

"we don't say his name in places like this," foggy adds, equally quiet, and there's no drama in it, just the flat practical caution of people who have learned this the hard way and don't intend to relearn it.

you look around the booth at the candlelight and the low gold lighting and david somewhere near the bar with his leather notebook and think about how easily a name could travel from a table like this one to somewhere it shouldn't, carried by someone who looks like they're just clearing glasses.

"okay," you say, just as quietly. "then we need a different word for him."

foggy looks at you, childish excitement in his eyes,"a code word?"

"a code word," you confirm.

frank, who you would not have expected to be the first one on board with this, says, simply, "good idea," in the same flat tone he uses for everything, which from frank is practically an enthusiastic endorsement.

"alright," foggy says, leaning in slightly, already enjoying this more than the situation probably warrants. "what do we call him?"

you think about it for a second, the largeness of him in every secondhand description you've gathered, the way he doesn't appear directly but moves through everything anyway, silent and pervasive, present without ever surfacing.

"fish," you say.

foggy blinks. "fish."

"he's everywhere," you say. "you can't see him most of the time but you know he’s there.”

there's a beat of silence, and then foggy makes a small sound that he's clearly trying to suppress, and fails, and ends up biting down on his own laugh hard enough that it comes out as something closer to a wheeze.

"fish–" he repeats, delighted despite himself, despite the topic, despite everything. "okay. fish. i can work with fish."

frank's mouth does the thing, the very small thing, the corner moving just slightly, and matt, beside you, is quiet for a second and then says, low, "and wesley."

"wheat," you say, immediately, because it arrived in your head the second matt said the question.

"wheat," foggy repeats, and this time he does laugh, quick and quiet and pressed mostly into his fist. "fish and wheat. you've turned them into a farmers market."

"it's memorable," you say, "and nobody listening in is going to think anything of it."

"nobody's going to think anything of it because it's insane," foggy says, still grinning, "but i respect the commitment."

frank picks his beer back up. "wheat called the office today," he says, testing it, like he's trying the shape of it in his mouth, and it works, oddly, the absurdity of it doing exactly what you wanted it to do, making the whole thing feel smaller and more manageable even though nothing about the actual situation has changed.

matt, beside you, doesn't say anything for a moment, and when you glance at him his expression has shifted into something quieter, more considering, and you wonder if he's turning the whole conversation over the way he does most things, methodically, looking for the places it doesn't quite fit.

"so," he says eventually, voice still low, "fish has interests that overlap with hargrove and now westfield. wheat called the office specifically about a meeting with me. and the westfield timeline discrepancy suggests a pattern that's been running for a while, undetected."

"that's not an accident," foggy says, quietly, the humour falling away from his voice now, replaced with something more careful.

"no," matt agrees. "it isn't."

the booth is quiet again, the bass from the stage filling the gap, and you look around the table at the three of them, all three faces doing some version of the same calculation, and you think that you came to this dinner worried about being alone with your boss and instead you have spent the last ten minutes inventing code names for one of the most dangerous men in the city with the people who have apparently spent years learning, slowly and at some cost, exactly how dangerous he is.

"fish and wheat," foggy says again, mostly to himself, shaking his head, and despite everything, despite the weight sitting underneath the table now, he's smiling slightly when he says it, like the absurdity of it is the only thing currently making the rest of it bearable.

the food arrives in stages, david moving between the kitchen and the booth with the same unhurried competence as everything else about him, and for a moment the conversation pauses entirely while plates get set down, the branzino whole and glistening in front of matt, frank's steak with nothing on it but itself, foggy's duck breast dark and lacquered with cherry, your pasta arriving last with its shaving of parmesan and the faint dark fragrance of truffle rising off it.

"this looks incredible," foggy says, already reaching for his fork, the earlier weight of the conversation visibly lifting off him the way it seems to do, easily, the way some people are built to let things go and pick them back up only when they need to.

you wait until everyone has a few bites in before you say anything else, partly out of manners and partly because you've been turning the question over since the bread arrived and want to ask it properly rather than half-formed.

"i looked him up," you say, quietly, not using the code name this time because you're not asking about the man specifically, you're asking about the shape of the silence around him. "fish. this afternoon. before the call with russo."

foggy's fork pauses halfway to his mouth.

"and i found basically nothing," you continue. "property records. a foundation website that says a lot of nothing. a few press mentions that all read like they were written by the same careful person." you look around the table. "which is strange, because someone with that much money and that much reach should have more of a footprint than that. people like that usually want to be seen."

frank doesn't look up from his steak, but something in the set of his shoulders changes, a stillness that's different from his usual stillness, more deliberate.

"he doesn't want to be seen," matt says. quiet, even, the words chosen carefully. "that's the whole structure of it. he's spent a long time making sure that what gets seen is the foundation, the property, the philanthropy. anything that gets traced back to him directly gets handled before it becomes visible."

"handled how?" you ask, and you watch the question land differently across the table, foggy's eyes flicking briefly to his plate, frank's jaw working once before he answers.

"however it needs to be." frank says.

"everyone i've mentioned him to today has reacted the same way," you say, carefully, because you want to understand what everyone else clearly knows. "foggy looked at the ceiling. karen turned a message slip face down. billy told me to be careful in a voice that didn't sound like he was performing anything. and you–" you look at matt, "you went completely still."

matt is quiet for a moment, knife and fork resting against the edge of his plate.

"he's not someone you cross by accident," he says, finally. "and he's not someone you cross on purpose unless you've already decided the cost is worth it. most people never get to that decision. they just learn early to stay out of his way, and the ones who don't learn—" he stops.

"the ones who don't learn," foggy finishes, quietly, "tend to disappear. one way or another. a case gets dropped. a witness gets reluctant. someone's business has a very bad year. nothing that points back to him directly. ever."

"and nobody's ever gotten him for any of it?" the idea that one man and his lackeys have been able to torment clients, witnesses, jury members and the like doesn’t sit well besides your pasta.

"no," matt says. "not once. not in any way that's stuck."

frank, finally, sets his fork down properly and looks at you, the direct uncomplicated attention you've already learned means he's decided something matters enough to spend words on. "people who go looking get noticed," he says. "not always right away. but eventually." a pause. "that's not a reason to stop looking. it's a reason to be smart about how."

you sit with that too, the bread and the butter and the truffle shavings suddenly feeling very far away from the actual conversation happening above the table.

"is that why nobody says his name in here," you ask. "even somewhere like this. somewhere expensive. somewhere that feels safe."

"nowhere feels safe where he's concerned," foggy says, simply, and for once there isn't a single ounce of his usual brightness underneath it. "that's the whole point of him."

the table goes quiet again, the bass from the stage filling the space, and you look down at your pasta, mostly untouched now, and think that two days ago you didn't know any of these people's names, and tonight you are sitting in a booth in an underground jazz club being told, gently and seriously, by three people who clearly care what happens to you, that the man whose name they won't say out loud is the kind of man entire careers and lives have quietly ended around without anyone ever being able to prove why.

"okay," you say, finally, because someone has to say something and the silence has gone on long enough that the music alone can't carry it. "fish and wheat. noted. carefully."

foggy's mouth twitches, the tension breaking slightly, not all the way, but enough. "carefully," he agrees, picking his fork back up. "very, very carefully."

the mood shifts the way it tends to in this group, you're learning, quickly and without ceremony, foggy steering it back toward something lighter with the particular instinct of a man who has spent years knowing exactly how long a heavy silence is allowed to sit before someone has to do something about it.

"okay," he says, pointing his fork at frank, "tell her about the time you wore the santa suit."

frank, mid-bite, goes very still.

"no, foggy." he says.

"the firm christmas party," foggy continues, entirely undeterred, talking now to you specifically, leaning in like he's about to tell you something illegal. "second year we were open. karen insisted on a santa for the kids of the building staff, very sweet idea, very good cause, and somehow—"

"foggy."

"—somehow, the only person available on short notice who fit the suit was frank."

you look at frank. frank looks back at you with the flat, doomed expression of a man who knows exactly where this story is going and has accepted, after multiple retellings, that he cannot stop it.

"he didn't smile once," foggy says. "the entire afternoon. children were sitting on his knee, asking for ponies and video games, and frank just looked at them like he was processing intake forms."

"i was being professional," frank says.

"you scared a six year old so badly his mother had to take him home."

"he was already crying when he sat down."

"because you looked like that," foggy says, gesturing broadly at frank's entire face, "underneath a fake white beard."

you are laughing before you mean to, the kind that arrives suddenly and entirely without your permission, and once it starts it doesn't stop, it builds on itself, foggy's delight feeding it, frank's flat aggrieved expression feeding it more, and somewhere in the middle of trying to picture frank castle in a santa suit terrifying small children with sheer presence alone, your stomach starts to cramp from it, the real kind of laughing you haven't done in longer than you'd like to admit, and you have to set your fork down because your hand isn't steady enough to use it properly.

"he asked one kid," foggy gasps, barely able to get the words out himself now, "what he wanted for christmas, and the kid said a puppy, and frank just said—" he has to stop, wipe his eye, start again. "frank just said, 'that's a lot of responsibility.'"

"it is," frank says, with complete and total sincerity, which somehow makes it worse, and you lose it entirely, doubling forward, and the nearest solid surface happens to be matt's shoulder, and you press your face into it without thinking about it at all, just trying to muffle the sound, your whole body shaking with it.

matt doesn't move away. if anything he shifts slightly, just enough to give you somewhere steadier to laugh into, and you feel more than hear the low sound of his own laugh under your ear, quiet and real, and when you finally manage to lift your head enough to see, he's looking across the table at foggy and frank with an expression you haven't seen on him yet, open and unguarded, delighted in the specific way people get when they're watching someone they care about be happy. ‘

"‘that's a lot of responsibility.’" foggy repeats, wheezing, and frank just picks his fork back up and goes back to his steak with the dignity of a man who has decided the story is over whether or not anyone else agrees.

you're still half-laughing, half-recovering, your forehead briefly still resting against matt's shoulder, when a voice cuts in from just beside the booth, easy and amused and entirely too pleased with itself.

"well," billy russo says, looking down at the four of you with his hands in his coat pockets and an expression like christmas has come early, "this looks cozy."

you sit up fast enough that you nearly knock your drink over, foggy's hand shooting out automatically to steady the glass before it tips, and you turn to find billy russo standing at the end of the booth with his hands in his coat pockets, grinning like he's just been handed the best part of his entire week.

beside him, benjamin is not grinning.

he's looking at the booth with the same direct unmodulated attention he gives everything, except right now it's fixed precisely on the spot where your head was, a moment ago, resting against matt's shoulder, and his jaw has done something controlled and tight that you haven't seen from him before, not on day one and not in any of the brief professional exchanges since.

"russo," matt says, his voice settling into something more careful, the warmth from a moment ago folding neatly away.

"murdock," billy says, easy, delighted, clearly enjoying every second of this. "didn't expect to find you here. didn't expect to find any of you here, honestly." his eyes move around the booth, foggy still pink in the face from laughing, frank's expression flattening back into its usual neutral, you sitting up very straight with your hands now folded primly in your lap like that's going to undo what billy already saw. "small world."

"small city," foggy corrects, recovering his composure with admirable speed. "russo. poindexter." he nods at benjamin, who doesn't respond, still looking at the booth, at you, at the inch of space between you and matt that you've now very deliberately reestablished.

"what are you doing here?" you ask, mostly because someone needs to say something and everyone else seems content to just sit in the awkwardness of it.

"benjamin's idea, actually," billy says, gesturing at him with obvious enjoyment, the kind of enjoyment that suggests he knows exactly how unusual that sentence is and intends to make the most of it. "said we should come down here tonight. very out of character for him. i was shocked. genuinely shocked." he looks at benjamin, who still hasn't said a single word, still hasn't looked away from the space where your head was. "weren't i shocked?"

benjamin doesn't answer that either. he's still looking at matt now, just briefly, a flat assessing look that lasts exactly as long as it needs to, and then back at you, and there's something underneath the neutral surface of his expression that you don't have a category for yet, something that reads less like jealousy exactly and more like a man recalculating a piece of information he thought he already had correctly filed.

"funny," matt says, even, unreadable, "that you'd pick tonight, of all nights, for a jazz club you've never mentioned before."

"i like jazz," benjamin says. flat. final. the first thing he's said since arriving, and it lands in the booth with considerably more weight than the four words probably intended to carry.

billy looks between the two of them, something flickering across his face that's almost gleeful, the specific delight of a man watching two people who are absolutely not going to admit what's actually happening in front of him.

"well," billy says, clapping his hands together once, entirely too pleased with the whole situation, "since we're all here. mind if we join you?"

"oh god," you say, mostly to yourself, but not quietly enough, and foggy's mouth twitches at the corner before he manages to smooth it back down.

"i'm going to get a refill," you say, already reaching for your empty glass, the elderflower spritz long gone somewhere in the middle of the laughing and the fish and wheat conversation and the part where billy russo discovered you with your face pressed into matt's shoulder.

"i'll get it." matt says, already starting to move.

"i can get it–" foggy says, at exactly the same time.

"i'll go." frank says, which from frank is practically a competitive offer, and even billy, still standing at the end of the booth, says, "i could—" 

before you cut all of them off with a hand raised, firm. "no," you say. "i'm getting up anyway. i need a second."

nobody argues with that, which you appreciate, and matt and foggy and frank all stand in the particular synchronized way of men who have been raised or trained or simply worn down into automatically standing whenever a woman needs to get out of a booth, and you slide past all of them, past billy still hovering at the end of the table looking far too pleased with himself, and past benjamin, who doesn't move at all, just watches you go with that same flat unreadable attention.

you walk toward the bar with your empty glass and the particular relief of having a task, something to do with your hands and your feet that isn't sitting in that booth with your bosses and a rival firm.

the bar is at the far end of the room, low-lit like everything else here, a long stretch of dark wood with bottles stacked up behind it catching the gold light, and you lean against it and order another elderflower spritz from a bartender who doesn't ask any questions, which you're grateful for.

you feel it before you've even fully settled at the bar. the particular sensation of being watched, specific and unmistakable, a weight settling at the back of your neck that has nothing to do with the general ambient awareness of being in a crowded room and everything to do with one person, specifically, choosing not to look away.

you don't turn around immediately. you wait for your drink, watching the bartender measure something pale into a shaker, and the feeling doesn't lessen, doesn't shift, stays exactly where it landed, steady and direct, and you understand without having to check that it's benjamin.

you know it the way you've started to know things about him in the space of two days, the particular quality of his attention, unmodulated, undisguised, the same directness he had at the elevator when he asked about the indemnity clause and didn't look away when you caught him at it. billy's attention moves, performs, redirects itself toward whatever's most interesting in a room. benjamin's doesn't move. it just settles somewhere and stays there until he's decided he's finished.

your drink arrives and before you can tap your card with a grim expression, already resigned to whatever the elderflower spritz costs in this place, a silver amex slides into the card reader ahead of yours, the hand attached to it unhurried, confident, entirely unbothered by the implication of the gesture.

"i've got it," a voice says, warm and easy, and you turn to find a man standing slightly too close at the bar, dark suit, expensive cut, the kind of careless good looks that come with a haircut that costs more than it should and a watch that catches the low light every time he moves his wrist.

"you don't have to do that–" you say, automatically, the same sentence you've said twice already today, apparently a refrain you're destined to keep repeating to men in good suits.

"i know," he says, and the corner of his mouth tips into something easy and practiced, the kind of smile that's clearly been deployed successfully many times before tonight. "buck cashman." he extends a hand.

you shake it, mostly out of reflex. his grip is firm, warm, a beat longer than strictly necessary. "thank you," you say, gesturing at the now-settled drink. "for the rescue. those prices are criminal."

"this place specializes in criminal," he says, easy, "in more ways than one," and there's something underneath it, light and amused, that you can't quite place, the way a joke can have a second meaning that only the person telling it fully understands.

"you’re a member here too?" you ask, mostly to make conversation, mostly because you've had one and a half drinks and laughed yourself into a stomach cramp and are feeling considerably looser than you were an hour ago.

"something like that," buck says, leaning casually against the bar, angling his whole body toward you with the easy confidence of a man who has never once worried about whether a conversation was going well. "i do work for a friend who has a, let's say, vested interest in this place staying exactly the way it is."

"sounds important."

"sounds boring, mostly," he says, "but it pays well." his eyes move over you, brief, appreciative, not crude about it, just openly noticing, the way some men do without bothering to hide it. "you here with someone?"

"a few people," you say, gesturing vaguely back toward the booth, not specifying who, suddenly aware of exactly how that question is meant to be answered and not entirely sure you want to answer it honestly.

"lucky few people," buck says, and you laugh, a little, because it's a good line delivered well, and he seems pleased by that, settling further into the conversation with the relaxed certainty of a man who has clearly decided this is worth his time.

it's easy, the way conversation sometimes just is with certain people, no friction to it, no work involved, and somewhere in the last few minutes buck has settled onto a barstool and you've drifted, without entirely meaning to, into the space between his knees, close enough that the conversation has a kind of low intimacy to it now, his hand resting loosely on the edge of the bar near your hip, not touching, just present, the easy confidence of a man who knows exactly how much space he's allowed to take up and takes precisely that much.

"so let me guess," he says, tilting his head, studying you with the kind of open, unhurried attention that feels flattering rather than invasive, "receptionist, paralegal, something legal."

"receptionist," you say. "how'd you know?"

"you've got the look," he says. "competent. slightly exhausted. trying very hard to enjoy a night off."

"that's frighteningly accurate."

"i'm good at this," he says, easy, and there's nothing arrogant in the way he says it, just simple confidence, the kind that's hard not to find a little attractive, especially after the day you've had. "two days," he adds, like he's working it out as a puzzle. "you've got the energy of someone who's two days in. still excited. not yet jaded."

"how do you know it's two days and not two weeks?"

"two weeks, you'd have stopped being surprised by things," he says. "you've still got the face of someone being surprised by things."

you laugh, properly, and he grins, pleased with himself, and leans in slightly, close enough that you catch the clean expensive smell of his cologne, something dark and woody, and his knee brushes your hip lightly where you're standing between his legs, an accident that doesn't feel entirely like an accident.

"what surprised you today?" he asks, genuinely curious now, his eyes on your face in a way that makes you feel, for the first time tonight, like the only person in the room.

"a lot of things," you say. "i can't tell you most of them."

"client confidentiality?"

"something like that."

"intriguing," he says, low, and his hand moves slightly, not quite touching you, just shifting closer along the edge of the bar, the kind of small calculated movement that's clearly meant to be noticed without being commented on. "i like a woman who knows how to keep a secret."

"i'm full of them tonight," you say, and you're aware, distantly, that you're flirting, properly flirting, easy and warm and a little reckless on elderflower spritz and the leftover adrenaline of laughing yourself into a stomach cramp, and buck cashman is extremely good-looking up close, jaw sharp in the low gold light, eyes doing that thing where they keep dropping briefly to your mouth and then back up like he's not entirely managing to help it.

"i bet you are." he says, voice dropping slightly, and the moment stretches, easy and warm, his knee still loosely against your hip, his hand close enough that the air between

"so," buck says, leaning in slightly, his voice dropping into something lower, more deliberate, "can i walk you home tonight."

you open your mouth to answer, something easy and noncommittal forming, when you feel it before you hear it, two presences arriving at your back almost simultaneously, close enough that you feel the warmth of them through your top, and buck's eyes flick up and over your shoulder and his easy expression shifts into something more careful.

"there she is," billy says, warm, smooth, entirely too pleased with himself, sliding in close on one side, his chest nearly against your shoulder, the picture of easy familiarity. "we were starting to think you'd run off with the bartender."

"close," buck says, recovering quickly, extending a hand toward billy with the practiced ease of men who size each other up automatically. "buck cashman."

"billy russo," billy says, shaking his hand, his grip just a touch too firm, just a touch too long, the kind of handshake that's doing more talking than the words around it. "and this is benjamin poindexter," he adds, gesturing slightly behind you, and you feel benjamin's presence settle in on your other side without him saying a single word, close, still, his attention fixed entirely on buck with an expression that hasn't softened since the bar.

buck looks between the two of them and then back at you, recalibrating something in real time. "didn't realize you had quite the entourage tonight."

"she's very popular," billy says, easy, charming, the smile never once slipping, "comes with the territory." he glances at you, brief, warm, the look of a man checking in without making it obvious he's checking in. "we should probably get back. matt's waiting."

"of course," buck says, smooth, unbothered on the surface, though something in his jaw has tightened slightly. he reaches into his jacket and produces a card, holding it out to you directly, deliberately stepping past both billy and benjamin to put it in your hand. "in case you want to continue the conversation. away from the entourage."

you take it. matte black, his name embossed in clean silver letters, a phone number beneath it. “thank you." you say as you run your fingers over his name like braille.

"call me," he says, easy, confident, already sliding off the stool, the kind of man who doesn't seem to entertain the possibility of being told no. he gives billy a final once-over, nods once at benjamin, who doesn't nod back, and then he's moving off through the room with the unhurried confidence of someone who considers the evening a success regardless of how it ended.

you look down at the card in your hand.

"well," billy says, watching buck go, his easy charm cooling slightly at the edges now that the audience has left, "he was forgettable."

"he wasn't forgettable," you say. "he just bought me a drink."

"and gave you his number," billy says, "like that's a personality trait."

beside you, benjamin still hasn't said anything, his attention now shifted from where buck used to be sitting to the card in your hand, his jaw tight, that same controlled, contained stillness from the booth, except closer now, close enough that you can feel the tension in it rather than just see it.

"you alright?" you ask him, because the silence has gone on a beat too long.

"fine," he says. flat. final.

billy looks between the two of you, something sharp and amused flickering behind his eyes, the specific delight of a man who has just found something significantly more interesting than buck cashman to pay attention to for the rest of the night.

"he works with wil—" billy starts, easy, casual, the kind of offhand comment a person makes while reaching for their drink, and you cut him off fast.

"fish?" you say.

billy stops. blinks. "what?"

"fish," you say again, slightly too loud, slightly too pleased with yourself given the circumstances, gesturing vaguely in the direction buck just disappeared in. "you were about to say fish."

billy looks at you with the particular blankness of a man who has genuinely no idea what's happening. "why would i say fish?”

"oh my god," you say, mortified all at once, the warmth of the elderflower spritz suddenly doing absolutely nothing to help the situation. "no, i– never mind. ignore that. forget i said that."

benjamin, beside you, has gone very still in a different way now, processing, his head tilting slightly the way it does when he's working something out and doesn't yet have all the pieces. "fish?" he repeats, careful, testing the word, looking at you with new and sudden interest.

"it's nothing," you say. "it's a stupid thing. forget it."

"you have a code name for fisk," billy says, slow, delighted understanding dawning across his face, "and it's fish."

"i didn't say that."

"you absolutely said that."

"i'm going back to the booth." you announce, with as much dignity as you can manage, which at this point is not very much, and you turn on your heel and walk directly into the back of a passing waiter's tray, catch yourself, recover, and keep walking, refusing to look back at either of them, your face burning the entire way across the room while behind you billy's laugh carries clean over the bass from the stage, delighted and completely unrepentant, and benjamin, you're fairly sure without even checking, is still standing exactly where you left him, turning the word fish over in his head.

you get back to the booth slightly out of breath and considerably more flustered than when you left it, and you slide in beside matt without quite meaning to sit so close, the adrenaline of the fish incident still sitting hot in your chest.

"buck cashman," you say, mostly to fill the silence, mostly because you're still annoyed at yourself.

matt goes still.

it's the same stillness from this morning, the same stillness from the conference room corridor when you told him about wesley, total and immediate, the kind that means the rest of him has stopped moving so that whatever's happening underneath can happen properly.

"that was him," matt says, slowly, carefully, "at the bar. with you."

"yes," you say. "why?"

matt doesn't answer immediately. foggy, across the table, has gone quiet too, his fork lowering to his plate without him seeming to notice he's done it, and frank's expression has flattened into something hard and watchful, his eyes already moving toward the door.

"matt." you say, voice firm and a little scared. "why."

"he works for fish," matt says, low, even, the careful precision of someone choosing every word with deliberate weight. "directly. not adjacent to him. for him."

you feel something in your stomach drop that has nothing to do with the price of the cocktails. "he bought me a drink."

"i know," matt says.

"he gave me his number."

something in matt's jaw tightens, controlled, and he doesn't say anything to that, just reaches for his wallet without looking away from you, already signaling for david with the other hand.

"we should go," he says. "now."

"matt—"

"i'm not saying this to scare you," he says, quieter, the words landing with more care than anything he's said all night, "but a man who works directly for fish did not happen to sit next to you at a bar by accident. and i'd rather we were somewhere else while i figure out exactly what that means."

foggy is already standing, coat half on, his usual ease entirely gone, replaced with something focused and quick. frank stands without a word, already scanning the room the way he scanned it when you first walked in, the kind of scanning that suggests he's been doing it the entire night without you noticing.

billy and benjamin reach the booth just as you're all standing, billy's earlier amusement faded into something more serious, more alert, and benjamin's expression has gone flat and unreadable in a way that's somehow louder than anything he could have said.

"we're leaving," matt says, to all of them, not really a question.

"we heard," billy says, and for the first time tonight there's no performance in it at all. "cashman's not someone who shows up at a jazz club by chance."

"that's what i thought," matt says.

"we'll walk out with you;" benjamin says, looking directly at you with his voice low and precise, and there's something in the way he says it, decisive, immediate, that makes it clear this isn't a request he's leaving open for discussion.

david appears, the bill already settled before you've even fully processed that matt's handled it, and the six of you move through the dim gold room together, past the stage where the trio is still playing something easy and unbothered, up the narrow staircase that smells like polish and candle wax, and out into the cold january night, where the air feels sharper than it did an hour ago, and where matt's hand finds your elbow, steady, certain, the moment you clear the door, and doesn't let go.

the cold hits hard outside, sharper than it was an hour ago, the street emptier, quieter, the particular hush of a city block at night when most of the foot traffic has thinned out. benjamin moves in behind you almost immediately, close, chest near your back, his eyes already moving in slow methodical sweeps up and down the street, the doorways, the parked cars, the alley mouth two buildings down, scanning with the kind of trained efficiency that doesn't look like nervousness, just procedure.

you go rigid slightly at the sudden proximity, and billy, beside you, leans down with an easy half-smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes tonight.

"military," he says, low, like it explains everything, which, you suppose, it sort of does. "ignore him. he does this."

"does what?" you say, voice slightly tight and high from the sudden cold.

"perimeter," billy says, simply, and straightens back up as matt, foggy, and frank fall into a tight, low conversation a few feet away, voices pitched too quiet for you to catch more than fragments. cab, matt is saying. not the subway. somebody walks her. frank's response is too clipped to hear properly, and foggy says something that makes matt go very still again.

you watch them for a few seconds, the three of them deciding things, planning things, arranging the rest of your evening like you're a piece of luggage that needs safe transport, and something in you, already raw from buck cashman and the fish incident and the general accumulation of the day, finally snaps its leash.

"i'm a grown fucking woman," you say, loud enough that all three of them stop talking and turn around, "and i don't need three men standing in a circle deciding how i'm getting home like i'm not currently standing right here."

there's a beat of silence.

behind you, benjamin makes a sound, low, brief, unmistakably a laugh, the first one you've heard out of him in two days, quiet and short but real.

you spin around so fast you nearly lose your footing on the icy pavement. "and what are you laughing at, benjamin?"

he looks at you, completely composed, completely blank in the way that somehow makes it worse, like nothing about your outburst has rattled him in the slightest.

"call me dex." he says with a flat voice and expression.

you huff, properly, the full-body kind, the kind that comes with crossed arms and a glare that you direct at all four of them indiscriminately.

"fish doesn't scare me," you say. "he hasn't made a move. it could just be a coincidence. buck cashman could just be a man at a bar who happens to work for a powerful person, which, frankly, describes about half of this city, and i would like to go home."

nobody says anything for a second.

"i'm walking her." frank says, finally, flat, final, already stepping forward, and there's something in the way he says it that doesn't leave any room for negotiation, the same tone he used on the FLSA filing yesterday, the tone of a decision that's already been made and is simply being announced.

billy opens his mouth.

"i'm walking her," frank repeats, and turns to look at him directly, and then at benjamin, the same flat unblinking stare held a beat longer than is strictly comfortable, the look of a man who has clearly assessed both of them and found neither of their continued presence necessary to the task at hand.

billy raises both hands slightly, easy, conceding. "alright, alright," he says, and there's no real argument behind it, just the practiced smoothness of a man retreating gracefully from a fight he was never going to win. he glances at benjamin, who hasn't moved, hasn't stopped looking at frank with an expression that's hard to read in the dark, and then billy reaches into his coat and produces a card, sleek and black, RUSSO & POINDEXTER embossed across the top in clean silver lettering, his name and a direct line beneath it.

"in case anything else comes up," he says, holding it out to you, and there's something steadier underneath the usual charm now, something closer to genuine. "or in case you just want someone to confirm a meeting time again."

you take it. "thank you," you say, and mean it more than the casual tone suggests.

"go straight home." billy says, simply, and then, glancing once more at frank with the particular respect of a man who knows exactly when he's outmatched, he turns and starts off down the street, hands in his pockets, the easy unhurried walk of someone who's decided the evening is over and intends to enjoy what's left of it elsewhere.

benjamin lingers a second longer, his eyes moving from frank to you and back again, something working behind the flat composure, and then, without another word, he follows billy, his pace longer, quicker, catching up within a few strides, the two of them disappearing around the corner toward whatever car or driver is presumably waiting for them somewhere out of sight.

matt and foggy stand together for a moment, watching them go, and then matt turns to you, his expression unreadable in the low streetlight, the cane resting lightly against the pavement.

"frank will walk you," he says, quiet, and there's something underneath it, reluctant, careful, like he'd rather it were him and is choosing not to argue about it.

"i know," you say. "i heard him say it four times."

the corner of matt's mouth moves, briefly, despite everything. "text me when you're home," he says, and it isn't a request exactly, more a fact he's stating about how the rest of the night is going to go, and you find, surprisingly, that you don't mind it at all.

frank doesn't say much at first, which isn't unusual, just falls into step beside you with his hands in his pockets and his eyes doing the same slow methodical sweep benjamin was doing outside the club, except quieter, less obvious about it, the kind of awareness that's become so practiced it doesn't look like effort anymore.

the street is colder now than it was earlier, the kind of late-night cold that settles into your coat properly, and you walk in silence for the first block, your breath coming out in short visible clouds, the buck cashman card still sitting in your coat pocket where you put it without really thinking, and billy's card now beside it.

"you alright?" frank says, eventually, not looking at you, looking instead at the street ahead, the doorways, the parked cars.

"i'm fine."

"you don't have to be," he says. "fine."

you glance at him. "i'm processing," you say. "there's a difference."

he nods, once, accepting that, and the two of you keep walking, the construction barrier on thirty-eighth looming up ahead in the dark, quieter now without the daytime traffic, the metal plate still sitting there exactly where it was this morning.

"cashman," frank says, as you near it, "you ever seen him before tonight."

"never."

"he knew your name before you gave it?"

you think back, replaying the conversation at the bar, the easy charm, the silver amex sliding into the reader before you'd even tapped your card. "no," you say slowly. "i don't think he did. he guessed receptionist. didn't use a name."

frank's jaw works once, processing that, filing it the way he files everything, specifically and in the correct place. "good," he says, which from frank, you're learning, is a fairly significant relief disguised as one syllable.

you navigate the metal plate together without incident this time, frank's arm out at the same slight angle as this morning, present without being asked, and you think that this has become, somehow, in the space of two days, a normal thing that happens to you, frank castle's arm appearing exactly where you need it before you've registered needing it.

"thank you," you say, "for walking me. you didn't have to fight billy and benjamin for the job."

"wasn't a fight," frank says. "wasn't going to be anyone else."

you look at him. "why?"

he's quiet for a moment, the kind of quiet that has something behind it, the kind you've learned not to fill too quickly. "russo's distracted," he says, eventually. "always looking at you instead of the street. poindexter's sharp, but he's not from here. doesn't know which alleys matter and which ones don't." a pause. "i know this neighborhood."

"that's very practical," you say.

"it's true," he says, like practical and true are the same category of thing to him, which, you're starting to suspect, they mostly are.

the subway entrance comes up ahead, the familiar stairwell glowing faintly with its fluorescent light, and frank stops at the top of it the way foggy stopped here yesterday, except frank doesn't fill the moment with conversation the way foggy does, just stands there, hands in his pockets, looking at you with the same direct attention he's had all day.

"text matt when you're home," he says. "and karen. she'll want to know cashman showed up."

"i will."

"and lock your door," he adds, after a second, like it's an afterthought, though you suspect with frank nothing is really an afterthought.

"i always lock my door, frank."

"good," he says, and there's the smallest movement at the corner of his mouth, the same almost-amusement from this morning, brief and quickly gone. "see you tomorrow."

"see you tomorrow," you say, and you head down the stairs, and when you glance back once before you're out of sight, frank is still standing at the top, exactly where he was, watching until you're through the turnstile, the same way he probably watches everything, carefully, completely, until he's decided the thing he's watching is safe.

you're nearly at the turnstile when frank's voice carries down the stairwell after you.

"you want me to ride with you?"

you stop and turn around. he's still standing exactly where you left him, hands in his pockets, the streetlight catching the side of his face, and there's nothing performative in the offer, no hesitation in it either, just frank castle standing at the top of a subway staircase on a wednesday night, genuinely prepared to get on a train he has no reason to be on if you say the word.

something in your chest goes warm despite the cold.

"i'm okay," you say. "it's a straight ride. fifteen minutes."

"i know," he says. "wasn't asking because i thought you couldn't manage it."

"i know," you say, gently, and you do know, that's exactly the part that's gotten to you, the fact that this isn't about doubting your ability to get yourself home, it's just frank, plainly, offering the thing he has to offer, which is presence.

he looks at you for another second, like he's deciding whether to push it, and then he just nods, once.

"goodnight, frank," you say, smiling properly now, something easy and warm cutting through the lingering cold of the evening.

"night," he says.

you turn and go through the turnstile, and you glance back once more before the stairs curve out of sight, and he's still there, hands in his pockets, watching, exactly the way he watched this morning until you were through the door, and you carry that down onto the platform with you, something steady and quiet sitting in your chest the entire ride home, all the way until the train pulls into your stop and you climb back up into the cold of your empty apartment and pull out your phone to text matt that you're home safe, just like he asked.

taglist: @mel-thefrog @tojisprincess @polorat @br0ke-b1tch @sikayeto @rainyblahaj @kvntybb @veryverytouchstarved @thexfoils  @dear-fifi  @plutos-orbit8 @bigsloppycrush @canupourme14theroad @fivedicksinatrenchcoat @clementinebutnottheorange

[i00que]

MEMO ── SHANE / COZY CABIN .

NOTES : you book a cottage for the christmas weekend, then you get to said cottage and there is a man sat on your couch. you've been double booked and the letting agency is useless! and if it couldnt get any worse, you are snowed in.

WARNINGS : reader-insert, (no y/n) forced proximity, age gap, reader has no stranger danger awareness, snowed in, 'enemies' to lovers, reader and shane are childish and petty, locking out in the snow, 'saving water,' domestic bliss, 'wife and baby' used, oral, creampie, unprotected sex, degrading, overstimulation, kitchen sex, choking, biting, marking, overstimulation, be warned.

CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL ── 18+ ONLY.

11.5K WORD COUNT

the drive up took longer than it should have. you'd printed the directions because your phone signal cut out somewhere around the second hour, and you'd been following them with one hand on the wheel and your chin nearly touching the windshield, squinting through the snow like that would help. your car, which your roommate calls a death trap and your mother calls a disaster waiting to happen, had made a noise somewhere outside keswick that you'd decided not to think about.

the heater worked if you hit the dashboard in exactly the right spot, which you'd figured out around birmingham, and the back seat was so full of bags you couldn't see out the rear window. three sweaters. five sweaters. honestly you'd lost count at some point while you were packing and just kept folding things in. a book you'd been meaning to read since february. a second book in case you finished the first one, which you wouldn't, but still. enough tea bags to last a small village through january.

snow had started coming down properly somewhere past penrith, fat and slow, settling on the windshield faster than the wipers could deal with it. you'd turned the radio off because the signal kept cutting in and out and the static was making you anxious. just you and the road and the dark coming in from both sides and the sat nav lady who had given up entirely somewhere around the last junction and was now pretending the road didn't exist.

you found it anyway.

the track was unmarked, exactly like the booking confirmation had said it would be, and you almost missed it twice before your headlights caught the wooden post at the turning. gravel under the tyres. trees closing in on both sides. and then the trees opened up and there it was.

the cottage sat back from the track with a light burning above the door and smoke coming from the chimney, pale stone walls and a low roof with snow sitting thick on it, and you put the car in park and just looked at it for a second through the windshield.

five days. just you and this and the silence.

you turned the engine off. the quiet that came in was enormous.

you sat there for a moment longer than you needed to, watching your breath fog up in front of you now that the heater had stopped. it was already getting cold in the car. the kind of cold that doesn't ask permission, just moves in. you sighed, a long slow one that misted in the air in front of you, and rubbed your hands up and down your arms. your coat was in the back somewhere under the bags. you'd been wearing it for the first hour and then it had gotten too warm and you'd shoved it back there and now you were going to have to deal with the consequences of that decision.

you got out.

the cold hit you properly the second your feet touched the gravel. you sucked in a breath and your lungs complained about it. the snow was still coming down, soft and indifferent, landing in your hair and on your shoulders while you stood there like an idiot with the car door open.

you hauled your bag out from the back seat, then the second one, then wrestled the tote with the food in it out from the footwell where it had wedged itself at some point past carlisle. you got everything onto your shoulders and your hands and stood there slightly lopsided, already regretting every item you'd packed, and then you kicked the door shut with your heel and turned toward the cottage.

the path was short but the gravel was uneven under the snow and you couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. you went carefully. the light above the door was warm and orange and the smoke from the chimney was going straight up into the dark sky, no wind to push it anywhere. it smelled like woodsmoke and pine and cold air and something about the combination of it made your chest do something embarrassing.

you shifted the tote higher on your arm, got to the door, and tried the handle.

it opened.

warm air came out to meet you, and the smell of something burning low in the grate, and you stepped inside and pushed the door shut behind you with your shoulder and stood in the little hallway letting your eyes adjust.

and then you looked up.

there was a man in the living room.

you screamed.

not a little surprised noise. a full one, from somewhere deep, the kind that emptied your lungs completely and sent the tote bag swinging off your arm and hitting the floor and the contents of it rolling in three different directions. a tin of soup made it almost to the fireplace.

the man didn't scream. he didn't even flinch. he just turned, slow and unbothered, like he'd heard you coming and had already decided how he felt about it. he was standing by the window with his arms crossed over his chest and he was tall, properly tall, the kind of tall that made the low ceiling of the cottage feel lower. dark jacket, dark henley underneath it, jaw that hadn't seen a razor in a few days. his hair was a sort of dirty blond shot through with grey at the temples and his eyes were light and sharp and fixed on you with an expression that suggested you were, at best, a mild inconvenience he hadn't budgeted for. not scared. not guilty. just waiting for you to finish.

you looked at him and he looked at you and you became suddenly and acutely aware that you had been in a car for four hours and your hair had done something in the cold and you were wearing a sweater with a small hole near the collar that you'd been meaning to fix since october.

"who the fuck are you," you managed, when you had enough breath back to form words.

he looked at you the way you imagined he looked at everything. like he was deciding whether it warranted a response at all.

"who the fuck are you," he said back. flat. even. returned it like something he had no use for.

"i asked first."

"this is my cottage."

"this is my cottage," you said. "i booked it. december 20th through the 25th, i have the confirmation email, i have the key code, i have—" you gestured at your bags on the floor, "—five days worth of stuff."

"then you need to take your five days worth of stuff," he said, turning back to the window like the conversation was already finished, "and go."

"i'm not going anywhere. someone has double booked this place and we need to—"

"you need to," he said. "i'm not doing anything. i've been here since yesterday, place is mine, and you've had a long drive so i'll give you a minute but then you need to get back in whatever that is at the end of the track and go."

"that," you said tightly, "is my car."

"barely," he said, and looked at it through the window, and his expression suggested he agreed with every concern your mother had ever had about it.

"i can't go," you said.

"sure you can. door's right there."

"look at the track."

he didn't move.

"please," you said, because you weren't too proud, "just look at it."

a pause. then he turned and looked past you out the window and the silence that followed had a different quality to it entirely. the track had filled in almost completely, the snow coming down so thick and fast it had swallowed the tyre marks you'd made not ten minutes ago. your car sat at the end of it like a small sad island.

"it'll clear," he said, but there was slightly less of him behind it.

"it's getting worse," you said. "and my car is not built for that even on a good day, which this isn't. i cannot leave. i physically cannot leave right now."

he looked at the track for a long moment. then he looked at you. then he looked at the ceiling like he was asking it something and it hadn't come back with a satisfying answer.

"fantastic," he said.

"i know."

"this is exactly what i came here for."

"i'm sorry," you said, which you were, genuinely, partly.

"you brought four bags."

"three bags and a tote."

"the tote is a bag."

"the tote is a tote."

he looked at the tote on the floor, its contents still scattered across the hallway, and then he looked at you with the expression of a man who had not been consulted and was going to be thinking about that for some time.

"i'm going to get wood," he said, pulling his jacket on. "when i get back we're sorting this out."

"i'll make tea," you said.

he stopped.

"i don't want tea," he said.

"i'll make tea," you said again, and started filling the kettle.

“black.” he huffed and then he left.

you listened to the door close and stood in the kitchen for a moment and breathed, and then you walked to the front door and turned the lock. the click it made was extremely satisfying. you went back to the kettle.

it took him less than ten minutes. you heard the crunch of boots on gravel and then the door handle, and then nothing, and then three knocks, flat and unhurried, the kind that didn't bother to be polite about it.

you said nothing.

"door's locked."

you pulled your sleeves down over your hands and looked out the window above the sink at the dark.

another knock. harder.

"i can hear you in there."

you had not made a single sound.

a pause. long enough that you started to wonder, and then it came, something that was almost a laugh except all the warmth had been stripped out of it, just the shape of one, pushed through his nose.

"you're gonna open this door, little missy."

not a question. not even close.

you pressed your lips together very hard.

"the agency opens at nine," you called back, very pleasantly. "we can sort this whole thing out in the morning."

"open the door or i sleep in your car," he said. "see how it handles the cold."

"i'm making tea," you said. "do you want tea? i have biscuits."

a pause.

"you're a witch of a woman," he said, but the locked-out edge had gone out of it slightly. "open the goddamn door."

you got up, smoothed down your sweater, walked to the door with what you felt was tremendous dignity, and slid the lock back. you opened it four inches and looked up at him through the gap. he was standing on the step with an armful of logs, pink across his nose and cheeks, snow in his hair, and an expression that was doing a lot of work to stay even.

you smiled at him.

he did not smile back.

"thank you for the wood," you said, and opened the door the rest of the way and went back to the kettle, and you were extremely proud of yourself the entire way there.

he came in without saying anything, which you were learning was his preferred mode of communication. he stacked the logs by the fire with more force than was strictly necessary, setting each one down like he was doing it to have something to do with his hands that wasn't directed at you, and you made the tea and carried both mugs into the living room and set his on the coffee table.

he looked at it.

he looked at you.

it was very milky. you had put a significant amount of milk in it and the evidence was plainly visible and neither of you said anything about it for a long moment.

"i said black," he said.

"did you?" you said. "i was sure you said white."

"i said black."

"i can make another one."

he picked it up and drank it without breaking eye contact and set it back down and turned back to the fire, and the subject was apparently closed, and you took your tea to the armchair and tucked your feet up under you and felt deeply and thoroughly pleased with yourself.

"biscuit?" you said, and held the packet out across the gap.

he looked at the packet. he looked at you. he took one and said nothing and ate it in two bites and looked at the fire.

you ate yours in three bites because you were normal.

the silence stretched out. outside the snow kept coming and the fire cracked and shifted and you tried your phone out of habit and got nothing and put it back in your pocket.

"so," you said.

"don't," he said.

"i was just going to say—"

"i know what you were going to say."

"you don't know what i was going to say."

he looked at you sideways, the assessing look, like he was running a quiet calculation behind his eyes that you weren't going to be made party to.

"you were going to try and sort out some kind of arrangement," he said. "divide the cottage up. make rules. put tape down the middle of something."

you opened your mouth. closed it.

"i was not going to suggest tape," you said, with as much dignity as you had left.

he drank his milky tea with a grim expression and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. "bedroom's mine," he said.

"the sofa is very comfortable."

he looked at you sideways. "you've been on it for three minutes."

"it's a good sofa."

"i get the kitchen in the mornings," he said, cutting across whatever you'd been about to say. "you can have it after i'm done."

"when are you done."

"when i'm done."

"that's not—"

"bathroom's shared," he said, like you hadn't spoken. "don't touch my stuff. i won't touch yours." he picked his tea back up. "agency opens at nine. you call at nine."

"i was going to call at nine anyway."

"call at eight fifty nine."

"it opens at nine, it won't—"

"call at eight fifty nine and wait," he said, and that was apparently that, because he looked back at the fire and the conversation was over by his estimation, and you sat in the armchair with your tea and your biscuits and looked at the side of his face and said nothing.

the fire popped and sent a little shower of sparks up the chimney. outside the snow was still coming down. the track would be completely gone by morning.

it occurred to you, sitting there, that you had screamed at this man, argued with him, locked him out of his own cottage, made his tea wrong on purpose, and negotiated sleeping arrangements with him, and you did not know his name and he did not know yours and that felt like important information to be missing.

"i'm—" you said, and gave him your name.

he looked at you. something in his face shifted very slightly, the way a door shifts when someone tests it without opening it.

"shane," he said. just that. like it was all the biography you were going to get.

you nodded.

he looked back at the fire.

"i'm not leaving in the morning," he said, after a while. not aggressive. just factual, the way he seemed to do most things.

"neither am i," you said, in exactly the same tone.

something that was almost a smile crossed his face, brief and unwilling, and he reached over and put another log on the fire without being asked and then stood, stretched in a way that took up a considerable amount of the room, and headed for the stairs without ceremony.

"night," he said, to somewhere in your general direction.

you watched him go.

the cottage settled into quiet after that. you read the same paragraph four times and gave up and just looked at the fire instead, which was more honest. upstairs you could hear him moving around, the occasional thud of boots on floorboards, a drawer, and then nothing.

you were asleep on the sofa by ten, which you hadn't intended, and you woke up at some point in the early hours with the fire burned low and a blanket over you that you were fairly certain had not been there when you fell asleep.

you looked at it for a moment.

then you pulled it up and went back to sleep and didn't think about it, because thinking about it would lead somewhere you weren't ready to go on the first night.

in the morning the war began.

you came downstairs at seven because you'd slept on a sofa and your back had opinions about it and lying there listening to them wasn't doing anyone any good. shane was already in the kitchen. he had made coffee, there was a mug on the counter that was clearly his, nothing that was clearly yours, and he was leaning against the counter drinking it and cleaning a small handgun with the attention of a man who wanted you to register that he had a small handgun. he looked up when you came in and said nothing.

you said nothing.

you went to the kettle.

"sleep well?" he said, in the tone of someone who did not care how you slept and was asking purely to be unpleasant about it.

"brilliantly," you said.

"sofa comfortable?"

"very."

"you were face down in the cushions when i came through at six."

"i was reading."

"at six in the morning. face down."

"i'm an early riser."

he made a sound that was not quite a laugh and went back to the gun, and you made your tea and took it to the sofa and sat down.

"that's my chair," you said, when he moved to the armchair.

"you're on the sofa."

"i was getting up."

"you sat down."

"i was in the process of deciding."

he crossed one ankle over his knee, picked the gun back up, and did not move, and the look he gave you over the top of it suggested that this particular conversation was finished and he had won it.

you sat on the sofa. it was a very good sofa. you didn't need the armchair. you were fine.

at nine you called the letting agency.

you were on hold for twenty two minutes. you knew this because shane counted from the kitchen, out loud, every five minutes, in a tone of quiet satisfaction. at twenty minutes you told him to be quiet. he counted the next five on his fingers, held up from the doorway where you could see them.

the woman on the phone was very sorry. system error. extremely unusual. she would look into it and call you back.

she did not call you back.

by eleven you were both staring at your phones, or rather you stared at yours and he watched you stare at yours while his battered flip phone sat on his chest like it had never done anything wrong in its life.

by twelve the log pile had been rearranged in a way that was clearly deliberate and impossible to articulate a complaint about. you moved the throw pillow from the sofa to the armchair. he moved it back without comment. you put it on top of the log pile.

he looked at it sitting there for a long moment.

"why," he said.

"decorative," you said.

"it's a log pile."

"it needed something."

he picked it up and dropped it back on the sofa. you put it back on the logs. he stared at you. you looked out the window with great serenity.

"you're doing this on purpose," he said.

"i don't know what you mean."

"you're an odd woman."

"thank you."

he moved it to the armchair. you moved it to the kitchen counter. he moved it to the bathroom, which was an escalation, and you retaliated by placing it on top of his boots by the door. he looked at his boots for a moment with the expression of a man taking stock, and then moved the pillow to on top of your bag. you put it on the doorstep.

he opened the door, picked it up, brought it back inside, placed it in the precise centre of the sofa, and sat next to it with his arms crossed and looked at you.

you sat on the other side of it.

you both looked at the fire.

"this is your fault," he said.

"this is absolutely your fault," you said

the letting agency did not call.

by two in the afternoon a kind of grim routine had established itself. you made lunch because you had yesterday and apparently that was who you were now, the person who made lunch, and you made enough for two without acknowledging that you were doing it and left his on the counter and took yours to the sofa. he ate standing up the way he always did, like sitting down at a table was a philosophical position he wasn't willing to take, and he didn't say anything about the lunch but he ate all of it, which was the same thing.

the afternoon went the way afternoons go when you're snowed in with someone you're pretending to ignore. you read. or you held your book and moved your eyes across it, which is adjacent to reading. shane did things at the kitchen table involving his map and his pencil and an expression of deep concentration that you suspected was at least forty percent performance. the thermostat became a point of contention around three, when you got up and moved it two degrees warmer and came back to find he'd turned it back down before you'd even sat down again.

you turned it up.

he turned it down.

you turned it up and added one for good measure and went back to the sofa and dared him with your eyes.

he looked at you for a long moment and then looked back at his map and left it, which you decided to count as a victory.

he found the corkscrew before you did and put it somewhere you couldn't locate it, which you discovered at five when you went looking for it. you stood in the kitchen opening drawers and he watched from the doorway and said nothing with a tremendous amount of satisfaction.

"where's the corkscrew," you said.

"don't know."

"shane."

"never seen it."

you opened the wine with a knife and considerable determination and took it to the sofa and did not look at him, and if he made a sound behind you that might have been the very beginning of a laugh you didn't give him the satisfaction of turning around.

he made dinner again. the same way he'd done it the night before, without discussion, without asking what you wanted, just started cooking at some point and put a plate in front of you when it was ready. it was good. it was extremely good. you said nothing about how good it was and ate every bit of it, and across the table he ate his own and didn't look at you and the candle burned down another inch.

after dinner you washed up. he dried. this also happened without discussion, which was starting to feel like its own kind of language, and then you were back in the living room with the fire going and your wine open and the snow outside the windows turning the dark blue and then black, and it was, objectively, exactly the kind of evening you'd driven four hours in a snowstorm for.

you were on the armchair. you'd claimed it early and held it. shane was on the sofa with his phone and his expression like a closed door and his long legs stretched out toward the fire, and the cottage was warm and quiet and the only sounds were the fire and the occasional turn of your page and outside the world was buried under snow and completely still.

it was around nine when you heard it.

a scratching at the front door. low and soft and irregular, stopping and starting.

you looked up from your book.

shane hadn't moved.

it came again. scratch. pause. scratch scratch.

"did you hear that," you said.

"yes," he said, without looking up from his phone.

"what is it."

"don't know."

"well what do you think it is."

he looked up then, slowly, with the expression of a man who had been asked to invest energy he hadn't budgeted for. "could be anything," he said. "bear. big dog. something worse."

"there are no bears in the lake district."

"you don't know that."

"i do know that, it's quite well documented."

"wolves have been reintroduced in parts of—"

"they have not," you said. "they genuinely have not."

he shrugged, which was the most aggravating response available to him, and looked back at his phone.

the scratching came again. softer this time. almost tentative.

you put your book down and crossed the room to the front door and opened it.

the cold came in immediately and the dark came with it and you stood in the doorway and looked out at the front yard and the snow and there, sitting on the path not four feet away, was a fox. small and very rust coloured and completely unbothered by any of it, sitting in the snow with its tail wrapped neatly around its feet, looking up at you with bright amber eyes like you were the one who had appeared without warning.

"oh," you said softly. "hello."

the fox looked at you.

you took one small step out onto the doorstep to get a better look at it, because it was perfect, because it was christmas and there was a fox in the snow and for one moment everything was exactly as lovely as you'd needed it to be when you'd packed your seventeen sweaters and pointed your terrible car north.

the door swung shut behind you.

the lock clicked.

you froze.

from inside the cottage came a sound you had not heard from shane maguire before. a real laugh, short and low, surprised out of him, there and gone almost before it landed, like it had escaped before he'd had the chance to decide against it.

you turned around.

through the little window beside the door you could see him. he had sat forward on the sofa, elbows on his knees, and he was grinning. not the almost-grin. not the corner of the mouth thing he deployed when you'd done something he found irritating and funny in equal measure. a real one, unguarded and sudden, doing something entirely unfair to his face, and he looked at you through the glass and raised his mug in a small unhurried toast.

you stared at him.

the fox, evidently satisfied that whatever this was had nothing to do with it, stood up, shook the snow delicately off its tail, and trotted off into the dark without a backwards glance.

you watched it go.

then you turned back to the door.

"shane," you said, very calmly.

the grin hadn't moved.

"open the door."

he looked at his mug.

"shane i am in my socks."

he looked up at that, looked at your feet on the wet doorstep, and had the absolute nerve to wince slightly, just a fraction, in a way that acknowledged this was perhaps marginally too far while also making it clear he had no immediate plans to do anything about it.

"you should have worn shoes," he said, through the door.

"you locked the door."

"you walked out in socks."

"because you locked the door."

"in december."

"shane."

"in the snow."

"open the door right now," you said, "or so help me i will sleep in my car and when they find me frozen to the seat in the morning it will be entirely your fault and i will haunt you specifically."

a pause. a long one. he looked at you and you looked at him through the glass and his expression was doing several things at once, none of which he appeared to be entirely in control of.

the lock clicked.

you came back inside on feet that were already soaking and stood in the hallway and looked at him, and he'd already leaned back into the sofa by the time you got through the door, phone back up, face entirely neutral, like none of it had happened and he had no memory of any grin.

"that was genuinely unhinged behaviour," you said.

"you went out in socks," he said.

"you locked the door."

"you weren't watching where you were going."

"you locked the door on purpose."

"reflex," he said.

"it was not a reflex."

"quick hands."

"shane."

"yeah."

"i hate you."

"mhm," he said, and that was the end of it apparently, and you went and stood in front of the fire with your back to him until your feet thawed out, and the cottage was warm and the fire was good and somewhere out in the dark the fox was going about its evening entirely unbothered, and you were standing in your wet socks being absolutely furious, and the worst part, the genuinely most annoying part, was that somewhere underneath the fury something wanted to laugh.

you didn't let it.

but it was there.

you woke up on the third morning to a different kind of quiet.

not the usual quiet, the one that settled over the cottage at night when shane had gone upstairs and taken all his difficult energy with him. this was heavier. the kind of quiet that had weight to it, that pressed against the windows and sat on the roof and changed the quality of the light coming through the curtains from pale grey to almost nothing.

you lay on the sofa and looked at the ceiling and knew before you'd moved that something was different.

you got up.

the window above the sink was half covered. not frosted, not misted, but filled, packed white from the bottom up, snow pressed against the glass like it was leaning on it, like it had decided the window was a surface it could use. you could see maybe a foot of dark sky at the top. the rest was white.

you stood and looked at it for a moment.

then you went to the front door and tried it.

it opened two inches and stopped. a wall of snow, solid and dense, packed tight against the frame from the outside. you pushed. it didn't move. you put your shoulder into it and shoved and the door shifted another half inch and a trickle of snow came over the threshold and onto the floor and that was all.

you stood back.

"shane," you said.

nothing from upstairs.

"shane."

a long pause, and then the creak of floorboards, and then his feet on the stairs, and he appeared in the hallway in a dark thermal and his jeans, hair unflattened from sleep, looking at you with the expression of a man who had been awake for some time and was waiting to find out what you were going to do with yours.

you pointed at the door.

he looked at the two inch gap and the wall of snow behind it and the trickle on the floor and said nothing for a moment.

then he crossed to the window by the front door and looked out through the narrow strip of glass still visible at the top, the part the snow hadn't reached yet. you came and stood beside him and looked out too.

the porch was gone. or rather it was still there, underneath, but you couldn't see any of it. the snow had come up over the railing overnight and kept going and was now sitting level with the window ledge and still building, the flakes coming down outside thick and unhurried and completely indifferent to the fact that you were watching them.

your car was a shape. just a shape, a soft white mound at the end of where the track used to be, indistinguishable from the rest of the landscape except that the landscape didn't usually have wing mirrors.

"right," shane said.

"right," you said.

you both stood there looking at it.

"how long does this last," you said.

"storm like this?" he looked at the sky through the top of the window, what little of it was visible, doing the calculation of a man who had spent enough time in bad weather to read it. "another day. maybe two."

"two days."

"maybe."

"we can't open the door."

"no."

"we're actually snowed in. properly."

"yes."

you turned and looked at the cottage. the small living room, the kitchen just off it, the bathroom down the short hallway, the stairs up to the one bedroom that was his and the sofa that was yours. the log pile by the fire. the kitchen cupboards with their limited and now finite contents. the kettle. your books. his map.

"how are we on wood," you said.

he looked at the log pile. "two days if we're careful."

"food?"

"depends what you brought."

"i brought enough for five days."

"for one person."

"yes."

he nodded slowly, doing the arithmetic, and didn't say anything about it, which was almost generous by his standards.

"gas on the hob?" you said.

"half a tank. maybe more."

"okay," you said. "okay."

you went to the kitchen and filled the kettle and switched it on because there was nothing else immediate to be done and tea was at least something to do with your hands. outside the snow pressed against the bottom of the kitchen window and you watched it while you waited for the kettle to boil, watched it sit there patient and enormous and entirely unbothered by any of this.

shane came and leaned in the kitchen doorway.

"stop looking at it like it's going to do something different," he said.

"i'm processing," you said.

"process faster. it's just snow."

"we can't open the door, shane."

"i know."

"the windows are half covered."

"i know."

"my car is completely buried."

"i know," he said, for the third time, with slightly more patience than you'd expected from him, which somehow made it worse. he crossed his arms and looked at the ceiling briefly and then back at you. "it's not going to get in. the cottage is solid, the roof is fine, we have wood and we have food and we have heat. we're not in any danger."

"i know that," you said, which was mostly true.

"you're doing a face," he said.

"i'm not doing a face."

"you are. you've been doing it since you opened the door."

"it's just my face," you said. "it does this."

he looked at you for a moment and something shifted in his expression, very slightly, in a way you didn't quite have the vocabulary for yet, and then the kettle finished and you turned away from him and made the tea.

you made his black.

he didn't say anything about it.

you both took your mugs to the living room and you sat on your end of the sofa and he sat on his and outside the snow kept coming down past the windows, past the half that was still visible, and the fire was going and the cottage was warm and the world outside had reduced itself to white and more white and the two of you in this small warm room with nowhere to go and nothing to do but wait it out.

you pulled your knees up to your chest and wrapped both hands around your mug and looked at the fire.

"you could have been nicer to me," you said, "from the beginning. given the circumstances."

a pause.

"could have," he said.

"but you weren't."

"no."

"any particular reason."

he drank his tea. looked at the fire. the log shifted and settled and sent a thread of sparks up the chimney.

"you locked me out," he said.

"you were going to make me leave in a snowstorm."

"you made my tea wrong."

"you called me little missy."

"you put a pillow on my log pile."

"it needed something," you said, for the second time, with complete sincerity, and something crossed his face that he turned away before you could identify it, and the snow pressed against the windows and the fire burned and outside the world was completely silent under all that white.

the snow didn't stop.

you knew this because you checked the window every hour with the dedication of someone who had been told not to and couldn't help it anyway, and every hour it was the same, the white pressing a little higher, the visible strip of sky a little narrower, the world outside a little more thoroughly erased.

shane stopped commenting on the window checking after the third time. this was either personal growth or he'd found it too easy to be worth continuing, you couldn't tell which.

the cottage had developed its own weather system by the second afternoon. a careful, loaded kind of atmosphere that had nothing to do with the storm outside and everything to do with the two of you moving around each other in four rooms with nowhere else to go. you'd established, without saying so, that the sofa was yours in the mornings and his in the evenings. the armchair was contested territory. the kitchen existed in a state of armed neutrality.

you were reading, actually reading this time, when he came in from checking the back of the cottage, all cold air and snow on his shoulders, and stopped in the middle of the room and looked at you.

"what," you said, without looking up.

"nothing," he said.

"you're staring."

"i'm standing in my living room."

"it's our living room."

"debatable," he said, and went to the kitchen, and you heard him put the kettle on, and a minute later a mug appeared on the table beside you.

you looked at it.

black tea. made right.

you looked at the kitchen doorway but he was already gone, back to the table and his map, and you picked the mug up and said nothing and drank it and the fire cracked and outside the snow kept falling.

it was a small thing. it was nothing. you read the same paragraph four times.

the evening was easier than the ones before it, which you hadn't expected. something had shifted in the barometric pressure of the cottage, not a lot, not enough to name, but enough that when he sat on his end of the sofa and you sat on yours the silence between you was a different kind than it had been. less fortified. still watchful but less armed about it.

you were sharing the blanket. this had happened without discussion, the way most things between you happened, some time around nine when you'd pulled it off the back of the sofa and he'd taken the other end without comment and now it sat across both your laps like a demilitarised zone and neither of you mentioned it.

"your feet are cold," he said, without looking up from his phone.

"i know."

"you're putting them near me."

"i'm not."

"you are. i can feel them from here."

"i'm fully on my side."

"your side is very close to my side."

"then your side is too big," you said, and pulled the blanket more firmly around yourself, and he made a sound that was almost a laugh and said nothing.

you woke up the next morning to find the last strip of visible sky through the front window gone. the snow had reached the top of the glass overnight and now the window was just white, a solid opaque rectangle, and the cottage had a muffled underwater quality to the light, dim and close and strange.

you stood in front of it for a long moment.

"it'll melt," shane said, from the kitchen, without you asking.

"i know," you said.

"you're doing the face."

"i'm not doing a face."

"you're doing it right now. i can see the back of your head doing it."

"that's not possible."

"i'm very perceptive," he said, which was so outrageously delivered without a trace of irony that you turned around just to look at him and he was leaning in the kitchen doorway with his coffee and an expression of complete neutrality.

you went and had a shower because it was something to do and the bathroom was warm and the hot water was one of the cottage's better qualities. you stood under it for longer than was probably reasonable and let the heat work on your shoulders and tried not to think about the snow against the windows or the track or your car or the fact that you were now on day three of being trapped in four rooms with a man who was mean to you in a way that was starting to feel dangerously like a language you were learning.

you were rinsing your hair when the bathroom door opened.

you screamed.

a proper one, full volume, the kind that bounced off the tiles and came back at you.

"what are you—" you yanked the shower curtain across so hard the rings scraped the rail, "shane what the fuck—"

"saving water," he said, completely calm, from somewhere on the other side of the curtain.

"get out."

"it's a shared resource. we don't know how long we're here."

"get OUT—"

"i'm not looking," he said, and you could hear it in his voice, the laugh he wasn't letting out, sitting right there behind his teeth, "i'm being environmentally responsible."

"i will actually kill you," you said, "i will end your life in this bathroom, get out right now—"

"you've been in here forty minutes."

"i was relaxing—"

"in my shower."

"it's our shower—"

"so i'm sharing it," he said, with tremendous reasonableness, and that was when the laugh escaped, low and genuine, and it bounced off the tiles the same way your scream had and you stood behind the curtain with your heart going at twice its normal speed and your face doing something you were very glad he couldn't see.

"get out," you said, very quietly, very precisely.

a pause.

"there's no hot water left anyway," he said.

"shane."

"i'll make breakfast."

"get out of the bathroom."

"eggs alright?"

"oh my god," you said, to the curtain, to the tiles, to nobody. "get out."

you heard him go. you heard him laughing on the other side of the door, quiet and unhurried, all the way down the hallway.

you stood under the cooling water and pressed both hands over your face and stayed there until it ran cold.

he had eggs on the table when you came downstairs, hair damp and expression extremely composed, and he looked up when you came in and looked back down at his plate and said nothing, and the corner of his mouth was doing the thing and you sat down and picked up your fork and said nothing either.

you ate your eggs.

they were good eggs.

"thank you," you said, which cost you something.

"water conservation is important," he said, without looking up.

you pointed your fork at him.

he looked at it. then at you. then back at his plate, and the corner of his mouth went further, and you put your fork down and picked up your tea and looked out the window, which was still completely white, and the cottage held you both in its small warm radius and outside the snow was finally, very slowly, starting to stop.

you didn't notice for a while.

it was shane who said it, quietly, from the sofa, where he'd moved after breakfast with his phone and his coffee.

"it's stopping," he said.

you looked up.

through the top of the side window, the narrow strip that was still clear, the sky had changed. lighter. not bright, not blue, but lighter, the heavy pressing white of the storm giving way to something thinner. and the flakes coming down were smaller now. fewer.

you both watched through the gap in silence.

"how long before the track clears," you said.

he was quiet for a moment. "few days. if it doesn't come back."

"few days," you repeated.

"yeah."

you sat with that. the fire cracked. somewhere outside a branch dropped its load of snow and you heard it land, heavy and soft.

a few more days.

you looked at him. he was looking at the window, the line of his jaw and the grey at his temples and the particular stillness he had that you'd stopped finding aggravating somewhere around yesterday and had started finding something else entirely, which was its own kind of problem.

he looked over.

you looked back at your book.

"you were looking at me," he said.

"i was looking at the window."

"i'm not the window."

"i'm aware."

"you were looking at me."

"i was looking in a general direction," you said, with great dignity. "you happened to be in it."

he made the sound. the one that wasn't quite a laugh. and then he looked back at the window and said nothing and you looked back at your book and said nothing and the snow outside had almost entirely stopped and the light was that particular pale grey that comes after a storm, clean and very still.

the fire needed another log around four. you were closer to it but he got up anyway, the way he'd started doing, and crouched down and put two on without being asked and stayed crouched for a moment looking at it, forearms on his knees, and the fire lit the side of his face and you watched him from behind your book and were extremely glad he was looking at the fire.

he sat back down.

not quite in the same place.

not significantly closer. not enough to say anything about. just slightly less far away than he'd been before, the sofa cushion between you a little less pronounced, the blanket a little more shared than divided.

you read your page. you actually read it this time.

it got dark at four thirty the way it did in december, sudden and complete, and the cottage lamps made everything amber and close, and outside the snow had stopped entirely now and the world was silent under all that white, no wind, no movement, just the enormous quiet of a landscape that had been put to bed.

your feet were cold.

they were always cold. you'd mentioned this to no one because mentioning it felt like the kind of vulnerability that would be used against you. but the sofa was cold underneath and your socks were the thin ones because you'd packed for festive and cosy, not for survival, and your feet were genuinely, persistently cold.

you shifted. pulled your knees up. put them back down. shifted again.

"what are you doing," shane said, without looking up.

"nothing."

"you've moved four times in ten minutes."

"i'm comfortable."

"you're clearly not."

"i'm fine."

he looked at you then, sideways, the slow look, taking in your tucked up knees and the way you'd pulled the blanket up and your expression of complete false serenity, and something moved across his face.

"feet cold?" he said.

"no," you said.

he looked at you for another moment and then looked back at his phone.

you lasted approximately three more minutes.

then, with the energy of someone doing something entirely reasonable that required no comment, you shifted sideways on the sofa, and lifted the hem of his shirt, and put both feet flat against the warm skin of his abdomen.

he made a sound like he'd been hit.

"what the—" he looked down, then at you, then down again, "—your feet are freezing—"

"i know," you said pleasantly, and opened your book.

"get your—" he started, and then stopped, and you felt the moment he decided something, felt it in the shift of his weight, and then his hand came down and wrapped around your ankle, not moving you, not removing you, just holding, his thumb against the bone, and he looked back at his phone with the expression of a man who had made a calculation and arrived somewhere he hadn't planned.

you said nothing.

he said nothing.

his hand was very warm. his skin was very warm through your socks and the fire was going and the lamp was on and outside was silent and white and you read your page and turned it and read the next one and actually took in most of it.

"you're like a radiator," you said, after a while.

"you're like a cold fish." he said.

"that's not a saying."

"it is now."

his thumb moved, slightly, against your ankle. just a small shift, absent and unconscious, and you were fairly certain he didn't know he'd done it, and you were very certain you weren't going to say anything about it.

"your feet are warming up," he said, about ten minutes later.

"yes," you said.

"so you can move them now."

"i'm comfortable," you said.

a pause.

"right," he said, rolling his eyes, but his hand didn't move.

you turned another page and the fire settled into its low steady burn and somewhere outside a branch released its snow and the soft impact of it reached you through the walls and shane maguire sat beside you with his hand around your ankle and his phone in his other hand and his face doing nothing in particular, and the cottage was very warm and very quiet, and you were snowed in for a few more days yet, and you had two books and enough tea bags for a small village, and honestly, objectively, you could think of worse situations to be in.

you weren't going to tell him that.

you made dinner because the alternative was watching him cook again and feeling unreasonably domestic about it, which had been a problem last night and the night before and you were taking preventative action.

it wasn't complicated. pasta, because the cupboards were what they were, with the last of the good tomatoes and some herbs you'd found at the back of the shelf and a quantity of garlic that you felt was appropriate and shane would probably have an opinion about. you stood at the hob and stirred and the kitchen was warm and smelled good and outside the snow sat still and silent and enormous and you felt, despite everything, despite the sofa and the tracking agency and the three days of low grade hostilities, something close to content.

shane was at the kitchen table with his map. he'd been there for an hour. you'd stopped asking about the map. it existed, it occupied him, that was enough.

you grated cheese. you tasted the sauce. you adjusted. you were aware of him watching you from the table the way he sometimes did when he thought you weren't paying attention, or possibly when he knew you were and didn't care either way.

"nearly ready," you said.

"i know. i can smell it."

"is that a complaint."

"it's an observation."

you put the plates on the table and sat down and he folded the map away and picked up his fork and you both ate and the candle between you burned and the kitchen was warm and outside was dark and white and completely still.

it was a good dinner. you knew it was a good dinner. you waited.

he ate about half of it before he said anything.

"you made the bread this morning," he said.

"i had time."

"you fixed the latch on the back window."

"it was annoying me."

"you've been cooking every night."

"we've been taking turns—"

"last night you made dinner and then told me i could wash up, which isn't taking turns, that's delegating." he pointed at the candle with his fork. "you even lit this."

"it was on the shelf."

"we've been here four days and you never lit it before."

"i was in a different mood," you said.

he leaned back in his chair and looked at you across the table with the candle between you and his arms crossed and the expression on his face was doing something you didn't entirely trust.

"what," you said.

"nothing," he said.

"shane."

"i'm just thinking," he said, "that all we're missing is a couple of kids and a big dumb dog and you'd be near enough my wife."

the kitchen went very quiet.

you picked up the tea towel from where it was sitting on the counter beside you and hit him with it. a proper swing, across the arm, and he made a satisfying sound of surprise and caught it before you could do it again and was grinning, actually grinning, the full one, the rare devastating one, and you turned back to your plate and picked up your fork and ate a large mouthful of pasta and stared at the middle distance with the focused energy of a woman who was absolutely not blushing.

you were absolutely blushing.

the tips of your ears were hot. you could feel it. you ate another mouthful and looked at the candle and not at him and the silence in the kitchen had a completely different quality to the one it had arrived with.

"near enough," he said again, quieter, almost to himself, picking his fork back up.

"eat your dinner," you said.

"yes dear," he said.

you picked the tea towel back up.

he held both hands up, fork in one of them, and the grin had settled into something smaller and more permanent, something that sat in the lines of his face like it was planning to stay, and you put the tea towel back down and ate your pasta and did not look at him and the candle burned between you and outside the snow was starting, very softly, to melt.

you washed up because apparently you were the kind of person who did things now, who kept their hands busy so their face had time to sort itself out.

the kitchen was quiet. shane had moved back to the living room after dinner, or you'd assumed he had, you hadn't looked, you'd just stood up and taken the plates to the sink and turned the tap on and looked at the window above it, which was still half covered in snow, the top half showing a dark sky with stars coming through now that the storm had passed.

stars. that was something.

you washed the plates and thought about nothing in particular and your face did what it needed to do and the hot water was good and outside was silent and still.

you didn't hear him come in.

you didn't hear anything, which was entirely typical of him, and the first thing you knew about it was two hands settling on your waist. not grabbing. not startling. just settling, easy and warm, like they'd considered the matter and decided this was where they were going. and then his nose, tucked under your ear, the faint scratch of his jaw against your neck, and he was very close and very warm and smelled like woodsmoke and something underneath that was just him.

you didn't move.

you weren't sure you could.

"you need help?" he said, very quietly, and his voice was different at this proximity, lower, the rough edges of it closer, and it did something quite serious to your ability to think in complete sentences.

the plate in your hands was already clean. you'd been washing it for some time.

"i'm nearly done," you said. your voice came out mostly normal. this felt like an achievement.

"mhm," he said, and didn't move.

his thumbs moved slightly against your waist, the same absent unconscious thing his thumb had done against your ankle earlier, like his hands did things without consulting him, and the tap was still running and the water was warm and his nose was still tucked under your ear and you were looking at the half-covered window and the stars in the top half of it and breathing very carefully.

"the plates are done," he said.

"i know."

"you've been washing that one for a while."

"it was dirty."

"it wasn't," he said.

you put the plate on the rack. you picked up a glass. you were very focused on the glass.

his hands didn't move. his nose didn't move. you felt him breathe, slow and even, felt it against your neck, and the kitchen was very warm and very small and the candle was still going on the table behind you and outside the stars were out for the first time in four days.

"shane," you said.

"yeah," he said, quiet against your ear.

you didn't say anything else.

you didn't have anything else to say, was the thing. you'd started his name and arrived at the end of it and found that whatever was supposed to come after it hadn't shown up, and the glass was clean and the rack was full and the tap was still running and his hands were still on your waist.

you reached out and turned the tap off.

the kitchen went very quiet without it.

his hands were still there. his jaw was still against your neck. and in the quiet you could hear the fire in the other room and the settling of the cottage and somewhere outside the first small sounds of snow starting to slide from the roof, loosened by the rise in temperature, the world beginning its slow return.

"nearly done," you said again, quietly.

"mm." his voice was low, rough from disuse. he didn't move away. instead his palms slid forward, pulling you back against him until your ass met the front of his jeans. you felt him already half hard there, pressing into you through the denim.

"shane," you tried again, but it came out thinner than you meant.

he hummed against your skin, then his mouth opened and he dragged his teeth lightly over the side of your neck. not enough to mark, just enough to make you shiver. his hands moved lower, gripping your hips now, thumbs pressing into the soft spots above your ass.

"been standing here like this for days," he muttered. "you in my way every time i turn around. acting like my wife, like you don’t know what you do to me."

one hand left your hip and slid down the front of your thigh, then back up under the hem of your skirt. his fingers found the edge of your panties and stayed there, tracing the line where fabric met skin.

"tell me to stop," he said, voice mean and amused at once. his fingers dipped lower, pressing the cotton against your cunt, feeling the damp spot already forming. "go on. say it."

you didn't. your fingers tightened on the edge of the sink instead.

shane laughed softly, the sound vibrating against your back. he pressed harder with his fingers, rubbing slow circles over your clit through the fabric until your hips twitched forward into his hand.

"that's what i thought," he said. "my wife gets wet just from me standing behind her. pathetic."

he hooked his fingers into the waistband and yanked your panties down in one rough motion, letting them drop to your ankles. the cool air hit your bare skin and you sucked in a breath. his hand returned immediately, two fingers sliding through your folds, spreading the wetness he found there.

"fuck, look at that," he murmured, almost to himself. he pushed one finger inside you without warning, then another, working them in deep and curling them against that spot that made your knees weak. his other hand stayed on your hip, holding you steady while he fucked you with his fingers, slow and deliberate, like he had all the time in the world.

"been thinking about this," he said against your ear. "how tight you'd feel. how you'd try not to make noise and fail anyway."

his thumb found your clit and rubbed in time with the thrust of his fingers. you bit your lip but a sound still escaped, half gasp and half moan. he grinned against your neck, teeth scraping again.

"there it is," he said. "don't hold back now. no one else is here to hear my wife getting finger fucked in the kitchen."

he added a third finger, stretching you open, the pace picking up just enough to make your thighs shake. his cock was fully hard now, pressed against your ass, and he rocked his hips forward in a slow grind like he couldn't help himself.

"gonna come like this?" he asked, voice teasing, mean. "on my fingers like a desperate little thing? or you want more?"

he didn't wait for an answer. he pulled his fingers out and brought them to your mouth, pressing them against your lips until you opened and tasted yourself on his skin. once you'd licked them clean he dropped his hand back down, this time freeing his cock from his jeans. you felt the hot length of it against your ass, then he was lining up, the head nudging at your entrance.

"say it," he said, voice low and rough. "tell your husband what you want."

you pushed back against him instead, and he laughed again, dark and satisfied.

"good girl," he murmured, and pushed inside you in one slow thrust, filling you completely. his hands gripped your hips hard enough to bruise as he started to move, fucking you against the sink with deep, steady strokes that made the dishes rattle in the rack.

"fuck, that's it," he groaned. "take it. my wife was made for this, wasn't she?"

he reached around with one hand to rub your clit again, matching the rhythm of his thrusts. the kitchen filled with the sound of skin meeting skin and your ragged breathing. 

he pulled out slow, leaving you empty and clenching around nothing. his hands stayed on your hips, firm, turning you to face him before he lifted you onto the counter in one smooth motion. the edge of the sink pressed cold against the backs of your thighs. your legs came up on instinct, heels hooking behind him, digging into the muscle of his ass as he stepped in close.

shane leaned in and kissed you hard, mouth open, teeth catching your bottom lip. he bit down just enough to make you gasp, then moved to your jaw, your throat, biting again where your pulse jumped under the skin.

"scream if you want," he said against your neck. "no one out there to hear it baby, just the snow and the trees and me."

his hands slid under your thighs, spreading you wider on the counter. he lined up again and pushed back inside in one deep thrust, burying himself to the hilt. your heels pressed harder into his ass, pulling him closer as he started to fuck you with steady, heavy strokes that rocked your whole body.

your fingers dug into his shoulders. the counter creaked under you with every thrust. your nails dragged down his back as he kept driving into you, each thrust punching a soft sound from your throat. shane's teeth found the curve of your shoulder and bit down harder this time, leaving heat behind. his hands gripped your ass, pulling you to the very edge of the counter so he could sink deeper.

"fuck, you feel good," he muttered against your skin. "tight little cunt squeezing me like it knows who it belongs to."

he pulled back just enough to look at you, eyes dark, mouth curved in that mean little smile. one hand left your ass and slid up to your throat, thumb resting over your pulse while he fucked you in steady, heavy strokes that made the cabinets rattle.

your heels dug harder into his ass, urging him closer. the wet slap of skin on skin filled the kitchen. snow slid off the roof outside in heavy thuds, but all you could focus on was the way his cock stretched you open and the bite of his fingers on your throat.

shane leaned in and kissed you again, biting your lower lip before he pulled back. "come on, wife. use your words. or do you want me to keep fucking you dumb until you can't think at all?"

he pulled back just enough to watch your face, that mean grin spreading as his hand stayed wrapped around your throat. "look at you," he muttered, voice rough. "taking every inch like a good little wife. you gonna come again on my cock?"

you tried to answer but the next thrust knocked the words out of you. your legs locked tighter around his waist, heels digging into his ass to pull him even deeper. shane laughed low and mean, hips snapping forward in a brutal rhythm that made your whole body jolt.

"fuck, that's it," he groaned. "squeeze me just like that. gonna fill this cunt up. gonna pump you so full you feel it leaking out for hours."

his thumb found your clit again, rubbing tight circles while he fucked you rough and deep. the pressure built fast, your walls fluttering around him until you came hard, cunt pulsing and gripping his cock. shane cursed, pace turning sloppy as he chased his own release.

“where do you want it baby, hm? i- inside? yeah?”

you couldn’t make a word beside a frantic nod as you clung desperately onto his shoulders, legs shaking around his waist.

"fuck you’re perfect– shit, here it comes," he growled, burying himself to the hilt. his cock twitched deep inside you and then he was coming, thick hot spurts flooding your cunt. he kept grinding through it, pushing every drop as deep as he could while you shook around him.

shane didn't pull out. instead he started moving again, slow and deliberate, fucking his cum back into you. each thrust made wet sounds as it pushed the mess deeper, some of it already leaking out around his cock and dripping down your ass onto the counter.

he watched your face the whole time, that grin widening when he saw the flush of embarrassment creeping up your neck. "aw, look at that," he teased, voice low and amused. "my wife getting all shy now that she's got a cunt full of cum. feel it? every time i push in it just squelches right back out."

you tried to look away but he caught your chin, forcing your eyes back to his while he kept fucking the load deeper with steady strokes. "don't hide from me now. you wanted this. wanted your husband to breed this pussy and make it all messy."

his cock stayed hard inside you, sliding through the cum with every thrust, pushing more of it out to trickle down your thighs. shane's grin never faded, eyes locked on yours as he kept going, making sure you felt every bit of it. his thumb stayed on your clit, rubbing slow circles until your walls fluttered again around his cock. he groaned, hips stuttering as he ground in deep one last time before finally pulling out.

cum spilled out of you immediately, thick and hot, running down your thighs. shane watched it for a second, that grin softening just a little before he scooped you off the counter. your legs were shaky but he held you steady, carrying you into the living room without a word.

he set you down on the sofa and disappeared for a minute, coming back with a warm cloth from the kitchen. he cleaned you up gentle, wiping between your legs with careful strokes while the fire crackled nearby. once he was done he pulled a blanket over both of you, settling in behind so your back pressed to his chest. his arm wrapped around your waist, holding you close as the snow kept falling outside.

"you good?" he asked quietly, lips brushing your ear. his hand rubbed slow circles on your stomach, grounding and warm.

you hummed in response as your eyes closed and your head rested against his shoulder, head tucked beneath his chin as he brushed his lips against the side of your head. "christmas came early.."

the last thing you heard was a satisfied little chuckle as he brushed his nose against your temple. 

i promised and delivered <3

[i00que]

001 . PROJECT── BETHELVERSE / A LIGHT UNDER THE DOOR

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NOTES : you wake up the next morning wishing last night was a nightmare born from sleep depravation. then you wake up to your window and your shelf fixed, with 'wade kinsella' on your settee. atleast he thinks thats his name. you disagree.

WARNINGS : alternate universe, no power, reverse isekai, reader-insert (no y/n,) character study, angst, stress, anxiety, multifandom, wilson bethel characters, 'soulmates,' age gaps, reverse-harem, morally grey characters, angst with humour, domestic bliss, identity crisis, accidental gaslighting, sad wade, emotional damage, forced proximity (technically,) slow burn, jealousy issues, everyone is bad at feelings, set in london, amnesia theory, competence kink, 'identity regression.'

CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL ── 18+ ONLY.

you wake up and for one whole, blissful, unbroken minute, none of it happened.

you are in your own bed in your own room with the duvet pulled up to your chin and the grey london light coming in soft around the edge of the blind, and your first thought, the only thought, is that you need to shower before your blister gets infected, and your second thought is that you have no memory of actually getting into bed, which is odd, but not odd enough to chase.

then your body remembers before your brain does, the way it always does, a cold drop in your stomach that arrives a half second ahead of the actual information, and the information catches up a moment later. the sky. the light. the floor moving under you like the building had briefly forgotten how to be a building. the man on his knee in your hallway with someone else's face.

you lie very still and you do the thing you did at some point in the dark last night without quite admitting you were doing it, you decide it was a dream.

it makes a frankly enormous amount of sense as a dream. seven hours on your feet, a blister, the kind of bone tired that does strange things to a brain once it finally gets horizontal, and then your subconscious, apparently bored of ordinary anxiety dreams, decided to escalate directly to the sky tearing open and a famous actor turning up on your hallway carpet asking to be pointed home to a town that does not exist. it is, you decide, lying there with your eyes on the ceiling, a genuinely unhinged thing for your brain to produce, but brains do unhinged things, and you have read that exhaustion can do this, can blur the line between the dream and the half hour before it, can make a thing feel real enough that you wake up still half convinced.

you feel, very briefly, almost proud of your own imagination.

you get up. you go to the door. you open it on the way to the bathroom without really thinking about it, the way you open it every morning, already mentally three steps ahead into the shower and the kettle and whatever you can find for breakfast that does not require effort.

your living room is not what you left it.

the coffee table is square to the rug, properly aligned, not the two inches out it has sat for as long as you have owned it. the floor by the kitchen counter is clean, no ceramic pieces, no dust, just a faintly damp patch where something has clearly been wiped. there is a towel, one of yours, draped neatly over the radiator, still slightly damp. the window latch, which has sat at a slight uncooperative angle since you moved in, refusing to close flush no matter how many times you have jiggled it, is shut properly, fully, flush against the frame in a way you did not know it was capable of.

and on your sofa, sitting very upright with his forearms on his knees and his hair pushed back from his face and an expression of someone who has been awake for some time and has had a great deal to think about, is wilson bethel.

"fuck. you're still here."

it comes out before you can stop it, flat and involuntary, and you put a hand to your chest without meaning to, the gesture of someone whose heart has just done something unpleasant, fingers pressed flat against your sternum like you are physically holding something in place that wants to come loose.

he watches you do it. something in his face goes carefully neutral, the look of a man absorbing a reaction and deciding not to take it personally, at least not visibly.

"yes ma'am," he says. "still here."

"i thought." you stop. start again. "i thought i dreamed you."

"i'm aware," he says, with the dry, unbothered timing of someone who has had several hours alone with his own thoughts and has clearly had time to arrive at a few conclusions about how this morning was going to go. "you said as much in your sleep, far as i can tell. heard somethin' through the door round about six that sounded a whole lot like wishful thinkin'."

you stare at him.

"i don't talk in my sleep."

"didn't say you talked," he says. "said i heard somethin'."

you keep your hand where it is, flat against your chest, and you look at him sitting there on your sofa in yesterday's flannel shirt with his hair pushed back and its proof that last night was real and is, this morning, still ongoing.

you look at the latch again, properly this time, taking in the fact that it is flush, fully flush, in a way it has never managed in three years of you and several increasingly irritated attempts. you think, distantly, that this man is handy, genuinely handy, the kind of competence that does not come from nowhere, and you file that observation next to all the other observations from last night that do not fit cleanly anywhere, the boots, the accent, the way he asked for somewhere to be rather than demanding it.

none of it changes the basic facts.

he is still wilson bethel. he is still, whatever else might be true about a man who quietly mends things at four in the morning, an actor, a recognisable face, someone whose presence in your living room is its own category of problem entirely separate from whether he is also, somehow, telling the truth about his name. and he is in london. wilson bethel, if that is who is sitting on your sofa, should be on an entirely different continent, should be somewhere with a publicist and a schedule and people who know where he is supposed to be, and instead he is here, in a cleaned and re-aligned version of your living room, having apparently spent the small hours fixing the things your flat broke instead of sleeping.

"you fixed my window," you say, because it is the only sentence available to you, and it is, at least, true.

"it was sittin' wrong," he says. "didn't figure you'd mind."

"you're a long way from home, aren’t you?" and you are not entirely sure which version of home you mean, his or the one he claims, and you suspect, looking at the careful stillness of his face, that he is not entirely sure either.

you sit down in the chair opposite him because your legs have decided, independently of the rest of you, that standing is no longer a sustainable position, and you keep your hand pressed to your chest for another second before you let it drop, and you look at him properly, at the face that is wilson bethel's face doing absolutely nothing to look like it belongs to wilson bethel, no managed angles, no awareness of itself, just a man sitting on a sofa with his hair still doing the thing it did last night and a faint shadow under his eyes that suggests he did not actually sleep.

"okay," you say, mostly to yourself. "okay. right."

"you alright?" he says, and there is something almost careful in it, the tone of a man checking the ground before he puts his weight on it.

"i'm thinking," you say.

he waits. he is good at waiting, you notice, better than most people, the kind of patience that does not fidget or fill the silence with something unnecessary, and you use the quiet to actually think, properly this time, daylight thinking instead of the disordered half-conscious thinking from the small hours.

"i think you've got amnesia."

he blinks. "i've got what?"

"amnesia." you say it slower, like it will help. "i think something happened to you last night. whatever that was, the sky, the noise, all of it, i think it was enough to do something to your head. shock, or trauma, or i don't know, some kind of break, and i think your brain built something to fill the gap because the real thing was too much."

he is staring at you now with an expression that has stopped being careful and started being something closer to bewildered. "you think i forgot who i am."

"i think you might have."

"and who d'you reckon i actually am, under all this forgettin'."

"wilson bethel," you say. "the actor."

he sits back slightly, just an inch, the kind of small retreat a person makes when they are trying to get a better look at something. "ma'am, i have lived in bluebell alabama for the better part of thirty years. i know my own name. i know my daddy's name, and my brother's, who i don't much care for, and i know the inside of every engine in a forty mile radius of the rammer jammer." he says rammer jammer the way you would say the name of a place that means something to you, easy and automatic, no hesitation in it at all. "i'm not confused about who i am. i'm confused about where i am, which is a different thing entirely."

"that's exactly what amnesia would feel like from the inside," you say, and you are aware, even as the words leave you, that you sound like you are reading off a leaflet you wrote for yourself at four in the morning, but you have committed to the theory now and abandoning it feels worse than finishing the sentence. "you wouldn't know you'd forgotten anything. that's the whole point of it. the false memory would feel exactly as real as a true one. that's how the brain protects itself."

he looks at you for a long moment, properly, the same careful reading he has been doing since last night, and something in his face shifts from bewildered toward something gentler, something that might be sympathy or might be the specific patience of a person who has decided the kindest thing to do is let someone finish talking before he tells them they are wrong.

"that's a real generous way of lookin' at it," he says. "i'll give you that.."

"it's not generous, it's just the only thing that makes sense."

"does it, though?" he tilts his head slightly. "because the way i see it, there's two options on the table. one, i'm an actor who's somehow forgot thirty years of his own life and replaced it, real detailed, with a whole town and a daddy and a brother and a bar and a band, every bit of it, down to what i had for breakfast most mornings growin' up, which was usually nothin' because we didn't always have much. or two." he pauses, and the pause has weight in it. "or two, i'm exactly who i say i am, and somethin' a whole lot stranger than amnesia happened to both of us last night."

you do not have an answer for that immediately, and the not having one sits uncomfortably in your chest next to the place your hand was a minute ago.

"i could call someone," you say, eventually, mostly thinking aloud. "your agent. a hospital. someone who'd know what to do with a famous person who's." you gesture, vaguely, encompassing the whole of him. "like this."

something in his expression goes very still at that, careful in a different way than before. "you could," he agrees. "you got a phone right there."

you look at the phone, sitting on the counter where you left it, and you think about what that call would actually look like, you, a bartender, ringing some agent's office or a hospital switchboard to say there is a man on my sofa who looks exactly like wilson bethel and has amnesia, and you think about what happens next, the questions, the disbelief, the very real possibility that someone takes you seriously enough to send people round, photographers maybe, or worse, people who do not believe you and treat you like a problem to be managed, your address attached to it forever after, your name in something somewhere, your actual life, the one you have built carefully and quietly over three years in this flat with this sofa and this window latch that has never once sat properly until last night, turned into a footnote in someone else's story.

you do not call anyone.

"not yet," you say. "i'm not ready for what that would mean for me."

"that's fair," he says, quiet. "i wouldn't want that landin' on me either, if the shoe was on the other foot."

you look at him, at the steady patient way he is sitting there letting you work through a theory he clearly thinks is wrong without arguing it any harder than he already has, and you think: he is being remarkably reasonable about being told he does not know who he is, and you are not sure yet what to do with that information either.

"who is he?" wade says. "wilson bethel. you keep sayin' the name like i'm supposed to know it and i don't."

"i'll show you," you say, glad of an actual task, something with a clear next step, and you get up and retrieve your laptop from where it lives charging by the bed and bring it back through and sit on the arm of the sofa, a careful distance from him, and open it on your lap and type the name into the search bar with him watching the screen over your shoulder with the focused unfamiliar attention of someone encountering a laptop the way you might encounter a particularly elaborate vending machine.

the page loads. his face, several versions of it, arranged in a grid, different angles, different lighting, a few in clothes that look nothing like the flannel currently on your sofa, suits, a tuxedo once, something that looks like a period costume in another, and underneath the photos a short paragraph, american actor, and then a list, the kind of list these pages always have, roles and shows and years.

wade leans in slightly to look at it properly, and you watch his face doing the work of taking it in, processing a screen full of himself wearing other people's clothes and apparently other people's lives.

"that's–" he stops. "that's my face."

"i know."

"that is exactly my face, that's not a similar lookin' fella, that's–" he reaches out, one finger, and almost touches the screen before stopping himself, hovering an inch from it like the photo might be warm. "i don't understand."

"i don't either," you say, which is at least honest.

you scroll down, past the early photos, into the list properly, the credits, the small print of someone's career laid out chronologically, and you are reading it more than you are looking for anything specific, just scanning, filling the silence with the activity of scrolling, when your eyes catch on a line halfway down and your scrolling hand goes still.

hart of dixie. 2011 to 2015. character: wade kinsella.

you stop scrolling entirely. you read it again, the two words sitting there in plain text on the screen, his name, his actual name, the one he has been giving you since the corridor, attached to a show you have never seen and a network you vaguely recognise and a run of four years, and your stomach does something slow and uncomfortable, a drop that has nothing to do with shock this time and everything to do with the specific dread of realising you are looking at something you do not have a category for.

you do not say anything. you do not need to. you can feel him go still beside you, his attention sharpening on the same line, and the silence that follows is not the comfortable kind.

"that's.." his voice comes out different, lower, careful in a way it has not been careful before. "that says wade kinsella."

"yeah."

"that says i'm a character. in a show. that this fella played." he is not looking at you anymore, he is looking at the screen with an expression you have not seen on him yet, something underneath the easy charm finally cracking all the way open, raw and unguarded and genuinely frightened in a way last night's confusion never quite reached. "that says i'm not real."

"wade—"

"bluebell," he says, and his voice has gone strange, distant, like he is testing the word to see if it still means anything. "the rammer jammer. my daddy. lavon, george, all of it, that's just." he stops. swallows. "that's a show. that's somethin' somebody wrote down."

"i don't think that's what it means.." you say, even though thats exactly what it means. 

"then what does it mean." he says, and he turns to look at you properly now, and his eyes are doing something you have not seen them do, searching your face like you might have an answer he does not, like you are the only solid thing left in a room that has just stopped making sense for the second time in twelve hours. "because i was there. i remember bein' there. i remember the smell of the rammer jammer on a friday night and the sound of my daddy's truck and the exact look on lavon's face the day he got elected mayor, and you're tellin' me that's a story. that's somethin' an actor performed. that i'm–" his voice catches, just slightly, just once. "that i'm not even supposed to be a person."

you close the laptop, slowly, like that will help, like shutting the screen will undo the line of text now sitting between the two of you, and you look at him, at wade kinsella, who an hour ago you were convinced did not exist and now, looking at his face, you are no longer sure what existing even means in his case, and you do not have an answer for him, not one single useful thing to say, and the silence stretches out and neither of you moves to fill it.

you sit there with the laptop closed on your knees and your mind doing the thing it has been doing all morning, grabbing for the nearest theory that lets the world keep making sense, and this time it produces something that feels, almost immediately, like relief.

"okay," you say. "okay, i think i understand now."

he looks at you. his face is still doing the raw unguarded thing, still caught somewhere between bluebell and the screen, and he does not look like a man who wants a theory right now so much as a man who wants the ground to stop moving, but you press on anyway because having something to say feels marginally better than having nothing.

"you're wilson bethel," you say, slowly, working it out as you go. "and something happened to you last night, something traumatic, and your brain didn't just forget who you are, it went further than that, it built a whole identity to retreat into. one you already had sitting there, ready made, because you played it for years. it's called identity regression, i think, or something close to it, when the mind under extreme stress falls back into a role it knows intimately because the role feels safer than reality."

"a role." he repeats, flat.

"the character. wade kinsella. you spent four years being him, you said it yourself, you know bluebell down to the smell of the bar on a friday, that's not amnesia building something from nothing, that's you retreating into something you already had memorised, cell deep, because actually being wilson bethel right now is too much."

he is quiet for a moment, and you watch something in his face try to find purchase on what you have just said, turning it over the way a person turns over an explanation that does not fit but is being offered with enough conviction that they consider trying it on anyway.

"so you're sayin'," he says, slow, careful, "that i'm not actually from bluebell. i just think i am, because i used to pretend to be, for a job, and now my head's decided pretendin' is easier than whatever's actually true."

"yes."

"and the real me, this wilson fella, he's in there somewhere. just– buried."

"i think so."

he sits back into the sofa cushions properly for the first time since you came out of your room, his shoulders dropping slightly, and for a second you think the theory has landed, has given him something solid to stand on, and then he laughs, short and entirely without humour, and shakes his head.

"that's a hell of a thing to say to a man," he says, "first mornin' he wakes up somewhere he don't recognise. that everything he knows about himself is a costume."

"i'm not trying to upset you, i'm trying to explain—"

"i know what you're tryin' to do." he says it without unkindness, but there is something tired underneath it now, something that has had enough theories for one morning. "but ma'am, with respect, i don't feel like i'm wearin' a costume. i feel like me. i feel exactly the same as i felt yesterday and the day before that and every day i can remember, which is a real long list, and you're sittin' there tellin' me the whole list is borrowed off a television show, and i don't know what to do with that, because it doesn't feel borrowed. it feels like mine."

"i know it does," you say, gentler now. "that's what would make it so convincing. that's the whole point."

he looks at you for a long moment, and something in his expression has gone past frightened now, into something quieter and more exhausted, a man who came through a tear in the sky and was handed two separate explanations for who he is in the space of one morning and has been asked to simply absorb both of them without anywhere to put either.

"i don't know who i am right now," he says, and it is the most honest thing he has said since the corridor, no charm in it at all, nothing performing. "you're tellin' me i'm somebody i've never heard of, wearin' the only self i've got like it's borrowed clothes, and i don't have the first idea how a person's supposed to sit with that."

you do not have an answer for that either, and this time you do not try to manufacture one. you just sit there, the closed laptop warm against your knees, and let the silence be what it is.

you watch him sitting there with his shoulders dropped and his hands loose in his lap, the easy grin from last night nowhere in sight, replaced by something quieter and more worn down, and something in your chest does an uncomfortable thing, a softening you did not plan for and are not entirely sure you want, but it is there regardless, the simple fact of feeling sorry for a man who came through a tear in the sky and was handed an identity crisis before he had even had breakfast.

"hey," you say, and you wait until he looks up at you before you keep going. "i'm sorry– that was a lot to throw at you, and i don't actually know if i'm right about any of it. i'm just trying to make sense of something that doesn't make sense."

"i know," he says, and he says it without resentment, just tired. "you're not bein' unkind about it. it's just a lot to be told before noon."

"yeah." you look at him a moment longer, at the whole exhausted shape of him on your sofa, and you make a decision, the practical kind, the kind you are better at than the emotional kind. "look, whatever's actually true here, wilson bethel or wade kinsella or some version of both, you can't go anywhere right now. you don't have a phone, you don't have money, you don't have anywhere else to be, and i don't think either of us is going to solve this today. so we need to make an arrangement. if you're going to be here a while."

he looks at you properly now, something steadying behind his eyes, like the practicality of it is easier ground than the identity question. "an arrangement?"

"some basic rules. how this works while we figure out what's actually going on." you tick them off as you think of them, glad of the structure. "you stay on the sofa. you don't go through my things, you don't leave the flat without telling me, and if anyone comes to the door, you let me deal with it. in return i'll sort out food, and clothes that aren't the ones you arrived in, and we'll work out everything else as it comes."

he is quiet for a second, taking that in, and something in his face does a small, tired thing that might almost be gratitude. "that's fair," he says. "more than fair, considerin'."

"it's not generous, it's logistics," you say, though it is a little bit generous and you both know it. "i just don't want to wake up to you trying to find your own way home and ending up arrested for breaking into the american embassy or something."

that gets a real laugh out of him, short and surprised, the first one since the laptop, and something in the room loosens slightly because of it. "i wouldn't do that," he says. "probably."

"probably isn't reassuring."

"it's the most honest word i've got this mornin'," he says, and the ghost of the grin is back at the corner of his mouth, smaller than before, more careful, but there, and you find yourself, against your better judgement, glad to see it.

you uncross your legs and stand up because the next thing is coffee, it has been the next thing since you opened your eyes and you have been too distracted to get there, and you go to the kitchen and start it going, and he turns on the sofa to watch you through the open doorway with the easy attention of someone who is cataloguing the layout of a new space, where things are, how it works, the way a person does when they are trying to figure out if they fit somewhere.

"i've got work tonight," you say, to the coffee machine more than to him. "bar shift. half five till close."

"bar shift?" he repeats.

"i'm a bartender."

a pause, and when you glance back through the doorway he has the expression of a man who has just been handed something unexpected and is turning it over to find the angle on it. "so am i," he says.

"the rammer jammer," he says, and there is something complicated in the way he says it now, the name landing differently than it would have an hour ago, before the laptop, before the line of text that put everything he knows about himself into question. a tenderness in it that is also a grief, the way you say the name of something that was yours and might not be anymore. "been tendin' bar for years. longer than i'd like to count most days."

you lean against the kitchen doorframe with your arms crossed and you look at him and you think about last night, about the way he handled himself in the corridor, the patience of him, the way he filled the silence without drowning in it, the way he read the room and adjusted without being asked. you think about what he said about cutting someone off without them knowing they've been cut off and the fact that he described it as the art of the whole thing, which is, quietly, exactly right.

"you short staffed?" he says.

and you say "always" before you can think better of it, and you watch the grin arrive on his face like the cat who got the cream, slow and wide and insufferable, the full thing all at once, and it does things to his face that his face did not need any help with and you resent it immediately and completely.

"don't." you say.

"i'm not doin' anything," he says. the grin does not move.

"you're doing the grin."

"this is just my face," he says, same blameless delivery as last night, same total absence of guilt, and you point at him across the kitchen doorway.

"that is not just your face, that is a very specific thing your face is doing on purpose and i need it to stop."

"ma'am," he says, with the grin still sitting there like it owns the place, "i genuinely cannot help my face."

"try." you say, and turn back to the coffee.

he tries. the grin becomes approximately four percent more contained, which is the ceiling of what trying is going to achieve this morning. you pour two cups, put his on the counter within reach, take yours to the doorframe, and look at him with the expression of someone drawing a very clear line in a very specific place.

"no," you say.

"now just hear me out—"

"no."

"i'm not askin' for anythin' official, i'm not askin' for a wage, i just think that if you're gonna be leavin' me here all evenin' with nothin' to do and you're gonna be short staffed—"

"no," you say, and you take your coffee back to the chair because the conversation is over, and you sit down, and you pick up your phone, and you look at it with the focused intention of someone who is absolutely not continuing this discussion.

he follows you.

you hear the sofa creak and the quiet thud of his boots and then he is standing in the middle of your living room with his coffee and his grin and his absolute refusal to read a room that is telling him very clearly that the room is done.

"i fixed your window," he says.

"you fixed my window at four in the morning without being asked."

"which was helpful."

"which was either helpful or strange and i reserve the right to decide which."

"helpful," he says, firmly. "and i could be helpful tonight, i could be real helpful, you wouldn't even have to introduce me to anyone, i could just—"

"no."

"—stand at the end of the bar and—"

"no."

"—you wouldn't even know i was there—"

you get up and go back to the kitchen because the kettle has not long boiled and you want more coffee and also because moving feels better than sitting still while wilson bethel follows you around your flat making his case, and you stand with your back to him and you refill the kettle and you switch it on and you wait for it.

he follows you.

of course he follows you, you knew he would follow you, and you do not turn around, you just stand there with your hands on the counter and your eyes on the kettle and you say "the answer is no" to the wall above it and you hear him stop in the doorway behind you.

"i don't have anythin' to do all day," he says, quieter now, the campaign dropping away from it and leaving something more honest underneath. "i don't know anybody here. i don't know this place. i can't go anywhere, can't call anyone, can't do a single useful thing, and i'm gonna lose my mind sittin' still with nothin' to do, i've never been built for it, not once in my life."

"read a book," you say.

"i don't want to read a book."

"watch something."

"on what?"

you pause. you do not own a television, a fact you have never once regretted until this moment. "i'll find you something," you say, vaguely.

"i don't want somethin' to watch, i want to—"

you turn around to tell him, finally and conclusively, that the answer is no and will remain no regardless of what he wants or how long he stands in your kitchen doorway, and you stop.

he is on his knees.

both of them, right there on your kitchen floor in his flannel shirt and his serious boots, hands loosely clasped in front of him, looking up at you from the floor with an expression of complete and total supplication and the eyes of a man who has absolutely done this before and has a reasonable historical success rate with it.

you stare at him as the kettle starts to boil.

"wade kinsella," he says, with enormous and entirely unearned dignity, from your kitchen floor, "is beggin' you."

you look at him for a long moment. you look at the kettle. you look at the window latch sitting flush in its frame. you look back down at him, at his annoyingly pretty face looking up at you from the tiles with complete and patient sincerity.

"get up," you say.

"not till you say yes."

"then you're going to be down there for a while," you say, and you turn back to the kettle, and behind you wade kinsella remains on your kitchen floor and says, with the absolute calm of a man with nowhere else to be: "that's alright. i've got time."

you pour the coffee. you put the kettle down. you turn around and look at him still on the floor and you say "get up" one more time, not because you think it will work but because you cannot have this conversation with a man on his knees, it is too much, your kitchen is not big enough for the absurdity of it.

he gets up. he retrieves his coffee from the counter and leans against the opposite wall with the easy patience of someone who believes the conversation is still going his way, which is its own kind of aggravating.

"sit down," you say, and you go through to the living room because the kitchen genuinely cannot hold both of you and a disagreement, and he follows you and sits back on the sofa and you sit in your chair and you look at him with the expression of someone about to explain something that should not need explaining.

"you understand who you look like." you say.

"so you keep tellin' me."

"wilson bethel," you say. "not a local actor. not someone with a moderate following. someone who has been on screens, big screens, for years, in things that a lot of people have seen. someone whose face is recognised, specifically and immediately, by a significant portion of the population of this city, including me, and i'm not even someone who pays particularly close attention to these things." you pause to let that settle. "you walk into my bar tonight and within twenty minutes someone is going to clock you. within forty minutes someone is going to have their phone out. by the time i'm done with my shift there will be photographs of you on the internet asking why wilson bethel is pulling pints in south london, and those photographs will have my bar in them, and my bar's name, and by extension me, and i have spent a very deliberate amount of energy making my life small and quiet and unattached to anything that would make it otherwise."

he is listening properly now, the grin fully gone, the patient reading look back in its place.

"and the story," you continue, "would not stop there. because then someone is going to ask where you're staying, and someone is going to ask who you're with, and someone is going to find out that wilson bethel is apparently living in a flat in south london with a bartender he has no known connection to, and that is a story that people who follow these things will find extremely interesting, and those people will come here, to this building, to this door, and i cannot have that. i will not have that." you pick up your coffee. "so no. not the bar, not the shop downstairs, not the street outside for longer than it takes to get from the door to a cab. nowhere you can be seen by anyone with a phone until we've worked out what is actually happening and what we're going to do about it."

the silence that follows is a different quality from the previous ones. he is sitting with his forearms on his knees, looking at the middle distance somewhere between you and the floor, and you can see him actually taking it in this time, not looking for the angle on it, just taking it in.

"i'm a problem." he says. not self-pitying, just factual.

"you're a complication." you say, which is the same thing and you both know it.

he nods slowly. looks up at you. the grin is still absent but something else is back in its place, something quieter and more considered, a man recalibrating. "so what do i do tonight," he says. "while you're gone."

"you stay here," you say. "you don't open the door. you don't look out the window for longer than a second. you don't—"

"i mean what do i actually do," he says. "with my hands. with my time. i'm not good at bein' still, i told you that."

you look around the flat, at the various things that have needed doing for the better part of three years, the shelf above the radiator that sits at a slight tilt, the bathroom tap that takes thirty seconds longer than it should to run hot, the kitchen drawer that has not opened without a fight since the summer, and you look back at him, at the man who fixed your window latch before you were even awake, and you say:

"i'll make you a list."

you find a pen in the drawer that does not stick and a scrap of paper from the pile that has been accumulating on the counter since you stopped pretending you were going to deal with it, and you write it standing up, leaning on the counter, the way you write everything, fast and without much ceremony.

tin opener - pull the drawer to the left first, then it'll open. don't force it the other way, you'll break it worse than it already is.

shower - hot's on the right. i know that's backwards. don't ask me, ask the plumber, except don't, because i've tried, he doesn't know either.

bread's in the bin on the counter, eggs in the fridge, butter next to them. help yourself. there's a tin of soup too if you want it later but it's the bad own brand one, lower your expectations accordingly.

don't answer the door.

window latches - the one in the kitchen's been wrong for three years and so has the one in the bedroom, second one along, sticks halfway.

the shelf above the radiator's been tilted

 the kitchen drawer doesn't close right, sticks on the runner. 

there's a deck of cards in the drawer under the tv stand

you hand it to him and he reads it standing in the middle of your living room, his eyes moving down the page. "this is a real thorough list," he says.

"i had a lot of material to work with."

"i can see that." he folds it once, carefully, and puts it in his pocket like it is worth keeping, which you note and decide not to examine. "i'll get through it."

"you don't have to get through all of it."

something in his face shifts, and it is not the cream grin, it is something smaller and more real, and he says "yeah alright" in the quiet voice from this morning, the one without anything performed in it, and you nod and pick up your phone.

he is quiet for a moment after you put your phone down, the recalibration still happening behind his eyes, and then he looks around the flat with a different quality of attention than before, slower, more deliberate, the look of someone who has decided that if he cannot go anywhere he is going to make use of what is in front of him.

he starts with the television you do not have.

"where's your tv?" he says.

"i don't own one."

he looks at the wall where a television would logically go, at the bare plaster above the low unit you use for books and the various things that have nowhere else to live, and his expression is the expression of a man encountering an ideological position he was not prepared for. "you don't own a television," he says, as though confirming something that has not yet fully landed.

"no."

"by choice."

"yes."

he looks at the wall for another second. "huh," he says, and files it, and moves on.

he drifts to the bookshelf next, running a finger along the spines without pulling anything out, reading the titles with the mild interest of someone who reads occasionally and without urgency. he picks one up, looks at the back, puts it down. picks up another. puts that down too. moves to the kitchen doorway and looks at the coffee machine with the focused attention he gave the window latch last night, studying the mechanism of it, the buttons, the way the portafilter sits in the group head.

"that's not a drip machine," he says.

"it's an espresso machine."

"you make espresso at home."

"every morning."

he nods slowly, the nod of someone adding things to a list they are compiling about you, and you are not sure how you feel about being compiled. he moves back through the living room and stops at your desk, at the laptop sitting closed where you left it, and then at your phone on the arm of your chair, and he looks at it with the quality of someone trying to work something out without asking.

"can i–" he says, and gestures at the phone, the gesture of someone who wants to pick it up and is asking permission first, which you note.

you pick it up and hold it out to him. he takes it with both hands, carefully, and turns it over once, looking at the back, then the front, and then he presses the side button and the screen comes on and he goes very still.

"what year is this," he says.

"2025," you say.

he looks up at you from the phone. looks back down at it. something moves across his face that is not the grin and is not the charm and is not the careful managed neutrality from this morning, it is something more unguarded than any of those, a man doing very fast and very uncomfortable arithmetic. "i was in the middle of 2017," he says, quietly. "that's where i was when."

"that's eight years."

he stands there with your phone in both hands and he does not say anything for a moment, and you let him not say anything, and the flat is quiet around it. then he looks back down at the screen, at the brightness of it, the size of it, the lack of any button except the one on the side, and something in him seems to decide to keep moving because the alternative is to stay in the arithmetic and the arithmetic is not somewhere he wants to be right now.

"it's bigger," he says, meaning the phone.

"they got bigger and then they got bigger again."

"no buttons?"

"no buttons."

he turns it over in his hands, swipes the screen experimentally, watches it respond, and something in his face does a small involuntary thing, caught between impressed and unsettled. "what else does it do," he says. "apart from calls."

"everything," you say. "maps, music, internet, camera, payments, translations, it's basically a computer."

"a computer," he says, "that fits in a pocket."

"yes."

he looks at it a moment longer, and then, with the careful deliberateness of someone who has decided to be systematic about this, he looks up at you and says "what else is different," and there is something almost bracing in the way he says it, a man who has decided to take the full inventory of eight years in one go rather than be ambushed by it in pieces, which is, you think, a very wade kinsella way of approaching a problem.

you look at him standing in the middle of your living room in 2017's flannel shirt holding 2025 in both hands and you think about where to start, and you think that wherever you start it is going to be a long morning.

"sit down," you say. "i'll make more coffee."

you make the coffee and you bring it through and you sit in the chair and he sits on the sofa and you talk him through eight years in the way you would talk someone through anything difficult, which is to say you do it plainly and without drama, because drama is not going to help either of you and the facts are dramatic enough on their own.

you tell him about the phones first because he is still holding yours and it gives you somewhere to start. you tell him that most things are on them now, that people pay with them, navigate with them, watch entire films on them, that the laptop on your desk is becoming the secondary device rather than the primary one for most people, and he listens with the focused attention of someone taking notes in their head, asking occasional short questions that tell you he is following rather than just waiting for you to stop.

you tell him about streaming, about the fact that television is largely not watched on a television anymore, that there are several large companies that produce and distribute their own content and that most people have accounts with at least two of them, and he asks what happened to network television with the tone of a man who has a personal stake in the answer, which he does, and you say it is still there but different and leave it at that because you do not know how to explain the specific texture of what happened to network television between 2017 and 2025 without getting into things that are going to open more questions than you can answer before your shift.

you tell him, carefully, that a great deal happened between 2017 and now, that the world had a pandemic, a global one, that shut everything down for a period of time that still sits strangely in the people who lived through it, a before and after that everyone your age carries around without quite knowing what to do with it, and you watch him absorb this one differently from the others, quietly, the phone going still in his hands.

"how many people?" he says.

you tell him the number and he looks at the floor and says nothing for a moment and you let him have the moment because it deserves one.

you tell him about the cost of things, about inflation, about rent in london in 2025, and his expression at the rent figure is the most purely wade kinsella thing he has done since the corridor, a short sharp exhale and a look that suggests he finds the entire concept personally offensive, which you find, despite everything, briefly funny.

you tell him about AI, about the fact that computers can now generate images and text and voices with an accuracy that was not possible eight years ago, and you watch him try to map this onto what he knows about computers, which is clearly the 2017 version of what computers could do, and you can see the gap between the two things sitting in his face like a distance he cannot quite measure.

he asks questions, good ones, the kind that show he has been listening rather than just hearing, and you answer what you can and say i don't know for the ones you can't, and at some point you look at the clock on your phone and it is quarter past three and your shift starts at half five and you have not showered, you have not eaten, you are still in yesterday's t-shirt and your hair is doing something you have not yet confronted in a mirror, and you stand up in the middle of a sentence about electric cars and say "i have to get ready."

he looks up at you from the sofa. "now?"

"i've got two hours and i haven't showered and i need to eat something and i need to find you food before i go because i'm not leaving you in here with nothing." you pick up both cups and take them to the kitchen because movement helps you think. "there's bread, there's eggs, there are various tins of things, the tin opener is in the drawer that sticks so you have to pull it to the left first. the shower takes about forty seconds to get hot and the hot and cold are reversed, hot is on the right, i know that's wrong, the plumber was not helpful about it. there's a spare towel on the radiator, it's yours, i'll find you something to sleep in tonight and we'll sort out clothes tomorrow."

you stop because you are listing things at a man who is watching you from the sofa with an expression that is somewhere between amused and something warmer, and you do not have time to examine the warmer part.

"bathroom's through there," you say, pointing. "don't go through my room to get to it, there's a door in the hall. and don't open the front door."

"you said that."

"i'm saying it again." you pick up your phone. "i'll be twenty minutes in the shower and then i'll make you something to eat before i go."

"you don't have to do that–" he says.

"i know i don't," you say, and you go to the bathroom and you shut the door, and you stand there for a second with your back against it and your eyes on the ceiling and you think about the fact that there is a man on your sofa who has been in 2017 until last night and who does not know what a streaming service is and who fixed your window latch and whose face is wilson bethel's face and who is going to be in your flat alone for the next seven hours while you pour drinks for strangers, and you breathe in and you breathe out and you reach in and turn the shower on and you wait the forty seconds for the hot to come through.

the ordinary things, you think. you do the ordinary things.

you get in the shower.

you get out of the shower and the flat is quiet in the way it is quiet when someone is trying to be quiet, which is different from actually quiet, there is a quality to it, a held stillness, that tells you he is in there being very deliberate about not making noise while you get ready, which you note without commenting on.

you dry your hair and you find clothes and you do the things you do before every shift, the specific sequence of it, muscle memory after seven years, and you do them slightly faster than usual because the clock is moving and you still need to feed him and find your keys and locate the jacket you think is on the hook by the door but might be on the floor of your room.

you come out and he is on the sofa where you left him, your phone face down on the cushion beside him, and he has your book, one of them, the one from the coffee table that has been sitting there for three weeks at the same page, and he is reading it with the focused quiet of someone who has found the only acceptable version of sitting still.

he looks up when you come out and the book goes slightly still in his hands and he looks at you in your work clothes with your hair done and your jacket over your arm and he says nothing, which is its own kind of thing, and then he looks back at the book.

"eggs?" you say, from the kitchen doorway.

"whatever's easiest," he says. "i'm not picky."

you make eggs, scrambled, because it is the fastest thing, and you put bread in the toaster and you find the butter and you do it all in the quick efficient way of someone who has been feeding themselves on limited time for years, and you plate it up and bring it through and put it on the coffee table in front of him and he looks at it and then looks at you and says "you didn't have to do that" again.

"you said that already," you say.

"it's still true," he says.

you find your keys, which are in your jacket pocket where they should be and almost never are, and you put your jacket on and you look around the flat doing the mental check you do before every shift, phone, keys, card, and you stop in the middle of the living room and look at him, sitting on your sofa with the plate of eggs and your book, in his flannel shirt and his serious boots, in your flat in london in 2025, eight years from where he started this morning.

"rules." you say.

"i know the rules," he says.

"say them back to me."

he puts the book down, the expression of a man accepting that this is happening. "don't open the door. don't look out the window for longer than a second. don't go through your things. tin opener pulls to the left. hot's on the right."

"and?"

"and you'll be back by midnight," he says. "and if somethin' happens—" he stops. "actually, how do i get in touch with you if somethin' happens."

you look at him. you look at your phone, your actual phone, the one you need for the shift, for payments and the music system and the card reader. you look at the drawer by the door where you keep the old one, the one from two phones ago that still works on wifi, the one you kept meaning to wipe and never did.

you go to the drawer and you get it out and you plug it into the charger on the counter and you wait for it to come on, and when it does you open it to your own number and you hand it to him.

"wifi only," you say. "the password is on the back of the router, the white box under the desk. you can call me on that if something happens. and by something i mean something real, not–"

"not i'm bored and i want to ask about streamers," he says with a huff as his head rolls against the back of the sofa.

"streaming services.." you say. "and correct."

he takes the phone and looks at it, the older model, smaller than the current one, and he turns it over in his hands the way he turned over the other one, mapping it.

"i'll be fine." he says. "go to work."

"i know you'll be fine," you say, in the tone of someone who is not one hundred percent sure of this but is choosing to proceed as though they are.

"hey–" he says, as you pick up your bag.

you stop.

"thank you," he says. "for the eggs. and the." he gestures, a small motion that covers the phone and the charger and the wifi password and the tin opener instructions and all of it, the whole morning, the whole improbable situation of the two of you. "all of it."

you look at him sitting there with the plate of eggs and the old phone and the book and the window latch behind him sitting flush in its frame, and you think: i am going to be late if i stand here, and you think: okay, and you think: this is genuinely the strangest thing that has ever happened to me, and you say "don't break anything" and you open the door and you go.

the lock clicks behind you.

you stand in the corridor for exactly three seconds, looking at the slightly-too-dim hallway, the light fitting that is no longer swinging, the carpet that is the colour of an old argument, and you think about the man on the other side of the door eating scrambled eggs in 2025 and you think about the fact that you are going to have to come home tonight and he is going to be there, and the thing in your chest that you have been not examining all morning does its small inconvenient thing again.

you go to work.

the bar is called the george and it is not a remarkable bar.

it is the kind of pub that has been in the same spot for long enough that it has stopped trying to be anything other than what it is, dark wood and low lighting and a fruit machine in the corner that someone is always on the verge of winning on and never does. the carpet is patterned in the way of pub carpets specifically designed to hide what happens to them on a friday night. the taps are the same taps they have always been. the regulars are the same regulars they have always been, settled into their specific spots with the proprietary ease of people who have been coming here long enough to have stopped noticing the decor.

you have worked here for four years. you know every inch of it the way you know your flat, not fondly exactly but completely, the way you know the things that are simply yours by virtue of time.

you get there at twenty past five and marcus is already behind the bar looking relieved in the way he looks relieved every friday when you walk in, marcus who is the manager and a reasonable man and chronically understaffed in the way of every pub in london, and he hands you your apron without being asked and says "thank god" and you say "i know" and you tie it on and you wash your hands and you are behind the bar before you have fully arrived in your own head.

the first hour is always the same. the after work crowd, still in their coats, still carrying the day with them, loosening it one pint at a time. you know what most of them are having before they open their mouths, the tuesday regulars and the friday regulars overlap enough that you have a map of it, and you work the bar the way you always work it, efficient and easy, the conversation happening in the peripheral part of you while the hands do the job.

it is busy enough that you cannot think about anything else, which is what you need, which is what a friday shift has always been good for, the specific merciful blankness of being too occupied to be anywhere except here, except the bar, except the next order and the one after that.

it works for about two hours.

then there is a lull, the brief valley between the after work crowd and the evening crowd, and marcus goes out the back to chase up the delivery that was supposed to come at four and has not, and the bar is quiet for ten minutes, and your hands find nothing to do, and your brain, released from the requirement to focus, goes immediately back to your flat.

you think about the window latch.

you think about him on his knees on your kitchen floor with his hands clasped and his absolute dignity intact, wade kinsella is beggin' you, and you think about the eggs you made him and the old phone on the charger and the book he picked up from the coffee table and the way he looked when you came out of the bedroom ready for work, that brief stillness, the book going quiet in his hands before he looked away.

you think about hart of dixie and the line of text on your screen, character: wade kinsella, and the way his face did the raw unguarded thing, that's a story, that's somethin' somebody wrote down, and you think about the identity crisis he is currently having alone in your flat with scrambled eggs and an old phone and a wifi password on the back of the router, and you think: he is fine, he is a grown man, he fixed your window latch and he has been managing himself since before you met him.

you think about the grin.

you are thinking about the grin when the evening crowd starts to arrive and marcus comes back in looking harassed about the delivery and the bar fills up and you stop thinking about anything except the job, which is, you decide, a mercy.

by nine the george is full in the comfortable friday way, every table taken, a two deep situation at the bar that you and marcus and the glass collector kyle are managing adequately but only just, and you are in the rhythm of it fully now, the good rhythm, the one where the shift stops feeling like a shift and starts feeling like a thing you are just doing, and you are mid pour when your apron pocket buzzes.

you finish the pour. you take the money. you give the change. you wait for a gap and then you pull out the old phone, the one you left him, and you look at the screen.

it says: found your telly.

you stare at it.

you type back: i don't have a tv.

the response comes in under ten seconds: you've got a laptop. figured it out. there's a lot of shows on here.

you look at the message. you look at the bar. marcus is handling the next two people and kyle is collecting glasses and you have approximately forty five seconds before you are needed again.

you type: are you watching something.

he types back: yeah. found one about a bar actually. it's pretty good.

and then, before you can respond: also your eggs were real good. thank you.

you look at that for a second, at the plain unadorned way of it, no grin in it, no charm, just a man alone in your flat telling you your eggs were good because he wanted to say so, and the thing in your chest does its small inconvenient thing again at the worst possible moment.

marcus says your name from the other end of the bar.

you put the phone back in your pocket and you go back to work and you do not think about wade kinsella for the rest of the shift, or you try not to, which is not quite the same thing but is the best you have got.

the evening crowd hits properly by half eight and the george becomes what it becomes on a friday, which is loud and warm and slightly too full, every table occupied and the bar two deep and the fruit machine in the corner producing its periodic electronic celebration for someone who has won three pounds and will spend six trying to win it again. you and marcus work either end of the bar and kyle moves glasses and you fall into the rhythm of it, the good rhythm, the one that does not require thought, just the accumulated muscle memory of four years in this specific space, this specific layout, your hands knowing where everything is before your eyes find it.

you serve a hen party their eighth round of something pink and luminous that you have been making all night and whose name you have already forgotten. you serve a man in a suit his third whiskey and you look at him the way you look at everyone on their third, the quick assessment, the check, and he is fine, unhappy about something but fine, and you give him the third and you move on. you serve two women who are clearly on a first date and doing well, both leaning in, both laughing slightly too readily at the other one's jokes, and you put their drinks down without interrupting the moment because you know how to do that, you have always known how to do that, the invisibility of good bar service.

marcus disappears into the back at nine to do the end of week stock check, which he does every friday and which takes him the better part of an hour, and you run the bar alone for a stretch that is busy enough to require your full attention and not so busy that it tips into impossible, and you do it the way you do it, efficiently and without drama, because drama behind a bar is its own category of problem and you have never had patience for it.

a man at the far end tries to chat you up with the particular strategy of someone who has decided that if he stays at the bar long enough you will eventually run out of other things to do and have to talk to him, and you are polite and brief and give him nothing to build on, the way you have been polite and brief and given men nothing to build on for four years, and eventually he takes his drink to a table and you move on.

at ten marcus comes back and takes the other end and the pressure drops slightly, enough that you can breathe between orders rather than during them, and kyle brings a rack of glasses back from the tables and you load them and you run a cloth along the bar and you are doing the thing you do in the brief gaps, the quick scan of the room, who needs what, who is about to leave, who has been nursing the same drink for forty minutes and is doing it because they do not want to go home.

there is a woman at the corner table who has been there since seven and has had two drinks and is on her phone, not in the way of someone waiting for a person, in the way of someone who is somewhere else entirely while being here. you have seen it before, the using the bar as a place to be when being somewhere else is not an option, and you make a note of her in the peripheral way, the way you make notes of everyone.

by eleven the crowd has thinned to the committed and the comfortable, the people who are here because they want to be rather than because friday demanded it, and the noise has dropped to something easier, conversation you can hear the shape of without hearing the words, the fruit machine quiet now, the hen party long gone in a taxi with their luminous drinks and their sashes.

the rest of the shift after eleven is the quieter work, the end of night rhythm, the tables thinning out and the music dropping a notch and the bar becoming a different thing than it was at nine, less event, more place, the people left in it the ones who are here because they want to be rather than because friday required it.

you and marcus clean down in the practiced way of people who have done this together enough times that it requires no discussion, wiping and stacking and cashing up, and kyle does the last round of glasses and the fruit machine goes off on its own at some point the way it always does at this hour and nobody reacts because nobody ever reacts, it is just the george doing what the george does.

a man at the bar at quarter to twelve asks for one more and you look at him, the quick assessment, and he is fine, tired but fine, and you pull it and he says thanks and you say no problem and that is the whole of it, the whole transaction, clean and complete, and you move on.

marcus cashes the till out at midnight and you cash your float and it is the right amount, it is always the right amount, you have never been short in four years and you are not short tonight, and marcus says good shift in the clipped way that means he means it and you say yeah and untie your apron and hang it on the hook in the back.

you get your jacket. you get your bag. you say goodnight to kyle who is still doing glasses and will be doing glasses for another twenty minutes because kyle is thorough in the way of someone who has decided that thoroughness is his professional identity and has committed to it completely. you say goodnight to marcus who is already on the phone to someone, his wife probably, the friday midnight call he makes every week, and he raises a hand at you without turning around and you go out the back and through the side door and out into the street.

the city is doing its late night thing outside, the bus that runs past the end of your road at this hour with its half empty upper deck, the chicken shop two doors down still lit up and serving, a group of people outside it with the loose loud energy of a friday that has not finished yet. you walk past all of it with your jacket pulled shut and your feet starting their familiar complaint and your keys already in your hand because four years of late shifts have made the key-before-the-door thing automatic.

the building is quiet. the lift is broken, which it has been for six weeks, and you take the stairs the way you always take the stairs, one hand on the rail, your body doing it without requiring anything from your brain. the corridor on your floor is the same corridor, the light fitting still, no longer swinging, the carpet the colour of an old argument.

there is light under your door.

you stand there for a second with your key in the lock, looking at the thin line of light at the bottom of the door, and you think: of course there is light under your door, you left a man in there, you told him you would be back by midnight, it is past midnight and he has presumably been waiting, and none of this is surprising, and yet the light under the door does something to the quality of coming home that you have not had cause to notice before because coming home has always meant coming home to the darkness and cold.

you unlock the door and open it.

he is on the sofa with the laptop open on the cushion beside him and the old phone in his hand and he is awake, fully awake, the look of someone who has not been to sleep and was not planning to, and when the door opens he looks up and something in his face does a thing that is too fast to catch, there and gone before you can name it, replaced immediately by the easy neutrality.

"hey." he says.

you close the door behind you and you drop your bag and you look at the flat, at the state of it, and you stop.

the shelf above the radiator, the one that has sat at a slight tilt since you moved in, is level. you can see it from here, the way it sits flush against the wall at both ends, properly horizontal for what you are fairly certain is the first time in three years. the kitchen drawer, the one that has required a specific leftward jiggle since summer, is pushed cleanly shut, flush with the unit, and you can tell from here that it has been opened and re-seated, the runner fixed. the bathroom tap, the one that takes thirty seconds longer than it should to run hot, you will not know about until morning, but you look at him sitting on your sofa and you think: probably.

"you fixed the shelf?" you say.

"it was sittin' wrong," he says, same as the window, same tone, same complete sufficiency of explanation.

"you fixed the drawer too."

"runner was off. took about ten minutes."

you stand in the middle of your own living room in your work clothes and you look at the evidence of what a man with nothing to do and good hands and eight hours alone can accomplish in a london flat, and you do not know what to do with it, so you do what you always do with things you do not know what to do with, you move past it.

"have you eaten?" you say.

"made toast," he says. "found the butter. hope that's alright."

"that's fine." you take your jacket off and hang it on the hook by the door where it belongs and you go to the kitchen and you fill a glass of water and you drink half of it standing at the sink, the way you always do after a shift, the first really good drink of water after hours of not quite enough, and you refill it and bring it through and sit in your chair and look at him.

he has closed the laptop. he is looking at you with the patient reading look, the one that catalogues without commenting, and he has the old phone still in his hand, loosely, and he looks, you think, like someone who has been alone for a long time and has been fine about it and is glad not to be anymore, and is not going to say any of those things.

"good shift?" he says.

"busy," you say. "fine. busy."

he nods. "friday."

"friday," you agree.

a pause, the comfortable kind, the kind you have not expected to have with a stranger in your flat at quarter past midnight, and you sit in it for a moment without trying to fill it.

"you texted," you say.

"i did."

"about the tv."

"found your netflix," he says, with the satisfaction of someone who has solved something. "took me a while to work out the account part but i got there. kyle helped."

you look at him. "kyle?"

"the fella on the chat. the help thing."

"you used the netflix chat support," you say slowly, "to work out how to use netflix?"

"he was very patient," wade says. "good customer service."

you put your face in your hand for a moment, briefly, and then you take it away. "what did you watch," you say.

"few things," he says. "started with the bar show. then i found one about a fella in a different country tryin' to figure out how things work." a pause. "felt relevant."

you look at him.

"then i found one with a fella buildin' things," he says. "watched three episodes of that. then i looked up bluebell alabama."

the room goes slightly different.

"and?" you say, carefully.

he looks at the phone in his hand and turns it over once. "it's a real place," he says. "small. census says about eight hundred people, give or take. not a medical town. no lavon hayes as mayor, far as i can find." a pause, longer this time. "looked up the rammer jammer. nothin'."

you do not say anything. you let him have the silence.

"looked up my daddy," he says, quieter. "earl kinsella. nothin' on that either. looked up hart of dixie again. watched the first episode."

you go very, very still.

"weird thing," he says, "watchin' yourself. watchin' somebody else be you. all the things right and all the things not." he looks up at you and his face is doing the open unguarded thing from this morning, the thing underneath all the other things. "he got some of it real wrong," he says, and there is something almost indignant in it, something that would be funny if it were not also the saddest thing you have heard all day. "the way wade talks to people. he's too much. real wade's not that much."

"real wade?" you say, gently with a smile much too soft.

he catches it. something flickers across his face. "yeah," he says, after a moment. "i know."

you look at him sitting there with the laptop and the old phone and the level shelf behind him and the fixed drawer and the eight years he has just spent the evening alone with, and you think about kyle from netflix support, and you think about the first episode of hart of dixie playing on your laptop in your empty flat while you were pulling pints two miles away, and you think about what it costs a person to watch someone else perform their own life back at them and find it not quite right.

"go to sleep, wade," you say, soft.

he looks at you for a moment. "yeah," he says. "alright."

you get up and you get him the blanket from the bedroom cupboard, the spare one, the one that has been in there since you moved in and has never had an occasion to be useful, and you bring it through and you put it on the arm of the sofa without ceremony and you say "bathroom's free" and he says "thank you" in the quiet voice, the real one, and you go to your room and you close the door, not locking it this time, and you lie in the dark and you look at the ceiling and you think about the light under the door when you came home.

you think about it for longer than is strictly necessary.

then you go to sleep.

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[i00que]

MEMO ── HARRY / HOT NEW BOSS .

NOTES : you mind your own business down in the labs of OSCORP industries and dont take notice when norman steps down until his son is grinning at you from the doorway.

WARNINGS : intern reader, no use of y/n, power imbalance, slight age gap, wealth gap, protectiveness, boss x employee, car sex, creampie, multiple orgasms, fingering, riding, nipple play, neck biting, dirty talk, slow then rough fucking, cum leaking, sensitive clit play, unprotected sex.

CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL ── 18+ ONLY.

you've been at oscorp for six months, which is long enough to know the rhythms of the place but not long enough to have earned a desk that isn't shared, and your entire existence in this building is contingent on not making waves. intern lab assistant. it says so on the lanyard you wear every single day because if you forget it the security desk makes you fill out a form and wait twenty minutes in the lobby, which you know from experience. you make coffee when dr. reeves asks you to and you label samples and you keep your handwriting neat on the filing forms and you are, in every measurable way, not someone that anyone above the fourth floor has any reason to think about.

you're fine with that. actually fine with it, not the kind of fine that needs reassurance but the kind that comes from genuinely caring about the work more than the politics around it. the research is interesting and you are learning things you wouldn't learn anywhere else and if the price of that is a shared desk and a badge that photographs you badly then that is a price you will pay without complaint. you restructured the entire sample cataloguing system in your third week because the existing one was, in the exact words you used in your report that you now slightly regret, structurally incoherent and a liability to the integrity of the trial data. dr. reeves had called it thorough and initialled the bottom of the page and you have not raised your voice about anything since.

so when norman osborn steps down you find out the same way you find out about everything that happens above your pay grade, which is standing at the edge of a conversation between two senior researchers who don't notice you're there. a handover, someone said. the son. someone else made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh and carried something in it you didn't have enough context to decode, some private verdict on a person you'd never met and weren't likely to. you filed it away and went back to re-labelling a sample rack and that was the end of it as far as you were concerned.

you have enough to think about.

and then one tuesday morning you look up from the filing cabinet you've been working through for an hour and there is someone in the doorway of the lab that you have never seen before, and your first thought, completely involuntary and immediately inconvenient, is that he is extremely good looking and that the fluorescent lighting is doing something deeply unfair and he seems entirely unbothered by it.

he's twenty-four, maybe, with dark hair pushed back from his face and brown eyes that are already moving around the room with a quick unhurried focus, cataloguing things, taking stock. he has a jaw with just enough stubble to suggest it was a choice rather than an oversight and he's wearing a grey suit that fits him the way suits only fit people who had them made, with a striped tie loosened exactly one half inch at the collar, and his hands are in his pockets and his weight is settled back slightly and he has the specific posture of someone who has never once in his life been the least important person in any room he walked into. he's leaning against the doorframe with his arms loosely crossed now and he's looking at you and the corner of his mouth is already moving toward a grin.

"you're the intern." he says, and somehow it doesn't sound diminishing, it sounds like he was looking for you specifically.

"lab assistant," you say, before you can think better of it.

and his mouth finishes the job it was already starting and pulls into a full grin, easy and bright and just slightly crooked, like you surprised him and he's decided that's interesting. he pushes off the doorframe and walks into the room the way people do when they own buildings, which he does, technically, own this one, and he stops at the edge of the central workstation and looks at the sample rack you've been reorganizing and then at the filing system behind it and then back at you.

"harry osborn," he says, and holds out his hand.

you cross the room and shake it. he's taller up close and his eyes are very blue and he holds the handshake a half second longer than necessary, watching your face while he does it, which you are fairly certain is intentional and which you are choosing to simply not react to.

"i've read your reports," he says, letting go. "not the summaries. the actual reports, the full ones, going back to when you started." he says it easily, like it's just a fact he's setting down on the workstation between you, but you feel it land anyway because nobody reads those reports, not fully, dr. reeves skims the executive summary and signs off and you have been quietly making peace with that since month two. "i had about thirty questions and i've been waiting six months to find someone down here who could actually answer them, so." he looks around the lab once, a quick sweep that takes in all of it, and then his eyes come back to you and there's something in them that might be appreciation and is also, unmistakably, a little bit of a challenge. "lucky you."

you open your mouth. close it. "i'm an intern," you say, because it feels like information someone should put on the table.

"i know what you are," he says, and pulls a stool from the corner of the room without asking and sits down, elbows finding the edge of the workstation, jacket still on, completely at ease in a lab he has never been in before in a building he has owned for approximately three weeks. "lab assistant, six months, city university, full scholarship, and you restructured the entire sample cataloguing system in week three because the existing one was," he pauses, tilts his head slightly, "your words, structurally incoherent and a liability to the integrity of the trial data." the corner of his mouth pulls again. "my dad's head of operations nearly had a stroke."

the heat that climbs your neck is unwelcome and you would like it to stop. "it was," you say, because it was, and you're not going to apologize for it.

harry osborn looks at you for a moment with that expression that keeps shifting just slightly out of reach, and then he laughs, short and real and not performed, just genuine, and it does something annoying to his face that you are going to ignore. "i know," he says. "that's why i'm here and not in the meeting i was supposed to be in at nine." he glances at the clock on the wall and something flickers across his face that is not quite guilt and is mostly the absence of it. "or the one at ten." he looks back at you and the grin resettles, easy and permanent-looking. "walk me through the regeneration pathway data. page seven, the telomere sequencing, because either your methodology is wrong or every senior researcher in this building has been running this project incorrectly for eighteen months and i want to know which one it is."

the sensible response here is to tell him that dr. reeves is two doors down and any questions about the research should be directed to someone with an actual phd. the sensible response is to remember that you are an intern who is still on probation and act accordingly.

you pull the relevant notebook off the shelf and open it to page seven.

"the methodology isn't wrong," you say, turning it to face him. "the model they've been running assumes a linear degradation curve but that's not what the samples are showing, it's logarithmic, and nobody caught it because they stopped looking at the raw data and started trusting the summary projections, which were built on the linear assumption in the first place so they just kept confirming themselves." you point at the graph in the margin, the one you drew at eleven pm on a wednesday three months ago when something wasn't adding up and you couldn't leave it alone. "circular. the whole thing. for eighteen months."

harry goes very still for a moment, looking at the graph.

then he looks up at you and something has shifted in his expression, the amusement is still there but it's sitting on top of something sharper now, the look of someone who came in expecting to be entertained and has been handed something that actually matters instead.

"you're sure," he says.

"i've run it eleven times," you say. "three different control sets."

he holds your gaze for a second in which you get the sense he is doing several things at once behind those blue eyes, and then he looks back down at the notebook and reaches across and pulls it slightly closer to himself and reads, with the quality of attention you have only ever seen in people who are genuinely, constitutionally incapable of being bored by a problem that interests them. you wait. you don't fidget, which takes some effort.

"okay," he says quietly, mostly to himself. then: "you have the raw data files."

it isn't a question. "all of them," you say. "backed up in three places. the server crashed in month one and i lost a week of work."

something moves across his face quickly, there and gone, the specific satisfaction of someone who has been looking for something and has just found it somewhere they didn't entirely expect. he straightens on the stool and looks at you and the grin that comes back is softer than the one he walked in with, a slightly different thing entirely.

"i have a building full of people with phds and published research and very impressive CVs," he says, "who have been running this project for a year and a half." a pause. "and then there's you."

"and then there's me," you say carefully.

"intern," he says.

"lab assistant," you say, and he smiles at that, wider, like you keep doing something he didn't predict and he has decided to simply let himself find it delightful, which is its own kind of problem.

"right," he says, and he doesn't move to leave. he sits there on the stolen stool in the expensive suit with the loosened tie and looks at you with that look, the one that started as a challenge and has become, in the last twenty minutes, something else underneath, something that has nothing to do with telomere sequencing and that you are not going to acknowledge right now or possibly ever. "i need to see all of it. the raw files, the control data, all eleven runs. and i need someone who understands it to walk me through it."

"i have sample labelling to finish," you say. "dr. reeves needs it by four."

harry glances at the sample rack. glances back at you. "i'll talk to reeves," he says, with the complete and total serenity of someone for whom talking to reeves is not a consideration worth the word obstacle. "send me the files. my email's in the directory." he stands and straightens his jacket and picks his phone up from the bench, and then pauses halfway to the door and looks back at you over his shoulder and his expression has gone easy again, light, like a joke you've both ended up on the same side of without quite meaning to.

"lucky you," he says, and then he's gone, back down the corridor toward the elevator and whatever he's kept waiting for the better part of two hours, and you stand in the sudden quiet of your lab and look at the notebook still open on the workstation.

you sit down. you pull up the internal directory. his email is at the top of the list, which is the kind of thing that happens when your last name is the company name, and you attach the first file and then the second and then all eleven runs and both control sets and the raw data exports and the methodology notes you wrote for yourself at eleven pm on a wednesday that you were never going to show anyone because they were too speculative and too certain at the same time.

you hit send before you can think better of it.

your phone buzzes four minutes later. no introduction, no greeting:

page 4 of the methodology notes. expand on this. - h

you stare at it for a moment.

then you start typing.

the thing about dr. reeves

the thing about dr. reeves is that he isn't cruel, exactly. cruelty would be easier to categorize and therefore easier to dismiss. what he is instead is the particular kind of dismissive that has calcified over a long career into something he doesn't even notice anymore, the way you stop noticing a smell after you've been in a room long enough. he talks over you in briefings. he hands your work to the senior researchers to present without mentioning where it came from. he calls you sweetheart when he's in a good mood and says things like let's leave the interpretation to the people with the relevant qualifications when he isn't, and you have learned to let it move through you like weather because you need this placement and you are not going to be the intern who made a scene.

you are very good at not making a scene.

it's a thursday afternoon and the lab is quiet and you have been at the same bench for four hours running a set of quality checks on the newest sample batch, careful methodical work that requires more concentration than it looks like it does, and dr. reeves stops behind you on his way past and looks over your shoulder at what you're doing and makes a sound.

"you've logged these wrong," he says.

you look at the log sheet. "i don't think i have," you say, as evenly as you can manage.

"the batch numbers should be sequential from the previous set, not restarted. this is a basic filing convention, it's in the lab handbook, i'd have thought even at your level," he says, and that even at your level lands the way it always does, small and precise, like he's not even trying. "i'll have to have someone go back through and fix this. do you know how much time that wastes."

it isn't a question. it never is.

"the handbook was updated six weeks ago," you say, keeping your voice level and your eyes on the log sheet. "the new convention restarts batch numbers at the beginning of each trial phase. i can send you the updated version if you haven't seen it."

a pause. the particular quality of silence that means you've said something correct that he didn't want to be correct.

"just make sure it doesn't happen again," he says, and walks away, and you breathe out slowly through your nose and go back to the samples and do not throw anything.

you don't hear the footsteps stop in the doorway. you don't notice you have an audience until you hear a voice that is not dr. reeves's say, from somewhere behind you and to the left, at a volume and a register that is almost conversational:

"that sounded like it hurt."

you turn around.

harry osborn is leaning against the doorframe with his jacket over one arm and his sleeves rolled up to the elbow and his tie loosened and he is looking at you with an expression that is doing several things at once, something careful and something a little too perceptive and, underneath both of those, something that looks like it has already made a decision.

"how much of that did you hear?" you say.

"enough," he says. he pushes off the doorframe and walks in and sets his jacket over the back of a chair and looks at the log sheet you're working on and the sample batch beside it. "is he always like that."

it isn't quite a question. you look at him for a moment and decide that whatever answer you give is going to end up meaning something and you'd rather be careful about it.

"he's under a lot of pressure," you say. "the trial timeline is behind."

harry looks at you with those blue eyes and the expression on his face says very clearly that he knows exactly what you're doing and finds it both admirable and somewhat unnecessary. "right," he says, mild as anything. he straightens up and picks his jacket off the chair and checks his watch. "is reeves in his office?"

"harry.." you say, and something in your chest does something uncomfortable because you have been on first name terms with him for three weeks via text message and this is the first time you've said it out loud and it comes out slightly more like a warning than you intended.

he looks at you over his shoulder and smiles, and it's the specific smile that you have privately categorized as the one that means he's already decided what he's going to do and is finding your concern for the outcome charming rather than persuasive. "i'm not going to yell at him," he says. "i'm just going to have a conversation."

you watch him walk back out into the corridor. you give it thirty seconds and then follow, because you are apparently incapable of making sensible decisions where harry osborn is concerned, and you hover just outside dr. reeves's open office door and listen.

harry knocks twice, easy, and walks in without waiting.

"reeves," he says, pleasant and relaxed, "got a few minutes?"

you hear dr. reeves make the specific sound of a man who was not expecting the ceo to appear in his office doorway on a thursday afternoon but is doing his best to rearrange his face appropriately. "of course, mr. osborn, absolutely, what can i do for you."

"i've been doing a review of the lab outputs," harry says, and you can hear him moving, the particular sound of someone making themselves comfortable in a room that isn't theirs. a chair, probably. the one across from the desk. sitting down in it the way he sits down in everything, like he was invited specifically. "and i keep running into the same name on the interesting work. the cataloguing restructure, the logarithmic curve identification, the batch methodology notes that caught the phase three error before it compounded." a pause. "your lab assistant."

"she's," dr. reeves starts, and there's something in the hesitation that makes your jaw tighten, "she's capable enough, yes, for the level she's at."

"for the level she's at," harry repeats, in a tone of such genuine thoughtful interest that it takes a second to notice there are teeth in it. "what level would you say that is."

another pause, longer this time. "she's an intern, mr. osborn. she's here to learn the protocols and assist with the administrative side of the research."

"right," harry says. "so when she identified an eighteen month modelling error that your senior team missed, that was sort of above and beyond."

silence.

"i'm asking," harry continues, still pleasant, still entirely relaxed, the tone of a man discussing something of only mild interest, "because i want to make sure we're utilizing the people in this department correctly. it'd be a shame to have someone solving problems at one level and logging samples at another. inefficient." he lets that word sit for a moment. "and you know how i feel about inefficiency."

you do not know how he feels about inefficiency. you are not sure dr. reeves does either. that is, you suspect, somewhat the point.

"of course," dr. reeves says. he sounds like a man who has just realized he is in a conversation he thought was about one thing and is actually about something else entirely. "of course, i'll make sure she's given more appropriate responsibilities."

"brilliant!" harry says, warm, like this has all been very easy and agreeable and nothing of any particular significance has just happened. "and reeves, the updated lab handbook. the one from six weeks ago. worth a read if you haven't had the chance." a beat, light as anything. "lot of useful stuff in there."

you are three steps back down the corridor and looking very intently at your phone by the time harry comes back out of the office. he falls into step beside you without breaking stride and says nothing for a moment, just walks, and you keep your eyes forward and your expression neutral and you are not going to say thank you because you don't need rescuing and he probably knows that.

"you didn't have to do that.." you say.

"i know."

"i had it handled."

"i know that too." he glances sideways at you and the smile is back, the quieter one, the one that isn't performing anything. "i was in the building anyway."

you look at him. "your office is twelve floors up."

"is it?" he says, like this is mildly interesting information, and then his phone rings and he looks at the screen and sighs through his nose in the way you have come to recognize as his specific response to calls he has been avoiding. he slows to a stop outside the stairwell door and looks at you and there's something in the look that makes your stomach do something you are going to categorize later when you are alone and can be more honest with yourself about it.

"page four," he says. "you never finished explaining it."

"you never finished asking," you say.

he smiles, answers the phone, pushes through the stairwell door, and is gone. and you stand in the corridor for a moment in the quiet and then look back down at your phone and there is already a message there, sent approximately thirty seconds ago, before he even came out of the office:

come up to the fourteenth floor tomorrow. bring the methodology notes. - h

you stare at it.

then you save his contact name, which has until now just been the letter h because that is what he signed the first text with and you have been pretending that is a normal and professional way to exist in someone's phone, as something slightly more legible.

you head back to the samples. you have work to finish.

but you're smiling when you sit down, just slightly, and you don't do anything about that either.

it becomes a thing. that's the only word for it, a thing, undefined and unaddressed and existing in the space between professional and something else entirely, which is a space you are becoming increasingly familiar with and increasingly unwilling to examine too closely because examining it would require you to do something about it and you are not sure yet what doing something about it looks like when the other person's name is on the building.

he texts you most days now. it started as questions about the research and has become something harder to categorize, observations mostly, things he's thinking about, the kind of messages you send to someone when something occurs to you and they are the person you want to tell. you respond in kind and tell yourself it's professional and mostly believe it and then he sends something at eleven thirty on a friday night that has nothing to do with telomere sequencing and you lie in your bed and smile at your phone like an idiot and believe it a little less.

thursdays you go up to the fourteenth floor. this has become a fact of your week the way coffee in the morning is a fact, something you'd notice the absence of. you bring whatever you've been working on and he clears two hours in a schedule that his assistant has told you, in the conspiratorial tone of someone who has been managing harry osborn's calendar for eighteen months and has feelings about it, is not a schedule that clears easily for anyone.

today you are twenty minutes in and the work has already migrated from the desk to the floor, which keeps happening because he thinks better when he can spread things out and you have given up being surprised by this. the methodology notes and the new data prints are arranged in a loose grid on the carpet and you're both sitting cross legged on either side of it, close enough that your knees are almost touching, and he's holding one of the data sheets and frowning at it in the particular way that means he's found something.

"this variable," he says, and leans over to point at something on the sheet in front of you, which requires him to lean across the space between you, close, closer than the desk allows, and his shoulder presses against yours for a moment and stays there. "you've held it constant but it shouldn't be constant, it'll read as flat because you're not letting it move."

"i held it constant because i needed a baseline," you say, and you are very aware of the warmth of his shoulder against yours and the fact that he hasn't moved back. "if i let it move in the first run i can't isolate what's causing the shift."

"fair," he says. he doesn't move back. he's close enough that you can smell whatever he's wearing, something clean and expensive and warm, and he's looking at the data sheet with his brow slightly furrowed and his jaw doing the thing it does when he's thinking hard. "run it twice then. constant first, variable second, compare them."

"that's what i was going to do," you say.

he turns his head and looks at you and you are not prepared for how close his face is when he does that, a few inches, close enough that you can see the particular shade of blue in detail now and the way it shifts slightly toward grey in this light. he looks at you for a second. "then why are you arguing with me."

"i'm not arguing," you say. "i'm telling you i already thought of it."

"that's the same thing," he says, and he's smiling now, slow, and he hasn't moved, is making no effort to move, just sitting there with his shoulder against yours and his face close and his eyes on you.

"it really isn't," you say.

he hums, unconvinced, and looks back at the data sheet, but he shifts slightly when he does and now your knee is against his instead of almost against it, and this is not an accident because nothing harry osborn does is an accident, you have spent enough time with him now to know that the ease is real but the carelessness is mostly performance, he is one of the least careless people you have ever met. you look back at the data sheet in front of you. you read the same line three times and retain none of it.

"are you going to the department showcase next friday," he says.

"i wasn't invited," you say. "it's for senior researchers."

he looks at you sideways. "i'm inviting you."

"you can't just invite me."

"i own the company," he says, pleasantly.

"you say that like it's an answer to everything."

"it answers more than you'd think." he picks up a different data sheet and looks at it and says, casually, like it's nothing, "come. it'll be boring without someone to talk to who actually understands what the presentations are about."

"you understand what the presentations are about," you say.

"yes," he says, "but i have to stand at the front and look like i'm paying attention to all of them equally, which means i need someone in the audience i can look at when dr. fenwick starts explaining his soil density research for the fourth consecutive year."

you look at him. "is that what i am," you say. "a focal point for when you're bored."

and he puts the data sheet down and turns to face you properly and this means he's turned toward you while you're still facing forward which means he is very close and slightly behind you and you can feel him there before you turn your head and find him looking at you with an expression that has dropped the lightness completely, just for a second, something underneath it that is direct and warm and entirely serious.

"no," he says, quietly. just the one word. no performance around it.

the room is very quiet. outside the window the city hums along not caring at all about what is happening on the fourteenth floor of oscorp industries on a thursday afternoon, and you are sitting on the floor of harry osborn's office with your knee against his and his face close and his eyes on you and the data sheets going completely unread around you.

"harry," you say, and your voice comes out softer than you meant it to.

"yes," he says. the same way he said it last time. careful. paying attention.

"this is getting complicated," you say.

"is it," he says, and his hand comes up and picks something off the shoulder of your lab coat, a piece of lint or nothing at all, and smooths the fabric back down slowly, and his hand doesn't entirely leave your shoulder after, just rests there, light, asking a question without asking it.

"you know it is," you say.

"i know it's something," he says. "i'm not sure complicated is the word i'd use."

"what word would you use," you say.

he considers this with what appears to be genuine thoughtfulness, his thumb moving slightly against your shoulder in a way that is almost certainly intentional and is doing something significant to your ability to think clearly. "inevitable," he says finally, and the way he says it is quiet and sure and a little bit like he's been sitting with that word for a while and has decided it's the right one.

you look at him for a long moment.

"that's very confident," you say.

"i'm a very confident person," he says, and the smile is back, that specific one, the real one, and his hand is still warm on your shoulder.

"i noticed," you say.

"and yet you keep showing up on thursdays," he says.

"you keep inviting me," you say.

"and yet you keep saying yes," he says, and there's something in it that's gentle and certain all at once, not a trap, just the truth of it laid out simply between you, the back and forth of two people who have been circling something for weeks and are both aware of it and have been making a mutual unspoken agreement not to say so, until now, apparently, on the floor of his office on a thursday with the data sheets going unread around them.

you don't say anything for a moment. then you pick up the data sheet closest to you and look at it and say, "page twelve."

you feel him smile more than you see it.

"page twelve," he agrees, and he doesn't move his hand.

he walks you to the elevator at the end of the two hours the way he always does now, out of his office and down the corridor, and his assistant pretends to be very busy with something on her computer as you pass which you suspect means she has opinions about all of this that she is keeping professionally to herself.

at the elevator he reaches past you and presses the button and doesn't step back afterward, just stands close, hands in his pockets, looking at you in the unhurried way he has when he's decided something.

"next thursday," he says.

"next thursday," you agree.

the elevator opens. you step in and turn around and he's standing there with one hand braced on the elevator door frame, jacket off, sleeves rolled up, tie long gone, looking at you with that expression, the inevitable one.

"wear something that isn't a lab coat," he says.

you stare at him. "it's a work event," you say.

"it's a showcase," he says. "there's a difference." his mouth curves. "you always look good in blue."

the elevator doors start to close. he steps back and lets them.

you face forward and watch the numbers count down and press the back of your hand briefly against your cheek with a grin.

friday

you find something blue.

it takes longer than you're going to admit to anyone, the better part of wednesday evening spread across your bedroom floor with every item of clothing you own assessed and discarded until you land on a dress that is simple and dark navy and fits well and that you bought for a job interview fourteen months ago and have worn exactly once. you hold it up and think about the fact that you are doing this because harry osborn said two words in an elevator and then texted them again afterward like punctuation, and then you put the dress on and look in the mirror and decide you are not going to think about that too hard.

you get to the showcase at seven and hand your name to the woman at the door and she finds it on the list and you try not to look too surprised that it's actually there. the venue is one of oscorp's upper floor conference spaces transformed for the evening into something that required significant budget and somebody's good taste, low lighting and tall tables and the kind of catering that comes on actual plates rather than paper ones. the senior researchers are already clustered in their familiar constellations and you get a drink from the bar and find a spot near the edge of the room where you can see the presentation screens and also the door.

you are not watching the door for any particular reason.

you are absolutely watching the door.

he comes in at seven fifteen with the ease of someone who is never late because time works differently when you own the room, and he's in a dark suit, no tie, top button open, and he does a quick scan of the space that you recognize by now as the thing he does when he's looking for something specific, and it lands on you and stops. and even from across the room you catch the expression, that quick thing, there and gone, and then he says something to the person beside him without looking at them and crosses toward you and the room does the thing rooms do around harry osborn, a slight unconscious parting, people stepping back without knowing why.

he stops in front of you and looks at you and says nothing for a moment.

"blue," he says.

"you specified," you say.

"i did," he says, and the way he looks at you is warm and unhurried and not even slightly professional and you take a sip of your drink and look out at the room because it's easier than looking back at him when he does that.

"dr. fenwick's presenting first," you say.

"god help us," he says, and takes a glass from a passing tray and stands beside you, close, shoulder to shoulder, and the evening begins.

it is, as promised, mostly boring.

dr. fenwick presents for twenty two minutes about soil density which is fourteen minutes longer than necessary and harry spends the back half of it with his head slightly bent toward yours, murmuring commentary under his breath in a low voice that doesn't carry, and twice he says something that makes you have to press your lips together to keep from laughing out loud in the middle of the presentation, and once you say something back that makes him do the same, and you are both staring very seriously at the presentation screen with your shoulders shaking slightly and it is entirely possible that you are being obvious and you find that you care about this less than you probably should.

between presentations people move and mingle and harry stays near you, not attached, not hovering, just near, drifting back after every conversation someone pulls him into like you're where he's defaulting to, and you talk to a few of the senior researchers who are being noticeably warmer than they were before whatever harry said to dr. reeves filtered through the department, and everything is fine and manageable and you feel good in the blue dress and the evening has a pleasant ease to it.

and then someone introduces himself as dr. callum walsh, visiting researcher, biomechanics, and he is attractive in a straightforward uncomplicated way and he talks to you for ten minutes about your work with a genuine interest that is nice and normal and not complicated by anything, and at some point his hand finds the small of your back in that way people do at parties, light, easy, and you are in the middle of answering a question about the regeneration trial when you feel something change in the air slightly to your left.

harry has come back.

he doesn't say anything. he steps up beside you, not between you, just beside you, and picks up the thread of the conversation completely naturally, asking walsh a question about the biomechanics research, and walsh answers and the three of you talk and it is all perfectly pleasant and unremarkable except for the fact that harry's hand has settled on your waist.

not dramatically. not possessively, or at least not in a way that announces itself. just his hand, warm through the fabric of your dress, at your waist, his thumb moving in one slow absent stroke that is so understated you're almost sure walsh doesn't clock it. almost sure. harry is talking to walsh about something with complete attention and his hand stays where it is and you look straight ahead and breathe normally and say something appropriate at the right moment and are having absolutely no thoughts about this whatsoever.

walsh excuses himself eventually to find his colleague and harry drops his hand and takes a sip of his drink and says nothing.

you say nothing either.

"enjoying yourself," he says, after a moment.

"yes," you say.

"good," he says, pleasantly, and flags down a passing tray for you and that is all, that is the entire acknowledgment, and somehow that is worse than if he'd said something because at least then you'd have something to argue with.

the limo is his idea, or rather it is simply what happens, his car is outside and you live thirty minutes in the same direction and it is a completely logical and practical arrangement that you agree to without quite meaning to and are sitting in the back of before you've fully processed the sequence of decisions that led here.

it's quiet. the city moves past the windows and the partition is up and the leather interior is dark and close and he's sitting beside you rather than across from you because that's how he got in first and he's close in the way that small spaces make people close, close enough that you're very aware of the line of his arm against yours.

you watch the city for a moment.

"dr. walsh seemed nice," harry says, and his voice is entirely neutral, which is how you know it isn't.

"he was," you say, equally neutral. "very interested in the research."

"very interested in something," harry says.

you turn your head and look at him. he's already looking at you and he doesn't look away, just holds it, and the city light is moving across his face in slow intervals and something about the small contained space and the quiet and the hour has stripped the usual easy performance back to something more immediate.

"harry," you say.

"you had a good time," he says, quieter now. it isn't quite a question.

"i did," you say. "did you."

"yes," he says. "and no."

"which part was the no," you say, and you know the answer, you know exactly what the answer is, you want to hear him say it.

he looks at you for a long moment and you can see him making a decision, something shifting behind his eyes, the same recalibration you've seen when he's working through a problem except this isn't that, this is something with less calculation in it and more of just him, the actual him underneath the confidence and the name and the twenty-four year old ceo of everything, just a person sitting in a car looking at you like you are the only thing in the room worth looking at.

he reaches up and tucks a piece of your hair back, just one piece that's fallen forward, slow, and his fingers stay at your jaw afterward, light, tilting your face toward his slightly, and he searches your expression for something and seems to find it.

"i've been patient," he says quietly. "i'm generally not a patient person."

"i know," you say, and your voice comes out barely above a murmur.

"i've been very patient," he says, and the corner of his mouth moves, that familiar thing, except it's softer now, stripped of the performance of it. "for weeks."

"is that what that was," you say.

"what would you call it," he says.

"torture," you say, and he laughs, the real one, and then closes the remaining distance and kisses you.

it is not a tentative kiss. it is not the careful measured thing of someone unsure of the reception, because harry osborn has not been unsure of this for weeks and you both know it. it's warm and certain and his hand slides from your jaw into your hair and you have grabbed the lapel of his jacket without planning to, and for a moment everything outside the car simply stops existing, the city and the showcase and dr. fenwick's soil density research and all fifteen sensible reasons and all of it, and there is just this, just him, just the quiet dark interior of the car and his mouth and the hand in your hair and the feeling of something that has been building since a tuesday morning in the lab doorway finally, finally arriving.

he pulls back enough to look at you and his hand is still in your hair and your hand is still twisted in his lapel and you are both breathing slightly differently than before.

"okay," he says quietly, and it sounds like the first time he said it, in the lab, except completely different.

"okay," you say back.

harry’s mouth claims yours with that same certainty, his tongue sliding hot against yours as his fingers tighten in your hair. you yank harder on his lapel, pulling him closer until your bodies press together in the back seat. his free hand finds your thigh, sliding up under the navy dress, palm rough against bare skin as he pushes the fabric higher.

you spread your legs without thinking, and he takes the invitation, fingers brushing the thin cotton of your panties. he groans into the kiss when he feels how wet you already are. two fingers press the soaked fabric aside and stroke directly over your pussy, parting your lips and circling your clit with slow, deliberate pressure.

"fuck," he mutters against your mouth, breaking the kiss just enough to speak. "you’ve been thinking about this too." his fingers dip lower, one pushing inside you in a single smooth thrust. you gasp, hips jerking forward to meet the intrusion. he adds a second finger immediately, fucking you with them in steady strokes while his thumb keeps working your clit.

the car is dark and private, the city lights streaking past the tinted windows, but all you can focus on is the wet sound of his fingers moving inside you and the way his cock strains against his suit pants. you reach down, palm him through the fabric, feeling the thick length twitch under your touch. harry’s breath catches. he curls his fingers inside you, hitting that spot that makes your thighs shake, and you squeeze his cock harder in response.

he pulls his fingers free, brings them to his mouth, and sucks them clean while holding your gaze. then he’s unbuckling his belt, unzipping, freeing his cock. it’s thick and flushed, the head already slick. you don’t wait for an invitation. you climb into his lap, straddling him, and sink down onto his cock in one slow, relentless motion.

harry’s head falls back against the seat, a low groan tearing from his throat as your pussy stretches around him. his hands grip your hips, guiding you as you start to ride him. each downward thrust takes him deeper until he’s buried to the hilt. you roll your hips, grinding your clit against him on every stroke, the friction sending sparks through your nerves.

he leans forward, mouth finding your neck, teeth scraping over your pulse before he sucks hard enough to leave a mark. one hand slides up your back, fingers finding the zipper of your dress and tugging it down. he pulls the fabric off your shoulders, exposing your breasts, and immediately takes one nipple into his mouth, sucking and biting while you keep fucking yourself on his cock.

the car hits a bump and the motion drives him even deeper. you moan, clenching around him. harry’s grip tightens. he starts thrusting up to meet you, hard and fast, the wet slap of skin on skin filling the quiet interior. his other hand slips between your bodies again, thumb circling your clit in time with his thrusts.

"come on," he growls against your breast. "let me feel you." you’re close, the pressure building fast, and when he pinches your clit between two fingers you break. your orgasm crashes through you, pussy pulsing and fluttering around his cock as you ride it out, hips stuttering.

harry doesn’t stop. he fucks you through it, chasing his own release, and when you clench down hard again he buries himself deep and comes with a rough groan, flooding you with hot pulses of cum. you stay in his lap, both of you breathing hard, his cock still twitching inside you as the car continues through the city.

he kisses you again, slower this time, tasting the sweat on your lips. his hand strokes your bare back in lazy circles while his cum leaks out around his softening cock, soaking the front of his pants and the seat beneath you.

"friday," he says against your mouth, voice low and satisfied. "we’re doing this again."

harry’s hands stay on your hips as the car rolls on through the city lights. his cock is still buried inside you, softening slowly while his cum leaks out around it and soaks into the seat. you shift in his lap and feel the wet mess between your thighs, the way his pants are ruined under you.

he watches your face with that half-smirk, thumb stroking slow circles over your bare skin where the dress has slipped down. "you feel too good to let go of yet," he murmurs, voice low. his fingers slide down between your bodies again, gathering some of the mess and rubbing it over your swollen clit in lazy strokes.

you twitch at the touch, still sensitive, and he chuckles softly. "sensitive already?" he keeps rubbing, slow and deliberate, until your hips start moving again without thinking. his cock gives a small twitch inside you as it begins to harden once more.

"ride me again," he says, gripping your ass to encourage the motion. "slower this time. i want to feel every inch of you squeezing me."

you lift up just enough for his cock to slide almost free before sinking back down, taking him deep in one smooth motion. harry’s head tips back, throat working as he watches where your bodies join. the wet sounds are filthy in the quiet car. his fingers keep working your clit while you fuck yourself on him at that unhurried pace, grinding down each time you bottom out.

he leans in and sucks a mark into the side of your neck, teeth scraping, tongue soothing. one hand comes up to cup your breast, thumb brushing over your nipple until it tightens. "look at you," he breathes against your skin. "taking my cock like you were made for it."

you keep moving, rolling your hips, feeling him thicken fully inside you again. the car turns a corner and the motion pushes him even deeper. harry groans and thrusts up to meet you, matching your rhythm until the pace starts to build once more.

his free hand slips around to your ass, fingers digging in as he helps lift and drop you onto his cock. the wet slap of skin fills the space between you. he kisses you hard, tongue pushing into your mouth, tasting you while he fucks up into your pussy with steady, deep strokes.

"gonna fill you again," he warns against your lips. "want you dripping with me when we get out of this car." his thumb presses harder on your clit, circling faster, pushing you toward another edge as his cock drives into you again and again.