Happilymarried!Pope who makes everything a onesided competition on who treats their wife best. He just wants to brag how he kisses the ground u walk on because how are they criminals but Cath has to work at a bar??? Uh uh not Pope's wife, she's lapping up the sun by the pool in their house or busy spending his money around, not a care in the damn world hair done nails done in a cute lil car...his card has never graced the leather of his wallet cause its always in her purse
oh my gosh yes, absolutely. oh he's so husband ohhhh i'm sick!! i especially love this with ditzy, bimbo!reader <3 i got a little carried away but it's andrew so it fits! :)
everyone's at the house waiting for dinner to be made, just standing around and chatting. it's hot, bordering on nauseating humidity, and all andrew wants to do is see his pretty wife before dinner. he needs alone time, quiet time in his old room to just sit and gaze at you as you chatter.
but now? andrew's engaged in a mindless conversation with craig, hearing him drone on about his latest hook-up while he stands with his hands on his hips nervously. you're due at smurf's house at any minute, a promise you made as you laid out on the beachfront of your home, waving at andrew as he got in his truck to meet up with the boys earlier that day.
he couldn't stop himself from kissing you. he was 15 minutes late. big fuckin' deal. andrew's family knew he needed his "you time".
deran's cooking tonight, much to pope's chagrin, and the cody's are all a bit anxious to eat the food. "oh no i literally have the pizza place down the block on speed dial" j expresses in between sips of his beer, before deran angrily chimes in from inside the house "jokes on you, dickhead, i catered."
baz sits on a lounger with cath, holding her to his side as he talks to j about an upcoming job. she's sticky with bar-soda stains and exhausted with the sheer movement of a work ethic. staring down at her ring, she runs her thumb over the diamond, wondering how life could've been different. her eyes flicker over to the oldest cody, and she can remember a time when she'd always find him looking back at her. but that hasn't happened in a long time. her shoulders crack with resignation and envy.
a horn honking, a happy squeal from the driveway, and andrew's straightening up his miserable stance. the thick gummy sole of his jordans rub against the concrete as he, quite literally, walks away from craig mid conversation. "bro-" craig shrugs, turning to look at baz in confusion as baz smiles "his girls home bro, you lost him the second the tires pulled in the driveway." craig stomps into the house, but he's not really angry, never could be at pope, "fucker has super hearing, man"
andrew walks to the driveway, shoulders losing their hunch the closer he gets to your bubblegum pop music and toothy smile. it's hard for andrew to smile, he'd often tell you, late in the dark of your bedroom, "'it's like it hurts a bit. hurts my face, i guess" but right now? his smile is beaming; crooked, endearing teeth on display with a light flush. it's probably because his brothers are inside, he never liked smiling with his teeth before you.
"andy!!" you cheer, wide smile and bouncing in lightly between your left and right foot. andrew doesn't even slow his steps, just keeps trudging towards you until you're in his arms. one big hand hooked behind your head for a long, sloppy kiss. waaaay too much of a display for normal public settings. his breath hitches as your hands drag under his t-shirt, nails lightly scraping his sides.
breathing in through his nose, andrew pulls back to look down his nose at you, "missed you. where you been? how was shopping?" "good! really good andy, wanna see?" "later. lemme get a feel for you. missed you so much" with more kisses to your cheeks as he pushes the hair away from your eyes <3
when you go into the yard, you're smiling and waving at the cody's as you hang onto andrew's arm. your ring glistening in the reflection of the pool, cath can't help but swallow bitterly. andrew trails next to you, head fully turned to listen to you rant and rave about the latest sales and the cute clothing you bought for yourself and him. he looks like he could and would eat you whole at the nearest convenience. it's been years, and he still looks at you the same way.
at dinner, you sit on andrew's lap, legs swinging as you bring the fork to his mouth. craig can barely look but deran smiles into his food; it's nice to see pope happy (even if it is gross to witness at dinner). when his iced tea needs to be refilled, you lean forward over the table, his hand resting on the side of your ass to stabilize you. he's not comfy until the weight of his pretty wife is resting on his thighs.
later that night, when you are all cozy and chatting on the couch, you lift your feet into andrew's lap. he doesn't even bat an eye, moving like it's routine.... because it is. slipping off your lil platform flip flops, starting with a massage at your ankle, andrew massages your foot lovingly as he watches the conversations around him. "'s that good?" he speaks lowly to you, and you nod excitedly.
it's almost torture for cath to watch. she was on her feet for probably 9 hours today, and here you are: shiny toe ring, perfectly, freshly manicured toes. begging andrew for a massage, "think i twisted it after i ran out of victoria's secret." his voice sounds alien to her "'s no good baby, gotta watch your step, we talked about this" soooo husbandly and earnest.
warnings: small town!reader, fluff, the dating scene is abysmal everywhere, pope gets a happy ending au
requested by: @avengersgirllorianna
authors note: the mechanic in this fic, Herb, is based off the actual mechanic from my hometown. this fic was requested from my birthday event! the fic is inspired by the song that was chosen
The dating scene was hard everywhere. You knew that thanks to your friends who moved out of the small town you all grew up in, and it gave you a bit of peace to know that you’d be struggling to find love no matter where in the world you were. The issue here in your small town was the small pool of men to pick from. All the good men were either taken already or unfortunately six feet under. You were truly not being overly picky either, it was just that none of the men here could even meet the base requirements of being the physically attractive and kind.
When you spent many days being a third or fifth wheel to your friends it was hard to not bitch and moan internally about the abysmal dating scene. You honestly felt like you’d forever be alone and that wasn’t even you being dramatic, it’s just the way things were playing out because you refused to settle. You’d rather be alone than tied to a man who bored you and didn’t fully respect you.
It turned out that the right guy was out there for you and your car refusing to start one evening was the best thing that ever happened to you. Your car had gotten you to community grocery store just before it closed but as you turned the key in the ignition to go home, your beloved car let out a pathetic sputter and then went quiet. You cursed and smacked the steering wheel, your icecream melting slowly in a bag in the backseat.
That’s when Andrew appeared like a vision in dark jeans and white T-shirt, swooping in to save you like Superman. He had you pop the hood and told you he’d grab his truck around the corner to give you a jump. He left you speechless in your car, thrown by this handsome stranger you’d never seen before. You chewed your bottom lip as turned his face over in your mind - the curly hair, the intense and yet soft eyes, and the downturn of his lips.
The handsome stranger came back quickly, expertly reversing his truck and moving it into position so your car and his were nose to nose. You didn’t have to do anything except sit while the stranger attached his own jumper cables between the cars to help give yours a start. When it was all done and your car started without any issue, you let out a cheer of excitement and rolled down your window to thank the man.
“Thank you so much! You saved my evening. I’d love to repay you for helping.” The man shrugged like it was no big deal.
“That’s not necessary.” That caught your attention, his dismissal of repayment. Most other men would see that as an opening to overstep and ask you out.
“You didn’t have to stop. You could have just kept walking, other people would have.”
“But then you would have been stranded. And other people are assholes.” That got a genuine laugh out of you and you saw the mans guarded expression crack as the corner of his mouth twitched towards a smile.
“Your engine needs to be looked at, some of the parts are rusting.” He said suddenly, switching the topic as he tapped the hood of your car with his index finger.
“Oh. I’ll take it over to Herb first thing tomorrow. He’s the mechanic.” You added, since all the locals were on a first name basis with the only mechanic in town but tourists wouldn’t know that.
“I know, I work there.” That piece of information hit you like lightning. Oh, so he wasn’t a tourist, he was a new local.
“Really?” You asked out of excitement.
“Yeah, I’m new.” He explained and you smiled at his bluntness.
“Yeah, I figured.” You fixed him with your sweetest smile and gave him your name.
“I’m Andrew,” He said, the tips of his ears pinking under your attention. “Swing by the garage and ask for me. I’ll have the parts ready for you.”
“Thanks Andrew. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Guess so.”
“Can’t wait.” You replied with a cheeky smile. The blush on his ears crawled down to the apples of his cheeks and Andrew stepped back from your car so you could drive off.
The next day Andrew had everything ready for you, all the parts that had to be replaced and a space in the shop for you to park. You surprised him by bringing him a coffee and insisting on sitting off to the side to talk with him as he fixed your car. The two of you talked for an hour, learning all you could about each other. Andrew seemed guarded still but he answered all of your questions, even the silly ones like his favourite colour and ice cream flavour. He was polite, and funny when he wanted to be, and when you got him to crack a smile it felt like a huge victory.
Once the work was done you paid at the front desk and thanked Andrew again for last night and saving your car today. You didn’t want to be too forward with him or make him uncomfortable so you left him with a few words about how you hoped to see him around town before crossing the lot to your car.
“She was flirting with you, son.” Herb said without looking up from the engine he was inspecting. Andrew stopped short inside the garage, staring at Herb for a moment before looking back over his shoulder as you got seated in your car on the other side of the lot.
“There’s a county fair this weekend. Might be a good place for a date.” Herb commented as he reached into the engine to tighten something. Herbs words sank into Andrew’s brain and he was spurred into action by the sound of your car starting. Andrew jogged over and caught you before you left, gesturing for you to roll the window down.
“Would you want to go to the fair with me this weekend?” Andrew asked as he placed a hand on the roof of your car and leaned down to be face to face with you. This position gave Andrew the perfect view of the radiant smile that lit up your face like the sun and Andrew felt the warmth of it in his chest. You two agreed that he’d pick you up at 5pm on Saturday and you drove off deliriously happy that your search for love might finally be over.
Girl Dad!Titus who never once entertained the idea of having a girl. From the moment you became pregnant he referred to the baby as ‘He.’ Talks about his future son. Imagines raising a little boy to be the new head of the family. He won’t be exactly like his father, he knows you’ll make sure he isn’t cruel, but he plans on having a firm hand to make sure the boy is raised right
Girl Dad!Titus who has already started getting supplies that lean towards boy based, even after you’ve pointed out you haven’t found out the gender
Girl Dad!Titus who is completely and utterly shocked when the doctor says it’s a girl. A little girl.
Girl Dad!Titus who takes a bit to get used to the idea. He becomes a bit closed off, not rude to you but he certainly isn’t holding you or talking to you as much as he normally would. It honestly makes you feel a bit insecure, worried that he’s upset or angry with you. Logically, you know Titus would never hurt you, he’s never once been violent towards you, but the quiet part knows he’s a very dangerous man and has hurt people for much less
Girl Dad!Titus who one day wakes you up as he’s whispering to your belly and caressing it. Speaking in a way you’d never heard, a quietness he didn’t even have with you. You did your best not to alert him to you being awake, and trying not to listen. It feels like a personal moment, but of course he notices. He crawls up your body and settled next to you, pulling you into his arms. He holds you, kissing your head and face, a very rare moment of complete softness. Even you didn’t see this side of Titus very often, usually only after he’s snapped and been an asshole enough for you to love to a spare room for a night
Girl Dad!Titus who is quickly changing the nursery. You stop him from making a completely pink room, preferring something a bit calmer and gender neutral. But you can tell the room is more based for a little girl
Girl Dad!Titus who is insistent that he will not be soft on your daughter. Just like if it had been a boy, the little girl will be the head of the family one day and needs to be raised as such
Girl Dad!Titus who knows he was full of bullshit the moment he holds your little girl for the first time
Girl Dad!Titus who quickly realizes that if you’re his queen, then this little girl is his princess. And a princess she is treated like
Girl Dad!Titus who can’t say no, even when she can’t talk yet.
Girl Dad!Titus who buys her ever little outfit he thinks is cute though he’ll deny the fact that he likes to gush over her
Girl Dad!Titus who for her first birthday rents out a toy store and lets the little girl toddle around, every toy she finds interesting is purchased by daddy
Girl Dad!Titus who proudly carries his princess everywhere with him
Girl Dad!Titus who reminders her constantly that she deserves the world and that he can give her the world
Girl Dad!Titus who will sit and have tea parties with her and the stuffed animals
Girl Dad!Titus who had to let you do discipline because he simply fires any staff member she throws a tantrum at because how dare they upset his baby girl
Girl Dad!Titus who takes her on daddy daughter trips to fun countries
Girl Dad!Titus who spoils her even as she grows Even though she’s older and knows how to be a somewhat decent person because of you, she still knows her daddy will cave the moment she stomps her foot or pouts her lip
Girl Dad!Titus who definitely isn’t happy with just one baby girl
authors note: i just finished animal kingdom and my heart will forever be broken for pope. maybe in another life he met someone true. xx
—
pope had always loved libraries.
there was something about the quiet that settled his nerves and the smell of paper and coffee from the makeshift 'cafe' that was really just a coffee stand that nestled in the front of the building.
he particularly loved libraries because nobody needed to expect anything from him. nobody would speak to him or even raise their voice. they simply let him be.
it felt like an escape for him, he could be whoever he wanted to be in the pages that he read. albeit he didn’t have time to read as much as he would like.
books didn’t ask questions. he liked that.
which is why he’s pushing through the library doors for the third time this week.
the library is located in downtown oceanside. it’s warm lighting glowing through the windows even at dusk, making the the atmosphere shift into complete softness.
pope’s eyes traveled from watching the hardwood creak under his shoes as he walked to a figure behind the counter.
his breath caught.
she was on shift today? but it was sunday, and she’s always off on the weekends.
the girl with the soft voice.
when pope saw her for the first time, he noticed that she smiled at everyone who walked in. a real and gentle one as she waved at adults and high-fived children.
she always wore oversized sweaters and kept aesthetically appealing pens tucked behind her ear. sometimes she’d even stick one in her low bun.
sometimes pope caught her sitting on the floor beside carts of books while reorganizing shelves, humming quietly to herself. sometimes she’d even be sneakily reading a new romance novel that was just released.
she seemed a bit young, maybe a few years older than jay. but she fit the library perfectly.
oh, and pope knew that he absolutely didn’t fit there beside her.
still, she greeted him every single time.
“hi, welcome in.” she said softly when he walked in that afternoon.
pope nodded once at her, removing his ray bands. “hey.”
her eyes flickered to the book tucked under his arm from last time. “finished already?”
“couldn’t sleep.” he said, pushing the book across the counter towards her.
she nodded while taking the book. pope noticed her well manicured nails. wondering if she got them done regularly like smurf did. “was it good at least?”
he shrugged. “kind of made my head hurt.”
she laughed at that. it was one of those genuine laughs that made her eyes close as she tilted her head back.
god— it was music to his ears. he needed to savor it because it was all for him.
that laugh.
he cleared his throat and glanced around awkwardly. as if he didn’t know what to do next, he quickly let out an, “uh… where can i find the religion section?”
“ah!” she let out excitedly. “in the back corner,” she said, placing the book he had returned into a cart. “i can show you if you want.”
he almost said no, he wanted to get away from as soon as possible before he could say anything stupid.
then she smiled at him again and suddenly his brain shot-circuited.
“sure.”
she stepped out from behind the counter, brushing her hands against her light washed jeans and pope followed a few steps behind as they walked through the aisles.
the library was nearly empty for a sunday but he was grateful for the soft music playing through the speakers as the rain from outside tapped lightly against the skylights.
pope felt oddly at peace. he felt safe.
“do you read religious books a lot?” she asked, clearing her throat as she looked back at him.
“not really.”
she hummed at his response. tucking her hair behind her ear, pope noticed that she had three pretty piercings. noting that they were all small little diamond studs. she had good taste. he wondered if her boyfriend gave them for her.
“trying something new?”
he pressed his lips together in a sideways pout.grazing his fingers across the back of the books beside them “something like that.”
she didn’t push.
finally, they reached the back corner and she crouched next to the lower shelf on the right. “okay, so these are the more personal faith stuff.” she explained gently. “and then..”her fingers slid across another row “if your looking for religious history and theology, this is your spot.”
pope crouched beside her slowly, trying very hard not to think about how close she was as their knees bumped against one other.
she smelled faintly like vanilla and glue. probably an after effect from helping out in the children’s summer camp earlier in the day.
“i heard great things about this author,” she murmured, pulling out a book carefully.
he took it from her causing their fingers brush. lingering a bit too long for people who didn’t know one another. she immediately pulled her hand back, feeling the way his calloused skin pricked against hers.
there.
the hesitation that every women he tried to get close to had.
pope knew that feeling all too well.
he watched as her eyes inspected the cuts against his knuckles as they he scarred. he knew that she was thinking that he looked like he belonged in a holding cell rather than a public library.
his jaw tightened subtly.
“you don’t have’ta be scared,” he muttered. “i won’t hurt you.”
her brows furrowed in embarrassment. “w-what?” she blinked at him for a second before her face fell.
shame burning at her chest for the judgment she gave him.
pope averted his eyes, flipping the book over in his hands. “i know i can look… intense.”
surprise engulfed his entire being as he watched her expression soften instead of closing off — just like cat would have done. even amy in the end.
“i’m not scared,” she said quietly.
he almost scoffed, a tiny smile sprouting instead as she gave him a tiny smile in return, “a little wary maybe.”
pope’s smile dropped immediately as he looked down at the book in his hands.
“girls usually are around men they don’t know,” she added softly, tapping her finger at his forearm to get him to look at her. “that’s not entirely your fault.”
pope glanced at her. she really didn’t look afraid.
he watched as she played with the beaded bracelet she wore, twisting it around her wrist as she looked at the books.
“an please,” she scoffed lightly, “you spend what? four hours each time you come to read. it’s hard to be scared of someone who alphabetizes the books better than i do.”
his eyes widened slightly. “you noticed that?”
“you did it wrong once.” she chuckled, earring a scowl from him in return.
and before he could say anything else, he laughed, shoulders shaking and his muscles flexing as he gripped onto the book in his lap.
her whole face lit up a little at the sound. he watched as her noise scrunched, her cheeks burning into a deep pillowy pink. holding her fingers over her face to conceal the blush she was giving him.
god help her because that did something dangerous to him. a primal noise beginning to bubble from his chest— clearing his throat quickly to mask the reaction.
pope couldn’t remember the last time someone looked happy just because he was laughing or even smiling.
she pointed at the book in his hands, “that one’s easier to start with.”
“yeah?”
a beat.
“yeah.”
their eyes met for a second too long. she looked away first this time, suddenly very interested in fixing a crooked stack beside her.
it’s not as intense,” she bit the inside of her cheek. “soft.”
pope swallowed hard.
“thanks,” he said quietly.
“you’re welcome,” her voice gentle again. “pope, right?”
he froze slightly.
“how—”
“your membership card.” she chuckled. “i have to look at it every time you barrow or return a book.”
“right.” he let out, earning a small smile from her as they both stood.
and now it all clicked. with sudden terrifying clarity, that he had always been looking for her every time he walked through the door.
Summary: You’re in love with Andrew, but a part of you keeps whispering that it won’t last because people always leave.
Warnings: (MDNI 18+) established relationship, language, pet names, comfort, domesticity, technically inappropriate relationship (he’s your landlord, and youre the tenant in one of the family buildings), independent / prideful reader, insecurity, emotional argument, emotional baggage, mentions of family dysfunction (reader probably has daddy issues), mentions of cheating (shitty men in general) reader is afraid of accepting love, andrew just wanting to take care of you (emotionally and financially), he’s perfect
A/N: I feel like I mostly read (or write) fics where Andrew is the one needing reassurance. What if, this time, it’s the reader who needs it? GIFs found HERE (bless you @wesandresons for all the pope content you produce for the AK fandom.
Thank you for reading!! if you comment/reblog i love you so much <3.
You pulled into the driveway of Andrew's beach house and killed the engine, your shoulders immediately relaxing as you stepped out. It had been a long day, you had completed a shift at the hotel followed by your evening class—and all you wanted was to decompress.
You had recently returned to school after being out for years, making you noticeably older than your peers. Financial constraints had prevented you from attending college when you were younger, so a few years back you earned your associate degree at community college before transferring to San Diego State University. Now in your final year, you were on the verge of completing your degree. Balancing school with work, you attended night classes while employed as a hotel concierge—a position you'd built up to after starting as a cleaning lady. Your goal was to transition into hotel management, and your Hospitality and Tourism degree was the key to getting there.
Andrew was already at the door, and your heart did that little flip it always did when you saw him. He jogged down to meet you, that easy smile spreading across his face.
"Hey, you," he said softly, already reaching for your passenger door before you could even close yours. He grabbed your backpack from the seat, slinging it over his shoulder like it weighed nothing. You turned to face him, and he leaned in, his hand finding the small of your back as he kissed you. It was the kind of kiss that made the exhaustion melt away, at least for a moment.
"Come on," he murmured against your lips, "let's get you inside."
You grabbed the insulated bag from the back seat (leftovers from the hotel restaurant, good stuff that your manager had let you take) and followed him up to the apartment. It was 8:30 PM, and you were starving.
"I brought dinner," you said, holding up the bag as he unlocked the door. You kicked off your work shoes by the door, sighing with relief as your feet finally touched the cool hardwood. Your hotel uniform (crisp navy with the logo embroidered on the chest) felt heavy after twelve hours of wear. You unclipped your name tag and set it on the small table by the entrance, already moving toward the kitchen.
"I'll just heat this up real quick," you said, walking towards his kitchen and pulling out a container of the special from tonight's service. Your stomach was growling loud enough that Andrew probably heard it.
"Baby, no." His voice was gentle but firm, and you felt his hand wrap around your wrist before you could open the microwave. "You've been on your feet all day."
You turned to protest, but he was already shaking his head in that familiar and determined way that meant he had made a decision. You learned not to argue with him when he got like this, not out of fear, but because underneath all that rigid control was someone who couldn't rest until you were comfortable.
"Come on," he said, tugging you toward the couch. "Sit down."
You settled onto the cushions with a grateful sigh, your body already beginning to unwind.
"Can we eat here? On the couch?" you asked, biting your lip. Your feet were throbbing, your lower back ached, and the thought of sitting upright at the dining room table felt like asking you to run a marathon.
Andrew didn’t say anything for a moment. Eating on the couch was chaos. It was crumbs and disorder and everything that made him uncomfortable. You could practically see the internal calculation happening…the war between what he wanted (order, structure, and the dining room table being where meals belonged) and what you needed.
But he leaned down and kissed your forehead, surprising you, pressing his lips there for a long moment before pulling back. "Sure," he murmured, and walked back to the kitchen.
"Would you like some water?" he asked.
"Can I get a beer?" you called after him. It was Friday, and you rarely drank, so Andrew could tell that you were using this as a celebratory drink. A small reward for surviving another week.
"Of course," he grunted.
He heated the containers, found plates, and within minutes, he returned with the grilled chicken and roasted vegetables arranged on a plate, setting it down on place mats. A cold beer sat beside your plate, condensation already beading on the glass.
"There," he said, settling beside you on the couch, close enough that his thigh pressed against yours. "Better?"
You leaned your head on his shoulder, already reaching for the fork. "Much better."
"You need to eat more consistently. Your energy levels have been inconsistent this week."
"I know," you said, already chewing.
He watched you eat, the fork moving mechanically from plate to mouth. You were wiped out, and he could see it in the slight tremor of your hand, the way you had to keep your head up consciously. It was the same exhaustion he'd noticed creeping in over the past few weeks, that tired look that appeared around your eyes by Wednesday and didn't fade until Sunday afternoon.
Too much, he thought, It's too much.
He understood the logic of it. School was important. It was currently your number 1 priority. And your job provided financial stability, the practical means to exist in this expensive fucking city. He respected that. He understood that. But understanding and accepting were two different things. And, right now, watching you struggle to keep your eyes open while you worked through dinner, Andrew couldn't reconcile the equation. You were working full-time and carrying a full course load… the math of it didn't work. You were dividing yourself into pieces small enough that none of them could function properly. If it were up to him, you wouldn't be working at all. You'd be in school, focused entirely on that. You'd have time to sleep, to eat properly, to exist without this constant strain pulling you apart at the seams.
"Baby, I've been thinking," Andrew said quietly, his thumb tracing circles on your shoulder. "For next semester, why don't you take your classes during the day?"
You frowned. "But...then I wouldn't be able to work."
"That's fine." His voice was calm, matter-of-fact. "You could move in. Since you refuse to let me pay for your tuition, then let me take the stress of rent, utilities, food, and everything else off your plate."
"No." The word came out as a growl, and you pulled away from him, setting your fork down with more force than necessary. Andrew knew this would be difficult because you were extremely prideful. But that didn't make it easier to watch you reject the obvious solution.
"Why?" he asked, and there was something in his tone that suggested he genuinely couldn't understand the logic of your refusal.
You stood, moving away from the couch. "Andrew, I can't let you do that."
"The rent is only going to go up," he said, following you with his eyes. "The increase is about to be announced."
You turned to face him, and he saw the flash of understanding across your features. You lived in one of the family buildings owned by him and his brothers, so you were his tenant (and he was your landlord), which meant that your relationship was technically a conflict of interest. But it had never mattered to him… because the first time he helped you haul your groceries up the stairs to your apartment—he knew he was a fucking goner. Six months later, here you both were.
One word and your rent could disappear. He had offered once, but you had respectfully declined. So instead, he accepted the checks and hated himself for it. He'd stare at the numbers, at your signature in the corner, and it made him feel like he was taking from you.
"That's not the point," you said.
"Then what is the point?" Andrew stood now. "Explain it to me, because from where I'm standing, you're working yourself into the ground for no reason."
"I don't want to be dependent on you, Andrew. I can't—I won't—let myself become that person. The person who relies on someone else."
"That's not what this is."
"Isn't it?" you rolled your eyes. "If I move in, if you pay for everything, what happens when—" you stopped, but it was too late.
"When what?" Andrew's voice had gone dangerously quiet.
"What if we break up?" you whispered anxiously, fingers twisting together.
For a moment, there was absolute silence. Andrew stared at you, and you watched his expression shift… and watched something dark and sharp flicker across his features. When he spoke, his voice was low and controlled in a way that was somehow more frightening than if he'd shouted.
"Why the fuck are we breaking up?"
"We're not, I just—"
"No." He stepped closer. "It sounds like it’s not a hypothetical for you. You're already planning for it. You're already assuming it's inevitable."
"That's not what I’m saying."
"Isn't it?" His voice mirrored yours from moments before, but there was an edge to it now, something rigid and unyielding. "You're sitting here, exhausting yourself to the point of collapse, because you're so determined to maintain some kind of independence that you won't even consider the possibility that I might want to take care of you. That I might need to take care of you."
He could provide for you. He wanted to provide for you. That was what he was supposed to do. A real man took care of what mattered to him. It was that fucking simple.
"It’s not right," you said, your voice rising. "I don’t deserve it."
"What do you mean it’s not right?" Andrew pressed his lips thin. "Stop being too proud to let me help you!”
"It's not about pride!" The words erupted from you before you even realized you were speaking. "My dad walked out on us. My dad, Andrew. One day, he decided my mom, my sister, and I weren’t worth it anymore, and he just—he left. My most recent ex dumped me purely because his brother didn't like me. And my sister? Her husband promised her forever, and then she caught him with a fucking 21-year-old."
Your voice shattered mid-sentence, fear bleeding through every word. "My best friend had to move in with me last year because her ex literally changed the locks on her when the asshole broke up with her. She had nowhere else to go. And my colleague—God, my fucking colleague is still waiting for this mediocre married guy to leave his wife. He keeps telling her 'soon, soon.' But it's never going to happen. He's never going to choose her. So please, forgive me if I don't just... trust that you're going to want this forever, because people don't. People change their minds. People leave."
Andrew stood there, utterly still, and his dark hazel eyes were fixed on you with an intensity that bordered on unbearable. The realization hit him like a bullet to the chest. He could feel it, the slow spread of cold fury radiating from his gut, working its way through his veins until it sat behind his eyes, hot and sharp. Your father didn't just leave. He didn't just walk out, close a door, and disappear. He carved a wound into you so deep that years later, you were still bleeding from it. And every man who came after (your shitty ex, your sister's husband, your friend's ex, your colleague's married lover), they were pressing their thumbs into that wound and twisting it.
He didn’t look away from you, just took a breath, slow and deliberate, and let the thought settle into his bones:
If I ever meet your father, I'm going to kill him.
It wasn’t fantasy. It wasn’t an exaggeration born of the moment. It was a cold, crystalline certainty that lodged itself in his chest like a blade he had already decided to pull. He pictured it: some man, probably middle-aged, probably with a face that didn’t look like cruelty. Probably someone who would shake Andrew's hand and not know that he was shaking hands with the man who would fucking end him. And Andrew would look him in the eyes, the same eyes he passed down to you, and he'd think, This is the man who taught you that love is temporary. This is the man who made you believe you're not worth staying for.
He'd kill him slowly. Not sloppy, though, because Andrew wasn’t sloppy. But slow enough that the man would understand what was happening, understand that this was recompense for every night you probably spent wondering what was wrong with you, and thinking that people change their minds, and people leave.
"Come here," he said quietly.
"No." You wrapped your arms around yourself. "I can't do this right now."
"Yes, you can." He closed the distance between you, his hands gentle as they found your shoulders. "Look at me."
You didn't want to, but you did. His eyes were intense, focused entirely on you.
"I love you," he said, and he meant it. He meant it with every filthy, blood-soaked, stubborn part of him. "Not for right now. Not for the next year or the next 5 years. For forever. Do you understand me?"
You shook your head, tears spilling over your cheeks now.
"I don't know how to believe that, sometimes," you whispered.
Andrew's hand came up to cup your face, his thumb brushing away your tears. "What do you want me to do? What do you need me to do to prove this to you?" He wanted to promise you something he had never promised anyone. He didn’t know what the words would be yet, but he felt them clawing up from his chest, desperate to be said.
"I don't know. I don't—"
"Do you want me to bring out the ring I bought last month?" he asked quietly. "Because I will. Right now. I'll go get it."
"What?" you gasped.
"You heard me," he said, looking at you like you're the only thing in this world that matters. "I was planning to wait. But if that's what you need to hear, I'll do it now. I'll ask you right now."
"Andrew, we—we haven't even been together a year yet," you said, shock overriding the fear for a moment.
"I know." He stepped back slightly, his hand still on your face. "But I also know that I love you. And I know that I'm not going anywhere."
"You can't promise that," you said, but your voice was smaller now, less certain.
"I can, and I am." He looked at you with such intensity that it was hard to hold his gaze. "I'm promising it to you right now. Forever. That's what I want. That's what I'm choosing."
You stood there, tears streaming down your face, wanting so desperately to believe him. Wanting to let yourself fall into this, into him. But then you looked up (really looked) and suddenly in that awful, unmoving certainty, you felt it: he meant every word.
"If you're my soon-to-be fiancé," you sniffled, "then... then I guess it's okay if we live together."
Andrew's expression softened into something almost like relief. "Yeah?"
"Yes," you whispered. "I love you, Andrew."
And you did. They were words that were exchanged fairly quickly in your relationship. Probably a month in. But neither of you seemed to care that it was fast. It had felt like it made the most sense in the world. He pulled you against him, and you buried your face in his chest.
"There's something else," he said, his voice rumbling against your ear. "If you're my soon-to-be fiancée, you're going to tell work that you’re taking a leave of absence until you graduate. Not a reduction in hours—a full leave."
You pulled back to look at him, confused. "Andrew, what? I can't just—"
"You can, and you will." His voice was firm, brooking no argument.
"But the money—"
“I'm handling it." He cupped your face, his dark eyes intense and unwavering. "You don't get to argue with me on this. Not anymore. You're going to focus on school. You're going to let me do this. You're going to let me love you, and that means taking care of you. Your future, your education, everything.
"Andrew—"
"There is no negotiation here," he said, and there was something almost dangerous in his certainty. You wanted to argue. You wanted to protect yourself, to keep that wall up. But looking at him with that absolute conviction in his eyes, and the obsessive need to ensure your security, you found yourself nodding instead.
"Okay," you murmured.
"I'm not going to promise you that every day is going to be easy," he muttered, "because it won't be. But I'm going to promise you this—" His thumb stilled on your skin. "I'm never going to make you wonder how I feel about you."
He kissed you then, slow and deep, and for the first time in a long time, you let yourself believe that maybe, just maybe, forever was possible.
Saw you were looking for requests and I was inspired by the fact that I just cut my own baby bangs at midnight (again). Jack Abbot x younger impulsive reader who’s constantly doing things that most people really think through. Random tattoos, piercings, cutting her own hair. Maybe reader keeps cutting her hair shorter and shorter so every time Jack comes home from work it’s shorter than it was the day prior. She probably makes Jack feel old when she behaves so impulsively. You could make it angsty and make him an ass about it or it could be fluff. Thank youuuuuu🩷
Snip, Snip!
Jack Abbot x impulsive!reader
Synopsis: Jack has been getting angry at your impulsive decisions, what will happen when he gets home and sees your new haircut?
CW: Angry Jack, use of Y/N, Y/N has hair long enough to cut, small mention of leg prosthetic, devilpeqch's bad attempt at comedy, sexual innuendos, Jack is a sad, old man.
Word count: 866.
Masterlist
At first it was endearing.
Jack felt that it kept him young, your spontaneity. Going on random dates, buying random knick-knacks– it was cute and so were you.
He tried to keep up with your last minute tattoos and piercings, but as the relationship got more serious, so did he.
So seeing soft tufts of hair all over the sink at 8:00 am, after a tiring shift just… sent him over the edge.
He walked into your shared room, saw your sleeping figure and his heart softened just a fraction. Not enough to stop the words from leaving his mouth.
“Are you kidding me Y/N?” he raised his voice to wake you up.
You jumped, startled.
What time is it?
You look up and see Jack, his face scrunched in disbelief and anger.
“W-what?” your confusion and sleepiness carried.
“Are you serious? This is the third time this month you’ve done shit like this,” Jack sighed. “Can’t you just be normal for a second?”
The words land.
Normal.
“Jeez, what crawled up your ass?” you lay your head back on the pillow, trying to go back to sleep.
Was he seriously trying to pick a fight at 8:00 in the morning?
“Y/N, you can’t be so rash with decisions,” he tried again.
You sigh in return, deciding not to dignify him with an answer.
Who does he think he is?
“Can we not do this right now? You need to sleep,” you say slowly.
That stops Jack in his tracks, he had been taking off his clothes to put on pajamas. Now shirtless with soft, grey shorts on. He looked at you, your slightly swollen eyes from sleep, face soft and a small trail of dried drool on your cheek– your hair… did look nice.
Jack huffed, you still cared about his sleep, even when he was being mean to you– and Jack knew he was being mean to you. He didn’t know why he got so angry when you made decisions like this, maybe it was because you didn’t ask him? But he’s not controlling, so that can’t be.
“What’s going on? Bad shift?” you ask.
He stares, still stunned, how can you be asking him about his shift right now?
“Yeah, it was rough.”
He walks towards the bed, deciding to forgo a shirt and just lay down. He sits at the edge of the bed and you move to sit behind him, rubbing his back. He starts to take off his prosthetic and hisses.
“Do you wanna talk about what just happened?”
Jack knows you well enough to know you’re not really asking, more so telling him.
“I really don’t know…” he says, still enjoying your hand on his back.
“You just flipped out, Jack. I mean, is the haircut that bad?” you laugh, though there is no humor behind it.
Jack turns quickly, so fast you think he might’ve gotten whiplash.
“No honey, it looks great. You look great, beautiful even.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
The hand that was on his back, now is on his chest. Drawing small shapes– a square, circle, a heart, another heart… a penis?
“Don’t draw penises on me, Y/N,” Jack says sternly, yet you know he is finally calming down.
You mumble an apology, not really sorry, and wait for him to explain himself.
“I guess… you just make me feel old,” Jack finally reveals.
You tilt your head, eyebrows furrowing, a confused pout setting on your lips.
“But you are old babe… so what?” you sit impossibly closer to him. “I like that about you.”
“Yeah, for now. One day you’ll realize that I’m too old for you, you’ll get tired of me not understanding your references, or get tired of how tired I am–”
You bring a hand up to stop his rambling, kissing his lips softly.
“Jack, you were old when we met. I knew what I was getting into,” you soothe. “Besides, I don’t mind explaining my references, or that you need to take an hour nap after we have sex.”
Jack gives you a deadpan look, but you continue.
“I don’t care that you have wrinkles, or that you technically qualify for senior discounts, or that your are almost the same age as my parents or that–”
“Okay, I got it” Jack interrupts, a small laugh leaving his lips.
“You are perfect for me,” you caress his face. “You are perfect to me.”
Jack’s face crumbles, and he kisses you. The taste of stale coffee and a granola bar fill your senses. You pull away and stare at each other.
You push him onto the bed and lay your head on his chest. His hand finds your newly cut hair.
“Your hair does look really good, honey,” he whispers.
“I know,” you reply.
After a beat of silence, you feel Jack falling asleep.
“Don’t you ever yell at me again,” your voice interrupting the calm atmosphere.
“I will spend my whole life repenting.”
You smile to yourself, knowing you’ll never let this go.
But at least your old man likes your new haircut.
What will he think about the hidden hair dye in the bathroom?
Author's note: eek! thank you so much for requesting, i feel famous.
I hope you enjoy this as much as i enjoyed writing it.
okay i know he doesn't have kids but i can't stop thinking abt bf's dad jack abbot 😵💫😵💫
gets home from work in the morning to see u leavin his son's room n u say good morning all shy... n u even make him breakfast... ugh it's just been so long since he had a woman around takin care of him, he can't help flirtin a little just to make u squirm 💋
(it works, of course. one day ur bf leaves for work and ur all over him just like he planned)
oh yeah i love this <3 real dad!jack !!! cw: cheating lol
jack’s a cool dad, letting his son’s girlfriend sleepover on weekends—so when you wake up every morning after your boyfriend has gone to work, you always catch jack after his morning yoga in sweats and a white t-shirt, making breakfast.
you’re always in some sort of big t-shirt and shorts combo, walking out all shyly and blushing. jack just looks over his shoulder at you, smirking with a simple, “breakfast’s ready, honey.”
one morning after your boyfriend left, you get up before jack to make his smoothie before he works out. you’re in the kitchen when he comes in, looking all sleepy in his sweatpants and fucking shirtless. you’ve seen him without a shirt before, at pool parties… etc. but this feels so intimate.
rubbing his face he takes a long look at you as you pour his smoothie in a glass. “sweetheart… you makin’ me breakfast?” you blush as you walk up to him, glass in hand, “just know you like to have this before your workout… thought i’d make it as a thank you for letting me sleepover.”
he hums thoughtfully, looking down at you. his hand comes up to trace your jaw, fingers dancing over your lips—seeing if you’ll open them for him. you open your mouth, tentatively tracing his fingers with your tongue. fuck—you’re done for.
with hooded eyes, he smirks wolfishly, “hmm i’ve caught me a good girl, haven’t i?”
you nod, feeling so fucking lightheaded. it’s way too early for this—that’s the only explanation you can give for your actions.
he nods his head towards his room, “why don’t you go wait for me, honey. i’ll be right in.” you know this is so wrong, but fuck—you suck on his fingers, releasing them with a “pop” as you nod and say, “yes, sir.” walking towards his room.
The brightness stings his eyes. Noise presses in from every direction. Even the cold settles where it hurts most.
The emergency department pulses around Doctor Jack Abbot in relentless waves of fluorescent light and exhaustion. Monitors shriek. Phones ring unanswered for half-seconds too long. Residents rush past carrying charts and trauma packs with the frantic speed of people still learning how to survive this place without letting it consume them.
Jack moves through it automatically now, older and quieter than he used to be, the sharp edges of who he was worn smooth by time and too many overnight shifts.
“Room twelve needs a consult,” a nurse calls while falling into step beside him. “Possible allergic reaction. Pediatric.”
Jack barely looks up from the chart in his hands. “How old?”
“Three, maybe four.”
He nods once, already understanding the look in the parent’s eyes before a word is spoken. Another frightened child clinging to the edge of panic. Another exhausted parent trying not to fall apart. Another long night that will blur into all the others before morning comes.
Then the nurse continues casually, “Mother says she has the same allergy, so she recognized the symptoms fast. Kid’s stable now.”
Jack pushes through the ER doors toward pediatrics without thinking much about it, exhaustion dragging heavily behind every step. His gloves snap against his wrists while he scans the intake notes clipped to the chart.
Female.
Age: 8 months.
Name: Penelope Langdon.
His eyes pause briefly.
Langdon.
Something about it scratches faintly at memory, but before he can place it, the curtain around the bed shifts open.
And the world stops.
She’s sitting in the hospital bed holding a tiny baby girl against her chest. For one impossible second, his brain refuses to process what he’s seeing.
Because it’s her.
Not memory.
Not grief twisting itself into hallucination.
Her.
Older now too. Softer somehow. More settled into herself in a way that physically hurts to look at. Her hair is pulled back messily, exhaustion visible beneath her eyes, one protective hand rubbing slow circles over the baby’s back while a tiny toddler sleeps curled beside her in the chair, small sneakers dangling crookedly off the edge.
And then he sees she’s pregnant, and Jack stops so abruptly the chart nearly slips from his hand as she looks up at the sound of his footsteps and their eyes lock across the room.
Everything inside him drops hard and fast through his chest as shock flashes across her face, raw and unmistakable, before something colder seals over it, not anger, not longing, but a careful, practiced distance, professional composure settling between them like a door closing softly and permanently shut.
“Dr. Abbot,” she says quietly, and hearing his surname in her voice after all these years cuts deeper than he expects, because once she used to say his name like it belonged to her, and now she looks at him like he’s just another doctor standing in the room.
Because suddenly every version of his life collides at once inside his head, the apartment, the proposal, the nursery, the screaming silence after she left and all he can see is what should have been sitting in front of him years ago.
Not Vivian.
Not borrowed fatherhood built on lies and grief.
This.
Her.
Their life.
His throat tightens painfully.
“What happened?” he finally manages.
“She got into peanut butter crackers at daycare,” she says softly, adjusting the baby higher against her shoulder. “Her breathing changed pretty fast.”
Jack nods automatically, doctor before anything else now, stepping closer to check the baby gently despite the violent shaking beginning somewhere deep in his ribs.
Penny.
The baby’s tiny fist curls instinctively around her mother’s sweater while sleepy tears cling to her flushed cheeks, small and fragile and completely unaware that she is finally stable, finally safe, finally loved.
Jack forces himself to focus.
“She’s okay,” he says quietly after listening to her lungs. “You caught it early.”
“I know the signs,” she replies.
Of course she does.
He remembers every allergy medication that once crowded their apartment cabinets, and the realization cuts through him so suddenly it steals the air from his lungs, because this could have been his life, a toddler asleep in the corner, a baby curled against her chest, another child on the way, a real family built from love and ordinary days instead of grief, guilt, and the ruins they never managed to survive.
Not something forced together from history and obligation. Real.
The little boy stirs suddenly in the chair beside them, rubbing sleepy fists into his eyes before lifting his head.
“Mama?” he mumbles.
And Fuck.
Jack feels the impact of that single word like physical injury.
Her entire face changes instantly. Softens.
She reaches for the toddler automatically, brushing messy hair away from his forehead with practiced tenderness. “Hey, Tanner,” she whispers gently. “You okay, my baby?”
Baby.
The boy nods sleepily before climbing directly into her side without hesitation, pressing his cheek against her arm while she somehow balances both children at once effortlessly.
Like she was always meant for this.
Jack has to look away briefly.
Because years ago someone at a fundraiser once said:
“She always wanted to be a mom.”
And Fuck.
She became one anyway, just not with him, and the thought settles in him like something final and irreversible, right as a voice suddenly cuts through the hallway outside.
“Langdon’s still here?”
Another nurse answers quickly, “Yeah, pediatric room three.”
Footsteps approach fast afterward.
Then Frank Langdon appears through the curtain.
Young for an ER attending-track resident.
Still wearing navy scrubs half untucked beneath a winter jacket he clearly threw on too quickly. But the second he sees her, his entire face changes. Relief crashes visibly through him.
“There you are,” Frank breathes.
And then he crosses the room without hesitation, drawn to her as if the rest of the hospital ceases to exist, no Jack, no sterile corridors, no weight of procedure, only her, and the children in her orbit like the center of something he was never meant to stand inside.
“You scared me,” he murmurs softly, crouching beside the bed first to kiss Penny’s forehead, then Tanner’s hair, then finally her temple with exhausted familiarity.
His hand settles instinctively against her pregnant stomach, steady and sure, as if he’s always known exactly where he belongs in this moment.
There’s nothing hesitant in him, no second-guessing, no careful restraint. Just a quiet, unwavering certainty that makes the gesture feel less like an action and more like a promise already kept. Protective in the simplest sense of the word. Certain in a way that doesn’t ask permission. Home, made visible in a single touch.
Jack feels something inside himself cave inward at the sight of it, quiet and absolute, like a structure giving way without sound. Because Frank doesn’t hesitate. Not once. Not around the children, not around her, not around the future growing right in front of him.
There’s no fear in him. No distance. No uncertainty disguised as caution.
Just love plain, unguarded, and fully lived, simple enough to be chosen out loud, and simple enough that Jack realizes too late it was never meant to be his to choose.
Frank finally notices Jack standing there.
“Oh—Dr. Abbot.” He straightens quickly, still keeping one hand on her knee unconsciously. “Sorry, I came down as soon as they paged me.”
Of course they paged him. Langdon.
Her husband.
Jack finally understands why the surname hit him like recognition. He’s worked beside Frank for almost two years.
He listened to him talk about his wife, about the life he built so casually it almost sounded like breathing, about kids who filled the house with noise and a son obsessed with dinosaurs, about a pregnant wife who woke him at three in the morning with cravings for citrus and laughter in her voice.
And Jack had smiled at all of it, nodded at all the right places, filed every detail away without ever letting them fully land, never connecting the pieces into something real enough to hurt, never realizing he was listening to the life that should have been his.
Because he never let himself imagine her attached to someone else’s life.
Frank glances toward his wife again immediately, that quiet check-in passing between them without effort, like it’s something they’ve done a thousand times without ever needing to explain it.
She meets his eyes and gives the smallest nod, the kind that says everything is steady without saying a word at all.
“You okay?” he asks anyway, more habit than doubt.
“I’m okay,” she answers softly, already knowing what he needs to hear.
“You sure?”
She doesn’t answer with words this time. Instead, her hand finds his for just a second fingers squeezing once, familiar and certain and a tiny smile touches her mouth, like the conversation was already finished before it even began.
And it destroys Jack completely because he remembers spending years trying to earn expressions that now come naturally to someone else.
“I’m sure,” she says gently.
Frank exhales in visible relief before reaching automatically for Tanner, lifting the sleepy toddler easily into his arms.
“Hey, buddy,” he murmurs. “You taking care of mama?”
Tanner nods seriously against his shoulder, small and trusting, and Jack realizes he can’t quite draw a full breath anymore.
Because suddenly all he can see is the life he never chose and the one he convinced himself was enough, the years spent forcing meaning out of something already hollow, playing at fatherhood inside a structure built from guilt and habit, trying to resurrect a dead marriage out of obligation and old memories while the woman who once loved him with her whole life slowly, quietly disappeared right in front of him.
And she warned him. Fucking hell, she warned him.
You already chose them. At the time he thought she was being unfair. Now he realizes she was simply right.
Frank leans down toward Penny next, smiling softly when the baby grabs his finger immediately.
“There’s my girl,” he whispers.
My girl.
The ease of it nearly crushes Jack under its weight, because this is what real fatherhood looks like when it isn’t being fought for or earned through pain, no desperation, no grief, no need to force history into meaning, just love given freely and returned without hesitation.
And standing there under the harsh fluorescent lights of PTMC, watching another man hold the family that should have been his, Jack finally understands the full, devastating scope of what he lost. Not just her. Not just the future he once imagined. But everything that could have been real if he had known how to choose it in time.
The children he never had. The home he never built. The version of himself that might have learned to trust love instead of fear instead of bracing for its loss before it even arrived.
He had all of it once, close enough to touch, close enough to choose, and he let it slip through his hands anyway, trading something real and living for something hollow that could never hold its shape.
Authors note
LOLOL AND THATS A WRAP BABIES. I luckily always write way more than needed so I could make a p3 easily. It was originally supposed to be Robby but I felt like it wasn't gonna work cos they're besties and I wanted it to be a shock to him that our girls happy and thriving without his weak ass. I did make this in a rush so please forgive me if I made some errors. I just wanted to get it done lmaoo. Also in this frank is sober!
synopsis – when meds start disappearing from the er and your best friend langdon becomes responsible for it, your name gets dragged down with his. and your boyfriend, jack, decides to take care of it before it reaches any higher.
c/w – drugs and mention of drug use !! medical inaccuracies !!
a/n - first time writing since last month so sorry if this sucks! also this is my first time writing for the pitt so again sorry if this sucks
angst
—can we talk?
you looked back over your shoulder, caught off guard by the tone more than the interruption itself. jack was behind you, standing there with his jaw tight, shoulders straightened, eyes fixed on you like whatever he had to say couldn't wait another second. mel noticed too. the shift in the air was immediate.
—uh... yeah, —you say slowly, studying him, —let us just finish this...
—now.
you blinked, thrown off, but jack didn't show a flicker of hesitation. if anything, he looked like he had already decided how this goes. mel was looking between you two, but your eyes were still locked on jack, trying to read him and find something familiar in his expression.
—i'm asking you as your superior.
the words hit harder than they should. not because of the authority but because he used it with you. you swallowed, trying to hide a reaction. you finally turned to mel, she was looking at you, just as confused as you were. you showed her a little smile, not your usual one, just enough to smooth things over and hit her with an i'll be back in a second.
—come with me, —jack said, and started walking leaving you behind. you gave mel one last glance, surprised by the fact that he didn't even wait for you. you did a little run to catch him.
—can you tell me what's going on?
jack ignored you and opened one if the er rooms, pushing the door open. he stepped aside to let you pass and, even though you hesitated, searching his face for anything, he still won't meet your eyes. jack followed immediately behind you and closed the door behind his back.
the room was empty, except for you and jack and all the medical supplies. but there was something else. a cart with a tray containing a couple of syringes, small labeled vials, and a jar for urination.
—sit, —jack said, pointing at the stretcher with his head.
you hesitated. you weren't liking his tone, much less the fact that he was ignoring you, —not until you tell me what all of this is about.
jack reached for the glove box and pulled two out. he slid one glove on,—your friend langdon left, —your eyes opened wide. without looking up, jack slid the other glove, flexing his fingers once, adjusting the latex, —well, he didn't actually left. robby kicked him. wanna know why?
—what do you mean kicked him? —you asked, a hint of panic slipping through.
jack looks at you for a second too long before answering.
—because your friend langdon has been stealing medsfrom the er.
you shook your head, —langdon wouldn't...
—but he did. and you were too close to him.
—what's that supposed to mean?
he didn't answer right away. jack walked past you toward the cart instead, checking for something on the tray, —it means that when i was hearing about it, your name kept coming up.
your stomach dropped, the accusation finally coming to the surface.
—you covered shifts together, shared patients, shared logins a couple of times. sit, —he said again.
—that's how we work here, everyone does it.
jack nodded, —i know.
—then why are you saying it like it means something?
his jaw tightened, —because robby thinks it means something.
you let out a short laugh, dry and bitter as you slowly nodded. of course it was robby. you could practically picture it. robby standing in front of jack, arms crossed, building patterns out of coincidence because he never liked things that escaped his control. or maybe he never liked this thing you and jack had going on. maybe robby never liked you.
—right, —you muttered, —of course he does.
—he found discrepancies tied to controlled meds. not one. multiple.
—and now he's tying me to it because i'm friends with langdon. yeah, this is perfect. he's been waiting for a reason to come after me since day one.
jack shook his head, —i just need to run some test on you and all of this would be forgotten.
a wave of anger rose fast, you thought this was only about langdon stealing drugs and you helping him, but this took a completely different way, —you think i'm using?
his head moved to look at you, —no.
—but you need to test me.
—if robby pushes this higher, they're are going to...
—that's not whay i asked.
jack exhaled, jaw clenching, —i don't want to believe that, but...
you stepped back from him, shaking your head slowly, a soft wow was the only thing you could let out. jack rubbed his face out of frustration, mumbling a come on, don't do this. you huffed a laugh in response.
suddenly you started replying every interaction from the past days that could've make him doubt about you. the coffee you spilled because your hands shook slightly, the way you snapped at santos for repeating a question. it all felt human but now they looked like evidences.
—it won't take long, baby, and then all of this would be cleared out.
you scrunched your face when jack hit you with the baby. the sudden tenderness felt wrong, —don't call me that right now. not when you're accusing me of being an addict.
jack shook his head again, —please, —he said, —just sit down.
you stood for another second, staring at him. part of you wanted to walk out even though it would make you look guilty. the other part of you wanted to scream at him how unforgivable this felt. instead, you just reached for the sleeve of your scrub top as you shoved it up your arm. then you sat on the edge of the stretcher, refusing to look at him as you exposed the inside of your arm.
jack moved toward you and grabbed your arm gently, his fingers stretching the skin where your forearm met your upper arm, angling your arm toward the light as he looked carefully along the inside of it. looking for puncture marks. he was physically checking your body for signs of drug use. he who knew every inch of you, now examining your skin for evidences. your face scrunched again, now trying not to cry.
his eyes lifted to your face, —hey, —jack said quietly.
you looked away, —don't. let's finish with this, please.
jack nodded. he released your arm and moved to the other one, his thumb paused near the inside of your elbow. nothing. of course nothing. you swallowed, blinking fast as your vision began to blur. jack noticed and let your arm go. no marks, he murmured, professionally, more to himself than to you. you noticed a hint of relief there.
he stepped back toward the tray. you pulled down one of his sleeves while he took his time opening the blood draw supplies. when he came back to you with the needle and an alcohol swab, he paused before touching you again.
—left arm okay?
you nodded once without looking at him.
jack cleaned the inside of your arm, trying to be comforting, yet he no longer knew what would help the situation and what would make it worse. he tied the tourniquet around your arm and tapped gently along your vein.
—small pinch, —he murmured.
you almost laughed. those words pulled a memory too quickly. late nights during your residency when jack started letting you practice blood draws on him after you missed the vein twice on a trauma patient and looked so horrified. after that you nearly convinced yourself you weren't made for emergency medicine until jack found you hiding in an empty supply room. he walked in, dropped into a chair and rolled up his sleeve. alright, vampire, redeem yourself.
you winced when jack pushed the needle in.
the positioning was almost identical, but reversed. now you were the one with your arm exposed while he stood between your knees. you remembered the way he used to look at you during those nights, the way you fell in love with him, and now his eyes kept moving between the vial filling with your blood and your face, trying to hold together two completely different versions of you.
he slid the needle out, immediately pressing a gauze against the inside of your arm.
—i need you to... —he coughed, taking the small container, —i need a urine sample too. there's a bathroom connected through that door, —jack explained.
the blood draw had already felt like being stabbed. this was twisting the knife. it felt even more humiliating, more invasive. your face went still, no expression while the pain turned into anger.
jack saw it happen in real time.
—you don't... —he started.
—yeah, i know where the bathroom is, —you cut, —i work here, thank you.
you took the container form his hand and walked pass him, stepping into the small bathroom attached to the room. you shut the door harder than necessary and leaned against the counter. you stared at your reflection, but the only thing you could pay attention to was the bandage peaking out of your scrub sleeve and what it meant.
when you were done, you walked out. jack looked up immediately when he heard the door but this time, he wasn't alone.
robby was there, standing near the door with his arms crossed. his eyes dropped to the cup in your hand and then moved back to your face, humiliation crashing over you once again, this time so hard you almost dropped the container.
—the'll run a quick toxicology test on both, the blood and the urine... it should be done in couple of minutes.
—what is he doing here? —you asked.
—we found langdon's meds in his locker, —robby explained, —and you know how this works.
—no, —you shot back, —i know how you work.
—then you should know this stopped being personal the moment narcotics started disappearing.
—yeah, —a dry laugh escaped your mouth, —it's not like you've been on my ass since my first day.
robby laughed the same way you did, taking a step toward you. he was about to say something, probably a comment with that soft tone he liked to use when he wanted his words to cut as deep as possible without ever raising his voice, but jack intervened just in time.
—while we wait for the results, robby wants to see your locker, —jack said quickly, as if saying fast would make it less intrusive.
—my locker, —you repeated in disbelief.
—as i was telling you, langdon had narcotics stored in his. we're checking anyone directly connected to him, —robby continued.
—anyone? or just me?
—we do this and it ends here, —jack said to you but looking at robby.
yeah, it definitely ends here, you thought.
robby stepped to aside and walked behind you.
jack arrived later and by then, all your stuff was spread across the floor. your notebooks, your bag, some protein bars, your pair of spare sneakers, pens and receipts everywhere. even the picture you had hanging on the door had fallen during the search, the one after a thirty hour shift with you and jack outside the ambulance. he had one of his arms thrown around your shoulders, kissing your temple while you held up a coffee toward the camera like a survival trophy.
—she's clean, —jack announced, waving the toxicology report to robby, —blood and urine, everything came back negative.
robby took the paper from jack without speaking at first, scanning the results. your eyes lifted and met jack's. he was already looking at you. he was looking at you like he'd always trust you, there was no doubt in his expression now. but it didn't matter, because he'd needed to see those results. the realization hit harder than the locker search, than the blood draw and the humiliation of sitting on that stretched while the man you loved checked your arms for signs of addiction: jack didn't trust you. at least not enough to defend you when you were being pointed at as a drug addict.
robby lowered the report and nodded, —okay, that's what we needed.
—what's gonna happen to langdon?
robby exhaled, he hadn't really thought about it, should he report him? should he give him another chance? —he went home for now, after that... i don't know.
you nodded. robby pressed his lips together and left, smacking the paper against jack's chest. congratulations, your girlfriend's not a junkie. you stared at the floor before kneeling down to start gathering your things. your notebook first, then the pens scattered beneath the bench, the crushed protein bars and the receipts near your sneakers.
jack stepped forward but you mumbled an i don't need your fucking help, and he stopped on his track. jack watched you pick up everything and shoved it into your locker, careless, as if you wanted this done as soon as possible. you picked everything except one thing. you didn't miss it, you left it exactly where it had fallen.
he remembered the shift, the sunrise, the way you'd laughed when he kissed your temple because as dana took the photo, she kept threatening to report both of you for disgusting resident behavior.
you closed the locker, harder than necessary, and walked past jack.
he called your name, alongside with a baby. jack followed you down the hallway. the er buzzed around you the second you pushed through the doors again and you felt completely detached from it. people looked at you, maybe because your eyes were red, maybe because they already noticed langdon's absence and they were asking to themselves if you knew something about it.
you kept walking, straight to the nurses' station. dana looked up the moment she saw you, her entire expression changing.
—what can i... where can i help?
dana pushed her chair back and stood up, —what happened to you?
your face crumpled before you could stop it.
—oh, sweeheart...
her arms wrapped around you before you even realized you were crying, pulling you tightly against her, one hand pressing protectively against the back of your head while the other one rubbed up and down your back. jack approached from behind, eyes fixed on you, and dana understood immediately that this had something to do with him. she lifted one hand from your back and waved it to him. leave. jack looked like he wanted to argue with her, then dana's expression hardened even more and someone yelled dr. abbot, trauma 2.
you hid your face against dana because you just remembered when it first started.
you were looking at the patient board with langdon, knowing you'd both have to stay after hours. we should do drugs, he joked. it'd definitely make this easier, you answered. that day you laughed it off, it was just dark er humor, but a few days later, langdon brought it up again.
you remembered the first time langdon actually offered you something.
you'd both been sitting in the break room. langdon watched you curse under your breath before reaching into his pocket.
—here, —he said, sliding half a pill across the table.
—what is that?
—it'll keep you awake.
you should've said no immediately but instead you just played with it, too exhausted to think about consequences beyond making it through the next few hours.
—you actually take this?
—sometimes.
and langdon looked functional. he charted faster than anyone, worked better in trauma than any other resident, joked around with nurses like nothing was wrong... so you took it, and the worst part was that it worked, and after that, saying yes became easier.
you would spot him by his locker and feel something in your chest loosen with relief because most of the times he'd already have something waiting. a pill to tuck into the pocket of your scrub, a quick you want half? mumbled under his breath... then he started showing up with different pills, sometimes crushed, sometimes asking if you needed something stronger because you looked exhausted.
and living with jack make things difficult because he was one of the best doctors you'd ever met. observant in ways most people weren't, the kind of physician that could diagnose from tiny details everyone else overlooked.
so you knew that if you weren't careful, he'd started to notice things.
you thanked he usually wasn't around at three in the morning because he'd have seen you pacing around the apartment because your brain refused to slow down after your shift ended, would've seen the way when you'd disappear into the bathroom after another nosebleed.
—you should just inject it, —frank suggested. you were both in his car, he was driving you home. you had your tilted forward with a tissue pressed beneath your nose.
—what?
—it'll stop wrecking your nose.
but you couldn't risk it, not when jack knew your body the way he did.
his lips were familiar with the inside of your thighs and the side of your neck, he'd draw little patterns on the inside of your arm while you both watched a movie on the couch, hold your hand whenever he could... every major vein zone of your body, jack knew it intimately. one track mark and it would all collapse. it was positive in some way, because you stayed away from needles and you could tell yourself that things weren't that bad.
as your tears soaked dana's scrubs, all you could think about was what could've happened if you hadn't almost given a patient the wrong dosage four days ago.
langdon reacted fast, grabbing your wrist at the last second, but he looked terrified and you did too. after that, he decided you needed a break. he'd close his locker whenever you were around, he stopped offering you... and you were furious at langdon because your body noticed the absence. the exhaustion came back all at once, you spilled your coffee because your hands shook , you snapped at santos for repeating a question... all of that because you couldn't bear it.
if none of that had happened, the toxicology exam would've come back positive. the thought of it sat in your chest while dana held you together in the middle of the er and you couldn't stop replaying the way jack had looked at you after the results came back, relieved, guilty for ever questioning you in the first place.
and jack stood there hating himself for suspecting you while the truth had only missed him by four days.
Titus Danforth x fem!reader—in which you fought to die and he made sure you lived.
TW: DEAD DOVE: DO NOT EAT!!! 18+ MDNI, NSFW. Graphic depiction of violence. Reader was suicidal so descriptive on some of those feelings. Mentions of past sexual assault. Titus kidnaps the reader and keeps her in a padded cell. Stockholm Syndrome. Sex, pussy slapping. Titus is a biter. A Hunt. Reader survives but is shot. I think that's it, I genuinely do not know for sure though. It's dark.
Male Version: Soon to come
In all his years, Titus had met every form of dying person—those already dead, dying, shot, those who don’t believe they’re dead yet, those who know they will die but they fight against it regardless and even those who think they have a chance of survival.
But never has he met anyone who wanted to die.
He has met the people who want to survive more than anything, who know there is no way out but at least they didn’t go willingly to their death, they fight and bite and claw. They make it fun.
He has met those who do not want to die but accept it with dignity, knowing that at least they can die knowing they still had their pride.
He has met those become shrivelling messes, pleading and begging and crying, asking him to have mercy.
He has met all these kinds of people, but until you, he had never realized that there were people who wanted to die.
Who tried to choose it.
And then, he met you.
***
He can smell the desperation that trails behind the man, the prey. It’s an easy trail to follow, the man so scared when he was told his wedding night would either end him with dead or alive, not in a bed fucking the girl he married. Titus could see that the poor boy had thought it was a joke before the realization of the truth sunk in and then he ran like hell.
But he’s slow and scared and reckless.
That makes for easy prey.
Which is why Titus isn’t running, instead walking leisurely, shotgun dangling from his one hand, the other holding a dagger, ready for whatever will occur. He’s always ready, always ready, especially when he hears the noise off to the side, the hushed breath, jagged sob. The sound of someone crying.
Honestly, Titus thought the man had more class than that. Crying! What an idiot. He turns, lifting his shotgun, pressing it against his shoulder, finger straying to the finger, just gently touching the thin curve of metal, the press grated and firm against the pad.
“Come out, little boy,” he says, his tone mocking and cold, cruel in a way and he hears the crying stop, the breath hush and fall and then begin again, quieter, more even. Someone who has stopped crying, is able to stop emotions, turn them off. He understands that, but the boy is still pathetic.
“Not a little boy,” a voice calls out, the sound carrying through the woods and Titus follows, ducking through the trees, down towards the sound, glancing around, gaze snagging on you. He doesn’t know you, this woman holding onto low-hanging branches of a tree, face swollen and tear-stained, eyes blank. Devoid of feeling.
“Why are you in my woods?” he asks you, finger pressing harder on the trigger, not yet pulling it, but waiting. Waiting for some sign of something from you.
“Your woods?” you ask him and he hears that your voice is raw, as if you’ve been screaming, crying. Like you’ve been trying to escape from something. “I ran from the bridge off into the forest, didn’t know anyone owned it.”
“Why’d you run?” he asks, curiosity heavy in him even as he ducks his head, making sure the shotgun shell will discharge the full force of the buckshot in your body—not the kill he was after, but still a kill after all.
“Cause the cops don’t exactly like it when people try to drive off the bridge. They don’t understand that I just love my car and want to die in it.” Your face is flat, devoid of emotion, but in the words, Titus hears something he’s never heard before. Want to die. Everyone he’s ever met has wanted to live. “Anyway,” you continue, eyes darting between him and his gun and the knife in his hand, “I don’t know the situation with you and this little boy, but I see a gun and a knife, so…could you give me one of those? I’m not exactly looking to hurl myself out of a tree cause there’s no guarantee…”
“You…want to die?” Titus asks you, his eyes narrowing, brows knitting in confusion. He doesn’t understand it, this drive for oblivion when living…when living is power.
“Yeah,” you tell him, dropping to your feet from the tree, approaching him, steps silent as if you’re a predator too. A predator trying to take itself off the chain. “Deal or no deal?”
“No deal,” he rasps and he doesn’t know if he’s entranced by the idea that you want to die or the way that you walk towards him, your body moving in a way he hasn’t seen before. In a way that he wants to see forever, in a way that wants to make him sink to his knees, bury his teeth in the skin of your hip, taste you, your skin. Everything.
“Ooooh, are you like a serial killer or something? Would you rather kill me yourself? Cause that’s fine too. As long as I die, we’re cool. And if the cops come and see my body and ask questions, you can just use the Castle Doctrine and say you were protecting your property.” Your eyes gleam and the way you speak betrays intelligence and thoughtfulness and he cannot understand why you do not want to live. Why you do not want to breathe in the air. Why you want nothing over everything.
“Why do you want to die?” he asks you, your body stopping just before him, face devoid of emotion yet stained with tears, evidence of despair.
“None of your fucking business,” you hiss and then he can hear emotion, no toying or teasing, no evasion, just truth. It is not his business, but he’s making it his business.
“No deal unless you tell me,” he whispers, voice soft, hunt forgotten. As much as he would love to win, to see the blood splatter, feel that taste of victory, you are so much more interesting.
“Then no fucking deal,” you reply and then you turn, steps fast as you jump, lunging for a branch and catching it in both hands, hauling yourself up and onto the tree’s limb with dexterity and strength and flexibility, something that Titus wants to push. Find just how far it lasts—wonders just how much you could bend on a bed.
“You really gonna hurl yourself out of a tree and hope death sticks?” he yells out to you and you glance down at him, eyebrows raised to your hairline and you nod once, lips pressed thin.
“Better than being alive, my friend,” you call out to him, saluting him while you climb up another branch. “Better than being alive.” And it’s those words that Titus doesn’t like, this idea that you can just decide to be done. To die.
You can’t just decide that. Death belongs to forces larger than yourself, people like him, like the families. Not to some normal person with entrancing eyes and a body that he wants to know every inch of.
No, if you want to die, then he shall ensure that you live.
Which is why he lifts his shotgun, aiming carefully above you, the shot embedding in the tree and the branch above you, the wood cracking and falling, the sound of the shot ringing through the forest, footsteps echoing in a fast pace towards the sound.
“What the fuck?!” you cry, hands slowly lowering from your ears. “You’re a horrible shot!”
“I wasn’t aiming for you, darling,” he drawls as the figure of the groom bursts into the clearing, a sound leaving his throat at the sight of Titus, one entirely undignified that has Titus lifting his shotgun and shooting again, this time, the shell embedding in a human body, the man stuttering, hands clutching at his stomach before falling to the ground dead.
“You end him but not me?” you call out, standing on the branch now, hands on your hips in righteous fury. “Not fair.”
“You don’t get to die,” he hisses at you, lopping his shotgun over his shoulder and hopping up and onto the tree, climbing until he’s on the branch with you, fear for the first time shining in your death-seeking eyes.
“Don’t fucking touch me if you’re not gonna kill me,” you whisper, voice cracking as his hands come to yours, the palms flat against the bark of the trunk, holding you upright as he takes them and a zip tie from his pocket, handcuffing you and pulling you to him by the cuffs.
“I won’t touch you,” he breathes out, “until you ask me too.” He can see you preparing for a retort, but he doesn’t let you answer, instead pulling the syringe from his pocket, the one full of sedative, jabbing it into your neck, depressing the syringe, watching as you look at him with wide wet eyes, hiding a multitude of pain and loss, those eyes fluttering shut and your body falling against him, his arms encircling you as he jumps from the branch, his sister standing, arms crossed and face beyond irritated.
“You get the kill and somehow manage to get a fucking prize out of it,” she hisses, one perfectly lip-sticked lip drawing up into a sneer.
“Not a prize,” he tells her, walking with you held tightly in his arms, mind on the way you feel against him. “Meet my future wife.”
“Uh-huh,” Ursula says, lip drawing up in disgust as she looks at Titus and you in his arms. “I was around to hear that your little toy is suicidal. She’ll welcome a hunt like this because then she’ll die. You just want her to live because she wants to die and you’re sadistic.”
“If that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black,” Titus replies, attention torn from his sister as you mumble something, shifting in his arms, something that makes his blood run cold before pumping with anger at the thought of what he’s heard. Of what you’ve experienced.
“Just stop…I’m not her. Please stop!”
“What are you even going to do with her?” Ursula asks him, drawing him back from the thoughts in his mind.
“I’m going to break her,” he whispers, lips curving up of their own accord. “Until she wants to live.”
“And then?”
“And then she’ll be my Mrs. Danforth.”
***
The world is fuzzy at the edges, slipping by strangely, images of your past and your present intermixing. You remember the searing touch of a man who didn’t listen, you remember running from him. You remember the taunts and the feeling of a slap against your cheek, the torments of your peers. But you also remember a strange man with a terrible gleam in his eye. You remember the feeling of his eyes on you and the strange way they made you feel.
And you are partially aware of the feeling of your body strapped down to a bed, staff coming to dress you and clean you. The sounds of construction outside your room, sawing and banging and nailing, yelling. You see those searing eyes with a dangerous gleam.
You hear whispers of Mrs. Danforth.
You hear your name falling from a voice that sounds like danger.
You feel half-dead but half-dead is too much alive for you.
You remember that you don’t want to be here, you remember being in your car, crying so hard as you gripped the wheel, attempting to drive off the bridge, but swerving to avoid the dog that ran in front of you, car crashing into the supports instead. You remember running from the cops into woods, preparing to climb a tree before hearing a man call out little boy. The man with the strange gleam.
You remember him, a falling body, shotgun shots and buckshot scattering above your head, so close yet not close enough.
You remember him whispering, I won’t touch you until you ask me too.
And then you wake up.
***
It’s dark, night, but not so dark that you can’t make out the world around you, the padded walls and lack of furniture, the restraints on your limbs, the way you’re bound to a bed, strapped. You’re surprised you aren’t gagged.
You don’t know the kinds of strange things the man you met in the woods might be into, do. You just don’t know and yet by running from the cops, you’ve ended up ensnared in this fucked up web.
All you wanted to do was finally find peace. To just let water sink into your lungs, return to that which you came from and stop feeling this…this pain. Stop feeling disgusting and worthless.
Stop feeling numb. Because that’s the truth. It’s like his touch seared all feeling from your skin, left you empty and erased all the possibility for happiness and real emotions. All you can feel is empty, sad and broken. Utterly used and destroyed living in skin that feels like rubber, skin that doesn’t feel real.
You just wanted to end it.
You just wanted peace.
And somehow, you’ve ended up in a world that will destroy you even more. You just don’t know how.
“You’re up,” that voice calls out, the one that whispered Mrs. Danforth when you drugged out of your mind, the voice that taunted you in the forest, the one that called out little boy. The one you wish you had said nothing too. Never asked for help in dying.
A light switch flicks and bright white light shines down, the white so bright it’s painful, burning your eyes, making you blink them closed, squeezing them shut against the intrusion, instead only seeing the backs of your eyelids, the way the light hits your skin. Conscious of yourself and his stare.
“I guess the drugs finally wore off,” you reply, eyes still closed and tone far too sardonic for whatever game you’ve entered, yet you just can’t stop it. It’s who you are, it’s all you have left. “So, now what are you gonna do? Kill me? Skin me? Pull some Buffalo Bill shit and tell me to put lotion on so you can make a suit out of me? Or are you one of those freaks that wants to eat me?”
“You have quite a mouth,” he calls out and you open your eyes, looking out at him, the way his lips are curved up in a smirk, one that speaks of sadism and delight and trouble. “I find that I like it.”
“Seriously,” you say, fighting against the restraints, pulling at them, feeling the woven belt pull taut against your bare arms. And that’s when you look down, noticing that your clothes are changed, comfortable loungewear on your body that looks so carefully neutral and plain that you know it probably cost more than the car you smashed on the bridge. “What are you going to do to me?”
He walks to you, his steps languid as he reaches where you are on the bed, his hands reaching for the restraints, slowly, tortuously removing them, replacing the belts over your hands with his wrists, holding you down as he looks down at you, eyes glimmering with that dangerous look as his tongue darts out to lick his lips before they pull back in that smirk, sharp canines showing as he bends down until his lips are just inches from yours.
“I’m going to make sure you live,” he whispers, eyes so focused on yours that you want to squirm, break away from him.
“Why?”
“Because I want you for my wife,” he replies, letting go of your wrists, undoing the belts on your ankles, taking the straps with him as he walks to the padded door with a lock no doubt on the outside. “And a wife needs to want to live, after all.”
And then he disappears, pulling the door shut behind him, sliding a heavy bolt into place, the sound echoing in the small, padded room. Reverberating through you, the sound travelling down every node. The sound that of being captive.
And when you look around the room, at the padded walls, the lack of furniture aside from the bed you’re lying on, one without covers or anything that could be used to hang yourself. There are no places on the walls where anything could be rooted or stayed or held.
Nothing in this room allows for you to end yourself.
It’s an anti-suicide chamber.
Fuck.
***
Titus doesn’t know why he’s keeping you, not really. He doesn’t know why he didn’t slap you for the mouth you have on you, not really. But he knew that he liked it, you. He liked you for some odd reason.
Maybe it’s because you didn’t look afraid of him when you stood on that tree. Maybe it’s the way you yelled at him. Maybe it’s the way that you know nothing about the Families, the Council, Le Bail. Maybe it’s your innocence.
Or maybe it’s that you fought for the one thing he loves to deal in.
Maybe it’s that you fought for death where everyone else fights for life. Maybe it’s that you fought him for something he did not want to give, simply because it is what you wanted. And you do what you want.
You get what you want.
And he’s never seen anyone like that before in the face of him. Only his sister and she doesn’t count having been raised the same as him. She’s the same as him—you are not.
You are an anomaly.
One strong enough to do what the title of Mrs. Danforth entails.
He just has to break you first.
***
He visits every day, sometimes for hours, bringing in a chair and just sitting and watching. Saying nothing. Sometimes he brings things with him, books that he gives you, but takes before he leaves, electronics with games and puzzles and streaming services, a jigsaw puzzle that he helps you with, despite the way you slap his hands away.
He visits and when he speaks, he brings news of the world—sometimes world news about wars and fights and taxes and sometimes just things of celebrities, stupid things or wholesome things.
He visits and brings a TV with him on occasion, staff setting it up and you sit on the bed, watching what you want while he sits on a chair by your side, never touching. Always waiting and watching. Listening.
He visits and every time, just before he leaves, even on the days he doesn’t talk, he asks every time why do you want to die and every time, you answer him let me die and I’ll tell you just before I go.
You know that he’s waiting for you to break, watching for those cracks in you, the ones where he can start to change you, seed his ideas and watch them grow in all your cracks, replacing what once was.
But he should know from watching you by now: you’re already broken, your pieces simply dust, nothing left of you but ashes burned by someone else’s touch.
“What is it today?” he calls out, the lock clicking open, servants stepping in and readying a TV, some outlet shifted in a way that you have no access too, everything readied and the remote set in your hand as you sit cross-legged on the bed, Titus beside you in a chair, his hands resting on the edge of the bed, far from you but not far enough.
“Whatever I feel like,” you tell him, contrary to the bitter end. You know he tells you that he wants to marry you, make you his wife, but a part of you knows deep down that he’s trying to break you to live just to kill you.
Make the prey fight for what it can never have.
Just like you do now.
“I suppose I could guess,” he says, his eyes sear into you and you hate that he is partially right about what he’s doing. Because when he looks at you, you don’t feel his hands or his gaze and you don’t feel like rubber stretched over bone, a gruesome amalgamation of a girl from sick fuck’s twisted head.
When he looks at you, you feel like a girl. Desirous and different.
You hate it.
All you wanted was to die and this fucker isn’t letting you out of some sick twisted reason.
“You couldn’t guess if I have no idea in mind,” you reply, flipping through movie after movie before settling on a horror, one bound to appeal to you as the girls escape, overcome everything thrown at them and rise above it.
You wish you had been able to, but his touch still lingers on your skin.
“I was anticipating a rom-com, something steamy, not…this,” he says and he shifts in the chair, your eyes going to him, straying from the movie to him, the way he removes his hands, shifting in his chair, getting comfortable as he kicks his feet up and onto the bed, a casual pose as his hands interlace behind his back. “But I like this.”
“Of course you would,” you say, a sardonic lilt to your words. “Bunch of pretty girls having to kill a bunch of people to survive. Sounds just about twisted enough for you.”
“You got me,” he replies, glancing at you in a way designed to look like an after-thought but you know that it’s not. “I like corrupting girls in blood.”
“Makes me think you got a bunch of us locked up in here, planning to just let us out one night and fight to death. Whoever survives…well, welcome to the new Mrs. Danforth, everyone!” You can’t seem to look away from him and you hate it, hate this strange feeling. You swore when it happened that you’d never look at a man with desire. Anyone really because what does it get you?
Nothing.
All it would do is bring up the memory, of his mouth, his hands, his penetration. All it would do is suck you back there, back to the darkness and the pain and you don’t want that. Can’t have it.
How can you move on and live when everything seems to bring you back there? Everywhere and everyone except this place and Titus.
And you know that’s his plan, this breaking of you so you rely on him and this place for safety. You know that he’s manufacturing Stockholm Syndrome.
And you hate that it’s fucking working.
“No,” he whispers, voice soft, soft enough to draw you back, back to the here and now. To him rather than him. “There is only you. Only you.” He says the words like a revelation, a curse and a prayer rolled into one.
“Why?” you ask. “Why me? Why didn’t you just let me fucking die?!” You can’t help it, can’t help the tears because this man seems to make you feel things, feel everything. Every little thing that you’ve ever shoved down and you hate it. Hate him.
“Because you wanted to,” he says, his face twisting in both anger and confusion. “And I didn’t want you too. Lookat you. You’re beautiful and young and vibrant. Why would you want to? I have met every form of dying person and they always fight to live. You fought me to die. So, you don’t get to die.”
“So this is a fucking power trip, you fucking psycho!” you yell, scrambling away from him on the bed, scrambling so far back that you fall off the edge, landing on your ass on the padded floor, tailbone reminding you it exists.
“No,” he says, standing and walking over to you, just standing in front of you, not reaching to help you up becauseyou haven’t asked. He’s standing by that statement he made. He doesn’t touch you because you haven’t asked him too. “This is me deciding you’re too strong to die.” Meanwhile, screams emanate through the room along with the sound of blood and knives and death from the TV.
“What do you want from me?” you ask him as you push yourself to standing, stepping towards him until you’re level, even, eyes on eyes, slim distance, his pupils flaring and expanding.
“I want you,” he whispers, voice dropping lower as if the next part is a confession he doesn’t really want to say, “to want to live.”
“So you can kill me after? Get your kicks out of finally having me fight to live?”
“No,” he whispers, jaw tightening at the admission, his hand flexing, twitching as if he means to reach out and hold you, place his hand on your cheek. Not surprising, but what is, is that you want him too.
You want to know what his hand on your skin would feel like—if it would sear the way his stare does or if it would curdle you inside like him.
“I want you to want to live…to be with me,” he says and then his jaw flexes, tightens and he’s gone.
But no servants come later that day for the TV.
It stays.
***
Titus stares at the ring and the gown, the sight of them so perfect for you that he wants to bring you up and show you. Show you the stone with your birthstone and his. Show you the gown in the exact style that you had saved on your Pinterest board, the one your mother told him about.
He reached out to your family, telling them of your attempt, the way he found you and saved you, the way the two of you are growing close. The way he loves you.
He’s not lying, just concealing most of the truth. But your mother believed him, just happy you survived and happy that you found love. After it. No amount of asking has given him the answer for what happened to you, only that your mother was not surprised you tried to end it.
She gave her blessing for the proposal, the marriage.
She gave it so easily, believing the lies she was fed. But why wouldn’t she?
She is not you, so easily suspicious and uneasy. She is not you, ever searching for an exit, an escape route. She is not you, sitting numb, not feeling anything really.
She is not you.
Because no one is like you.
***
“What’s with the gifts that stay?” you ask Titus as he steps into the room. The no longer bare room. Instead, it has a TV and books and a desk with pen and paper. Things you could use to end it all and yet you haven’t.
Impulsivity never was your thing. You like plans, you like water. You’d like to drown, feel something cold on your skin, something not his hands. Something not your blood.
“I trust you,” is all he says and you hate those words because they linger long after he leaves. Living on in your heart which seems to beat those words I trust you.
You don’t understand how he could.
But you’re not disappointed that he does.
***
“Tell me about you,” you say to him, cross-legged on your bed, him on his chair, long fingers crossed and resting on the knee he has propped up.
“What do you want to know?”
“Anything. I’m kind of bored. I want something real, something that’s not fiction,” you tell him, watching as that smirk grows on his face.
“You won’t believe anything I tell you.” You cross your arms over your chest and arch one brow.
“Try me.”
***
“Why do you want to die?” he asks you, his hands coming to rest on your bed, fingers interlaced, head bent like a supplicant at prayer.
“Because…” you pause and look away, tears lining your eyes and pain welling in you, the only feeling you still really have. “Because I was raped…and I get the…the feeling of him off of my skin. Because I…j-just can’t get…out of that moment. Because everything except you and this place seem to trigger…something. Because I’m numb. Because I feel like rubber stretched over bone. Because I feel like Frankenstein’s Creature, searching for something good…something mine when I can’t fucking feel anything.” You can’t even feel the tears, but you know they must be falling because the room is blurring around you.
“Because he took me and I don’t want him to be able to again. Because I hate feeling him on and in me. I hate that…that I can’t love. I hate the way it’s fucked me up. And I want peace. I want something different. I want to not thinkanymore.”
“No one will touch you without your permission again,” he whispers and you look over at him, blinking away the tears until you can see him properly.
“How can you guarantee that?”
“Because I’ll kill them if they do. I’ll kill whoever did this to you to. Just give me a name.”
And you do.
***
“Do you still feel numb?” he asks you, the two of you sitting on the floor, backs against the wall, legs stretched out ahead of you, close but not close enough to touch.
“No,” you tell him and you can feel him looking at you, his gaze a tender caress. “Not when I’m with you.”
“Do I make you feel something?” he asks and there is a teasing note to his tone that makes you turn to him, fixing him with a stare dark and dangerous and wanting.
“Somehow,” you tell him, “you make me feel everything even things I never thought I’d feel again.” He looks at you with pupil-blown eyes and damn his fucking plan because it’s worked. You want him to touch you.
You want to know what his lips on your skin would feel like.
“Kiss me,” you tell him and he doesn’t hesitate, simply closing the gap between you two, pressing his lips open-mouthed to yours, teeth biting into your bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. Blood that he sucks into his mouth, sucking your bottom lip with it, your mouth opening in a gasp, but not of pain, but of pleasure.
And he takes the opening, his tongue breaching the distance. It’s a kiss of teeth and tongue and blood and desire. One finally being created and another given fuel, enough to make it endless.
Titus kisses you like he will never stop, claiming and owning. Devouring.
Maybe he really did break you, destroy you and make you want to live because all you want is him and for the first time, since he touched you, you feel normal. You feel like someone hurting and healing.
And you want and you want and you want.
But then you feel Titus pull back, a line of saliva still connecting his lips to yours, his lips puffy and a deep red, his tongue darting out to lick the last of your blood away, the sight making that hot, honeyed coil in your belly grow, coiling tighter.
“Was that…not what you wanted?” You hate the insecurity running through your voice but you can’t help it. You’re relieved when he shakes his head, a desirous and dangerous smile creeping onto his face.
“It most definitely was,” he whispers, tone dark and languid. “But you’re not ready for what I want to do to you. Because I can be gentle here when we talk, but if I take you to bed…I will utterly destroy you and I can’t trust you not to break.”
“But I want you,” you whine, hating the sound of your own voice, the neediness in it, yet you’re rewarded by the groan he emits, the sight of how much he wants you pressing against his pressed slacks.
“You’re not ready yet,” he says and then he’s gone. And you let out a strangled groan-cry mix, head falling between your knees, breaths jagged and sharp like all the pieces of you.
“Damn you, Titus,” you hiss. “Damn you.”
***
“Am I ready yet?” you ask him now, three weeks later. Three weeks of kissing and touching, his teeth sinking into the skin of your neck, his hands on your body, but never there where you want them.
“Answer two questions and they’ll tell me if you are,” he counters and you roll your eyes but nod.
“Go ahead.”
“One: do you want to live?” He looks at you with desperate eyes, touch-starved eyes. Eyes that want you now and are begging you to tell him the answers that he wants so that he can fuck you into oblivion, teeth sinking into the skin of your hip like he’s wanted so many times before.
“Annoyingly,” you grit out, “yes. Mainly because I saw those pictures of his unfortunate end and so…I trust you that no one will touch me again if I don’t want it. And I want to live because I…feel again and it’s not all pretty but it is fucking real so…” you shrug, casting your eyes down and away from him, but you can hear the rumble of his approval.
“Two: will you…marry me?” You look at him, away from your interlaced hands to look at the ring, the one that is perfect and dark, a black diamond set in a black gold band accompanied by purple sapphires around it, the cut angular and sharp. A weapon in a ring—how very Titus.
“The wedding dress has to be black doesn’t it?” you ask him and he sighs, nodding his head once. You sigh and roll your eyes, holding out your hand to him. “I’m saying yes, but let it be noted that, you Stockholmed me into this, you asshole.” He slips the ring onto your finger. A perfect fit.
“I know,” he whispers and then his lips on yours, his hands roaming, finding your breasts, twisting your nipples to the point of pain, causing you to unleash a pained gasp, his tongue sliding into your mouth, sucking yours into his.
He climbs over you on the bed, his knees bracketed on either side of you, one hand still twisting a nipple, the feeling turning from pain to pleasure as he bites on your bottom lip, one hand slipping lower and lower, teasing the waistband of your pants, fingers sliding along your body, sliding down and closer to your pussy. The part of you growing slick at the feeling of his lips against yours, slipping from your lips to your neck, teeth sinking into your skin.
You buck against his hand as he reaches your clit, his finger pressing on it hard, hard enough for it to be painful pleasure as his other hand comes to rest on the bed, his fingers toying with your clit, rubbing and pinching. It’s so much and yet not enough, that coil in your stomach growing tighter.
You arch your back when he bites your pulse point, pulse fluttering against the hardness of his teeth (his fangs as he calls them affectionately), his groan of desire rattling through you, vibrations that echo down your vertebrae, heightening the pleasure that he’s unleashing as he sinks fingers inside of you, thumb still pressing on your clit, two fingers knuckle deep inside of you, pumping and coated in your wetness, the feeling that only he has ever managed to cause in you.
“Are you ready to be my good girl?” he asks you, looking up at you, lips puffy and eyes so pupil-blown that they’re black. “Let me fuck you senseless?”
“Do you—think I am?” you rasp out just as his fingers hit that one spot inside of you that has you half-gasping, half-moaning, completely shattering around him when he applies more pressure to your clit from his thumb.
“I think so, sweetheart,” he says and then he pulls his hand from your pussy, out of your pants, bringing his fingers to his mouth and sucking them off before he strips you, efficiently, your hands chasing his body, helping him strip before he stands bare before you, cock hard and leaking.
And then he flips you over, one hand knotting in your hair, torso against the bed, ass in the air at the end of the bed. His other hand finds your clit again, circling it gently before he pulls back and slaps his hand against your pussy, the force and the action causing you to cry out both in pain and pleasure, arousal growing.
If he’s fucked up for doing that, you must be more fucked up for enjoying it.
“Do you like that, huh?” he asks you, voice nothing but a growl. “Like it when I slap you?” And then he does it again, the sound that results lewd with the skin against wet skin. “Such a good girl,” he purrs and then you feel him, sliding between your folds, the tip of his cock dragging from entrance to clit.
“Does my good girl want me to fuck her?” he calls out, voice husky and gritty and all you can do is nod, words difficult, but you are still you and you lift one hand, holding up a thumbs-up, the gesture causing him to chuckle despite the act going on, despite the fact that he’s an ass during sex. Which is hotter than it should be.
And then you feel him push in, groaning at the feel as he inches his way in, slowly, inch by careful inch, rough in style but not in action. And you know it’s because he knows what happened to you.
He wants this to be enjoyable for the both of you.
“So tight!” he groans, thrusting all the way in, sheathed to the hilt, his groans practically vibrating into you, like his sounds are connected to your spine. “So perfect,” he moans and then he’s thrusting in and out, the rhythm harsh and fast and rough, but not too much. Rather, just enough.
“All mine,” he groans, slamming his hips forwards, pulling on your hair, drawing your head up, causing you to glance back at him. “This pussy is all mine, right—sweetheart?” His other hand, the one that has been gripping your hip for stability now slaps your ass, a red mark welling in the shape of his palm, the flesh giving and then returning. “Say it!” he demands, drawing back and slamming into you again, cock going deep and hitting your G-spot, so close to making you fall apart again.
“All yours,” you cry out as he draws back again. “All yours, Titus!” And then he slams forwards again, hand straying from your hip to your clit, applying just enough pressure to have you shattering around him.
He cums inside of you not long after that, letting go of you and falling beside you in the bed, pulling you against him, his touch soothing and gentle.
“Did it break you, love?” he asks, his voice hushed and worried.
“No,” you whisper, turning in his arms to press a soft kiss to his lips, one that deepens as he pushes his way into your mouth, grip tightening on you. “I think you fixed something inside of me.”
***
The wedding was strange, dark and full of people you didn’t know, people who scream power from the very lines of their body and the cuts of their clothes. The vows were strange, your dress black but it wasn’t unexpected.
He had told you of his family long ago. Told you the truth and you accepted it, believing it and it didn’t scare you. If anything, it made you feel safer because here was a man who would prevent every other demon from ever touching you.
A man forged in murder.
A man forged with a twisted sense of honour.
But now, the cards before you and the one in your hand looking up at you, you can’t help but hate him just a little bit.
You knew when this began that he was going to make you want to live, just to have you die in the end—The Hunt.
“You have to survive until dawn,” the Lawyer tells you. “You have a five-minute head start so…go!”
“Damn you, Titus,” you hiss. “Damn you.” And then you run.
You run from the house, straight through to the forest, holding your skirts up, darting as fast as you can, running, running, running far from the house and the sadistic freaks. You don’t know how much more time you have left in your head start, but you stop, bending and ripping your skirt up, leaving the strands of tulle behind, running in the leggings you had him install in the dress—just in case.
And then you run, veering left and darting through the woods, towards the edge, towards the shotgun shot tree, jumping and climbing up the tree, climbing up and up and up. You can hear the people unleashed, howling and laughing as you climb, hand over hand, foot over foot, until you reach the top level, leaf cover both below and above.
And then you settle back, leaning against the trunk and resting your head as you watch the forest floor through the gaps in the leaves. You watch as Ursula walks into view, gun raised as her head swivels up and down and side to side, but she still misses you. Still doesn’t see you and then she’s darting off.
They hunt you and yet you wait. You wonder how you’ll die. If it’ll be a bullet into the heart or if it’ll be an arrow. Or if someone will climb the tree to embed a blade in you. You’d prefer the bullet.
Cleaner death.
You don’t realize how tired you are until your eyelids begin to close, your mind drifting off and then you hear the sound. The sound that signals you survived, the sound of a victory.
But you’re not dumb enough to fall for that. And so you stay in your tree, stay leaning against the trunk, feeling like Katniss when she watched the careers underneath her, waiting for her to drop.
“Sweetheart,” Titus calls out and you peer around the cover of leaves, not seeing him, but hearing him. “Sweetheart, I don’t know where you are, but it’s dawn.” You peer up, at the sky, noting the edge of the sky, the sun rising steadily, but you just. Don’t. Trust it.
“You’ve won,” says a voice you have to believe. The voice of the Lawyer. “Mrs. Danforth, it is safe to appear. You’ve won.” And so you climb down slowly, noticing the Lawyer, Ursula and Titus below. You hop down onto the leaf-strewn grass and smile, a strange smile, one that says fucked up. So fucked up.
“Fuck you, Titus,” you tell him and you notice the tears lining his eyes, the worry on his brow and then he’s there, holding you to him, holding you close.
“I was so worried,” he whispers into your hair and then you hear a crack, a sharp sound in the air, like that of a shotgun, but higher. You feel your body pushed against Titus, broken and pain-filled.
Like something has destroyed you.
You stumble back from Titus, your hands drifting to your stomach, pressing against your side, fingers coming away stained in red and you look up at him with a sad smile, one tinged with grief and anger and at the same time, relief.
“Guess I didn’t win,” you whisper, taking the blade from Titus’s waist and turning, feeling ever weaker, yet powered by anger, taking in the sight of the man with the gun. And then you hurl the knife, the blade embedding in his forehead and he collapses to the ground, shortly before he bursts into pink mist—he broke the rules.
He paid the price.
But so did you.
And you fall to your knees, your body giving way as you fall into his arms, Titus’s hands pressing against the blood flow, trying to staunch it to no avail.
“You know,” you whisper as the sounds of help draw closer but the darkness on the edges of your vision crowds in, “I really did want to live. For you.”
“And you will,” he hisses but you don’t believe him as the black swallows you whole. And the rest of the world fails to exist.
You fail to exist.
***
“Is this hell and you’re the devil or am I alive and you’re my husband?” you call out, voice dry as you open your eyes, wincing at the brightness of the lights, but delighting in the sight of your husband, of the man who made you live when you wanted to die.
Of the man who gave you love—fucked up though it may be.
“The second,” he says, his face cracking into relief and he helps you sit up into a sitting position, the skin in your torso drawing tight and you glance down, your shit ridden up to reveal stitches, your torso destroyed.
“Damn,” you whisper, noticing the feeling in both front and back. “Bullet went right through, didn’t it?”
“Wedged in my Kevlar,” he tells you and you lift one hand to slap him, right across the face, the gesture making him laugh, that husky laugh.
“You didn’t think to put any Kevlar in my wedding dress, you jackass?” He climbs onto the bed beside you, drawing you tightly against him, the room around you, his—your—bedroom.
“I forgot,” he whispers, pressing his lips against your neck, but not in a kiss, rather his teeth sink into your neck, biting down, hard but not too hard. Enough to leave marks that will last for days, but not enough to draw blood.
“You’re lucky I’m tough,” you tell him and he removes his teeth from your skin to press a kiss against your cheek.
“I’m lucky that you’re tough enough to bend into the shape I wanted and cement that way,” he whispers and you know what he’s talking about and you sigh, snuggling back against him, wincing just slightly at the pull in your stitches.
“I want to live,” you tell him and his body relaxes against you, arms tightening in a gentle, tender way. “And I want to live for you because…because you saved me, in a way. And, I mean, you made sure that he will never be a threat again and you make sex something I can…I can want again. You Stockholmed me for sure, but you fixed a bit that I’d left broken too. So…you know.”
And he does.
Because he understands and that’s enough. Because you want to live.
Just like he wanted when he took you.
***
Epilogue
“Please tell me you learned from your mistake and put Kevlar in his shirt,” you tell Titus as you climb into the bed, drawing the covers up and over your body as you watch him climb in beside you.
“I can neither confirm nor deny what may or may not be within our son’s clothing,” he tells you, drawing you close, pulling you against him.
“So, that’s a yes. And you did make sure that he’s a good shot, right?” you ask and you can feel him sigh against you, the sigh ruffling your hair as you snuggle into his arms, your face level with his, the only way the two of you can fall asleep, even years later.
“Almost better than I am,” he tells you and you sigh, relieved, nodding once, before pressing a kiss to his lips, one that tastes of first desire, no matter how many years it’s been.
“Just checking.”
“Felt like an interrogation,” he mutters and you let out a small chuckle, one eyebrow arching.
“If it were an interrogation, you’d know.” And then he’s drawing your closer, your head coming to rest on his chest as he rolls onto his back.
“Can you say it?” he asks you. “Just so I can fall asleep tonight?”
“Yeah,” you whisper, the sound of his heartbeat calming you. “I want to live, Titus. I want to live…for you.”
Even all these years later, he still needs to hear it.
Because he needs to make sure you’re still real, still here.
