hi friends. letting everyone know that requests are open and welcome!
i’ll be writing for male and/or nb readers! cis or trans, but if not specified in the ask (in the case of smut) i’ll probably go with amab
i’m up for writing male and female characters, not strictly mlm. also, requests can be romantic or platonic, but again, unless stated otherwise they will be interpreted as romantic
fic masterlist here!
• • •
DO request: fluff, angst, smut, hurt/comfort, hurt/no comfort, headcanons, etc.
i WON’T write: graphic depictions of s/a or rape, incest/pseudo-incest, immoral age gaps, underage sex, age play, race play
character/fandom list below ⬇️
DC (COMICVERSE OR DCU)
bruce wayne
diana of themyscira
clark kent
barry allen
hal jordan
dick grayson
jason todd
tim drake
stephanie brown
cassandra cain
duke thomas
barbara gordon
kara zor-el
roy harper
donna troy
wally west
talia al ghul
MARVEL (COMICVERSE)
peter parker
wade wilson
miles morales
johnny storm
scott summers
jean grey
mj watson
(MCU EXCEPTION) bob reynolds
STAR WARS
luke skywalker
leia organa
han solo
anakin skywalker
obi-wan kenobi
padmé amidala
ahsoka tano
rey skywalker
finn
poe dameron
INVINCIBLE (TV)
mark grayson
eve wilkins
nolan grayson
allen
SUPERNATURAL
dean winchester
sam winchester
castiel
RYAN GOSLING CHARACTERS
ryland grace (phm)
holland march (the nice guys)
colt seavers (the fall guy)
sierra six/courtland gentry (the gray man)
dan dunne (half nelson)
officer k (blade runner 2049)
sebastian wilder (la la land)
lars lindstrom (lars and the real girl)
henry letham (stay)
jacob palmer (crazy stupid love)
driver (drive)
(always feel free to ask if i write for another fandom as well)
cw: mention/implied drug usage, angst, comfort, fluff, plotless, just a sweet moment really
a/n: it's been a minute. my bad y'all. works picking up, i got really into ddr whoops :P i like making the header images tho, i might keep doing those. they're fun, i think i'm starting to understand the appeal of mood boards. reqs have not been forgotten
taglist: @not-so-normal-wh0re @hi-res-tm @mossrat
want to be tagged? you customize what you're tagged on
"sorry," cameron mumbles, climbing out of your car. barely remembers getting in. groggy and irritaed, he remembers promising to drive back if you came to grab him. tries not to dwell on it when he feels your hand on his back, pushing him towards the door - he can feel how desperately you need to sleep. how badly you want to be back in bed.
you don't jab him in the back. it's just a tap that stays. guides. begs cameron to move a little faster. or at all.
cam gets stuck on the curve of your face. lingers there. he wants that too, he realizes. he'd asked for it technically. but it hadn't really hit him until now.
he wants to be in bed with you. it's comforting being in bed with you.
"cam." you sounded insouciant. cool. like you could just dissolve all his worry, all his misdirected irritation with himself in a syllable. and you did.
somewhat.
enough of it.
enough for him to forget how different 'cam' sounded an hour ago, over the phone, sleep croaking out of it.
he felt like a dick for waking you up. if it wouldn't have been a shitty thing to do, cameron would have hung up. he'd been kicking himself for not just driving over, he could've. wasn't like he didn't have a key, just couldn't stand to get back in the van long enough to get there. could've just crashed on ethan's couch, honestly. he has before, will again probably. ethan's never terribly bothered by it, enjoys the company he says. cameron simply would rather find himself in your bed instead.
in for a penny, cameron had supposed.
'well,' he'd said. 'i was hoping,' he started with no idea where he was going with that. no idea how to explain why you had to pick him up. why half his meals for the day painted the gravel behind the van, and how it got all over his shoes after he half-jumped, half-fell out of the back. if he should bother mentioning it.
you knew the van was his mom's, but cameron never bothered mentioning how it was when he got it. never talked about that the weeks of deep cleaning he had to do. how it was nearly obsessive. how he'd bleached and scrubbed every surface, tossing every cushion that he could pull out of the van, and drenching the ones he couldn't in carpet cleaner and febreze. and even then that scorched chemical smell she left wasn't gone, just masked by something acrid and sweet cameron had gone nose-blind to pretty early into those weeks spent making the van bearable.
does he admit that he hadn't noticed it in modesto? or when the damned thing broke down in the parking lot of the shop-way? or even in the weeks since he got it back, that he's only noticing it now?
the bitter-sweet from the bleach could only override it for so long. that smell that used to follow his mom around. cat-piss and burnt plastic was the best way cameron could think to describe it and it was always so faint on her. like she held off using when she knew he was going to be around, those handful of times she tried to take him back from aunt jeanne. thinking about it, about her, makes cameron dizzy.
"cam."
he tried to do the thing you told him about, the senses thing:
five things he can see, four he can touch, three he can hear, and then he lands on smell again and the only two things he can smell remind him of the morgue. of her- 'can you maybe pick me up?'
he didn't know what his voice sounded like, but it couldn't've been good.
you sounded too awake after you heard him.
looked too awake when you walked down to him. when you said it didn't feel worth it to run your car down the laneway. figured the gravel crunching under your tires would be too loud for how late it is. you'd just parked on the road, right before the turn
which is another reason to feel like shit. he didn't think about that, either. about waking up ethan, or the neighbors.
"cameron-"
and you're pulling him through the door.
because he's not outside hell on wheels right now. not even near it. his inheritance. he's being tugged into the apartment of a guy that fills every thought that isn't about his mom, the van, or that bastard that never paid child support. a guy he didn't even know at the beginning of the summer. a guy that came to pick cameron up after he fell asleep. came at an hour no one's ever stayed up 'til in sowell bay. a guy who's apartment smells nothing like cat piss. "-you're falling asleep on your feet."
it smells like candles more expensive than they're worth. faint. like your apartment is habitable, like it's meant to be lived it.
"yeah, sorry man."
"you don't have to be sorry, just go." you're tapping his back again, half pushing him down the hall towards your room. because in the short span of time you've known each, every time he's ever stayed over, it's always been with you. in your bed.
there was never a question. never a conversation. just late calls and stumbling kisses until cam's back is against your mattress.
the only difference now is you haven't kissed him. and he hasn't tried goading you into one.
there's no intention.
just you and him. all thoughts about that van kept at bay by hands that never leave him. grazing, poking, tapping. all assured and light until you finally make it down the hall. until you're finally crawling into bed. after your both stripped down, out of hoodies and sweats, into whatever tanks, band shirts, shorts. anything light you have around. anything that hasn't made it's way into the hamper.
"thank you" he mumbles out. it's terribly belated. anyone but you would of chastised him for it. but he says it.
he means it.
doesn't mind too much when he gets those soft, hoarse snores against his neck in response.
Just get in, leave the cash on the table, and get out
You come home to find a painfully familiar man on your sofa, and he’s come to ‘thank you’ for your help.
warnings: 18+, NSFW MINORS DO NOT INTERACT. reader is written with a penis but no other physical descriptions. no use of y/n. blood mentions, minor blood play, frotting, coming together, dom!court, belt as handcuffs, court is still an asshole out of fear. lots of mentions of spit/+ other bodily fluids. touch-starved court gets a little fucking weird with it. finally. vaguely happy ending (but just for tonight)
a/n: i could write for HOURSSS about how i see court’s relationship with intimacy. it’s so special to me. tried to show how he uses his training as a buffer so he doesnt have to think about what he’s doing. oh tortured man who’s not even sure he’s fully human and capable of love anymore. being an asshole because it’s the only way he feels in control and safe. oh bud. .. as usual not fully beta’d (but shoutout to my bf for checking the first half! love u!!!!) i wrote most of this on a beach, and then the rest on the train home. scenic fic writing is my favourite. if there’s issues anywhere please let me know. i struggle with bad brain fog that makes me mess up words sometimes, and my disability makes typing difficult. spell check wasn’t working on the train so excuse any mistakes for now, ill fix them in the coming days , i just wanted to get it out <3
"We've gotta stop meeting each other like this." You'd barely locked the door when the voice sounded, and your heart leapt out of your throat as you turned, seeing an almost familiar body draped across your sofa.
"Get the fuck out!" Your hand instinctive wretches the drawer by the front door open, only to find it empty.
"Did you start keeping a knife by the door before or after you met me?" His head tilts to the side with a small smile, and you have to narrow your eyes at him to realise who he is. Holy shit.
"Jim?" He falters a little at the name, wincing almost, and for a moment you see the pained man you'd met.
"Six." He corrects you now, and you just nod, it seems irrelevant in the current situation, there are more pressing matters at hand as far as you're concerned.
"Why are you in my house?" His grin returns, and he gives an amused shrug.
"I was in the area, thought I'd drop by and say thanks." He speaks all too casually, slipping the knife in his pocket and reclines back, throwing his arms on the sofa behind himself.
"Yeah-Uh-" You glance back at the door, you'd spent so long convincing yourself that it was all some insane dream spurred on by a lack of sleep, so the fact he was once again in front of you was proving to be more than a little overwhelming. "How did you get in?" You think back to a minute beforehand, the door had been locked, and you stare down at the keys in your hand.
"Oh, here," He roots around in his pocket for a moment, before tossing you another set of keys that hits you squarely in the chest and drops to the floor. Your heart thumps so hard you can feel it in your throat, and you really need to leave this time. The man sat like he owns the place is hardly the same wounded one you'd barely been safe with before, and you really doubt you'd get a home field advantage in this fight.
Innocent men don't typically get stabbed and then go anywhere but a hospital. Innocent men don't typically demand the shirt with their blood on it and then sleep with a gun under their pillow before disappearing in the middle of the night.
"Your landlord really doesn't give a shit, I just said I was your boyfriend and I'd lost my set of keys and he gave me a replacement- you need to find a new place." He narrows his eyes at you. "There are much more dangerous men than me that could use that to their advantage."
"You seem dangerous enough to me." You regret the words as soon as you say them, and he gets a flash of that anger you'd seen before, his eyes darkening as his jaw locks in a grimace.
"I'm not here to hurt you." He hisses, and he nods towards the coffee table as if he's pointing out the obvious.
There's a wad of cash on the table, more than you'd ever seen in one place in your life. "You might wanna spread out depositing it, they'll flag it as fraud if you do it all at once." He relaxes again, smiling- he seems to be the king of hot and cold reactions.
"Six I-" You debate leaving, calling the police maybe, but you know that that wouldn't stop him, he'd be gone before you finished dialing.
"Come here." He curls a finger at you. "Please." He tacks on, head tilting to the side like he's sizing you up again, but this time the smirk tugging at his lips suggests it's a different type of dangerous.
"Six." You can't deny you feel some sort of way towards him, and you're instantly reminded of sight of him as you knelt in front of him. The way he'd looked at you, the way he'd cradled your head and then your hands, keeping you in that position- below him.
"What?" His lip quirks up again, voice playing innocent, in a way that's painfully charming.
Six stares at you with a look he hoped conveyed some sort of hunger, and internally fought with the fact he had no clue what he was doing. He'd intended on doing a quick in and out, dropping the cash on the table before dipping back out, maybe scribbling a note to warn him about his shitty landlord before pushing the keys under the door. But he hadn't. He'd become entranced. Watching you for the last few months had been a hobby he couldn't quite afford, but had scraped through anyway. It had been just his luck getting a job in your city, and it had only furthered when Sid had allowed him a short break from work, he deserved it, apparently. Knowing him, it was some setup for a job that would no doubt end as awfully as all the others. He couldn’t trust the man as far as he could throw him, but at times like these, he’d take the odd act of kindness when he could.
“I don’t-“ You stumble over your words, and he watches the nerves twitch across your face. He finds it cute, and immediately reprimands himself for finding attraction in your fear- he’s trying to be moral here. “Fuck it.” The way you relax makes the stress melt from his shoulders, and the kick drum beat of his heart ramps up to 10 as you approach slowly.
Six isn’t particularly good at the song and dance to tempt someone to be with him, but the second they’re hooked he moves like a well oiled machine. He’s not -trained- in seduction, but based on how you reacted last time, the standard rules of his usual business apply. He knows how to be in control, he knows how to guide people into exactly what he wants.
“There we go.” He hums, a lilt of praise that makes you grin bashfully. “Here.” He sits up just a fraction, getting himself close enough to hook a boot around your ankle, drawing you forward until his hands can find your hips, though he doesn’t drag you down to his lap like he so wants to. “Tell me I can.” His gloved thumbs dance slowly under your shirt, watching as you shiver at the cold leather against your skin. You just nod at him, and his chest burns painfully as he shakes his head back. “Use your words.”
“Yeah-Yeah. Please.” The way you ease into his hold has his spine thrumming, and he decides to allow himself to fully give in to the cravings that have been building since the night he met you. It feels stupid, he has no business experiencing such carnal desires for anything other than personal gain, but something about you makes his brain too buzzy. You’re too soft and gentle and too sweet to him that he wants you all, to hell with his training.
"You want to be a good nurse and check on your work?" He teases, and he hopes you don't notice the wince at his own comment, but he can hardly regret it when a second later you’re nodding, already moving to take your place between his knees.
It feels unnatural to him, to be in this situation, but the thrill of someone submitting to his whims so easily makes him dizzy. Having someone under his command without even using a weapon is a power he loves to wield on occasion, and it does help when they were as easy on the eyes as you were.
“Ji-“ You go to say, before quickly correcting yourself with wide eyes. “Six.” He nods, allowing himself the luxury to bask in the mild panic on your face. You’re someone who wants him. Despite it all.
“Yeah?” There it is again, the falter of a sudden wave of insecurity. He rolls around a few pet names on his tongue, so rarely used when encounters to cater to his own desires are few and far between. He wants to call you something that will draw you out of your shell, have you eating out the palm of his hand and crawling into his arms. He wonders then what you might call him, how you might react when he orders you about. It’s a dynamic he knows all too well, but seeing it in this context is electric, and each touch of your gentle hand against him as you settle to your knees has his skin sparking.
“Baby.” He settles on- sweet and normal, so painfully human and almost domestic, everything he didn’t consider himself to be. But tonight? He was allowed to pretend. He could do away with the bravado and act that he carried as The Gray Man. All the violence and biting anger that had him feeling more machine than man melted into something burning deep in his chest. A fire was lit, and he was determined to keep it aflame.
“Can I?” You’re asking him now, all gentle as you fiddle with the hem of his black shirt. It makes him feel insane, crazy with the high of being treated like a person. In a field of work like his, autonomy was hard to come by, his body was simply equipment, and no one cared for the brain piloting it. He was a machine, something to own, as much as his heart fought that he was a man of flesh and blood, his handlers had never quite shared the same sentiment.
But there you were, waiting with tender hands that brought no violence, your touch would arrive soft and pleasurable. It was something he seldom had, and he’d started to believe he didn’t deserve.
“Yeah, go ahead.” His hand gravitates to you like he got a mind of its own, and he wraps his fingers loosely around yours as you shove his shirt clumsily up his abdomen. “Here, let me help you.” Pulling away almost feels painful when he’s so near to your warmth, but he does so for the sake of yanking his shirt off and tossing it somewhere off to the side. He knows your apartment now, this isn’t the first time he’d been inside it, and the simple act of seeing his shirt lay on the floor like it belongs there almost has him doubling over with a painfully sick feeling- though it stems from nothing but the desire for a normal life.
He ends that train of thought before it could continue, Courtland Gentry will never have a normal life, he will never be free, and he will never know such tender care outside of these fleeting moments. So for now he cannot dwell, he cannot do anything past what his body is aching for, he simply succumbs to baser instincts and watches with a buzzy delight at the way your hands twitch nervously before flattening against his thighs.
“You did so good.” He praises, watching your sweet face as your eyes settle on the scar, uneven and jagged in his abdomen. Another person may have been annoyed at the mess of it all, the way the stitches were uneven and carved a mess into what was once- a long time ago- smooth pristine skin. But to him it was a reminder, and he often found himself seeking the feeling of it out, tracing the hacked lines, just to affirm to himself that sometime, somewhere, someone found it within themselves to be gentle with him.
His brain short circuits as you suddenly make a move to lean closer, pushing his legs open wider to get to an angle where you can crane your head down, dipping it low towards his hips. “Fuck.” He feels painfully easy now, and he should be embarrassed at the way his brain stutters at the sight, and practically melts when your lips press to the skin there.
He’s once again overtaken by the desire to taste you, and in turn make you taste him. He wants to bring you up to his mouth until you’re both panting, breaths mingling and spit swirling together on your lips. He wants to watch it drip down your chin, mixing with the sweat beginning to bead across your face.
Your mouth is hot and wet against him as you pepper gentle kisses to the sensitive skin, and moments later your tongue slips out past the seam of your lips, the tip of it warm as it traces back and forth along the length of the scar, pushing into the ridges of the uneven tissue, following where you’d once hastily stitched him up.
You’re probing at him, tasting deeper than what should be comfortable, and part of his brain screams at the sensation, still prickly and on edge where his nerves continue to knit together, but the way spit is slicking across your chin and down to your jaw has any sort of complaint swallowed easily.
“Six.” You’re barely audible with the way your lips are practically fused to his abdomen, and the slow rumble that echoes through his body as the name vibrates against his skin almost has him bucking up into nothing. Self control. He allows instead for his hand to push to the back of your head, drawing you impossible closer, enough that a foot can shift and bully its way between your thighs, parting them just right.
He’s obsessed with how malleable you are, he decides then, and wonders what other ways he could bend you just the way he wants. The first willing participant in his games in a long time, you don’t seem to mind the way he toys with you. After all, you’d stuck by him even through the night in the hotel. He still remembers the feeling of your forehead beneath his lips, the way that even asleep, you leant into his touch.
You’re lapping at the scarred skin without instruction, and he groans heartily above you, fingernails scraping into your scalp as a warmth settles in his lower stomach. “So good, savin’ my life like that.” Your eyes flick up from where they’d previously been blissfully closed, and he wants to openly moan at the sight, rolling his head back on his shoulders. “Come up.” He expects you to sit normally, but you trail your tongue up his chest as you move, licking a stripe up to his collarbones, shuffling onto his lap. “Fucking hell.” He feels like his breath has been knocked from his lungs as you settle your knees either side of his broad thighs.
“Let me thank you.” His method of thanks was admittedly very selfish, because it involved drawing your mouth to his own as a hand cups the back of your neck, the other snaking down to your waist. “You want me to, baby?” He’s moving to hold your cheek now, his thumb pushing against your lips, probing past them just enough to have your jaw falling slack in his hold. You nod quickly, probably too fast, and he has to bite back a groan at the way you shift on top of him, palms pressing to his chest.
You feel so soft, too gentle again, and he wants to spiral into the feeling, pull you into his arms and stay there forever, pretending that just for once, he was safe. He can’t feel such an attachment to you, but he was already too far gone- he’d passed the line when he committed your identity to memory for ‘insurance purposes’ but then immediately used that information to find you. He’d spent too many nights stalking you like he would any other mark, and a sickly feeling had built up. You were too pure and unaware, but he felt so good to be the one to look after you. He meant in the best way, at least he tells himself he does, you were just too sweet to be out there wandering alone, without him there to care for you, to pay you back for all your help.
“Six?” Your voice cuts through his tangent, and he blinks at the confused expression on your face, brows tugged gently together, lip pierced between your teeth. “Have I done something wrong?” He’s not sure why you’re asking, and it’s his turn to frown, tilting his head to the side.
“No, no you haven’t.” He has that hazy look you remember from before, but there’s no blood loss to cause his spaced out attitude.
“You-You zoned out there.”
Something about your observation makes him feel panicked, and his heart kicks into gear like a caged animal. He can’t look weak-not here, not with you. He doesn’t even care that you wouldn’t be able to hurt him even if you tried, but his training forces him to spike with a sudden aggression. As much as he tries to fight it, he’s reminded again what- and who- he is, he can’t afford to let his soft emotions show.
His teeth grit, and he doesn’t even notice the way your eyes widen before he’s moving, arms tightening around your waist to haul you up into the air when he stands. “Six!” You yelp, wrapping legs around his hips as he pivots, your hands practically clawing at his back to keep you upright. He debates internally what in the everloving fuck he’s doing for a moment, before settling on spinning to drop you down onto the sofa where he’d just been sat.
He lays you across it, a large hand finding your wrists to push them above your head, holding them against the armrest as he swings a knee over your hips, pinning you down. It’s a painfully familiar position for him to be in, and he hopes you don’t notice the way his empty fist clenches at his side as he resists the trained urge to slam it into your face. You’re too prone beneath him, too easy, it’s unnatural for such a man to have someone submit for anything other than a beating. He’s out of practice- but the argument could be made that he never was in the first place.
“Six.” He can’t help but notice your pupils are blown, glassy eyes wide as you blink up at him.
“It’s okay.“ He overcorrects his outburst with an unnatural softness, and once again he winces. It all sounds so unfamiliar to his ears.
“Are you sure-“ He can’t stand to face the question, and instead cups your cheek with the hand that had previously been balled into a tight fist, hoping the tender action could counteract all the evil he’d done, before he leans down to kiss you.
The sensation almost burns him, your lips so soft and gentle against his own, his last encounter this delicate had hardly been recent, and until now, he seemed to have forgotten the feeling of it all. He had to bite back the monstrous feeling when you relax in bliss beneath him, his brain sparking in response to the prone body as if he’d just completed a successful mission. But no, the way you writhed under him just moments later, blood pumping hot under your skin where he holds your wrists reminds him that he is capable of much more than just hell and violence.
The familiar taste of copper floods his mouth, and panic pricks at his heart as he pulls rapidly back, heaving breaths as he stares down at you. “I’m okay.” Your eyes are still closed, and a small smile tugs at your bloodied lips, plump and splitting.
“Fuck.” Is all he can pant, licking across his own lips with hunger, and he can only imagine how crazed he must look, eyes settled solely on the small stream of red running from the corner of your mouth. He wants to lap it up, your blood just seems that much sweeter. It’s an injury born of passion and some warped version of love- the taste is addictive, he wants to pierce your swollen lips with his teeth until you’re both a mess of gore. “You’re so pretty like this.” He realises how insane it sounds as soon as he says it, but he can hardly care, not when he dips down to slide his tongue across your chin and back up to your lips before you can even mumble a response into his open mouth.
Your body reacts under him like you’re a man starved- as if you haven’t been touched like this in years. You whimper his name, only for it to be swallowed by his mouth passing over yours. His fingers bite into the flesh of your wrists, pulse thumping a feverish rhythm against his palm. He mumbles what sounds like praise between your tongues mixing, and the hand on your head begins to slide a dangerous path down your chest. He curses as your hips jolt involuntarily into his, the mere friction maddening.
Deft fingers travel as far as he can reach, blunt nails scraping at the soft skin of your navel before snatching at your shirt to drag it painfully slow up your torso. He moves away to pull it off over your head as if the loss of contact physically pains him, a deep whine vibrating in his throat in the second it takes before he can latch onto you again. “You’re so fuckin’ soft.” His words are muffled as spit slicked lips trail down your chin, palm smoothing up and down, from your ribs to your hips and back again, as if he’s trying to commit your body to memory. “Come here.” He moves quicker than you can even process, a tangle of limbs as he pulls your arms down and wraps his own around your chest again, and you brace to be hauled up into the air, lifting your hips to grab at him with your thighs.
But he has other plans, and as soon as your back is off the seat you’re both crashing to the floor in a way that almost knocks the wind from your lungs when you land on top of him, but Six appears to remain unphased. He’s just as rabid as he was moments before, tugging you down tight until your chests press together, moaning at the skin on skin contact it rewards him with, grabbing at any part of you he can reach, squeezing flesh in his thick fingers.
“You’re so good, baby.” He hums, hands pressing harsh at your lower back to keep you steady as he slowly grinds up into you, as yours brace against his scarred shoulders. Everything melts away, his anger seeps into the floor of your shitty apartment beneath you both as your sweat mingles with a mess of spit on your skin. He feels dumb with lust as he fulfills what he considered one of his greatest wishes, and tilts his face just enough to lick a stripe up across your cheek, up to your temple where sweat is beginning to dampen your hairline. Fuck. He feels insane as he does it, and he’s so clouded and buzzy that he barely registers it. “You taste so good.”
An animalistic greed takes over as he wants to devour you whole, he wants to spend the rest of his life with you pressed against him, all soft and malleable under calloused hands- he wants to kiss and lick and fuck you like a man starved. He doubts he’ll ever be satisfied with another drop of any drink in the world now he’s tasted you.
“Six-“ You break through his haze, pulling up just enough to rest your foreheads together, his hair now damp and sticky against yours. “I need-“ You’d happily spend the next few hours being slowly pulled apart by the man hellbent on marking your entire body with his spit, but the coil in your lower stomach is becoming too overwhelming to feel anything other than burning, and each swipe of his tongue sets your skin alight. “I need- please just do something.” You whine, and you would be ashamed of your pathetic tone if it didn’t draw such a n immediate reaction from him- because he’s pushing you upwards in order to reach your belt buckle before you can even catch your breath back.
Skilled hands make light work of getting your trousers open, and he wastes no time in pushing them as far down your hips as they will go in the odd angle before pulling the belt out. “Hands.” You sit back on his thighs, and thoughtlessly hold out your wrists towards him, much to his enjoyment. The belt is looped around your wrists and tightened in a way that tells you he’s done this a million times, and you try desperately not to dwell on that in favour of giving yourself up to him wholeheartedly. You shouldn’t trust him- and you doubt many people do- but you’d hazard a guess that you’re the first person to look past whatever persona he’d built up in whatever line of work he was plagued by. The man beneath you was hardly the demon he’s convinced he is. And so you watch him work with a feverish anticipation, rutting gently against his black cargo trousers. Addicted to the way he tries to bite back groans, his scarred abs tightening as he attempts to hold himself back.
Having you tied up allows him to sink fully into his new role, silencing the thrumming of deeply engrained defence that takes hold each time you move in a way he can’t predict. It’s safer this way, he reasons with himself, and it does help that you seem to be as into it as he is, attempting twice to pry your arms back open, sighing contently when the leather simply squeaks and holds its restraint.
One of his broad hands settles at your waist, and yours ball into fists when the other presses a thumb over the wet patch that had formed on your boxers. “Can I?” He’s seeking out your permission again, as if your answer could absolve him of all the times he’d grabbed and bruised despite screams and cries. If he can just be gentle with you, if he waits for your nod and cried permission, then he isn’t the monster people say he is. A contract killer on a moral streak- it’s almost comical, and he’s sure any other man in his profession would not offer the same grace. If he’s kind to you, then maybe there’s good in him after all- maybe part of his soul is redeemable.
“Please-“ Your voice cracks as you keel forward, already overwhelmed as he begins to massage the tip. “Fuck, Six.” He’s overtaken again by the desire to tell you his real name then, and his head spins as he thinks about the way it would sound from your puffy lips, the way you’d choke it out through a moan. He wants to beg for it then, for someone to make him human again, to do away with codenames and address him like he’s something more than just a killing machine, an object to do their bidding. He wants the control of an identity that had been so violently stripped from him under the guise of helping him.
“Yeah? You like that?” He forces out a line that makes him want to recoil, but it appears to have the desired effect as you nod with a desperate need, attempting to tilt your hips to chase the friction of his hand. “Good.” He hums, and he means it now.
“Please.” You repeat your desperate cry, and he wants to be taunting, to play with you until you bend fully under his will, but as you blink down at him with teary eyes, he reminds himself why he’s here. He’s thanking you now. Some part of him that he should kill quicker than it forms, eases his desires with a promise to himself that it won’t be the last time you’re like this under his hands. He shouldn’t. Finding you out a second time was more than he ever should’ve done. He knows better than that.
“Okay, baby.” He grins wickedly, complying to your wishes with his fingers probing into your boxers, pulling them down enough to release you properly, listening to the chorus of whines and whimpers you can barely control. “There?” He taunts, and you can’t even speak as you nod desperately, drool pooling in the corners of your mouth before you clamp down with sharp teeth to your lower lip. “Harder.” He orders, and his eyes settle solidly on the puffy pink skin, and he watches in delight when you do so without question, scraping your incisors into the cut as you tug your lower lip into your mouth. He groans shamelessly when blood pools to the surface. This is insane, he’s sure your mind supplies when he catches a flash of panic in your eyes as it beads up and drips down against your bound wrists, but the sight seems to make Six feral all over again.
“Good boy.” He hums, beginning to jerk you off slowly, whilst using his other hand to pull your hips forward to settle once more over his own. “You wanna do something for me?” He groans at the awkward angle his head tilts at, the action pulls at sore muscles all across his shoulders. He allows himself to wonder, for a brief moment, that if this were a relationship, you would offer him the comfort of a massage. What a world it would be if he could come home to your tender touch each night. Fuck.
Whether it’s to ease the discomfort, or just to stop his mind from racing once more, he begins to change position. He wants to be on top of you again, pin you down to the floor to watch you lay vulnerable beneath him. He can keep himself in check, if he just falls into place- if he becomes the man the world believes him to be.
He manhandles you without a care, brows tugging deep into a frown, jaw clenching as he forces you onto your back, bullying his way between your thighs before you can even process what’s going on. “Hands above your head.” It’s nothing short of a snarl, and you do exactly as he says, flinging your bound arms up to rest on the carpet above you. You feel more open and vulnerable this way, and Six allows himself to revel in it. He’s at his best when there’s someone at his mercy. Context seldom matters.
“I’m gonna jerk us off together, yeah?” Once more he doesn’t wait for a response, not that your hazy brain could supply one past a quick wide-eyed nod. “Good, glad you agree.” His grin is wolfish, and lacking almost all of the warmth it had previously held, but it didn’t stop the coiling heat in your stomach. The fear you’d initially had of him had melted away into white hot desire.
He leans back, just enough to unzip and shimmy down his trousers to mid thigh, though his eyes don’t leave your body, assessing the way your chest is rising and falling. Fuck. Pathetic is too kind a word for the way you’re writhing about, hips bucking up into the empty air above you, desperate to seek some sort of friction. The sheer sight does wonders for his ego, and he’s glad to find that such honest desperation can come from something other than the will to stay alive. You’re fighting and crying out for his touch, a release only he can give you.
The second your cocks bump together as he spreads your thighs wider with one hand, you’re practically a mess, and he laughs at the pre-cum already dribbling down. He wants to hiss something about desperation, but he doesn’t trust his voice to stay level, not with how violently his heart is thumping in his throat, so he settles for a groan of your name. “Fuck.” He follows it up with, reaching one hand to collect the spit and blood from around your mouth before pushing the fingers inside, basking in the heavenly feeling of your tongue swiping across the digits.
With a spit slicked hand he pulls back, just enough to wrap it around both of your cocks at once, beginning a slow taunting rhythm. “Six!” He watched the way your back begins to arch off the floor, ankles coming to link at his lower back.
“You want it faster?” You nod desperately, and for that moment he’s grateful for the training he’s suffered through, because he so effortlessly sets a punishing pace that has you mewling and shaking on the floor.
“Fuck- Six.” You’re way too easy, and he almost wants to laugh at how quick you’re brought to your peak, and he offers a small mercy of allowing you to lift your bound wrists back up in an effort to grab at him, leaving scratches across his chest where your nails find purchase.
“I’m gonna-“ He cuts himself short to rattle off a groan, head hanging low to watch where your cocks thrust together, both wet with a slick mix of spit and pre-cum, your tip seeping and red. “I’m gonna let you come- as a thank you.” He pants out, slowing down just enough to rub his thumb along your slit, collecting as much as he can to smear across his own. “My perfect little nurse.” His hips continue to snap up almost in time with your own, and the feeling becomes so overwhelming you clamp down again on your lip, and the sight alone is almost enough to send him over the edge.
“Come on, come for me.” He orders, his free hand that has previously steadied itself on your shoulder came to cradle your cheek. Almost tender, again, and he hopes you don’t notice the way he softens just a fraction. “Come on, come on.” He repeats, collecting the blood dribbling down your chin on his thumb, before pushing it back into your mouth, groaning at your muffled whimpers.
“Fuck-“ You gasp around his fingers, body spazaming as you cry, tears streaming down your cheeks. “Six-God, Six-“ You can barely keep up with his pumping fist before you’re coming over your joined bodies, spurts dribbling down his hand and wrist, mixing with the spit and blood in a way that makes his head spin.
Fuck. He comes alongside you with a surprisingly controlled cry, his movements continuing for several moments until your cuffed wrists push at his shoulder to stop. “Six-“ His brain had gone hazy, and he felt like he was outside his body as he pulled apart through his aftershocks. “Six.” He barely notices the way you’re practically sobbing now, and it isn’t until you dig your nails tight into the flesh of his arm that he snaps back again.
“Ooookay.” He soothes quickly, suddenly terrified at the possibility of causing you any type of pain. It’s ironic, for a man of his profession, but the thought of hurting you makes his chest tighten, and he once again overcorrects into a part of him he’d never seen before. “I’ve got you, it’s okay baby.” One hand gently pats your cheek, wiping away the tears that collect under your eyes with his knuckle. “It’s okay, it’s okay.” He repeats like a mantra, and he’s quite sure if it’s more for you, or himself. “Ive got you.” He makes quick work of unbuckling the belt around your wrist, and he feels a rare pang of guilt at the angry lines cutting into your delicate skin. “There we go.” He hums, smoothing a thumb across the marks, and he surprises even himself when he drags them up to his mouth to press a gentle kiss there.
In that moment he doesn’t care about the life he leads, whether or not he’s just broken the one rule of leaving no trace, he simply cares for the way you soften around him, allowing him to reveal a tender side of him that he’d once considered gone.
Courtland Gentry isn’t a monster in this moment, he’s not a killer or a violent man, he’s a lover, sweet and kind, hellbent on keeping you safe and happy. Court Gentry is a protector- not of money or property, but of you. Right now as he hovers above you, lips dragging across your wrists, he feels your pulse thrum against them, and he’s human again. He’s no machine, he’s no asset to order about- to set on a stranger like a rabid dog. He’s gentle, and kind. Everything he had once been in a time long gone by.
So he revels in it, the way you don't flinch away, you don’t pull back like he’s some sort of evil you want to escape from. You seek him out, leaning into his touch, shuffling in an attempt to get into his arms. You want him for all he is, scarred and battered, you don’t care as you sit up, linking your arms once more to loop around his neck. “Six.” You’re still panting, your hot breath dancing across his throat. He’s human. He’s human. He’s human. He repeats in the back of his mind. Flesh against flesh, he’s clawing his humanity back with you in his arms.
“I’ve got you,” It’s unnatural, but not unwelcome he decides, and it all comes crashing down as he realises that this cannot happen again. Never again can he seek out your gentle touch, your caring eyes and tender words. He cannot allow himself to soften, he cannot become weak and fickle, he cannot sink into something so vulnerable. He’s not permitted to. He’s not trained. “just for tonight." He whispers into your scalp where he’s sure you can’t hear, and he promises himself he will be gone by morning.
He’ll allow himself just this night. Just this night.
Just curious, since I see it on your fandom list with no characters underneath, would you be willing to write for like, supernatural or marvel or any other thing under your writing for or is it just rygos until you work that out? 🤔
hello!
yes, i am open to requests for all listed fandoms 🙂↕️ i can see the confusion there tho, to be so honest i got lazy halfway through making the post so i didn’t feel like clarifying the characters for every single fandom 😭 figured i’d get around to it eventually and forgor 💀
i’ll try to get to that this week, especially for dc and marvel since i wouldn’t wanna write for (and surely mischaracterize) any characters whose comics i don’t read much
Top male reader+ bottom Ryland Grace + you choke him a little + unestablished relationship, but y'all are fucking + Grace is a loser, and I need him carnally, and I wrote this at 3 am + possible grammar and spelling mistakes because I am so very sleepy👍 this is lowkey a nothing burger
Grace has his kinks; he’s aware. He’s no saint, he knows this despite not having the number of people he’s laid being… rather low. But that was irrelevant.
He likes a little praise, and he likes being on the receiving end. Simple! Easy to understand.
But somehow, his traitor of a hand always seeks out yours when you're drilling into his guts, dragging your hand up to his throat and wrapping your digits around it.
He’d give you that oh so desperate look, that if he knew how teary eyed and pleading he looked, he'd probably curl into a ball from sheer embarressment. Luckily that look was reserved for your eyes only.
It would be cruel to deny such a gaze, so you’d tighten your grip on his throat, feel his pulse flutter against his palm like a trapped bird, and how his wall constricted you impossibly tighter.
The choked gasp he’d let out and the way he’d bite his lip like it did anything to conceal the giddy smile that spread across his lips was almost intoxicating.
It was hardly enough to truly choke him, but it did enough to make him dizzy and his thighs quiver around yours.
A pity that if you brought up this little enjoyment of his outside of the bedroom, he’d clam up and scamper off like a spooked dog.
You’ll have to find a way to corner him and ask him about it further… he clearly likes being choked, what other depraved things could be stewing in that mind of his? Maybe you’ll have to reveal a few of your embarrassing ones for him to allow you to pick his brain…
Hihi it’s me again .. Henry seems to be inhabiting my mind as much as colt now I fear 😞
Would love, love maybe an aquarium date blurb with Henry Letham (this is really js based after that one scene where he presses his head against a glass n a walrus(I think? Not entirely sure, I may have forgotten 😞) kinda slightly crashes into it too) if you’re up for it? 🤔
WHISPERS - henry letham x male reader
tags: fluff, established relationship, m!reader (no physical description)
a/n: two fluff fics back to back damn henry's never seen this much joy in his life.. might have to balance it out w some angst later on.....
w/c: 1.2k
✎﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏
It was a wise choice to come here when you did: in the middle of the week right around noon. You don't frequent the aquarium as often as Henry does, so you trusted his judgement when he insisted on the time and day. For good reason, you were quick to learn, as the winding corridors of towering glass are as peaceful and deserted as ever. It's only the two of you and a sparse smattering of mostly elderly folk, quietly strolling past the massive tanks and paying no mind to the two young men weaving past them, brushing shoulders and sharing whispered comments at every exhibit.
It didn't take long at all for you to understand why Henry likes it here so much. It's easy to lose track of time, of the world outside here; it's dark and serene, cool beneath the blasting AC, everything a calming blue in the marine wing and warmer, earthier green tones in the freshwater area. The speakers are quiet, but the soft ocean soundscape they pour into every room only amplifies the dreamy sensation of walking through the vast, ancient ocean floor.
It's in the time it takes you to read a list of fun facts on clownfish that you lose him. You turn to where you'd left him across the room, peering intently at a school of striped fish whizzing around, but find the spot empty. You sigh, tucking your hands into your pockets as you head down the wide hallway to your left—a wooden sign overhead indicating it as the way into the walrus exhibit.
You recall something about it being his favorite, so you figure if he's anywhere, it's probably there. The corridor isn't very long, but the light dies down significantly along its length, the black walls on either side of you growing dimmer with every step until it seems the deep navy exhibit is floating in an endless void.
Henry's familiar figure soon comes into view, a stark silhouette against the murky blue. Beyond him, shape misted and blurred through the water, a walrus drifts nearer, neck extending outward toward the glass.
His name withers on your tongue when he plants a tentative palm on the surface, as if creating a landing pad for the walrus' approaching snout. Endearingly, the creature redirects in response, and knocks softly against the glass behind Henry's hand. From there, its smooth body curls, propels itself along the glass. Henry's hand follows, though merely grazing it, surely so as not to smudge it with palm prints.
A fond smile curls at the corner of your mouth, warmth blooming in your chest, somehow both light and tightening at once. Henry walks alongside the walrus, his palm hovering just behind the breadth of its whiskers against the glass. Then, it withdraws, rolls over, and paddles gracefully back up to the surface, far above the ceiling.
You take this moment to finally approach, footsteps near silent on the carpeted floor. You allow your hand to find him before speaking, landing heedfully on his shoulder and then smoothing up to the nape of his neck.
"You never told me you're a walrus whisperer."
Henry's face is terribly soft like this—bearing that soft, private look reserved only for you, tinted with amusement by your joke, and painted in shifting hues of deep ocean blue. His smile is slight, showing no teeth, but no less genuine for it.
"Never came up," he murmurs, mouth slanting fondly. He turns back to the glass, watching a second walrus drift past in the hazy distance. You watch him, instead, and the absence of tension or worry lines in his face, the soft sweep of his freshly-washed hair. Your thumb circles the base of his skull, twirling a dark lock around the fingertip.
"I came here all the time as a kid," he says, quiet, like he's afraid of shattering this fragile moment. Above, the walrus reappears, sinking into view with the lazy wave of its flippers. "I would just sit here for hours. My mom would have to drag me away when they'd start closing."
You chuckle, imagining the scrawny, bug-eyed Henry you've seen in so many pictures standing at this very spot, breaths fogging up the glass, peering up in awe at the grand, majestic creatures floating on by.
"I can see why," you reply, forcing your gaze away from the line of his nose to follow his own. The walrus bumps against the glass again, a slow collision softened by blubber. Beside you, Henry huffs an airy chuckle, reaching out again to let a few slender fingers trace the length of the animal. "I like it here."
He turns to you at that, brows twitching upward ever so slightly. He's always been somewhat taken aback by your interest in him, though you can tell he's been working on it as of late. While not as common as it was in the first months of dating, you still see flashes of it whenever you earnestly compliment his art or how he looks. Flustered, a little dumbfounded; adorable for the most part, but dimly frustrating that he expects to be faced with cruelty in every corner of the world, even—however subconsciously—in you.
"You do?" he asks.
"Yeah. It's beautiful. Peaceful."
Henry's gaze sinks, focuses somewhere between his feet and your own, lips pursing as though he's chewing on his inner cheek. Your hand remains cemented on his neck, thumb never ceasing its soft, unhurried circles.
His eyes remain low when he speaks again after a brief lull. "Thank you."
You loosely squeeze his neck, hoping to meet his gaze. He keeps it stubbornly downcast, but turns his body slightly to face you. "For what?"
Henry shrugs, mouth curling at the corner. "Humoring me? You can pick the date spot next time, promise."
Only when you give a lighthearted chuff does he look back up at you.
"What makes you think I don't want to come back?" you chuckle, something easing off of you when he laughs, warm and at ease. His hand leaves the glass, comes up to hook around your forearm. "You might have to drag me away."
"I think security hauling both our asses out might be the more realistic outcome here."
You shake your head, fond, and slide your palm around to his chin, where your thumb finds purchase in the dip beneath his lower lip and you pull him in for a kiss. It's chaste but long; his lips yield easily to the press of your own, releasing a pleased sigh through his nose. He palms at the center of your back, fingers flexing weakly against the material of your jacket.
His eyes stay shut long after you break the kiss, as you peck his loose mouth a few more times, unable to help yourself. He only jumps back into motion when you move to pull away entirely, stroking up your back to pull you into his front, free arm soaring up to trap you against him.
He peppers quiet kisses wherever he can reach while not releasing you; your temple, your ear, into your hair above and behind it. You laugh, feigning a struggle for freedom, but Henry just smiles against your cheekbone and tightens the circle of his arms. Eventually, you settle with a defeated huff, chin propped comfortably onto his shoulder, hands slid into his back pockets.
You breathe in—smell his nice cologne, sandalwood body wash, and a hint of cigarette smoke no amount of washing can fully remove from his clothes. But you can't complain, not when it's all so fundamentally him.
You gaze out the glass at the walrus meandering back up to the surface, then crane your neck to press a kiss to his clothed shoulder.
OKAY, RECEIVED. ( PART 2 )— RYLAND GRACE x Male!READER
SUMMARY: Distance means nothing to the destined and the damned.
# # TAGS: Epistolary, Transcripts, Single Dad!Reader, Doctor!Reader, Teacher!Ryland Grace, Miscommunication, You've Got Mail Type Beat, Petrova Taskforce
## WARNINGS: No Beta, Formatting this was a Nightmare. This fic contains a lot of media, but don’t worry as alt text is available. I find that it's quite difficult to read this in light mode, so dark mode is recommended. Edits made by me, images sourced from Pinterest. Basically I've just fucking lost it. Enjoy.
There is no specification of the reader’s height nor form but there is specification of his handwriting. Please Pretend That You Write Like That.
PETROVA TASKFORCE
ARCHIVAL TRANSCRIPT
TRANSCRIPT ID: COMM-LOG-INT-88
FREQUENCY: CH-09 (INTERNAL SECURITY / MEDICAL RELAY)
DATE: ▇▇, ▇▇ / 20:15 UTC
[ AUDIO START. ]
[20:15:02] MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):
Watch-Command, this is Attending Physician, Unit B. Metabolic panels for Sector 4 are complete. Requesting clearance to log off the active medical net for the evening. Over.
[20:15:15] WATCH-COMMAND (MILLER):
Copy that, Doctor. Metabolic logs received by central grid. Clearance granted at 20:15 hours. Secure your handset and switch to standby status. Over.
[20:15:17] HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):
[ AUDIO FEEDBACK. ]
This thing on? Over.
[20:15:19] MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):
Birdie, what did I tell you about using the tactical frequencies? Switch to the house channel. Over.
[20:15:22] HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):
House channel is very quiet and no one responds to me. Over.
[ SILENCE. ]
[ FAINT CHATTER. ]
[20:16:02] HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):
I’m bored. Over.
[20:16:05] MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):
Young lady.
[20:16:08] HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):
What’s for dinner? Over.
[20:16:13] WATCH-COMMAND (MILLER):
Hab-Deck-B, be advised this frequency is reserved for operational data and emergency triage. Clear the net. Over.
[20:16:20] HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):
Hi, Miller.
[20:16:23] WATCH-COMMAND (MILLER):
Hi, Miss Birdie.
[20:16:30] MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):
Apologies, Command. The civilian asset will be contained. Heading to quarters now. Unit B, actual, out.
[ AUDIO START. ]
[20:17:05] MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):
Okay, I'm on twelve.
Birdie, do you copy?
[20:17:11] HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):
Loud and clear!
[20:17:16] MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):
What are you botherin’
us for.
[20:17:22] HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):
Nothing. Just wanted
to chat.
[20:17:27] MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):
Okay.
[ PAPERS SHUFFLING. ]
What do you wanna
chat about?
[20:17:35] HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):
I dunno. What did you
do today?
[20:17:41] MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):
Lotta tough work. We’re doing as many trials as we can, putting folks to sleep.
'Course the issue isn't actually getting them to sleep. We can throw a dozen different sedatives into the line and knock a subject out in under two minutes. The real problem's the metabolic maintenance.
[20:17:54] HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):
Medically-induced comas are so fascinating.
[20:18:04] HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):
Yeah. It's like a pause button. They could close their eyes in your lab, sleep for four years, and when they wake up, it'll feel like only hours have passed. You're like -- removing them from time.
Super cool.
[20:18:08] MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):
Other twelve-year-old kids don’t usually think so.
[20:18:13] HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):
They’re missing out.
Oh, hey! I got so much mail today! Everyone wrote me back and I got a bunch of gifts!
[20:18:25] MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):
[ BACKGROUND CHATTER. ]
Run the analysis again.
Thank you, Doctor.
What sorta gifts?
[20:18:34] HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):
It’s so funny.
I have six winter hats now.
They're all from my friends.
[20:18:43] MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):
Winter hats?
[20:18:47] HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):
Yeah, they think I’m in Antarctica, remember?
[20:18:52] MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):
Oh, yeah.
[20:18:56] HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):
I love them all.
I might as well wear them around the facility. They’re pretty cute.
[20:19:07] MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):
That’s nice.
You got a favorite?
[20:19:12] HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):
Yeah, there's this fox one. Wraps around my ears.
I got a ton of
stickers, too.
Olivia gave me fifty
sheets.
[20:19:24] MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):
That’s too many stickers.
[20:19:28] HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):
No such thing!
[ STATIC. ]
[ SILENCE. ]
[20:19:50] HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):
I miss them. Over.
[ STATIC. ]
[ SILENCE. ]
[20:20:12] MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):
I know, baby.
[20:20:18] HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):
[ SIGH. ]
[20:20:23] MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):
I wish things
were different. Over.
[20:20:30] HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):
I don’t.
Don't ask me to go
back again.
[20:20:36] HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):
I’m okay as long as
you’re here. Over.
[ AUDIO END. ]
PETROVA TASKFORCE
ARCHIVAL TRANSCRIPT
TRANSCRIPT ID: COMM-LOG-INT-88
DATE: ▇▇, ▇▇ / 20:45 UTC
[02:45:01] [ AUDIO START. ]
[02:45:04] DR. ▇▇▇:
>> _This is Dr. ▇▇▇, Attending Physician and Lead Coordinator for the Comagenesis Division, Petrova Taskforce. Recording audio log from Auxiliary Lab Four, Observation Suite B.
>> _I am accompanied on deck by senior research leads Dr. Annalise Bautista and Dr. Ethan Jackson.
>> _The time is... 0245 hours.
[02:45:32] DR. ▇▇▇:
>> _We are currently observing Subject 0-42, cleared for Trial Phase 3-B at approximately 1800 hours yesterday following a titrated intravenous infusion of the revised neuro-suppressive cocktail.
>> _Current physiological vitals are stable, but highly volatile.
>> _Core body temperature is holding at thirty-four point two degrees Celsius. Heart rate is suppressed to twenty-eight beats per minute.
[02:45:58] DR. BAUTISTA:
>> [ DISTANCE VOICE, SLIGHTLY MUFFLED. ]
>> _I'm seeing a minor spike in baseline levels. Cortical micro-arousals are beginning to register in the occipital lobe on Monitor 2.
[02:46:09] DR. ▇▇▇:
>> _Copy that. Increase the paralytic drip by zero point five milligrams per hour. Let's keep the receptors dark before the twitching triggers a full cycle.
[02:46:21] DR. JACKSON:
>> [ KEYBOARD TYPING. ]
>> _Adjusting the line now.
>> [ KEYBOARD TYPING. ]
[02:46:35] DR. BAUTISTA:
>> _Think this one'll work?
[02:46:39] DR. ▇▇▇:
>> _Too early to tell. Cross your fingers.
[ SILENCE. ]
[ FAINT SHUFFLING. ]
[02:46:58] DR. JACKSON:
>> _Hey, what do you guys think about Stratt?
[02:47:04] DR. BAUTISTA:
>> [ KEYBOARD TYPING. ]
>> _What about Stratt?
[02:47:08] DR. JACKSON:
>> _I don’t know. Just - -
>> _Stratt.
[02:47:13] DR. BAUTISTA:
>> _Like, a general idea?
[02:47:16] DR. JACKSON:
>> _Yeah, something like that.
[02:47:20] DR. BAUTISTA:
>> _I’m not sure.
>> _She’s very severe, I guess. In a good way. She gets things done regardless of how crazy it may seem.
[02:47:31] DR. JACKSON:
>> _She feels a little disorganized to me.
[02:47:35] DR. BAUTISTA:
>> _Disorganized?
[02:47:38] DR. JACKSON:
>> _I mean look at us --
>> _We’re synthesizing coma technology for astronauts she hasn’t even recruited yet.
>> _And even when she does recruit them, the probe’s not set to come back for another month. We don’t know what’s dimming the sun.
>> _Is that her next plan? To send astronauts to the sun?
[02:47:58] DR. BAUTISTA:
>> _You think that’s disorganized?
>> _She’s literally thinking twenty steps ahead. I don’t know what you mean. Even if we don’t have the data on the sun yet, we can still try to look for other solutions out there in space.
[02:48:12] DR. JACKSON:
>> _Out there in space?
[02:48:15] DR. BAUTISTA:
>> _I don’t know. I’m not an astrophysicist.
[02:48:19] DR. ▇▇▇:
>> _I have an audio log running, I don’t think now’s the best time to gossip.
[02:48:25] DR. JACKSON:
>> _Just edit it out later.
>> _What about you, ▇▇▇?
>> _What do you think about Stratt?
[ STATIC. ]
[ KEYBOARD TYPING. ]
[ SILENCE. ]
[02:48:45] DR. ▇▇▇:
>> _Subject status?
[02:48:48] DR. BAUTISTA:
>> _Subject is stable.
[02:48:51] DR. ▇▇▇:
>> _Nothing’s going to get in Stratt’s way.
>> _Good for humanity. Bad for the people around her.
[02:49:01] DR. JACKSON:
>> _How’d you get saddled into all of this, anyway?
>> _I hear you took some convincing.
[02:49:08] DR. ▇▇▇:
>> [ KEYBOARD TYPING. ]
>> _The convincing is downstairs in the mess hall eating ice cream.
[02:49:15] DR. JACKSON:
>> _Wait, that’s your kid?
[02:49:18] DR. BAUTISTA:
>> _Geez, Ethan. ‘You been living under a rock?
[02:49:22] DR. JACKSON:
>> _I don’t ask questions, alright?
>> _I see a girl running around the facility I think it’s one of the senators’.
>> _I didn’t know ▇▇▇ had a kid.
[02:49:31] DR. ▇▇▇:
>> _Now you do.
>> _Status?
[02:49:35] DR. BAUTISTA:
>> [ KEYBOARD TYPING. ]
>> _Ah, shit.
>> _Encephalogram is smoothing out but the delta wave amplitude is still dragging. It’s not locking into the hibernation state we need.
[02:49:48] DR. ▇▇▇:
>> [ LONG EXHALE. ]
[ SILENCE. ]
[ STATIC. ]
[02:50:02] DR. ▇▇▇:
>> _As the logs will corroborate across the past three cycles, the data suggests that while we can successfully induce a prolonged, deep comatose state without immediate cellular degradation, the threshold between true metabolic stasis and irreversible brain death remains narrow.
>> _We are trying to perfect a chemical suspension that can keep human beings alive, asleep, and entirely unmonitored for years in a deep-space environment.
>> _To be entirely frank for the record... the trials have a long way to go.
>> _That’s it for Phase 3-B. In the meantime, we will reconvene.
[02:50:41] DR. JACKSON:
>> _You guys wanna go out for lunch?
[02:50:45] DR. BAUTISTA:
>> _Very funny.
[02:50:48] DR. JACKSON:
>> _What? This great new place just opened. I think it’s called the West Side of the Facility?
[02:50:55] DR. BAUTISTA:
>> _Do you have a single serious bone in your body?
[02:51:00] DR. JACKSON:
>> _You? ▇▇▇? C’mon, let’s get drinks.
[02:51:04] DR. ▇▇▇:
>> _Can’t.
>> _I’m the division’s representative for tonight’s plenum.
[02:51:10] DR. BAUTISTA:
>> _I have literally never seen you outside of work.
[02:51:14] DR. ▇▇▇:
>> _Which makes me a good representative?
[02:51:18] DR. BAUTISTA:
>> _Which means you probably have five minutes before you drop dead.
[02:51:23] DR. ▇▇▇:
>> _That’s funny, Anne.
[02:51:26] DR. BAUTISTA:
>> _I got news from that plenum you’re going to attend, though.
[02:51:30] DR. ▇▇▇:
>> [ SHUFFLING. ]
>> [ FAINT THUD. ]
>> [ PAPERS RUSTLING. ]
>> _There is a difference between news and gossip.
[02:51:39] DR. BAUTISTA:
>> _Oh, c'mon.
>> _All I was going to say is I hear they’re recruiting more people. Making more divisions.
>> _They’re looking into microbiologists.
[02:51:50] DR. ▇▇▇:
>> [ FAINT LAUGH. ]
>> _I matched with a microbiologist once. On a dating app.
[02:51:56] DR. JACKSON:
>> _You’re on dating apps?
[02:52:00] DR. ▇▇▇:
>> _Was. Alright? It was a while ago.
[02:52:04] DR. BAUTISTA:
>> _And? Then what?
[02:52:07] DR. ▇▇▇:
>> _What do you mean, then what?
>> _Then I got shipped to the pacific and made to do all this work.
>> _I don’t talk to him anymore. I wish I still did.
[02:52:19] DR. BAUTISTA:
>> _Maybe you’ll meet a new one on the Taskforce.
[02:52:23] DR. ▇▇▇:
>> _Right.
[02:52:25] DR. BAUTISTA:
>> _No, c’mon. Maybe you will.
>> _I mean just this morning I saw a printout in the office.
>> _I think they’re planning to recruit this guy named Ryland Grace?
[02:52:38] DR. ▇▇▇:
>> [ OBJECTS CLATTERING TO FLOOR. ]
[02:52:41] DR. JACKSON:
>> _Dude.
[02:52:45] [ AUDIO END. ]
ⓘ The preceding transcripts were recovered from the central USS Kilauea auxiliary comms unit. The names of particular dependencies have been redacted in compliance with the International Non-Disclosure Act regarding the Petrova Event.
rewatched nice guys last night and realized how many scenes there are where march's ass is just right in your face and it pulled a wire in my brain. i don't have a concrete idea in mind all i ask is march x male reader where we get to throw him around a little, mess up his tie, all that good shit
UNDERGROUND - holland march x male reader
tags: smut, dom/sub undertones, age gap, frotting, incorrect use of tie winkwink
a/n: oh anon this request was like saying all of a dog's favorite words.... this is a long one!
MINORS DNI
🐝˚‧︵‿︵‿︵‿︵
All things considered, Holland thinks he’s doing a pretty fine job so far. So fine, in fact, that this case is looking like it might be the quickest they’ve ever wrapped one up. It was only yesterday that he and Healy met up with the client—a feisty young lady who suspected her kid brother was caught up in some nasty drug business, with such vivid orange hair Holland couldn’t help but ask if it was natural before they parted. Healy had kicked him sharply under the table, and the woman had merely blinked at him, grabbed her purse, and said, “just find my goddamned brother.”
If the kid really is balls-deep in any sort of clandestine organization, drug-related or otherwise, then he’s doing a pretty poor job at it; they only had question two of his friends to find out he frequents—with a rather methodical consistency—an underground club in the Eastside every Saturday. Though they only acquired this pivotal piece of intel from the second one, the first had expressed his own concern for his buddy, and after some coaxing gave them the address of his "business partner”, whatever that means. The guy wasn’t sure what exactly they did, either, but claimed the guy was creepy and filthy rich.
So, if only to kill two birds with one stone, and because this case wasn’t looking like one that would require any backup, he and Healy split up: Holland looking for their guy, and March seeing what he could dig up at this elusive business partner’s place.
The club really takes its underground title seriously, Holland quickly learns. It takes him a good fifteen minutes to even find the alley, at the end of which an unassuming pair of steel doors led down a steep flight of stairs—and then he’s in it. Brilliant, colorful lights sweep across the crowded space in cyclical routes, cutting through the blue-tinted darkness. Music blasts through deliberately positioned speakers, low bass vibrating through Holland’s sternum while he shuffles through sweaty bodies and makes his way toward the bar. The dancing multitude is certainly to blame for the warmth hanging thick in the air, so Holland doesn’t think twice about half of the male attendees being shirtless or near it—clad in haphazardly chopped or lightweight materials that hardly pass as clothing, in his book.
He finds a gap between chatting groups at the bar, and flags down the harried bartender. He darts up to Holland, planting his hands on the lower side of the surface and leaning in to listen over the music.
“I’m looking for someone,” Holland starts, fingertips tapping restlessly over the sticky wood. “He comes here often, Jason Stewart? Might know him as Sonny? Yea high, red hair?”
The bartender’s face stiffens, then cements in a dismissive frown. He glances past Holland, waving down some waiting customers.
“Order something or go, you’re holding up the line,” he bites, defensive. Holland gapes, glancing over his shoulder at the line in question: a pair of young women conversing and lightly bouncing along to the music. One of them meets his eye, her hair cropped short against her skull, and upon sharing a look with the barkeep furrows her brows.
Right. So, this might be trickier than he thought. Might as well acclimate. He tries to refrain from drinking too much on the job after the shitshow that was the house party they infiltrated last year, but Holland reckons skulking around an underground disco asking for a regular by name, and without even having a drink isn’t helping his chances at success. Partygoers, from his experience, often aren’t too keen on selling each other out, and if not that, are often too drunk or high to offer any lucid answers; these, however, seem far more skeptical than usual. They must get up to some pretty sketchy stuff down here—but far be it from Holland to judge them.
So, he gets a beer. It won’t be enough to get him drunk, far from it, but it'll hopefully make him blend in more, even though his outfit alone makes him stick out rather sorely.
He weasels his finger into the knot of his striped tie and loosens it slightly, eyeing the brightly or barely-clad attendees. He makes room for the two women and nods in thanks to the narrow-eyed bartender, before shuffling down the length of the bar. He ignores the terse looks flung his way, growing strangely antsy under the curious stare of a lone, younger man sitting at a stool, his expression not so much hostile as it is alert, discerning. Taking a sip of the cheap beer, Holland finds a relatively sober-looking woman near the restrooms past the bar.
His attempts prove fruitless there, too. Either she truly has no idea who Sonny Stewart is, or she has a phenomenal poker face; as he’s about to ask if she knows any regulars who might be able to help him, another lady strolls out of the bathroom. The first greets her with a hand on the waist and a private smile, and…
Oh.
Oh, yeah, well, that explains it.
They saunter back to the dance floor, leaving Holland gaping and feeling laughably dense. For once, he peers into the multitude, really looks into it, and it only takes a few seconds to notice the unconventional pairs dancing together under the strobe lights.
What the hell kind of a PI is he?
Well, now everybody’s caginess makes a whole lot more sense.
He takes a hearty swig of beer and sighs, more frustrated with himself than anything else. If he’d known he would be gathering intel at a gay club, he would have gone about it differently from the start. Now, he just hopes word hasn’t gotten around that a possible cop is snooping among them.
“Hey, pal.”
Holland turns toward the source of the unfamiliar voice. His gaze locks on yours, and he’s quick to recall your face as the one that’s been watching him since he first approached the bar. You’re alone, still seated atop a rickety stool, nursing a cocktail and leaning back leisurely against the wood. The high hem of your tank top reveals a narrow strip of stomach, and the tight material across your chest leaves nothing to the imagination. Holland squeezes out a shallow breath, and floats over to you.
“You sure you at the right place?” you ask once he stops, eyeing him brazenly.
“Why's that?”
“Is that corduroy?” You push yourself off the edge of the bartop, reaching out to catch the lapel of his suit jacket and laughing when you confirm your suspicion. Warmth prickles at Holland’s cheeks. He swats your hand away, grinding his molars when your lips seek out the thin straw resting on the edge of your glass, cheeks hollowing faintly in a lazy sip. “There’s a sports bar one street over, in case you missed it.”
He ignores your teasing, steels himself. “I just need some information, and then I’m gone.”
Your brow furrows, expression hardening under the glow of a passing blue strobe.
“You a cop?”
“No,” he immediately replies. “I mean, I was, but that’s—that doesn’t matter. I’m a PI, okay? I don’t give a shit what you get up to down here, in fact I’m all for it, probably, so I’m not going to rat anybody out—”
“Except for Sonny,” you butt in, cocking an eyebrow while you chew on your straw. Holland’s mouth clamps shut, eyes dipping fleetingly to the soft shape of your lips, curled around the plastic.
Jesus—focus. And he’s not even buzzed.
“His sister hired us. She’s worried about him.”
“Us? There’s more of you?” Your gaze leaves his, turning instead to the open expanse of the club, sweeping across it with mounting alarm.
“No! Well, okay, yes, just one, but he’s not here. Honest.” He crosses his heart over with one fingertip.
You look back at Holland, brow set, and then reach behind you without breaking eye contact to set your empty glass on the bar. The motion makes your shirt ride up a little, and Holland makes a truly monumental effort not to steal a quick look at the sparse trail of hair leading down to your belt buckle.
“His sister hired you?”
“That’s right.”
He watches your face in the chromatic lighting, losing its wary edges and eventually settling into something more genuine. You wipe the condensation from your palm off against your dark jeans, sighing lightly.
“What’s your name?”
“Holland,” he breathes out, stiffening unconsciously when you lean in, elbows on your parted knees. “March.”
“Alright, Mr. March,” you say, and for whatever goddamned reason it makes his gut sink into a pool of bubbling warmth. As you rise from the stool, movements smooth and unhurried, almost catlike, you say, “let’s go somewhere quieter, hm?”
Then, your hand is on his tie, and you’re all but dragging him through the club, not looking back for a second at the way he staggers after you, apologizing mildly when he bumps into a drunken partygoer.
The club is far bigger than it looks, and he wonders what the original use of the space might’ve been before it was refurbished into a secret underground disco. He reaches up for your wrist, though halts before closing the gap. The mild pressure circled around the nape of his neck, herding him across the dance floor holds him at an unbalanced, hunched posture, wholly undignifying—and yet, it makes his head spin.
Down a broad corridor, you stalk past a file of closed doors labeled VIP, and Holland isn’t certain whether he should be thrilled or terrified. You stop at the end of the hall, where a piece of paper is taped to the last door, reading ‘CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE’, and without a second thought, you haul him inside.
Immediately, his back is struck against the closed door, wincing at the force and reflexively raising his palms in a gesture of peace.
“You know I still don’t trust you, right?” you say, voice stern again, though clearer now with the music and clamor sealed outside, muffled through the walls. He opens his mouth to reply, but your fist tightens in wordless warning around his tie, so he simply nods, meek. The heat in the pit of his stomach refuses to dissipate—though this is really not the time for his fucked-up libido to rear its ugly head. “The second I suspect you’ve lied to me, or are in any way up to something that would put a single person here at risk, I’ll see to it myself that you regret ever coming here. Am I clear?”
“Crystal,” he wheezes.
At that, you press on a flat, sardonic smile, and pat his cheek twice. You don’t release his tie just yet, but when you pull him off the door it’s a morsel less harsh than it was moments ago. You whirl him around the small room, and then spread your palm to push him back into the leather sectional sofa, which he collapses into with a yelp. Now freed from your iron fist and stifling proximity, he breathes out—a little shaky, strained—and lets himself look around the interior. It’s nothing too special, a dim room with elegant leather seating, a low table before him and a small, slightly elevated platform at the very front of the room. You switch a light on, which only partly succeeds in illuminating the space; there’s no overhead bulb, but many smaller fixtures throughout the room, the largest of which being a warm-toned, almost orange lamp by the door.
He notices, then, rather belatedly, that by some miracle he’s managed to keep his beer, clutched tightly in one hand. As you shuffle up to him and sit on the edge of the table before him, Holland downs the rest in a massive gulp. Liquid courage, and all that.
“Alright,” you say, “shoot.”
Right. Right, the case.
He clears his throat, scrambles to get his wayward thoughts together. First order of business: get the intel. Then he’ll focus on the warmth flooding his cheeks and, mortifyingly, his crotch.
As it turns out, Sonny isn’t secretly smuggling drugs in clandestine discos. He certainly attends them, but the way you put it, he hardly ever dips into anything stronger than an occasional bump or two. A few months ago he met an older guy in this very club and the pair have only been seen together since.
“My guess,” you say, prying the empty bottle he’s been absentmindedly playing with from his fingers and setting it on the table beside your hip, “is he hit the jackpot: found himself a hot older guy who’s happy to spoil him, and his sister notices him being vague, always busy, suddenly able to afford all these expensive things… First thought, 'he’s dealing drugs'.”
Holland sinks against the backrest, hands falling limp on his thighs with nothing to fidget with. An incredulous huff escapes him, looking off in the middle distance as he turns it over in his head. It makes perfect, logical sense.
“How do you know all this?”
You shrug. “Worked here for two years up until a few months ago. Marty gives me a discount for drinks and I still like to keep up with the long-time regulars. Word gets around quick down here.”
“I’m sure.” He looks back up at you, and a thought strikes him. “So, what are the odds I don’t get jumped outside for looking like a cop?”
You pull a deeply pensive face, head tipping with a long hum. “Not too good. Don’t worry, Sherlock, I can walk you to your car.”
When you go to stand, Holland’s chest seizes with something akin to panic. His hands shoot out, but hesitate to touch.
“Wait.”
You pause, already half-turned toward the door, and raise an eyebrow down at him. Holland scrambles to his feet, swallowing hard against the sudden dryness in his throat.
“Thank you,” he chuckles, aiming for cool self-assurance. “Pretty much did my job for me.”
Your mouth quirks—a flash of motion you quickly tame into a neutral politeness. You nod once.
“No problem, Mr. Holland.”
When his eyes slip again, down to the elegant curve of the smile you can’t quite tamp down, that’s it. He can’t look away, can hardly blink. His chest feels shrunken, thready little breaths whistling silently out of him. He tries, with every ounce of rapidly dwindling willpower in him to meet your eyes again, to stop gawking at your mouth like some sleazy asshole, but his body appears to have incited a mutiny against his brain, because his heart is hammering against his ribcage, his gaze fixed inexorably on your mouth.
“Jesus, sorry,” he manages, just barely succeeding in pressing his eyes shut, chuckling airily again. He rubs circles around his eyes, pinches crudely on the bridge of his nose. “I’m—I don’t know what…”
“It’s alright,” you hum, and despite your words you sound amused, almost mocking. Holland flushes even further. He senses you step closer, and keeps his eyes valiantly shut. When your hand curls smoothly around his wrist, however, they fly open on their own accord.
“I don’t even know your name,” he murmurs as you lower his arm from his face. “How old are you?”
Your eyebrows rise slightly, smile sharpening.
“Don’t lie, I’ll know.”
“Alright, tough guy,” you laugh, a sound that thrums through him like a peal of thunder. “I’m twenty-five.”
“Oh, fuck.” His head sinks between his shoulders, hoping the subtle lighting masks the color that must be flooding his face. The magma-warm desire steadily rolling into his gut has begun to spill lower, tightening his flared slacks around the hips.
“What?” you hum, tone dipping teasingly. “That doing it for you?”
He chances a look up; your hooded eyes bore into him, open and undaunted—so bold with your want in the way one only is in their youth, and Holland is no senior citizen but he’s lived a dozen lifetimes since he was your age. He’s learned apprehension. Discretion. At least he thought he did.
You step closer, releasing his arm, only to regrip gently at his jaw.
“You ever been with a man, Mr. March?”
You’re getting cocky, he can tell. You don’t even know how old he is and yet, his reaction must have revealed it is not a trivial number. Emboldened only by his frustration, rather than answering you, he rushes forth, kissing the smug smile right off your face.
Your sharp inhale reveals your surprise, free hand flying up to his shoulder to steady yourself, but the other only tightens, pointedly angling his head and deepening the kiss. His own slide around the curve of your waist, settling at your lower and mid-back. From there, he pulls you in flush—and regrets it upon realizing you can probably feel him, already half-hard against you. He supposes the satisfied hum you push into his mouth is a response to that; he burns.
Releasing his jaw, you reach over to sink your fingers into his hair and catch them in a stern grip. Holland hisses at the lovely little pinpricks of pain it summons, and bucks automatically against your groin, where he feels you beginning to stiffen up, too.
You regrip abruptly, from his shoulder to his hip, and hold him steady in order to repeat the motion, grinding shamelessly against him. A pitiful little hum emerges from his chest when your hands withdraw entirely—though it’s only for a second, before they splay across his waist, his stomach, smoothing up then to push his jacket off his shoulders. Spacey with want, Holland blinks at you, lets you strip it off, hardly registering the delighted sound you make when you feel the shape of his pack of smokes in the pocket and whip it out. You pluck one out and hold it between your lips while you search for a lighter. Once retrieved, you toss the jacket onto the table, and without looking up plant one palm to his chest and shove him down onto the sofa.
“On your back,” you mumble around the cigarette, instinctively cupping the flame to light it. Holland moves off the backrest, swinging his feet up to lie across the cool leather. You pause, then, driving one knee into the cushion by his hip, taking a long, thoughtful drag of the cig, and then gesture silently at his shirt. He doesn’t need to be told twice; immediately he reaches for his tie and damn near rips it off. From there, he moves to the uppermost button, undoing it swiftly and fumbling for the rest.
He’s fully hard by the time he shucks it off, left shirtless and flushed under your cool scrutiny. Something gleams in your eye, though, something hungry and satisfied, and then you’re moving, straddling his thighs. The bright end of the cigarette bounces slightly between your lips as you shuck your belt off, then his, and yank open his fly.
“God, you’re easy,” you comment offhandedly, dragging your knuckles down the shape of his length through his briefs, at the end of which a puny spot of precum has bled through the material. Holland’s whole body quivers, biting down on the wobbly groan that slips out of him. In a rare show of kindness, you offer the pressure of your palm, pressed firmly against him, but it soon hits him that, with your weight perched on his upper thighs, attempting to grind up into it is futile. He writhes, hips pivoting side to side in a desperate search for friction, the ineffectiveness of his struggle only making him harder. Needier.
You chuckle, airy and light, and pluck the cig from your lips. You turn it over and let your hand descend to his mouth, where his head flies off the leather to take a much-needed drag. As you observe, he notes the thinly-veiled lust that darkens your gaze, sucking in a hitching breath.
As you pull it away, your other hand slides higher, sinking two fingers into the elastic of his briefs. Ash plummets onto the floor beside you, but you only watch him as he steadily exhales, smoke clouding in the space between you. Your eyes sweep his bare, heaving chest, and after returning the cigarette to your mouth you reach down, drag a blunt nail over his nipple. Holland gives a strangled grunt, involuntarily arching into the contact, hyperaware of both it and your second hand, slowly easing his briefs down, just enough to free his cock.
“No fair,” he grits out, panting. You tilt your head in question. “You take something off now.”
Your grin turns wicked, circling the stiffened pebble of his nipple a few times before leaving it entirely.
“You’re cute,” you say dismissively. Holland can’t help but feel patronized. He squeezes the outer flesh of your thighs, letting his head fall back in defeat. At the sound of a zipper opening, however, he’s quick to perk back up. You offer him the cigarette again, only to use both of your hands to push your jeans a bit down your hips, readjusting so you’re lying on top of him, knees bracketing his on either side. Your underwear follows shortly thereafter, but Holland’s view is mournfully blocked when you duck your head to mouth at his chest. Your teeth graze his collarbone down its sharp length, pausing at the inner end to bite down, and then latch your lips over it, sucking leisurely.
“Oh, Jesus,” he breathes to the ceiling, choking on his inhale and, in a frustrated impulse, tosses the cig onto the floor. He grips your shoulders, your neck, the back of your head, hands flighty and restless, wanting to feel every inch of you as you pinch his skin between your teeth and roll it sharply. Holland muffles a humiliating whine into his fist, bucking up into your hip. He can feel the weight of your own cock against his stomach, hot and hard.
“Shit, shit—come on, c’mon, can you—” he cuts himself off, not entirely sure what he’s asking for, other than get me off or else I’ll blow my load like a horny teenager.
You shush him, planting a wet kiss to his sternum before drifting back up to eye-level. You frown.
“Where’s the cig?”
Holland looks down. Quietly mumbles, “dropped it.”
You peer over the edge of the sofa and click your tongue. Your eyes dart to him, then to his mouth. Before he knows it, three of your fingers are bullying past his lips, coaxing his jaw open.
He’s already sucking them down by the time you murmur the order. A ripple of motion catches your eyebrows, and then you smirk, pressing down on the back of his tongue, drool gathering around the digits.
“Second nature, huh?”
Holland flushes, ears burning. He shuts his eyes and sucks harder.
For a minute, he floats through the haze of his bliss, lost in the simple task of sucking your fingers down to the base, gag reflex be damned. Maybe all those years of vigorously trying to scrub the bitter taste of hangovers off his tongue proved more beneficial than he thought.
Your thumb, in the meantime, traces his chin encouragingly, scratching gently over the stubble in a way that makes his chest loosen, push out a long, low hum—almost a purr.
“And here I thought you’d be too green to take them,” you say after another brief lull, anchoring your thumb by the corner of his mouth to slowly pull your fingers free. Holland’s eyes crack open, brows knitting slightly with the loss. A string of spit connects your middle finger to his lower lip for a long moment, stretching and sagging as you bring your hand down between your bodies. When it snaps, Holland shudders as it lands, cold, against his chest and chin.
Both of you peer down at your cocks, hard, neglected, and his own sitting in a mortifying pool of precum, one that gets a groan out of you when you notice it.
“Jesus, you’re soaked.”
Tonight is quite the educational night, Holland is quickly learning, as the simmer of humiliation under his skin rolls into arousal, and coaxes yet another drop to surge out of his slit.
You wrap your fingers around your own dick, slick with his drool—the image makes him squirm—and drop a groan into his shoulder at the sensation. Again, his view is blocked, but the sounds of your low, muffled moans against his skin and the softer ones of you working yourself over paint a clear picture. Holland’s fingers curl into your back, writhing, fucking up into empty air. A choked whine weasels its way up his throat, not knowing whether he wants more to get off or watch you touch yourself.
“Alright, alright,” you pant, and within seconds Holland feels your fingers wrap around him, and the weight of your cock press against his own.
Immediately, he’s thrusting up into your right fist, chasing after the swift pace you quickly set. His toes curl in his shoes, all that static amassed under his skin rushing down into his cock, and from there bursting outward in bright flares of pleasure. He clings to you, seeking an anchor point in your warm, breathing, blanketing body, curled fiercely over him. He feels, suddenly, very small—like something so intuitive and uncomplicated it could be pulled apart and pieced back together without issue. And that’s what you’re doing: prying him open, extracting piece by delicate piece with attentive certainty, despite the severity of your teeth bearing down on his skin and the near cruel amusement in your tone.
You tighten your grip around the heads, thumb gliding firmly over his slit, gathering more precum, and the blinding flare that whizzes through him could put fireworks to shame. Whatever urges he might’ve previously had to shy away from your hot, weighted gaze are nowhere to be seen now, as you lift your head and watch his reactions; squeezing, twisting your wrist, grinding against him.
He’s getting loud, he knows—amdist the rumble of blood in his ears, the slick sounds of you both sliding against each other, he can catch his wanton moans, his shattered grunts and whiny bleats.
“Shhh, you want us to get caught, March?” you murmur, dropping your weight to an elbow in order to seal a palm over his open mouth. After a moment, the glint in your blown pupils turns knowing, almost chastising. “Unless you want that? For someone to find us? To see you like this?”
Holland makes a sound shamefully reminiscent of a sob, muted against your palm. His head twists, not trying to displace the muzzle of your hand but unable to resist the animalistic urge to writhe and thrash. Despite the sweat across your brow, the uneven jumping of your breathing, you look terribly composed compared to him.
“Well, we can’t have that. I want you all to myself tonight, okay?”
Holland moans in response, realizing his teeth had captured a bit of your skin in a gentle pinch, just to hold something. You pull your hand away, wiping spit off on his cheek, and lean over, torso straining off the sofa. He watches your free arm extend toward the table, pausing your motions over your cocks for a moment, and when you return, it’s bearing his tie.
“Open,” you instruct, balling the tie up, and Holland’s understanding groan is promptly muffled halfway when it’s shoved into his mouth. The material instantly soaks up most of the spit in his mouth, making his tongue feel uncomfortably dry. He runs it in tiny circles against the bunched fabric in an attempt to salivate and rid himself of the sensation.
Your fist continues pumping, then, and now he’s far quieter—strangely soothed by the feeling of something in his mouth again.
He’ll analyze that later.
For now, your forearm presses against his bare shoulder, fingers tracing sweet, mindless shapes, occasionally brushing against the chain around his neck, the ring hanging off of it. You don’t ask, and Holland eases. Not that he could answer any questions at all at the moment, dead-wife-related or otherwise.
You lean down, kiss the stretched corner of his mouth, and tighten your grip between your bodies. The pit in his lower gut grows and grows, a simmering heat threatening to swallow him whole as the precipice makes itself known in the near horizon. He emits a long, wavering hum, hips rolling wildly, cock twitching and weeping another trickle of precum.
You say nothing, but seem to sense his oncoming orgasm, picking up the pace, squeezing his shoulder once. Holland’s eyes burn with the sheer force of his mounting release, not having realized how close he was until he’s almost reached it, pulse throbbing against his breastbone, surely visible in his sweat-sticky chest. He breathes in, sharp and forceful through his nose, trying to keep his eyes open as they grow leaden.
It only takes one more squeeze of your deft fingers, one more press of your thumb to his tip before he’s coming, whining long and low through his tie—heat erupting from his groin and barreling through him in a tingling tidal wave of pleasure. It has his legs drawing up on a reflex, thighs knocking against your ass, neck straining back against the leather cushion as the sound dies out on the material and gives way to silent bliss.
The seemingly endless ropes of cum his pulsing cock offers makes the continued slide of your fist all the smoother. You work him through it, though the pace hastens, grows sloppy and erratic, and when he pries his eyes open, blinking through the mistiness, watches your face contort beautifully around your own release, uttering a fractured sound into the air.
Your hips roll steadily with each wave, and the feeling of your load landing across his stomach, over the mess of his own gets another pitiful mewl out of him, head lolling to the side. Your hand catches his jaw, abandoning his shoulder, and with a deep sigh you release both of your dicks.
First, you sit up, towering over him on your knees while you tuck yourself back into your jeans. Then, you repeat the gesture for him, and finally pry the tie out of his mouth.
“Hope this wasn’t your favorite tie,” you say, finding a somewhat dry edge to wipe your hand and his stomach clean.
He grunts, smacking his tongue against the roof of his mouth.
You lightly pat his flank once, before getting to your feet. The tie falls with a wet smack to the floor, by the half-smoked cigarette.
“You planning on getting dressed, or I gotta do it for you?”
Holland grunts again, and scrapes up his voice. “Give me a minute, Jesus.”
You snort, finding your discarded belt and beginning to work it through the loops of your jeans. “One good orgasm’s got you incapacitated, old man?”
“Don’t,” he bites, but the rawness of his voice kills any attempt at sternness, “...call me that.” He watches your fingers smoothly buckle the belt, fingers that were moments ago effortlessly plucking away at all his seams, unfurling him.
“I need a drink,” you announce, settling your hands on your hips. “You?”
Holland pulls in a Herculean breath, and pushes himself up to his elbows. He shakes his head with great defeat—oh, the burden of having responsibilities. He checks his watch; he still has to meet up at home with Healy to debrief.
“No, I should… probably get going.”
“Oh, right. The case, and all.”
He grunts, again.
“Well, I had fun,” you say, turning back to the table and fumbling for his jacket. For a moment, he expects you to pull out another cigarette, but with a hum of triumph you whip out his wallet, and he stiffens. You pay him no mind as you begin rifling through it.
“...Please don’t rob me.”
“Here it is,” you chirp after a beat, whipping out one of his business cards. Holland sinks, sighing shallowly. You scan it briefly, then tuck it into your back pocket, grinning. Then, you lean down, grab his face between both hands, and plant a long, wet kiss to his mouth. “I’ll see you around, Sherlock.”
SUMMARY: A night-shift doctor and a microbiologist are matched on a dating app not knowing their lives are already intertwined.
# # TAGS: Chatfic, Epistolary, Emails, Text Messages, Transcripts, Single Dad!Reader, ER Doctor!Reader, Teacher!Ryland Grace, Miscommunication, You've Got Mail Type Beat, Romcom-ish, Marissa is Mentioned
## WARNINGS: Minor Suggestive Themes, Canon-Typical Dread, No Beta The Formatting Was Driving Me Nuts, Please Pretend You Like Batman If You Didn't Already
NOTES: I had an insane amount of fun writing this. I ADORE EPISTOLARIES. Don't you just love media that makes you feel like you're in other people's business? No background is specified as to why the reader is a single father. The reader's daughter is unnamed, but nicknamed 'Birdie'. No use of Y/N, no specification of reader's height nor form. 3.k words.
Thursday, 8:54 PM
PetriParker:
Hello
Sorry, I'm a bit confused
I was scrolling, then this chat box popped up
B4tman_26:
I think it's because we 'matched'.
PetriParker:
Ohh
How does one 'match'?
B4tman_26:
From my understanding, you swiped on my profile and I swiped on yours.
Saw something we both liked, apparently.
PetriParker:
Ohh
B4tman_26:
Yes.
PetriParker:
Sorry
I make it obvious that I don't use these apps, don't I?
B4tman_26:
That's alright.
I don't use them either.
PetriParker:
My friend Marissa set this up for me
B4tman_26:
Does she also think you need to be 'putting yourself out there' more?
PetriParker:
Haha. Exactly!
B4tman_26:
My daughter feels the same.
PetriParker:
Oh, you have a daughter
B4tman_26:
Yes, I thought I'd get that out of the way.
Wouldn't want any surprises.
PetriParker:
Haha, yeah.
Thursday, 10:42 PM
[ PetriParker is typing... ]
PetriParker:
So, Batman?
B4tman_26:
Yes?
Are you a fan?
PetriParker:
Hmm
No, he's okay
I'm not really into DC
B4tman_26:
I thought so, Petri Parker.
PetriParker:
Haha. Clever, right?
B4tman_26:
Petri, as in petri dishes?
You work in a lab?
PetriParker:
Yes
Well, I did, but not anymore
I'm a microbiologist
B4tman_26:
Impressive.
PetriParker:
And you?
What do you do?
B4tman_26:
I'm an ER doctor. I work the night shift.
PetriParker:
Woah. Very cool
And intense
Ohh
Batman, because you work nights
B4tman_26:
You got it.
PetriParker:
Haha. I like that
I'm actually a bit surprised that you matched with me. I didn't think anyone would be interested because I don't have a picture of myself on my profile
B4tman_26:
I don't have a picture on mine, either.
And I thought me having a daughter would throw you off.
Yet here we are.
PetriParker:
Yet here we are
B4tman_26:
Why'd you swipe?
PetriParker:
Well, I didn't see your face
But one of your pictures was the best-looking casserole I have ever seen in my entire life
B4tman_26:
Are you a homecook yourself?
PetriParker:
The opposite, really
I kinda suck
But I'm willing to learn
Why'd you swipe on me?
B4tman_26:
The beach in one of your photos looked familiar.
PetriParker:
Woah. Really?
B4tman_26:
Really.
It looked like Baker Beach.
PetriParker:
No way!
It is!
B4tman_26:
Baker Beach in Cali?
PetriParker:
Yes!
B4tman_26:
Small world.
PetriParker:
Are you from the Bay Area?
B4tman_26:
Around there, yeah.
PetriParker:
Veeeryy small world.
Friday, 5:42 AM
New message from: Birdie 🪶
Birdie 🪶:
warmest greetings, father
You:
Morning, sweetheart.
You're up early.
Something on fire?
Birdie 🪶:
no we're all good for now
i just wanted to ask you if you could pick up some eggs before you get home
You:
We're out already?
Birdie 🪶:
yes i was baking last night
You:
What'd you make?
Birdie 🪶:
just some cupcakes
oh and pls don't forget that you have that PTA meeting today
You:
Ugh.
Birdie 🪶:
YOU HAVE TO GO
you've missed so many of those already
and mr. grace wants to talk to you
You:
Why? You're in trouble?
Birdie 🪶:
no im not!
he just wants to talk to you so he can tell u how much of a cool and intelligent student i am
also because i was recruited into the academic decathlon team. i'm representing the science department
You:
Holy moly, really?
That's freakin awesome.
I'm so proud of you!
Birdie 🪶:
thank you please refrain from saying holy moly
or freakin
You:
Which one's the teacher that needs to talk to me?
Birdie 🪶:
mr. grace
he's the science teacher
he has to talk to you because of permission slips and stuff like that i think
You:
Which teacher is that again?
Birdie 🪶:
the one with the glasses
You:
Not ringing any bells.
Plenty of your teachers have glasses
Birdie 🪶:
uhhh
OH OH
remember like, two months ago
during the bake sale
he tripped over some boxes and stuff and you caught him in your arms and the whole school was talking about it for weeks?
You:
Oh
That Mr. Grace
Birdie 🪶:
yes
You:
He's kinda cute, isn't he?
Birdie 🪶:
WHATTTT
You:
I'm just teasing.
I won't miss the PTA.
Love you, Bird. Be home in an hour.
Birdie 🪶:
love you too
don't forget eggs!
WAIT DAD
DAD
DAD
DAD
You:
What happened??
Birdie 🪶:
did you get any luck from that dating app i set up for you
You:
Young lady, that is classified information.
Birdie 🪶:
what the heck!!
i have the right to know
i am your daughter also i made the account
You:
I matched with a guy named Nunya.
Birdie 🪶:
real mature
You:
Nunya business.
Birdie 🪶:
that's not how the joke works. i have to ask you who nunya is then you say nunya business but otherwise the joke DOESN'T work and you are just lame
You:
It's genuinely too early for this.
Go away.
Birdie 🪶:
DONT FORGET THE EGGS
Friday, 6:32 PM
Contact added: Mr. Grace
You:
Good evening, Mr. Grace.
Sorry about the whole fiasco earlier.
Mr. Grace:
Hi, good evening!
I'm glad my number works, haha
Oh, don't mention it
It's totally fine. It wasn't yours or your daughter's fault at all
Parents can be quite competitive when it comes to their kids
You:
You can say that again.
Mr. Grace:
Either way, nothing they could've argued was going to make me change my mind
Abby is a bright girl, but your daughter is an exceptional student
I can't think of anyone more fitting to represent the science department on the academic team
You:
Science has always been an interest of hers.
Mr. Grace:
I could tell
I appreciate you contacting me
It'll be easier for me to give you updates
The academic decathlon requires some time and training away from the school
You:
Of course. I don't mind.
I trust you, Mr. Grace.
Mr. Grace:
I'm glad to hear it
You:
Still stuck in the PTA?
Mr. Grace:
Oh, yes. I'll be here all night
You:
All night? I thought the meeting ended at 6.
Mr. Grace:
It should
But some parents tend to show up still
And if you're not available, they will be very angry at you
You:
How unfair.
Mr. Grace:
It is
And above my pay grade
But at the end of the day, they just care about their kids
At least they want to show up, you know? It's worse the other way around
You:
That's nice of you, Mr. Grace
Mr. Grace:
I should get going
I hope you get some rest yourself
I'm glad we were able to speak today
You:
The pleasure's mine.
Though I did have a few more questions about the training routine.
Mr. Grace:
Oh! By all means, please ask me anything
You:
I was hoping to ask you in person.
My hands are a little too full for texting at the moment.
Would you mind if I stopped by tomorrow afternoon again?
I'll be there to pick my daughter up.
[ typing... ]
Mr. Grace:
Yes, of course!
Nno problem at all
Come by anytime
You know where to find me
I mean, you don't
But I'll be in the faculty
You:
Alright.
Do you drink coffee?
Mr. Grace:
I like
[ typing... ]
I like caramel macchiatos
You:
That's cute.
ⓘ Not Delivered.
Have a good night, Mr. Grace
Mr. Grace:
Good night
Saturday, 7:32 PM
PetriParker:
What's for dinner?
B4tman_26:
Nothing special. Orange chicken.
PetriParker:
Oh wow
That looks really good
If that's nothing special I can't imagine what you'd cook for an occasion
B4tman_26:
And you?
Dinner?
PetriParker:
I spend an evening of champions
Noodles and night time telenovelas
B4tman_26:
Sounds like my kinda’ night.
PetriParker:
Speaking of night, are you heading off to work?
Gotham isn't going to save itself
B4tman_26:
You're one to talk, Spider-man.
But yes. I'm heading off soon.
I eat dinner with my daughter before I start my shifts.
PetriParker:
That's nice
B4tman_26:
How was your day?
PetriParker:
Oh boy
Are we at the ‘how was your day’ part?
B4tman_26:
Awful, isn’t it?
I bet you've got a whole roster of guys asking you how your day was.
I, a mere fish in your sea.
PetriParker:
Hey, I wouldn't say ‘roster’
You make it sound like I've got them coming left and right
That sounds wrong
B4tman_26:
So you have been talking to other men?
I thought I was special.
PetriParker:
Har-har. Very funny
This is a dating app, after all
B4tman_26:
You're right. Fair enough.
That said, I've only had time for you.
PetriParker:
I bet you say that to all the other guys
B4tman_26:
I mean it. I'm a busy man.
How was your day?
Saturday, 7:40 PM
New message from: RYLAND
RYLAND:
I think I have a type
MARISSA:
Which is a miracle in and of itself
I'm guessing the dating profile's working out alright?
RYLAND:
Yes
I mean I get one or two matches a night, but there's this one guy
MARISSA:
Send me a picture before you say anything else
RYLAND:
He doesn't have a picture on his profile
MARISSA:
What
Rookie mistake, Ry
He probably works at a gas station
RYLAND:
No he doesn't!
Also I don't have a picture on my profile either, so we're even
MARISSA:
Then are you here to tell me that your type in guys are the ones you can't see
RYLAND:
No
Worse
[ typing... ]
I think I'm into single dads
MARISSA:
Oh my GOD Ryland
I mean I knew you had issues but
???
RYLAND:
Okay, listen
I worded it wrong
I don't like dads
I think I just like that they're responsible?
MARISSA:
So you've been on that app looking for dads ??
RYLAND:
No!
No it just so happens that the guy I matched with is a dad
And
I might be crushing on my kid's dad
MARISSA:
You're hopeless, Grace
You've got TWO?
Had fun at the PTA, did you??
RYLAND:
Hey it's not like I'm two-timing!
The other one's just a crush
MARISSA:
Jesus christ
We're in our 30s
We don't CRUSH on people anymore
Make a move for god's sake
If he likes you, he likes you
If he doesn't, NEXT
RYLAND:
I will NOT make a move on my student's father. That poor girl
But I have been flirting with the online guy if it's of any comfort
MARISSA:
It's not
But hey, at least you're out there
Tell me how it goes
RYLAND:
Oh god
MARISSA:
What
RYLAND:
I just realized something
Is this one of those apps where guys chat and eventually hook up?
MARISSA:
That's how a lot of dating sites go, but it's not always the case
You scared he's gonna book you a hotel?
RYLAND:
I just
Hadn't thought of it till now
MARISSA:
Relax, Ry
He can't make you do anything you don't want to do
Now that I'm thinking about it, it's a good thing you didn't put your picture on there
Just have your fun, yeah? That's the beauty of being anonymous on the internet
Saturday, 11:21 PM
PetriParker:
Can I ask you something?
B4tman_26:
Still awake?
PetriParker:
Yes
Oh, sorry
I forget you're on the clock
B4tman_26:
It's okay, I can talk.
What were you going to ask me?
PetriParker:
It's about your work, actually
What sort of doctor are you?
I mean I know you're an ER doctor, but do you take specific cases?
B4tman_26:
You don't really get to choose which cases to take when you're in emergency med.
My job's to get people stable.
I specialize in whatever comes my way.
Why? Need a diagnosis?
PetriParker:
No, just curious
B4tman_26:
Got it.
You're simply in an asking mood.
PetriParker:
It's for the Daily Bugle
B4tman_26:
What about you?
PetriParker:
Me?
B4tman_26:
Yeah, Mr. Microbiologist.
What's your specialization?
PetriParker:
Molecular Biology.
But right now I'm a teacher.
B4tman_26:
Like, a professor?
PetriParker:
No, I teach middle school.
B4tman_26:
Huh.
PetriParker:
What?
B4tman_26:
Nothing
I just
[ ... ]
What are you doing teaching kids with a degree in molecular biology?
PetriParker:
Felt like a higher calling, I guess
B4tman_26:
I see.
Saturday, 11:30 PM
New message from: RYLAND
RYLAND:
Is it unattractive to be a middle school teacher???
MARISSA:
What??
RYLAND:
Is that a thing that throws guys off??
MARISSA:
Maybe you got him imagining Miss Frizzle
Did you tell him you're a teacher?
RYLAND:
Yes! But I also told him I have a degree in molecular biology!
Shouldn't that cancel out??
MARISSA:
Heck if I know, man
OH, tell him you have a doctorate. That'll get him back
RYLAND:
Should I?? I don't wanna sound like I'm bragging
What if he thinks I'm trying to one-up him as a doctor?
MARISSA:
You might be overthinking this
RYLAND:
Mayb
WAIT HE SENT ME SOMETHING
Sunday, 12:01 AM
B4tman_26:
PetriParker:
Looks quiet over there
B4tman_26:
Oh god.
Now you've done it.
PetriParker:
What?
B4tman_26:
Don't you know you're not supposed to say that in an ER? It's like saying Macbeth at a play.
You've jinxed it.
PetriParker:
I'm sorry!
B4tman_26:
It's on you, Parker.
You're gonna owe me if my night goes bad.
PetriParker:
Oh, gosh
What ever will I owe you, Mr. Wayne?
B4tman_26:
I'm yet to decide.
PetriParker:
Seriously though, I hope nothing goes wrong
I didn't mean to say that
B4tman_26:
I know.
Just wanted to scare you.
What are you up to this late?
PetriParker:
Paperwork
None of which are due
I just like to keep busy
B4tman_26:
Looks like we're both relatively occupied, then.
PetriParker:
Relatively
Hey, you like Batman, right?
Do you also like Superman?
B4tman_26:
He's alright.
PetriParker:
He's alright, he says, in true Batman fashion
B4tman_26:
Batman fans are not famously Superman fans.
PetriParker:
What would you say is your 'kryptonite'?
B4tman_26:
Getting shot.
PetriParker:
Huh???
B4tman_26:
Kryptonite is the thing that kills Superman, right?
I don't respond particularly well to bullets.
PetriParker:
No, it's his weakness!
B4tman_26:
Okay well my weakness is getting shot.
PetriParker:
Quit it! You're teasing me
B4tman_26:
What's your weakness, then?
PetriParker:
Dads, apparently
ⓘ Message Not Sent.
I dunno! I'm weak to a good jelly donut
B4tman_26:
Lame answer.
PetriParker:
How is that lamer than getting shot!
B4tman_26:
What is the context of this 'weakness'?
Like, is it a physical weakness? A mental weakness?
PetriParker:
I don't know
Maybe like
Things that you like in people? Things that'll have you wrapped around someone's finger?
B4tman_26:
Why didn't you just say that?
Okay, I'll give you a real answer.
Glasses.
PetriParker:
Are
Are you serious
B4tman_26:
Yeah. Guys with glasses.
Super cute.
PetriParker:
Hahaha
B4tman_26:
You?
PetriParker:
Guys who like Batman...
B4tman_26:
Do I have news for you.
Sunday, 1:34 AM
PetriParker:
Hey
B4tman_26:
Still awake?
PetriParker:
Sorry
Are you busy?
B4tman_26:
No. But you should be asleep.
PetriParker:
I can't sleep
No school tomorrow, anyway
B4tman_26:
I'll keep you company, then.
PetriParker:
My hero.
[ ... ]
You know about the Petrova Problem, right?
B4tman_26:
Pretty sure everyone does.
Why?
PetriParker:
I don't know
I'm just thinking about it tonight
B4tman_26:
Is it making you anxious?
PetriParker:
I think it makes everyone anxious
Still, does it ever feel weird that the world is just
moving on?
I mean, the apocalypse was announced and everyone's just going about their days
B4tman_26:
I know what you mean.
The danger isn't imminent, so people aren't losing their heads I suppose.
Everyone trusts that a solution will appear.
PetriParker:
Do you?
B4tman_26:
Trust in a solution?
Yes. I have to.
One way or another, it'll turn up.
Your professional experience and prior research history have been identified as relevant to an ongoing international initiative.
Our records indicate your participation in multiple research programs concerning human physiological resilience, including co-authorship on NASA-affiliated studies. Specifically, your contributions to the publication “Effects of Prolonged Circadian Misalignment on Cognition in Simulated Spaceflight Conditions” and supporting data analysis for simulated isolation environments (HAB-3 Cognitive Retention Trial) demonstrate direct relevance to current mission-critical human performance modeling.
Additional involvement is noted in data collection for the ▇▇▇▇ Habitat Study on sleep fragmentation and cognitive task retention. In light of recent developments, these experiences warrant further evaluation.
You are requested to attend a consultation with representatives of the Petrova Taskforce.
Date: ▇▇▇▇
Time: ▇▇▇
Location: ▇▇▇▇
Transportation arrangements will be provided upon confirmation of attendance.
Please note that details regarding the nature of this consultation cannot be disclosed through unsecured communication. A representative will contact you directly within twelve hours.
0:07⠀⠀▇▇▇▇:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Hello, Eva Stratt. No, I am not interested in selling my property at the moment. I keep telling my daughter to unlist our number from your site but she keeps forgetting to do it. Kids these days, am I right?
0:11⠀⠀STRATT:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Doctor.
0:11⠀⠀▇▇▇▇:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀And if you're not here to ask me to sell my property, then no, I am not interested in purchasing any of your products. Actually—unless you're selling washing machines. Mine just broke and I could use a new —
0:15⠀⠀STRATT:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Doctor, I'm with the Petrova Taskforce.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀I am not here to buy or sell you anything.
0:15⠀⠀[ SILENCE. ]
0:17⠀⠀▇▇▇▇:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Oh.
0:17⠀⠀STRATT:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀You are a very difficult man to reach.
0:18⠀⠀▇▇▇▇:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀I have a busy schedule.
0:18⠀⠀STRATT:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Not at the moment though, yes?
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀You've just finished your shift.
0:20⠀⠀▇▇▇▇:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀I don't like that you know that.
0:21⠀⠀STRATT:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Let me reintroduce myself.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀My name is Eva Stratt, I am the Head of the Petrova Taskforce and I am calling you regarding a certain offer you've declined.
0:25⠀⠀▇▇▇▇:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀If you already know I've declined, why are you calling?
0:26⠀⠀STRATT:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀I thought I might try to convince you.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Change your mind.
0:28⠀⠀▇▇▇▇:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀[ BACKGROUND NOISE.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀SCREEN DOOR OPENING,
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀DOGS BARKING IN THE DISTANCE. ]
0:30⠀⠀STRATT:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Doctor?
0:32⠀⠀▇▇▇▇:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Look, I've had this conversation before.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀I've already spoken to one of your representatives. I attended the briefing, I read the files.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀I am not interested, Miss Stratt.
0:36⠀⠀STRATT:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀I must confess something to you.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀I didn't call to change your mind.
0:38⠀⠀▇▇▇▇:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀[ LAUGHTER. ]
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀No?
0:39⠀⠀STRATT:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀No.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀I called to help you understand the urgency of the situation; and why what will be done, must be done.
0:41⠀⠀▇▇▇▇:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Birdie.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Get down from there —
0:42⠀⠀STRATT:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Your offer is no longer an offer and is now a mandate.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀It is crucial that you comply.
0:44⠀⠀[ FEMALE VOICE IN
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀THE BACKGROUND.]
0:45⠀⠀▇▇▇▇:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀I don't care if it's almost fixed.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀We'll call the cable guy. Get off the roof.
0:46⠀⠀STRATT:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀[ SIGH. ]
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Doctor?
0:50⠀⠀▇▇▇▇:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Sorry — yes, I'm here.
0:51⠀⠀STRATT:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Is that your daughter?
0:55⠀⠀[ SHUFFLING. ]
0:56⠀⠀▇▇▇▇:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Yes.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Get inside.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀I know, baby. I'll make breakfast. I'm just taking a call, alright? What do you want? Pancakes? Okay. Head upstairs for a bit, get your things ready.
1:01⠀⠀STRATT:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Do you love your daughter, Dr. ▇▇?
1:02⠀⠀▇▇▇▇:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀What?
1:03⠀⠀STRATT:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Your daughter.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Do you love her?
1:04⠀⠀▇▇▇▇:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀What kind of question is that.
1:05⠀⠀STRATT:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀You know what it is that we do.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀You know what the Taskforce is for. You know what we're trying to resolve.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀To avoid.
1:07⠀⠀▇▇▇▇:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀I do.
1:08⠀⠀STRATT:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Then you understand the urgency of the matter — why I cannot settle for your refusal.
1:00⠀⠀[ SILENCE. ]
1:13⠀⠀▇▇▇▇:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀[ SIGH. ]
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀I can't be the only person qualified to do this.
1:14⠀⠀STRATT:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀You're not.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀You are among a team of ten physicians.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀All of whom will oversee medical protocol for astronaut training, including pharmacological management and physiological maintenance for long-duration transit.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀We need to make sure our astronauts can make the trip in comas. Your research covers a good portion of this. The way I see it, you have what we need to get started.
1:21⠀⠀▇▇▇▇:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀That's ten physicians.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀I say no, you've got nine more to spare.
1:23⠀⠀STRATT:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀No. Redundancy exists for failure tolerance. I need an efficient team and I do not have time for setbacks.
1:30⠀⠀▇▇▇▇:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀[ STOVE TURNING ON. ]
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀[ BRIEF STATIC. ]
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀[ RADIO IN THE BACKGROUND. ]
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Well, I've got a problem, Miss Stratt.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Two, it seems.
1:34⠀⠀STRATT:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Do tell.
1:38⠀⠀▇▇▇▇:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀The first one is I'm out of butter.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀The second is that I am my daughter's only parent.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀I do not have any immediate family that I can entrust her with. And I’m not leaving her with a rota schedule of babysitters while I disappear into Timbuktu.
1:41⠀⠀[ POTS AND PANS SHUFFLING. ]
1:56⠀⠀▇▇▇▇:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Joining the taskforce requires me to semi-permanently reside in the headquarters, correct?
1:58⠀⠀STRATT:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Correct.
1:59⠀⠀▇▇▇▇:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Which is, from my understanding, a government facility the middle of the ocean.
2:02⠀⠀STRATT:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀As a countermeasure, yes.
2:05⠀⠀▇▇▇▇:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Then I can't do it.
2:08⠀⠀[ SILENCE. ]
2:10⠀⠀STRATT:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀So we compromise.
2:10⠀⠀▇▇▇▇:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Miss Stratt—
2:11⠀⠀STRATT:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Option one: she remains in San Francisco under full state supervision, including education, housing, and guardianship provisions.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Option two: she accompanies you under taskforce protection and receives equivalent care within parameters.
2:21⠀⠀▇▇▇▇:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀[ LAUGHTER. ]
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀You've gotta' be kidding me.
2:22⠀⠀STRATT:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀I am not much for jokes.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Take the girl to the ship or leave her at home.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀She will live either way.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀The only circumstance where she will not is if you do nothing and aid in the end of the world.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Her world.
2:30⠀⠀[ SIZZLING. ]
2:31⠀⠀[ FEMALE VOICE IN
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀THE BACKGROUND: ]
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Dad, I can't find my shoe!
2:33⠀⠀STRATT:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Make a decision.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Or we will make one for you.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Regardless of your choice, you are joining the Taskforce, Dr. ▇▇.
2:39⠀⠀▇▇▇▇:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀[ SHUFFLING. ]
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Did you check under the couch?
2:40⠀⠀STRATT:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Expect to hear from me again in twelve hours.
PERIAPSIS. ( PART 3 ) — RYLAND GRACE x Male!READER
SUMMARY: Murphy’s Law states that everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Ryland Grace would like to have a word or two with Murphy.
# # TAGS: Semi-Canon-Adjacent, Longform, Male!Pilot Reader, Eventual Rocky (No Rocky Here Yet), Hurt-Comfort, Caretaking, Injury, Slowburn-ish, There's Only One Med Pod, Part 3 of ??
# # WARNINGS: Canon-typical Space Dread, Graphic Depictions of Pain and Injury, Broken Bones, Mechanical Surgery, Bordering on Medical Gore (?), Medical Trauma, Angst, Strong Language, Inaccurate Space Science, Not Beta Read
NOTES: Thank you thank you thank you! I have no words for all the love and support I've gotten. I am so very grateful. Like, WOW! As an apology for taking so long, this chapter is relatively chunky. I'm so glad you guys are enjoying this fic as much as I enjoy writing it. As always, thank you for your patience! 6.4k words.
PART ONE, PART TWO.
TAGLIST: @screechingphantommaker, @whoislio4
The outer hatch sealed behind you with a heavy thunk. The silence that came after was horrifying to Grace. He'd scrambled to get to the intercom, nearly missing the console as he rushed to a seat. He didn’t bother buckling himself in. He put his glasses on, eyes darting around the monitors as he searched for you on the ship's external feed. Eventually, he landed on a small moving figure on one of the panels. He gripped the console, leaning in.
Telemetry scrolled steadily down the right side of the screen. Suit pressure nominal, oxygen nominal, heart rate slightly elevated. Grace heard himself sigh in relief. “That’s comforting,” he muttered to himself. “You’re only mildly terrified.”
Your voice crackled through the comms. “I heard that.”
Grace nearly launched himself into the ceiling. “Jesus—!”
The tether uncoiled behind you in lazy, metallic loops, its faint clinking traveling up the steel braid and vibrating directly into the chest plate of your suit. Beneath you, the hull of the Hail Mary stretched out like the white belly of some prehistoric deep-sea leviathan. Overhead, the infinite empty void of space yawned open.
Back in the control room, Grace’s eyes scrambled over the main console until they finally locked onto the small microphone. “Hello?” he said, quite frantically. “Cap, can you hear me? Hello? Copy?”
You smiled behind the glass, though your brows furrowed at the obtrusive volume of Grace’s voice. You were using a handrail to orient yourself as you began the slow hand-over-hand crawl along the ship's spine. “I copy. But turn your mic down a notch, you're practically inside my skull.”
“Right! Sorry. Adjusting. Is that better?”
“Much.”
“Everything okay out there?”
“You tell me, Doc. You’re the one on the screens.” Your laugh was accompanied by static. “S’just dark as far as the eye can see over here.”
“Oh, god. Right. Okay.” You heard him shuffling across the panels. “Okay, everything looks normal. And there’s this radar here with a bunch of little green dots. None of them are near you. Well, there's one, but it's moving away. It’s moving very fast. Wow, space is terrible.”
“You’re doing great.”
The damage to the Petrova scope's antenna array was exactly as the diagnostic had described. The primary bracket was sheared through, looking like torn foil. The relay coupling, which was the little yellow case's counterpart, was warped. Its ceramic housing cracked open to expose a nest of severed fiber-optic filaments that floated like tiny transparent hairs.
“I’m onsite,” you reported, hooking your safety tether to the anchor point. “The bracket is compromised. I'm going to have to manually realign the housing before I can seat the new coupler. It's going to take some muscle. My telemetry might spike a bit; don't panic.”
“Copy that,” said Grace. You could hear him impatiently tapping against the console. “Hey, can I tell you something?”
“Talk to me, Goose.” You unclipped the tool bag from your thigh and pulled out the pneumatic wrench. The work was tedious, frustratingly restricted by the pressurized bulk of your gloves.
There was a brief crackle of static as Grace took a breath. “I’m terrified of heights.”
A soft chuckle huffed out of you, echoing inside your helmet. “If it makes you feel any better, there’s no up and down out here. Technically, no such thing as ‘height’ either. There’s no floor to catch you and no floor to fall from. We’ve got a trillion miles of absolute nothing in every direction.”
It took a while for him to respond. “You seriously thought that would make me feel better?”
Every action required an equal and opposite reaction; if you turned the wrench too hard without anchoring your hips, your whole body would swing around the bolt like a pendulum. For five agonizing minutes, the only sounds were the rhythmic whir-snap of the tool, the steady hiss-click of your suit's oxygen regulators, and Grace's occasional, anxious updates.
“Debris field is clear,” he said. He’d begun chewing on a Twizzler that he’d found floating over the panels. “Hull pressure is rock solid... You've got a slight temperature spike in your left glove, is that normal?”
“Yeah. Friction from the wrench. Keep watching.”
“Copy.”
You pulled the cracked coupling free. It drifted away on a short wire lanyard until you clipped it to your tool belt, replacing it with the pristine, yellow-housed component Grace had retrieved for you. It slid into the slot with a gratifying mechanical clack.
“Coupler is seated,” you grunted, bracing your knees against the hull as you reached for the locking lever. “Engaging the primary seal now.”
As you worked, the cause of the damage became clear. The tricky thing about traveling at the speed of light was that any loose debris you met had the calibre of a bullet. The ship's primary defense was its massive sacrificial bumper, designed to absorb the brutal kinetic energy of cosmic dust. But with the ship now in orbit, (or settling into orbit) there was hardly a need to be wary of such dangers.
Unless of course, instead of the ship propelling towards the debris, the debris was coming at you.
“Something’s wrong.” Grace sat up from his chair. “I’m getting alarms, Cap. Foreign objects detected? This wasn't here before. What the – Oh, god the green dots in the radar earlier — there’s a cluster of them now. Heading to you!”
Your head snapped up. You didn't waste time looking at the void; you wouldn’t see projectiles traveling at kilometers per second until they were already tearing through you. “How long?” you barked, having already abandoned the wrench.
It didn’t make sense to Grace. How was it coming so fast? How had Mary not seen it sooner? “Five seconds! Four—!”
You unhooked your knees from the cleats and threw your weight downward. You tried to tuck your body behind the thick, reinforced structural rib of the Petrova scope's primary housing. It was the only substantial piece of shielding within arm's reach. You pulled yourself in, curling into a tight, desperate ball against the hull. But you were a fraction of a second too late. A soundless flurry of violence erupted around you. A spray of cosmic gravel shredded the space where you had just been floating. It didn't make a sound in the vacuum, but you felt it — a series of sharp, rhythmic thuds vibrating violently through the metal hull beneath your chest. Bright sparks danced across your visor as particles vaporized against the ship's skin.
Then came the impact.
A blinding spike of agony caught your trailing left arm. One of the larger fragments slammed directly into your sleeve. Your dutiful EVA suit refused to breach, and as a result, trapped the force into your forearm and shattered the bone under your skin.
The strike spun you against your tether until your helmet snapped against the hull. You couldn’t tell if you were screaming. You were deaf to the world, hearing only the sharp singing of your broken arm.
You gasped for air, spots dancing in your eyes. You clutched your shoulder and pulled your wrist toward your chest. The pain was a sickening, throbbing white-hot fire radiating towards your entire torso. You forced your eyes to focus on the flashing HUD data overlaying the dark void.
SUIT PRESSURE: 14.7 PSI (STABLE)
O2 SUPPLY: NOMINAL
INTEGRITY: 100%
The ringing in your ears gradually subsided. In its place, came Grace’s frantic calls.
“Cap! Cap!” He was screaming into the microphone, his voice slightly distorted by the volume. “I lost your vitals — no, wait, your heart rate is at 180! The suit sensors — is there a breach? Tell me there's no breach. Talk to me!”
The multi-layered Kevlar and reinforced polymer weave of the sleeve had held, absorbing the brunt of the hit without puncturing. But the sheer force of the impact had transferred straight through the insulation.
“No… no breach,” you squeezed through gritted teeth. You pressed your forehead against your visor, sweating profusely. “Suit’s… suit’s whole, Grace.”
Grace didn’t realize he was already crying. He angrily wiped his tears away with his fist. Now was not the time. “Okay.” He sniffled. “Okay. Come back. Forget the antenna, come back now.”
“My arm,” you groaned. A choked sound escaped your throat as the throbbing intensified. Inside the rigid, heavy suit, you tried to move your hand and immediately regretted it as a fresh wave of agony made your stomach churn. “My arm's broken. I can’t move it.”
Grace paled.
It took everything in you not to vomit. In zero gravity, a broken arm wasn’t a weight-bearing problem, but a physics problem. Every time you hauled your weight forward with your single good hand, the lack of a counter-stabilizing grip sent your lower body swinging. You kept your injury as close to your body as possible, but the shattered bones under your skin felt as though they were grinding together with sickening, wet friction. You had to time each pull, slowly dragging yourself along the handrails, knowing that one missed grip meant hurtling into the void.
“I see you.” Grace’s trembling voice snapped you out of the haze. “I-I see you, Cap. You’re doing great. You’re past the thrusters. Just six meters to the airlock.” He was lying. It was eight meters. But he needed the distance to be shorter, if only to keep his own lungs from seizing up. He felt completely and utterly useless.
“Tell me… tell me about the radar,” you panted, your voice cracking as you reached for the next magnetic cleat. You needed a distraction. You needed him to talk. “Any—Any more debris?”
Grace snapped his eyes to the screens. He blinked back the tears that blurred his vision. “No. Nothing. It’s clear. You’re safe, I promise.”
“Good.” You laughed weakly. “Because I don’t think I have another dodge in me, Doc.”
“Don’t talk, just focus on the rails,” Grace pleaded. His breath shuddered. “You’re almost there. Just come inside. Please, just come inside.”
When you got closer towards re-entry, Grace abandoned his station and rushed to the nodes to get you.
The internal airlock door hadn’t finished its depressurization but Grace was already throwing it open. The sudden rush of cabin air swirled around your helmet. You barely registered it. You were slumped against the bulkhead, your right hand locked onto an emergency handle in a death grip while your left arm hung weightless.
“Oh my god, oh my god, I’ve got you,” Grace lunged into the airlock, his hands trembling so violently he could barely get a purchase on your suit’s latches.
He didn't bother with the full decompression protocol. With a frantic grunt, he popped the seals on your helmet and yanked it free. The sudden rush of cool, recycled ship air hit your sweat-drenched face, but the relief was instantly swallowed by a wave of vertigo. The cabin was spinning.
“Can you talk? A-Are you going to pass out?” Grace’s face was inches from yours, his eyes wide and panicked behind his crooked glasses.
“Don't… don't touch the left sleeve,” you wheezed, your voice a ragged whisper. Every breath felt like inhaling glass. “Just get me… out of the suit.”
“Right. Okay. Carefully. We’re going carefully.”
It was anything but careful. In microgravity, maneuvering a dead-weight human body out of a rigid multi-layered EVA suit was an Olympic sport. Doing it while trying not to jostle a shattered forearm was competing in the finals. Grace worked like a man possessed, unclipping the torso restraints and peeling the heavy material down past your hips, steering entirely clear of your left side.
When your left arm finally slid free of the inner lining, a sharp, ragged gasp tore from your throat. Without the stiff structure of the suit to hold it, the arm deformed — bending at a sickening, unnatural angle between the wrist and the elbow.
Grace let out a small, horrified squeak, the blood draining from his face. “Oh, Jesus. Okay. Don't look at it. Just look at me.”
He grabbed your right hand and draped your good arm over his shoulders, anchoring his arm around your waist to keep you from drifting. “We need to get to the lab. The med bay. Hold onto me, okay? Just hold on.”
The journey through the narrow, cylindrical corridors of the Hail Mary was an exercise in pain. Without gravity to keep you grounded, every movement required momentum. Every shift was an enemy. Grace used his free hand to pull both of your masses along the guide rails, but he wasn’t a trained astronaut; his movements were jerky and frantic.
With every forward lurch, your lower body drifted, and the momentum transmitted straight up your torso to your dangling left arm. The shattered ends of your bones shifted and ground against each other inside your swollen skin.
“Wait—Grace, stop, stop,” you choked out, your eyes squeezing shut as a violent wave of nausea hit you. Your stomach convulsed, and you had to swallow down the bitter taste of bile. If you vomited in zero gravity now, you’d choke on it.
“Stopping! I’m stopping!” Grace slammed his hand onto a handrail, bringing both of you to a sudden, jarring halt.
The abrupt deceleration sent a searing shock of lightning straight up your arm and into your brain. Your vision completely blew out into a roaring haze of grey static. You felt your knees buckle into the empty air, your chin dropping against Grace’s shoulder as you shivered from deep, systemic shock.
“Hey, hey! Stay with me!” Grace’s voice sounded like it was underwater, echoing from the end of a long tunnel. He was panicking, his grip tightening around your waist as he began hauling you forward again, much faster now, his breaths coming in ragged, terrified gapes. “We’re almost there. Come on, don't pass out on me yet. I can't do this by myself!”
You couldn't answer. You could only press your face into the fabric of his jumpsuit. Your right hand clutched his shoulder so hard your fingers cramped, riding out the humming aches as he dragged you through the hatchway of the infirmary. For what it was worth, it felt good to be held. You kept your cheek against Grace's shoulder, relishing in what little relief his presence brought.
“Okay, okay.” Grace set you down on one of the cots. Under the infirmary’s fluorescent lights, the unnatural color your arm was turning became impossible to ignore. He did his best not to look at it as he strapped you down.
Your head lolled as he moved. “Grace,” you called weakly.
His eyes snapped to you. “Yes? Yes? What's wrong? It's gonna be okay, we're gonna fix this, okay? Hang on. I'll fix it, I promise.”
You couldn't even remember why you said his name. You supposed you just wanted to see his face. Dazed and weakened by the deafening pain, you sought comfort in having his attention. At least you weren't alone, you thought. You couldn't imagine going through something like this by yourself.
As the final strap clicked into place, securing you firmly against the cot, a chime sounded overhead. Mary's perfectly modulated voice echoed through the small room.
“Warning. Biometric anomaly detected. Commanding Officer: heart rate: 178 beats per minute. Respiration: elevated. Severe localized trauma identified in upper left extremity.”
“Yeah, no kidding!” Grace yelled at the ceiling, using the back of his arm to wipe a mix of sweat and tears from his face. “Uh… Uh, initialize medical assessment protocol!”
With a heavy hydraulic hiss, a panel in the bulkhead beside the cot slid open. Out glided Armando, the ship's sleek, segmented contraption of aluminum and white polymer, tipped with a precise multi-jointed hand.
Armando didn't have a face, but the way its optical sensors whirred and clicked as they focused on your left arm felt intensely invasive. The robotic hand hovered a mere inch above your swollen, distorted forearm. A thin line of green laser light swept down from your elbow to your wrist, mapping the grotesque S-shape of the fractured bone beneath the skin.
You hissed through your teeth, flinching away even though the machine hadn't actually touched you.
“Assessment complete,” Mary reported. “Displaced compound-adjacent fracture of the left radius and ulna. High risk of compartment syndrome. Radial artery compression detected. Peripheral blood flow to left distal extremity is critical. Immediate manual reduction required to prevent permanent tissue necrosis.”
Grace stared at the diagnostic monitor, his face losing what little color it had left. “Necrosis? No, no, no... Okay, uh, Mary, initiate automated analgesic protocol? Give him the good stuff, knock him out!”
“Request denied,” Mary responded instantly. “Mechanical failure detected in primary intravenous delivery valve. Fluid line pressure: insufficient. Administered dosage of localized analgesic: 0.05 milligrams. Maximum threshold reached for current capacity.”
“What do you mean threshold reached?!” Grace slammed his fist against the medical console. “Override it! Bypass the valve!”
“Grace,” you choked out. “Something's blocking the valve. It's not gonna work till you fix it.”
The infirmary lapsed into a terrifying silence, save for the rhythmic, high-pitched beeping of your spiking heart rate. Armando’s robotic hand retracted slightly, twisting its joints into a waiting posture, as if acknowledging its own inability to fix the mechanical jam.
Grace turned his head to look at you. “Okay, so I'll fix it. I-I'll fix the valve.”
“Fix it later,” you told him. “Right now you have to activate the centrifuge. We need gravity for the rest of the infirmary to be operational. C-Can you do that for me?”
Grace nodded. He asked you to stay still, then he was gone.
Grace had been out of your sight for no more than two minutes, but it was hard to gauge time with how incessantly your arm was burning. It felt like forever. It felt like he'd never return. You breathed shallowly in your cot as you stared up at the ceiling and did your best to stay conscious.
Then, the world shifted. You held your breath, thinking it was another wave of vertigo. But then your hair fell over your face and you realized that gravity was making a cautious return. Up and down were re-established in a slow, careful descent.
It felt good to be oriented, but worse to feel pressure against your broken arm. You let out a strangled, breathless cry, your right hand instantly locking onto the metal frame of the cot as the extra weight crushed you into the mattress. Your vision, already swimming with static, began to fade into darkness.
“I know, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Grace yelled, stumbling as his own feet slammed into the newly formed floor. He nearly ran into your bed upon his return. His glasses slid completely off his nose, dangling from one ear. “I did it. Gravity stable. What now?”
“Shit.” You gasped. “Shit, shit, shit.” You inhaled a deep, unhelpful breath. “Grace, you have to set my arm.”
“What?!”
“You do. You have to do it. Armando's not going to with that broken valve. You need to set my arm before he can operate.” You held your good hand out as if to stop him from bolting. “You just — i-it's just one big snap into place, okay? Then I'll pass out, then you can fix the valve.”
“You're insane!”
“I'm out of options, Grace!” You were hyperventilating by then. The monitors next to you were going haywire. “You can do this.”
Grace tugged on his hair. He was going to be sick. “Can't I just fix the valve first?”
“No!” you yelled. He hadn't heard you yell that loud before. “No. Please. Set the arm. I want this over with. It hurts. If you take any longer the injury will be irreparable. You have to do it.”
Grace froze, momentarily shaken by the desperation in your voice. He looked at your face, streaked with sweat, pale with shock, twisted in an agony he doubted he could comprehend. He inhaled a deep, steadying breath. This was the least he could do.
“Okay,” Grace breathed, his voice suddenly losing its frantic pitch. He swiped his dangling glasses off his ear and shoved them into his jumpsuit pocket. He didn’t want a clear view of this. “Okay. I’m going to do it.”
He stepped to the side of the cot, his boots slamming heavily against the floor. He positioned himself over your left arm. Up close, under the harsh infirmary lights, the distortion was stomach-turning. The sharp, jagged edge of the radius was pushing so hard against the underside of your skin that the tissue was white and bloodless, a mere breath away from tearing through.
“Hold onto the rail with your right hand,” Grace commanded, hands hovering over you. “Don't let go. Don’t move.”
You locked your right fingers around the cold titanium frame of the medical bed. You closed your eyes, squeezing so hard your face creased. You took one last ragged breath. “Do it.”
Grace didn't give you a countdown. He knew if he paused, he’d lose his nerve.
He clamped his left hand firmly just above your elbow, pinning your upper arm against the mattress to anchor it against the crushing centripetal force. With his right hand, he gripped your wrist, his fingers locking tightly over your cold, purple-tinged skin. Then, with a guttural grunt of exertion, Grace leaned his entire body weight backward, pulling your wrist down and away from your shoulder with everything he had.
The universe fractured.
An ungodly wet grinding screech echoed within the flesh of your arm as the overlapping, shattered ends of the radius and ulna were forcefully dragged back past one another. The sharp shards of bone plowed through muscle and fascia. A raw, piercing scream tore from your throat, a sound of pure, unadulterated torment that vibrated through the metal frame of the bed. Your spine violently arched off the cot, fighting against the padded restraint straps as every nerve ending in your upper body flared into a blinding nova of pain.
To Grace’s horror, the job didn’t end there. He felt the horrific, structural resistance of the bones, and with one final, agonizing heave, he gave the wrist a sharp, aligning twist.
SNAP.
A heavy, sickening mechanical thud reverberated through your arm as the two main shafts of the bone finally slid back into their parallel tracks. Instantly, the pressure on the radial artery released, and a hot, throbbing rush of restricted blood surged back into your fingertips.
At the exact same moment, the automated splint on the counter sensed the alignment. With a sharp hydraulic click, it shot forward, wrapping around your forearm and clamping down to lock the newly straightened limb into place.
But you didn't feel the splint. The overload to your nervous system was too much. Your eyes rolled back, your grip on the metal rail went completely slack, and your head fell heavily to the side. The world mercifully went black, plunging you into deep, silent unconsciousness.
On the monitor, your heart rate plummeted from its frantic peak, settling into a steady thumping.
Grace let go of your wrist, stumbling backward until his back hit a wall. He slumped down against it, sliding to the floor, his chest heaving as he stared at his trembling, sweat-slicked hands. He was hyperventilating, crying, tugging on his hair again. He wanted to throw up. But he also wanted to be sure you were alright.
Above him, Mary’s voice chimed with a serene indifference. “Vascular occlusion resolved. Distal blood flow restored to 100%. Bone alignment within acceptable parameters.”
Grace sat there for a moment longer, timing his breaths to the steady beeping of your heart rate.
“Right,” he choked out, aggressively wiping his cheeks as he forced himself back up. “Not done.”
Compared to the horror of setting your bones with his bare hands, fixing the valve was a walk in the park. Mary had been there to guide the repair, and soon enough the rest of the medical systems were operational. More hands protruded from the cot. They snipped your shirt off and injected you with needles and tubes. Armando wore an oxygen mask over your peaceful face. They whirred and hummed and then a scalpel was slicing through your skin.
Grace did not do well with blood. Back on Earth, he felt dizzy at the sight of a drop. But he could not look away from you. He held himself as he stood over your unconscious body and watched as mechanical arms operated on yours. He didn’t leave until the process was done. It had taken hours, and the balls of his feet had ached and numbed, but he wasn’t satisfied until he had confirmation that you were stable.
When the tension finally bled out of him, it hit his knees first. Grace sank straight into the floor, head dropping to his hands. He cried into the ground and stayed there until he could cry no longer. His lungs burned with a weariness that felt heavier than any force the ship could pull.
He didn’t think about going back to his quarters. Instead he dragged his blanket and pillow from his bed and pulled them through the corridors, clumsy in his exhaustion. He laid them out on the floor beside your cot and collapsed there. He wedged himself into the tight gap between your bed and the diagnostic console. The space was cramped and ridiculous for a man of his size, but it was the only place he could bear to be.
Lying there on his side, his cheek pressed against the rough fabric of his pillow, he stared up at the underside of your cot. The position was devastatingly familiar.
It brought him right back to those terrifying first weeks. The fog of his amnesia had been so thick and suffocating, and you had been nothing more than a stranger with a stable heartbeat on a monitor. He remembered watching you until his eyes could no longer do so. Now, he would do it again. He would wait for you to wake up no matter how long it took.
The hours blurred into a disjointed montage of isolation.
Grace lost track of the ship's artificial day-and-night cycles. He lived in the increments between your medical readouts. Every three hours, the overhead console would hum, cycling a fresh dosage of targeted analgesics and synthetic neuro-blockers into your IV line. Grace would instantly sit up at the sound, his eyes scanning the data streams, verifying the diagnostics and checking your skin temperature before allowing his head to drop back onto his pillow.
He tried to pass the time. He brought your navy moleskine notebook into the bay, holding it under the dim tertiary lights. He traced the crude, jagged diagrams of Astrophage membranes and Petrova formulas he had scrawled just days before. He filled the empty margins with frantic sketches and jagged lists — anything to keep his brain moving. But the science felt flat, and the math was useless. He felt as though the universe’s worth had shrunken down to the hitching breaths of the man on the bed next to him.
He ate his space ramen cold, sitting on the floor with his knees pulled up to his chest, his eyes never leaving your resting profile. The plastic mask obscured the lower half of your face, fogging slightly with every exhale you took.
The twenty-two hours of orbital settling had long since passed. Outside, Tau Ceti held the Hail Mary firmly in its gravitational grip, spinning the ship through the silent, perfect curve of its new home.
It was late.
The world outside was dark, and cold, but the lab was warm and lit by the steady hum of monitors.
A desk lamp cast long shadows across the tiled floor.
There was so much work to be done and so little time to do it.
The edges of the room were washed out like an overexposed photograph, but the feeling in your chest was heavy and whole. You were focused on a task, hunched over a surface, pen in hand, scrawling something down into your familiar navy-colored notebook.
Something was distracting you.
Someone was distracting you.
The voice sounded far away, but you could hear the unmistakable cadence of Ryland’s voice. He sounded lighter — softer. He had nothing to be afraid of here.
Since when did you call him Ryland?
Hands.
Fingertips.
You could feel him breathing on the back of your neck. You could hear the smile in his words.
That's enough for tonight, Captain.
How annoying. Couldn't he see that you were busy?
Stay on your side of the lab, Grace.
Slowly, deliberately, the tips of his fingers trailed an agonizingly gentle line up the sleeve of your shirt, tracing the curve of your bicep, sending a wave of electric heat straight to your spine.
You snapped. With a low laugh bubbling in your throat, you dropped the pen.
You caught his wrists and surged forward, using your weight to pin Ryland back against the edge of his desk.
A pile of folders shifted beneath him, but neither of you cared. He let out a breathless, triumphant gasp, his hands instantly wrapping around your neck to pull you down.
A kiss.
Warm.
Familiar.
Secret.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep…
Your eyelids felt like lead.
You moved your good hand first, fingers twitching against a rough but thin sheet. The sensation of friction jarred your brain further into consciousness. A dull throbbing ache pulsed in your left arm, muted and distant under a heavy blanket of narcotics.
Slowly, your eyes blinked open.
You felt good, all things considered. You were sure you had the morphine to thank. The ceiling of the medical bay took shape above you. You sluggishly turned your head. The plastic straps of the oxygen mask shifted against your cheek. Your arm felt like a distant object. Curious, you commanded the limb to move. It rose with a heavy reluctance, floating up into your line of sight. You blinked, attempting to draw your swimming vision into focus. Your forearm was encased in a thick, rigid medical cast. It locked the limb straight, while your exposed fingertips looked slightly pale against the stark white bandages.
You felt good. Wait, you thought that already. Boy, those meds sure were working.
You sat up, tugging the oxygen mask from your face.
Grace was on you in a millisecond. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! What do you think you’re doing? Lay back down!” his hands were on your shoulders before your head could even clear the pillow.
“Narcotics,” you mumbled, your voice sounding like it had been dragged through gravel. The oxygen mask was dangling uselessly around your neck, puffing a gentle hiss against your collarbone. You had a dazed look in your half-lidded eyes. “These are. Good. You should try.”
“Okay, that’s nice. Please lay back down.” Grace was crying again. His warm eyes glistened with tears.
You reached your good hand out to touch his cheek.
“I’m so glad you’re awake,” he whispered. Despite his emotional state, he was still making sure you weren’t hurting yourself. He let you sit up, but kept a close eye on the needles and thin tubes that poked out of your skin.
“I’m fine,” you insisted. To prove your point, you craned your neck, which triggered your vision into a slow, dizzying spin. Your hand shifted on Grace’s face, thumb clumsily catching the edge of his crooked glasses and shoving them further up his nose.
“Don't move, just—please, don’t move,” he begged. He didn't pull away from your hand on his cheek. If anything, he leaned into the touch, verifying that you were actually warm; actually alive.
“It'll take more than just a couple of rocks to keep me down,” you slurred. “How long was I out?”
“Three days,” Grace muttered. The answer broke out of him like a sob.
The resistance in his posture completely collapsed. His forehead dropped against your mattress, landing next to your good arm. His fingers slid down from your shoulder to lock tightly over your right hand. His shoulders shook as the last 72 hours of terror finally gave way to a wave of relief. His tears soaked wet circles into the sterile sheet of your bed.
“You did good,” you muttered.
You ran your functioning fingers through his hair, petting his messy oil-slicked curls. You didn’t know what else to do to comfort him. The sight of him so thoroughly broken by the thought of losing you was doing funny aching things to your chest. These, the painkillers couldn't numb.
“You’re a terrible patient,” he mumbled into the mattress. “An absolutely terrible patient.”
You hummed out a laugh.
His hand blindly reached for yours. When he found it, he didn’t let go. He squeezed every time his chest hitched with another shuddering breath. He stayed like that for a long time, letting the weight of the universe bleed out of him onto the edge of your cot.
“C’mere,” you said. You shifted your torso to the side, wincing slightly as the automated splint on your left arm gave a tiny, protective whir to adjust for the movement. You tugged at your blankets with your right hand. You made space for him on the bed; which was hardly any space at all.
Grace lifted his head from the sheets, staring at you, bewildered. His eyes were red-rimmed and swollen. “What?”
“Lay with me.”
He looked at the tiny gap of mattress you’d cleared. “What?” he repeated.
“C’mon, Grace,” you slurred, your eyelids drooping as another wave of warm drowsiness rolled over your brain. You gave his hand a clumsy, insistent tug. “Who’s gonna fuckin’ see? Lay with me here — I’m cold.”
He could’ve gotten you another blanket. But he had to be numb to reject the offer to be held. Tired and sleepless himself, Grace felt himself crawl into your cot. He was hesitant and careful not to touch your broken arm, but he was also embarrassed at how little convincing it had taken him to lie down next to you.
The rest was automatic. Grace somehow knew that he laid with his back to your chest, and you somehow knew that your good arm went over his waist. Your chin rested above his head. The mattress was entirely too small for the both of you, but it was impossible to feel uncomfortable when the warmth of another body was there to cushion your every ache.
You slotted against each other like you'd done it a hundred times before. Grace was too exhausted to have realized this. And before he knew it, he felt himself drifting closer to proper slumber.
“How did you figure out how to activate the centrifuge?” Your voice had gone low and sleepy. It made Grace’s stomach flip.
“It just came to me,” he whispered.
You smiled. “That’s good.”
“I did this to you,” he muttered, loopy from his own dose of sleep depravity. His fingertips traced idle shapes on your good arm. “I didn't watch the monitors. I should've been able to tell you there was incoming debris.”
“Wrong.” You nuzzled into his hair. “The Petrova scope wasn’t the only thing damaged. The housing sits right over the main radar antenna — the ship’s main computer couldn't see the debris because the broken scope was blocking its eyes.”
You felt Grace curl into himself.
“Mary couldn't have known,” you insisted. “The radar itself was broken. Didn’t even transmit to my suit. You didn't mess up. You gave me four seconds of warning in a total blind spot. If you hadn't been there, I’d be dead.”
Grace went entirely still against you.
“You saved my life,” you whispered, your eyelids feeling heavier by the second. The morphine was pulling you back under. “Don't do it again. Bad for your heart.”
A tiny, breathless huff of a laugh shook Grace’s chest.
Grace drifted the rest of the way down until his cheek was against your pillow. His breathing fell into a slow rhythm, matching the steady beeping of your heart monitor. One of his hands remained loosely tangled in your right fingers. You were a protective dead-weight anchor that kept you both pinned to the bed.
The medical bay faded around the edges. The harsh fluorescent lights dimmed in your consciousness, replaced by a thick, safe silence. You didn't think about the four light-years you had traveled, or the memories yet to return, or the dying suns, or the extent of your new injury, or the difficulty it would add to succeeding in your mission. You held onto the warm man beside you and let the momentum of the Hail Mary carry you both into a deep dreamless sleep.
