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[lycheepocketwitch]

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[as-syllable-from-sound]

nothingman, pt. 2 (baran al-hashimi x reader) ˚₊· ͟͟❥ wc: 2.7k

read part one here

tags: angst, hurt no comfort, nurse!reader, boss!baran, exes

notes: this one took FOREVER and was only able to happen bc i discovered the breathtaking poem "reborn" by iranian poet forugh farrokhzad (called تولدی دیگر in farsi!) and was so struck by it it became the organizing inspo for this final part because it was simply too perfect. hopefully it hits you the way it hit me >>> read the original farsi here | read the translated english here |

ꕥ

"Alas, this is my lot. This is my lot. My lot is a sky that can be shut out by the mere hanging of a curtain."

The pitt is quick to remold itself around the lost body. You were beloved, not to get anything confused, but there were simply so many bodies to field and treat and discharge and then admit more that there was no mourning period. At one point there were twelve nurses circulating in the pitt at any given point and now there were eleven. 

It’s a mini catastrophe for Baran. She’d never really been in a role before that required her to be personally involved in the hiring process, though it felt like karma coming to bite her that she had to sit through each and every interview knowing that it was you every one was being compared too. It was you that held left because she had made you leave.

Baran sighs and sets down the folder, hands coming up to press deep into her eyes. 

“Not that one either?” Gloria muses from her left. Baran likes Gloria, at least far more than the average doctor in this hospital, but she’s been a nuisance the entire hiring process. Gloria suggests Baran calls you and asks you politely to come back. After the fourth attempt, Baran had snapped that if Gloria missed you so dearly, she could call you herself. 

“He had no previous experience in a trauma center,” Baran sighs, tipping her head back against the wall from her swivel chair. “That would be fine if we were hiring a new RN, but Y/N was an NP, so we need a new one of those.”

Gloria just stares blankly at her, and Baran is reminded how little this woman actually understands the inner workings of the hospital. She’s a glorified bureaucrat. 

“More schooling,” Baran summarizes. She’s too tired to say more. 

“There have to be more NPs in the Pittsburgh area,” Gloria says. “Why didn’t we send out a hiring request specifically for those?”

“We did. There’s a job market crisis, though, Gloria, it’s no surprise anyone even semi-qualified decides just to give it a shot.”

“Well, that seems like a waste of everyone’s time.”

“Well, you could try to sympathize with the unemployed people of Pittsburgh.”

Gloria shoots her a look at that, as do the three other men in the room whose names Baran can’t remember but doesn’t care to ask, because no one in this room cares to pronounce her name right. They can all fuck right off.

“Is there a problem, Dr. Al-Hashimi?” one of the bald men asks, and Baran wants to rip out her hair at the butchering of her name even after two years of her fronting the ER.

“Al-Hash-ih-mee,” she corrects, eyes already flipping through the next application. “Once again, it doesn’t rhyme with ‘creamy.’ I spelled phonetically on my application when you hired me, unless none of you actually read it?”

“Baran,” Gloria gasps, head swivelling to her. “Should we all take a break?”

Baran is already standing. “I think that would be wise.”

Gloria and the three men reluctantly stand and automatically move to huddle at the other side of the conference table, but Baran has no interest in debriefing with any of them. She finds the door and shoves it open open-palmed and lets her feet carry her back into the ER. 

Samira winces when they see her. “That bad?”

Baran just shakes her head, both hands running over her head to try and smooth down the hair. “It’s ridiculous. They’re all imbeciles who just want to get another body in here so this can get off their plate. Gloria didn’t even know the qualifications for the role.”

Samira grimaces, turning to survey the pitt. From an outward perspective one probably couldn’t visibly detect how understaffed they are, but ask any patient, any doctor, any nurse. They’re drowning. “What, is she suggesting we lower the requirements?” Baran huffs a laugh. “No. I won’t stand for that. They’re all just lazy, as I said, and aren’t actually interested in hiring someone with the same talent as—”

She swallows your name sourly.

Samira sighs, allowing their weight to rest against the wall as they tuck their chart under their arm. “I still can’t believe Y/N is gone. Trin and I have texted her probably no less than twenty times each asking her to get drinks or something but it’s been radio silence.”

Baran intentionally doesn’t display her surprise. “Oh, really? Nothing? What about with Javadi?”

“Nothing either,” Samira shrugs. “I can’t tell if she blocked all of us or got a new phone or what. I just hope she’s okay, finding a new job right now has to be a bitch.” 

Samira pauses, eyes going wide, “I mean—”

“I don’t care if you curse, Samira,” Baran sighed, “I agree with you. It can’t be easy.”

“Just, like, did we ever get a reason? Did she seriously just Irish goodbye all of us?”

Baran’s phone buzzes with a text from Gloria, already, asking if she’s calmed down enough to ‘revisit the agenda.’ Baran scans over the incoming admits out of some mildly masochistic hope someone will come in injured enough to offer her an excuse to ditch. But the ER, probably just to spite her, is relatively calm.

She tucks her phone away. “Y/N had personal leave. She was entitled.” 

“Sure, sure,” Samira nods. “It just doesn’t seem like her. But, maybe I didn’t know her very well.”

No, Baran thinks, maybe I didn’t either. 

ꕥ

"My lot is descending a lonely staircase to something rotting and falling apart in its exile."

You don’t have enough money to leave Pittsburgh entirely and take root somewhere new, but you have enough self-respect to know you cannot work at PTMC anymore.

Maybe it was stupid think you ever could’ve. You know yourself well enough to know how it would have grated on you, trying to balance the line between Baran as a boss and Baran as a lover. There’s a power dynamic there that you can’t ignore as much as you love her. Or, loved. Whatever. 

The past two weeks since you left PTMC have not been fun. The first three nights Baran came to your apartment and knocked for thirty minutes straight, but you just put in your airpods and blasted music and waited her out. You knew she wouldn’t stay forever because her maternal instincts would pull her back to her son, and sure enough she’d always be gone by 9. 

The fourth night you printed out a piece of paper that said “WARNING: AGGRESSIVE DOG ON PROPERTY, WILL BITE!” and slapped it on your apartment door. The millisecond you heard her first knock you pulled up a 30 minute long “angry dogs barking” video on YouTube and used that to drown her out. She stopped trying to talk to you in-person after that.

But Baran hasn’t stopped messaging you. Oh, no. Every day you wake up to at least five emails from her to your work email (you’ve blocked her number over text, no clue how she found out.) Usually two of them are long-winded pleas for you to come back to PTMC. A couple others are forwarded notices of another hospital’s job opening. Occasionally she’ll send a link to a government benefit, a detailed infographic on how to collect unemployment, a PDF of a peer-reviewed article about the psychological effects of job loss. Sometimes it’s as simple as “I hope you’re okay. Let me know if you need anything.” Those ones you delete with a shaking finger. 

It’s patronizing and oppressive but also painful because you can picture her perfectly, hip against her marble counter in the early mornings, head half-tilted to make sure Kaveh is brushing his teeth, shaky thumbs tapping out message after message out of worry. She doesn’t want you to sink. She doesn’t know if you already have.

You watch the bubbles accumulate from Donnie, Dana, and Perlah who always signs off her messages with a “heart, P & P” so you know Princess is fretting over you too. Those you answer. Nurses look out for nurses, and you know whatever you say to them won’t be passed along.

Most of Dana’s messages are light-hearted and easy. She offers to smuggle you back in, give you a haircut and dye your hair and give you a nose piercing (she reveals she had one in her teenage years, she’ll send you a photo if you come back) so that Baran won’t spot you. They’ll give you a kickass pseudonym witness-protection style. All you have to do is come home.

You answer her always, but refuse and refuse. Eventually, Dana’s messages dwindle.

Samira and Trinity you aren’t as quick to answer. You’re close in age, you’ve gotten drinks with them a few times, and Trinity introduced you to your favorite gay bar so you’ll always owe her for that. But it’s more likely than not that Baran sent them and you aren’t willing to take any chances. You’re not giving Baran a back channel into your life. 

After the third week you get accepted into UPMC Mercy, center of the city, level one trauma center. Their scrubs are nicer and their ED is better staffed and they give you a lot of command. The staff is friendly and you like the charge nurse and the chief attending is a similarly strong-willed woman, firm but kind, but you’re mercifully not in love with her. It’s almost, almost perfect.

ꕥ

"My lot is a gloomy stroll in a grove of memories, and dying from longing for a voice that says: I love your hands."

“Fuck, he’s losing too much too fast,” Langdon is panting, stuffing more gauze into the patient’s open chest. “I think I nicked something on the way in, his breath sounds are diminished on the left. Do we go FAST exam?”

“Yes, someone get the ultrasound,” Baran orders, rounding the bed in a rush, gloves snapping on, gown being tied behind her neck. “It’s either tension pneumo or hemothorax. Langdon, get the packing out of his chest.” 

He obeys and the blood comes faster, pooling in current up and out of the chest cavity and all over the floor. It just pumps and pumps and pumps.

“Jesus fuck,” Trinity whines, “This guy is gonna crash like this. Two units won’t even touch this.”

“So we call for more than two units,” Baran calls back, probe pressing into the man’s chest. “Can someone get on that?” “I’ve got it,” Samira rushes to the phone, dodging body after body to the corner. There are so many goddamn people in the room. 

Baran remembers you beside her during cases like these. You'd have already had the pressure bag primed. You'd have caught her eye once and jerked your head for which end you were gonna take so she wouldn't have to spend breath asking.

If the case went well you would’ve been grinning luminously with a slightly sweaty-face and you would’ve high-fived her because you found it so funny to watch her awkwardly lift her hand to receive it. Then you’d have ridden her ass about it for at least the next hour, because “you make such a weird face whenever I do this, B,” and she’d jokingly pout for the sake of the bit even though she really wasn’t sure what expression one was supposed to wear when being high-fived. 

She would’ve watched you giggle and ride the adrenaline high, and she too would’ve been consumed by the sheer joy that pulsed out of you. She would’ve waited thirty minutes until she was certain no eyes were on the two of you. She would’ve pulled you aside and kissed that grinning face and invited you over for dinner, and she knows you would’ve gotten that twinkly look of smug satisfaction in your eyes from the proof that she liked you and you would’ve said yes.

“Where the hell is CT surg?” 

“Who the hell cares about CT surg right now? We can tell something fucked him up, we need to stop the bleed.”

“Langdon, Santos, not now,” Baran snaps. “We need to get a chest tube in. Trinity, eyes up.” 

The resident snaps-to immediately and rushes to Baran’s side and the tube goes in, and the blood rushes up into it fast and just keeps on filling. It hits six hundred mils easily and just keeps pouring. 

Someone needs to be calling the blood bank, he’ll need a central line, he’ll need to go to the OR, he needs—

“Can someone get Y/N in here?” Baran hears herself beg, overwhelmed, and then she freezes. She physically feels all eyes slide and stay on her as everyone waits.

“Perlah, I meant,” she breathes. “Or Jesse, or Donnie. Whoever’s available. Just someone get me a nurse, please.”

Perlah and Princess fly in probably forty seconds later and immediately jump in. They’re magnificent, and so are Frank and Samira and Trinity, and somehow they keep the man on the cot from pumping out all of the blood in his body onto the floor of the room.

Baran's hands are red to the wrist in the aftermath. Absurdly she thinks of a softer set of hands. It’s not hard to recall the feeling of hard-earned callouses against the apples of her cheeks. The unique feeling of skin, of tracing your current-like veins up the length of your arms to where they disappear under your palms, imagining the life running under your skin where she would press. She really had you in the palm of her hand. 

Well, that sounds awful. She means it as tenderly as one can; her memory tilts toward you even now, how she was able to feel the proof of your living body under the press of a finger. She means it the way only a doctor can means it, because she understood that was the ultimate responsibility and because you were young, and breakable, and irreplaceable. You were so beautifully alive in her hands, and now you were gone.

ꕥ

"I plant my hands in the garden soil— I will sprout, I know, I know, I know. And in the hollow of my ink-stained palms swallows will make their nest."

This is my lot. 

There is an apartment on the fifth floor of an apartment building on the West End of Pittsburgh with no air conditioning to which she used to have the key. There is a closet in the main bedroom where she used to change into pajamas and crawl into your bed.

This is my lot.

Twice a week she reads a discharge folder from a hospital she doesn’t work at. There is a man at Mercy who owes her nothing, who only answers because she once saved his sister's life several years back. He reports you are doing well, the best hire they have had in years, and she reads it at the kitchen counter and thinks, maybe I’ll try to text her again.

This is my lot.

Voicemails she has recorded and re-recorded, voicemails she has shakily sent. Saved or deleted, she’ll never know which. A needle sliding under skin and pushing in its desperate medicine is all they were, a last-ditch attempt to revive a thing long-dead.

A life does not end because a body, however beautiful, has been lost. She likes to think of it like heat, that beauty migrates and evolves, moves to one and the next and warms each and all. That beauty must be tilled to be found, turned up the way a dark clod of earth will split open to show the pale root threading through it, the smallest, wet proof of life. 

How specific of a pain it is to know you held something beautiful in both hands and felt it warm within your palms, and now your palms are just palms again. To know a life opened itself up for you and beckoned you in, and you turned it away. 

Come morning, Baran will lean against her counter again. Her son will still turn on the vibrating tooth brush and hold it still until her head pops in and tells him to do it right. Her fingers will find her keyboard as always, pressing that pale root into the dark, and she’ll send you something more. Hope remains in her like that little bird, some poet once compared it, and she thinks maybe that’s a little beautiful too. Maybe the hope is enough. Maybe this time, you’ll reply. 

end notes: did we catch that emily dickinson reference :D i know this isn't the style that i usually write but this is actually my favorite style to write in. so depending on what you guys think maybe i'll dip into these nachos more...

masterlist

[lycheepocketwitch]

i don’t usually read hurt no comfort but i love ur writing so much i had to read this🥹

baran is so down bad even tho she doesnt wanna admit it my god😭😭😭 R sticking to her fences (and lowkey losing it with the dog barking LMFAO) gives me life hell yeah girl dont let her walk all over you !!

this was a beautiful read ty for sharing🫶🏻🫶🏻

[sprinklemoafi]

is she capable of not being the most bambi eyed angel princess ??

[as-syllable-from-sound]

okay imagine this.. reader x baran again from me.. they start dating towards the end of baran’s time at the ptmc and they agree that once it’s over they’ll become official and then baran takes a permanent job there and ends things with readers and it’s a whole bunch of angst, yearning, and arguing and what not..

nothingman, pt. 1 (baran al hashimi x reader) ˚₊· ͟͟❥ wc: 3.7k

tags: heavy heavy heavy angst, fighting, reader is PISSSSSED, hurt no comfort, nurse!reader, boss!baran, age gap but its legal obv, medical inaccuracies, baran's son mentioned!

note: we are so back. this was such a yummy request thank you thank you thank you for sending it!! this also isn’t beta read so if you see errors just scroll🥹

Technically, you and Baran Al-Hashimi are nothing. She is not your girlfriend. You are not hers. You would be reaching, probably, to even call her a friend.

But you have had a grand total of seven dinners together since Baran first came to PTMC. All of them were at restaurants on the far periphery of the city alternating between Uzbek, Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Szechuan, and once—out of some perverse sense of irony—a French-Vietnamese bistro in a strip mall wedged between a tanning salon and a place that only serves bubble tea. 

Each restaurant was chosen by the older attending. At first, you kinda just assumed she was just a really big foodie, or just had a taste for the kind of garish decor and laminated menus those kinds of restaurants always had.

It took you until the third dinner, in a Kurdish place lit only by tea candles, to finally understand why Baran had never suggested anywhere closer to the hospital, or her neighborhood, or even central Pittsburgh: Baran is the acting department head; you are her employee.

Come March, you'll no longer be her direct report. But for now, even the implication of fraternization is enough to set off the rumor mill, not to mention the inexorable march of the Title IX committee armed with a constitution of policies, some of which you have memorized. 

Suffice to say, you're content with the arangment. You can play the part of the pretty little secret if it means getting seated across from Baran in a family-run restaurant where no one knows your last name, let alone what you’re doing there together.

Maybe it’s cowardice. You never ask for more than what Baran offers. When she cancels, you say “of course,” and when she texts you at midnight after three weeks of silence, you take an Uber across town without asking why. You have only spent the night together once, and even then, Baran was up before you, fully dressed, drinking coffee at the window and writing something long and complicated in a small, battered notebook. She did not try to explain. You did not try to understand.

Despite all the secretiveness, dinners with Baran are a truly lovely affair. She's attentive and never checks her phone, lets you order whatever you want, entertains your performative bicker over the check before picking it up with a firm glance. She walks you to your car after and waits for the text that you made it home, and in October, in the stairwell of the parking structure on the north side of the hospital, on a completely ordinary Wednesday night, she kissed you and then stood there afterward with her forehead against yours, eyes closed, not saying anything, just breathing.

You have been waiting for March since October. You're three weeks out.

She texts you on a Wednesday afternoon: Are you free Sunday? There's somewhere I'd like to take you.

Of course you're typing out and sending yes before you've finished reading it. The attention to punctuation and capitalization would make you shit your pants if the message was from anyone else, but that's just how Baran talks, and by extension, types. You've gotten used to the formality of it all by now.

Sunday comes and she's at your door in dark trousers and a coat that probably cost more than your rent, and she smiles when she sees you.

"Hi," you breathe, a giddy smile on your face. "Sorry, I just have to grab my shoes and we're good to go."

"Take your time," she encourages easily, but she doesn't step into the threshold of your doorway. You shoot her a look.

"I'm not diseased, I promise," you joke, still light, still high on the anticipation of spending an evening with the beautiful doctor, but your smile fades when she just tilts her head and doesn't enter.

You pause, give her a chance to come in. She doesn’t. 

"Okayyy," you say slowly, slipping on your slides. "Well, nevermind. I'm ready. Let's go."

She takes you to a wine bar twenty minutes from the hospital. You sit across from each other in low lighting and dutifully do the first-fifteen-minutes-of-a-date thing, the catching up, the small careful questions. A server comes. Baran orders sparkling waters for you both. 

You look at her, tracking those careful hands once the bottle comes and she’s pouring it into two glasses for you both. She'd ordered you a glass of something you hadn't even known you wanted in September and gotten it exactly right, and tonight she is ordering sparkling water? 

You feel a wave of nerves crash over you and it’s then you notice how weird the restaurant she’s chosen is. It can hardly qualify as such, it’s more of a bar. Every other patron is in a suit, but not a date night suit, business attire. They all look like lawyers and bankers. There’s not a couple in sight, no candle-lit intimacy. People seem like they’re coming here for deals. 

You swallow. "No drinking tonight?”

"Early morning tomorrow."

Her fingers press white against the glass, the knuckles bloodless, and you watch her look at the table instead of you. The nothing taste of having not eaten enough today sits at the back of your throat, sharp and hollow as your tongue finds the inside of your cheek nervously.

"Baran—" you start.

"There's something I need to tell you," she says, at the same time.

Baran wraps both hands around the glass and you watch her do it.

"They've offered me the permanent position," she says. "Full-time department head. I accepted on Friday."

The chair beneath you is the kind that looks comfortable and completely isn’t, the hard edge of the seat digging into the backs of your thighs, your vertebrae, sending a painful twinge up your back.

You blink. “I’m sorry?”

"I wanted to tell you in person. I thought—" She stops, looking down at her hands. "I thought we should talk about it."

"When did they come to you?"

She pauses and takes a deep breath. "There had been some preliminary conversations. Back in October."

Your brain helpfully supplies a mental calendar of October: the forehead against yours, her eyes closed, one minute, two minutes, the promise of March was in October, the first dates, if that’s even what you can call them. 

"Preliminary conversations?" you repeat, voice rising.

"Nothing was decided then," she says quickly, and there's something almost pleading in it. "I swear, Y/N, it was just conversations. Feeling things out. I didn't know if I was even going to take it."

"But you knew it was a possibility."

"Yes." She looks pained. "Yes, I knew it was a possibility."

"Regardless, did you think I didn't need to know that?"

"I didn't know what to say." She leans forward, and you can see the tension in her shoulders. "I was trying to figure it out. The job, us, all of it. I didn't want to worry you about something that might not even happen."

"Worry me?" You stare at her. "Baran, we were—I thought we were—"

"I know." She reaches across the table like she might take your hand, then stops. "I know what you thought. What we both thought. But this position—it's permanent. It's stability for me and for my son. I can't just—" She stops, frustrated. "You don't understand the pressure I'm under."

"Then help me understand, Baran."

"You're young," she says, and it lands wrong immediately. You watch her realize it, watch her try to backtrack. "I don't mean that as—I just mean you're in a different place. You don't have a child depending on you. You don't have—" She stops. "This job is everything. It's my career. My son's tuition. Our health insurance. I can't risk that for—"

She doesn't finish the sentence. Doesn't say for you. But you both hear it.

"So what was I, then?" Your voice comes out smaller than you want it to. "Just something you were trying out until you got what you actually wanted?"

"No." She looks genuinely distressed now. "No, that's not it. Y/N, I care about you. I do. But I have to be realistic about what I can afford to lose."

"And I'm not worth losing anything for?”

"That's not what I'm saying." Her voice rises slightly, defensive. "You're twisting this into something it's not. I made a career decision, a good one at that, one I had to make. The fact that it affects us doesn't mean I was trying to hurt you."

"But you knew it would,” you reply. “You had to know it would.”

She's quiet for a moment. "I knew it would complicate things."

"Complicate." You laugh, and it sounds bitter even to your own ears. "Yeah, okay.”

"I said if circumstances changed—"

"But you knew they weren't going to change!" Your voice breaks. "You knew in October that they weren't going to change, so why the fuck would you dangle that in front of me to begin with?”

"I wasn’t certain!" She's getting frustrated now, you can hear it. "I was trying to see if there was a way to make both things work. I didn't lie to you, Y/N. I just—I didn't know what to do."

"So you did nothing."

"I did what I had to do." There's an edge to her voice now. "I made the choice that made sense for my life. I'm sorry if that hurts you, but I can't—" She stops, takes a breath. "I can't put my entire future on hold for a relationship that might not even work out."

You gape at her. “Do you really — do you seriously have that little faith in me? Do you trust me that little?”

“Can you let me talk? You’re not being fair.”

"I'm not being fair?" You stare at her. "Baran, I have been waiting for you since October. Don’t pretend you don’t know that’s true because I’ve told you that, and you’ve kept taking me out on dates, and—" Your voice cracks. "And you've known the entire time that it was never going to happen."

“I was trying to figure out if there was a way—"

"There wasn't." You pick up your bag. "And you knew that. You just didn't want to tell me."

"Y/N, please—" She reaches for you, and you pull back.

"I need to go."

"Can we talk about this?" she huffs. “Y/N, come on.”

"I think you've said everything you needed to say." You stand up, and your hands are shaking. "Congratulations on the position."

You watch something in her face go through a door and shut. She doesn't try to stop you and doesn’t follow you out.

When you glance back through the window, she's still sitting there, staring at her untouched water.

—

You show up Monday because you have to show up Monday, because Baran Al-Hashimi is your department head now, permanently, indefinitely, and the department doesn't know what happened in a wine bar on Sunday. The department just needs you there, so you are there. 

She doesn't treat you differently. She keeps with your last name in briefings, first name in the hallway, she defers to your clinical judgment when it's relevant, and you have no idea what it costs her and you are not going to ask. You have learned how to stop asking things. You should be given something for it.

Three weeks in she falls into step beside you between the supply room and the east corridor and says how are you doing.

"Fine," you say.

"You don't seem fine."

You completely ignore that, turning toward the nursing station where you can see Trinity and Dennis talking to Robby. You know Baran won’t do anything with an audience. 

Predictably, she stops several feet away, grabbing your arm to get you to stop too.

"I'm not trying to—" She stops. "I'm asking because I want to know."

"I frankly don’t care what you want,” you reply face intentionally void of emotion. “Please let go of my arm.”

"Y/N, I know you’re upset," she says, all quiet, big eyes trailing over your face. She drops your arm cautiously as if testing to see if you’ll dart. "I don’t want you hurting.”

"That’s not how it works,” you shoot back, “I’m trying to do my job without letting this get in the way, so how about you grow the fuck up and do yours.”

Baran’s eyes go a bit wide at that, plush lips dropping open as she scans your face in shock. “You're being entirely unfair."

You bark out a laugh. "That’s rich.”

"I never promised you a relationship, Y/N."

You stare at her. "Seriously?"

"I promised you that if circumstances changed, we could explore one."

"And are those oh-so different to you?” Baran straightens up. “Yes, Y/N! Those are two very different things!”

"So what line are you drawing between them? What, you'd keep me on a leash? Just far away enough so you could test out if you were actually willing to be with me? What was I to you, Baran, a free trial?"

Baran's expression sharpens immediately.

"No," she says. "And you know that's not what this was.”

"Don't tell me what I know." Your voice rises despite yourself. "You don't get to decide what this feels like from my side. You don't get to spend months building something with me and then act shocked when I have a reaction to finding out you've been making plans I wasn't even aware existed!”

"I’m more surprised by how determined you are to interpret everything in the worst possible faith!"

"The worst possible faith?" you repeat. "You sat across from me in that bar and told me you'd known since October there was a possibility you'd stay. October. Do you understand how insane that sounds to me now?"

"You are an adult," Baran says, voice clipped now. "With your own agency. I did not manipulate you into developing expectations."

You take a step closer before you can stop yourself. "Oh, sure, you just conveniently benefited from them, right?"

“Y/N—”

“Fuck all the way, off, Baran,” you snap. “You’re my boss permanently now, remember? So unless it’s for work, leave me the hell alone.”

—

April arrives, March bleeds out. The two of you are still in the same building, in the same department, wearing the same laminate badges in the same fluorescent light, and all the waiting was for nothing, has soured into a cold-hard nothing, and will stay that way. It sits in a lump in the corner and rots, rots, rots. 

—

It’s Lena Handzo, the night shift’s charge nurse, who tells you that Dr. Al-Hashimi turned down a conference in Boston last month. 

"Said she couldn't leave the department for that long," Lena says, eyebrows raised and smirking, and you make a noncommittal sound go back to your work. 

Lena frowns. “What’s up with you? You love gossiping with me.”

“Long week,” you reply sympathetically, not looking up from your computer. “I’m behind on my logs, too, and if I hear one more Attending bark up my ass I think I’ll just have to quit.” Lena tsks. “Let’s not do that.”

“I won’t, if I can get these done,” you say. “Thanks for the update, Handzo.”

She nods, patting your shoulder. “Honey, you know it’s my pleasure. I’ll see if I can keep everyone off your back.”

You are still thinking about it three hours later when Baran spawns right behind your swivel chair. You smell her before you see her, something deep and earthy and vaguely antiseptic and painfully recognizable. 

"Do you have a patient in bay seven?" she asks.

"Doctor Mohan has a patient in bay seven," you reply shortly. “I’m just assisting.”

"Do you want me to take a look?"

"Suit yourself.”

You hear the sharp intake of breath behind you. You imagine her power stance, hands clasped behind the lululemon, the curls that couldn’t quite be contained with the claw clip. You fight every animal instinct that begs you to turn around and snarl. You imagine you must look like an animal on edge, ears perked up in attention, waiting for a sign that she’s gone—

"I heard you covered the Delgado case this morning," she says.

Your eyes stay trained on the keyboard, fingers pressing the keys, clicking one, then another, then another. "I did."

"That was above and beyond. You didn't have to stay for that."

“Well, I did.”

"I believe it turned into a twelve-hour shift," she says. "You were only scheduled for eight."

"Mhm.”

She is quiet for a moment. "Are you sleeping?”

“Are you meant to be asking me that, Dr. Al-Hashimi?”

"I'm asking as someone who—" She stops. Recalibrates. "Yes. As your department head. Who notices when staff are working themselves into the ground."

"Then I appreciate your concern for my wellness." The words come out flat, professional, empty. "I'll make sure to log my hours appropriately."

"That's not what I—"

"Perlah," you call out, louder than necessary, swiveling your chair just enough to address the nursing station without looking at Baran. "Would you pass along the updated labs for bay seven when you get a chance?"

Perlah glances up, then past you to where Baran is standing. Her eyes flicker with confusion before she nods. "Sure thing."

You turn back to your screen. Baran hasn't moved.

"You look exhausted," she says quietly. Too quietly for anyone else to hear over the ambient noise of the station—Dennis on the phone, Trinity’s keyboard clicking, the distant beep of monitors.

"I'm fine."

"You're not. You look exhausted."

"With respect, Dr. Al-Hashimi, I don't think my appearance is really—"

"Y/N." Her voice has an edge now. "Stop.”

"Stop what?"

Her jaw tightens. "This little pity party. As your department head—"

"Already pulling rank? How's that working out for you, by the way? The career move, I mean. Worth it?"

"That's not—"

"Because you look tired too, if we're doing wellness checks." You tilt your head, examining her with clinical detachment. "Actually, while we’re on topic, when's the last time you slept?"

Something flashes across her face. Hurt, maybe. Good.

"We are not doing this here," she says, ice chilling her voice.

"Doing what? Having a conversation? Isn't that what you wanted?" You turn back to your screen. "Or did you just want me to say 'yes ma'am, thank you ma'am' and make you feel better about—"

"Watch yourself." Her voice drops, sharpens. "I understand you're tired, but you need to watch your tone right now."

"Or what?" You spin around. "You’re gonna put something in my file?" You're talking faster now, the words tumbling out. "You already have access to that anyway, so—"

"I said that's enough." Her voice is quiet. Deadly quiet. Samira has definitely stopped typing. "You're not in a state to be here right now. Go home."

That catches your attention. You gape at her.

"I have four hours left on my—"

"I'm aware of your schedule." Each word is precisely placed. "As your boss, I am telling you to go home. Clock out. Leave."

"On what grounds?"

"Because you're exhausted, acting immature, and you're disrespecting your superior in front of the entire station. This is not a discussion. Go home before I have to make this official.”

The worst part is she's right, to some degree. But what cuts is the way she is using the position, the authority, the thing she chose over you—to send you away. To protect herself. To prove that she can.

"Fine." You stand up too fast, chair rolling backward. "Anything else, Dr. Al-Hashimi?"

Something flickers across her face. But her voice stays steady. "No. That's all, Y/N."

You grab your bag. You don't look at Perlah. You don't look at anyone.

You definitely don't look at Baran as you walk past her toward the exit.

But you feel her watching you leave.

—

"Dr. Al-Hashimi? Can I borrow you for a second?"

"Of course." Baran doesn't look up immediately. She finishes the lab she's reviewing, hands it off to Langdon, sets down her pen. Baran follows the woman who she is slowly recognizing as Melissa from HR three steps away from the station, just far enough that the noise covers their voices.

"We received a resignation letter this afternoon," Marissa says. "Effective immediately. I wanted to let you know before processing it."

"Who?"

Marissa says your name.

Baran goes very still. "What?"

"It was submitted about two hours ago,” Melissa supplies. "It surprised me too. But I just wanted to check if there were any performance issues we should document, or if—"

"No." Too fast. "No, nothing like that. She’s—she’s an excellent nurse."

Marissa nods slowly. "Okay. Then I'll process it. We'll need to arrange an exit interview, but given the circumstances—"

"Yes. Fine. Whatever the protocol is."

Marissa hesitates, blinking at the tone. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. Thank you for letting me know." Baran's already turning back toward the nursing station. “Excuse me."

She beelines down the east corridor, past the supply room, into the medication room at the end. It's empty. She closes the door.

Her hands are shaking. She presses her palms flat against the counter and tries to breathe. 

She pulls out her phone, fingers hovering over your name in her contacts. She hasn't texted you in weeks, the most recent message still the invitation for dinner, and your eager response with its exclamation points and little beaming emojis.

She types: What are you doing? You're throwing your career away over this? You worked so hard to get here.

She stares at the words, thinks about nursing school, the late nights you told her about, the clinical rotations, the NCLEX. How proud you were when PTMC hired you. How much this job means to you.

Her thumb hovers over the send button.

She presses it.

masterlist

[lycheepocketwitch]

sooooo good holy shit !!

listen R is pissed (rightfully so) and acting a lil “unfairly” with baran, but like what did baran expect really?😭 even if we look at this by giving her the benefit of the doubt abt not planning for this outcome/“leading her on”, when she invited R out to the wine bar, she was basically there to break things off.😭😭 either that or suggest they keep it lowkey indefinitely, which sounds worse…

anyways can’t wait for the next part :P hope these idiots in love figure it out

[as-syllable-from-sound]

you come around, i'm ruined (baran al-hashimi x wife!reader) wc: 4k .ೃ࿔* this is the part of loving a doctor nobody warns you about: the missed dinners, the late nights, the absence. you miss your wife even when she's around you. you miss her more when she's not.

tags: domestic arguing, angst, communication issues, kind of bad!wife baran but also deeply stressed out and overworked baran, established relationship, married, 80% hurt 20% comfort, probably the most out of character i've ever written baran but angry angst isn't my strong suit so bear with me

note: this was in fact based on an ask but i can't find it :(( shout out to whoever requested this!!

It's nearing ten o'clock when you finally hear the tell-tale signs of Baran slotting her key into your apartment door. It opens and Baran comes in bringing the cold with her, the cold air swirling into the semi-heat of your apartment.

The heat’s been weird all week (it’s barely working in your home, in the hallways and in the lobby it isn’t working at all) and it only grates on your already poor mood that Baran keeps the door open as she shrugs off her coat and slides off her shoes when she could have closed the door first. It doesn’t make you any happier that she doesn’t call out your name, or even announce that she’s home. She enters as a mute.

You watch her come around the corner, eyes adjusting to the dimness of the apartment that you keep luminated strictly with candles and warm-toned-lightbulbed lamps. Brown eyes sweep across the table, the food. You, sitting there.

"Hi," she says, a little out of breath, a little surprised. It pisses you off even more. Why should she be surprised that you made dinner? You always make dinner. She’s going to come home two hours late and act like it’s out of the ordinary for you to go out of your way to welcome her home?

"Hello," you reply shortly, stabbing at your room-temperature asparagus forcefully, pushing it into your mouth without even looking at her.

"....It smells great in here,” she tries, setting her bag down on the counter slowly. The hair on the back of her neck sticks up as she senses your terrible mood. “I sent you a message."

You glance at your phone. The screen is still dark, as it has been for the last two hours. "That’s weird, because I didn't get it."

She pulls her own phone out and frowns at it, pressing something. A beat later yours buzzes on the table. You look at the time stamp: nine forty-one. Six minutes ago. Running behind. Don't wait up.

You scoff at it, tossing your phone back down on the table where it clatters noisily. Baran raises an eyebrow at your petulance, already unimpressed.

"What?"

"Well, it’s not really helpful to send a message when you’re six minutes away from home when I’ve already been ‘waiting up,’"

you say. Baran makes a throaty sound, pulling her hair tie loose from her hair, letting her curls, messy from a long shift, tumble down her back.

"I know. I'm sorry. We had a stroke victim and a polytrauma back to back and it just—"

"Compounded?" you supply.

Her hands come behind her back, fingers laced in that formal, slightly braced posture she gets. "Yes."

"Right."

You push back from the table and pick up your plate, crossing to the kitchen. Your food has gone so cold that there’s a chill condensation on all your vegetables, so you won’t even try with the microwave. Plus, the action gives you somewhere to go and something to do while the thing you're not saying works its way up your throat. You scrape the plate into the bin.

Behind you, you hear Baran open the refrigerator. The soft sound of a container being taken out followed by the microwave door. This is the part where you're supposed to ask her how her day was, where you welcome her home with softness and care, where she stands at the counter with leftovers and you sit on the other side and she tells you the anonymized, de-identified version of her day and you tell her about yours.

"You could've called," you say instead, to the sink.

She hums the same pitch as the microwave. "I’m sorry, I know."

"Before nine-forty-one, I mean."

"I know." A tightening in it. "It was a busy shift."

"They're all busy shifts, Baran."

The microwave beeps one high tone, followed by several staccato notes that are piercing and annoying as fuck, but neither of you move to kill it.

"What does that mean?" she asks, tone inviting conversation. She's being careful. You turn around. Baran’s standing at the counter with her arms crossed and her food forgotten in the microwave. Her face is wearing the same careful open invitation but careful blankness she brings to patient rooms and team meetings and it makes your blood boil that she dares to shut down her emotions at you.

"Don’t do that," you huff, "You know what I’m talking about. It’s always a busy shift. I have been eating dinner alone at that table for three weeks and you don't — you didn't even — you didn't call! You didn't text until six minutes ago. I didn't know if you were even okay."

Baran's jaw tightens. "I'm clearly okay."

"No shit, I can see that now." You gesture at her. "Don’t patronize me. I didn't know that at seven o'clock!"

"You know what my job is," she says. "You've always known what my job is."

"I know." And you do and have never once asked her to be anything other than what she is. But it feels like she’s issuing a reminder and it sinks under your skin in a way you can't talk yourself back from tonight. "I'm not asking you to quit your job, Baran. I'm asking you to send your wife a goddamn text when you're going to be two hours late."

"I sent you a text!"

"When you were basically already home!"

"I was in a trauma bay before then, Y/N!"

"You weren't in a trauma bay from five-thirty to nine-forty, when you could've—"

"I was managing a department," she cuts you off and you can hear the cold settling in, the temperature dropping in her affect as she start to feel cornered. "I was covering for a resident who called out, handling a consult that should have taken twenty minutes and took ninety, and then yes, a trauma at seven. So no. I didn't have time to provide a running update on my whereabouts."

"A text. One text. At some point before nine forty-one."

"I'm sorry I didn't send it sooner." Offered the way she'd offer a concession across a conference table.

"Are you?" you ask.

The blankness falters. "What?"

"Are you actually sorry? Because you sound like you think I'm being unreasonable and are just saying that to get me off of your back."

"I think," she says, and you can hear the aggravation rising in her voice, "That you understand the demands of my job, and that we've had this conversation a thousand times!" "

“That's kind of my whole thing, Baran! We keep having it!"

Baran's chin comes up a fraction in indignation. You've learned to read her the way you learn the layout of a house you live in, the places where the floor dips, the light switch that's around the corner instead of beside the door. That small upward tilt of her chin means she's about to defend herself. "I am doing the best I can," she says. "I work twelve, sometimes fifteen hour shifts in a department that is chronically understaffed and I come home to you every night—"

"Oh, right, I’m sorry that that’s such a chore.”

Her eyes swarm with anger and confusion. "That is not at all what I just said."

"Pretty damn close to it though, no? This is a thing you do for me? On my behalf?"

"I was not—" She stops. Presses her lips together. When she speaks again the careful management is fraying at the edges, like she's having to hold the even tone with both hands. "I was making the point that I show up. Every single night I'm here."

"Congratulations that you come back to your home to your wife," you snap. "Oh my god! What the fuck was that even supposed to mean!? You come home to the life you set up and you're pissed about it?"

"Y/N—"

"It doesn’t actually count because you're not even here."

Baran's eyes flash red. "You keep just throwing that type of shit out. What is that supposed mean? Use your actual words!"

"I sit across from you at dinner and ask you how your day was and you give me bullshit," you cry out, hands flying up. "You don’t trust me to help you carry any of it so you dumb it down. And take out names because you don’t trust me to hold them. I ask you about your co-workers and your friends and your highlights only for you to give me shit because you don’t want me to know them! You keep your whole job in a separate room and then wonder why I feel like I'm on the outside of your life."

She stares at you incredulously, eyes darting around your face as if looking for a sign you’re kidding. "Y/N, I am legally and ethically obligated to protect my patients' privacy.”

"I know what HIPAA is, Baran."

"Then you know I cannot come home and narrate my shift to you! I am not ‘keeping my job in a separate room’ from you. I have professional standards to maintain that exist for very good reasons."

You scoff and watch a stronger kind of anger wash over her face. “It does, Y/N!"

"I'm not asking for patient files when I ask you to tell me about your day." The shaking starts somewhere in your hands, but quickly reaches your voice. "I just want to hear about you because I fucking miss my wife. You come to bed after I'm asleep and you're gone before I'm up. I miss you, Baran. When you're right here I miss you."

Baran stays silent and you feel your stomach turn with rage and sickness. "Say something, Baran."

"I don't know what you are looking from me right now,” her voice trembles. "You want me to tell you things I can't tell you, and when I find a way to protect the people in my care while still coming home to you every night, you tell me I'm not present enough? What's the right answer? I've already cut down my hours. What exactly else am I supposed to be doing differently?"

"I know you're trying," you say. "I know you work incredibly hard, Baran, I see it. I have never once asked you not to, but there's a difference between being busy and making me feel like the last thing on your list."

Her face drops from frustration to hurt. You both stand in that narrow kitchen for a few moments, puffing out heated breathes. Baran gets her act back together first.

"Eshgham, you could never be the last thing on my list."

"Baran," you say her name and watch her stop. "When did you last ask me how I was doing? Not how my day was. How I am. When did you last ask me something about my life that wasn't perfunctory just to get through a meal?”

Baran looks at you with something that could be the beginning of understanding, but there’s still something missing from your usually so emotionally intelligent wife. Maybe it’s the late hour or the grueling shift, who’s to say, but you are stunned by what she replies: "I think we need to stop. We’re just exhausted and this is turning into something larger than it is."

You know that she knows that’s a fucked up cop-out. That chin rises again and she squirms (as much as Baran Al-Hashimi ever squirms, anyway) with a little readjustment of her shoulders, a slight turn of her head. You can see her looking at you out of the corner of her eye, watching the first flicker of shock morph onto her face when your eyes start to water.

"Right," you whisper.

"I'm not dismissing you," she adds, eyes going a little softer, a little nervous at your reaction. "I’m just saying we're both tired, and maybe this isn't the right time to talk about this."

"Maybe this isn't the right time to talk about this," you repeat, feeling a humiliating burn rise in your throat. "Uh-huh. You've said that before."

Baran's jaw tightens again, getting defensive. "Because you tend to have these conversations when we're both depleted and nothing productive comes out of it."

"Well you never start them at all! I always have to. And every time you find a reason the timing is wrong, and then the morning comes and you're gone."

Baran scoffs in offense. "That is not what I do."

"You just told me I was making it into something larger than it is," you say, and your voice breaks on it this time, actually breaks, and you hate it, hate that you've gotten here, hate that this is the version of you she gets right now. "You literally just said I’m blowing this out of proportion but you won’t even let me finish."

"I didn't—" she starts.

"Yes you fucking did."

The microwave has been done for ten minutes and the food you made for your wife is getting cold again inside it. You are standing in your kitchen with your wife and you have never felt farther from her than right now.

Baran runs an exhausted hand over her face. "I just came off a twelve-hour shift, I walked in the door ten minutes ago, and—"

"And I've been here all night," you shoot back. "Waiting for you."

"I didn't ask you to do that!"

You gape. You have absolutely no response to that, and she falters at your shock. Those lips part slightly, brown eyes go a bit wider.

You breathe out a laugh. "Wow."

"Hold on. I didn't mean it like that."

"Okay."

"I was just—I'm saying you don't have to wait up—"

"Believe me, I heard you." You reach up and press your fingers against your eyes for a moment, breathe in through your nose, drop your hand and turn away.

"Please, Y/N, just pause for a second," she straightens up to follow you, and it's the most raw she's sounded all night. "I didn't mean that you shouldn't—"

"I know what you meant," you say, picking up your phone and storming out of the kitchen. "I'm going to bed."

"Y/N," she rounds the corner and is immediately on your tail, tone edged with panic. "Wait, please. That was entirely out of line. I cannot believe—I should not have said that. Can we just talk for a few more moments, please?"

"I'm tired." And you are. Past words, past the point of anything useful. "We'll talk in the morning."

You hear the silence behind you. She knows that you've borrowed the line. You go to the hallway and pause at the linen closet, pulling out the extra pillow and the blanket from the top shelf.

"What are you doing?" Baran's voice is upset behind you, thready and raspy.

"Getting some things," you say.

You hear a sniff and see her shadow moving from its reflection on the wall in front of you. She’s either wiping her eyes or anxiously running her fingers through her hair. "Are you not sleeping in our bed?"

You look at her over your shoulder. She's standing closer than you expected with her arms crossed over her chest like she's self-soothing. Her hair is tousled and tangled around her worn face. Her lip is trembling slightly from where she’s moving her mouth around in that familiar fidget you used to soothe with your gentle thumb over her soft lips. The most familiar person in the world to you. But also the most painful right now.

"I think I need some quiet right now," you say.

She opens her mouth and closes it, and it's so unlike her, that small faltering, that your chest aches with it. "Y/N," she whispers, taking a half step toward you. "Please. Don’t— don’t go down the hall.”

“Why not?”

Baran looks crushed that you even have to ask her that. "Because I do not want us to go to bed angry, and I said some very awful things I need to apologize for. That I want to apologize for.”

You purse your lips partially to look tough and partly because if you don’t your bottom lip with quiver again. “So now that I'm threatening to go, you want to be around me?"

Baran’s face crumbles. “I always want to be around you, azizam. That—that was never what this was about. You have to know how much I love you."

It comes out almost like a beg, or maybe bewilderment, like she can't quite fathom that you might have lost the thread of it. "You have to — even tonight, even when I was — you have to know that. Right?"

"I know you love me," you sigh.

She takes another step toward you and then seems to catch herself, she's not sure she's allowed. “I want to be around you. I chose this life with you. I will always choose this life with you,” She swallows her words and it hurts your heart. Baran always knows what she's going to say before she says it. She usually doesn’t hesitate. "I’m sorry. I was just trying to get through the shift and get home and I forgot that getting home isn't the finish line.

Her voice dips into a fragile octave. "You're not just— you're not just the place I land."

You tilt your head, swallowing around the thick, burning clamp in your throat. "But I can be if you’d let me."

Baran shakes her head immediately. “No. I mean you’re so much more than that to me. You're not just some… I don’t know. Soft surface meant to absorb my stress when I need it.”

Her hand comes up and she presses her fingers over her mouth for a second. "That is a horrible thing for me to make you feel," she says softly. "You are the only place I actually want to be. I've done a terrible job of reminding you of that, honey. I am so sorry."

Her eyes hold a wet, heavy brightness. She reaches out, the backs of her fingers dragging high and light against your arm, leaving the exit wide open. She leans in when you don’t pull away, her weight settling against you as she pulls you into her arms, cradling you to her body. The familiar scent of her (hospital sanitizer and the faint, warm amber of her perfume) floats around you. You are exhausted, and you are still so hurt, but Baran exhales—a long, shuddering breath that deflated her entire posture against you:

"I'm so sorry, eshgham. Please, please come to bed with me. At least for a little while. And then after, if you decide you still want to sleep in the guest bedroom, I'll help you set it up."

You pull back just far enough to look her in the eyes, breaking the comfort of the embrace before it could soften you too much. "Okay," you finally say, your voice quiet, flat, and entirely unembellished. "But I need you to know that you’re not just dragging me to bed so we can pretend everything is fine."

Her eyes, dark and pooling with unshed tears, scan your face. The exhaustion was there, but so was the hard line you had just drawn.

"If I come with you, we are dealing with this right now," you insist. "For real."

"Yes," she promises, her voice rough. "I am not looking to dodge this conversation, aziz. All we'll do is talk. I promise."

But promises to talk are cheap, and you know it. She hasn’t promised to actually change her behavior, and the sting of how easily she had brushed your feelings aside for most of the night was still burning. Her fingers slide down your wrist to find your hand, her grip tight and pleading. You don’t squeeze back. You let your hand stay limp in hers.

"I was really lonely tonight, Baran," you say into the dimly lit hallway, "And I feel like I can’t talk to you about that without this happening.”

Baran’s hands come up to cradle your face, tilting it toward what little light there is, like she needs to look directly at the damage she caused. "I am so sorry,” she breathes, eyes full of molten sorrow. “You should never have to navigate my exhaustion just to tell me you miss me.” She’s quiet for a second, biting at her shaking lip. “I don’t think I have said it yet, but I missed you too. I missed you the whole day and the whole drive home and I walked in the door and just—”

“I want to believe you,” you interrupt like a plea, “But, Baran. You couldn’t even send me a check-in message? And now you’re saying you missed me the whole day? I don’t know what to make of that. I don’t know how to believe that.”

Her thumbs are still against your face, so very still that you can see her actually working through it. "I think I compartmentalize in a way that isn't fair to you. I tuck you away somewhere safe in my head while I'm at work so I can get through it."

“But I can’t see that," you defend, "I guess it’s sweet to know you do think about me, but if you just lock it all inside of you, how am I supposed to know about it? You’re asking me to trust something invisible and that just isn’t fair."

Baran closes her eyes for just a second. "I’m sorry," she says. "You’re right. I bring that same containment home to you. That’s—"

"Fucked up?" you suggest.

Baran laughs, watery and lovely and relieved that you're opening up to her once more, even just a little bit. "Yes, very, very fucked up."

Her head tilts down to look at you more directly. You let her do her little analysis. You know that beautiful, brilliant, spinning brain inside that gorgeous head needs a few moments to finish its churning.

You count to ten-mississippi before taping your fingers where they’re still around her neck into the base of her skull. "Talk to me. That’s kinda the whole point here."

She exhales, slow and shaky. "I wasted tonight," she says quietly. "Well. Not just tonight, but I think you know what I mean."

You nod. "I do."

“I am so sorry. You keep making dinner and waiting up and asking me how I am and I just…" her voice goes small, "I took all of it and I gave you nothing back."

Her eyes trial down to your lips and she tilts her head down ever so slightly, telegraphing every micro movement. Her kiss is as soft as rain, meant to reassure and also repent, before she pulls away and continues.

"I have been so careless with you," she whispers into you parted mouth, and her first tears fall. You let fall into your arms. You rub a hand over the bumps of her spine, keep your other hand on the back of her neck.

"Baran," you say, into the side of her head.

"Mm."

You pull back just enough to see her face. Her eyes are wet and raw with an openness she doesn't always let out of its enclosure, and on any other night it would undo you completely. Tonight you hold onto yourself.

"You know I love you more than anything in this entire world, but I'm not doing this again. I can't keep having the same fight and going to bed with the same apology and waking up to nothing having changed. This is — I need you to understand that this is me telling you that I'm running out of road here."

"I understand," she says seriously, squeezing your head.

"Do you?"

Brown eyes meet yours and they do not waver, they do not flinch. They bare themselves completely to you as she replies, firmly: "Yes."

You look at her for a long moment. "Okay," you say finally. "Then come to bed."

໒꒱ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. •

ao3: lieutanttrouble | masterlist

[kakirokero]

Dr. al....?

[alliewrights]

Black Tie

Baran Al-Hashimi x wife!reader

Summary: Baran has always kept her personal life separate from work, life is easier that way. Unfortunately for her, PTMC’s annual gala requires an exception and you’re all-too eager to participate.

CW: fluff, established relationship, traditionally fem reader (reader wears makeup and a dress), possessive!Baran, insecure!Baran, kinda pervy!Baran, obsessed wives, coworkers meet the wife, reader is loved by all, smut (explicit sexual content), top!Baran, semi-public sex, fingering (r!receiving), little bit of a praise kink

WC: 4.3k

A/N: celebrating hitting 1k followers last night with this! My first real Baran piece that isn’t just headcanons 💛 Hope you enjoy!

✿ ───────── ✿ ───────── ✿

“You’re going to make us late if you don’t stop.”

The scold lacks heat, and you can’t even stop yourself from laughing when Baran’s lips find the side of your neck again, your hand pausing hallway through sliding the last pin into your hair.

“Maybe I don’t want to go anymore,” she murmurs against your skin as her hands settle on your waist. 

“You can’t skip,” you snort. “You’re an attending, it looks bad.”

“I’ll call in sick.”

“You’re a doctor.”

“And yet I suddenly feel very unwell.”

That pulls a warm laugh out of you and Baran swears under her breath in Farsi like the sound of it does something to her. Because this right here is why she’s kept you away from the hospital for so long. It’s not because she’s ashamed of you, never that, but rather because she knows what happens to people when they meet you. 

You finally finish with your hair, setting your products down before turning in her arms to face her. “You’re being so weird tonight, what gives?”

Baran sighs through her nose, just a hint of annoyance settling on her face as she looks at you. “I do not want to share you with them tonight, azizam.”

“Your coworkers?”

She nods in confirmation. 

“You don’t want them to meet me?”

Her eyes narrow as her grip on your waist tightens possessively. “I do not want my coworkers looking at my wife.”

The way she says my wife sends heat blooming into your face, and though you try to hide it, you fail miserably. Baran notices immediately and her lips curve up into a smirk, obviously pleased with herself as the tips of your ears tinge.

“You’re blushing.”

“Shut up.”

The drive over is quiet in a comfortable way. The city glows outside the windows of the uber, streaks of gold and white sliding across the glass while music plays through the speakers. Your heels rest against the floorboard, one ankle crossed over the other, and Baran’s hand hasn’t left your thigh since the moment the two of you climbed into the backseat together. Not that you’re complaining, of course.

Downtown is alive tonight. Restaurants are crowded and the sidewalks are busy. And somewhere ahead, towering above the traffic, the convention center comes into view.

You can’t believe hospitals even have galas.

“You know,” you say, “when you first told me about this, I thought it was going to be in, like, a hotel ballroom or something.”

“It usually is,” Baran replies casually.

“Wait, really?”

“The hospital is celebrating some anniversary this year.” Her fingers squish the skin of your thigh beneath your dress. “Apparently they decided to go all out because of it.”

“That explains why the invitation looked like a wedding invite.”

The uber eases to a stop beneath the overhang of the convention center, and the driver bids you both a polite goodnight while Baran helps you out onto the curb with a hand at your waist. The night air is cool on your skin, and you’re suddenly jealous of the long sleeves on Baran’s pantsuit keeping her warm.

People crowd the entrance to the building in clusters of black-tie gowns and tailored suits, and you can hear laughter echoing off marble and glass as the hospital staff filter inside. You recognize a few faces from pictures on Baran’s phone or stories over dinner, but most are strangers in a sea of faces.

Baran stays close to you, her hand on the small of your back as the two of you navigate through the lobby together toward a bank of elevators down a small hallway.

“You okay?” she asks quietly as you wait for an available one.

You turn toward her, your face scrunching in confusion. “Why are you asking me that?”

“Because this is a lot of people in one place and I know how you feel about crowds.”

You purse your lips, but in thoughtfulness rather than upset. “I’m okay. It’ll be better once we’re upstairs, I’m sure.”

The elevator arrives with a soft ding, the doors sliding open. Several other attendees step inside with you, conversations between coworkers overlapping. The fifth floor lights up as you reach it and the doors open to spill the gala out before you in gold.

Chandelier light glitters across floral arrangements and linin-draped cocktail tables. Warm jazz music drift through the massive ballroom beneath towering ceilings, and full-length windows overlook the Pittsburgh skyline. It’s elegant and expensive in a way that only a for-profit hospital could be.

You’re busy taking it all in when a voice catches your attention, even though it isn’t aimed directly at you.

“Dr. Al-Hashimi.”

You can feel Baran sigh next to you.

A woman in an ivory suit approaches with a comfortability that most people don’t have when approaching your wife. She’s older and polished, with nails manicured and decorated in a way that tells you this is not an emergency room doctor, but likely some sort of administrator.

“Gloria,” Baran says politely.

Gloria Underwood, you know that name. Some sort of big wig for the hospital, she interviewed Baran before your wife took the attending position, and you’ve heard Baran complain about her at least once a week ever since.

“It’s good to finally see you outside the emergency department,” Gloria says, smiling before her attention turns on you. “And you must be the elusive wife.”

Baran’s hand is on your back again, but she isn’t urging you forward and you can’t tell if it’s to ground you or herself. “My wife,” she repeats, and you can hear the undertone of pride in her voice.

You offer your hand with a smile, introducing yourself while Gloria shakes it warmly.

“It’s lovely to meet you,” she says. “I was beginning to think Baran had made you up.”

“Probably because she never lets me come to work with her,” you laugh.

“Smart woman,” Gloria says with a knowing look at your wife. “The ER would probably stop functioning.”

You don’t have time to ask what that means before Gloria turns her attention back toward Baran and the conversation drifts into hospital territory. You let yourself fade beside them, listening without really listening as your attention begins to wander.

There’s gold ribbon curled around centerpieces and champagne glasses in everyone’s hands. People are laughing too loudly near the bar already even though it’s barely dark outside, and there’s a string quartet setting up in a corner of the ballroom.

Eventually, during your trip to outer space, Baran gives Gloria one of those polite smiles you’ve only ever seen her use at work during her time at the VA.

“Well,” she says smoothly, “before you trap me into discussing staffing ratios for the rest of the evening, I should probably make the rounds.”

Gloria laughs at that. “Go socialize, Doctor. You’ve earned at least one night off.”

Baran nods in farewell before guiding you deeper into the ballroom with a slide of her hand into your own.

“Staffing ratios?” you giggle.

“This job is as much politics as it is medicine, azizam,” Baran sighs, scanning the room. She snags two flutes of champagne off the tray of a passing waitstaff, handing one to you.

You smile into the glass just another voice cuts through the crowd.

“Baran!”

A group standing around one of the cocktail tables waves her over and you can feel the change in her posture immediately. It’s not tense, exactly, but you feel the way she straightens up next to you.

These must be the coworkers.

“This,” she says quietly to you, “is the part I was worried about.”

Still, she leads you over to the table.

The group is an interesting mix, that’s for sure.

One man stands slightly apart from the others, older than the rest with tired but intelligent eyes and an air of authority about him that’s hard to deny. Beside him is another man with easier posture and a warm smile, with a drink balanced loosely in one hand. A younger man than the other two lounges against the edge of the table with the restless energy of someone who’s incapable of standing still, and the redheaded woman standing beside him looks far more composed than he does. And then there’s another woman watching the room over the rim of her glass as she takes a sip, the look in her eye almost seeming like she’s above this entire get-together.

Baran stops at the table, her eyes scanning over each of them as she greets everyone. “Dr. Robinovich,” she says first, inclining her head towards the older man. “Dr. Abbot. And Dr.’s Langdon, McKay, and Garcia.”

You know she isn’t greeting them by name because she needs to, but rather for your sake.

The older man immediately tilts his head toward the ceiling and waves a dismissive hand. “Absolutely not, Baran. If you introduce me like that, I sound old.”

Baran deadpans, “Maybe that was my intention.” 

He smiles tightly at that before turning toward you and offering his hand. “Michael Robinovich. You can call me Robby.”

You shake his hand politely, but immediately dislike him. Not because he’s rude, he actually seems very nice. But because this is the man who made your wife cry after her first shift at the hospital. 

You remember it vividly, Baran’s tear-streaked makeup and exhausted fury as she returned home to you hours later than she was supposed to be off, insisting she was fine while also admitting that she’d not only had her first seizure in over a year, but two. You’d held her all night, staying up long after she’d fallen asleep, both for her comfort and out of fear of a third focal seizure.

So really, you think your dislike of him is justified.

“Wow,” the one your wife called Langdon says suddenly as he blinks at you. “You weren’t kidding.”

Baran’s eyes narrow. “That sentence already concerns me.”

Langdon ignores her completely, looking at you with intrigue. “Hi, Frank Langdon. I was beginning to think she made you up.”

“Frank,” three different people say at once. 

“What? I’m being respectful!”

You laugh warmly, and the small group seems to relax around you as conversations break into groups. You smile at McKay when she compliments your dress, ask Abbot about the drink he’s holding, you even laugh at one of Langdon’s dumb jokes despite Baran muttering at you to quit encouraging him. And every time you laugh, every time someone’s attention lingers on you a little too long for her liking, Baran’s hand settles lower against your back. You can’t tell if she’s grounding herself or if she’s trying to stake claim.

Whichever it is, Robby takes notice right away. The smile he hides behind his glass is downright evil.

“So, he says to her as your attention is taken by a story McKay is telling. “This is why you’ve kept her hidden for so long.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Baran says dismissively. 

“Sure you don’t.” He gestures between her and you. “After refusing to introduce her to us, you brought your stunning and charming wife to a party, dressed up to the nines and looking like a walking sin. Pretty irresponsible, don’t you think?”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Langdon blurts from Robby’s other side.

“You weren’t invited into this conversation,” Baran says flatly. 

You laugh at something Garcia says, attracting your wife’s attention once more as you lean into her side. Her chin rests on your shoulder as she turns toward you, her eyes scanning around the ballroom.

“Where are the baby ducks?”

McKay laughs. 

“At the bar,” Abbot says.

“All four of them?” Baran asks.

“Unfortunately,” Garcia says. “Someone spilled the beans to Trinity that they have tequila. We haven’t seen them since.”

Baran closes her eyes like she’s in physical pain. “And you left her unattended?” But before she can continue mourning the fate of her unsupervised residents, a burst of loud laughter sounds out from somewhere nearby.

You turn in time to see four younger people approaching the table carrying drinks, all of them mid-conversation as they reach the group.

The woman in front stops as she reaches the table, squeezing between Garcia and McKay and setting down the second drink in her hand in front of the surgeon before turning her eyes on you.

“What the hell?”

Baran sighs like this is exactly the reaction she expected. “Behave, Dr. Santos.”

“What?” Santos says, looking mildly offended. “Your wife is hot, you didn’t say she was hot.”

Dr. Abbot coughs into his drink to hide a laugh, and the only man in this group of baby ducks (as your wife had so eloquently called them) loses the battle and snorts. 

Your cheeks heat as you laugh, and you aren’t sure if it’s from blood rushing or the alcohol. Or both. “Thank you.”

“Trinity,” Santos introduces herself with a hand extended to you over the table, which you take. She then turns to Baran. “I get it now.” 

“Stop that,” Baran scolds her.

“Okay, mom.”

Baran turns to Garcia then, her tone accusatory. “Just how many has she had?”

“This would be her third,” Garcia replies with a roll of her eyes. 

Questions fly from the group collectively known as ducklings. How did you meet? How long have you been married? Is Dr. Al this intense at home too? And with each question, your wife looks increasingly perturbed. 

She knows you don’t do this on purpose, and it’s almost never bothered her before, but…you fit too well. Don’t get her wrong, she loves your charm. It’s one of the things that drew her to you first, your ability to get along with everyone, the way you naturally convince people into loving you. And at the VA, it didn’t bother her. Maybe that’s because her coworkers there were older, older than her even, and they weren’t -

They weren’t a threat.

Does Baran feel threatened by her ER coworkers? She wants to say no, of course not, but as she watches you talk to Trinity, watches you smile at Javadi, laugh at something that Langdon does, or Abbot, or Whitaker -

With every word, your wife looks one compliment away from spontaneously combusting, and you can’t help but laugh. And unfortunately for her, you’ve become the most interesting person in the ballroom. And through it all, you notice something. Every single time someone else has your attention for too long, Baran touches you. Her hand on your waist, or your elbow. Her lips on your bare shoulder. It’s not enough for anyone to comment on, but it is constant enough that you take notice.

Especially when Langdon talks to you. It’s harmless; he’s charming in a sort of cocky way that probably works very well on patients, and he clearly finds you attractive. And at one point you laugh at something he says and Frank grins, a sparkle in his eye at the sound of your laugh.

You can feel Baran tense up next to you and it cuts your laugh short as you turn to her. “Are you okay?”

The concern in your voice makes guilt flicker through her. Because she knows you haven’t done anything wrong, you’re just being yourself. Which is, unfortunately for her, the entire problem.

She lets out a heavy sigh and then presses a quick kiss to your temple. “I’m going to get us another drink,” she murmurs in your ear.

You smile at that, tapping your empty champagne flute. “Okay.”

Baran’s hand leaves your back as she makes her way toward the bar at the far side of the room, loosening the tension in her shoulders only once the crowd thins out around her.

“Another champagne?” the bartender asks, nodding toward the flute still in her hand.

“And a whiskey,” Baran says.

She leans one forearm against the edge of the bar while he works, her eyesight drifting back toward your table.

Bad idea.

McKay is talking to you now while Santos is gesturing animatedly beside her, and somehow the entire group has subtly turned towards you like flowers turning towards sunlight. Even from across the room, Baran can tell you’re glowing, beautiful and open, charming in a way she’s never been immune to herself.

“Rough night?”

She recognizes Jack’s voice without even having to turn to look at him. Nevertheless, she does as he settles against the bar at her side.

“You followed me,” she says.

Jack shrugs as he flags the bartender down with two raised fingers, nodding toward his empty glass in wordless communication.

Neither of them speak for a moment, but as Jack glances back toward the table, following Baran’s line of sight, he smiles a little. “You’ve got a beautiful wife, Baran.” His tone stays easy and casual even as she tenses at his words. “You had to know this was going to happen eventually.”

Her tongue presses against the inside of her cheek. “I did know.”

“She seems nice.”

“She is.”

“And everyone likes her.”

She turns to look at him then, but only halfway, like she can’t really afford to lose sight of you. “And that’s a problem?”

“You’re sure acting like it is.”

Baran turns fully back toward the table just in time to catch you throwing your head back laughing at something Santos says, and her expression tightens. 

Jack notices. “You know,” he says, “most people would kill for a marriage where their biggest problem is their wife is too perfect.”

Baran tsks as she glances at him out of her peripheral. “You’re being very annoying right now.”

He shrugs noncommittally. “Hey, I’m just saying, it seems like the obsession goes both ways.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“She keeps looking for you.” Jack nods subtly toward the table, and he’s right.

Even while smiling at everyone else, even as you carry on conversation with her coworkers, your eyes are drawn to the crowd in the direction toward the bar. Looking for her. 

By the time Baran and Jack make their way back across the room to the table, crowds have thickened around tables, conversation louder now beneath the swell of music and alcohol.

Your face softens when your eyes land on your wife again. “There you are,” you say, reaching for her as she sets the drinks down in front of the two of you.

Baran’s arm wraps around your waist as she reaches you. “Miss me, eshgham?”

Your own arms settle over her shoulders, fingers tangling together behind her head. “Of course I did.”

The group falls back into casual conversation around you as you sip your drink, half-listening and half paying attention to the knowing looks Dr. Abbot seems to be sending your wife, which she’s pointedly ignoring.

After a while, the ballroom lights dim and the sound of microphone feedback echoes from the speakers overhead, drawing attention towards the stage at the front of the room where a podium now waits beneath a spotlight.

“Oh no,” someone mutters from the opposite side of the table. “Politics.”

“Too late to fake an emergency?” Langdon asks.

“We work in an emergency department,” Robby says. “That excuse won’t hold much weight.”

Gloria steps out onto the stage a second later to polite applause from the crowd. The room settles as she begins speaking, her voice echoing through the ballroom as she talks about the hospital’s anniversary, community outreach, budget expansions, new wings, and a variety of other hospital-speak that sounds like a language you don’t know.

That’s when you feel Baran’s hand close around your wrist.

Around the room, people nod along politely to Gloria’s speech while waitstaff weave between tables collecting empty glasses and plates.

“And finally,” Gloria says after about twenty minutes, “I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge one department in particular.” She gestures vaguely in the direction of the table that houses most of your wife’s department. “The emergency department has seen one of the most significant increases in patient satisfaction scores in the hospital over the last year. The Press Ganey scores alone have risen dramatically, and while every member of the department deserves recognition for their hard work, there’s one whose compassion, leadership, and dedication to patient care has had remarkable impact.”

Robby groans quietly under his breath. Individual callouts are always a nightmare.

“Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi.”

Applause starts up, people turning toward your table, searching for Baran among the cluster of emergency department staff.

Except Baran isn’t there, and neither are you.

✿ ───────── ✿ ───────── ✿

“Shh,” Baran whispers hotly against your ear. “Not a sound, azizam, you don’t want anyone to hear you, do you?”

Her hands are up your dress, which is bunched up against your hips by her impatient hands, her fingers hooking into the waistband of your lace panties. She yanks them down your thighs in one swift motion and you step out of them obediently, the cool air hitting your soaked core and making you shiver. She brings them to her nose for a brief second, inhaling deeply before stuffing the damp lace into the pocket of her pantsuit with a satisfied smirk.

Her fingers immediately return between your legs, sliding through your slick folds with firm pressure that has you whimpering enough for her to press her lips against yours to keep you quiet.

“So wet already,” she murmurs against your lips.

She slips a finger inside you without warning, her middle finger sliding in to the knuckle easily. A whine catches in your throat, muffled by Baran’s mouth. Her free hand roams, squeezing your ass, pulling you harder onto her hand as a second finger pushes inside you, stretching and curling deep while her thumb finds your clit with delicious pressure. 

The web, lewd sounds of her fingers pumping into your soaked pussy are the only sounds in the empty coatroom, loud to your heightened senses, and your hips rut to meet her hand.

Baran grinds her thigh between your legs for leverage, her own arousal evident in the way she rocks against you. Her breath comes in hot and shaky pants against your lips, more breathing into each other’s mouths than actually kissing.

Her hand trails up your back to your hair, gripping at the base of your head to try and not mess up the pins in your hair (lest she feel your wrath) as she tilts your head back. You break from her mouth and she immediately begins kissing down your neck, stopping to suck a mark just below your ear. You feel the faint sting of her teeth and the heat of her mouth almost makes your knees buckle.

“B-ah!-Baran, you couldn’t wait?”

“Need to feel you cum on my fingers,” she pants against your neck. “Need to know this pretty cunt is only for me.”

The pace of her fingers turns frantic. Her fingers fuck into you faster, deeper, her thumb abandoning your clit in favor of her palm grinding against you with every stroke. You clutch at her shoulders, nails digging into the fabric as the fire in your belly builds, pressure coiling tightly inside of you. The risk, the possessiveness, the whines you’re doing your best to muffle - it’s all overwhelming.

Baran leans in closer, her forehead pressing against yours as her eyes lock onto your own. “Cum for me,” she demands. “Cum on my fingers, show me who you belong to.”

The orgasm rolls over you like a wave, crashing through your body and Baran has to shove a hand over your mouth in an effort to contain the loud moan you let out. Your walls clench around her thrusting fingers, slick coating her hand as pleasure floods you. You shake against her, whining into her hand while she keeps fucking you through it, drawing out the feeling until you’re boneless and gasping for air against her palm.

Slowly, she withdraws her fingers and brings them to her lips, licking them clean with a low and satisfied moan, her eyes locked on yours the entire time. Then she kisses you deeply, her tongue sliding inside your mouth and over your own, letting you taste yourself on her tongue.

You whimper at the taste, fingers bunched in the top of her pantsuit.

“Good girl,” she whispers against your mouth as she smooths your dress back down with hands that are too tender for what they’ve just done to you. 

With one final possessive kiss, she straightens, offering you a hand. You take it, allowing her to pull you off the coatroom wall, leading you back toward the gala like nothing happened, though your slick thighs are evidence of your escapades, as are your panties tucked safely in her pocket.

You barely have a second to breathe as you step back into the ballroom, because one of the younger doctors - Javadi,you think you heard someone call her - is the first to spot you.

“There you are,” she says immediately, both relief and confusion mixing together as she looks between you and Baran. “You missed it, Gloria just called you out during her speech. Like, publicly. In front of everyone.”

Baran’s expression sharpens. “She did what?”

“Yeah,” Javadi says with a roll of her eyes. “It was…very flattering. Awkward timing, though, because you weren’t here.”

There’s a pause then, enough for the group to really take the two of you in.

“No fucking way,” Trinity says with a smirk, arms crossing in front of her chest as she appraises you. The slightly disheveled state of Baran’s hair, the smudge of your lipstick, the trace of redness at your throat. “Oh my god.”

“Trinity,” Garcia warns, but the warning goes ignored.

“We - we were getting drinks,” you stammer, even as your cheeks heat with the lie.

Trinity looks unconvinced, and your head swivels to your wife, desperately looking for backup. 

You catch Langdon leaning toward Robby in your peripheral, whispering, “They weren’t getting drinks.”  

Baran, on the other hand, looks totally unbothered, a stark contrast to the tense woman she was before the two of you disappeared. In fact, you’d dare to say she looks pleased with herself as her fingers wrap around the untouched whiskey glass and she takes a small sip.

“Anyways,” she says calmly, as if the last ten minutes haven’t fundamentally changed the light her coworkers see her in. “What did I miss?”

✿ ───────── ✿ ───────── ✿

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[emilys-bangs]

𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 (𝐈 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐲 𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐢𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐲𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟) | 𝐛.𝐡

Tags: nurse!reader, injured baran, mentions of blood scalpels and cutting, stitches, medical inaccuracies, ogilvie mentions (unfortunately), protective!reader, bit of flirting, reader is whipped, no use of yn

Summary: Ogilvie has a field day with a scalpel. Baran reaps the consequences, and you—you find your hands damp with her blood.

Word count: 1.8k

You're used to strange sights in the ED. Foreign bodies of all kinds, sticking out from all sorts of places; oozing fluids; questionable objects sticking in; experiments and extreme stupidity and fits of rage and everything in between. After years of working in emergency medicine, hardly any of it phases you. You're, put simply, quite desensitized to all of it. 

Still, the last thing you would've ever expected to see is the chief of PTMC—neat, controlled, perpetually unruffled Baran Al-Hashimi—hunched in front of the sink, lips pursed, holding a paper towel to her heavily bleeding forearm.

"Woah!" Your voice echoes against the bathroom tiles, as sharp as your surprise. 

Baran startles. She blinks as you make your way over to her, willingly giving you her arm before you even realize you're taking it. You're no stranger to blood or gore, but you still wince at the soaked paper towel she's holding down, nearly translucent with red. "Jesus. What the hell?"

You realize in hindsight you were not the most articulate.

Baran's exhale is just the slightest bit shaky. She swallows, letting go of the tissue when you nudge her hand away. "Ogilvie was…a little bit too enthusiastic with the scalpel."

You still. "What?"

"It's nothing." She hurries to say. "An accident, he wasn't looking."

"Well, he fucking should be. Does he think that shit is made of plastic?" You say tightly, your voice slipping louder than it should. Too harsh, all at her, and she's hardly the source of your frustration. 

Get it together. 

You swallow against the flare of anger, fingers careful as you peel away the blood-soaked tissue from her arm. Your stomach drops at the depth of the cut. 

"Jesus Christ."

"It's really fine." Baran says weakly. She goes silent at the look you give her, more of a glare than you can help.

"This needs stitches, Baran."

It's still weeping. The blood runs down her forearm, soaks the bunched sleeve of her jacket. Her pristine, spotless jacket, as clean as it would be if she plucked it straight from its 130 dollar rack. Her eyes flitter down to it. She doesn't push back; her lips thin, throat bobbing with a swallow you feel in your gut.

Fucking med students.

The cut is a few centimeters long, maybe an inch. Its edges are smooth, her skin flayed open like butter. "Was it contaminated?" You ask.

"No." She lets out a breath. "He hadn't started cutting yet."

Your jaw sets. You toss the bloodied tissue, rip out a fresh one, and hold it to the cut. The red bleeds through instantly, a violent, blossoming flower. You don't miss Baran's wince from the corner of your eye.

You force in a slow breath to calm the churning in your gut. When you speak, your voice is softer. "Come on. South 21 is empty."

Baran hesitates. She smooths down the short hairs at her temple—a tick, you've realized. "A patient could need it more than I do." She says sensibly.

A huffed breath escapes you, a humorless laugh collapsing halfway through. "Sorry, Doc, but you are a patient now." She frowns at you for that, nudges your hand away and takes over holding the paper towel. You gently grip her elbow. "Hey, c'mon. You know me. How long's it gonna take for me to fix you up?"

Her eyes weigh heavy on your face. They're flat under the fluorescent lights but nowhere near less alluring, a warm vortex of deep brown. "What about your patients?" She murmurs.

"All stable. 21 just got discharged." You say. Your eyes drop to her forearm, the blood now slow going beneath the tissue. Your fingers tighten around her elbow, skipping on the silky nylon of her jacket. You're about to say please when Baran inhales and nods, finally, muttering an okay that loosens the knot in your chest.

You know you shouldn't, but you still keep your hold on her elbow as you walk out of the bathroom. She's lost a fair bit of blood, you tell yourself. Just until you get to the gurney, which isn't far, just a few steps before you reach the curtain and pull it back, letting her in. She settles at the very edge of the bed and looks up at you with a small, faintly amused smile.

"I'm fine," she says softly.

You gnaw on the inside of your cheek, silently cursing. You've always been told you have a terrible poker face. Every annoyance, every worry—it all shows, whether you want it to or not.

You don't even want to imagine what your face looks like right now.

"I know you are." Your voice is falsely nonchalant. You shove your hands into your pockets. "I'll be right back. Stay put," you tell her. "I mean it."

Baran's lips twitch. "I'm not going anywhere."

Your throat is dry when you swallow. You nod once and turn on your heel, the heat of her gaze following you out.

Dana finds you as you're gathering your supplies. Sometimes you think she's got a tracker on you. On everyone, really.

"Hey," she says, fingers tapping against her tablet. "What's the news on your pneumonia patient?"

"Discharged with antibiotics." You reply. "But the room's occupied."

Dana frowns. "By who?"

"Al-Hashimi." You say. The rush of anger swells up again, a tight ball clogging your throat. "That Ogil-fucker took a stab at her with a scalpel."

"He what?"

"I don't know the details, but she needs stitches. It's small, maybe 4 or 5. Fucker's lucky he didn't nick an artery." 

"Jesus." She mutters. 

"Yeah." You double check your supplies, then look back at her. "If you find him, kill him for me."

Dana's mouth twitches. She leans back against the wall, a smugness overtaking her features. "Your girl wouldn't like that, now would she?" She chides, patting your shoulder. "Go."

"My wha—?" You splutter, nearly dropping the kits in your hands. "Dana. She's—she's not my—" Your girl.

Your mouth dries.

Dana grins at you. "Yeah, right. Go be a knight in shining armor."

"You're not drunk, are you?" You finally fumble out.

"Oh, you wish, honey. I see everything in this ED." She winks, and sends you reeling. "C'mon now, she's waitin'."

-

She's stripped off her jacket. It's folded somewhat haphazardly at the foot of the bed, one sleeve hanging off the edge. The effort sparks a ridiculous warmth in your chest. 

The effort, you remind yourself. Not the long lengths of her skin suddenly on display.

You clear your throat, dispelling the roughness from your voice. "Has the bleeding stopped?" You ask as you arrange your supplies. 

"Mhm." Baran hums. Her composure is both admiral and baffling. Not out of character for her, certainly, you just…Jesus, you can never imagine being like that. She's a saint.

You settle on the stool next to her. She shuffles closer to the edge of the gurney and sets her arm down for you, a perfectly model patient. She stays that way as you clean out the cut and sanitize the skin around it, not a hair moving out of place, not even when you flush the cut with saline. Admittedly, it looks a lot less dramatic without all the blood.

You still curse out Ogilvie in your head. 

"So," you twist a little on your stool as you look up at her, waiting for the anesthetic to set in. "Ever been on the receiving end of this before?"

"Never."

"Well, shit."

Baran smiles reassuringly. "I trust I'm in good hands."

Heat flames under your skin. You try your best not to fiddle with your gloved hands, gnawing instead on the inside of your cheek to tamp down on a smile. "Appreciate that, Doc. Pray I don't scar you."

"I'm aware of your skills." She says, as ever damningly earnest. "Why do you downplay them?"

You flash her a smile. "It's a coping mechanism."

"Are you nervous?" She frowns.

"That's not the word for it." You murmur, dropping your eyes and gently feeling along the cut. "Feel that?"

"No." 

You grab your needle holder and forceps, force in a deep breath, and pinch the edge of the cut. Baran doesn't flinch.

"For the record," her voice is quiet, "I trust you completely."

You trust yourself, too. It's just. It's her. 

So maybe you don't, really.

"Thanks, Dr. Al." You say, just as soft. You get one stitch down in no time. It's ugly against her warm skin, a dark intrusion amongst sweet brown and the dots of freckles. God, she has so many of them. In the dip of her elbow, on the base of her thumb, the middle of her wrist, everywhere in between. You'd gotten a good look at the ones dusted on her chest, just above the V slit of her scrub top—too good a look, far too many good looks—but it just. It makes your heart irrationally soft to see all the rest. You finish up another stitch, still deep in thought when her voice pierces through.

"You know, I didn't realize I had to be a bleeding mess for you to call me by my name."

What? Is your first thought. Your second is, this needs stitches, Baran.

Of fucking course she caught that.

You pause as you look up at her, forcing ignorance. "I do call you by your name."

She gives you a little smile. You don't miss the tightness in it; it echoes in your chest, a squeezing fist around your heart. 

Jesus, just stop being such a coward.

"So," you look back down—Baran, call her Baran again—"how the hell'd this happen?"

Baran.

"The patient had an abscess, it was a simple enough procedure for him to try. I just startled him. He hadn't even started cutting yet."

Yeah, you doubt it was this simple.

Your lips purse. "He needs to be more aware of his surroundings. He forgets he's not the only one in the room."

"Come on," Baran's endlessly gentle. "Don't you remember what it was like to be this eager?"

"No," you say flatly.

"I do." Her voice is soft. You still again, looking up to catch her eyes. Beautiful, you think, far from the first time. "I don't approve of his attitude, but I can understand his hunger. Too well, actually."

She looks back down, suddenly shrinking back like she's said too much. You hit this wall with her sometimes. You've never tried pushing past it.

You drop your eyes, too.

"I'd hardly think you were ever as callous as he is."

Baran inhales. "He could work on his bedside manner, yes."

"Not just bedside." You mutter. You have to force your hands still when you hear her laugh, a low, genuine thing.

You can still hear it in her voice when she says, a little teasing, "You're a strict judge, Y/N."

Well, when they hurt my girl.

You shove that thought down and clear your throat, tying off another stitch. 

Damn you, Dana.

"I think you might be a far too lenient one, Dr. Al-Hashimi."

Ps. My taglist has been updated to include Baran <3

[lotties-ashwagandha]

MY RESOLVE IS SINKING LIKE A STONE

ex wife!baran al hashimi x fem!reader, 1.7k words. chapter one of… ???

NSFW! mdni. your divorce from baran was supposed to be final, all said and done. but things change when she makes herself a little bit too at home in your new house, and new promises are made. title from buckle by florence + the machine.

Baran was always entirely too soft with you in the heat of conflict. It’s a trait she used as a tool to get her out of your worst arguments, and you were always so pissed at yourself for allowing it — but she would pull you into her arms no matter how upset you were, whisper that she was sorry, and you would always bend. 

Now, as she closes the front door behind her, you think back on those moments. You remember the feeling of her arms around you, the warmth of her hand on the back of your head and her voice so soft in your ear. It’s okay, she would whisper, and you would believe her. Everything is okay. 

“What are you doing here?” you ask. “You can’t just walk into my house, Baran.” 

“Our son forgot his backpack when you picked him up this morning,” she says. She takes off the dark purple backpack slung over her shoulder and sets it near the door. 

“Why do you say it like that?” you ask. “Our son, as if I’m-” 

“Not aware that he’s mine too?” Baran interrupts. She shrugs, shoving her hands into the pockets of her lilac jacket. “There are times I think you forget. You were extra snippy picking him up this morning.” 

You bite your tongue. You can’t do this today, you’re too tired. You want her out of your new house as quickly as possible. “Is that all you came over for? To drop off the backpack?” 

She nods, giving a small hum. 

“Then I think we’re done here.” 

Baran walks around your living room, taking in the space. She walks over to the mantel of the fireplace and picks up a framed picture of you and your son that you carefully cut her out of, and she smiles down at it as if she thinks it’s funny how hard you have tried to remove her from your life. 

“Put that back,” you say weakly. 

She does, though only after another moment of considering your sloppy work. Then she shifts her gaze to meet yours, and her smile fades. “How have you been, by the way? I’ve been meaning to ask.” 

“Have you?” 

She nods and sits down on the couch. She is too at home in your new furniture, and you hate it. You also hate the superiority in her tone when she speaks, the sharpened edges of her words. “I know the divorce was rough on you. Are you hanging in there?” 

“I’m managing just fine without you.” 

“If you say so.” 

You sit down next to her on the couch, keeping a comfortable distance. “What is that supposed to mean?” 

Baran doesn’t answer. She just holds your gaze. 

You’re desperate to shift the focus. “How are you liking your new job?” 

She looks down. You seem to have found a weak point. “It’s fine. It can be a lot to handle.” 

“You’ve always been very capable.” 

“Thank you,” Baran says. She wasn’t expecting the compliment, and you weren’t exactly expecting to give it. “I meant it, by the way. I was really asking. How are you?” 

“I’m okay.” 

“That’s it?” 

You run your hands over your thighs anxiously as you sit there. You’ve been struggling in this big house alone with your son only spending a few nights per week with you due to the custody arrangement, but you don’t want to say that. It would feel like letting her win. “This has all been a lot to adjust to,” you manage. 

“I know. It’s not the easiest arrangement." 

You nod. A small silence settles over the two of you, and you lean back against the couch cushion as if it might swallow you — you might be better off if it did.

“I know we have talked about this, but I really think things could have been different,” Baran says eventually. “I know you don’t agree, but I think we could have worked things out.” 

“How could we have worked things out when you-” 

“I’m not trying to argue with you,” she interrupts again. “I just had to say it.” 

You want to agree, despite your anger. You want to lean toward her and let her pull you into her arms like she used to and tell you that everything will be okay. And she must see that desire burning in you, the loneliness that chokes you, because she reaches out a hand and lets you move into her embrace. 

You missed the smell of her perfume, deep and warm and heady. You missed raking your fingers through her curls and the softness of her hold on you. Now you have it, and it makes your throat tighten and your eyes burn as you blink back tears, and even so, you are still fucking furious at her. 

“We can fix everything,” Baran whispers. “All of this can be undone, baby.” 

“It can’t,” you say. “We got divorced. We sold the house and I bought this new ugly fucking place.” 

She smiles softly at that. Her voice is soothing. “We can figure it out, just say the word.” 

You pull back and run a hand over your face, trying to take a deep breath. “I don’t know. I’m still angry at you.” 

“I’m angry at you, too. Do you have any idea the amount of shit you put me through during the divorce?” 

I’m sorry, you almost say. The words are on the tip of your tongue. But you’re not sorry, not really, and neither is she for the things she said and did. “We have a lot to work out. I don’t even know where to start.” 

“I do.” 

“Right, because you always fucking know what to-” 

She kisses you then, sudden and sure. It only takes you a moment to return it, pulling her closer, and it’s like all of the regret that has been pulling at you suddenly lifts. It is gone as long as your lips are on hers, and even when you part to catch your breath you can feel it still suspended. 

“I always know what to do,” she says. “Is that what you were going to say? It would be an accurate statement, wouldn’t it?” 

You answer by kissing her again. Instinctively, you push her down until her back hits the couch, and she pulls you down with her. 

“You can be as angry as you want, but you can’t say we weren’t so fucking good together,” Baran says breathlessly. She pulls off your shirt and then sits up a little to push off her jacket and top, gasping when you immediately lean down to run your tongue over one of her nipples. 

You only part from her for a second. “You missed me more than I thought you would.” 

Her hand finds the back of your head to press you closer to her, and she sighs softly when your other hand comes up to her chest. “Please,” she begs, squirming under you. “Please, I need this.” 

You shift to kiss down her abdomen, reaching down and undoing the button of her pants. “Maybe not everything is about you.” 

“Oh, come on,” she says. “You always act so high and mighty.” 

“And you’re always so mean.” 

Baran helps you pull down her pants, and you toss them down onto the floor. 

“Do you think I don’t notice the little comments you make?” You ask, and bite down on her hip — a little too hard, maybe, but she doesn’t push you away. You soothe the skin with your tongue, running over the indents left by your teeth. “You treat me like I’m some poor little loser you can’t get rid of.” 

“Are we really going back to your poor self-image again?” She asks. “Put that mouth to better use; this isn’t couples’ therapy. You wouldn’t go with me to couples’ therapy, do you remember that?” 

Before you can respond, Baran pushes your head down and guides you between her thighs. She groans when you finally run your tongue through her folds, and the taste of her makes you hum against her. 

“I missed you so much,” she breathes. Her thighs press into your head and you have to push them back a little. “Fuck, you’re so good.” 

You missed her too, but you’re not quite ready to admit that yet. You keep your mouth occupied with her, running your tongue over her clit and sucking it gently into your mouth. 

Baran’s back arches against the couch cushions and she moans breathily, biting down on her bottom lip. She’s more sensitive to your hands than you remember, but you are, too. You chalk it up to the time lost. 

You wonder how many women she has been with since you divorced. A pang of jealousy surges through you as you picture her picking up some random woman at the bar, someone who resembles you enough to give her a little more closure when the bedroom door closes behind her. You press your tongue more firmly against her, feeling every twitch of her hips and the way her legs shake around your head. 

“You’re still mine,” you say, only parting from her briefly. You dip your tongue down into her entrance, and you feel her tighten around you. “You always will be.” 

“I’m close,” she whines. 

You have to fuck with her a little bit. “Already?” 

“Shut up and keep going,” Baran tells you sharply. She bucks her hips up and chases the feeling of your mouth, and you have to pin them down to keep her steady. 

Her orgasm rips through her hard, sudden, in a way that steals the breath from her lungs. You feel her tense wholly, and she moans from somewhere deep in her throat, and then bit by bit the tension releases. 

You pull back to lick up some of the wetness sticking to the insides of her thighs. Your movements are careful, soothing, until eventually she reaches down and guides you back up her body. 

Baran kisses you more gently now. There is a softness to it that you only experienced from her before the divorce. You feel it when she pulls back and looks at you and you hear it in her voice when she speaks — “What do you say? How about we make things right?” 

You kiss her once more for good measure. You let your guard down now, and she can win. “You have no idea how much I missed you.” 

“Is that a yes?” 

You shift down to rest your head on her chest. You hear the rapid thrumming of her heart as she waits for an answer. 

You wait a few more seconds. “Yes.” 

Suddenly, your new house doesn’t seem so bad anymore. It’s not as ugly or lonely and you don’t want to cut anyone out of the pictures on the mantel. You have everything you need, and both of you are on the lengthy road to forgiveness. 

this was proofread by the amazing incredible wonderful @27spoons THANK YOU SPOONS I LOVE YOU. I will not lie I get so nervous I almost shit my pants whenever someone proofreads my writing but you were very kind and insightful and I appreciate it. there’s a semicolon in this fic because of you and that makes me feel like a fancy little hoe.

the pitt taglist: @slutforabbyanderson @babyblueb3ll @thursdayygrrrl @postflash @poseiden12345 @bobbybeyonce @azishimi

masterlist | taglist form | discord server

[emilys-bangs]

𝐈 𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐦𝐲 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐬 (𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐈 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐬?) | 𝐛.𝐡

Tags: ex!reader, injuries (reader has a fractured rib), unresolved tension, probable medical inaccuracies (i tried my best), v brief non sexual nudity, mild angst, softness (it’s there, trust), they're still in love your honor!

Summary: You end up in the ED with none other than your ex-wife as your physician. It goes about as well as you'd expect.

Word count: 2.9k

It seemed inevitable. Not because you're particularly accident-prone, but because you're not usually in the universe's good graces, and if your ex-wife happened to be working at the closest emergency department to your home—well, then, you'll just so happen to be delivered right to her doorstep. That's the way of things. Distance tries to separate you—it puts up a mighty fight—but eventually, one way or another, you'll chase Baran. Baran will chase you.

It's a loop you've come to rely on.

You sit yourself in the seventh circle of hell, get your vitals checked, get sent back to the waiting room, follow a young nurse into a fluorescent-lighted maze, behind a curtain, and onto a bed—all without seeing her. But you know you will, sure as the sharp throb that echoes in your chest. Some delusional part of you thinks you can feel her, distantly, moving from room to room, skirting the space around you without her feeling it.

"A doctor will be with you in a minute." The nurse tells you. She props up the gurney so you can sit upright.

You nod as you lean back into it, managing a smile through the pain. It's already hard enough to breathe without the uncomfortably sharp smell of disinfectant, just barely blanketing the rusty scent of blood underneath. 

You've always hated that smell. Hated how it clung to her curls, how you'd find it burrowed deep under her skin long after she'd leave the wretched place.

Really, you hated all of it. But mostly how it called to her. How she couldn't stop herself from answering.

The curtains swish open, stirring air. You lift your head, unable to stop the twitch in your mouth when your eyes find hers. 

Bingo.

Baran's eyes widen, just the smallest bit, then dip down to comb over you. You feel every inch of her assessment as if her hands were prodding here and there, searching for wrongness she could fix.

"This is Y/N L/N." The nurse announces. "Came in for pain at the ribs, some trouble breathing."

Baran's gaze snaps back to yours. She blinks. You blink back. 

The doctor beside her gives her a sideways glance before she steps up to your bedside. "Hi, Miss L/N." She smiles. "This is my attending, Doctor Al-Hashimi. I'm Student Doctor Javadi. We'll need to take a look at your lungs, if that's okay."

You nod, pulling yourself straighter as she unwinds the stethoscope from around her neck. Discomfort prickles your skin, the kind that follows a heavy, prolonged stare. Your eyes dart to the figure still looming at the foot of your bed.

Baran clears her throat. You just barely catch the short breath she takes in, steadying herself. "Have you suffered a blow to the chest? A fall, maybe, or an—"

"I fell." You say shortly. Her head tilts, eyes sharpening. 

The silence grows. You reluctantly go on. 

"I was going down the stairs, my son's toys were everywhere. I slipped. Landed on my chest."

"Take a deep breath for me, please."

You take one and wince, the inhale cutting off midway through. Pain flares in your side, a sharp throb that lingers even after you breathe out. It beats white-hot. The med student apologizes, but she prods for another one, the metal of her stethoscope cold as she shifts its position on your chest. Your fingers curl into a fist.

"Anything to break the fall?"

You shake your head, your voice coming out wheezy. "It happened fast."

"No absent breath sounds." She says, leaning back. Baran's nod is stiff. 

"You'll need to check the area."

The med student turns to you. "Can I lift up your shirt?"

You do it yourself. The cold air of the ED is a small relief against your skin.

"Where does it hurt?" 

You don't know if it's the roaring in your ears, but Baran's voice is dulled. Softened. You don't look at her as you gesture to your side, careful not to touch the sore area. It doesn't matter anyway. The girl does it for you, feeling gently along your abdomen until her fingers find the spot. 

Your breath hitches. "Faint swelling," she murmurs, "…around the seventh rib… Let me know if you feel any tenderness." She hardly presses, but the pain responds anyway, too loud, too hot.

You inhale sharply.

"Stop." Baran's voice rings out. The girl snaps back on her heels, her hands raised. You sag back onto the gurney, letting your shirt down as Baran clears her throat and nods at the med student. "That's enough for us to know it's at least fractured." Her gaze shifts to you, not unkind. "We'll need to take you for an X-ray."

"Fun," you rasp. "Lead the way."

"I'll get you a gown." The nurse pipes up. The med student follows her out, saying something about coming back when the scan is done. 

The curtain swishes closed around them, leaving you alone with your ex-wife. She hasn't moved from her spot—still rooted to the foot of your bed with her arms crossed, like she's standing guard. There's tension along her shoulders. The familiar glaze of concern in her eyes.

Silence crowds, but you don't have the stomach for it.

"Hello." You say tiredly, a headache starting to pulse at your temples. This is not how you wanted today to go.

She seems to unfreeze with that one word. Arms dropping, she clasps them behind her back and takes two steps closer to your bedside. Her voice loses its edge. "How bad is the pain?"

"It's fine." You mumble.

She gives you a look.

"A seven," you relent. "…and a half."

A small fissure blooms on her face, faint cracks rippling through her composure. She sucks in a deep breath—quite mean to do in front of you, if you're honest—and swallows, her mouth set.

"Usually, for rib fractures, there's nothing we can do except prescribe medication. Your scan will tell us more, however the fracture will likely heal on its own. Extreme cases require surgery, but otherwise it's ice packs and rest—no heavy lifting, no lying down."

"Okay." You say blankly. "Good to know."

She continues as if you haven't spoken. "I can have them give you a shot of—"

"No." You shake your head. "No shots."

You have too much shit to do already. You'd planned on making use of your son's absence by getting the house in order, running the errands you've been putting off for weeks—but of course, of course, you had to end up here. The last thing you need is to have some medication messing with your head, slowing you down further.

Baran lets out a breath, her hands curling around the rails of the gurney. "The effect won't last long. Clearly, you're uncomfortable. You might as well take something while you're here." You stay silent, and she pushes, knuckles poking sharp through her skin. "Karim is with my parents, there's no reason why you should be refusing—"

The sigh is out of your mouth before you can stop it. "I have shit to do, Baran." You snap.

"How exactly do you suppose you're going to do anything if you can't even take a full breath on your own? What's so important, anyway?" Her eyes blaze. "Laundry?"

The curtain swishes open.

"Oh—" The nurse shrinks back. "Sorry, I didn't mean to—"

Baran lets go of your bed as if she'd been burned. Her eyes are still blazing as she turns and forces a smile, stiffer than the hand she lays on the nurse's shoulder. "Thank you, Emma." She says, deliberately even. "Please let me know when you get the result back."

She leaves without sparing you a glance.

-

You know the Pitt is notorious for its horrendous waiting times, but you still hadn't expected to wait an entire hour for the result of a simple X-ray. Hell, the actual scan itself had taken mere minutes.

You perk up when the curtain swishes open again, but Baran doesn't make for the laptop screen against the wall. Instead she approaches your bedside, a glass jar in one hand and a cup of tea in another.

"I don't suppose you've eaten." It's not phrased as a question. You hate that it's not, because she knows, and she's right. "The cafeteria food is terrible." She continues without waiting for your answer, her tone peevish. "Here."

You're not above accepting her offerings. The tea smells like the kind she used to make at home, minted and sweet. Its steam works up a lump in your throat.

It hurts, seeing her. It always does. Whether you've fought or not, whether you're civil or not. Just her presence is hard to swallow down. You still haven't gotten used to the distance, miles of oceans between you, no matter how physically close you are.

It's ridiculous. You've lived most of your life without her, and yet a decade and some have ruined you for the unforeseeable future.

The tea scalds your tongue. Baran is notably gentler as she sets the jar down on the bed along with a tissue-wrapped spoon. Overnight oats, if you had to guess.

"Thanks," you mutter.

She inclines her head in a nod and perches on the arm of the chair next to your bed. "I'm sorry you've had to wait so long. There's a holdup with the X-rays."

"I didn't expect to get special treatment." You give her a tight-lipped smile. She doesn't return it until you say, "This place seriously sucks, though."

"Yes, well." Her laugh is more of a huffed breath. "We're unfortunately not the most punctual." She frowns down at her hands for just a second before she looks back up at you. Her eyes dip to your gown.

"Do you need help getting that off?"

"I'm good."

Not.

She stands. "Baran."

"Button downs will be easier to wear," she says, reaching for your folded clothes. You'd managed your pants on your own, but you couldn't untie the gown without your vision flashing white. "Anything you don't have to pull over your head. At least for the first two weeks."

"Noted," you say, "but I can—"

"Can you stop," she breathes, fingers bunched in your shirt, "being so goddamn stubborn?"

Her eyes are always mesmerizing when she's angry. They darken several impossible shades, turn into shards of glassy obsidian. 

You drain the last of your tea, hand her the cup, and silently lean forward. Her exhaled breath hits the shell of your ear, low and desperately trying to stay controlled. You feel her finger hook into the messy bow at your back. Feel her tug it loose.

You peel the gown away. It's a scratchy, awful thing; you toss it further down the bed, quietly grateful as you turn back to Baran and take your bra from her.

"This could count as harassment, you know." You meet her eyes, hold the cups to your chest.

She only raises a brow.

It's enough to make you flush, your teeth grazing your bottom lip. Her hands are warm as they fasten your bra. The brush of her fingers nearly makes you shiver, but you hold it, force your shoulders back to keep the tingle from running down your spine.

And if goosebumps rise up on your flesh—well, the ED is cold. Your skin is sensitive. Baran's hands smell like sanitizer, harsh and clinical as she stretches out the collar of your shirt, helps you fit your head in. There's a brief flash of pain when you have to guide your arm through a sleeve, but it dissipates as you fully shrug the shirt on. You don't care to attribute it to the way her fingers linger on your abdomen, gently splayed over your side. They stay there even after you settle, fully clothed.

"Baran." You murmur, your heart kicking faster. Her head is ducked, eyes on your torso where her thumb draws circles.

"It will be…difficult to get around," she says, still looking down, "for a few days. The meds will only get you so far. You shouldn't overexert yourself."

"I won't."

"You could stay." The words are soft from her mouth, nearly mumbled. Baran doesn't mumble. "With me. Until it gets better."

She's looking at you now. You almost wish she isn't.

"Because that won't fuck with Karim's head."

Her lips thin. 

"You're hurt."

"I can manage."

"Karim can stay with my parents. They won't mind, they never do—"

"And when do you get home, Baran?" You wonder. 

She doesn't shy away from your eyes. "At least you'd have someone."

"I don't need someone." Your throat is unbearably scratchy. Your attempt at a laugh doesn't ease the ache—worsens it, actually, right where your pulse beats. "Jesus, you make it seem like I'm dying. I'll be fine."

Your conviction weakens with that last word, crumbling beneath Baran's gaze. Even years down the line, you could never quite get used to the intensity of it. She has warm, kind eyes—bottomless, all-consuming eyes; you've drowned in their depths, been warmed by their heat and burned from their fire.

Baran is unsmiling as she reaches for your face. She cradles your jaw in her hand—that rough, soft hand, antiseptic and long-washed lotion, cuticle oil rubbed around her short, clean nails, a freckle at the base of her wrist. Your breath hitches, comes out shaky through your nose.

You may be stubborn, but you're also unbearably weak. She's like a big, tender bruise imprinted onto your flesh. Just the press of a thumb—and you give, mouth open, gasping. It's been years, and the bruise hasn't healed. It hasn't shrunk. Sometimes you think it's only gotten bigger.

"Please." She says quietly.

Somewhere, beyond the curtains, you hear someone yell, "I need an attending!"

Relief and dread spread through you in equal measure.

You lean away from your ex-wife, tilt your head to the source of the sound. "That's you."

-

The med student comes back alone. You feel bad for not remembering her name.

"It's just a simple hairline fracture, so you won't be needing surgery or anything. Just ice it a few times a day for twenty minutes or so and make sure to rest, definitely don't lift anything heavy or do hardcore exercises."

You smile. "Got it."

She says a bunch of other things, only a few of which filter through. You thank her, pocket your prescription, and speed-walk out of the emergency room. You really almost make it, only three steps from the door when she calls your name.

And you, stupid you—you turn.

"Oh. Good," you blurt out before she can say anything. You take out her jar from your purse—emptied, the spoon rattling inside—and shove it into her hands. "Thanks for this, by the way. It was good. Didn't expect the chocolate."

"It balances out the acidity of the yogurt," she says, almost automatically as she takes the jar from you. It registers on her too late; she gives her head a small shake, a move that's, unfortunately, never stopped being endearing. "You have your prescription?"

"Yep," you answer, trying not to prickle. "We've got aspirin at home, so." You shrug, making room for a frazzled looking woman to pass through.

Baran nods. "Can I…" She pushes her shoulders back, the slightest bit. "Is it okay if I escort you out?"

You blink. "Sure," you say, too drained to argue.

She nods again. Holds the door open for you. You walk through, and despite your shallower breaths, you still smell the traces of coconut from her curl cream—the same one you'd lathered on your hands, raked through her hair when she'd be too tired to do it herself.

You rub a rough hand into your eyes, pressing hard enough to hurt, and make for the parking lot.

"Wait a minute—" Baran's shoes crunch on the gravel. "Did you drive?" She demands.

You let your hand fall. "Calling an ambulance seemed overkill." You say dryly.

Her face grows disbelieving. God, you wish she wouldn't do that, wish she'd stop caring, just stop it Baran, stop it, stop it, stop—

"I'll—"

"You'll what?" You murmur, pulling out your keys. "Take me home?"

She can't step out. You both know she can't.

"Call someone." She pleads. You can hear the underlying shake in her voice, you can feel it rattling your bones. She takes your hand, traps the car keys in your palm. "As your physician, I can't—Y/N, you shouldn't. You'll hurt yourself."

You let out a throbbing breath. Jesus, you just want it all to end. This day, this stupid distance between you that never seems to lessen, never seems to widen, never does anything but hurt. "There's no one to call, Baran," you say quietly. "I made it here, I can make it back."

She shakes her head. The sun catches in her curls, threads along her highlights and sets them on fire. You want them around your fingers. You want everything to go back to the way it was, but the closest you can do is say okay when she says she'll order you a car, because can you even say no? She's pulling the keys from your grip, her pleas warm against your face; she's saying azizam, azizam, come inside, I'll wait with you, and you feel your bones crumble and your resolve die and you do what you could never stop yourself from doing.

You follow her where she goes.

Hi, thank you so much for your support on my first Baran fic! If you liked this one, please consider leaving a comment or reblogging to lmk!! I'd love to know what you thought <3

@newyork1215

[lotties-ashwagandha]

ex wife!baran x fem!reader headcanons

i want to write a full fic w these concepts eventually but let’s start with headcanons. there’s an NSFW section of this so minors dni. 761 words <3

ex wife!baran shows up uninvited to your house occasionally. she rings the doorbell until you answer, because if you car is in the driveway and you’re clearly home then what’s keeping you from opening the door? and once you do she says she was just in the neighborhood, your new neighborhood considering the two of you sold the old house, which she makes sure to bring up.

ex wife!baran makes too many comments implying that you must miss the money she contributed to your household in the past. she makes comments that your house looks a little… empty. a little sad. she asks if you’re having any trouble with the bills, or if you just haven’t turned the air conditioning on yet this summer.

ex wife!baran is intensely competitive when it comes to your son. she buys him the most expensive gifts, plans the most extravagant birthday parties, and makes sure his closet at her house is much more packed than his closet at yours. she just wants him to have everything she could possibly give him — and she wants to rub that in your face a little.

ex wife!baran calls you sometimes late at night and you can tell she’s had too many drinks when she tells you she misses you. you always let her talk, you’re not cruel enough to hang up, but you also don’t try to start anything. you know she gets lonely, and while that is not your problem to fix anymore, you want to make sure she is okay.

ex wife!baran sees you in the hospital one day and nearly passes out. she immediately runs over and asks if you’re okay and if your son is okay, and is endlessly relieved when you tell her that you are there because your son’s friend twisted his ankle while they were playing in the yard.

ex wife!baran not-so-secretly wants to get back together with you. the two of you ended things too hastily, and she has a feeling that you think so too. but she is still so fucking angry at you for everything that was said and done in the divorce that she still feels the urge to be subtly cruel to you sometimes if she can.

NSFW below <3

ex wife!baran still remembers how best to touch you. she remembers how you used to tremble under her hands, how your breath would hitch as she whispered in your ear everything she had been dreaming of doing to you. she closes her eyes sometimes and she can still feel your lips wrapping around her fingers as she shoves them into your mouth, the vibration as you hum around them.

ex wife!baran has wet dreams about you frequently enough to really piss her off. she doesn’t know what to make of the fact that too often she goes to sleep only to be met with memories of you pinning her down to the bed and slipping your fingers into her, or you meeting her at the front door after a long shift and getting down on your knees for her.

ex wife!baran hooks up with too many women in order to forget about you. it never works though, and she has embarrassed herself too many times by calling out your name while some random woman she picked up at the bar (who resembles you a little too much) makes her come.

ex wife!baran shows up at your door uninvited one night while your son is at a sleepover. she has a bottle of wine in her hands and is dressed in her finest while you’re fresh out of the shower in a robe alone, and she tells you that you look beautiful. she invites herself in for dinner and you’ve only taken a couple sips of wine before you give in and tug her over to the couch. it’s your first time having sex with each other again since the divorce — it’s rough and hungry and part of you is so fucking angry that you let her back into your life so easily, but you can’t deny her anything when she’s underneath you on the couch begging for your mouth and telling you that no one can eat her out quite like you can.

ex wife!baran asks if she can stay the night afterwards. you have already given in once, the dam has already broken. you say yes. and then you say yes again when this happens the second time, the third, the fourth, on and on.

thank you for reading!!! <3 sorry for posting SO MANY fics lately, I don’t know what has come over me but I can’t stop. I might be a bit slow this week tho bc im on my period AND I have a cold. wth man.

the pitt taglist: @slutforabbyanderson @thursdayygrrrl @postflash @poseiden12345 @babyblueb3ll @bobbybeyonce

I’ve had a couple complaints that there have been issues with my fics showing up in notifs when i tag people! it’s something that im looking into, and I might start tagging people in comments instead of in the fics themselves. In the meantime if this is happening to you, please check your settings and make sure you have allowed people to tag you in posts!

[lycheepocketwitch]

im so yellowjackets x the wilds pilled jasmin savoy brown has no idea what she did to me by posting this

[oneandonlynat]

lottienat x spider-verse!

[silkchiffoner]

on mari ibarra's death as pit girl and shauna's aggression towards mari

i understand the whole "she's supposed to be spiraling, let women be evil" argument in defense of shauna, i understand that yellowjackets has been a dark and gory show from the get go, and i understand that mari's death/sacrifice was necessary. but when you are releasing media into the world, you are sending out a message. every choice made in a piece of media is intentional.

mari was stripped of her clothes and dignity, dragged naked through the snow, hung upside down, carved, cooked, and served as food to the team, with shauna demanding to wear mari's hair as a trophy.

mari was also one of the best written characters on the show, taking her from an annoying jv side character to an important part of the story (her last name reveal i cheered so loud). she never once took shauna's bs and made it clear from the start that she was just the decoy. she was loved by all her friends and teammates, and it's evident when you realize that the hunt was a ploy to keep shauna distracted from nat's venture to get help, and that none of the yellowjackets actually wanted to hunt mari. mari's sacrifice for the sake of the team (despite her pulling the queen card being an accident) was one last act of defiance in the face of shauna's tyranny and the dictatorship that came with her reign.

idgaf about the fact that all the victims have to be naked to be cooked and butchered, and i don't care that shauna was seen using hannah's old hair as a fidget toy in ep 09, every choice made with mari's slaughter was an intentional one, and it leaves such a bad taste when you view it in the context of how every other woc in the show was treated.

i don't know what the writers were plotting in the writer's room, but there were better ways to handle mari's death/slaughter.

[lycheepocketwitch]

[missmonsters2]

Mirror, Mirror | Six: Epilogue

Please do not copy, repost, or translate my work anywhere else.

PART FIVE

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x Fem!Reader

Summary: You never really thought about Wanda other than the fact that she's your best friend. Nothing more, nothing less. It just wasn't in the realm of possibilites, so you never let yourself develop feelings. At least until someone points out that you have a very specific type when it comes to dating, so maybe it is all subconscious? Reader's POV

Warnings: best friends to lovers. shenanigans. jealousy, jealousy. sexual tension. pining. yearning. sexual thoughts. spicy (tumblr's version). stupid steve. neurotic nat. brat & stinky. bug as in shutterbug.

*explicit version will only be available on Ao3 & will be posted there after series is completed*

Note: Mini Series is completed! Thank you so much for tagging along with me <3 Explicit version available in a week.

Reminder there's no taglist but you can follow my library blog for notifications 💘

Series Masterlist || Library Blog || AO3

Count: ~3.1k

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⋆⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

You rarely think about sentences that could change your life.

There are too many instances that could change your life; therefore, it would be moot to think about.

You have a terminal illness. 

You've won 69 million dollars.

Someone you love has horrifically died—no, there were no remains.

It's all too overwhelming to think about; therefore, you don't. Yet, somehow, if you ever did think about life-changing sentences, you didn't think it could ever be, "Hey, have you noticed how you seem to exclusively date girls who look like Wanda?"

And it was like the ground crumbled underneath you. It was such a sickening realization—not that Wanda was in any way sickening—it was the fact that you might just be subconsciously a pervert. 

The more you thought about the words, the more horrifying it became. Every one-night stand, every situationship, every girlfriend—god, they all looked like Wanda. 

You're too scared to think about it deeper in fear of what it would reveal subconsciously every time you kissed or fucked a girl. Were you thinking of Wanda? God, you just couldn't think about it.

This was all Bucky's fault. You wished you had never gone out onto that balcony that night. 

3 months prior to that night at the bar with Wanda & Steve

The cool air felt better, and the breeze settled on the back of your neck. There was definitely too much wine going around, and you only managed to escape as Tony brought out the hard liquor. 

The crowd dispersed after several shots you didn't partake in. You stared into the distance, thinking idly how Tony had way too much money. Old money was ridiculous. Why does someone need a garden fountain as big as a pool?

Movement caught the corner of your eye, and you saw Wanda and Vision walking through the dimly lit garden. You smiled fondly at your best friend as she laughed at whatever charming thing Vision had managed to say. 

Vision was...just okay, in your opinion. You thought he was too nonchalant about Wanda, and that was why they were so on and off rather than consistently being together. Wanda deserved someone who loved her fiercely, and you couldn't imagine Vision always putting Wanda first. 

You watched with slight melancholy when Wanda linked her arms through his as they sat on the ledge of the garden fountain. You wished you had also brought someone along for this party. 

"Hey, thought I saw you sneak out here."

You turned around and saw Bucky holding a glass of beer. You smirked at him with mirth. "You know what I must do when Tony starts bringing out the grey goose."

Bucky shuddered, clearly having been roped into a few shots. He came and stood next to you, catching the scene you were staring at. "Guess they're back on then?"

You shrugged. "Guess so. We'll see how long it lasts. I'm betting 3 months."

"Be realistic. It'll be 2 and a half months," Bucky snorted. 

"Ye of little faith," you teased and then sighed. "I wish I also brought someone along. I should've brought that girl I met at my photoshoot."

"The brunette with green eyes?" Bucky asked, and you nod. "You know what I've noticed?"

"Hm?" you hummed in response to Bucky's casual tone. 

"You seem to have a very specific type when it comes to dating," Bucky mused. "They're always brunette—save those two girls from university—and they always have green eyes." 

You furrow your brows in serious thought. "I suppose so."

"Yeah," Bucky nodded, his tone still casual. "They always remind me of Wanda, especially from the back. I always have to make sure I'm careful not to mix up your date with Wanda." 

Bucky ended it with a chuckle, stating he was getting cold before he left without another world, leaving you alone outside.

The connect dots snapped into place almost instantly, horrifying you as you continued to stare at Wanda from above. 

Oh, fuck. 

Maybe it was a good thing you didn't bring anyone tonight. You're not sure how you'd be able to take someone home into your bed with the daunting realization you go after girls who look like your best friend...because you actually want your best friend. 

The three months since that discovery had nearly driven you to insanity. Since you refused to talk to anyone about it, most of your thought process was, " Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no."

But in the end, you resolved that it couldn't happen. Wanda would never reciprocate your feelings in a million years, especially since she had Vision. Wanda occasionally even talked about the possibility of marrying him down the road. 

It wasn't happening. It was never going to happen. 

Wanda was more important to you than anyone in the whole entire world. You would never allow anything to risk the friendship—even your feelings. 

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⋆⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

You felt like a sick sexual deviant. 

Despite your resolve to bury your feelings and continue on as normal, it was getting increasingly weird to continue to see girls who looked like Wanda. Yet, you couldn't stop. It wasn't doing it for you otherwise. 

But now, every time you kissed a girl, all you could see was Wanda in her. Sex was beginning to become a guilty pleasure for all the wrong reasons. 

When you met Raye, it felt like another sinful thing to lust after, knowing how much she physically reminded you of Wanda. But you could see a big personality difference in the short time you spent chatting with Raye. 

Wanda was the type you spoiled, indulging in her strange, wacky ideas. She could be very emotional, swinging from one side of the spectrum to another. She had such a big heart, willing to love, but also held grudges and was wicked if crossed. Wanda was a brat in all the loving ways you could mean. 

Raye could be best described as emotionally consistent. On the surface, she portrayed a wicked sense of humor and was fun to be around, but she was much more guarded than Wanda. She was very independent, not liking anything that might even intrude on her freedom. Raye kept her true feelings close to herself and seemed to be teasing you to come find out. 

It was different. You didn't mind, maybe liking it even (purely in the sense it was the opposite of Wanda, and you couldn't afford to keep lusting after your best friend in all possible ways).

Even so, your mind was distracted on the first date.

"Have you ever done a boudoir photoshoot?" Raye asks, her tone low and seductive.

"Can't say that I have," you smile, trying to remind yourself to be present during the date. It's been long since you've properly wined and dined someone, and Wanda kept entering your thoughts. 

"Well, there's a first for everything and you might even have a willing model," Raye bit her bottom lip suggestively, her index finger stroking the back of your hand. 

And while the southern twang does stir something in you, and you feel your stomach tingling, you're very aware that it's because Raye physically reminds you of Wanda. So, your mind traitorously imagines Wanda biting her lip and saying seductive things to you. 

"THEY WOULD NEVER—"

You whip your head around, swearing you heard Wanda. When there was no sign of her, you furrowed your brows in confusion, turning back to Raye.

Was this a sign of insanity?

You resolve right then and there to focus on the lovely brunette before you and enjoy the date. It was easy enough if you relaxed and earnestly asked Raye questions about herself. 

It was easy enough to hold Raye's hand and swing it back and forth if you just thought about how warm they were. 

It was enough to giggle when Raye leaned in closer to whisper something silly or naughty in your ear if you just thought about how her breath felt on the shell of your ear.

Suddenly, the car next to you went off, the alarm beeping loudly enough to make you and Raye jump in surprise. You turned around and noticed the couple behind you were gone. You thought they looked slightly familiar, but it was too difficult to determine when they were so far away in the dark under passing streetlights. 

Ultimately, you walk Raye up her steps, unsure what you want your next move to be. Everything feels strange since the revelation. You feel guilty for your lust, but specifically what causes it. 

But when Raye pulled you in for a hot, searing kiss, you decided to just go with the flow...which also ended up being nothing as she got a call from her sister while clothes were discarded. 

The call was only bordering on 40 seconds, but you decided your momentum was lost, and you needed that momentum to have sex with someone else while you tried (unsuccessfully) to not think about Wanda. 

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⋆⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

Fuck. Darcy.

Those were the only words that could come to your mind after Wanda texted her vague answer about whether or not she was returning home tonight. 

You sighed as you scrolled through the videos and photos, trying to get a headstart on putting together the video for Tony and Pepper. As you began opening up files, many were corrupted by the inability to open or glitchy images. 

With another sigh, your chair scraped against the floor as you shifted back, pulling out your phone and shooting a quick text to the videographer asking if you could meet up tomorrow to get the SD card for the originals. You got a prompt reply with a thumbs-up emoji with a time and place. 

You thought you might've just heard something shuffle in your room, but you forget about it when it's quiet again.

In the end, you spent another 45 minutes scrolling through some other photos that weren't corrupted, catching Wanda in the background and staring with a lingering thought about how absolutely pretty she was.

A part of you was in disbelief that Wanda was interested in women. You had so many questions that still lingered, but you didn't want to push Wanda or make it seem like you were interrogating her, and she needed to prove it.  

Still, you wondered what exactly made Wanda come to terms with the fact that she liked women.

Specifically, why couldn't you be the reason she was interested in women? You shoved those forbidden feelings down, beating them back into its box to put away. 

It didn't matter. 

It shouldn't matter.

You're with Raye, and Wanda may be with Darcy. Or some other girl, or maybe even with a guy again.

It's just not going to be you. 

And that's okay, you tell yourself. You can love someone without having to pursue anything. You just want to be there for Wanda. 

Of course, all of this changed the moment you watched a slanted confession video from an unaware Wanda while your roommate was out for lunch with a client.

Shock is the only thing that registers upon the video finishing. Were you hallucinating again? Was this like the first date with Raye where you kept thinking you could hear or see glimpses of Wanda?

But you played the video over and over, blinking every time it was finished.

Then a burst of strange laughter bubbled from your mouth, and then horror dawned on you that, 'oh, fuck. She actually feels the same way.'

It was unclear whether or not Wanda was trying to let her feelings be known or if she was also facing the same issue as you, where she was suppressing them. Either way, Wanda would unlikely be brave enough to say anything soon. 

You spent the week humming and hawing about what pursuing a relationship with your best friend would mean. What would the consequences be if things didn't work out? What would the consequences be if you declined to pursue anything more despite if Wanda confessed? What would the consequences be to watch Wanda move on and love someone else?

Your stomach dropped. 

You needed to break up with Raye. 

Your stomach dropped. 

You wait 3 more days before confronting Wanda since she's clearly a chicken.

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⋆⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

"You knew you had feelings for me for at least 3 months?" Wanda screeches. "And you said nothing?!"

"Okay, relax, you banshee," you wince at the sound. "How is that the only thing you hung onto out of everything I just told you?"

"But...but!" Wanda narrows her eyes on you. "It was getting serious with Raye!"

"Serious?" you raise your brow at Wanda. "What gave you the idea it was getting serious? We were dating but I saw her maybe a few days out of a month with how much she flies out for work."

"So, it wasn't getting serious at all?" Wanda frowns.

"Well," you purse your lips. "Maybe for Raye. She was considering transferring to another department so she wouldn't have to fly out anymore."

Wanda's mouth hangs open, her face pale with the worst thoughts of what might've been if they never confessed their feelings.

"Which," you cut in like you're able to read her mind, "obviously, I told her to not do as I wanted to end things with her."

"How did she take it?" Wanda asks curiously.

You look uncomfortable as you shift in bed, but Wanda waits patiently. "I think she just emotionally shut down. There were no tears, no screaming, or any accusations about why I was ending things. She just looked impassive as she accepted it and asked me to leave."

"Oh," Wanda bit her bottom lip. She feels bad in a way, but not bad enough to regret making you hers. "I'm sorry, bug."

You sigh as you reach over and pull Wanda close, pressing a kiss to her bare shoulder. The blanket shifts down, exposing Wanda's neck and collarbone where you had unabashedly marked up.

"Now, are you done with the questions, or can we resume where we left off?" You ask mischievously, pressing languid kisses against the side of her neck. 

Wanda closes her eyes with a soft hum, pressing her body closer to yours until you shift and move over Wanda. 

"I notice that you didn't mention anything about Darcy."

"Mention what exactly?" You say between kisses, stroking Wanda's hip. "That I was insanely jealous and wished her ill? Although, now that I know it was a fake date and neither of you had interest in each other, she seems nice."

Wanda laughs. "Even after she hacked your laptop?"

"With your help, might I remind you," you pull up and pointedly look at her. "But if she never corrupted those wedding files, I would've never got the original SD card and found out about your feelings."

"Very true," Wanda muses as she throws her head around your neck and pulls you close. She pecks your lips charmingly. "We should get her a nice bottle of wine."

"What about Steve and Bucky."

Wanda scoffs. "They're meddling little school girls who are probably kicking their feet and giggling."

You can't help but laugh before you dive in for another kiss, eager but slow. Oh, man. You were going to love Wanda for the rest of your life.

After a moment, Wanda sighs. "Okay, fine. We can give our McDonald's coupons to Steve and Bucky."

You laugh again. "Alright, brat."

"Okay, stinky."

"Chicken."

"Stupid."

"Witch."

"Here we go again with that," Wanda rolls her eyes with a smile. "I'll have you know that if I were a witch, I'd be the most powerful and best witch ever."

"I bet you would," you agree very readily. "Instead of cursing people to death, you'd be saving their lives...or causing mass chaos. Huh, I guess that's not so different from now." 

Wanda scoffs indignantly before she starts tickling you. You laugh, trying to jerk away, but Wanda is persistent in keeping you in place. 

"Mercy!" You laugh as you roll to the side. 

"Take that back! I do not cause chaos!"

"I take it back! You're clearly an A-List superhero!"

Wanda continues to tickle you anyway. "Say you love me!"

"I love you!"

Only then does Wanda stop, grinning wickedly as she presses a chaste kiss to your lips, and you're breathing heavily.

You want to call her a menace, but you're afraid that will only result in another tickle fight. 

Wanda smiles warmly.

"I love you, too."

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⋆⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

"See, I told you Wanda would be the one to confess!" Steve smirks.

"That's because you're a little cheater who went and nudged Wanda along," Bucky rolls his eyes with a smile.

"Oh, yeah, like you're the perfect picture of fair," Steve narrows his eyes. "Don't think I don't know that you went to Bug first. I had to step in and nudge Wanda to make the odds even."

"Was it really Wanda who confessed when it was Bug who technically discovered her secret."

Steve seems to think about it before he slumps into the sofa, "I feel like that's a gray area." Then, Steve frowns. "Ugh, but then that means neither of us wins the bet."

"We can just call it even," Bucky shrugs, laying his head on Steve's shoulder.

"Oh, no," Steve shakes his head. "I won't let you wriggle out of our bet. We will watch all the Lord of the Rings movies if you lose."

Bucky groans loudly. "But there's so many and they're so long."

"You really think I want to watch the Star Wars movies?" Steve rolls his eyes.

"They're a classic!" Bucky argues.

"So is Lord of the Rings."

Bucky huffs but concedes. "Fine," he wrinkles his nose. "Should we bet on something else?"

"No, I like the thrill of two people getting together, even if it takes time. Besides, we have the time since we have to finish a whole bunch of shows," Steve says.

"Hm, which ones of our friends are due to get together?" Bucky muses.

"We could try Nat and Maria," Steve suggests.

"No, too hard since Maria doesn't live here," Bucky shakes his head and then offers, "Yelena and Kate?"

"I think they're actually already together," Steve furrows his brows. "But if they're not, I'm too scared of Yelena to get involved in her affairs."

"I think that's all our friends who are technically single with a viable date option," Bucky sighs.

Silence falls between them before Steve suggests, "Want to bet when Tony and Pepper will announce they're pregnant?"

They stare at each other for a moment before they yell out their guess at the same time. 

"6 months!"

"6 months!"

The silliness of it all leaves Steve and Bucky giggling. 

[lycheepocketwitch]

"it was the fact that you might just be subconsciously a pervert."

LMFAOOO

"This was all Bucky's fault. You wished you had never gone out onto that balcony that night."

*GASP* SO STEVE AND BUCKY WERE SCHEMING???

"You felt like a sick sexual deviant."

oh poor babie😭

"Specifically, why couldn't you be the reason she was interested in women? You shoved those forbidden feelings down, beating them back into its box to put away."

poor babie😭x2

"You wait 3 more days before confronting Wanda since she's clearly a chicken."

and we're back to comedy hahahaha. gosh i can't believe it's the end of this mini-series! it was so entertaining and well-written. i usually go for very angsty (preferably with happy/hopeful endings bc im not that much of a masochist) fics, but it was so refreshing to read this fic! i mean i guess in a way there was like a biiiit of angst, but with all the humor, it really was fluffier than angst lol.

also i have to say i would NOT let wanda give steve and bucky our mcdonalds coupons🤨😠 IM KEEPING MY DISCOUNTED CHICKEN NUGGETS FOR MYSELF TYVM

[missmonsters2]

JAZZZZZ!! We have survived this ordeal together LOLL <3

I can't believe it's also the end and you stuck with me the entireeee time. screaming and sobbing <333

the way i'd rather die than give someone my mcdonald's coupons fr LMFAO esp the free ice cream ones. like bffr, i can't give that up LOL

Thank you sm for the laughs !! I will try my best to make you cry in the spinoff sequel if i ever get to it <333 LOL

[lycheepocketwitch]

wait hOLD UP wdym by “make me cry in the spinoff sequel” i dONT WANT ANYTHING BAD TO HAPPEN TO BUG AND WANDA😭😭😭😭

i feel like im getting bamboozled

(if i wanna cry i go read ur under the light mini-series looool)

[missmonsters2]

OMG I FORGOT TODAY WAS TUESDAY AND I JUST SAW MIRROR, MIRROR IN THE WANDA TAG IM SO EXCITED !!!

LAST ONE JAZ <3

[lycheepocketwitch]

and it was magnificent

hope u enjoy my commentary 🫶

[missmonsters2]

Mirror, Mirror | Six: Epilogue

Please do not copy, repost, or translate my work anywhere else.

PART FIVE

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x Fem!Reader

Summary: You never really thought about Wanda other than the fact that she's your best friend. Nothing more, nothing less. It just wasn't in the realm of possibilites, so you never let yourself develop feelings. At least until someone points out that you have a very specific type when it comes to dating, so maybe it is all subconscious? Reader's POV

Warnings: best friends to lovers. shenanigans. jealousy, jealousy. sexual tension. pining. yearning. sexual thoughts. spicy (tumblr's version). stupid steve. neurotic nat. brat & stinky. bug as in shutterbug.

*explicit version will only be available on Ao3 & will be posted there after series is completed*

Note: Mini Series is completed! Thank you so much for tagging along with me <3 Explicit version available in a week.

Reminder there's no taglist but you can follow my library blog for notifications 💘

Series Masterlist || Library Blog || AO3

Count: ~3.1k

⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⋆⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷

You rarely think about sentences that could change your life.

There are too many instances that could change your life; therefore, it would be moot to think about.

You have a terminal illness. 

You've won 69 million dollars.

Someone you love has horrifically died—no, there were no remains.

It's all too overwhelming to think about; therefore, you don't. Yet, somehow, if you ever did think about life-changing sentences, you didn't think it could ever be, "Hey, have you noticed how you seem to exclusively date girls who look like Wanda?"

And it was like the ground crumbled underneath you. It was such a sickening realization—not that Wanda was in any way sickening—it was the fact that you might just be subconsciously a pervert. 

The more you thought about the words, the more horrifying it became. Every one-night stand, every situationship, every girlfriend—god, they all looked like Wanda. 

You're too scared to think about it deeper in fear of what it would reveal subconsciously every time you kissed or fucked a girl. Were you thinking of Wanda? God, you just couldn't think about it.

This was all Bucky's fault. You wished you had never gone out onto that balcony that night. 

3 months prior to that night at the bar with Wanda & Steve

The cool air felt better, and the breeze settled on the back of your neck. There was definitely too much wine going around, and you only managed to escape as Tony brought out the hard liquor. 

The crowd dispersed after several shots you didn't partake in. You stared into the distance, thinking idly how Tony had way too much money. Old money was ridiculous. Why does someone need a garden fountain as big as a pool?

Movement caught the corner of your eye, and you saw Wanda and Vision walking through the dimly lit garden. You smiled fondly at your best friend as she laughed at whatever charming thing Vision had managed to say. 

Vision was...just okay, in your opinion. You thought he was too nonchalant about Wanda, and that was why they were so on and off rather than consistently being together. Wanda deserved someone who loved her fiercely, and you couldn't imagine Vision always putting Wanda first. 

You watched with slight melancholy when Wanda linked her arms through his as they sat on the ledge of the garden fountain. You wished you had also brought someone along for this party. 

"Hey, thought I saw you sneak out here."

You turned around and saw Bucky holding a glass of beer. You smirked at him with mirth. "You know what I must do when Tony starts bringing out the grey goose."

Bucky shuddered, clearly having been roped into a few shots. He came and stood next to you, catching the scene you were staring at. "Guess they're back on then?"

You shrugged. "Guess so. We'll see how long it lasts. I'm betting 3 months."

"Be realistic. It'll be 2 and a half months," Bucky snorted. 

"Ye of little faith," you teased and then sighed. "I wish I also brought someone along. I should've brought that girl I met at my photoshoot."

"The brunette with green eyes?" Bucky asked, and you nod. "You know what I've noticed?"

"Hm?" you hummed in response to Bucky's casual tone. 

"You seem to have a very specific type when it comes to dating," Bucky mused. "They're always brunette—save those two girls from university—and they always have green eyes." 

You furrow your brows in serious thought. "I suppose so."

"Yeah," Bucky nodded, his tone still casual. "They always remind me of Wanda, especially from the back. I always have to make sure I'm careful not to mix up your date with Wanda." 

Bucky ended it with a chuckle, stating he was getting cold before he left without another world, leaving you alone outside.

The connect dots snapped into place almost instantly, horrifying you as you continued to stare at Wanda from above. 

Oh, fuck. 

Maybe it was a good thing you didn't bring anyone tonight. You're not sure how you'd be able to take someone home into your bed with the daunting realization you go after girls who look like your best friend...because you actually want your best friend. 

The three months since that discovery had nearly driven you to insanity. Since you refused to talk to anyone about it, most of your thought process was, " Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no."

But in the end, you resolved that it couldn't happen. Wanda would never reciprocate your feelings in a million years, especially since she had Vision. Wanda occasionally even talked about the possibility of marrying him down the road. 

It wasn't happening. It was never going to happen. 

Wanda was more important to you than anyone in the whole entire world. You would never allow anything to risk the friendship—even your feelings. 

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You felt like a sick sexual deviant. 

Despite your resolve to bury your feelings and continue on as normal, it was getting increasingly weird to continue to see girls who looked like Wanda. Yet, you couldn't stop. It wasn't doing it for you otherwise. 

But now, every time you kissed a girl, all you could see was Wanda in her. Sex was beginning to become a guilty pleasure for all the wrong reasons. 

When you met Raye, it felt like another sinful thing to lust after, knowing how much she physically reminded you of Wanda. But you could see a big personality difference in the short time you spent chatting with Raye. 

Wanda was the type you spoiled, indulging in her strange, wacky ideas. She could be very emotional, swinging from one side of the spectrum to another. She had such a big heart, willing to love, but also held grudges and was wicked if crossed. Wanda was a brat in all the loving ways you could mean. 

Raye could be best described as emotionally consistent. On the surface, she portrayed a wicked sense of humor and was fun to be around, but she was much more guarded than Wanda. She was very independent, not liking anything that might even intrude on her freedom. Raye kept her true feelings close to herself and seemed to be teasing you to come find out. 

It was different. You didn't mind, maybe liking it even (purely in the sense it was the opposite of Wanda, and you couldn't afford to keep lusting after your best friend in all possible ways).

Even so, your mind was distracted on the first date.

"Have you ever done a boudoir photoshoot?" Raye asks, her tone low and seductive.

"Can't say that I have," you smile, trying to remind yourself to be present during the date. It's been long since you've properly wined and dined someone, and Wanda kept entering your thoughts. 

"Well, there's a first for everything and you might even have a willing model," Raye bit her bottom lip suggestively, her index finger stroking the back of your hand. 

And while the southern twang does stir something in you, and you feel your stomach tingling, you're very aware that it's because Raye physically reminds you of Wanda. So, your mind traitorously imagines Wanda biting her lip and saying seductive things to you. 

"THEY WOULD NEVER—"

You whip your head around, swearing you heard Wanda. When there was no sign of her, you furrowed your brows in confusion, turning back to Raye.

Was this a sign of insanity?

You resolve right then and there to focus on the lovely brunette before you and enjoy the date. It was easy enough if you relaxed and earnestly asked Raye questions about herself. 

It was easy enough to hold Raye's hand and swing it back and forth if you just thought about how warm they were. 

It was enough to giggle when Raye leaned in closer to whisper something silly or naughty in your ear if you just thought about how her breath felt on the shell of your ear.

Suddenly, the car next to you went off, the alarm beeping loudly enough to make you and Raye jump in surprise. You turned around and noticed the couple behind you were gone. You thought they looked slightly familiar, but it was too difficult to determine when they were so far away in the dark under passing streetlights. 

Ultimately, you walk Raye up her steps, unsure what you want your next move to be. Everything feels strange since the revelation. You feel guilty for your lust, but specifically what causes it. 

But when Raye pulled you in for a hot, searing kiss, you decided to just go with the flow...which also ended up being nothing as she got a call from her sister while clothes were discarded. 

The call was only bordering on 40 seconds, but you decided your momentum was lost, and you needed that momentum to have sex with someone else while you tried (unsuccessfully) to not think about Wanda. 

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Fuck. Darcy.

Those were the only words that could come to your mind after Wanda texted her vague answer about whether or not she was returning home tonight. 

You sighed as you scrolled through the videos and photos, trying to get a headstart on putting together the video for Tony and Pepper. As you began opening up files, many were corrupted by the inability to open or glitchy images. 

With another sigh, your chair scraped against the floor as you shifted back, pulling out your phone and shooting a quick text to the videographer asking if you could meet up tomorrow to get the SD card for the originals. You got a prompt reply with a thumbs-up emoji with a time and place. 

You thought you might've just heard something shuffle in your room, but you forget about it when it's quiet again.

In the end, you spent another 45 minutes scrolling through some other photos that weren't corrupted, catching Wanda in the background and staring with a lingering thought about how absolutely pretty she was.

A part of you was in disbelief that Wanda was interested in women. You had so many questions that still lingered, but you didn't want to push Wanda or make it seem like you were interrogating her, and she needed to prove it.  

Still, you wondered what exactly made Wanda come to terms with the fact that she liked women.

Specifically, why couldn't you be the reason she was interested in women? You shoved those forbidden feelings down, beating them back into its box to put away. 

It didn't matter. 

It shouldn't matter.

You're with Raye, and Wanda may be with Darcy. Or some other girl, or maybe even with a guy again.

It's just not going to be you. 

And that's okay, you tell yourself. You can love someone without having to pursue anything. You just want to be there for Wanda. 

Of course, all of this changed the moment you watched a slanted confession video from an unaware Wanda while your roommate was out for lunch with a client.

Shock is the only thing that registers upon the video finishing. Were you hallucinating again? Was this like the first date with Raye where you kept thinking you could hear or see glimpses of Wanda?

But you played the video over and over, blinking every time it was finished.

Then a burst of strange laughter bubbled from your mouth, and then horror dawned on you that, 'oh, fuck. She actually feels the same way.'

It was unclear whether or not Wanda was trying to let her feelings be known or if she was also facing the same issue as you, where she was suppressing them. Either way, Wanda would unlikely be brave enough to say anything soon. 

You spent the week humming and hawing about what pursuing a relationship with your best friend would mean. What would the consequences be if things didn't work out? What would the consequences be if you declined to pursue anything more despite if Wanda confessed? What would the consequences be to watch Wanda move on and love someone else?

Your stomach dropped. 

You needed to break up with Raye. 

Your stomach dropped. 

You wait 3 more days before confronting Wanda since she's clearly a chicken.

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"You knew you had feelings for me for at least 3 months?" Wanda screeches. "And you said nothing?!"

"Okay, relax, you banshee," you wince at the sound. "How is that the only thing you hung onto out of everything I just told you?"

"But...but!" Wanda narrows her eyes on you. "It was getting serious with Raye!"

"Serious?" you raise your brow at Wanda. "What gave you the idea it was getting serious? We were dating but I saw her maybe a few days out of a month with how much she flies out for work."

"So, it wasn't getting serious at all?" Wanda frowns.

"Well," you purse your lips. "Maybe for Raye. She was considering transferring to another department so she wouldn't have to fly out anymore."

Wanda's mouth hangs open, her face pale with the worst thoughts of what might've been if they never confessed their feelings.

"Which," you cut in like you're able to read her mind, "obviously, I told her to not do as I wanted to end things with her."

"How did she take it?" Wanda asks curiously.

You look uncomfortable as you shift in bed, but Wanda waits patiently. "I think she just emotionally shut down. There were no tears, no screaming, or any accusations about why I was ending things. She just looked impassive as she accepted it and asked me to leave."

"Oh," Wanda bit her bottom lip. She feels bad in a way, but not bad enough to regret making you hers. "I'm sorry, bug."

You sigh as you reach over and pull Wanda close, pressing a kiss to her bare shoulder. The blanket shifts down, exposing Wanda's neck and collarbone where you had unabashedly marked up.

"Now, are you done with the questions, or can we resume where we left off?" You ask mischievously, pressing languid kisses against the side of her neck. 

Wanda closes her eyes with a soft hum, pressing her body closer to yours until you shift and move over Wanda. 

"I notice that you didn't mention anything about Darcy."

"Mention what exactly?" You say between kisses, stroking Wanda's hip. "That I was insanely jealous and wished her ill? Although, now that I know it was a fake date and neither of you had interest in each other, she seems nice."

Wanda laughs. "Even after she hacked your laptop?"

"With your help, might I remind you," you pull up and pointedly look at her. "But if she never corrupted those wedding files, I would've never got the original SD card and found out about your feelings."

"Very true," Wanda muses as she throws her head around your neck and pulls you close. She pecks your lips charmingly. "We should get her a nice bottle of wine."

"What about Steve and Bucky."

Wanda scoffs. "They're meddling little school girls who are probably kicking their feet and giggling."

You can't help but laugh before you dive in for another kiss, eager but slow. Oh, man. You were going to love Wanda for the rest of your life.

After a moment, Wanda sighs. "Okay, fine. We can give our McDonald's coupons to Steve and Bucky."

You laugh again. "Alright, brat."

"Okay, stinky."

"Chicken."

"Stupid."

"Witch."

"Here we go again with that," Wanda rolls her eyes with a smile. "I'll have you know that if I were a witch, I'd be the most powerful and best witch ever."

"I bet you would," you agree very readily. "Instead of cursing people to death, you'd be saving their lives...or causing mass chaos. Huh, I guess that's not so different from now." 

Wanda scoffs indignantly before she starts tickling you. You laugh, trying to jerk away, but Wanda is persistent in keeping you in place. 

"Mercy!" You laugh as you roll to the side. 

"Take that back! I do not cause chaos!"

"I take it back! You're clearly an A-List superhero!"

Wanda continues to tickle you anyway. "Say you love me!"

"I love you!"

Only then does Wanda stop, grinning wickedly as she presses a chaste kiss to your lips, and you're breathing heavily.

You want to call her a menace, but you're afraid that will only result in another tickle fight. 

Wanda smiles warmly.

"I love you, too."

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"See, I told you Wanda would be the one to confess!" Steve smirks.

"That's because you're a little cheater who went and nudged Wanda along," Bucky rolls his eyes with a smile.

"Oh, yeah, like you're the perfect picture of fair," Steve narrows his eyes. "Don't think I don't know that you went to Bug first. I had to step in and nudge Wanda to make the odds even."

"Was it really Wanda who confessed when it was Bug who technically discovered her secret."

Steve seems to think about it before he slumps into the sofa, "I feel like that's a gray area." Then, Steve frowns. "Ugh, but then that means neither of us wins the bet."

"We can just call it even," Bucky shrugs, laying his head on Steve's shoulder.

"Oh, no," Steve shakes his head. "I won't let you wriggle out of our bet. We will watch all the Lord of the Rings movies if you lose."

Bucky groans loudly. "But there's so many and they're so long."

"You really think I want to watch the Star Wars movies?" Steve rolls his eyes.

"They're a classic!" Bucky argues.

"So is Lord of the Rings."

Bucky huffs but concedes. "Fine," he wrinkles his nose. "Should we bet on something else?"

"No, I like the thrill of two people getting together, even if it takes time. Besides, we have the time since we have to finish a whole bunch of shows," Steve says.

"Hm, which ones of our friends are due to get together?" Bucky muses.

"We could try Nat and Maria," Steve suggests.

"No, too hard since Maria doesn't live here," Bucky shakes his head and then offers, "Yelena and Kate?"

"I think they're actually already together," Steve furrows his brows. "But if they're not, I'm too scared of Yelena to get involved in her affairs."

"I think that's all our friends who are technically single with a viable date option," Bucky sighs.

Silence falls between them before Steve suggests, "Want to bet when Tony and Pepper will announce they're pregnant?"

They stare at each other for a moment before they yell out their guess at the same time. 

"6 months!"

"6 months!"

The silliness of it all leaves Steve and Bucky giggling. 

[lycheepocketwitch]

"it was the fact that you might just be subconsciously a pervert."

LMFAOOO

"This was all Bucky's fault. You wished you had never gone out onto that balcony that night."

*GASP* SO STEVE AND BUCKY WERE SCHEMING???

"You felt like a sick sexual deviant."

oh poor babie😭

"Specifically, why couldn't you be the reason she was interested in women? You shoved those forbidden feelings down, beating them back into its box to put away."

poor babie😭x2

"You wait 3 more days before confronting Wanda since she's clearly a chicken."

and we're back to comedy hahahaha. gosh i can't believe it's the end of this mini-series! it was so entertaining and well-written. i usually go for very angsty (preferably with happy/hopeful endings bc im not that much of a masochist) fics, but it was so refreshing to read this fic! i mean i guess in a way there was like a biiiit of angst, but with all the humor, it really was fluffier than angst lol.

also i have to say i would NOT let wanda give steve and bucky our mcdonalds coupons🤨😠 IM KEEPING MY DISCOUNTED CHICKEN NUGGETS FOR MYSELF TYVM