[muppet-medusa]

i'm like if medusa was a muppet. i really can't make it any clearer than that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

if you need to call me something, medusa works just fine here.

this is my hundreth attempt at committing to writing and i’m making it everyone's problem. you may recognize me from when i used to write with my bestie many, many moons ago, under such blogs as stories-from-stark-tower, hunters-from-stark-tower, home-for-wayward-heroes, and probably a few other now-dead urls that aren't coming to mind for me at the moment. she's not on tumblr anymore, but you're still stuck with me.

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fic ideas are always welcome, but i wouldn’t really say that i take requests because my brain is pretty particular about what is does and does not want to write! i love interaction and asks are always open for literally anything though, so come chat with me!

~ medusa 🩷

[blinded-by-the-lightz]

Scar Tissue

Masterlist

Pairing: Michael Robinavitch x F!Reader

Summary:

After Pittfest, the unspoken rule becomes clear: handle your own shit.

You learn to lie, to cope, to survive—skills honed long before residency ever began. Robby taught you how to be strong. He just never taught you how to ask for help.

But when silence nearly kills you, Robby is forced to confront the cost of his unspoken rules—and that distance was never protection, and love doesn’t survive in isolation.

Word count: 11k

Rating: Mature

Please read through the content warnings, the story can be triggering for some people.

Tags/Content warnings: Suicide attempt (not described in detail), bodily injury, child neglect, childhood trauma, depression, blood, heavy angst, hurt/comfort, love confessions, quiet intimacy, not a fix-it but hopeful, bittersweet to a happy ending, second person POV, no use of Y/N

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The Pitt is loud in a way that crawls under your skin. Not just noise—presence. Fluorescent lights buzzing overhead like they’re angry at you personally. Monitors beeping. Alarms screaming. The ER smells like antiseptic, sickness, and the faint coppery promise of something about to go very wrong.

Pittfest still hangs over everything like a bruise no one wants to touch.

No banners, no official debriefs anymore. Just ghosts in the trauma bays. An unspoken flinch when a siren wails too close. A collective tightening of shoulders whenever the ambulance radio crackles with something big. The kind of aftermath that settles into muscle memory.

You feel it in yourself. In the way your jaw stays clenched even when things are quiet. In the way you count breaths without realizing you’re doing it. In the way your hands are steady—too steady—like they’ve decided panic is a luxury you no longer can afford.

Robby has been in freefall since Pittfest.

Not visibly. Not in any way admin could slap a warning label on. But you see it because you’re close enough to notice the microfractures.

He shut everyone out. Not dramatically—no yelling, no slammed doors. Just a slow, painful withdrawal. Shorter answers. Less eye contact. A temper that snaps when he doesn’t mean it to. You’ve heard about the motorcycle rides, reckless and late. You’ve heard about the roof, too. Him standing too close to the edge one too many times, staring down at the city like it owes him an explanation.

He wouldn’t talk to anyone.

And the way he runs the department now—it’s changed. There’s an unspoken rule stitched into the rhythm of the place.

Handle your own shit.

No one says they’re tired. No one admits they’re drowning. Breaks are theoretical concepts, like pensions or affordable housing. You notice it in the way the department moves—fast, efficient, merciless. You notice it in the way interns don’t ask questions unless they’re absolutely certain. You notice it in the way nurses exchange looks over coffee they never get to finish.

Maybe that’s why Langdon didn’t reach out for help sooner.

Maybe that’s why you won’t.

• . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. •

You’re at the workstation, scrolling through a chart that’s blurring together with the last ten you’ve touched. Your eyes burn faintly, the kind of tired that laughs at the idea of sleep fixing anything. You’ve got one hand braced against the counter, knuckles pale, the other clicking through labs you already know by heart.

He steps in close—too close for comfort, not close enough to justify calling it out.

You feel him before you see him. Heat at your shoulder. The faint smell of soap and his cologne mingling with antiseptic. His presence shifts the air, like the department subtly reorients itself around him.

“You good?”

He doesn’t look at you when he says it. His eyes are on the screen, scanning your chart with ruthless efficiency. It’s casual. Almost gentle. Like he’s giving you an out.

You don’t take it.

“Always,” you say automatically.

The word slips out polished and practiced, a reflex so ingrained you don’t even feel the lie as it passes your lips. You keep your eyes on the screen. If you look at him, you might give something away—fatigue, irritation, the tiny, treacherous relief that he’s standing this close.

He hums quietly. Not approval. Not disbelief. Just a sound that says he’s filed your answer away and doesn’t entirely buy it.

He reaches past you to scroll, his forearm brushing yours.

It’s nothing. Accidental. The kind of contact that happens constantly in a crowded ER.

Your pulse still stutters like you've been caught doing something illegal.

“Potassium’s low,” he says. “Did you replete?”

“Yes,” you answer immediately. “Order’s in. Second bag’s hanging.”

“Mm.” Another hum. His fingers hover over the mouse, close enough that you’re acutely aware of how steady they are. How careful. He’s always been like this with you—correcting your technique with hands that guide instead of grab, standing just near enough to intervene without making a show of it.

Close, but never crossing the line.

He finally looks at you then.

Just for a second. But it’s enough.

There are shadows under his eyes that weren’t there before Pittfest. Lines carved deeper around his mouth, like he’s forgotten how to rest his face. When his gaze meets yours, it’s sharp—but there’s something frayed underneath, something raw he keeps wrapped tight.

You wonder, not for the first time, how much he’s carrying. How much he’s decided is his to bear alone.

“You’re pushing yourself too much,” he says quietly.

You blink. “Excuse me?”

His voice doesn’t rise. He doesn’t make a thing of it. Just states it like a vital sign he doesn’t like.

“I’m fine,” you say, which is becoming a theme.

He studies you for a beat longer than strictly professional. His jaw tightens, just a fraction. Concern flickers there—quick, controlled, immediately shuttered.

“Okay,” he says finally.

It’s not agreement. It’s a truce.

He steps back, the warmth at your shoulder gone, and you hate how noticeable the absence is. He moves down the line, already onto the next crisis, the next problem that can be solved if you just move fast enough and don’t feel too much.

You stare at the screen for a moment longer than necessary.

Your chest feels tight, but you ignore it. Of course you do.

Handle your own shit.

You straighten, square your shoulders, and dive back into the noise—carrying your weight, carrying his expectations, carrying something unspoken that hums between you like a live wire neither of you is brave enough to touch.

• . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. •

The shift doesn’t go downhill, it plummets.

One minute you’re charting. The next, Dana's voice cuts through the din, sharp enough to draw blood.

“Room four—peds. Possible neglect.”

Your stomach drops in a way that feels embarrassingly physical, like your body got the memo before your brain did.

The kid is small. Too small.

Gray skin with a yellow undertone. Ribs standing out too clearly beneath stretched skin, each one a quiet accusation. There’s a smell you don’t want to name—stale, sour, the absence of care made tangible. Hair matted. Lips cracked. Eyes half-lidded, unfocused.

Your brain does that thing it does sometimes, the brief, treacherous stutter.

Oh.

It lasts maybe half a second.

Half a second too long.

Robby is already moving.

“Airway first. Get me oxygen. Someone call peds ICU. IV access now—if you can’t get it, go IO.”

His voice is steel. No hesitation. No softness. Orders snapping into place like puzzle pieces he’s assembled a thousand times before.

Your body catches up to your brain.

You move.

You always do.

Hands steady. Motions precise. You slide into the choreography like muscle memory takes over the wheel. You place leads. You push meds. You call out vitals with a voice that sounds calm even to you, which feels vaguely insulting given the circumstances.

The kid crashes fast.

One second there’s a weak pulse. The next—nothing.

“Starting compressions.”

You don’t remember saying it, but there you are, counting aloud, shoulders burning, hands pressing down on a chest that feels too fragile for this violence. Someone intubates. Someone else pushes epi. The room fills with the sound of effort—grunts, commands, the metronomic cruelty of CPR.

“Again,” Robby says. “Another round.”

Sweat trickles down your spine. Your jaw aches from clenching it too hard. You refuse to look at the ribs moving under your hands, because if you do, something in you might split clean open.

Time does that thing where it stretches and collapses at once.

Eventually, it’s over.

No pulse. No response. Flat line that doesn’t care how badly you want it to change its mind.

Robby calls it.

His voice doesn’t waver.

The room stills in that awful, sudden way—like a held breath that never gets released.

You step back, hands slick with sweat. Your gloves feel wrong now. Heavy. Contaminated with failure.

The parents aren’t there. That comes later. Paperwork and social services and words like investigation and custody and too late.

The ER hums on.

That might be the worst part.

Someone laughs at the desk. A monitor beeps cheerfully down the hall. A trauma rolls in two bays over, fresh chaos already demanding attention. The world does not pause. The fluorescent lights do not dim in respect.

You peel off your gloves with shaking hands.

They snap as you tug them free, the sound sharp in the quiet bubble you’re suddenly trapped inside. Your fingers tremble, fine motor control finally betraying you now that it’s safe to fall apart.

You stare at your hands like they belong to someone else.

Congratulations, your brain supplies bitterly. You followed every protocol and still lost.

You feel him before you see him.

Robby stands across the bay, watching you—not the way he watches the department, but the way he watches you. Assessing. Reading. Calculating damage.

Your eyes meet.

He doesn’t soften. Doesn’t offer platitudes or excuses or hollow reassurances. He walks over and stops just close enough that you can hear him without anyone else needing to.

“You did everything right,” he says.

Firm. Final. Like a verdict. Like a fact he’s daring you to argue with.

You swallow.

It doesn’t help.

You know he’s right. You know it intellectually, clinically, on paper. Every order followed. Every intervention timely. No missed steps. No hesitation once you started moving.

Your chest still feels like it’s caving in.

“Okay,” you say, because that’s what you’re supposed to say. Your voice comes out steadier than you feel. You hate that about yourself. You hate that you’re good at this part.

His gaze lingers a second longer than necessary. There’s something there—frustration, worry, a flicker of something dangerously close to care—that he shoves back down where it belongs.

“Get some water,” he says quietly. Not an order. Almost a request.

You nod, even though you won’t.

As he turns away, already pulled back into the machine of the ER, you’re left standing there with the hum of fluorescent lights, the echo of compressions still in your arms, and the uncomfortable truth settling heavy in your gut:

Handling your own shit doesn’t make it hurt less.

It just makes it look quieter.

• . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. •

You don’t remember deciding to go to the roof.

There isn’t a clear thought, no conscious decision made. One second you’re stripping off blood-smeared gloves at the sink, watching pink swirl down the drain, and the next you’re pushing through a heavy metal door that groans like it resents being used. The alarm doesn’t go off—someone must’ve disabled it ages ago. Of course they did. Of course this place has a roof people keep secrets on.

The wind hits you first.

It cuts straight through your scrub jacket, sharp and personal, like the world has opinions about you being up here. Your eyes sting immediately—cold, tears, maybe both—and you tell yourself it’s just the wind because that’s easier than admitting your body has started betraying you again.

Pittsburgh stretches out below, all fractured light and distant sirens, a living thing that never stops breathing no matter how many people do. The city doesn’t pause for codes that don’t break back into rhythm. It just keeps pulsing.

You walk to the edge.

Not fast. Not slow. Just… there.

The edge feels familiar in a way that lands wrong in your chest. Comforting. Quiet. Like a place that doesn’t ask anything of you.

That scares you more than the height.

You realize—dimly, almost clinically—that you’re standing exactly where Robby usually stands. Same scuffed patch of concrete. Same view he pretends doesn’t matter to him.

Great. Even your existential spirals have borrowed habits now.

The wind whips harder, tugging at loose strands of your hair, pushing tears sideways instead of letting them fall. You blink them away, jaw tight, throat burning with everything you are very much not going to unpack right now.

You don’t hear him at first.

Just a change in the air—pressure, presence. Then footsteps, fast and uneven, the sound of someone taking the stairs two at a time and pretending they aren’t.

“Hey.”

Robby’s voice is a little breathless.

You don’t turn around.

“Hey, kid,” he says again, softer now, like volume alone might startle you into stepping forward instead of back. “You alright?”

There it is. The question.

Concern, yes—but also something threaded through it that you recognize because you feel it too. Expectation. Hope. He’s asking… but he also needs the answer to be yes. Needs it to slot neatly into a world where he can still function.

You swallow.

Your mouth curves into the smile you learned young—the one that lives just on your lips and never makes it anywhere near your eyes. The one that says don’t worry about me and means please don’t look any closer.

You’re a great liar.

Not the flashy kind. Not the kind that trips over itself or overreaches. Yours are economical. Efficient. Built for survival.

You learned from the best.

Your mother lied the way some people breathe—quiet, practiced, instinctive. Long sleeves in July. Sunglasses indoors. A laugh that came half a second too late when someone asked if she was okay. Clumsy, she’d say. Just tired. Empty bottles tucked behind the sink like shame could be hidden ehind cabinet doors. She lied with a straight back and a tired smile, and the world nodded along, grateful not to be inconvenienced by the truth.

You took notes.

You lied at school with the same calm precision. Yes, I ate. Yes, everything’s fine. No, I’m not hungry. You learned how to make concern uncomfortable, how to offer answers that closed doors instead of opening them. You learned that if you smiled at the right time, adults preferred believing you. It made things easier. Quieter.

So when Robby asks—voice careful, eyes sharp in that way that means he already knows something’s wrong but is giving you an out—you don’t even hesitate.

“Yeah,” you say. “Just—hit close to home.”

You sell it perfectly.

Just enough truth to make it plausible. Just enough distance to keep him from stepping closer than he already has.

You smile, and it lands where it always does—polite, reassuring, hollow. A performance honed over years of practice. A lie that sounds like relief.

And the worst part?

He believes you.

—or maybe he chooses to.

Either way, the lie holds.

You finally turn.

He’s closer than you expect. Close enough that you can see the tightness around his eyes, the way his jaw is locked like he’s grinding down words he doesn’t want to say. His hair is damp with sweat, hair disturbed where his hand’s dragged through it too many times. He really did run.

Something in your chest twists. You tell it to knock it off.

Robby exhales slowly, like he’s been holding his breath since the second he realized you weren’t on the floor anymore. He nods once, accepting your answer the way people accept bad weather—unhappy about it, but not prepared to fight it.

“That case would’ve rattled anyone,” he says.

His hand comes to your back.

Not grabbing. Not pulling. Just there—warm and steady between your shoulder blades, a point of gravity gently suggesting you exist somewhere other than the edge of a building. It’s such a normal touch it almost undoes you. Like this is routine. Like he’s done this before.

Maybe he has.

Your body reacts before your brain can stop it, leaning just a fraction into the contact. Enough that you feel the heel of his palm, the quiet pressure that says I’ve got you without ever daring to say it out loud.

You hate how much that helps.

“Yeah,” you repeat, because repetition makes lies sturdier. “Guess I just needed air.”

“Mmm.” Noncommittal. Thoughtful. He doesn’t call you on it. Doesn’t ask the questions that would crack you open like cheap glass.

His hand shifts, sliding slightly lower, fingers splayed like he’s bracing himself as much as you. You’re acutely aware of the space—or lack of it—between you now. The heat of him cutting through the cold night. The way his thumb flexes once, unconsciously.

Romantic tension is an inconvenient thing. Especially when you’re standing on a roof after losing a kid.

“C’mon,” he says quietly. “Let’s get you back inside.”

He doesn’t wait for you to move on your own. He guides you—slow, careful steps away from the ledge, like he’s herding a skittish animal that might bolt if startled. You let him. That’s the worst part. You let him.

As you pass him, your shoulder brushes his chest. It’s accidental. Probably. Still, you feel the solidness of him, the steady beat beneath scrubs and exhaustion. For one stupid, treacherous second, you wonder what it would feel like to just… stop. To turn into that space instead of away from it.

He holds the door open for you, the metal shrieking softly as it swings inward. The noise feels too loud after the quiet up here. Like reality barging back in uninvited.

The stairwell smells like concrete and antiseptic and the faint ghost of mildew. He walks beside you—not ahead, not behind. Matching your pace. His arm stays close, a silent offer.

You don’t take it.

You don’t refuse it either.

Halfway down, he glances at you. “You sure you’re okay to finish the shift?”

There it is. Another test. Another place you could tell the truth.

You smile again.

“Wouldn’t want to ruin your stats,” you say lightly.

He huffs a quiet laugh despite himself. Shakes his head. “Smartass.”

Affection laces the word. It settles somewhere deep and dangerous.

The rest of the descent is silent. Just the sound of your shoes on concrete, his breathing finally evening out. When you reach the door to the floor, he pushes it open and lets you go first.

His hand leaves your back.

The absence is louder than the wind was.

You step into the fluorescent hum of the ER like nothing happened. Like you didn’t stand on the edge of something that felt too much like peace.

Behind you, Robby follows.

He doesn’t look back at the door.

You do. Just once.

Then you lie to yourself again and keep walking.

• . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. •

That night, you pack.

Not ceremonially. Not with some poetic sense of this matters. You pack the way you always have—on autopilot, movements so familiar they barely register as choices. Trash bags first. Thick black ones from under the sink, the kind that don’t tear if you overstuff them. Boxes second. The mismatched ones you’ve been hoarding in the closet because part of you never quite believed this place was permanent.

Muscle memory takes over.

Fold. Stack. Decide what’s worth keeping and what isn’t in under three seconds flat. You’ve always been good at that. Your whole life distilled into categories: essential, replaceable, not worth the weight.

You learned early that ownership is temporary.

Foster homes blur together in your head now—different layouts, same promises. We’re like family here. You’re safe now. You can unpack. And then, months later, the quiet shift. The sighs. The looks. The sense that you’re taking up space someone else would use better. So you learned not to unpack too much. Learned that trash bags are faster than suitcases. Learned how to disappear without making it anyone else’s problem.

Your apartment smells faintly of detergent and takeout and that cheap vanilla candle you keep forgetting to light. It looks wrong half-empty already, like it’s embarrassed to be seen this way.

You pause with a stack of folded T-shirts in your hands and realize your jaw hurts.

You’ve been clenching it all day.

You call your sister because the silence is getting loud.

She picks up on the third ring, breathless, like she had to run for the phone. There’s noise in the background—a life that kept going without you.

“Hey,” she says, warmth automatic. “Everything okay?”

There it is. The opening.

You lie.

“Yeah,” you say, sitting on the floor with your back against the couch. “I’m fine. I was just—thinking about you.”

There’s a pause. Not suspicious. Just surprised.

“That’s… nice,” she says softly. “What brought that on?”

You stare at a crack in the wall you’ve been meaning to report to maintenance for months. “I don’t know. Just one of those nights.”

You tell her you love her. The words feel fragile in your mouth, like glass ornaments you’re afraid to drop.

“I love you too,” she says immediately. No hesitation. No doubt.

You swallow.

“I wish we could’ve grown up together,” you add, quieter now. “I hate that we’re basically strangers that just… share a last name. And the same eyes.”

She exhales, something sad and fond wrapped together. “You’re not a stranger to me.”

You almost laugh. That’s generous.

She starts talking about plans—maybe next year, maybe summer, flights are expensive but they’ll figure it out. You nod along even though she can’t see you, already cataloguing the reasons it won’t happen. Schedules. Money. Life. The way things always slip through the cracks.

In the background, a child cries.

“Hold on—” she says. “The kids woke up. I have to go.”

“Yeah,” you say quickly. “Of course.”

“Hey,” she adds before hanging up. “Don’t disappear on me, okay?”

You smile even though she can’t see it. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

The line goes dead.

You set the phone down carefully, like sudden movements might crack something open.

Later, you’re sitting on the floor surrounded by half-filled boxes, a pocket knife resting in your palm. You turn it over and over, thumb brushing the worn handle, blade still folded. You’re not doing anything with it. Just… holding it. Feeling its weight. The quiet honesty of something simple and sharp.

Your thoughts drift—uninvited, persistent—to Robby’s hands.

Steady. Careful. The way he never grabs, never rushes. The way his touch always seems deliberate, like he’s constantly measuring how much is too much. The warmth of his palm at your back on the roof. The restraint in it.

Distant, but never careless.

You think about the stupid, small moments that snuck up on you. The way he brings you coffee without asking how you take it because he already knows. The half-smile he gets when you’re being particularly insufferable. The way he always stands just close enough during procedures, like he’s ready to catch you if you falter—even though you never do.

You regret not saying anything.

You regret it in that quiet, reasonable way that doesn’t beg for do-overs. Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe some things are safer left untouched. You’ve always been good at restraint too.

You don’t feel dramatic.

You don’t feel devastated or hysterical or poetic about it.

You feel tired.

Bone-deep. Soul-level. The kind of tired that isn’t fixed by sleep. The kind that comes from carrying your life in boxes for too long, from lying so well people stop asking questions, from loving people at a careful distance because getting closer feels like tempting fate.

You close the knife and set it aside.

You keep packing.

Because that, at least, is something you know how to do.

• . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. •

The trauma alert cuts through the ER like a blade.

Sharp. Unmistakable. Too loud.

“Trauma incoming. Self-inflicted lacerations. Hypotensive. Uncontrolled bleeding.”

Robby doesn’t look up at first. He’s suturing a scalp laceration, hands steady, voice on autopilot as he tells a med student something about layered closure and cosmetic alignment. His body keeps moving because it always does. Muscle memory. Habit. Survival.

Then the doors slam open.

The gurney bursts through in a chaos of red and motion and shouted vitals, and the world narrows to one unbearable point.

You.

Pale in a way that has nothing to do with fluorescent lighting. Still in a way that feels wrong, like a mannequin someone forgot to finish assembling. Your forearms are wrapped in soaked gauze that’s already failing, blood slipping free and dripping to the floor in dark, obscene little splashes.

For half a second—just one—something inside him goes completely silent.

No commentary. No snark. No anger.

Just a hollow, airless pause, like a dropped call between his brain and the rest of his body.

No.

That’s it. That’s the thought. Not eloquent. Not useful. Just flat refusal.

Then instinct slams back into place.

“Trauma bay one,” he snaps, already moving. The scalp laceration patient is abandoned mid-sentence; someone else will finish. Someone always does. Robby is already stripping gloves, already at the bedside, already taking over because that is what he does when the universe decides to be cruel.

“Pressure. Now,” he says, voice steel-edged and calm, like he isn’t staring at someone he knows. Like he isn’t cataloging the exact shade of gray creeping into your lips.

Someone starts rattling off vitals.

“BP’s eighty over forty—”

“Heart rate one-thirty—”

“Large-bore access?” Robby cuts in.

“Working on it.”

He doesn’t ask why. He doesn’t ask how long. Those questions belong to another time, another version of himself who has the luxury of curiosity. Right now, there is only blood and anatomy and the relentless math of keeping someone alive.

He peels back the soaked dressings with brutal efficiency. The cuts are deep. Deliberate. Parallel in a way that makes something sour twist low in his gut.

Jesus Christ.

He doesn’t let his face change.

“Tourniquet proximal,” he orders. “Get me suction. I need to see.”

His hands are perfect. They always are. He clamps without hesitation, fingers precise, movements economical. Bleeders identified, controlled. He calls for O-neg before anyone suggests it, voice clipped and absolute.

“Hang blood. Now.”

You don’t move. You don’t flinch. Your eyes are half-lidded, unfocused, staring at nothing in particular.

Robby leans in, closer than strictly necessary, because he needs to hear you breathe. He needs to know you’re still here.

“Hey,” he mutters, low, almost private. Not for the room. Not for the chart. “Stay with me.”

Someone glances at him. He ignores it.

He clamps another vessel. Assesses. Reassesses. The room hums with controlled chaos—monitors beeping, suction whining, voices overlapping—but his world has narrowed to the space between his hands and your skin.

The blood pressure ticks up a fraction.

“BP’s ninety systolic,” a nurse says.

“Good,” Robby replies, like the word means something solid. Like it’s enough.

He keeps talking, even when he doesn’t remember starting.

“Don’t you dare,” he murmurs under his breath, clamping, tying. “I swear to god—”

Which is funny, really. Because he doesn’t believe in God. Not anymore. Not after too many trauma bays and too many names written on whiteboards and too many last breaths counted in seconds.

And yet.

He finds himself praying anyway.

Not eloquently. Not formally. Just a constant, grinding litany running beneath everything he does.

Please. Please. Not like this. Not her. Take something else. Take me. Take my sleep. Take my hands if you want, just—

“Robby,” someone says, gently, a warning.

He straightens a fraction. Re-centers. The room needs the version of him that doesn’t crack.

“OR,” he says. “She’s not stable enough to sit here. Call it.”

The decision is immediate, unquestioned. Gurney pivots. Lines are secured. Blood is flowing now, dark red filling tubing with life and promise.

As they start moving, Robby walks with them, one hand still pressed firm against your arm, not trusting the dressings, not trusting anything that isn’t under his direct control.

Your fingers twitch.

It’s barely perceptible. Probably just reflex.

It still hits him like a punch.

“There,” he says, too quickly. “See? She’s still with us.”

No one contradicts him.

In the elevator, the space is too small, the air too thick. He watches the numbers crawl upward with irrational resentment, like they’re wasting time on purpose.

Your chest rises shallowly. Falls.

He adjusts the oxygen mask, careful despite himself. His thumb brushes your wrist, where the skin is still warm.

You don’t get to do this, he thinks, sharp and bitter. You don’t get to leave. Not after everything. Not after—

The doors open. OR staff swarm. He gives report with clinical precision, voice smooth, detached, listing injuries and interventions like this is just another patient.

Because it has to be.

As they wheel you away, his hand finally drops.

For a moment, he stands there, scrubs smeared with your blood, heart pounding far too hard for someone who prides himself on composure.

The hallway feels wrong without you in it.

He exhales, slow and controlled, jaw tight.

Get it together, he tells himself. You can fall apart later. Or never. Preferably never.

Then he turns back toward the ER, already sealing the cracks, already rebuilding the walls.

The work isn’t done.

And neither, apparently, is the praying.

• . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. •

The break room door swings shut behind him with a soft, almost polite click.

That’s what does it.

Not the blood. Not the OR doors swallowing you whole. Not the way the hallway felt too long, too bright, too normal for the fact that you might be dying twenty yards away.

It’s the quiet.

Robby gets exactly three steps into the room before his legs give out.

He slides down the wall like someone cut his strings—back scraping faintly against paint, palms leaving smeared red ghosts where he tries and fails to steady himself. He ends up on the floor, knees drawn up, elbows braced uselessly against them.

He can’t breathe.

His chest locks up like it’s forgotten the sequence. In. Out. Simple. Idiot-proof. And yet his lungs just stutter, shallow and useless.

His hands are shaking. Not the fine tremor of caffeine or adrenaline, but full-on, teeth-rattling tremors that make his fingers curl uselessly into his palms. He presses them there, hard, nails biting skin, like pain might snap him out of it.

It doesn’t.

His brain, traitorous thing that it is, decides this is the perfect moment to roll out a highlight reel.

You, the first time you corrected him in front of a resident—quiet, precise, unapologetic. The flash of surprise on his face before he smothered it under sarcasm. How you didn’t apologize afterward. Just met his eyes and waited him out.

You, stealing his coffee because you “needed it more,” like that was an objective, measurable truth.

You, half-asleep at the nurses’ station at three in the morning, forehead pressed to a keyboard, breathing slow and even, utterly unguarded in a way that had made something in his chest ache so sharply he’d walked away.

That’s when it started, he realizes dimly. Of course it was.

He had told himself a thousand stories about why distance was good. Necessary. Protective.

You deserved stability. Someone lighter. Someone who didn’t measure time in trauma alerts and ghosts. Someone who wouldn’t wake up screaming some nights or go emotionally dead behind the eyes when the wrong memory surfaced.

He’d framed it as selflessness. As restraint. As professionalism.

He drags in a breath that feels like swallowing glass.

I was fine, he thinks bitterly. I was absolutely fucking fine with watching you from a distance.

Except—apparently—not fine enough to survive the thought of losing you.

Because now the idea sits on his chest like a weight: an empty trauma bay, a chart with your name on it and a time of death he’ll never stop replaying. A world where he never gets to hear your voice again, never gets to pretend he doesn’t look for you every time he walks into a room.

His throat tightens violently.

“Oh god,” he mutters, the words tearing out of him without permission. “Oh—shit.”

His breathing finally breaks loose, but it comes with sound now—ragged, humiliating gasps he can’t seem to control. His vision blurs. He swipes at his face angrily, like that’ll stop anything.

The door opens again.

He doesn’t look up. Doesn’t need to.

Dana’s presence has a gravity to it. You feel it even when you’re trying not to.

She doesn’t say his name right away. Doesn’t ask if he’s okay, because they both know that question is a lie they use for people who might plausibly answer yes.

She just crosses the room and sits down beside him on the floor, back to the fridge, knees bent like his.

For a long moment, they breathe in the same space. Hers steady. His a mess.

“You don’t get to scare me like that,” she says finally, voice low, not sharp. Concern disguised as irritation, the way she always does it.

He huffs a laugh that collapses into something dangerously close to a sob.

She glances at his hands. The way they won’t stop shaking.

“She’s in surgery,” Dana says. Not falsely bright. Just factual. “They’re good up there.”

“I know,” he says, too fast. “I know that.”

His brain immediately adds: And it doesn’t help. Isn’t that fun.

Dana watches him the way she watches crashing patients—alert, patient, unflinching. She doesn’t rush him. Doesn’t fill the silence with platitudes.

He swallows hard.

“I thought—” His voice breaks. He tries again. “I thought keeping my distance was the right thing.”

Dana’s eyebrow lifts a fraction. She doesn’t say I told you so. Not even with her face.

“You usually do,” she says instead.

He laughs again, hollow. “Yeah. Turns out I’m an idiot.”

He stares at the floor, at the scuffed tile and the tiny dark flecks of dried blood he didn’t notice before.

“I convinced myself I was okay with… with just watching,” he continues, words spilling now that the dam’s cracked. “With wanting things I didn’t let myself have. I told myself it was safer. For her.”

His chest tightens painfully.

“But the second I saw her on that gurney—” He shakes his head, helpless. “I’ve lost patients. I’ve lost friends. I’ve lost people I loved. And none of it felt like that.”

Dana shifts closer. Her arm brushes his.

“Because this time,” she says gently, “you were lying to yourself.”

That’s it.

That’s the last clean cut.

His face crumples, control finally, mercifully gone. A broken sound tears out of him—raw and animal and nothing like the composed attending everyone knows.

Dana doesn’t hesitate.

She turns toward him and pulls him into her arms, firm and sure, one hand braced between his shoulder blades like she’s holding him together by force of will alone.

He folds into her, forehead pressed against her shoulder, fingers curling into the fabric of her scrubs like a lifeline.

“I can’t—” he chokes. “I can’t lose her.”

Dana’s grip tightens.

“I know,” she murmurs, chin resting against his temple. “I know.”

He shakes in her arms, breath hitching and breaking, the weight of everything he’s been holding back finally crashing down on him all at once.

For once, he doesn’t try to stop it.

And Dana stays.

• . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. •

You wake slowly, the way you always do after something bad—like surfacing through thick water, lungs burning even though you’re breathing fine now. Pain arrives before clarity. It blooms everywhere at once, a deep, dull ache threaded with sharper reminders that your body has recently been cut open and stitched back together by people who know exactly how fragile flesh is.

Bandages wrap your forearms, white against pale skin. Your wrists feel heavy. Your head throbs. There’s a tight pull in your side every time you inhale, as if your ribs are protesting the very idea of movement.

Alive, your brain supplies, unhelpfully triumphant.

The room smells like antiseptic and plastic and something faintly herbal. The monitor beside your bed hums and blips, steady, indifferent. Fluorescent lights buzz softly overhead, too bright, but you don’t have the energy to care.

You blink. Blink again.

The door opens.

Robby doesn’t walk in so much as he arrives, sudden and forceful, like weather. He’s still in scrubs, wrinkled and darkened in places where blood didn’t quite wash out. His hair is a mess, strands escaping in every direction, and his eyes—

Jesus.

They’re red-rimmed, bloodshot, furious. Grief sparks in them like a live wire. His jaw is clenched so tight you half expect to hear his teeth crack.

“Well,” you croak, your voice scraped raw, “you look… rested.”

Dry. Automatic. Your brain offering sarcasm the way some people offer prayers.

He stops short of the bed, hands curling into fists at his sides. For a second you think he might actually start pacing, like a caged animal with too much adrenaline and nowhere to put it.

“Do you have any idea,” he says, voice low and shaking in a way that makes your stomach drop, “what it did to me to work on you?”

The words hit harder than the pain.

You swallow. Your throat hurts too. Of course it does.

“Good morning to you too,” you mumble.

His laugh is sharp, humorless. “Don’t.”

He steps closer, looming now, and you become acutely aware of how small the bed feels, how exposed you are in a hospital gown, how your arms are immobilized by gauze and IV lines and the lingering tremor of everything that happened before this.

“Why the hell didn’t you say anything?” he snaps. “Why didn’t you tell someone? Tell me.”

You turn your head slightly on the pillow, the motion pulling at stitches you don’t want to think too hard about. “Because,” you say weakly, “you don’t exactly advertise office hours for emotional catastrophes.”

“That’s not funny.”

“I know.”

Silence stretches, thick and charged. The monitor picks up your heart rate climbing and starts beeping just a little faster, like it’s tattling.

“You could have died,” he says. Quieter now. Worse. “I stood there and I watched your blood pressure drop and I thought—” He stops himself, breath hitching. “I don’t ever want to do that again.”

Something in your chest tightens that has nothing to do with injuries.

“You don’t talk either,” you say softly. It comes out less like an accusation and more like an observation, the kind you’ve made silently a hundred times before.

His head snaps up. “That’s different.”

You huff a breath that turns into a wince. “Is it?”

He opens his mouth. Closes it. The anger flickers, reshapes, becomes something more complicated and far more dangerous.

You stare at the ceiling for a moment, gathering what little strength you have left. Then you look back at him, meet his eyes despite how intense they are.

“Is it because the way you run the department,” you ask quietly, “basically teaches everyone that you have to handle your shit alone?”

The words land heavy like a stone in the water.

The monitor spikes again. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Robby freezes.

For a long moment, neither of you speaks. The room hums around you, full of distant footsteps and murmured voices that feel like they belong to another universe entirely.

Slowly, he exhales.

Then he sits.

The chair scrapes softly against the floor as he pulls it close to the bed, movements suddenly careful, controlled. He reaches out, hesitates for half a second—as if asking permission—and then takes your hand.

His fingers are warm. Calloused. Steady, despite everything.

The contact sends an unexpected jolt through you, sharp and grounding all at once. You hadn’t realized how alone you felt until that moment, until someone anchored you back to the world.

“I don’t want them to be alone,” he says finally, voice rough. “I just… I don’t know how to teach them to ask for help without breaking something.”

You tilt your head, watching him from beneath heavy lids. “You could start by doing it yourself.”

He snorts weakly. “You first.”

“Fair.”

His thumb brushes over your knuckles, slow and absent-minded, like he’s not entirely aware he’s doing it. The touch lingers, intimate in a way that makes your pulse jump and the monitor immediately rat you out again.

He notices. Of course he does.

A corner of his mouth twitches. “Easy,” he murmurs, softer now. “You’re okay.”

You swallow, your grip tightening just slightly around his fingers. “You don’t sound convinced.”

His eyes lift to yours, and for once there’s no deflection, no sarcasm, no carefully constructed professional distance.

“I’ve got you,” he says.

The words settle deep, warm and dangerous and comforting all at once. You close your eyes, just for a second, letting yourself lean into the promise of them. • . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. •

When you’re discharged, life doesn’t snap back into place the way people pretend it does.

It limps.

You move through your apartment like it belongs to someone else—careful, slow, mildly offended by every surface that asks something of you. The couch feels too low. The shower exhausts you. The act of standing still somehow makes your stitches throb more than movement.

And then Robby starts showing up.

Not dramatically. Not announced. Just… there.

The first time, he claims he was “in the neighborhood,” which is impressive considering you live nowhere near anything he voluntarily does outside of work.

He brings food. Real food. Containers stacked carefully in a paper bag like he’s afraid they might topple and take you with them.

“You need to eat,” he says, already halfway into your kitchen, as if he hasn’t been here exactly once before and that was under very different circumstances.

“I am eating,” you reply, gesturing weakly to a mug of tea and two crackers.

He looks at you. Looks at the crackers.

“That’s not eating.”

You smirk. “They’re artisanal.”

He snorts before he can stop himself.

After that, it becomes a thing.

He comes by with groceries you didn’t ask for. Sits on the edge of your couch and watches bad TV with you, complaining the entire time but never actually asking to change it. He washes dishes without comment. Takes out the trash. Fixes the cabinet door that’s been crooked since you moved in.

You watch him do it all from the couch, wrapped in a blanket, feeling vaguely like a feral cat that’s been taken in against its will.

You don’t talk about what happened.

Not really.

There are no big conversations. No emotional autopsies. Just careful detours around the subject, as if acknowledging it too directly might tear something open that neither of you knows how to stitch back together.

You’re both very good at that. Avoidance. Professional-grade.

Until one night, he shows up later than usual.

You hear the key in the lock—because yes, he has a key now, and no, you’re not unpacking that—and you already know something’s wrong before you even see his face.

He looks wrecked.

Not the controlled exhaustion you’re used to. Not the sharp-edged Robby who runs on caffeine and spite and muscle memory. This is different. His shoulders are slumped. His movements are slower, heavier. His eyes look hollowed out, like something took a bite out of him and didn’t bother to finish the job.

“Hey,” you say carefully.

He sets his backpack down by the door. No food tonight. Just him.

“Hey,” he replies, voice low.

He doesn’t sit right away. Just stands there, hands on his hips, staring at your floor like it personally wronged him.

“Bad shift,” he admits finally.

You nod, slow and understanding. You know that tone. The one that says bad doesn’t begin to cover it.

“Lost a father and daughter,” he adds.

The words land with weight.

You don’t ask questions. You don’t fill the silence. You just make room for it, shifting slightly on the couch, patting the space beside you.

He sits.

The couch dips under his weight, warm and familiar, and for a second your brain betrays you by noticing how close his knee is to yours. How his arm rests along the back of the couch, not quite touching you, like he’s hovering in some careful, self-imposed restraint.

“I keep thinking,” he says quietly, staring straight ahead, “that if I’d been faster. If I’d caught something sooner. If I’d—”

You interrupt gently. “You’ll drive yourself insane.”

A breath leaves him, shaky. “Already there.”

You glance at him from the corner of your eye. His jaw tightens, the muscle jumping like it always does when he’s holding something back.

“I’m glad you told me,” you say softly.

He looks at you then, really looks, and something in his expression shifts. Surprise, maybe. Or relief. Or both tangled together.

“Yeah?” he asks.

“Yeah,” you say. “You don’t have to carry it alone. Not here.”

He swallows.

For a moment, neither of you moves. The air between you feels charged, delicate, like one wrong word could break it—or crack it wide open.

His hand slides just a fraction closer to yours on the couch. Not touching. Almost.

You don’t move away.

Your heart picks up, traitorous and loud, and you’re suddenly very aware of the quiet apartment, the dim lamp light, the way he’s here not because he’s fixing something, not because he’s bringing food, but because he needs somewhere to exist where he doesn’t have to be strong for five damn minutes.

His fingers brush yours.

Barely.

Enough to make your breath hitch.

He notices. Of course he does.

His eyes flick down, then back up to your face. There’s a question there. A thousand unspoken things.

“You okay?” he asks, softer than he ever sounds at work.

You nod. “Yeah. I’ve got you.”

Something about that makes his shoulders sag, just a little.

He stays.

• . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. •

The next time Robby comes over, you don’t let him get further than the doorway before you say it.

“Can you—” Your voice catches, annoyingly dramatic for a request that involves thread and scissors. You clear your throat. “Can you take my stitches out?”

He freezes with one foot still half out of his shoe, backpack hanging from his shoulder. His eyes flick up to yours, sharp and assessing in that way that makes you feel like a chart with a pulse.

“You’re supposed to come in for that,” he says automatically.

“I know.” You step aside to let him in anyway, because you asked, not because you’re open to negotiation. “I just—can’t. Not yet.”

The apartment smells faintly like coffee and laundry detergent. The couch still has that slight indent where you’ve been spending too much time, propped up with pillows like a Victorian invalid who discovered Netflix.

Robby exhales through his nose, long and controlled. You can practically hear the lecture forming. Sterility. Infection risk. Boundaries.

Then he looks at your face again.

“Okay,” he says quietly. Too quickly. “Okay.”

You try not to feel the small, traitorous rush of relief.

You sit on the couch, tugging your sleeves up to your elbows. The stitches pull faintly, that itchy, tight reminder that your body has been through something it hasn’t finished arguing about. Robby sets his backpack down and washes his hands at the sink like he’s prepping for surgery, even though the biggest threat here is probably your dusty coffee table.

He sits down in front of you, perching awkwardly on the edge of the table. You shift without thinking, your legs slotting between his knees because there is simply nowhere else for them to go.

He glances down, hesitates for half a second, then places your forearm gently in his hands. His touch is careful in that way that makes you hyperaware of every nerve ending, like he’s afraid you’ll shatter if he grips too hard.

“Tell me if it hurts,” he murmurs.

“You say that like I won’t,” you reply, dry. “I live to complain.”

A corner of his mouth twitches. It doesn’t quite make it to a smile.

He works slowly, methodically. Snip. Pull. Snip. The faint tugging sensation is more strange than painful, like someone unzipping you. You watch his hands because it’s easier than watching his face—broad palms, steady fingers, the same hands that had been everywhere during the worst night of your life, anchoring you to consciousness.

You’re halfway through making a joke about how this is the weirdest house call ever when you notice he’s stopped.

His hands are still wrapped around your forearms, but the scissors hang forgotten between his fingers. His gaze has drifted, tracing lines that how run up your forearms.

The scars.

Still red, fresh, raised just a little bit. You forget about them most days. They’re just… there. Part of the furniture.

Robby’s thumb moves without him seeming to realize it, brushing lightly along one of the lines. The contact is barely there, but it feels louder than anything he’s done so far.

His breath catches.

You look up.

His eyes are glossy. Not full tears yet—but close. Like he’s holding something back with sheer willpower and it’s losing ground.

Oh. Shit.

Your first instinct is to deflect. Make a joke. Say something flippant about dermatology or bad coping mechanisms or how at least they healed clean.

Instead, you lean forward.

You don’t plan it. Your body just does it, like it’s responding to gravity instead of thought. Your forehead comes to rest against his chest, right over his heart. You can feel it hammering, fast and uneven.

“I’m sorry,” you murmur, the words slipping out before you can stop them. “I didn’t mean to—”

His hands tighten around your wrists, not painful, but firm. Grounding.

“Don’t,” he says, voice rough. “Don’t apologize for that.”

You pull back just enough to look at him. Your throat feels thick, inconveniently emotional.

“Then talk to me,” you say softly. Pleading, before you can dress it up as anything else. “Please.”

That’s all it takes.

His breath breaks like glass.

“I’m so sorry,” he chokes, the words tumbling over each other. “I’m so fucking sorry. I should have known. I should have seen it. I was—God, I was such an idiot.”

You open your mouth, but he keeps going, like if he stops the dam will close again and he won’t get another chance.

“When I saw you on the gurney—” His voice fractures completely now. “I couldn’t think. I just—kept thinking it was my fault. That I taught you to handle everything alone. That I missed it. I missed you.”

Your chest aches in a way that has nothing to do with your lungs.

“I was praying,” he admits hoarsely, a broken laugh escaping him. “The whole time. Bargaining with… I don’t even know who. I don’t believe in God. I don’t—” He swallows hard. “I was praying anyway.”

His hands slip from your wrists as he moves, sliding off the coffee table and down to his knees in front of you. The sudden shift knocks the air out of you. He presses his forehead into your thigh, arms wrapping around you like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he lets go.

“I’ve never been that scared,” he sobs. Openly now. No holding back. “Not ever. Not even close. I thought I was going to lose you.”

Your brain offers something stupid and useless—well, that’s new—and you almost laugh, hysterical and inappropriate. Instead, you cup the back of his head, fingers threading into his hair. It’s softer than you expect.

“It wasn’t your fault,” you whisper, even as part of you selfishly absorbs the weight of his fear. “I didn’t know how to say it.”

“I should have made it easier,” he says, voice muffled against you. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so—”

“Hey,” you interrupt gently. “You’re not allowed to spiral on my living room floor. I just vacuumed.”

A watery, broken sound escapes him that might almost be a laugh.

You tilt his face up, forcing him to meet your eyes. They’re red-rimmed, lashes clumped. He looks wrecked. Human in a way you’re not used to seeing.

You’re close enough now that you can feel his breath on your lips. The awareness settles between you, heavy and electric.

“You didn’t lose me,” you say quietly. “I’m still here.”

His hands slide up to your waist, hesitant, like he’s checking if he’s allowed. You don’t stop him.

“I know,” he whispers. “I just—don’t want to ever come that close again.”

Neither do you.

The room goes very still. His hands are warm. Your pulse is loud in your ears. There’s something fragile here, stretched taut between you, and for once you don’t feel the urge to run from it.

If this is what being seen feels like, you think distantly, you might need to revise your long-standing policy against it.

You don’t think about it. Thinking would ruin it. Thinking would turn this into another carefully catalogued mistake you revisit at three in the morning.

So instead, you move.

You slide off the couch and down onto your knees in front of him. The carpet is rough and a little dusty and you vaguely register that this is probably bad for your lungs and worse for your dignity, but neither seems especially important right now.

You take his face in your hands.

He startles slightly, like he forgot he’s allowed to be held too. Your thumbs press gently along his cheeks, warm skin damp with tears. You make him look up at you.

And then you realize you’re crying too.

Your vision blurs, your nose burns, your chest tightens in that familiar, traitorous way that has nothing to do with hypoxia and everything to do with feelings you’ve been aggressively ignoring.

“Hey,” you whisper, forehead coming to rest against his. You can feel his breath stutter against your lips. “It’s not your fault. None of it.”

He shakes his head weakly, like he doesn’t believe you, like he doesn’t want to.

“I’m here,” you say, voice breaking despite your best efforts. “I’m still here. And I’m going to be okay. I promise.”

You don’t know if it’s a lie. You don’t know if you’re allowed to promise things like that. But you need him to hear it, so you say it anyway.

Your foreheads stay pressed together. His hands slide up your arms, tentative at first, then firmer. Your breaths mingle—uneven, too close, intimate in a way that feels almost indecent after everything else.

You’re aware of how close his mouth is. Of the fact that if either of you tilts your head even slightly—

You don’t finish the thought.

He does it for you.

The kiss is not careful.

It’s not polished or slow or anything you’d ever describe as smooth. It’s messy and uncoordinated, mouths colliding more than meeting at first, like neither of you quite knows where to put the urgency.

His lips are warm and trembling. Yours are salty with tears. You taste him—peppermint and coffee and something unmistakably him—and the sharp, overwhelming reality of it punches the air out of your lungs.

You make a soft, startled sound into his mouth, and that’s all it takes.

He kisses you again, harder this time, like he’s afraid the moment will vanish if he doesn’t hold it down with force. His hand slides into your hair, fingers curling gently but insistently at the nape of your neck. The touch sends a shiver straight down your spine.

You cling to him, hands fisting in his shirt, fabric wrinkling under your grip. Somewhere in the back of your mind, a dry little voice notes that you’re technically post-ICU and probably shouldn’t be doing… whatever this is.

You ignore it.

The kiss deepens, still imperfect—teeth knocking faintly, breaths catching, both of you pulling back just enough to breathe before clashing together again. It’s desperate in a way that feels honest, like neither of you is pretending this is casual or temporary or fine.

You taste tears. His. Yours. They blur together until you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.

His forehead presses into yours again for half a second, breath shuddering, before his lips find yours once more—slower now, reverent almost, like he’s memorizing the shape of you. His thumb brushes along your cheekbone, wiping away a tear with aching gentleness.

God, you think distantly, this is inconvenient.

This is going to ruin you.

You pull back just enough to rest your forehead against his, your lips still brushing. Your voice comes out soft and wrecked.

“Robby…”

He exhales your name like it hurts and heals at the same time.

“I know,” he whispers. “I know.”

And then he kisses you again—still messy, still imperfect, but steadier now—like he’s choosing you, right here on your living room floor, with all the fear and baggage and unspoken things still between you.

You kiss him back, because for once, not overthinking it feels like the bravest thing you’ve ever done.

It’s uncoordinated again for a moment, like neither of you wants to be the first to slow down, like stopping might break whatever fragile truce your hearts have just called. His lips part against yours and he makes a small, broken sound—half breath, half ache—that goes straight through you.

It’s not loud. It’s not dramatic.

It’s devastating.

He pulls you closer suddenly, arms tightening around you with a desperation that borders on fear. One hand presses flat between your shoulder blades, the other curls at your waist, holding you there like he’s bracing against a wave. His grip isn’t rough, but it’s urgent, like he needs the proof of you—solid, warm, real.

As if you might vanish.

You respond in kind without thinking, arms sliding around his neck, fingers threading into his hair again. You hold him just as tightly, chest to chest, your knees pressing into his thighs, your balance entirely dependent on each other.

Somewhere in the back of your mind, a wry little voice notes that this is probably the most emotionally reckless thing you’ve done all year.

You ignore it.

The kiss softens, deepens, fractures again—foreheads knocking, noses brushing, breaths stuttering as you both struggle to breathe and kiss at the same time. His lips linger at the corner of your mouth, then return, slower now, careful, like he’s afraid of hurting something already bruised.

When you finally part, it’s not clean.

It’s reluctant, lips still brushing, breaths tangled. Your foreheads stay pressed together, sweat-damp and shaky, both of you panting softly like you’ve just surfaced from deep water.

You can feel his heart racing against your chest.

Yours isn’t doing much better.

Okay, you think faintly. So this is happening.

Your hands slide down his arms and you give him a gentle tug. “Come on,” you murmur, voice still wrecked. “Up. Couch. You’re not allowed to live on my floor now.”

He lets out a breath that might be a laugh and follows you willingly, letting you pull him up and back until you’re both sitting awkwardly on the couch. You barely register the cushions shifting beneath you because he’s still holding you—arms wrapped around you like the concept of personal space no longer applies.

You turn slightly, knees knocking together, your hands still fisted in his shirt. You swallow, throat tight.

“No more hiding,” you say quietly, the words coming out steadier than you feel. You pull back just enough to look at him. “We talk. If something bad happens—if it’s scary or ugly or inconvenient—we talk. No disappearing. No drowning in silence.”

His jaw tightens, eyes searching your face like he’s afraid to miss something important.

“And no lies,” you add softly. Pleading now, because this part matters more than you want to admit. “Not to each other.”

For a moment he doesn’t speak. He just pulls you closer, your cheek pressed against his chest, his nose buried in your hair. He breathes you in, slow and grounding, like he’s committing the moment to memory.

Then, quietly, firmly, he says, “I promise.”

The word lands heavy and warm between you.

“I promise,” he repeats, voice steadier now, hand sliding up and down your back in a slow, soothing motion. “No more hiding.”

You close your eyes, forehead resting against his collarbone. Your body finally exhales, tension loosening its grip inch by inch.

He pulls back just enough to look at you.

Really look at you—eyes red-rimmed, lashes still damp, expression stripped of every last defensive layer he normally wears like armor. His hands stay on you, thumbs warm where they rest against your ribs, like he needs the reassurance that you’re still solid, still here.

“There’s something I need to say,” he murmurs.

Your stomach flips unpleasantly, because apparently even after almost dying, your body still finds new ways to panic.

He swallows. You can see how hard it costs him—how this isn’t spontaneous or dramatic, but dragged up from somewhere deep and guarded.

“I thought I could do this,” he says quietly. “Thought I was okay just… loving you from a distance. Watching you. Keeping you away from all of this.” He gestures vaguely at himself, a bitter little huff of breath. “From my darkness. My fucked-up self.”

Your chest tightens.

“I told myself it was better that way,” he continues, voice rough but steady. “That you deserved someone lighter. Easier. Someone who doesn’t come home with ghosts clinging to his scrubs.”

He looks down briefly, then back up at you, jaw set like he’s bracing for impact.

“But I can’t fool myself anymore.”

The room feels impossibly quiet.

“I love you,” he says softly. No flourish. No hesitation. Just truth, laid bare. “I’ve been in love with you for a long time.”

For one suspended second, your brain helpfully offers absolutely nothing. No witty remark. No sarcastic deflection. Just the raw, terrifying understanding that this matters.

You draw in a shaky breath. It trembles on the way out.

“I love you too,” you say, voice thin but certain—and then you grab his shirt and pull him back to you before your courage can evaporate.

The kiss this time is different.

It’s slower. Surer. Less like drowning and more like breathing for the first time in a long while. You sigh softly against his mouth, the sound slipping out without permission, and he answers it with a quiet sound of his own—low, almost like a confession.

His hand comes up to your jaw, thumb tilting your head just slightly, exactly right, and the kiss deepens. Not rushed. Not desperate. Intentional. Like he’s been waiting to do this—exactly this—for years and is finally letting himself have it.

You melt into it, aware of the weight of him, the steadiness, the careful restraint threaded through the want. His lips move against yours with practiced gentleness, learning you instead of consuming you. When he pulls back, it’s only far enough to rest his forehead against yours again.

He exhales shakily, arms tightening around you.

“Don’t ever scare me like that again, please,” he murmurs, voice soft but threaded with something fierce.

You smile, because of course you do. Because if you don’t joke now, you might cry again, and your tear ducts have had enough.

“I’d hate to give you a heart attack at your old age,” you say lightly.

He startles into a laugh—short, surprised, real—and presses his forehead more firmly to yours.

“Smartass,” he says fondly.

You grin, still holding him, still very much aware that everything has shifted—and for once, you’re not afraid of it.

You settle slowly, the way people do when the adrenaline finally drains and leaves behind only warmth and ache and the quiet hum of being alive.

Robby shifts first, careful of you in that instinctive way he has now, easing back against the couch cushions and tugging you with him until you’re tucked against his chest. Your legs end up tangled, awkward and comfortable, your cheek pressed over his heart. It’s steady now. Still fast—but not panicked.

You let out a long breath you didn’t realize you were holding.

“Well,” you murmur softly, voice a little hoarse, a little wrecked. “We… definitely still have a lot to talk about.”

He huffs a quiet laugh, chest vibrating under your ear.

“Understatement of the year.”

You tilt your head just enough to look up at him. His eyes are heavy-lidded now, exhaustion finally catching up, lines at the corners softened instead of carved deep by worry.

“But,” you add gently, because this matters too, “I think it can wait until tomorrow.”

He studies you for a beat, like he’s making sure you really mean it. Like he’s checking that you’re not about to bolt, now that the hardest words are out in the open.

Then he nods.

“Tomorrow,” he agrees.

Your stomach chooses that moment to betray you with a low, traitorous growl.

You sigh. “Also, I should probably eat something that didn’t come from a hospital nutritionist.”

He laughs quietly, warm and real, and shifts just enough to set his cheek against the top of your head. His arm tightens around you, solid and grounding, and he presses a soft kiss to your temple—unhurried, tender, like a promise he intends to keep.

“Food sounds like an excellent plan,” he says. “I’ll let you choose. I feel like I’ve lost decision-making privileges tonight.”

“You never had them,” you reply dryly, but you snuggle closer anyway, your hand curling into the fabric of his shirt.

He smiles into your hair.

You lie there like that, breathing each other in, the apartment quiet except for the distant hum of the city and the low thrum of his heartbeat beneath your cheek. You’re still two imperfect, bruised people. Still carrying scars, visible and otherwise. Still a mess in ways that won’t magically disappear overnight.

But as he holds you—and you let yourself be held—it doesn’t feel so lonely anymore.

Taglist: @pleasecallmeunhinged @dreamamubarak @caterppillar @starkgaryan @karlawithacapitalk @rubytuesday2468 @storiessandstudiess @gabs-m @adombtch

[asxgard]

Riled Up | one shot

Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch x f!reader

Summary: You would be lying if you said you didn’t do it on purpose.

[ My Masterlist ]

Note: Don’t LOOK at me. This is like one of the smuttiest things I’ve ever written.

Reader could be an attending or a resident, it’s vague.

Word Count: 2.3k

Warnings: afab!reader, SMUT (MINORS DNI), p in v, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it), mildly rough sex, creampie, dom!Robby?, semi-public sex/in a bathroom, mirror sex, foul language, age gap if you squint, literally porn no plot, semi-established relationship, cum eating (kinda?), pet names (sweetheart, baby, honey), one instance of insecure!Robby

not beta read !

Medical conferences were not your forte, barely even in your wheelhouse, but when Gloria had asked, you had answered. You needed to stay on her good side if your relationship with your chief attending was to ever come out. Like a lot of things in your life, it had started slowly and then all at once.

Part of you was glad he was going along with you, if it weren’t for the ache low in your belly spurred on by your hormones. He had been handsy most of the morning, reigning it in only when you were in public. Even then, his hands would ghost across your skin, innocuous to those not paying attention, the lightest contact feeling like a furnace.

You had fun returning the favor. Undressing him with your eyes when no one was watching, swaying your hips whenever you would walk by him, brushing up against him even when there was enough room not to.

Even the dress you chose for the event that night was made with not-so-pure intentions. Open back, low neckline exposing the skin above your breasts, hugging your form just right, with a slit up the side. It was only fair when he cleaned up that good, dressed in slacks, a button up and blazer.

The way his arms flexed underneath the fabric, or the way his slacks fit his frame, it was driving you insane.

The single occupant powder room was all sleek marble, clean white tile and elegant fixtures, and static hummed in the silence. The lock turned with a soft click, and he was on you, all heat and passion that left your knees weak.

His mouth claimed your throat, hands wandering along your exposed skin before settling on your hips. “You think you can, what, rile me up and I’ll play nice?”

No, you thought hazily, I thought you would pull us back to the hotel room so we could ditch this fancy, overcomplicated dinner.

“Robby.” You whined instead of answering him, fisting his blue blazer.

He tsked, “I’ll give you what you want, sweetheart, but I ain’t going to be gentle.”

A whimper got stuck in your throat, “Your room is just—”

He kissed you roughly, teeth and heat and hunger.

“Isn’t this what you wanted? Wearing this dress, rubbing up against me, eye-fucking me all night? Or did you just want to be a tease?”

It was a way out — a check in to see if you really wanted this. You barely even thought about it before pulling him in to kiss him.

You figured he would be more against semi-public sex in a fancy bathroom, even with the door locked. Your heart raced at the thrill of it, heat pooling in your lower abdomen, your heartbeat echoing between your thighs.

You had already been wound up tight even before the night began, feeling like a livewire. His hands felt like electricity on your skin.

With hands on your hips, he spun you around until you were facing the large mirror, your hands flying to the marble counter to steady yourself. It was cool, and it felt good against your hot skin.

You stared wide-eyed at your reflection, pupils blown, chest heaving, thoughts in a frenzy. Your eyes flickered to him in the reflection, his hands quickly undoing his belt. You began pulling up your dress to hike it over your hips.

When you turned your head to face him, his eyes were on you, heavy with lust.

“You’re going to take it like this,” he said, voice low and velvety. His hand splayed in between your shoulder blades, pushing you down just enough to bend you over the counter.

You stared down at the lines in the marble, forearms keeping you steady, while you felt him push your panties aside. Exposed to the air, you felt how wet you were, and from Robby’s low hum, you knew he saw it.

Feeling the blunt head against your entrance, air escaped your lungs, pushing back against him. He clicked his tongue, bringing one hand back to your hips more roughly to keep you from moving.

You widened your stance to better accommodate his size. You felt your skin flush.

With a low grunt, Robby pushed all the way in, bringing his other hand down to your hips. It was wild and raw and primal, echoing the feral thoughts that had been living in your head all day long.

Pressing your lips together to suppress your moan, your eyes squeezed shut. It was so much, and equally not enough. Your clit throbbed at the stretch of him.

“Fuck,” he groaned softly, “you’re so tight.”

His thrusts were nowhere close to the loving languidly you were used to, his hands bringing your hips back to meet his rough pace.

“Robby.”

He shushed you, “I know you can take it, sweetheart.”

You opened your eyes, arching your back enough to view yourself in the mirror. The image of you bent over for him went straight to your core. Robby had his own eyes closed, lost in the pleasure and you keened.

He moved one hand over your hips and down to the apex of your thighs to rub rough circles on your clit. Your mind momentarily short-circuited, and you were not able to help the moan that escaped you.

Robby’s eyes met yours in the reflection, and the coil in your belly wound up tighter.

You moaned again, “Fuck, Robby, you—“

Removing the other hand from your hip, he switched hands on your clit so his right hand could pull you up to him. You arched your back more to rest the back of your head on his shoulder, and you felt Robby bend his knees just enough to hit a new angle inside you. He put his hand back on your hip, moving the other to hold your throat — not roughly or possessively, just there, just holding.

You let out a low whine at the removal of the stimulation from your clit, one hand on the counter and the other on his wrist.

“Touch yourself.” He told you, voice husky in your ear.

You clenched around him, causing him to close his eyes momentarily to center himself. You brought a hand from the counter to your clit.

His pace slowed, and he raised an eyebrow at you, “Go on then. You want to come so bad, you can work for it.”

A shiver ran down your spine and you swallowed thickly. You began moving your fingers in circles, watching Robby in the mirror all while his eyes raked over your form, watching you.

He resumed his previous pace, hand keeping your hips angled enough for him to keep himself buried at the end of each thrust. With the new angle, he was brushing that delicious spongy spot inside you, and tears collected in the corners of your eyes.

“You take me so well, look at you.” He kissed below your ear, before leaving hot, open mouthed kisses down the column of your throat. His beard felt scratchy in their wake.

You turned your head, craning your neck, to capture his lips. His tongue invaded your mouth, as well as a low moan. You had long stopped caring how sore you would be in the morning, especially if it meant this.

His thumb ran along your jaw, and the pace on your clit quickened. You brought your hand from his wrist up into his hair, fisting it while he rocked into you.

Removing his lips from yours, he buried his head into the back of your neck. You felt the cusp of your orgasm steadily approaching.

“I’m so—“

Robby hummed, the sensation like fuel. “I know, baby, I can feel it. Your pussy is so fuckin’ tight.”

You let out a moan, much louder than you intended, and Robby was quick to cover your mouth with his hand.

“Can’t have everyone hear you, sweetheart.” He whispered to you, rutting into you, and you could tell from his panting that he was close. “Let me see you come on my cock, hm?”

The heat was overwhelming in your bloodstream, pleasure singing every nerve. A few tears escaped, feeling so full of him.

“You take me so well. Come on, you’re doing so good.”

The dam burst, lightning struck, the coil snapped.

You came hard, your orgasm feeling devastating as you rode the waves of your pleasure. You were thankful his hand was still covering your mouth, because the cry you let out was pitiful and loud. You grabbed hold of him anywhere you could, to ensure he did not move away from you.

His cock felt delicious against your fluttering walls, and the quiet groans that Robby was making only seemed to spur the pleasure onward. It was dizzying.

The aftershocks burned, causing you to squirm and mewl in his arms. Like always, he held you steady. Your breathing came in heavy pants, grabbing hold of his wrist until he removed his hand from your mouth.

Robby kissed the shell of your ear, then your jaw, before sucking on the skin of your shoulder. His thrusts grew sloppier.

“Please,” you begged. “Fill me up, Robby, please.”

“Yeah?” He breathed, “That what you want?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” you chanted, matching the rhythm of his thrusts. “I want to feel you all night.”

“Fuck, I’ll stuff you full.”

Your walls fluttered at that, “Fucking please.”

His hips stuttered as he came, lips catching yours again so you could swallow his moan. You felt the warmth and rush of his spend, and a weird pleasure overcame your senses at the feel of it.

A few more thrusts before he stopped, letting go of your lips. He rested his forehead on the side of your face, panting heavily. You kissed the parts of his face you could reach, bringing your hand up to cup his cheek. The other moved to the counter to help keep you upright.

Your whole body felt like jelly.

In the reflection, your lips were kiss bitten and swollen. There was a small sheen of sweat along your chest, and your whole body felt warm in the afterglow.

A satiated feeling settled.

You broke the silence, “Well, holy shit. Remind me to rile you up more often.”

He gave you a dry look in the mirror, “No need to torture this old man more than you already do.”

“Old men do not do that.” You said, gesturing vaguely.

“You’re going to give me a heart attack one of these days.” His tone was light, and a coy smile grew on his lips.

“So cardio exercise is just what you need.” You offered playfully, “Like a lot more often.”

He chuckled, pink dusting his cheeks. “You’re a menace.”

“You started it.”

He scoffed, smile still present. “I started it?”

You hummed, “You kept touching me all day. And then you walked in dressed like that. A girl can only take so much.”

He chuckled, kissing your cheek, “I’m gonna—“

You nodded, feeling him slip out of you, putting himself back into his pants. You bit the inside of your lip to keep yourself quiet, feeling empty.

The feeling of his spend beginning to leak out of you made you remember you were not empty. Not completely. You caught sight of Robby and he bent you over slightly to get a better look.

He moved his fingers to collect some of it only to stuff it back into you. “Can’t have you waste it, this is what you wanted.”

You sucked in a sharp breath, nerves on fire and clit pulsing with your heartbeat. You crossed your ankles and brought your thighs together.

He removed his fingers, putting your panties back in place. “There you go, can’t have everyone see my cum dripping out of you, honey.”

There was a possessive undertone that that was perhaps what he wanted. He stuck his fingers into his mouth to clean them of your combined spends. You nearly pulled him free from his boxers to have him again.

“Yeah,” you pulled your dress back over your hips, cheeks aflame, a daring feeling filling up your chest. “But what if I wanted everyone to see?”

His eyes were instantly on yours, and it was all heat. You wanted him to take you again, and again, and you had a sneaking suspicion you would never get enough of him.

He took in a long breath, turning you to face him, “Like I said, a menace.”

You smirked, but the desire did not dissipate, spurred on by the wet patch growing in your panties.

“A menace who knows what she wants.” You said, hand resting on his chest.

“You gotta give me some cool down time,” he chuckled before his expression pinched, “I’m sorry I can’t give you—“

“None of that.” You soothed. “You’re all I want, bad back and all.”

Relief relaxed his shoulders and he kissed your forehead, “We should get back out there.”

You figured he was right, knowing you both had been obvious enough already. You relented, and allowed Robby to help you freshen up while you straightened out his collar. He gave you a final kiss before you unlocked the door.

Thankful the powder room was in its own hallway, it was easy to slip back out onto the floor unnoticed. You parted ways, only intending to socialize a bit more before calling it.

The feeling of Robby’s cum dripping onto your thighs had been like a strike of lightning straight to your core. You tried to casually cross your legs to keep it from going any further.

Robby’s eyes caught yours from across the dance floor. He took one look at your crossed legs to your face, and his eyes darkened.

You knew it was only a matter of time before you were stuffed full again.

whoops🤭

Dr. Robby taglist: @cherriready @seeyalaterinnovator @my-soulmate-is-mycroft @bxxbxy @18lkpeters @flyinglama @hagarsays @mayabbot @anakingreys @dark-twisted-and-mechanical-mind @sarah-the-bird-nerd @girl-obsessed-with-things @laurenkate79 @woodxtock @artsymaddie @partofthelouniverse @diasnohibng @looneylooomis @happyfestpanda-blog @catmomstyles3 @littleesilvia @cari87 @madsmoviesbyyourselfclub

The Pitt taglist: @cannonindeez @spoiledflor @kittenhawkk @nessamc @thatchickwiththecamera @sharkluver @loud-mouph @ksyn-faith @sunfairyy @dragonsondragons @mischiefsemimanaged @pastelbunnelby @jetjuliette @that-one-fangirl69 @moonlightmvrvel @andabuttonnose @boldlyherdream @cosmosnkaz @brnesblogposts @concentratedconcrete @satanxklaus @gardeniarose13 @qardasngan @kmc1989

(rest of the Pitt taglist to be included in a reblog)

[asxgard]

rest of the Pitt taglist: @deeninadream @casualfansoul @abby-splace @dreamamubarak @pleasecallmeunhinged @bookoffracturedescapes

[muppet-medusa]

pre-realized volt x reader with an e-stim kink, is that anything

[nbraraeaves]

rule 34 --

(Hector Valentino Airnesto Condicionado x plus size non-binary reader, 18+)

summary: Reading some of Hector's work leads to you requesting he leaves the safety of the attic to come visit you in your bedroom.

warnings: reading grate-based erotica as emotional foreplay. fingerfucking, oral sex (nbi receiving and m receiving, respectively), penetrative sex, dacryphilia, blindfolded sex, body worship, biting/marking, mild restraints, both are switches to a degree, voice kink, use of a cock ring, edging if you squint, discussions of feelings and insecurity, reassurance.

hector notes: chubby hector supremacy. I find I write him as semi-agoraphobic with gomez addams aspirations; there is some acknowledgement of past voyeurism but reader is into it.

reader notes: reader is plus size, queer, and non-binary (ftn). affectionate pet names are mostly gender neutral. all mentions of skin/hair have been kept as neutral as possible, though suggestions are appreciated to make the experience more seamless. reader is also just as loquacious and just as much of a yearner, be advised.

general: anyone order [checks notes] 15.5k words of HVAC smut?

god, I need this man in a way that's troubling to multiple schools of social thought. the way he got me out of a fanfic rut should be studied in a lab.

anyway! here we go. no use of y/n or anything similar, as always. no betas, I'm just dead.

Seeking a respite from the relentless summer heat outside, you’d taken advantage of a now-rare quiet moment in your bedroom to catch up on some light reading.

It was funny, in a way, how suddenly that change had come about. You couldn’t begin to number how many afternoons you’d sat alone in your bedroom with a book, spending more time in imaginary worlds than in the real one when you could get away with it. This had simply been your usual routine for about as long as you had lived here. 

With the advent of the Dateviators, however, an entire social life had emerged in the halls you’d thought you haunted alone. Over the last few weeks, it was increasingly uncommon for you to walk into any room without finding someone there hoping for a companionable chat, or with some sort of request now that they were able to communicate with you directly.

As much as you appreciated your new friends — and your new lovers in particular, a development that still gave you a giddy rush — there was still a longing, every now and then, for your familiar state of solitude: curled up on your bed with the sun streaming in through your window to illuminate your pages. Especially now, in what you considered your “fancy” pajamas: a thin-strapped top and shorts, both in a dark silk (the nicest set you owned, a holiday gift from years back), with clean sheets, and a comfortable chill about the room. Had this been any other day before the Dateviators, you would’ve been in a tiny paradise all your own.

…However. The longer you pored over this particular book, the less appealing your solitude was beginning to seem after all.

The book your fingers curled around now was honestly impressively hand-bound, the pages remarkably well typeset for being… independently produced, in a way.

You’d found Grate Expectations upstairs in the attic, off to the side of Hector’s HVAC shell. It looked so official that you’d mistaken in for one of the saucier books from your early twenties in Lady Memoria’s boxes, until you saw your beloved’s name on the cover. Upon realizing what it was, you’d recalled the time he’d read you just a snippet when you’d half-jokingly requested it, and left you out of breath on unsteady knees when he’d finished. It shouldn’t be a real surprise, you reasoned, that you’d ended up smuggling it out of the attic, deeply curious to see just where the rest of the book went from where he’d left off.

And now, at every small sound in the hall or the adjacent rooms, you found yourself looking up with a guilty start, pulling the book closer to your chest so no one would catch a glimpse of just what was on the page. It’s not that you were ashamed to be reading it — there was nothing wrong with romance or erotica, and you still enjoyed both a great deal, obviously.

It just felt… different. This was Hector’s, and he’d written it about you. About the pair of you, together. It was private. Intimate.

It was that same sense of privacy that was the cause of your current guilt; he hadn’t told you that you could take it, or that you could read beyond what he’d shared. Even though it was about you, he had likely written it just for himself. To read it without his knowledge felt like a betrayal of his trust.

But even the guilt was outweighed by the way the prose had you pushing your thighs together without realizing, swallowing thickly, your hips squirming slightly against your mattress as you read the very detailed, very vivid fantasies of just what he’d longed to do with you — and to you. Over and over, with a passion that threatened to scald your fingertips at the edge of the pages.

At one point, you simply had to close the book over your thumb, your thighs pressed tight against each other and your face hot to the touch. The embers of curiosity had turned to a gnawing heat in the deepest part of you, your pulse racing even though you were lying perfectly still.

Staring at your ceiling, you bit your lip and calculated your options. Handle this yourself, and save your beloved any potential embarrassment from your snooping…

Or come clean, with all that might follow.

You gazed at the grate on the wall across from you, chewing your lip slightly as you did so. It was honestly kind of surprising he hadn’t already been there to notice the heat on your face, the way your breathing was already shallower than usual.

After a moment, you cleared your throat and willed your voice to sound light, casual. “Hey, Hector?”

There was the briefest pause, followed by a sound of motion in the ducts above you. A moment later, a familiar pair of adroit hands emerged from the grate, and a flash of clever, kind eyes in the darkness. 

“Hello, my love.” Hector’s voice was sweet, as though somehow still surprised you’d call on him. “Enjoying your day? I’ve heard it’s quite harsh outside. I’ve been minding the temperature in here accordingly; I know you you prefer things on the cool side.” The little note of pride in his voice was downright precious; it was as though your new relationship had made him even more committed to keeping you comfortable at all times.

You barely had time to open your mouth when you saw the dark eyes narrow, and you could picture his brow furrowing above them. You couldn’t help a bit of a smile — he was nothing if not attentive.

“Are you alright?” His voice sounded concerned. His hands moved, wrapping around the vent slats as if to support him leaning closer to inspect you.

“Why do you ask, babe?” You raised an eyebrow as you sat up to face him, hoping your smile didn’t give away your guilt. Your hand was holding the book face down on your mattress, hoping his attentiveness would be on your face for now.

“I — well.” Hector’s eyes glanced askance as he searched for the words. “You look lovely, don’t get me wrong — you could never not look glorious to me, just as you are. It’s only…” he paused. “You look… piqued, my sweet. A little more flush than usual. Is it still hot in here?” His frown was almost audible, and it was adorable. “I could’ve sworn I had this room cooler than the others…”

“I’m fine, Hector,” you reassured him. You scooted closer to the vent on your mattress, hoping he could see your smile was genuine. “The room has been perfect, as usual. Thank you.”

Hector made a concerned noise, and you got the feeling he didn’t want to contradict you outright. “You just look… warm,” he said, a hand reappearing to gesture towards you. “Your hair on your neck, and your skin… are you feeling alright?” His eyes searched your face. “If you’re feverish, I could get Farya—”

“I’m okay, Hector.” You moved so you were sitting on the end of your bed now, peering up into the vent. “I promise you, I’d tell you if I wasn’t. Believe me?”

The grate made a noise as Hector leaned against it again, looking you over more thoroughly… before he seemed satisfied, if not entirely convinced. “I do. But is there still something I can do for you, darling? You did call me,” he reminded you.

“So I did.” You looked down for a second at the back cover of the book, debating if you were really going through with this, then back up at the grate. “Would you mind… coming in here, for a sec? If you’re not busy,” you added quickly.

“I’m never too busy for you, love,” he said, and you recognized the more fervent fire in his eyes that came in his particularly inspired moments. “That’d be like being too busy to breathe. But…” He paused, again somewhat uncertain. “I am… already in here, am I not?” He gestured loosely to your bedroom, his voice a tinge worried like you’d somehow forgotten where you were.

“No, I meant, like… physically, in here.” When there was still a hesitant silence, you nodded towards the doorway. “Like, all of you. In here. With me.”

“…As in, leave the attic?” Hector said, clearly fighting to keep his voice from going up an octave.

You nodded, widening your eyes to look as innocuous as possible. “I’m just right down the hall — there’s only the closet between us, right?”

“And the entirety of The Breaker Box,” Hector pointed out. His hands were antsy, fingers fidgeting with each other. “Are you sure I can’t just… talk to you here? As we already are? Or you could come to me,” he suggested, voice brightening. 

It was your turn to hesitate — despite the breakthrough the two of you had made together, Hector still didn’t like running the risk of being perceived if he didn’t have to be. While he seemed to even enjoy you seeing him, now, other people seeing him was iffy at best. You imagined the proximity to one of the flashier clubs in the house didn’t help, especially with Volt and Eddie around. He knew you were seeing them just as he knew about all your other relationships, and while he wasn’t given to jealousy (at least, not in front of you), you had to imagine that if being in Volt’s gaze still gave you a tingling feeling in your stomach, then it would send Hector running for the rafters.

“I was actually hoping…” You chose your words carefully, knowing how ‘hope’ would be a loaded one for him. “To spend some time with you… alone.” You gestured loosely to your empty bedroom. “I know you’ve got a lot on your plate with the weather and all,” you said, doing your best to sound innocent. “But I was just thinking, if you had a few spare moments… maybe I could impose and steal you away? While things are quiet?”

“You could never impose,” Hector said quickly. “Nothing you could ask of me could be an imposition, love, I assure you. My time is yours, entirely.” But his hands were still moving, fingers lacing and twisting anxiously even as he said it.

You watched his hands for a long moment, your teeth grazing your lip. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea after all. “…I wouldn’t want to  ask anything that would make you uncomfortable,” you said after a moment. “If you’d rather not, it’s okay. I can always come by yours another time—?”

“No!” Hector said it so immediately, it took you both by surprise. “No, really, it’s not… it’s not an issue,” he went on, and though you couldn’t see him, you could picture the pained smile he was forcing. “Not at all. In fact, I’d love to visit you. I was just thinking about… a change of scenery,” he ended flatly, and it was so unconvincing you had to try not to giggle.

“Just, uh.” His eyes roved around the vent, clearly trying to figure this out. “Give me a few minutes, if you don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” you said quickly. “And really, Hector, if it’s not something you want to do—”

“Oh no, I want to!” Hector cut you off, his voice climbing again as he fought to sound light and carefree. “Very much! Honestly, I should’ve done it ages ago! I’ll just... be right there!”

“Take your time, babe,” you called after his retreating hands.

“I’ll see you soon!” Hector called back, and while you could hear him trying to sound eager, you could also hear the little anxious groan he let slip as he got further away from the opening of the vent.

You’d honestly lost track of time, having returned to the book to keep yourself occupied while you waited. It hadn’t taken long before you were sprawled on your stomach, devouring page after page, trying to ignore the way your hips were subtly pushing against your mattress when you read a turn of phrase you found particularly… stirring.

It was the shuffle of some sort of fabric that made you look up, accompanied by a low, nervous humming, and someone muttering quickly under their breath. The sounds came closer and closer to your room, causing you to sit fully upright, though your finger still marked your place. “Hello?”

A figure covered in blue tarp rounded the corner into your room, which you only recognized from the eyes peeking out beneath a makeshift hood. “Can I close the door?” It spoke in a rush, sounding out of breath.

You blinked, trying to understand what you were seeing. “Hector?”

“Please?” he wheedled just slightly, his voice up an octave. “If- if you don’t mind, that is?” he added, remembering himself.

It took you a second to process what he was asking. “Yeah, of course.” You nodded, waving a hand. “Go ahead, if that makes you more comfortable.”

Hector quickly closed out the rest of the house, only letting the tarp slide backwards from his head when the two of you were alone in the room. He let out a sigh of relief as his head fell back against the wood with a ‘thud’, smiling weakly as he caught his breath. “I made it.” His eyes met yours, sparkling with triumph. “I’m out of the attic.”

“You are!” You beamed, pushing off your bed to meet him where he stood. “That’s a big step for you, darling. Congratulations.”

His eyes only brightened as you approached, and when you kissed him hello, he more than eagerly reciprocated. The tarp rustled as he let go of it, and it fell off his shoulders like an odd cape. You meant to ask about it, but his arms encircled your waist, and you found yourself pressing your hands against the cabinet doors of his coat, sliding down until your fingers curled around the handles. With his mouth on yours and the passion of his writing fresh in your mind, you used them to tug him even closer, deepening your kiss.

Hector made a small noise of surprise, but clearly found this agreeable, one hand sliding up your back to squeeze gently at the nape of your neck — one of his favorite places on you, as it always made you shiver slightly when he did so. For a moment, you were caught up in how his form felt against yours, how he held you like you were something precious, until you both at last parted for air.

“…Hi,” you said at last, unable to help a shy grin.

Hector grinned himself, his arms still hugging you close. “Hello, my love.” He reached up to trace lightly at the strap of your top, his eyes gleaming. “I must say, I’ve always thought these were… something.” His eyes flicked back to yours. “I like them.”

“Well. Thank you.” You felt your skin heat, and you played cool by reaching up to rest your arms on his shoulders. “I… like yours too?” You glanced over at the blue tarp, trying for an encouraging smile. “It’s very avant garde.”

Hector laughed nervously, nudging the tarp closer to the door with his foot. “Ah. Yes. That. It’s…” He paused, clearly trying to think quickly. “A… cloak? Of sorts? Or at least, that’s what it’s inspired by? Not that anyone really wears those anymore, of course, but, uh…” The longer he talked, the more a blush spread across his face, and that familiar self-conscious look of his with it.

“Hey.” You kissed his cheek, distracting him. “If it got you here to me, I’m all for it. You do whatever helps, angel.”

Hector seemed to catch his breath, his expression unmistakably relieved. “I appreciate your understanding, as always.” He kissed your cheek in turn, never one to let affection go unreciprocated. He then wandered lower, his lips grazing your neck. “Now, before I get too ahead of myself… did you have something in mind for this visit, amor?”

Ah, right. This part.

“…Yes, actually.” You fidgeted with a lock of his hair, trying to decide on your approach. Would he be angry? He’d shared it with you before, but he’d never outright said you could read all of it…

Hector’s lips stilled just under your chin, his eyes meeting yours. “…Yes?” He prompted, a note of concern creeping in.

You bit your lip, taking a steadying breath before you spoke. “I… owe you a bit of an apology.”

Hector stood back up to his full height, searching your face. “I’m sure you don’t,” he said, laughing a bit uneasily. “Whatever for?”

You kept biting your lip, worrying it between your teeth. “Well. It’s... a little awkward —”

“Please tell me you haven’t changed your mind,” he cut you off, his voice abruptly strained.

You paused, looking up to see his suddenly wracked expression. “I - What?”

“Me. Being here. Out of the - the vent.” Hector’s eyes darted to said vent and back to you. 

“Oh! No, Hector.” You shook your head, your hand falling from his hair to stroke his cheek. “No, love, I really wanted to see you” Your brow furrowed. “Why would I change my mind?”

He gave you a half-smile, and while he reached up so his hand covered yours, he still couldn’t quite meet your eyes. “I just thought… With the light and all, well.” He gave a small shrug. “I wouldn’t blame you.”

“Hector.” You moved your other hand to cup his face in both of yours, forcing him to look at you. “Nothing could be further from the truth. As a matter of fact, I asked you here because I wanted…” You paused, your eyes slipping to the floor as you tried to figure out just how to say ‘you to rail me stupid like in the multi-chapter erotica you wrote about us’ in a manner befitting the artist in front of you. It wasn’t like the two of you hadn’t been intimate-ish, before now. Hector was just as gifted with his hands as he was with his words, and he loved the sounds you made, now that he could give you his full attention without the grate between you. But he’d been hesitant to go much further than that, still seemingly too anxious to let you reciprocate his physical affection.

Was this too much? Were you basically ambushing the guy because you wanted to fuck him? Were you finally going to out-weird him, like you always knew you eventually would?

“What is it, my love?” Hector tilted his head to catch your gaze again and to lean his face against your palm. “Anything I can do for you, I will, you know that.” His fingers intertwined with yours. “You need only ask. There’s no need to apologize for that — nothing would please me more.”

His face was so sweet, so earnest and open, that you felt a twinge of guilt amidst the heat pooling in your gut.

“…That’s a little bit what I’m concerned about,” you mumbled. You held up a finger as his brow knit together, confused, and walked over to where the book still lay on your blankets. You picked it up, taking a breath, and when you turned to face him, you were holding it up for him to see the cover.

Hector frowned for the few seconds it took him to recognize the cover, at which his eyes widened — with surprise or concern, you couldn’t quite tell.

“So.” You shifted slightly where you stood. “I kind of… borrowed this, without your permission. And I’ve been, well, reading. Also without your permission.” Your tongue wet your lips. “Hence, I owe you an apology.”

“…Oh.” Hector’s voice was faint, and you could see him desperately trying to keep his anxiety in check and failing. “I — no need to apologize, amor, really. I did share it with you before, after all.” He attempted a smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes, which were trying to read your face as desperately as you were trying to read his.

“You did,” you acknowledged. “But I still should’ve asked. I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable, and that wasn’t fair of me.” You waited for a moment, before shifting so you were now hugging the book against your chest. “But I’ve been… really quite enthralled.”

Hector perked up immediately, though his eyes were still cautious. “‘Enthralled’?” he repeated.

You nodded. “I started it this morning, and I just… haven’t been able to put it down.” You turned it slightly to reveal the dozens of pages you’d pored through already. 

“Oh,” Hector repeated, even softer than before. He looked from the pages, to your eyes, all too briefly to your lips and back up again. “I’m glad to hear, my love.” A blush was settling over his cheeks and moving up towards his ears. “You have always been my most… inspiring muse.” His tongue darted out over his own lips. “I often find myself unable to write of anything else.”

You pressed the book tighter against your chest subconsciously, and his eyes dropped immediately, definitely noticing. “I’m honored.” You found yourself whispering, though you were the only ones in the room. “To occupy the mind of such a talented writer… I can’t even begin to put into words how flattered I am, Hector.” You couldn’t help a smile. 

Hector’s eyes were saucers, for once struck silent.

Your eyes dropped again, the weight of what you were about to ask suddenly sinking in. “I just… I can’t help but worry, a little,” you spoke slowly, choosing your words. “Because on the page, I’m everything you want, and I don’t know if I can even begin to measure up in the flesh. I desperately want to try, but I don’t… I don’t want to rush you,” you explained. “Or ask anything of you before you’re ready or comfortable, I want to respect your boundaries. But I also just want… well. You.” You looked up at last, hoping that made sense.

Hector’s pupils were blown black, and it took you a second to fully register his expression —

Before you realized it was the starkest look of outright hunger you’d ever seen.

On anyone else, it would’ve tinged the fire at your center with fear. But now, on him? You wondered if you’d burn before he even put his hands on you.

“You could never,” he whispered. “Not be what I want. I want you exactly as you are, as you’ll have me, always.”

He closed the distance between the two of you, his lips mere inches from yours. His eyes jumped from those to meet your gaze and back again, clearly torn. You felt his hands brush yours — warmer than usual, and faintly shaking — before he swallowed hard.

“If we’re to- to proceed,” Hector said, forcing a tremor from his voice. “I’d ask three things of you, my love.”

“Name them,” you said instantly, and for a moment, his hunger gave way to something much softer at your willingness.

Hector took another breath, as though he was having trouble keeping up. “First,” he said, and his hand reached to move your hair away from your cheek. “Is that you’ll put your total and complete trust in me.”

You caught his hand in your own, turning to press an open-mouthed kiss into his calloused palm. “You have that already,” you said quietly, your lips not totally removed from his skin as you did so. “You know that, Hector.”

Hector’s tongue darted over his lower lip, and he stepped between your feet so there was barely room to whisper between the two of you. “I’m asking,” he breathed. “That you give me control, mi vida.” His thumb traced your mouth. “Just for a little while, just... just so I can take care of you. Like you deserve. Like I know I can, with precision.”

His eyes were so deadly serious, so fathomless, that for the span of a heartbeat you kind of forgot to breathe.

Instead, when your brain took over and nudged you abruptly, you responded by taking Hector’s thumb into the heat of your mouth and nodding.

Hector made a sound somewhere on the cusp of a groan and a gasp, and as your tongue laved at the rough whorl of his fingerprint, his other hand cupped the other side of your jaw.

“The second,”  he went on, his voice softer now. “Is that you’ll let me blindfold you.”

You paused in your attention to his hand, your tongue actually freezing in place on his skin for a second as your brain shorted out once more.

Hector smiled, but his brow wrinkled just enough to betray his concern. “Which is why I required your complete trust, first and foremost. Remember?”

When you pulled your mouth off his digit, a delicate string of saliva connected you still to his skin. You went to wipe it away, feeling heat return to your face in embarrassment, but Hector was faster, pulling it back from your mouth and onto his thumb.

You blinked, for a second taken by just how quickly he moved, before you met his gaze again. “…I do actually want to see you, at some point,” you said quietly. You reached up, your hand stroking his hair lovingly. “You’re the major draw for me here, after all.”

Hector let out a short, abrupt laugh that was somehow startled and amused all at once.

“It’s true,” you protested, your hand coming up to cup his face. “Even if you refuse to believe it, despite my many, many declarations to the contrary.”

Hector leaned his face into your palm and closed his eyes like he was resting against a sun-warmed window pane. “I believe you, my love,” he murmured. His eyes opened, and his familiar sweet-but-slightly frazzled expression returned. “Even if it takes the rest of me a while to… agree.”

You smiled back. “I’ll take that, for now.” You stroked your fingers along the soft line of his jaw. “…Right. Blindfold, yes, but you have to let me take it off when it’s my turn.”

It was Hector’s turn to pause, his eyes giving him away by going slightly wide. “Your- your turn?”

You stepped into Hector’s space as he had into yours, standing up slightly on your toes to put your mouth a tantalizing space away from his. “I’ll surrender my control and my sight,” you said, your eyes moving slowly from his eyes to his lips. “But at some point, I’d want reciprocation.” You tilted your head to look at him while his jaw dropped ever so slightly. “Is that something you’d be okay with?”

Hector took a sharp, shallow breath, his mouth soundlessly trying to form words before at last he simply closed it and nodded eagerly. As if to emphasize this, he licked his thumb where you’d sucked it, cleaning your saliva from his skin and making a show of swallowing.

You turned back to your nightstand, grabbing a black silk sleep mask from where it rested on the surface, and held it out for him to inspect. “Acceptable?”

Hector tilted his head, then took it gently from you to hold it up to the light and rub the fabric between his fingers, before he nodded at last. 

“And the third thing?” you asked as you took it back, remembering.

Hector shook his head once. “Blindfold first. The two are connected.”

You prevaricated for an instant, fiddling with the sleek fabric in your fingers. This was going to be your first time with him, fully, and not knowing the third condition first only heightened the crackling nervousness that came with this milestone.

But the way he looked at you with a gentle, hopeful smile, his eyes bright as he looked you over with an obvious tenderness… you found what little tension there was easing from between your shoulders. This was Hector, after all. He was downright devoted to you. The idea of causing you any sort of discomfort had been sacrilege to him on multiple occasions.

“So…” You paused, looking down at your pajamas. You were grateful you’d at least picked a nicer pair for laying around than your usual worn out t-shirt and underwear. “Before I put this on, should I—”

“I’ll be handling that,” Hector interrupted. Though his voice didn’t change, he stated it more than said it, and the unexpected confidence was, honestly, quite hot.

“Oh, well. Be my guest.” You winked, trying to match him, but the way he blushed hard as the heat rushed back to your face reminded you that you were both still… yourselves, at the heart of it all.

You bit your lower lip for a moment more, the jitters of anticipation clashing with the smooth heat at the pit of your stomach. But you saw Hector’s eyes drop immediately to your mouth, the hunger back in his gaze, and the jolt it sent through you made you at last settle the dark silk over your eyes.

In the ensuing black, it was hard not to immediately become more aware of every other sensation: how the fabric of your clothes settled against your now hyper-sensitive skin, the feeling of the floor pressed up into the soles of your bare feet, the utter silence that settled over the room —

The way the temperature of the room seemed to climb two or three degrees almost immediately.

A smile tugged at the corner of your mouth. One of the fun parts of having your HVAC as your boyfriend was the fact that the very air often gave away what he was really thinking.

Hector had been so still, so quiet, you’d been wondering if this was an opening move on his part. But then you heard the susurrus of fabric moving from over in his direction, the soft thuds of him shedding what you were betting were his sandals. After another moment, you heard cautious footsteps on your floorboards, until there was an undeniable presence directly behind you.

Something light ghosted across your hair, stroking it lovingly, before oh-so-carefully shifting it to expose the side of your neck as much as possible. You couldn’t help the pleasurable shiver that ran down your spine, and you tilted your head to expose your neck even further, part of you worried Hector’s insecurity would’ve read the reflex in bad faith.

A heat radiated close to your back, and another came to rest delicately against the skin of your breastbone. Hector’s hand, broad and impossibly warm, seemed to take up the entirety of your sternum -- palm first, heavy and sure, before his fingers stretched across your skin like they wanted to take up as much space as possible. A longing sigh brushed your shoulder, the unexpected warmth causing your head to turn as though to look --

He made a soft noise of denial, his other hand coming up to guide your jaw with the barest pressure of his fingertips so you faced forward again.

“The third condition,” Hector rasped, his mouth right next to your ear. “Is that you indulge me, and I might speak as I used to.” 

You smiled, immediately recognizing what the two of you had jokingly referred to as “Vent Voice” in the time his attic face reveal.“Like when you first started courting me, huh?” you teased, knowing that Hector was actually a sucker for the concept. The man was nothing if not a romantic. 

“The very same,” Hector said, and you could hear the smile of his own underneath the words. His hand pushed you gently back a step, and when you were met by a solid warmth against your shoulders, your brain stuttered to realize he’d taken off his insulating coat. His bare chest was against your skin, and you could feel the coarse hair that covered it, along with the soft stomach now pressing into your lower back. The heat at your center threatened to overwhelm you, so strong was your desire to turn and slide your hands down his torso, to explore what he'd never shown you. 

He pressed against you, his breath ghosting over the back of your neck before he lowered his lips to your exposed skin.

Your breath hitched, and your head fell backwards, until you were resting it against what you realized was his shoulder. You made a sound of want through your bitten lip as Hector kissed your own shoulder around the strap of your pajama top, then moved towards the juncture of your neck. 

“I l-like your real voice, though,” you managed, your hands clenching and unclenching in thin air as he kissed up the column of your throat. “It’s so quintessentially you. And I love you.”

Hector hummed softly against your skin before licking a small expanse up the side of your neck, his scalding tongue causing you to gasp before you could catch yourself. “I love you too,” he said simply, a slight note of smugness creeping in. "And I also adore the face you make when I play to your voice kink." He kitten-licked the shell of your ear. "So if I'm going to satisfy you, I'm going to do it completely." 

And before you could disagree, his splayed fingers were pushing the thin strap off your shoulder entirely.

The thin top fell away with no resistance, Hector tugging lightly so the fabric slid past your hips and landed on the floor. You were now also topless, and just as you moved reflexively to cover your chest, Hector’s free arm gently bumped yours away.

“No, no,” he murmured. “I want a good look at you, my beauty. I’ve only been…” He pressed a kiss to your other bare shoulder now, his stubble rasping across your skin. “Aching for you like this, since I first set eyes on you. You must understand.”

So you curled your fingers into your palms, your thumbs rubbing a knuckle on each hand as you made yourself stand still.

It had been more than a small shock whenever the Dateviators revealed a not-small contingent of beings who found you desirable in your own skin. You were so used to being... well, yourself, that you had an admittedly difficult time seeing what they found attractive in you. Real beauties like Amir, Volt, and Betty left you feeling a bit lost with their kind words, their flirting. You couldn't help but feel underwhelming despite their lingering looks.

Hector's desire for you had been another kind of unexpected entirely; his devotion, his hunger from afar -- while you couldn't understand it directed at you, per se, you definitely were more familiar with this model on your end than anything else. The two of you spoke the same language of the heart. So if it pleased him to have you like this, you were more than happy to let him take his time with you, white-knuckling through your own self-consciousness to let him soak you in.

You felt Hector’s hands settle on each of your shoulders before they traced down your full arms, then over your chest with a tender slowness. You felt his breath on the back of your neck catch and stutter as his hands lingered over your sides, before sliding down onto your hips with what could only be described as reverence.

“God,” he half-whispered, half groaned, and it sounded agonized. “God, you are so… unspeakably soft.” His fingers ran up and down your sides before settling on your hips again, where he couldn’t resist squeezing the plush flesh there. “This is heaven beyond my wildest imagination, my heart, you have no idea.”

You couldn't help a little helpless laughter as his touch ran over the ticklish parts of your stomach, and you flexed your back against his chest, leaning further into him. You lifted a hand to his jaw, and turned your head to kiss him there. "And when do I get to take you in, hm?" 

Hector's hands ghosted over the sides of your breasts, and then for a moment cupped their considerable weight in his hands with a soft moan. When his thumbs ghosted over your nipples, you shivered, biting back a whimper -- while the area normally wasn't your favorite, due to the dysphoria it sometimes inspired, his touch here was so careful, you found yourself able to relax into it. Even more so when he laid his arm across them to put a comforting pressure there, a warm echo of your compression tops. 

You hummed gratefully, leaning as best you could to kiss his soft bicep.

He returned it with a kiss to the side of your neck. "I have you," he said, his lips against your skin still. "I promise."

You couldn't help but smile, resting your head back against his shoulder again. "I know." You kissed his jaw again, one of your favorite parts of him in its softness. "I trust you."

The way his breath shuddered slightly against your neck at this was heart-wrenchingly adorable.

He angled his hand back to your breastbone to pull you more firmly back against him, and you could feel his heart hammering through his chest against your shoulder blade. His breath was bordering on ragged as one hand caressed your lush stomach while the other held you fast.

“You’re so warm” he moaned, and his hand slid lower, thick fingers brushing the waistband of your flimsy cotton shorts. “You’re like the sun on my fingertips, love, you’re celestial.”

Your arms came up to wrap around the one holding you to him, hugging him as best you could and leaning fully into him. “Hector, you’re gonna kill me with anticipation,” you mumbled, your skin screaming to be touched everywhere at once. “At least let me kiss you, or someth—”

Your words were lost amidst the blood rushing to your face as Hector hooked his thumb in the side of your shorts and yanked brusquely downwards, letting them also settle on the floor. You were all too aware you were now fully naked, pinned against him and fully at his mercy.

“Allow me this, please.” His lips were against your ear before he kissed your cheek, then lower down your neck again. “I swear to you, all I want to do is please you… let me at least worship at the altar I’ve admired for so long.”

His hand slid up from your chest to cover your throat, and his kiss to your shoulder became a sharp bite. Your inhale hissed through your teeth, your back arching against his grip.

“All I want is to make you come,” he said, his longing strangling his voice. His other hand slid down your stomach and towards your cunt, stopping short enough to make you squirm in search of any sort of contact. “And come, and come, until you’re a mess in my arms. To fulfill you so completely, you’re too wrecked to find the words to ask for more.” He angled your head to press a searing, messy kiss to the corner of your mouth. “Tell me I can, love, and I will.”

“Please.” If you were still in your right mind, you’d be embarrassed at how quickly you said it, or how you practically whined for it. “Please, Hector, I’ll beg if you want me to, I’ll—”

Two of Hector’s thick fingers slid into your slick folds, and you spasmed against him as they barely brushed your swollen clit.

“Fuck.” Hector’s teeth were gritted, and you felt his hips buck sharply against your ass. The thermostat belt buckle threatened to bruise your back, and you felt something achingly hard through the fabric of his pants, pressing into the soft squish of your flesh. You pushed back against it, and the hand over your throat tightened ever so slightly, as if to hold you still.

“You’re so wet.” Hector’s moan threatened to crack through his Vent Voice entirely, and his fingers traced your slit with an ease that made the heat in your face spread down to your chest. “Fuck, you’re already soaking wet, love, what—”

“What can I say?” You turned your head against his shoulder to face him as best you could. “Your work—” You choked for a moment as his fingers brushed your clit again, the sound desperate and shaking. “I-inspired me.”

Hector’s mouth was hot and greedy and open when he kissed you in response, as the rough pads of his fingers began circling your clit in a way that made you gasp helplessly. “Be careful,” he warned, pulling away from you just enough to speak. “It’ll go straight to my head if you tell me that. That I could possibly have this effect on you, my angel.”

“This is all you,” you said against his lips. “This is what you do to me, I swear.”

You felt his breath shake as he inhaled, his heart threatening to pound through his chest and into yours as he kissed you again. Christ, he’d only just started and you were already overwhelmed, between his tongue demanding in your mouth and the careful hand on your throat keeping you prone and exactly where he wanted you, your hips twitching and flexing into his hand. 

When your legs began to shake, he broke the kiss to only to hiss a single word as he pushed you lightly against your bed frame: “Kneel.”

You complied, realizing he’d lined you up perfectly with the end of your bed as you sank onto your knees on your mattress. Now with no fear of your legs giving out, you let Hector support your back against his chest, your breath already turning to short, desperate pants as he worked the most sensitive part of you.

Hector was murmuring feverishly into your hair when he wasn’t kissing you everywhere he could reach. “Yes, love, you’re doing so well for me, that’s perfect, you’re perfect, just let me— let me take care of you, please, let me make you feel a tenth of what I feel for you, even that.” His smooth facade was chipping away, sounding like he was just as desperate as you were as the coil of white-hot want at your center twisted tighter and tighter. While he fought to keep his voice steady, the moans that escaped him when you gasped and arched back against him sounded more like the him you knew outside the vent.

You grabbed at the hand at your throat, intertwining your fingers tightly with his. “Please don’t stop, please don’t stop Hector, please—”

“Let go, love, I have you,” Hector rasped, the voice back in place. “Come for me, show me how you feel, please.”

You came with a shudder and an embarrassingly loud groan from deep in your chest, shaking against Hector’s torso as you ground your hips down onto his fingers without an ounce of shame. Though you couldn’t see them, your were certain your thighs were already glistening, and this was only one orgasm in.

Hector squeezed the sides of your throat with a fraction more pressure as you writhed, and you could feel him pressing his clothed erection against your ass, perhaps without even realizing it. 

Before you could catch your breath or even come down, Hector spun you lightly by your shoulders and barely nudged you backwards. Your lack of equilibrium and the fact that you felt weightless meant this left you sprawled out on your back, on top of your covers.

“What—” You started to sit up, confused, before Hector’s hand rested firmly over your stomach.

“Stay there,” he said, and the relative curtness of it compared to his usual eloquence made your thighs twitch all the harder.

You heard more fabric rustling, and the thud of something metal and heavy hitting the ground — his belt, you realized, and you parted your thighs before you fully realized what you were doing.

Hector chuckled shakily. “Oh, amor. Don’t tempt me before the second course.” He leaned down, tilting your chin with a finger to kiss you as you dazedly looked up.

 You heard him drop to the floor, muttering to himself so quickly you couldn’t catch it, before you heard something clicking closed. He gave a full-throated groan, as though pained, but before you could sit up to check on him, two hands dragged you roughly down your mattress by your thighs.

“Wait, hold on — are you okay?” You reached out blindly until you felt his hand, concerned. “What was that?”

“I’m fine, my love, I promise.” Hector’s free hand swept down your other thigh to soothe you, followed by his lips against your skin and the rasp of his stubble. “It’s nothing to worry about. Just - ah.” Another soft gasp, and a low moan as he adjusted whatever it was. “Something to help me not lose myself with you entirely. Not until the proper time.”

Before you could try to puzzle out what that meant, you felt his hands squeeze your thighs, before manipulating each one onto one of his shoulders.

“You have no idea,” he said, tracing a gossamer finger across their sensitive inner flesh. “No earthly idea how long I’ve wanted to do this.” He traced the inside of your thigh towards your cunt with the tip of his nose, occasionally pausing to sample now and then with a nipping kiss you knew would leave a small bruise, causing you to whimper at each. “How often I gazed down on you on this very bed, watching you alone, aching to touch you. I would’ve traded the rest of my life just to taste you.” 

You could feel his breath on the mess he’d left with just his fingers, seeming to drink you in before he pressed a delicate kiss to either side of your slit. He lingered there, and you could feel him panting lightly as his nose pressed into your pubic hair, until he groaned with unfiltered need.

“You’re divine,” he whispered, and before you could respond, the scalding flat of his tongue parted your lips.

“Fuck!” You arched your back against your mattress, your hands jumping to anchor in your lover’s dark, curly hair. “Fuck, Hector, oh my god—” But he was merciless against your still-sensitive clit, and when you tugged his hair without realizing, his resulting moan made you dizzy and light-headed. 

For all his beautiful words, Hector’s tongue was a menace in its own right. He ate you out like a man possessed, his fingers tight enough to bruise on your plush thighs as his tongue circled the innermost part of you, his nose nudging your clit in a way that made your hips buck against his face. But this only seemed to spur him on, his hands moving to pin you down as he devoured you with zeal.

Your hips trapped in his surprisingly strong grip, you moaned in frustration, and when he echoed you, it seemed to vibrate through your core. “Hector, it’s too much,” you begged, and tears threatened at the corner of my eyes. “I can’t, I can’t—”

But Hector only shook his head, his tongue moving in a way that sent sparks racing through your veins. Whereas all this time he’d been sitting off your bed, he only broke your connection to climb up onto your mattress, shifting your thighs on his shoulders before he sank his tongue into you. His ferocity left you keening raggedly, short of breath and desperate.

You gave up trying to resist, grinding yourself against Hector’s face, and as you did so, you felt the motion echoed further down your bed. It took a minute to orientate his relative position, but when you did, you realized with a jolt of heat that Hector must have been grinding into your mattress. The idea of his cock already leaking just from going down on you left you clenching with want around air, and Hector made a sound like a whine in response, shoving the flat of his tongue against your clit in a way that set your veins ablaze. He brought two fingers to your hole, sliding them inside with so little effort that you nearly started to cry, your face impossibly warm. He was utterly ruining you, and with frightening efficiency.

After a few minutes of slowly, steadily fucking you on them, he unexpectedly curled them inside you. You let out something close to a wail, throwing your head back against the sheets.

Your nails scraped his scalp, and his chin and stubble were absolutely soaked against your thighs. He only lifted his tongue from you to pant for a second, before rasping brokenly:

“Come on my face. Comeonmyface, amor, I’m begging, bless me with even that—”

This crack in his control, combined with the last crook of his fingers inside you, left you powerless. You came again, messily, nearly sobbing his name.

True to his word, he groaned as you ground your cunt against his tongue, holding completely still so you could use him as you wished. Your face absolutely seared at just how much your cunt was drooling into his mouth, tears creeping out from under your blindfold from both embarrassment and raw want. when you finally fell limp against the mattress, he laid wet kisses along your lower abdomen, whispering praises against your skin as he stroked your twitching thighs.

You could swear your ears were ringing and your skin was on fire. If you took off the blindfold now, you might still be seeing black, your vision a hazy swirl as your brain tried to figure out which way was up. 

“Oh my fucking god,” you mumbled, your voice shot.

“You’re one to talk of holiness,” Hector mumbled back, and you felt him rest his chin on one of your thighs. You could hear him sucking clean the fingers he’d fucked you with, like he hadn’t just had you coming all over his tongue. “You’re a sight, mi vida. You’ve never been more beautiful. If I died tomorrow, I would die utterly content.”

“…How the fuck,” you managed. “Are you still so…” You gestured uselessly, struggling for words. “…Together, right now?”

Hector let out an amused huff of air through his nose. “You can’t see me,” he said, and in that moment, you could hear just how strained his Vent Voice was. “If you could, you’d know how paper-thin my composure really is. How much you’ve already shattered me.”

“But I haven’t even gotten to touch you yet, you’re the one fucking me,” you protested weakly. “And fucking me... really, really well, actually. Like. Oh my god, Hector, your writing was one thing, but this—”

Hector pressed a finger to your lips, shushing you gently. “Don’t let me get cocky,” he said, and you could hear the pleased grin in his tone. “Not when I haven’t ravished you fully, yet. Not to my standards.”

Your lips started to form a question, but he seized your hips in his broad hands, pulling you further down the mattress again until you were flush with—

Your face felt like it was burning, realizing he was kneeling between your spread legs, his flesh impossibly warm against your own.

“I can’t,” you mumbled, hiding your face in your hands. “I’m already wrecked. I’ve got nothing left, Hector, I'm —”

Hector was crooning soft assurances as he delicately pulled your hands apart with his own, and you felt your fingers interlacing with his. He kissed each of your cheeks, the tip of his tongue tracing the salt that was surely leaking from under the blindfold by now. “Once more,” he murmured. He pressed each of the backs of your hands to his lips in turn, before stretching them over your head and pinning them to the mattress. “Once more, my heart, my darling, trust me just that much longer."

Slowly, you felt something pressing against your folds, and before you could register fully what it was, something hard and hot dragged itself against your slit. You exhaled raggedly, what little oxygen had returned to your brain leaving immediately.

"Let me fuck you, love,” Hector whispered, grinding his cock along your soaking wet cunt. "Like you deserve. Like I've wanted to since I first set eyes on you." He was already panting, his breath only getting shallower as he lost himself rutting against you. "...Oh, god." His voice echoed off your ceiling, near feverish and cracking through his carefully constructed tone. He continued like this for a minute, and you could feel his stomach moving against yours, the course hair at his base growing wetter --

Until something unexpectedly smooth and steel nudging your clit made you gasp, then thrash in his grip. "What… is that?"

Hector froze for a second, and it was obvious both of you were having problems with the powers of speech. "...Something to keep me ready for you," he said, though the Vent Voice unsteady. "So I can be what you need, when you need it. So I don't - ah," he whined, mindlessly grinding against you again. "Lose myself, as soon as I'm inside you."

You shuddered at the electric contact, his dick sliding through your folds, the metal catching lightly against your clit again in a way that made your hips buck. 

"...Is that a cock ring?" you asked, at last putting two and two together in your haze.

Hector's hips faltered again, and you could tell he was struggling to proceed. "Uh. ...Yes?" he said, his true voice back and uncertain. "Is... is that okay?"

Jesus, this man.

You strained against his grip, leaning up, desperate to kiss him. "Hector, oh my god," you said, your fingers squeezing his palms when you couldn't quite manage it. "You're going to kill me, you really are. Please, please, let me touch you."

Hector laughed softly, the relief evident, and he squeezed your hands back before he brought his lips to yours. "Not yet," he murmured in the Voice again, kissing the corners of your mouth and down your throat. "Not yet, lover, this is still just about you."

"Hector," you whined, petulantly writhing against your mattress. "It's not fair! I want to see you, I want to feel you, I--"

That last thought was interrupted by something thick sliding into you, the heat and the unexpected fullness causing your sentence to die on your lips.

“You were saying?" Hector was teasing, his thrusts slow and languid, and your jaw dropped as your brain went utterly blank. The feeling of him inside you was electric, his shaft dragging along your walls, his stomach warm and soft against yours as he fucked into you. The wiry hair on his body felt like static against your skin, and you pushed your hips desperately back against his.

"More," you moaned, the one word left in your brain. 

Hector inhaled sharply through his teeth, and he finally let go of your hands, grabbing instead once more onto your thighs. "Of course," he said. "Of course, my darling, anything you ask." 

He pulled you towards him so your hips were flush together, bottoming out in you with a strangled, desperate sound. Whereas before his pace had been sensual, lingering, his thrusts now were sharp and precise. He kept a punishing grip on your hips, and with your hands now free, you reached up to grab the back of his neck and pull him down so your chests were pressed together.

Hector groaned but adjusted the angle of his hips to compensate, and he took the new proximity to leave soft, longing bites along your clavicle, like he was restraining himself from devouring you even now. You, meanwhile, were shamelessly chasing your third orgasm, your hands moving with minds of their own -- squeezing his soft upper arms, clinging to his shoulders, anywhere you could try to find an anchor point.

"Hector." You were starved for air, your moans short and breathless. Everything felt siphoned by the muscles tensing again in your abdomen, the ache at the center of you that only resolved when he bottomed out. "I love you, I love you fucking me, please don't stop--"

"As long as you want." There was no room between the two of you, and his mouth was everywhere -- leaving bruising kisses on your neck, laving at the junction of your shoulder. "Until the breath leaves my body, I'm yours to use." He buried his face against your neck, a broken breath shuddering against your skin. "Whatever you need, I'll give you all of me."

You got your arms around his chest, and when you raked your nails down his back, he let out a guttural sound of pure want, his breath hot in your ear. 

You had no filter left between your mouth and your brain. "I want to come on your cock," you managed, and you heard him outright whine, felt him spasm inside you. "Please, Hector, I want to, please?"

"You will," he groaned, and his grip was iron as he pulled one of your thighs up along the curve of his hip. "I have you, amor, you will."

The room was already filled with the obscene sounds of his skin on yours, but for a second, it was punctuated by the staccato of your headboard hitting the wall. The knowledge that this was caused by your shy, nervous sweetheart pulled the coil of want at the center of you all the tighter, and your hips met his, greedy and seeking.

Between the metal of the ring against your aching clit and Hector's borderline punishing tempo, your unraveling wasn't long. You felt the pressure of his stomach against yours, felt it tensing, heard his own desperate moan -- only to remember that he was denying himself his own orgasm in pursuit of yours, near-punishing himself until he could give you everything you wanted.

This made you finally break for a third time, you felt your release hot and wet down your own thighs, borderline screaming Hector's name to the ceiling before he muffled you with his tongue in your mouth. He kept fucking you through your aftershocks, but slower now, sweeter. You were gasping into each other's mouths, you outright shaking, Hector running his hands soothingly up and down your sides and whispering to you between kisses to your face and forehead.

"You are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." His words were rapid, feverish as his forehead pressed against yours. "I love you, angel, divine, whatever soul I have belongs to you."

You couldn't speak yet, but your nails hooked into his shoulders, desperate for anything to ground you. You could hear him hiss sharply at the feeling, but he kissed you heatedly, coaxing your mouth open as you caught your breath.

For a long few minutes, the two of you just lay there, him still inside you, unwilling to give up contract with the other's skin. His kisses were soft across your face and chest with whispered, effusive praise, but you kept steering him back to your lips, wanting him to feel firsthand how much you adored him.

As soon as you were capable of speech again, you let him know. "I'm in love with you," you managed, punctuating this with a gentle bite to his lower lip. "I love you so much, Hector, tell me you know that."

"Yes," he sighed, and you could feel him smiling as he kissed you back. "I am no less thunderstruck to be loved by the object of my every thought, but I know." He kissed each of your cheeks in turn, the corners of your mouth, and his arms caged your waist. "Are you satisfied, mi vida?" You could hear the pride in his voice, like he couldn't tell by taking in how you were only just catching your breath, your hair clinging to your skin with sweat.

"Mm." You smiled against his mouth as you crushed it in a kiss. "...Not quite, my love."

The sound he made in response would've made you giggle, were you not so committed to your bit. It reminded you of the time you asked him for a photo; a mix of confusion and mild shock. “…No?” he managed at last, the Vent Voice finally falling away entirely.

Grinning, you reached up and lifted the blindfold from your blisteringly warm face. "I want my turn, Hector."

His expression was adorable, flushed and perplexed, his hair clinging to his damp forehead. He stared at you, his mouth once again left scrambling to form words. He had no time to prepare before you pushed upwards against his chest, maneuvering your weight so he was abruptly underneath you.

Before he could get his bearings, you grabbed both his wrists, pinning them to the pillow above his head. The noise he made was an exhale of confusion laced with something close to a whimper, and you sat back as much as you could, taking in your prize. "Is this okay?"

Hector's flush extended down his chest and shoulders, his hair a mess against the pillow. He glistened slightly with a soft sheen of sweat from his earlier efforts, and his pupils were still blown wide, threatening to eclipse the dark iris you adored. For a solid minute, he merely gazed up at you like you were something holy, still at a loss for words.

"...Hector," you cooed, leaning down to kiss the tip of his nose. "I need a verbal answer. Is it okay if I hold you like this?" You jerked your chin towards where you still held his wrists, your grip lighter now in case he needed to get out.

"Yes," he breathed, and you could swear his pupils somehow widened further. He swallowed hard, Adam's apple moving in his throat. "Yes, my love, anything you want--"

“Not the answer I need,” you cut him off softly but firmly, shaking your head. “I want to make this about you now, darling.” You released his wrists and shifted your hips so you were finally two separate beings again, and he actually whimpered at the loss of contact. 

Moving to sit just to his side, you exhaled, feeling the new emptiness inside you again. He didn’t move an inch, following you with wide eyes.

You couldn’t help but smile at him watching you like that, tilting your head to finally take him all in. Your eyes traveled down his broad torso, the arms that had held you through feeling like you would shatter completely, the adorable stomach with the trail of dark hair that you wanted to kiss and nip all the way down to…

The glint of the modified metal wrapped at the base of his cock, which was still laying achingly erect and flush against said stomach.

The air left your lungs all at once, a sharp spark of need causing your still-sensitive clit to positively throb. You turned back to meet his eyes, only to see him still watching you like an especially anxious hawk, trying to read your reaction from your face.

You blinked, remembering that yes, this was actually the first time the two of you had been this… vulnerable, around one another.  “Can I touch you?” you asked quietly, looking shyly from him to the metal and back. “Is that okay?” You had lost all concept of subtle, only half-aware of how you were biting your lip in your eagerness.

The tension in Hector’s shoulders seemed to ease, as if relieved, but the flush across his cheeks and down to his chest renewed. “I… if you want to.” He nodded, shifting slightly where he was laying, like he was suddenly all too aware of your gaze. 

You laughed a little, leaning down to kiss the corner of his mouth. “Of course I want to. I’m more concerned about if you want me to.” You moved to kiss the other corner, one hand going to his chest to push him back to the mattress when he tried to meet you halfway. When you had him pinned again, you angled your head so you were looking down into his eyes. “You took care of me, love, and in spades. Now I want to take care of you.” You thought for a moment, trying to figure out just how to frame this — he was nothing if not selfless, and he wasn’t always the best at knowing quite what he wanted at turn. “ And I want you to tell me how to do it properly.” You stroked his hair, watching him swallow thickly.  “Can you do that for me, Hector, please?”

“Please touch me,” he said without hesitation, his voice now fully back to its usual pitch and already a bit shaky.

You beamed. “Excellent start.” You leaned down, kissing him fully again. “Thank you.” 

You went to move, but paused halfway, looking back to where he was now sitting up slightly to watch you. “…Tell me something—” you began.

“Anything,” he said immediately, nodding just a little in his eagerness.

You couldn’t help a giggle, reaching over to stroke his hair. “You’re so cute.” Off his responding small smile, you turned back to face him fully, supporting yourself over him so he had to lean back to look into your eyes. “I was going to ask,” you went on. “Did you like it when I had your wrists pinned earlier? Or do you want to be able to move?”

Hector bit his own lip as he gazed up at you, and you could see him weighing his options. “…I love touching you, amor, you know that,” he said at last. “But that was… new.” There was a hopeful note at the end of the sentence, a curiosity there. 

“Okay, I can work with that.” You nodded, holding eye contact until the poor man’s flush revived itself, and he looked shyly away. “You know, I have wondered…” 

His eyes were partially eclipsed by his hair, now; the visible one looked your way again. “Wondered, amor?”

You moved all at once, straddling his thighs, and noticing just how his mouth fell open as you did so. “Do you remember, love, when you told me you can’t relax for yourself?”

“…Somewhat,” Hector said, clearly distracted as he looked between your eyes and where your thighs were back in contact with his skin again.

You took his wrists in your hands, moving them so they were back on the pillow above his head. “Do you need to be made to relax, do you think?”

Hector’s eyes went impossibly wider, something in your phrasing clearly clicking for him. “…Define ‘made.’” His voice was cautious, but the subconscious way he licked his lips gave him away.

You felt yourself mirror the gesture, a lascivious smile spreading. “Like we agreed to earlier,” you reminded him. “My turn will be me asking what you want, and giving it to you until you can’t take it anymore.” You squeezed his wrists gently.

His fists clenched in response. “I think we - phrased that differently,” he said, his breathing starting to shallow out.

“But do you object to my phrasing now?” You raised an eyebrow, both teasing and challenging.

“Not in the least,” he said, so quickly it was cute.

You giggled. “Then do me a favor,” you said, lifting your hands off his wrists. “And keep those right where I left them, or I stop. Agreed?”

“Yes.” Hector nodded, then paused. “…With one addendum.”

“Oh?” You sat back, curious.

“Don’t — don’t blindfold me.” Hector’s eyes roved over you, his gaze so hungry it felt like a caress. “Let me see you. Let me at least have that.”

Your face felt hot again with how unabashed he was, but you played to it, holding eye contact as you leaned forward again across his torso. You carefully avoided any skin contact with his neglected cock, instead placing your hands over Hector’s chest. “Whatever you want, love.” You only looked down to place a soft, open-mouthed kiss to his bare clavicle.

Hector’s hands moved off the pillow as he made a soft sound of longing, but you sat up, giving them a sharp look.

He froze, to his credit, and tamely let them fall back against the fabric. When you returned to kissing your way up his neck, he groaned in frustration, and you could hear them moving on the pillowcase. “I - I might have not thought that through,” he admitted, already breathless.

“No?” You laved the sweat from his skin, enjoying the salt before you left a bite sure to bruise — one that mirrored a similar mark he’d left on your own shoulder. 

Hector hissed through his teeth. “No,” he agreed. “How could I not want to touch you?”

“But look, darling.”  You sat up, shaking your hair away from your face, then shrugging your marked shoulder. “We’ll match now.”

Hector’s cock visibly throbbed, his eyes infinitely black as he looked between the two with utter reverence, like he was seriously considering getting his tattooed on him. 

You took your time kissing your way down his chest, lingering to kitten-lick the nipples that had been hiding under the metal of his coat. He positively writhed at this, turning his hands back on the pillow to grip it in frustration. You watched him bite his lip until you feared blood, the small noises he failed to muffle speaking to just how it likely wouldn’t take much to wreck him at all…

Unless.

You pondered something as you kissed down his soft stomach, caressing his sides, making a point to lick a hot stripe through the trail that led down, down…

“I love this,” you mumbled, pausing to run your nails lightly down the skin of his stomach. Hector gasped, squirming underneath your hands, and you drank in the sight. “You’re so soft, Hector, but so solid. You make me feel safe, supported, always.” You leaned down, licking another stripe where his stomach met his hip, only just managing to hold him down when he bucked against the feeling. “And when I felt you against me, pushing into me, putting me exactly where you needed to to make me lose my mind…” 

You angled where you were leaning to grind your cunt along one of his hips, and Hector moaned in agony, his head falling back into the pillow and his hands twisting on the cloth of the case. 

“I know you’re too much of a lover, darling,” you said, licking a nipple again to watch his chest rise and fall raggedly. “But I did think about how you could easily have me any way you wanted, all for your own pleasure.” You grinned, watching that ragged breathing stutter, the way his jaw dropped soundlessly at the idea. 

“Blasphemy.” Hector’s eyes were wild, and he had to physically grab one of his wrists with his other hand to keep them both down. “You’re divine to me, I could never— I wouldn’t dare—”

“But what if I asked you to?” You sat back on your knees, drawing a line down the inside of one of his thighs with a nail to watch it twitch and shake. You weren’t sure if the whine was from the contact, or from the idea of using you. When you met his eyes again, he looked on the verge of pain. “It’s not like I’m not all yours, anyway.”

You watched his eyes, already overly bright with how you were torturing him, as you calmly positioned yourself next to his twitching cock, still trapped in the ring. 

“Am I correct,” you said slowly. “That you can’t come until this is off?” You merely tapped a nail on the steel, and his hips bucked sharply upwards.

“Y-yes,” he managed, his voice already shredded with want.

You pursed your lips, considering this. “Duly noted.” You looked back up at him. “Spread your legs for me?”

He did so with such alacrity, your heart ached.

You settled yourself between them, making a show of reaching to your still-drooling cunt to gather the slick there onto your fingers — his breathless whimper making you crack and smile after all. You took your time taking in his cock, wretchedly hard with neglect, still thick from where he’d made you come so hard you’d cried. The pre was practically dripping off the tip, and when you took it in hand at last, you felt it flex against your palm as Hector groaned from the depths of his chest.

You pumped your hand over the shaft with a slowness that made Hector throw his head back in frustration, his hips desperately trying to meet your palm.

“Easy there, love,” you soothed. When your hand was near the head, you spread the pre over his slit with your thumb, and he was already making a sound akin to a sob. “I have you now. I promise.”

“I love you,” Hector managed brokenly, his eyes squeezed shut from overwhelm. “I love you, please, please keep touching me—”

You leaned forward while he wasn’t looking, and when you took the head alone in your mouth, Hector had to visibly fight not to thrust into it. You teased him, swirling your tongue around the glans as you continued to pump the shaft, watching his breathing shallow out and his knuckles nearly turn white on his wrist. As you took more, your tongue tracing the hot vein along the underside, Hector’s back arched as he fought not to make you gag.

You let go with a soft ‘pop’ of suction, another strand of saliva linking your mouth to his skin. “Hector,” you said, your voice soft and innocent. “I want you to look at me.”

Hector complied immediately, sitting up just enough to see you —

As you took the most of him into your mouth yet, your other hand coming up to cup his balls as you did so. 

You could feel him throbbing in your mouth as he moaned in utter agony, his abdomen tensing, his balls tightening against your palm. “Mi vida, amor, please, please please I’m begging you, gorgeous creature, mercy—”

You took him as deep as you could, your nose brushing the dark, coarse hair at the base, and when his reflexes finally won out, you gagged around him.

“Fuck, I’m sorry.” He sounded on the verge of tears. “I’m sorry, my love, I didn’t mean—”

But you put a hand on his stomach to soothe him, sitting up to breathe. “I’m fine,” you managed. “I wanted to gag on you, it’s okay.”

“You’re going to kill me,” Hector mumbled, eyes glazed and hazy from lust, tears at the corners to match those in yours. “I’m going to die right here in your bed, at this rate.”

“Tell me where you want to come first,” you said, back to pumping him as you waited for your throat to relax again. 

Hector blinked, and for a moment you thought you’d finally broken him. “What?”

“My mouth?” You prompted. “My chest? My stomach?”

Hector’s hands were twisted into your sheets, but you didn’t want to wreck your momentum by punishing him appropriately. “I…” He struggled for words, before finally admitting in a cracked whisper, “Inside you.” He swallowed hard. “Please. I have to be inside you, now, or I’ll lose what’s left of my mind.”

You laughed as much as you could manage with a slightly sore throat, charmed. “Of course, love. Just— give me a moment.”

You doubled back to plant kisses up the insides of his thighs, nipping the inside of the left so gently, he fully whined above you. When you let yourself take his balls in your mouth, appreciating just how swollen they were, you felt him clawing at your blankets, speaking too fast for you to quite make out what he was saying besides the fact that it sounded like a prayer.

After a few more agonizing moments, you straddled his hips, his cock resting just against your cunt. You let it drool onto his skin, his hips bucking and twitching underneath you, him fully babbling at this point.

“My love, my angel, please, please oh god I can’t take this please—”

“Come here,” you murmured, and he sat up like a man reanimated, his hands flying to your torso to run over as much of your skin as he could reach.

You met his lips with yours, exploring his mouth as you rocked your hips so your clit caught one last time on the metal ring. Hector’s hips jerked back, tears escaping from his lashline down his cheeks at the friction.

When at last you slid onto him, Hector hid his face in your shoulder, panting openly against your skin. You rolled your hips together, and he met yours eagerly, his nails digging into your back in turn.

You stayed there for a few minute, feeling him spasm inside you as you moved, him clinging to you like he never wanted to be apart from you again.

“I love you, Hector,” you whispered, your lips against his ear as you reached between the two of you two find the place where the ring came apart —

And as soon as you’d gotten it loose, Hector came with a broken sob of your name, the heat of his release molten inside you.

You rode him through it, feeling it easily overflowing you so it dripped down your thighs, mixing with your own orgasm from earlier. Your skin felt impossibly hot, Hector crushing you against his torso as the two of you moved, and the slick sounds between the two of you were utterly obscene.

You kept riding him until at last he was totally spent, the two of you collapsing in a sweaty tangle to your mattress.

Hector’s lips were on yours, on your face, along your hairline. “You’re perfect,” he murmured, his voice still broken.

You were still trying to catch your breath, but you kissed him back. “So you enjoyed yourself, then?” you teased.

“You exceeded my every desire,” Hector said, fully earnest, and the sweetness of it made you lose your breath all over again. “I’m never letting you go, I hope you understand that. I can’t bear to, not now.”

“Not even to put clothes on?” you joked, resting your glistening forehead against his.

“Especially not that,” Hector grinned. “We’ll simply resign ourselves to be here, forever.”

“No more vents for you?” You grinned back, but there was hope underneath the words.

“I live in your bed now.” He kissed your cheek, beaming at you. “Betty will just have to understand. It simply cannot be helped.”

You actually giggled, hugging him tightly and rolling so you were laying on his chest.

The two of you stayed that way for a while in sweet, fulfilled silence, the room filling with the warm honey of the golden hour through your window.

You rolled onto your side to admire him in the light, gazing as though you wanted to memorize every inch of him — which you did. “…You’re really hot when you’ve just finished wrecking me, you know that?” You reached up, gently stroking some of his hair away from his face, then tracing his cheek with a fingertip. 

His eyes immediately looked down, away, back up to the safety of his vent — anywhere but at you. “Don’t tease,” he mumbled. His whole demeanor changed from the afterglow of a moment ago, and he finally went to pull his arms in to cover his soft torso.

“Hey.” You bumped his arms away as he had yours earlier, moving on the mattress so you were chest to chest again. You kissed him earnestly, hoping to soothe the anxiety you could see gathering like a storm at his brow. “I’m not teasing,” you said, pulling away just enough to speak while looking him in the eye. “I think you’re hot, and I’m madly in love with you.”

Hector rolled his eyes ever so slightly, even as a smile tugged begrudgingly at his lips. “Amor. You don’t…” He trailed off, lips pressed together as he chose his words. “Have to… tell me that.” He nodded slightly, trying to keep the smile on. “It’s really okay.”

“Hector, forgive my arguing, love — but you literally just made me scream your name,” you said bluntly. You set a fingertip on his chest, making a point. “Nobody else has ever actually achieved that.”

His face flushed furiously again, and for an instant, the smile became more solid. Real. With just a hint of the pride you knew was in there somewhere.

“Have they?” you pressed, raising an eyebrow. “You would know,” you added quietly. “I know now you watched me with others.”

Hector made a quiet sound of discontent, any confidence disappearing as he looked away. “I’m sorry, I know I—”

“Don’t apologize. I’m into that too,” you said quietly, a sly smile creeping in. “I consider it part of your… unique form of dedication.” You drew a line with your nail up to his jaw, tracing his lower lip. “But you’re still not answering my question, love.” You tilted your head to catch his eye. “It’s only you, isn’t it?”

“…You deserve that and more,” he said at last, eventually looking up at you through his lashes. “I’m only lucky it was me who had the honor.”

“But why can’t I be lucky to have it be you?” you asked plaintively. When he didn’t answer right away, you sat up to put a little space between the two of you, realizing something. “…Do you not believe me, when I say I’m in love with you?”

“No,” he said immediately, and his hand gently caught on to your upper arm, keeping you anchored to him. “No, my love, I do.”

“Really?” You were watching his face now, searching for a telltale sign in his eyes, in the way his mouth moved. The idea that he didn’t believe you filled you with a cold, hollow dread that left you slightly sick. “You’re not just saying that?”

“No!” He caught your other arm as you moved further away, pulling you down to him again. “No, I believe you. I promise,” he pleaded, his eyes wide. “It’s just…” He pressed his mouth into a line, his eyes moving along the ceiling as he tried to find the words yet again. 

“…Am I… doing something to make you think I’m not?” you asked quietly. You swallowed — everything had been so beautiful, until you’d… what? Told him you were attracted to him? You’d just wanted to make him feel as loved as he made you. “…Is it me?”

“No.” Before you could blink, Hector had pulled you flush to his chest again, his eyes holding the same strange brilliance you’d seen upon your first meeting in the dark vent. “Listen to me: I have never loved anyone more than I love you,” he said quickly, nose to nose with you now. “You are my heart made human, you are the anchor of my animus. I’m yours, every part of me.” The light in his eyes changed, pained now. “But it’s me. Do you understand? You are beautiful,” he said, his hands sliding up to squeeze your shoulders. “You are my muse, my light.” He swallowed hard, like there was a lump in his throat. “And the only way I can show you how much I adore you is by giving myself over to you completely, satisfying you so thoroughly that you never have reason to think--” His voice caught, and he broke your gaze. “…To think about how you could do better.”

“What are you talking about?” You shook your head, perplexed. “Hector, I’m just… I’m only me. I’m completely ordinary. You’re the one who could do better, I’m sorry.” You managed a laugh, but it burned your throat. “…And I’m so afraid one day you’re going to realize that, you know?”

He looked up sharply, eyes flashing. “Don’t you ever say that.”

“Hector, listen to me,” you argued, straddling his lap so he couldn’t look away. “You’re literally an artist.” You held up a finger when he opened his mouth to argue, and he closed it again, albeit hesitantly. “Your prose breaks my heart and melts me, all at once. You’re sweet, you’re sensitive, you’re one of the most thoughtful people I’ve ever met — when you first told me how you felt, I could barely breathe,” you confessed, and it was hard to keep your voice steady. “Because I had no idea how I had captured the eye of someone so -  so passionate.” You swallowed, your mouth feeling full of ash. “When I was just… here,” you gestured limply around your empty bedroom. “Alone. Trying to justify what I was doing with my life, what I was thought I could prove to anyone. Trying to convince myself to keep… hell.” You looked away, your eyes stinging for a different reason. “Keep trying at all, I guess.”

You blinked hard. You would not cry and totally ruin this, you would not. 

“…My love?” Hector was all concern, which made it so you couldn’t look at him lest you definitely break. But when his hands slid to your hips, you still set yours on top of his, giving them a reassuring squeeze. He waited then, seemingly content with this sign.

“…And then suddenly, I put on these glasses and realized you were in my vents, of all places,” you said at last, keeping your eyes down. “And you were in love with me, and I didn’t really know what I did to - to earn it. But you made me feel seen in a way that… no one else really had. Ever.” You felt yourself shrug, a wavering smile managing to form on your face. “You make me feel like… whatever force animates the pair of us, whatever stardust we might be made of, ours is the same.  I could… belong here. With you.” You chewed your lower lip, feeling your skin catch fire again.  “And that’s what I’m saying, when I tell you I’m in love with you. ‘Please let me stay here. Please let this be home.’” You forced yourself to take a breath. “‘Please don’t think about it and realize otherwise.’”

You were interrupted by Hector suddenly seizing the back of your neck, and pulling you against his bare chest in a crushing hug. His other hand was planted firmly against the center of your spine, and when he buried his nose in your hair, you realized you could feel him shaking against you. His voice threatening to crack, he managed only a single word:

“Never.”

He pulled the pair of you down to the mattress, keeping you tightly curled in his arms, his legs entangling with yours to keep him completely in contact with your skin. You shifted your arms so they encircled his chest, your fingertips lightly tracing the scratches you’d left in his back at the height of your passion.

For a while, the two of you just stayed there, the only sound the other’s breathing and the opening salvo of the crickets outside.

And for a minute, it felt like you were the only two left in a house full of people.

Maybe even in the world.

He was the first to pull back, eyes intense like he was trying to memorize your own. “My love, I’m sorry.” He cupped your cheek in his hand with the utmost softness. “I didn’t intend to make you think I doubted you. The only person I doubt between us is myself;  you have never had to earn my love. You never will. I love all of you, even the parts you don’t — for reasons I cannot begin to fathom, but that’s another talk entirely.” He kissed your forehead, then your lips, before holding your gaze again. “You have the whole of my heart. You have since I first came into your service, you know that. I couldn’t imagine giving it to anyone else — adoring anyone else, the way I do you.”

“Then please trust me,” you said quietly. You reached up to stroke his hair yet again, then trailed your hand down his cheek and to his shoulder. “Please, if you love me as much as you say you do — and I know you do,” you added, off the way his eyes briefly went dark. “Know that it’s reciprocated wholeheartedly. That I love you, and how you love me,” you went on, smiling now. “And I would do anything to make sure you felt it returned just as ardently, because you deserve that and more. I love who you are, exactly as you are.” You kissed his forehead. “You cannot let the version of me in your head be cruel to you. I refuse to allow such heinous falsehoods to leave my lips, even my imaginary ones.”

As Hector listened to this, you noticed his eyes taking on a liquid shine, which he quickly tried to hide by looking down and away. After a long pause, he leaned up to kiss your forehead, then tucked you under his chin and against his chest.

“…You’re going to put my prose to shame if you carry on like that,” he said softly, but you could hear the smile there yet again.

“Yeah, well.” You kissed his chin, his soft jawline, the spot by his ear that made his breath catch. “What can I say? You’ve met your match, Condicionado.”

Hector hugged you even tighter, a blissful sigh ruffling your hair. “Even for as long as I watched you from afar, I had no idea just how well we suit each other.” He traced the bite marks he left in your shoulder with a fingertip, making you shiver pleasantly. 

You paused then, something occurring to you. “…Speaking of which.”

Hector raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“Hold on.” You kissed his cheek before you gently removed yourself from his grasp, rolling over to the other side of your bed and reaching behind your nightstand.

You could feel the mattress shift as he sat up slightly, looking over your shoulder. “What do you have there, amor?”

“Okay, so.” You pulled a fairly thick, worn notebook out of a crevice, wiping away a smidge of dust before turning back to him. You hugged it slightly to your chest, feeling a bit… protective, even with him. “It’s not as nicely bound as yours, for one.”

Hector blinked, looking from you to the notebook and back again. “‘Mine?’” He sized it up, a glint of curiosity and hope in his eyes. “…Is that—”

“So after I met Mac,” you explained, unable to meet his eyes for a moment. “And they mentioned they had, uh… read my previous work,” you phrased it carefully. 

“‘Previous work?’” Hector repeated, looking more and more interested by the minute. 

“Well,” you said, shifting in place. “I figured… I didn’t want to take the chance of them discovering this one. Especially since, you know.” You chewed your lip, hoping you didn’t lose your nerve. “They, um. Know you. And all. It just felt… you know, like an invasion of privacy, so I figured I’d, um. Write it by hand. So it’s a little messy—”

“It’s handwritten?” Hector looked positively giddy when he looked back to you. “You wrote? About me?”

“Oh my god, do I write about you,” you muttered, having to look away when your face started to feel hot again. You cleared your throat slightly. “I… tend to use it as a way to work out some of my… more… obsessive feelings, shall we say?” You glanced at him from under your lashes. “So, uh. Just be advised--”

“PleasecanIreadit?” Hector’s tone was indistinguishable from when he’d asked you to come on his face, and his expression just as besotted.

“It gets better as it goes, I swear,” you said, passing the notebook into his eager grasp. “It just took me a minute to figure out just how to write you, after the first day—”

“The first day?” Hector looked up from where he’d immediately opened it. “That soon?”

“…Well, yeah,” you said, like this was obvious. “You were eloquent and mysterious. I was intrigued and… honestly super aroused,” you added in a shy mumble.

“Oh. Well. So that really was mutual.” Hector blushed even as he grinned, and his eyes eagerly fell back to the first page.

After you kissed his cheek again, you slipped to the bathroom to grab something to clean you both off.

A few quiet, content minutes passed as you let the water warm up, you idly running your fingers under the faucet — Winnifred must have been entertaining, so you didn’t mind waiting.

It wasn’t long after before Hector called your name.

“Yeah?” you called back, your mind still in a half-dreamy haze.

“I’m going to need you to get back here,” Hector said, his voice returned to its lower register. “And show me exactly what you mean about — does this say ‘ankles’?”

“…Oh! Yeah. That.” You smiled to yourself at the memory of writing that particular scene, shutting off the sink and heading back to your room with a warm washcloth in tow. “Well, okay, so we’re going to need some ice and a shibari rope for this chapter.”

“This chapter?”

“Yeah, you’ll see what I mean.”

“My god, my love, I hope so.”

I'm hoping I'll write some fluff of him too oh shit and spit kink I forgot that in this one, but. I wrote this when I was on my period and ran out of ice cream, what can I say.

if you read this far, you're an angel~ <3

[cloudcountry]

I'd love to see more on Parker turning making out into a competition!

SUMMARY: parker turns kissing into a competition. it gets very, very side tracked.

WARNINGS: uhhh making out. tongue stuff. its not suggestive i think its very fluffy actually. but yk.

COMMENTS: YES ANON o7 i havent written anything like this in. checks watch. two years? so pardon me if its rusty (i hope its not T0T)

We each roll a die. The number that comes up is how many times we kiss the other person. Whoever breaks first loses.

Parker knows this was his idea. And sure, maybe it wasn’t the best one he’s had, but you seem pretty damn enthused about it. Resting on the table, is a single die. Resting on his thighs, is the comfortable weight of your body. And resting on your warm, soft hips, are his shaking hands.

Your face is nothing short of calm, hearts floating in your pupils as you look at him. He wants to say something so badly, to rattle off some rules just so he can regain some control of the situation, but nothing comes out of his dry throat. His mouth simply trembles like a fish out of water, and for the first time ever he’s curling in on himself, shy.

He knows what you want. it’s so obvious just based on the way you’re looking at him. It was his idea, his fantasy, so he couldn’t back out now. Not when you were right here, mere centimeters away, your faces so close together. He can feel your hot breath on his lips. The silence drags on, and if he doesn’t say anything now you might just spend all night taking in each pore of his face.

He opens his mouth. You beat him to it.

“Do you want to roll? Or should I roll first?” you murmur, caressing his multicolored hair, “I will say, I’m a bit sad you only gave us one die...we could have kissed twice as much if you brought a second one down.”

“I—fuck, uh—should I get one?” he babbles, staring at the wall right past your head.

“No. I don't want to get up,” you wave off his concerns, leaning into his chest, “Let me roll first.”

He’d let you do anything you damn well pleased just so long as you kept yourself pressed against him. It felt so good to be this close to you. Fuck, he’s whipped. Parker hopes you never leave his thighs.

“Four,” you whisper, cupping his cheek—he missed the roll while fantasizing about you, but here you were, real and breathing and wanting and—

He shrieks a bit when you kiss him, his eyes going wide. Everyone has a different kiss—Parker has never kissed anyone else, but in that moment, he knows it to be true, because who else could have a kiss as good as yours?

He can’t breathe. He’s frozen, unable to move. No, he doesn’t dare move, because what if you vanish into thin air and he’s left all alone in the attic again?

You pull away. The second your wet lips part and release a soft sigh, his hand flies to the back of your head, yanking you back into him and into a crushing kiss.

It’s all consuming, the way his hands fly to cup your face, to keep you there. You gasp against him, your teeth knocking against his before he eases up. Parker isn’t a good kisser, and you didn’t expect him to be—but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a fast learner. As if he’s learning the rules to a game, he applies less pressure, works his way around your mouth, pulls your lower lip in between his teeth and nips, making a soft noise of interest in the back of his throat when you shiver. Parker doesn’t let up, kissing you longer and longer, until you’re running out of air and have to brace yourself against his chest.

“Air, baby,” you pant, no longer sitting directly on his lap but hovering over him, taking in the sight of Parker’s beet red face and kiss bruised lips.

“Uh huh,” he nods sloppily, totally blissed out.

“Parker, that was two kisses. Are you already done?” you huff, amused.

He shakes his head like a dog trying to dry off, and snaps back into his competitive attitude faster than you would have thought. Your arms drape around his neck, and you sink down just enough to bump your forehead against his. There’s something beautiful about the softness of the moment, something sweet and kind that warms your belly, but you can’t deny that the desperation Parker showed you earlier made you more eager to continue were you had stopped. His hand finds the back of your head and gently scratches the nape of your neck.

Parker is back on you before you can blink, guiding your head down to meet his waiting lips. He’s slow, inexperienced, but he doesn’t have to be the best kisser in the world to make you happy. He just has to be himself, with his jittery legs that are starting to bounce and his hands that won’t stop shaking. He parts from you for just a second to take a comically deep breath before he dives in for the fourth and final kiss, daring to try something new.

You squeak when his tongue presses against your lips, flicking back into his mouth a second later. You can feel Parker about to pull away, as if embarrassed that he even asked, but you latch onto the back of his head and press your tongue against his lips in turn.

Parker whines, low in his throat, parting his lips for your tongue. His hands find their way back to your hips, his thumb catching on the hem of your shirt, and he finds that the space between your bodies has grown much, much warmer. It’s frustrating that he can’t get closer to you, that he can’t merge with you until you’re both one being, together forever and never apart like you used to be, leaving him every night because the Dateviators needed to charge, leaving him all alone over and over again with the memory of your soft voice and touch to hold him at night—

He breaks the kiss with a ragged gasp, and rushes in for another, only to be stopped by your finger. He opens his eyes, looking like a kicked puppy at your breathless expression.

“Only four, remember? It’s your turn now,” you say, like he didn’t completely take over your turn and start kissing the life out of you.

Refusing to part from you for even a moment, Parker flails behind him for the dice, managing to grasp it and roll it on the floor beside the couch.

He rolls a one.

He whines pathetically, bonking his head against your sternum. You laugh softly, stroking the back of his head.

“You just have to make it a good one, Parker. Make it count. You know that,” you reassure him.

“I want to kiss you forever,” he pleads, lifting his head up just enough to make eye contact with you, “We...We should get married.”

You laugh again, but it’s not cruel. It’s the laugh of someone in love, so warm and adoring and heartfelt, the type of laugh that makes you cry a little because you cherish the person in front of you so much you couldn’t bear being separated from them for even a moment longer than necessary.

It feels lovely, to hear that kind of laugh from you.

You, the absolute deity that you are, have mercy on him, and calm with bristling energy with a soft kiss. Technically it’s his turn so he should be initiating, but everything that he is—aside from your lover—turns to mush at your kiss. Parker softens against you, soothed by your touch, running his fingertips along the curves and edges of your face until he can picture you behind his closed lids. He burns you into his retinas, worshipping the taste and sound of you, so that he’ll never forget it.

You pull away and he jolts forward, trying to follow you, but stops when he realize what his body is doing.

“We should get married. I think that’s a good idea,” you reply softly, “I’m sorry I didn’t answer immediately. You were just so cute, I had to kiss you.”

This cannot be the last time you two do this. It just can’t.

“Again. Please.” he begs.

Fuck, how do people not die every time they kiss their lovers? Parker feels like he’s been gone since you sat in his lap. It’s unthinkable that he could be anything but coherent right now and you pull him into another kiss, threading your fingers through his hair, giggling and smiling and laughing as you two pull away, then come back together, your die left on the floor.

Please.

You kiss him again.

Please, please, please—

Again, and again, and again.

You’re so good to him. Too good to him. His hand trails down your arm and stops at your left hand, the pads of his fingertips toying with the flesh at the base of your ring finger.

He imagines a golden ring, nestled between your digits—a promise of forever as he kisses you again.

[science-hoes]

“take deep breaths and get used to heavy eye contact.” - Shawn Hatosy via Twitter

[sugxto]

electrical storm - volt/eddie/reader

⋆syn: Eddie doesn't do well during storms. You and Volt help give him what he needs for some relief.

⋆wc: 3.5k

⋆cw: m/m/afab threesome, domestic fluff, comfort, explorations of chronic pain/fatigue.

⋆notes: reader insert uses g/n pronouns and is not described with feminine attributes. AFAB genitalia, terms used include hole, entrance, and cunt . no spoilers for any of the routes but it is a more established relationship. other e/v one shots.

⋆snippet:

You feel the smallest shiver run through Eddie’s body at the words, and his eyes flutter closed for the briefest moment before he inhales sharply. You bring your hand to his face, cupping his cheek once again. “Eddie,” you breathe into his mouth, “let us take care of you.”

It’s like your words flip a switch inside of him, relief flooding his body in a surge, and any stress in his shoulders simply melting away. You think, for just a moment, that his eyes might be sparkling with the beginning of tears, but he blinks, and the thought is gone.

“Do you want that, Eddie?” Volt whispers, the bolts of his hair sparking over Eddie’s face, his hand slowly encircling his neck. “Do you need it?”

electrical storm

Soft isn’t a term you would use to describe Volt or Eddie. Or, Volt and Eddie. 

Maybe it’s because they are, in their basest form, unpredictable, powerful forms of energy, kept in check by each other’s presence as their essence flows through the currents of your own home. Their very touch sends sparks through your veins, electrifies your heartbeat, all with an unspoken potency that they could be far more damaging if they so choose. They are harsh, formidable, thrilling, alive. 

But soft?

It wouldn’t be your first choice.

Except, there are glimpses of it on days when Eddie’s strained himself a bit too far. When the to-do list takes the three of you much longer than expected, or in the late hours cleaning up when last call was ignored, or after a storm, and he tries as hard as he can to hide the way he breathes a little deeper, pauses for a little longer. Maybe he thinks you don’t notice (Volt always does, and it did take you a while to learn what to look for), maybe he thinks it's not a problem. But it makes your heart bleed a little, when you can see the spark dimmed in his grey eyes, as yet another guest asks him for a drink that’s not even on the menu, and begrudgingly, he makes it without a single complaint.

It’s one of those nights, after a summer day where, promptly at 5:30pm by Timmy’s clock, the skies burst open, and lightning streaks through Wyndolyn’s panes all through the night. It’s been non-stop for weeks, the boys can hardly catch a break, and you just wish you could yell at the clouds and make them listen. Force them to understand the discomfort the constant brownouts and flickers do to your partners, to one of them in particular.

A clap of thunder makes the bottles behind you at the bar clink together, and you sigh. Even here, in the recesses of the Breaker Box, it felt non-stop. Miranda, strumming away on the velvet stage, pays it no mind, and it seems like none of the other guests do either.

Volt, mingling his way through the tables, looks up as he claps Dorian on the shoulder, the white light of his eyes immediately finding yours. He senses your distress, you know he does, because he promptly pauses his greetings and makes his way to the bar.

You sigh in relief at his presence, but then gasp at the shock on your skin when Volt’s hand finds your arm. He’s more charged during the storms, you’ve found, like all the electrons in the air swarm to him, powering him.

He tsks his tongue, removing his touch. “Ah, my apologies, live wire.” He doesn’t look hurt, only concerned, as his dark brows scrunch together. “Did I hurt you?”

“No, no Volt, not at all.” To prove it, you take his hand again, finding the spark more calming since you’re expecting it.

“What seems to be troubling you then, hm?” He reaches up and runs a silver thumb over your cheek. He studies your face, tips your chin up to meet his eyes, and you see him realize it before you even find the words. “Ah. Our Eddie, hm?”

You nod, relaxing into Volt’s touch. “I just wish the storms would stop, this can’t be good for him.”

Volt tsks his tongue again, a quiet “I know, darling,” leaving his lips as he presses a kiss to your forehead. “I know it’s hard. Amps sake, I was created to help prevent his suffering, and it took me a very long time to reconcile with the fact that, much as I’d like to, weather isn’t for us to control.”

“But he’s so tired, Volt.” You know he knows, you know there isn’t anything to be done about it other than wait. But it helps to talk to someone who understands. “And I know you are too.”

“Hmm, maybe. But we’ve been through worse.” His thumb leaves trails of tingles on your cheek. “Remember, say, three years ago, that freak tropical storm that came our way?”

You do - it came with hardly any notice, changing directions and coming straight at your city in the middle of the night. You didn’t have power for almost eight hours, though you do remember it flickering on and off every now and again. “Were you hurt, during that?” you ask, and you start to wonder how the other experiences your home has been through has impacted its (previously unknown to you) residents.

“Not hurt, per say. Thrown through the ringer might be the best term for it,” he says, a hint of a smile as his brows relax. “We worked for every possible moment we could manage. Eddie… I’d never seen him like that before, or since. But then, when it was over, he slept for what must’ve been a week, good as new.” His white eyes go soft, making sure you look into them as he says his next piece. “The storms will pass. And he will be alright, and you and I can do all we can to lighten his load, yes?”

You swallow and bite your bottom lip. You’re still not sure, but you trust Volt. With everything. Of course you do. “Yes.”

Volt’s resulting smile is one of relief, but the concern is still evident in his brow. “Why don’t you go to him, hm? It’s not too busy, and I can manage the bar. Ah ah ah, no arguing, spark, I’ve decided that’s what’s going to happen, and so it shall. Upstairs, to Eddie.” 

You know better than to disagree, Volt isn’t one you can easily win against. And, you don’t even want to - you just want Eddie. You turn to go, but Volt holds you still for just a moment more.

“Here, give him this for me?” he asks, before lowering his head and kissing your lips, lovingly, sweetly, softly. It ignites your heart, makes your head buzz, your lips tingle, and he breaks away, whispers against your lips, “and keep this one for yourself,” before kissing you again, deepening his hold on your cheek.

When you part, it’s because applause for Miranda snaps you back into reality, and you flush red at the glint in Volt’s eyes. “I’ll make sure to get it to him,” you say, slipping away up the stairs behind the bar, knowing Volt’s gaze follows you every step of the way.

You find Eddie, a bit unexpectedly, on the floor of the boys’ bedroom, with his head leaning back on the edge of the mattress. His eyes are shut tightly, his jagged brows nearly kissing in the middle of his forehead, jaw set firmly. You glimpse at his hands, relieved when you see they’re not shaking, just balled into fists.

You crouch to the ground, steady yourself with a hand on the mattress. “Eddie?”

He makes a small sound and blinks his eyes open before rolling his head towards you. “Hm. Live wire. You okay?” he asks, his voice haggard and gruff, more clipped than it sounds when he first wakes up in the morning.

“Me? Eddie, yeah, I’m okay.” These men, always worried about you, of all people. “Did I wake you?”

Eddie scoffs, then groans as he stretches his neck. “Not at all. I’m about as far from restful as you can get, I think.” He sighs, extends his legs out to lay flat on the floor. “Just trying not to exert myself too much. Everything alright downstairs?”

“Don’t worry about it right now.”

“Well, I’m a little worried by that answer.”

You roll your eyes, only because you know he says it in jest. “Everything’s fine, Eddie.” You move to settle on the ground beside him. “I’m just worried about you.”

You swear there’s a split second that a corner of his mouth twitches up, and his gaze changes, almost softens, when you reach out to hold his hand. “I know you are. But, I’ve been through worse. Not dead yet.”

You try not to grimace at the phrase. “Yeah, Volt told me about the tropical storm.” You squeeze his hand. “I wish I knew about you back then. I’m sorry you went through that.”

He shrugs, though it’s hardly nonchalant. “S’okay. Nothing you could do.”

It’s quiet for a moment, as he breathes with you. You remember something though, and shirt to face him. “Volt wanted me to give you something.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

You cup his face, his stubble rough on your palm, and cautiously dip your head towards his. Gently, you meet his lips, delivering Volt’s message as best you can, and he hums gladly as your kisses deepens.

It’s a moment later when you pull apart, and your foreheads rest together. Eddie leans into your hand on his cheek, his steel eyes finding yours.

“Five star delivery, live wire,” he says, his voice low. “I’ll let Volt know it was received.” He cocks a brow and runs a hand over your thigh. “And what about you? You got anything for me?”

You let out a giggle and move your hand to his collar. “Just my love and devotion. And worries about your stress.”

Eddie nods, and you realize his hand is still making its way up your thigh. Thunder once again shakes the room, and you watch his face for any sign of distress, though it doesn’t come.

“And what if,” he says, his eyes moving to glance at your lips, “there was something I need from you?”

“Name it,” you respond, meaning it with all your heart.

He leans even closer to you, your noses pressed together, your lips only a breath away, and you feel his tough dip into your inner thigh, familiar sparks under his touch. “I need you, on our bed, with my cock inside you. Now.”

You breath hitches, like your brain has momentarily short circuited. You pull away, surprised - soft with his words, Eddie is not. But still, it’s not what you expected to hear. “Eddie, you’re -”

“What?” he cuts you off, and it looks almost like another storm is brewing in his eyes. “I’m what? Incapable of fucking as a distraction to my headache?” His grip tightens on your thigh, and you gasp. “Unable to want one of my partners just because of the weather?”

“I didn’t say that -”

“No, but you’re still worrying,” he says, almost with a laugh in his voice. “And I’m telling you, that right now, what would make me feel better, is fucking you. So,” he’s so close to you now, you feel his breath on your cheek, “you gonna let me?”

Well. It’d be rude to say no to that, wouldn’t it?

Your hand on his collar slides to the back of his neck, holding on tightly. “Always.”

Like lightning, Eddie scoops you up, and the mattress bounces beneath your bodies as you both land. You’re on your side, pressed close to Eddie’s chest, one of his hands cupping your face, the other pulling your thigh over his, making sure no space exists between you and him. He kisses you, but it’s not his usual hunger that you find on his lips, but something you’re not used to tasting. Something calmer, sweeter, softer.

His hand glides from your thigh up to your waist, leaving a current in its wake, and he squeezes your skin, not as hard as usual, almost like he’s grasping at something he expects to disappear. You moan into his mouth and grind your hips into his, and he bites your bottom lip in response. 

“Little wire,” he groans after a moment, steel eyes dark and voice low, “I don’t want to wait, I need you, now.”

And you don’t need to be told twice. 

You both shed your clothes without a moment’s hesitation, pulling at whatever piece of fabric you can find on the other’s body, and throwing it to the floor. When you come back together, press back to him as close as you can, the charge of his skin momentarily takes your breath away. Eddie’s skin is different than Volt’s, less electric, less shocking - it always brings goosebumps to the surface on your skin, almost hums under your touch, and you wonder if you could follow his veins like currents.

Eddie’s cock rests against the lips of your cunt, rocking gently against you, but he holds your hips still when you try to get even closer, and you whimper his name, your nails scraping at his chest.

“Fuck,” he breathe through gritted teeth. “I may not last long, baby.”

“I don’t care, Eddie.” You find his eyes, deep grey and bursting with love. “I need you too.”

That’s all the permission he needs, and he lifts your leg to angle his cock at your entrance. Your jaw goes slack as he presses his length inside you, your eyes never leaving his, watching the way they shine as he slides inside you. When he stops, your bodies fully combined, he breathes, shaky, and digs his fingers into your flesh. 

He waits a moment, a breath, and he kisses you just as he starts to pull out, setting a languid, easy pace. Your body is liquid, puddy under his hands, and when you exhale, he inhales, sharing the charged air between you. You rock together, unhurried, Eddie’s hands roaming every inch of your sides, your back, your legs.

It’s different than usual. It’s patient. It’s soft.

“Mind if I join you?”

You hear Volt’s velvet voice rather than see him, but you can just imagine how he leans against the doorway, hands in pockets, some sort of grin on his face.

Eddie slows, doesn't fully stop fucking you, but his breath is heavy when he speaks. “Volt, you -”

“Already closed up early. Thought it best to soothe our little wire’s worries as quick as I could.” You hear a thud, and imagine it’s his jacket falling to the floor.

Eddie sighs, stills inside you, and his eyes leave your face, flit past your shoulder to the doorway, to Volt. “You can join, I just - I needed them, Volt.” 

“Oh, my darling,” Volt coos, “I don’t doubt it.” Finally, he steps into your view, coming behind Eddie, dipping down to kiss his head. His lips brush Eddie’s ear, and silver fingers graze his shoulder. “How about, I give you something else you need, hm?”

You feel the smallest shiver run through Eddie’s body at the words, and his eyes flutter closed for the briefest moment before he inhales sharply. You bring your hand to his face, cupping his cheek once again. “Eddie,” you breathe into his mouth, “let us take care of you.”

It’s like your words flip a switch inside of him, relief flooding his body in a surge, and any stress in his shoulders simply melting away. You think, for just a moment, that his eyes might be sparkling with the beginning of tears, but he blinks, and the thought is gone.

“Do you want that, Eddie?” Volt whispers, the bolts of his hair sparking over Eddie’s face, his hand slowly encircling his neck. “Do you need it?”

“Y-yes. Yes,” he manages out, rocking his cock back inside you and digging his fingers into your flesh, making you gasp, making you ache. 

Volt chuckles, grinning in a way that shows his teeth, and you notice for the first time that, like you two, he’s naked, his free hand slowly stroking over his cock, shiny with what you guess is lube that coats his fingers too. You feel the bed shift as his weight presses into the bed, effortlessly spooning Eddie so that they perfectly slot together. Made for each other.

You wrap your hand in the coils of Eddie’s hair, holding him steady with the help of Volt’s grip on his neck, and you squeeze the muscles of your cunt to keep his cock warm inside you. He groans, and Volt guides Eddie’s leg to rest atop your own, a jumbled mess of limbs and sparks and sweat. 

Eddie gasps, and his eyes fly open, and he grunts something that sounds like Volt’s name.

Volt’s lips kiss Eddie’s ear, close enough to your hand that you can feel his breath, and you feel it when he says, “that’s it, that’s our good boy.”

“Volt, please -”

“Be patient, darling, just -” Volt says, and Eddie groans again, his grip on you tightening so much, you might find burn marks in the morning, “a moment more. And then you’ll have what you need.”

“I don’t, fuck, I don’t need prep, Volt, fuck I need you.” Eddie’s voice tumbles quickly from his mouth, his hips feebly trying to buck up into your cunt, his titanium eyes glossy with want, need.

Volt sighs, mutters an acquiescence, and his lightning eyes find yours over the head of your partner, their usual mischievous shine replaced with something deeper, something softer. Love, you realize it must be, and your fingers curl in Eddie’s hair, giving Volt the smallest nod.

You can’t see his movements as his fingers slip out of Eddie, but his eyes never leave yours as he adjusts Eddie’s legs again, then grasps his cock, finding Eddie’s waiting, needing hole, and presses his way inside. You watch each other as Eddie groans between your bodies, his body stiffening as he takes Volt inside him, and you, in turn, feel him twitch inside you.

Volt waits, just a moment, for Eddie to find his breath, and when you finally glance down at his face, you notice the streak of a tear that has fallen down his nose.

“Eddie,” you say, in the softest voice you can muster, “you alright?”

He exhales a breath that may be a laugh, and it tickles your cheek. “Live wire,” he says, his voice finally sounding relieved instead of depleted, “I’m perfect.”

It’s like the word grants Volt the permission he was waiting for, and he drags his length almost fully out of Eddie, before thrusting back in a flash. Your legs are a mess, intertwined in such a way that you’re not sure whose skin is whose, but as Volt moves, Eddie’s hips move in tandem, and you squeeze your cunt to wrap around him even tighter, wanting, needing him as close as you’re allowed.

Usually, nights on this bed are rougher, with more teeth, nails, and shocks, and you wouldn’t have it any other way. But this… this softness… it warms your heart, livens your nerves like you’ve been plugged into a socket, and you never want to let it go.

Eddie groans, he whimpers, at Volt’s unrelenting cock, the searing grip on his neck. “Fuck, V-Volt, baby, I’m - please -”

You kiss his forehead, kiss his temples, softly, lovingly, as you whisper, “We’ve got you, we’ve got you, Eddie.”

“You’re doing so well, darling,” Volt adds, honey falling from his lips. “Doing so well for us.”

Eddie’s voice sputters just as his body stiffens, tightens, and you know he won’t hold out much longer. His fingers singe the flesh on your waist, your thigh, and his cock ruts into you even faster, chasing his release - before you can even offer him more reassurances, he cries out, louder than you’ve heard from him before, and you feel his cum fill your cunt as he bucks erratically through his release.

“Oh fuck, oh yes,” you whisper against his lips before his weight goes slack.

Volt doesn’t stop, in fact, he fucks him faster, harder, and a few tears fall from Eddie’s eyes at his unabating pace that you swiftly kiss away. Despite that, you know Volt can’t be much further behind, and you reach out your hand to find his cheek, needing to feel his skin on yours. 

Just as you thought, soon Volt’s pace becomes more erratic, less precise, and his fingers around Eddie’s neck tightens as he too comes with a groan of Eddie’s name and a bite to your hand.

You stay there, the three of you, in the soft afterglow, until, who knows how long after, Eddie finally stirs, and sighs, a sound of contentment coming from the back of his throat.

“Well -” Eddie’s voice is best described as well and truly fucked - “my headache is gone.”

You and Volt smile, a shared successful mission completed.

It’s Volt that first separates from your pile of legs, returning in a blink with water, towels, a blanket. When Eddie rolls onto his back, his cheeks are flushed red, and the rise and fall of his chest is even for what seems like the first time in weeks. Volt throws the used towels aside and sits next to him, running a finger along his jaw.

“How’s our Eddie?” he asks, and you settle into the crook of his shoulder, throw your arm over his chest. 

“Better.” You hear his voice in his chest, and know he has a smile on his face. “I got your message, earlier. Had a very good messenger deliver it.”

“Did you?” Volt glances down at you, sends you a knowing wink. “That’s good to hear. But, I have one to deliver myself, as well.” Eddie hums in satisfaction when Volt kisses him, and your heart flips in your chest at the sight. They separate, and white and steel eyes find yours before two sets of lips find your cheeks simultaneously. They’re soft kisses. They’re yours.

[sammy-bryant]

JACK ABBOT + PRAISE The Pitt | Season 1

[abbotjack]

˖ִ ࣪₊ ⊹˚ Haunted ݁ ˖ִ ࣪₊ ⊹˚

insp by haunted by beyonce; my haunted lungs / ghost in the sheets

summary : A heavy summer night, a cracked window, a man who never knocks. Across the street, he watches—quiet, bruised, unmovable. Inside, you rearrange furniture like it might settle something in your chest. But some hauntings don’t knock, and some doors don’t open for just anyone.

word count : 4,430

content/warnings : 18+ MDNI!!!!!!!!!!!! explicit sexual content (unprotected penetrative sex in the hallway, rough), intense sexual tension, emotionally charged smut, age gap (reader late 20s, Jack 40s), trauma references, smoking, alcohol use, haunted eroticism, power imbalance, intense longing, obsessive undertones, slow burn

South Side Flats, Pittsburgh – The Duplex Across From His – Sunday, 8:12 PM

The air is heavy. Not warm—heavy.

The kind of heat that doesn’t just sit on the skin but wraps around the lungs, thick and honey-slow, like you’re meant to choke on it. Somewhere a freight train moans against the spine of the city, low and dragging, and you wonder—not for the first time—what it would take to leave this place. To get in a car, a cab, a wrong bed, and keep moving until the heat lifted.

But then you remember him.

And you stay.

He’s there again tonight. Porch light off. Bottle half-drunk, label rubbed smooth beneath his thumb. Jack Abbot sits on the third step like it’s a habit, like the world tipped sideways one day and never bothered to set him right. He doesn’t move much. Doesn’t smile. Doesn’t even check his phone. You wonder sometimes if the whole man’s just a monument. Built to last. Built to rust.

You haven’t spoken in a while.

Not since the second time he helped you carry a dresser up your steps—solid cherry, mid-century, heavy enough to kill a man if you dropped it wrong. You remember how he handled it like it meant nothing. How his forearms looked with the sleeves pushed up. The way he didn’t ask questions, didn’t flirt, didn’t say much beyond, “Careful on the landing. Gets slick when it rains.”

He’d already been watching you before then.

Just like you’d been watching him.

Not openly. Not in a way that’d get talked about. But in the quiet ways—the ways that haunt. Your curtains pulled just enough to see the glow of his TV flickering blue across his living room walls. The way he always parked his truck on the opposite side of the street, like he didn’t want to look at his own house when he left. How he smoked sometimes, only when the sky turned violet, as if dusk gave him permission.

And how he wore grief like it was sewn into the lining of his clothes.

You don’t know what happened to him exactly, but you know the outline. You’ve read it on his body like a map—scar on his knuckle, phantom hitch in his step, that strange off-rhythm gait that says something got taken, and he had to learn to walk without it. Not just the leg. Something deeper. Something no one could put back.

Tonight, he’s got the bottle but not the smoke.

Tonight, you’ve got the window cracked just wide enough to listen. Not that he talks. He’s not the kind of man who talks unless something inside him breaks.

You lean against the sill, bare thighs sticking to the wood, wearing nothing but a washed-out t-shirt and old sleep shorts that don’t hide much. You hadn’t planned to watch him again. You tell yourself it’s the breeze you’re after. The city hum. The nothing.

But then he moves.

Not much. Just the tilt of his head. Just enough to glance toward your house—your window—and pause. He doesn't linger. Doesn’t wave or smirk or nod. Just stills. Looks. Breathes.

Like maybe he knew you’d be there.

Like maybe he always knows.

You can’t see his eyes from here, but you can feel them. Somewhere between the soft of the streetlamp and the shadow line under his jaw, you swear something shifts. Like your whole body is being clocked. Accounted for. Recognized.

It makes your stomach flip.

You know better than to romanticize men like Jack. Men who carry weight like a second skin. Who drink quiet. Who look like they haven’t been touched in a long time—but don’t trust the hands that try. You’ve dated all kinds. Soft ones. Loud ones. Clever ones. None of them looked at you the way Jack does from thirty feet away, saying nothing at all.

Your phone buzzes beside you. Hannah, your roommate, out somewhere she shouldn’t be, half-drunk and emotionally reckless, as usual.

“Did u see him again?? porch man?? that man wants to know what ur bones feel like under his hands lol”

You don’t respond. Not right away. You’re still watching.

Still feeling it—whatever this is. Not a crush. Not desire, exactly. Not something warm. No. This feels older than that. Feels like knowing someone you’ve never met. Like your skin already remembers what he tastes like. Like the kind of man who was meant to ruin you, and somewhere inside you, that seed already sprouted. You just haven’t watered it yet.

You finally text back:

“He’s out there.”

You don’t say you are too. You don’t have to.

Because a second later, the porch creaks.

Your breath stalls.

He stands.

For a moment, you can’t move. Can’t breathe. You grip the windowsill with both hands like it’s going to anchor you. His silhouette shifts. Stretches. He drinks the last of the beer, sets it down beside the step with care—so quiet, so deliberate—and steps inside.

The porch light stays off.

And your whole body feels like it just came down from something you never climbed.

You pull the window shut. Lock it. Turn off the fan.

But long after you crawl into bed, you can still taste the metal of the screen on your tongue. The burn behind your ribs like you’re holding your breath too long. The image of him there—still. Solid. Silent.

You already know—he’s in your blood now.

And blood calls to blood.

Same Street, Two Nights Later — Tuesday, 11:46 PM — Your Side of the Glass

You weren’t looking for him tonight. Not actively.

You were just rearranging the living room again—shoving an Eames knockoff two inches to the left like that’d fix the weight in your chest, like geometry could soothe longing. It’s something you do when the world is too quiet. When your thoughts start to echo. You move furniture the way other people smoke or pray.

But then you caught him. Again.

Jack. Leaning against the railing this time. Arm slung over the top post, eyes low, unreadable. He’s not drinking tonight. No beer. No cigarette. Just him. Raw and undistracted. The kind of stillness that makes everything else look frantic.

You keep your distance.

Not out of fear.

Out of respect. The man moves like a wolf would if it lived too long and started remembering the names of things it used to kill. You don’t poke at something like that unless you’re prepared to let it tear you open.

Still—something’s different tonight.

His gaze flicks up, deliberate. Eyes finding yours with precision. Not the way men look when they’ve caught you watching and want to feel superior about it—but the way someone does when they’ve been watching, too. Long before now. Long enough to know when you move behind glass.

He doesn’t smile.

Neither do you.

Instead, you push the window open—not wide, just a few inches. Enough to let the air in. Enough to let him know you’re listening.

And then, as if on cue, his voice—

“Your light’s been on since seven.”

You blink. The first thing he’s said to you in days. Maybe ever, depending on how you measure real speech. Carrying a dresser up the stairs doesn’t count. Not when this feels like an invocation.

You don’t raise your voice when you answer. You don’t need to.

“I don’t like the dark.”

Jack nods once, slow, like he understands. Not like he’s pitying you, but like he’s survived it himself. The dark. The nights that don’t end. The flickering shadows of a house that doesn’t feel like yours anymore.

He shifts—just barely—a quiet redistribution of weight as he braces his good leg against the porch post, the kind of practiced movement that slips beneath most people’s notice. But you catch it. The way his body tilts, compensates, steadies. He’s facing you fully now, not hiding the way his eyes track the light spilling out of your front window.

He’s been watching. Clearly. Closely.

His gaze drags over the interior—the soft lamplight, the worn rug, the chair you’ve moved three times this week and still haven’t committed to. The one you told yourself you’d repaint. The one sitting right there in full view.

“You said you were gonna repaint that chair,” he says finally, voice cutting through the heat. “But you just keep moving it around like it means something. Like it belongs there. Like it’s not broken.” He pauses. “I can see it every night. Always in a new spot.”

You glance at the chair in question. Rust orange velvet, fraying at the arms. You found it on a curb three weeks ago and decided it deserved a second life. You don’t know why he remembers that.

“I like things with a little damage.”

Jack exhales—half-scoff, half-laugh. “Yeah,” he mutters. “I figured.”

The silence after that isn’t awkward. It’s heavy, but not unbearable. Like the moment after thunder. That fragile space where nothing dares to move yet. You lean your forearms against the sill and feel the wood warm under your skin. He watches your arms, your wrists, your mouth when you speak.

“You always out here this late?” you ask.

“Not always,” he says. “Just when I can’t sleep.”

“And you can’t sleep a lot?”

His jaw shifts. A tic of tension, then release. “Enough.”

You don’t ask why. You already know. Maybe not the details. But you’ve seen the way he startles at backfiring engines. The way he stands when a siren passes—still, alert, waiting for it to name someone he knows. You’ve seen the ghost in him. Hell, you feel it like a twin flame—your haunted lungs to his haunted heart.

“Thought I saw you watching,” he says suddenly, eyes back on you.

“I wasn’t hiding.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

The air tightens between you.

Not threatening. Not sweet.

Just charged. Like the street itself is holding its breath.

Jack pushes off the railing then. Steps down—once, twice. He doesn’t cross the road. Not yet. But the movement alone makes something inside you coil tight.

He stops at the bottom step, hands in the pockets of his zip-up, shoulders slouched like he’s spent. Like the day dragged him by the throat. And still, he says it:

“I don’t sleep. You don’t turn your lights off. We could pretend that means something.”

You tilt your head. “And if it doesn’t?”

He shrugs. “Still means I noticed.”

It’s then that the heat shifts. The porch light behind him flickers—burned out bulb, probably—and the whole block dims by a fraction. Enough to make the night feel close. Intimate.

And Jack?

Jack takes one step off the curb, like he might come closer. Like he’s thinking about it. Testing the weight of the choice in his chest. You see it in the way he rolls his jaw, the way he glances once at your window like he’s looking into something—not through.

But he doesn’t cross.

He lingers—still, certain, waiting. And you know, instinctively, he’s the kind of man who won’t take a single step until he’s sure it’s wanted. The kind who doesn’t chase. The kind who waits to be summoned.

So you leave the window.

Not because you’ve decided. Because you were always going to.

Because something in you already crossed the room hours ago—maybe days ago—and now your body is just following through.

You walk slow. Barefoot. The boards shift under you like they recognize your weight. Past the orange chair you keep repositioning, trying to make it mean something. Past the cracked tile at the edge of the hall. Past the wall that still smells faintly of old paint and regret.

You reach the door.

And you don’t open it right away.

You stand there for a second—fingertips grazing the deadbolt, your pulse tapping behind your ribs like it’s waiting to be let out. The porch light is already on, humming above you like a fever dream. The metal under your palm is warm. The silence outside is full. Watchful. Like the night’s holding its breath to see if you’ll go through with it.

And then you unlock it.

Not like you’re letting someone in.

Like you’re unlatching your own chest. Like you’re releasing the thing that’s been pacing the cage of your body all summer long.

You open the door just enough for heat to press in against your skin—thick, heady, electric. Then you step into the doorway. Not beyond it. Not inside either. Just there.

Barefoot. Bare-armed. Lit from behind. Your shadow spills out onto the porch, long and feminine and unavoidable. You don’t wave. Don’t beckon. You just stand still.

Like a flame someone dared to touch. Like you’ve been burning quietly all this time, waiting for him to notice the smoke.

That’s it. That’s your answer.

Not the porch light. Not the door unlocked. Not the silence. You. Standing in your own light, refusing to flinch. The porch light was never the invitation. You are.

You are the haunting now.

And Jack—still across the street, still standing on that same goddamn step—answers like a man who’s already lived here. Like his body knows this moment down to the bone. Like he’s spent weeks watching for this exact sliver of space to open, just wide enough to slip through.

He sees you. Full. Unhidden.

And he moves.

One step. Then another.

Measured. Steady. Not hesitant, but heavy. Like every inch closer to you costs him something. Like he’s felt this before. And lost it.

The fourth step lands him at the base of your porch, and he pauses. Just long enough for your breath to catch. Just long enough for you to realize he hasn’t blinked once.

Then he climbs.

Three steps.

And now he’s standing in front of you. Not across the street. Not on the porch. At the door. In your light.

His shoulders fill the frame. His chest rises slow. His eyes are darker than they were the last time he looked at you—hotter. His zip-up is still open, clinging to him like it’s afraid to fall. His hands stay loose at his sides, fingers flexing slightly like they don’t trust themselves. He smells like steel and skin. Like rain before it hits. Like whatever’s been following him for years finally let go.

He doesn’t speak.

Not yet.

He just looks at you, like he’s taking inventory of something sacred. Like he’s seeing you for the first time—not across the street, not through glass, not as an echo—but as a doorway.

His voice, when it comes, is low. Gravel rough. Pulled from somewhere deep and private.

“You opened it.”

Not a question. A statement. A confession.

You don’t answer.

Not with words.

Instead, you take one step back. Slow. Deliberate. Leaving just enough space in front of you for a man to fit.

Your hand stays on the knob. Your breath stills.

It’s not a plea. Not an ask.

It’s a line drawn in light: Come in if you mean it.

And Jack steps over it like he’s done pretending he doesn’t.

He crosses the threshold slow—broad shoulders first, then the rest of him, heat and shadow and breath. The porch gives a small groan beneath his weight. The air shifts around him like the house is reacting to his presence.

And when the door swings shut behind him—quiet, certain—you don’t flinch. Because he’s already inside.

He’s close now. Closer than he’s ever been. The soft whir of the fan overhead does nothing to cool you down. His presence is a furnace, and your skin is already learning the shape of his.

Jack looks around once—slow, deliberate—then back at you. His eyes drop to your mouth. Linger.

“You always open the door like that?” he asks, voice rough with something that could be amusement but feels more like hunger barely restrained.

“Only for ghosts,” you say, soft.

Jack’s eyes narrow. Not suspicious—curious. Like he’s trying to read the rest of that sentence in the shape of your lips.

“I’m not good at haunting,” he murmurs. “I tend to stick.”

You take a step toward him.

“Then stick,” you say.

That’s what breaks it.

Jack moves fast. Not rough, not cruel—sure. Like he’s done waiting. Like he’s done pretending this hasn’t already happened in a thousand ways, in a thousand glances, over a hundred sleepless nights. His hands are on your waist in an instant—large, calloused, steady—and he backs you against the door so hard it rattles on its hinges.

His body presses full to yours. Not tentative. Not exploratory. Claiming.

You gasp—not in fear, but relief.

Jack’s mouth finds yours with unnerving precision—like he’s been studying it for weeks from across the street. Maybe he has. He kisses the way he works: like an ER attending in the middle of chaos—steady, practiced, deliberate. No wasted motion. Just pressure, breath, purpose. He’s not rushing. He’s not asking. He’s learning you.

The kiss is hot and unrelenting, all tongue and teeth and quiet surrender—like he’s pulling something from your chest that was always meant for him.

His lips break from yours just long enough to breathe against your cheek.

“You’re hot,” he murmurs, almost dazed.

You laugh, breath hitching. “So are you.”

“No—your skin,” he says, dragging his mouth down your throat, the words more breath than sound. “Jesus. Burning.”

You arch into him, gasping. “I told you—I don’t like the dark.”

His mouth pauses at your clavicle. You feel the smile there. Then:

“Then let me make it bright.”

Your fingers twist into the fabric at his chest and you pull him closer—harder—until his breath stutters against your skin. He groans into your mouth when you kiss him again, open and demanding. That sound shatters something inside you. You chase it, bite his bottom lip, taste the edge of him.

He breaks just enough to whisper, forehead pressed to yours.

“You want this?”

You nod, fast. Sure. “I wanted this the first time you said my name."

Jack’s hand splays wide at your hip, fingers curling like he’s claiming territory. His other arm braces beside your head, trapping you. He moves like he’s used to working around damage—his or yours.

“This isn’t gonna be clean,” he warns.

“I’m not asking for clean.”

He exhales like that answer undoes him. Then—“I haven’t done this in a while. Not like this.”

You reach up, palm cupping his jaw, thumb brushing over the stubble there.

“Then let it be new,” you whisper. “We’ll haunt each other clean.”

Jack kisses you again—slower this time, deeper. His mouth explores yours like a reckoning. His hands find your thighs, lift you against the door like your weight belongs in his arms. And in that moment, you realize:

This isn’t just lust.

It’s ache. It’s need.

It’s a man trying to come home to something that doesn’t hurt.

He carries you down the hallway without a word, shoulder nudging the wall to guide his way. Your legs wrapped tight around him, hands buried in the hair at the base of his neck, mouth at his jaw, teeth grazing a scar you’ve noticed before but never let yourself linger on—until now. The kind of mark you don’t ask about, but suddenly ache to memorize.

He doesn’t take you to the bedroom.

He stops in the hallway—right there, two feet from the framed photograph of your parents, just shy of the corner table you thrifted last fall. He pins you to the wall with his body, one hand braced above your head, the other already sliding under your shirt.

“Here?” he asks, rough.

“Here,” you say, breath hot. “Start here.”

Because the hallway is narrow. Tight. Honest.

It’s not where people are meant to stay—but it’s exactly where they choose.

It's the place where people hang coats and leave shoes, where heat rises off hardwood and the walls are too close to lie about intention. The place where the weight of wanting becomes unbearable. Where proximity makes liars of you both.

Jack’s hands are on your waist. His mouth is still wet from kissing you. His body has you bracketed against the wall like you’re something he found and forgot how to let go of. You can feel the heat of him through his jeans, thick and hard where he presses against you, the slow grind of his hips making your breath go shallow.

You shift, slowly—deliberately—turning in his grip until your front meets the wall. The plaster is cool against your chest, grounding, unforgiving. Your palms flatten above your head, fingers splayed wide, bracing for what’s coming. The movement makes your shirt ride up slightly, exposing the soft curve of your lower back, and he’s there—right there—not touching yet, but close enough that you feel the heat of him bloom across your spine.

He follows, crowding in, his breath ghosting over your shoulder. One of his hands lifts—slow, deliberate—and drags up the hem of your shirt with the back of his knuckles. Not urgent. Not teasing. Just a study in restraint. Like he can’t decide whether to be gentle or ruinous. Whether to worship or devour. His knuckles brush bare skin, and you hear it then—that subtle, involuntary breath he pulls in, sharp like pain.

When he speaks, it’s low. Wrecked. The kind of voice that only exists in the dark, full of hunger he’s been trying—and failing—to quiet.

“Still want this?” he murmurs, like he needs to hear it again—just to be sure.

You don’t answer right away. You reach back, palm flattening over the swell of his cock through his jeans, a silent answer. He jerks in your hand, grits his teeth like it hurts to be touched.

“I’ll ruin you,” he breathes. “I’ll fuck you like I mean it.”

You push back against him, arch your spine, tilt your chin.

“Then mean it.”

That’s the end of his control.

His mouth is on your neck, teeth scraping, biting, sucking hard enough to mark. His hand slides between your thighs, drags your shorts down your legs so rough the elastic burns. You step out of them, bracing yourself against the wall as his fingers part you—wet, hot, already swollen from the friction of wanting.

“Christ,” he groans, middle finger gliding through slick. “You’re soaked.”

“For you,” you say, breathless, not out of performance, but truth.

Jack groans again—deep, from his chest. He rubs himself through his jeans, and then you hear it: the zipper. The metal rasp that makes your mouth go dry. He tugs his jeans down just enough, and then the weight of him is pressed against you—bare, flushed, throbbing against the back of your thigh.

You reach back again, desperate, wrapping your fingers around him—hot, heavy, thick. The kind of cock that feels like it was meant to split you open. Your breath stutters.

Jack’s hands slide over your hips, grounding you. He lines himself up—head of him slick, blunt, pressing into you—and he doesn’t ease in.

He shoves.

You gasp—loud, punched out of you like air, like prayer. The stretch is immediate, punishing. He’s thick, hard, so deep so fast you feel him in your gut. His hand clamps over your mouth, not cruel—cautious—but even that makes your thighs clench, makes your cunt flutter around him.

You swear he growls.

“God, you’re tight—like you’re trying to keep me out,” he grits, already pulling back and slamming back in. “But you won’t. You won’t, sweetheart. You fucking asked for this.”

And you did. You did, and you’d do it again. You push back into him, chasing it, loving the sting. The rhythm he sets is merciless—not fast, not sloppy—but deep. Purposeful. Like he’s rearranging you. Like your body is something he means to learn, inch by inch, ruin by ruin.

Every thrust lands hard. Precise.

His voice is in your ear now—low, fucked-out, reverent.

“You’re mine like this,” he says. “Like I could live inside you. Like I have. You feel that?”

You can’t speak.

All you can do is nod, moan, cry out with every sharp, devastating push. Your hands scramble for the wall, for something to hold onto, but there’s nothing. Just paint and breath and the echo of skin on skin. You brace your elbows, press your forehead to the plaster as he fucks you like a man possessed. Like he’s waited years. Like he’s afraid he’ll never get to again.

He’s grunting, teeth gritted, sweat slick between your bodies. His prosthetic leg anchors him, and you feel the way his body compensates—shoulders shifting, balance tilting. He doesn’t apologize for it. Doesn’t slow.

“You feel like goddamn velvet,” he growls. “Gripping me like you want to keep me.”

“I do,” you pant. “I want to hold you—fuck—keep you.”

He groans into your shoulder. “You are. You are.”

He reaches between your thighs again, fingers sliding over your clit in tight, practiced circles. You jerk, whimper, body thrashing back into him.

“Come,” he murmurs. “Come on my cock, baby. Let me feel it.”

The orgasm takes you like violence.

You clamp around him, clenching hard, pulse strobing in every limb.

You cry out—loud, raw—and your knees nearly give, but he catches you, holds you up, one arm around your waist as he keeps fucking you through it.

His thrusts stutter.

His breath breaks.

And then he growls.

He buries himself as deep as you can take, cock twitching as he spills into you, hips jerking, voice low and guttural against your skin. He bites down on your shoulder, hard enough to bruise, as he empties himself inside you, groaning like he’s come home.

You both stay there, still panting, pressed to the wall.

Sticky. Shaking. Stained with sweat and come.

Jack doesn’t pull out right away.

He keeps himself inside you, hand still firm on your stomach, his weight a shield. You feel him soften slowly, but he doesn’t step back.

He just breathes.

Like if he moves, it’ll end.

Like this is safer than anything else.

Eventually, he shifts—gently, carefully—and pulls out with a low hiss. You feel his release drip down your thigh, hot and slick. He groans at the sight of it.

Then his hands find your waist again.

He turns you.

He looks at you like a man standing in front of a fire he doesn’t want to put out. And then he kisses you. Not hungry. Not rough. Just real.

“I don’t want this to be once,” he says quietly. “Don’t let it be once.”

You reach for him, still wrecked, still pulsing.

“I opened the door,” you whisper. “You’re already inside.”

He’s not haunting you anymore.

He’s staying.

[jackabbot]

two bros lookin' at a pelvic x-ray, 2 inches apart cause they're gay

[abbotjack]

when would jack stutter, have to catch his breath? whether it be something he sees, hears, smells. what makes him take pause?

Jack Abbot doesn’t stutter for effect. He doesn’t lose his words in arguments or get flustered in tension. He was trained—trained—to speak clearly through chaos. To radio for medevac while pressure-wrapping a wound with one hand. To give the date, time, and morphine dose to a nineteen-year-old he was holding together by sheer will while bullets cracked overhead. Words, for Jack, have always been tools. Precise. Tactical. Controlled.

So when Jack stutters, it’s never performance. It’s never dramatics. It’s malfunction. It means something short-circuited so violently inside him that all his practiced scripts—the field medic instincts, the ER attending cadence, the gallows humor—all of it collapses under the weight of something real.

It’s not trauma that makes him pause. He’s acclimated to that. It’s gentleness. It’s earnestness. It's the things no one ever trained him to survive.

It starts small.

You’re in his kitchen one morning, still in sleep clothes. No makeup. You open the fridge and mutter, “We need more eggs.” Not he needs. Not you need. We.

Jack freezes.

Just for a second. Just long enough that the corner of the coffee filter burns.

Because he’s spent years learning how to survive alone. Alone is safe. Alone is math he can do. But we? We is dangerous. We has loss baked into it.

So when you say something that sounds like permanence without even realizing it, Jack looks down at the mug in his hand like he forgot how it got there.

“You okay?” you ask, still rummaging.

“Yeah, I just—” He exhales, blinks. “I—uh, it’s—fine.”

It’s not the word he’s fumbling over. It’s the feeling.

Then it escalates.

You wear his sweatshirt to the grocery store and complain about the sleeves being too long. You say it in passing—no agenda, no performance. Just an offhanded “How the hell do your arms fit in this thing?”

Jack laughs. He nods. He goes quiet.

And later, when you’re brushing your teeth, he stands in the doorway, arms crossed, watching you like he’s never seen anything more disarming.

“You know you, uh—” He pauses. Swallows. “You look good in that.”

And that stutter? It’s not nerves. It’s not lust. It’s ache. It’s how dare you look like home in my clothes when I never thought I’d have one again. It’s him tasting the fact that someone might love him with the lights on. With the ghosts still in the room.

But the worst of it—the deepest malfunction—is when you touch the part of him he hides.

It’s a Tuesday. You’re lying in bed. Jack’s out of the shower, towel around his waist, residual steam curling off his shoulders. You’re half asleep when he climbs in, careful, always careful. The prosthetic is off. His right leg ends below the knee, the skin there pale, uneven in tone, scarred in a way that doesn’t fade with time.

You don’t flinch. You never have.

You roll over, press your face into his chest, and—without thinking—run your hand down his thigh and stop at the point where flesh becomes absence. Where history lives in muscle memory.

He draws in a sharp breath—sudden, ragged—like it knocked the wind out of him.

“Sorry,” you whisper, pulling back.

But he grabs your wrist. Not to stop you. To ground himself. To hold the moment in place.

“No, I—” His voice cracks. The words don’t follow. “It’s not—I just—” He blinks fast, jaw twitching. “I wasn’t—expecting that.”

Because what you touched wasn’t just skin. It was the thing he’s ashamed of needing love through. The thing people look at and get polite. The thing strangers pretend not to notice. The thing he never believed could be part of desire. And you just touched it like it was his. Like it was safe.

That’s when Jack stutters.

When you make the part of him he’s spent years compartmentalizing feel not just accepted—but wanted.

But maybe the most dangerous kind of stutter—the kind that ruins him—isn’t even about touch.

It’s when you fight.

Not over something petty. Something real. Something that threatens the fragile trust he’s learning to build. Maybe you accuse him of shutting you out again. Of pulling back every time things get too close. And you’re right. You’re so right it guts him.

He raises his voice. Snaps something defensive. His default. Control the room. Win the logic. Out-talk the fear.

But then you say it.

“Jack, you don’t have to be perfect to be loved.”

And that sentence? That sentence breaks him.

Not because of what it is.

Because of what it isn’t.

It isn’t a demand. It isn’t a plea. It’s grace. Unconditional. Unflinching. And it makes no goddamn sense to a man who’s only ever been valued for what he can fix, what he can endure, what he can sacrifice.

So he stares at you.

“You don’t—” His voice falters. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I do,” you whisper.

And he stutters. He turns away. Rubs his jaw. Blinks hard.

Because he wants to believe you. More than anything. But his nervous system doesn’t know how to file that truth under anything but threat.

He says, “I just—” and never finishes.

Because he can’t.

Because it’s too much.

Because your love is louder than his guilt, and that is a sound Jack Abbot doesn’t know how to live through.

That’s when he stutters.

When you say something that unravels the wire he’s been holding himself together with since the war. Since the job started asking more than he had to give and he gave it anyway.

When you look at him like he is not a burden. Like he is allowed to stay.

That’s what makes Jack Abbot forget how to speak.

Not blood.

Not death.

But the unbearable mercy of being loved anyway.

[emziess]

Does it help? The Pitt - 9:00 P.M.

[muppet-medusa]

poly omegaverse au starring alpha!michael robinavitch x omega!reader x alpha!jack abbot

is that anything

[muppet-medusa]

i decided to start planning this to see what I could come up with and now i'm a dozen chapters deep in the outline for it, so........... this may actually be happening. cross your fingers.

[michaun]

THE PITT Taylor Dearden as Melissa King

[hatussy]

starving | j.a

pairing: jack abbot x f!reader warnings: smut, nsfw [18+ only], touch starved!jack, loneliness, slight sub!jack, clingy!jack, call girl!reader, male moans/whimpering, dry humping, making out like handsy/horny teenagers, jack's a mess and makes a mess of you, cowgirl, jack begs, dirty talk, desperation, squirting, word count: 5585

summary: in which jack's loneliness causes him to reach out to someone he's surprised is very understanding

author's note: further continuation of this piece. i took so long to write this because i didn't want it to be rushed. i wanted to do his character justice and i hope i achieved that. i hope y'all enjoy

oneshot | masterlist

It started with a phone call, like always. New clients had to be screened, they had to form a working relationship with you. 

You’d had your fair share of sketchy clients. Some who had tried to push you past your limits, others refusing to pay. You’d made a new rule that they always had to pay half upfront, and show they had the rest of the cash on them when you met them. If they wanted to extend the booking, they had that option, but the charge always varied depending on what they wanted to do. 

Some wanted to cuddle, engaging in pillow talk. Some wanted to prove they could make you finish again, if only to gloat. Some simply wanted the time to shower together, helping you to clean up. 

Nothing was ever free. 

There was one client you had who simply liked to talk. The company of watching a movie together, of talking about his day. 

Needless to say, Jack had become one of your favourite clients. You looked forward to his texts, asking for your availability. You always made sure to get a nice hotel. Somewhere with a comfy sofa, a huge bed, and a spectacular view. 

Jack always praised the view. 

At first, you’d assumed it was a compliment for you. He’d said it while staring out the window, watching the sun set over the city. Still, he’d looked at you—looked through you—in order to stand in front of the window. 

You stood alongside him. Muttering something about the city and the night, the peace it brought you, and the smile that had tugged the corners of his mouth had been worth it. 

One of the first things you’d noticed about Jack was that he wore a wedding band. Most of your clients weren’t as obvious with their cheating, opting to take it off, but the tan line was still there. Jack had seen you staring. Hell, he saw everything you did. He was always watching, always paying attention. He hadn’t mentioned it, but you had. 

“She passed away a few years ago,” he had confessed quietly, voice thick and gravelly like he wasn’t used to talking about her. “Can’t bring myself to take it off.”

“You don’t owe me an explanation,” you had assured him softly. 

Something about him told you everything you needed to know. The faraway look to his eyes, the weight he carried on his shoulders. From the initial phone call, you hadn’t been sure what to make of him. Now that he was in front of you, it looked like he needed a friend more than anything else. So you’d suggested a movie, something easy to watch, and he’d joined you on the bed. 

Jack had sat upright for most of the movie, and you’d made yourself comfortable lying beside him. Head near his lap, his hand aimlessly playing with your hair—like it was muscle memory. His fingertips had scratched your scalp and you’d sighed, enjoying the feeling. The comfort. The familiarity. 

Over the next few months, your meetings had been much the same. Sometimes he made a few comments, thinly veiled jokes to break the tension. Most of the time, he preferred the quiet. Knowing someone was there with him when he was stuck in his head. 

You never pushed for him to talk. Never made him feel guilty for needing a friend to sit with him, even if that friend was being paid to spend time with him. 

You enjoyed it. The break from the norm. The ease you settled into once he picked a movie to watch. 

One time he brought dinner. Something he’d made earlier in the day. He’d been chatty that day, something you noticed he did when he didn’t know how to process what was going on in his head. 

“It’s her birthday,” he’d told you. The weight of his words, the anxious fiddling with his wedding band, the meal. It all made sense. 

He’d watched you pick up the phone to call room service. You’d ordered a bottle of bubbles with three glasses, as well as three slices of cake. You did it so effortlessly that he got a little choked up. No hesitation, no awkwardness, just a patient understanding. Acknowledging the woman he was still in love with, with grace and poise. 

He’d seen you in a new light that day. Over the toast you’d made to his wife, and the care you’d shown him. The understanding that grief was a process. Healing was a process. That you saw him as a friend, not just a client. 

Jack started to talk a little more with each meeting. About his day—you’d learned he was a doctor. About his wife—his smile was always a little brighter each time. About your day—you tried not to reveal too much, but talking to him was easy. He didn’t make you feel uncomfortable. Didn’t push for details like some men did. He let you tell him what you were comfortable revealing. 

Hell, you’d even told him how you got into your line of work. He’d never passed judgement, or made you feel like you deserved better. He never suggested a change in career, but you’d told him you were taking classes and hoped one day to become a licensed child psychologist. 

“You’d be good at that,” he’d said with a smile. “There’s something about you that puts me at ease. That’s not an easy thing. Those kids would thrive with your guidance.”

“You really think so?” You’d asked. 

“I do.”

There was no doubt in his voice. It was firm, assertive, reassuring. Something you’d needed to hear but didn’t know how to go about getting it. And the fact that it came from Jack meant a lot more than you were willing to admit. 

Your body ached as you lowered yourself into the bath, iPad sitting on the tray hooked over the sides, along with a large glass of wine and some snacks. You pressed play on the screen, the intro to your comfort show starting within seconds. 

You didn’t have much time for simple pleasures these days, so you basked in the opportunity. Bubble mixture and rose oil added to the tub, the hot water soaking your aching muscles. The wine going down a treat, and the snacks curbing your hunger. 

The second episode had just started when you got a message from Jack. 

I know this is late notice, but can I see you tomorrow morning when I finish my shift? I need something to look forward to. 

I don’t have anywhere booked. Is a café okay?

You’re comfortable with that?

Absolutely, are you?

I finish at 7am. Will you find us someplace nice? 

I’ll have coffee and breakfast waiting for you. 

You sent him the name of the café you liked to frequent. You knew he worked at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital, and it was only two blocks away. It was also nearby your campus, and you had two classes tomorrow with the first one starting at 10. You didn’t think meeting Jack would be that long, but you’d at least be able to get some study done for a paper you had due. 

The bath worked wonders. You felt relaxed, a little tipsy, and had something to look forward to in the morning. Setting an alarm for six, to give yourself enough time to get ready and pack your study bag. 

By the time the morning came around, your alarm pulled you from your sleep, and you made an effort while getting ready. A little touch of makeup to feel put together, hair styled just the way you liked, and a comfy coat that tied your outfit together. You packed your bag, and then you were off. Making your way to the cafe with a few minutes to spare, knowing Jack sill hadn’t finished work yet, but that he would be there shortly.

Coffee and food was ordered, and you took up a seat at a comfortable little table near the back. Grabbing your phone to see if there were any new messages from Jack, and being delighted to see a text he’d sent half an hour ago.

Might be a little late. Had a rough night. Looking forward to seeing you.

Take your time, I’ll see you when I see you.

You sipped your coffee when it arrived, having put a hold on the food for the time being. Waiting until Jack said he was officially on his way to the cafe before you asked the staff to start on breakfast.

Jack walked through the doors a couple of minutes later, backpack hanging off one shoulder, still dressed in his dark scrubs from the hospital. He wore a soft smile when he saw you, one you easily reciprocated.

“Hey,” he greeted easily, looking like the night had tested him one too many times. Still, he dropped his bag to the floor and took a seat opposite you. 

“Hey,” you replied. “You’ve looked better.”

“Ouch,” he chuckled. “Thanks for meeting me, I know you don’t do this.”

“I had time,” you said simply. “You need a friend or a therapist today?”

Jack exhaled heavily, shifting in his seat and reaching for his coffee. “Neither. Both. I don’t know.”

You nodded sympathetically. “Do you want to talk?”

“Not about me,” he admitted. 

“You can be my sounding board for my research presentation later this week,” you decided, pulling your iPad out to flick through your notes. 

Jack looked more settled opposite you, and thanked the waitress for your meals. You gave her a polite smile, picking at a tomato before wasting no time starting your speech. 

You showed different graphs on slides to reiterate your point. Every now and then, Jack gestured to your plate, prompting you to pause and eat, but otherwise listened completely. He nodded along with facts and statistics, asked the odd question to continue along with your line of reasoning. 

When you were finished with your speech, he clapped politely, a smile gracing his face. 

“Any pointers?”

“Look more at whoever you’re giving the speech to,” he said. “Otherwise it was very good.”

You grinned as you packed your iPad away, reaching for your coffee and finishing it. Jack gestured to the empty mug. 

“Another?”

“Please.”

The remainder of your omelette had grown cold, but it was still good. When Jack rejoined you, you were finishing up your last bite. 

“So,” you started. “Bad night, huh?”

Jack sighed, scraping at the dusting off stubble along his jaw. “Yeah, something like that,” he agreed with a half-smile.

“Are you okay?” You asked softly.

“Yes.”

“Don’t lie to me,” you replied, giving him a pointed look.

He sighed. “No. We lost a vet. Young guy, did two tours overseas no problem, then gets hit by a drunk driver when he comes home. Just…hit a little too close to home.”

You nodded. He hadn’t told you much of his time with the army, but you knew that he had a history serving.

“Shit,” you cursed.  “I’m sorry. That must’ve been pretty early in your shift?”

Jack nodded. “Spent a few hours trying to contact the family. Eventually got in touch with his sister. It’s just…the worst news to receive over the phone, you know? It’s supposed to be done in person, but she won’t arrive until later today.”

“Will you be going back to speak to her?”

Jack shook his head. “I wrote a letter instead. Gave it to the dayshift to read on my behalf. That’s why I was running late; contemplating life and existence from the roof of the hospital.”

“Just don’t jump, yeah?”

He cracked a smile at that. “Would be rude, wouldn’t it?”

“That, and I don’t really have time in my schedule for a funeral,” you said, earning a genuine laugh.

“Robby said something similar.” He wore a smile. “Dayshift attending.”

“A friend?”

“A brother.”

“I’m glad you have someone who gets it,” you told him. “Thank you,” you said to the waitress who brought your coffees over. “How’s everything else going? I haven’t seen you in a minute.”

“Yeah,” he exhaled. “It’s been a bit existential.”

You didn’t say anything, giving him the time to decide if he wanted to. Instead, you sipped your coffee and watched him spin his in the saucer.

“Had a breakthrough with my therapist,” he said. “I guess I’ve been a little caught up in it.”

“You’re allowed to be,” you replied. “You look tired, Jack. Are you getting enough sleep?”

“Just a crazy shift, is all,” he told you. “I’ll go home and sleep soon.”

“Good.” You smiled. 

“Are you free tonight?”

“For you, I can be.”

There was a slight tinge of colour that blossomed on Jack’s cheeks. “If you already have plans, I get it.”

“Jack, I don’t have any plans,” you assured him. “Go home, get some sleep. I’ll book the usual room, but I’m not watching Mission Impossible again.”

“Understood,” he said, chuckling softly. 

Your day had been busy. Between your two classes, you’d attempted to record your presentation to see how long it actually was. You’d done some shopping for this evening, a little care package you’d decided to put together for Jack. 

It was what friends did, right? Something nice for each other when someone was feeling down? 

You hoped he’d appreciate it. Some nice skincare products, nothing too extraneous. Something soothing, for the days his leg hurt. Something hydrating, for the excessive hand-sanitising he does working at the hospital. Some nice chocolates from the bougie shop in town, since you knew he had a sweet tooth. A knife, because you could never have too many. Lastly, a set of cotton pyjamas. Something soft that wouldn’t irritate him, or get too hot in the warmer months. 

The basket sat on the bed of the hotel, all ready to give to him when he arrived, as you watched the news, waiting to hear back from Jack. He’d gone back to the hospital, despite it being his day off, to help with the shooting that the news was reporting. Several casualties had already been reported, with a lot of critical patients being routed to PTMC. 

From the coverage you knew it was bad. You knew he was doing the right thing by going in to help. His friends, his colleagues, would need the extra set of hands. 

So you waited anxiously, already a glass of wine deep amidst the devastation being reported, and hoped everyone who made it to the hospital survived. 

Sorry to make you wait. Have you eaten? I’ll grab something. On my way. 

Food is a good idea, grab anything you feel like. In our usual room. Did you think of a movie to watch?

No, but I need something lighthearted or funny. Your choice. I’ll see you soon. 

The School of Rock was waiting for you to press play by the time Jack arrived. For the second time today, he looked exhausted, and was still dressed in his dark scrubs. 

Surprisingly, he brought you in for a hug, holding you tightly, as if he needed to know you were real. You rested your head against his chest, arms wrapping around his waist. Not thinking twice about the unexpected hug, or that he took a few shaky breaths. 

“Hey,” you greeted softly, only pulling back when he did. You didn’t notice he’d been balancing a pizza box in one hand, too wrapped up in the hug to register it. “Come in.”

Jack excused himself to the bathroom. He left the door open, splashing some water on his face, while you sat back on the bed and flipped the pizza box open. You were halfway through a slice when he joined you, dropping his backpack by the door and taking his shoes off. 

“Got you something,” you told him, gesturing to the basket you’d moved to the desk under the tv. Jack turned his attention to it, pulling it towards him. “Felt like you needed a pick me up, and that was before you went back into work.”

He chuckled softly. “Are those pyjamas?”

“Yeah. It was that or a teddy bear with some corny phrase embroidered onto the stomach,” you replied, earning another laugh. “You can shower if you want…change into them?”

“Later,” he promised, the smile still on his face. “Thank you.”

“Of course.”

He doesn’t judge the movie you picked. In fact, he’s grateful for the choice. Settling in beside you on the bed, the pizza box between you. Slices slowly disappeared while it was still hot, and silence washed over you as the movie played. 

Jack shuffled around to move the near-empty box, and you watched him remove his prosthetic and massage the stump as if it pained him. Brows drawn together, eyes closed, as if he did this all the time. 

Of course, it was the first time he’d done it in front of you. 

You reached for his free hand. “You okay?”

“Yeah, sorry, it—”

“Leave it off,” you told him. “If it’s bothering you, leave it off.”

He stared like he wasn’t sure what to make of you. Like he was in over his head. Out of his depth. And maybe he was, just a little bit. It was you, after all. Always understanding. Always supportive, never judgemental. 

Maybe he did see you differently. Maybe the months of friendship had caused something to build—something real. He certainly felt like it, but the nagging voice in his head told him this was your job. That he was only a client to you. 

He hadn’t seen you for two months because the last meeting you’d had, you’d refused to take his money. 

“We’re friends, Jack. Friends don’t charge each other for their time,” you’d told him. 

There’d been no mention of money this morning. No talk of what tonight would cost him. You were throwing him off his rhythm. He felt uneasy, but not in a bad way. In a way that had his heart rate spike whenever he thought of you. 

The same way he felt when he first met his late wife. 

Jack swallowed thickly, trying to overcome the lump in his throat. “Okay.”

You smiled that sweet smile and patted the spot on the bed next to him. The spot that he shuffled towards, leaving no space between you. And still, you moved his arm to drape it around your shoulders, hand settling on his thigh, just above his knee. 

His pulse thundered in his ears, and he was looking at you. Still. Like you might disappear in front of him at any second. Like this was easy for you, comfortable, and yet you weren’t anywhere near as nervous as he was. 

Maybe he was imagining things. Maybe it had been too long since he’d held another person, that he was seeing signs that weren’t there. 

The thoughtful gift—he was a client after all. Maybe you did that for everyone when they were having a tough time of it. 

The ease you displayed physical affection—again, maybe he was still only a client to you. Maybe this was all just part of the services you offered. 

Jack was tense. He felt like he couldn’t relax, couldn’t enjoy this for what it was. His brain was telling him to be reasonable, to not make this a bigger thing than it was, but his gut told him to take the leap. Even if it didn’t pay off, he would then have a definitive answer. 

The tapping on his leg was distracting, but it was working. You knew what he needed and did something to distract him. To pull him back to the present after getting lost in his head. 

“Is that Morse code telling me to breathe?”

Jack’s bewilderment was genuine and you couldn’t help but laugh softly. 

“Yeah. Figured talking might spook you,” you replied. “You went all tense and stopped breathing for a second.”

“Really? Sorry,” he replied, making a point to exhale loudly. “Army brat?” 

You hummed. “High school wasn’t challenging enough, so I taught myself to read braille and communicate in Morse code.”

“Nerd,” he commented, earning a small laugh. 

“Shut up and watch the movie,” you muttered, playfully pinching his leg. 

You saw his smile soften in the corner of your eye, but he didn’t immediately turn back to the tv. You tapped out w-e-i-r-d-o on his leg, only for him to tap back on your shoulder I-k-n-o-w. 

He only turned his attention back to the tv when you smiled, resting your head on his shoulder, his fingers trailing aimlessly up and down your arm. It was comfortable. It felt good—natural. It made him feel warm inside. And that wasn’t something that happened often, so he allowed himself to enjoy it, if only for a moment. 

Jack’s hand found its way to your head, fingertips lightly scratching at your scalp. 

“Keep doing that and I’ll start panting,” you mumbled. “It feels good.”

He hummed, making no sign of stopping. You sighed softly, contently, and snuggled a little closer to him. Hand flexing against his leg as you shifted. 

He smiled at you cuddled into his side, and was pressing a kiss to the top of your head like he did it all the time. 

“You always smell so good,” he spoke softly, resisting the urge to take a huge, obvious whiff. 

“You smell like hospital.”

“What’s that smell like?”

“Sanitizer. And sandalwood, but I think that’s just your cologne.”

He tucked his chin, sniffing his chest. “That’s sandalwood?”

“That’s delicious,” you replied with a laugh. 

“Delicious, huh?”

“Don’t let it go to your head,” you tsk’d, fighting back a smile. 

Jack hummed. “Too late.”

He was tapping out a message on your arm before he lost the nerve. 

I-w-a-n-t-2-k-i-s-s-u

You were turning to look at him before he finished his message, hand cupping his cheek and turning his head towards yours. Your gaze dropped to his lips, gasping as he cupped the back of your head and met your lips with his own. 

There was an urgency to his kiss, a desperation that leached into you. Your hand on his thigh gripped it a little tighter, your eyes closing at the rush that washed over you. The relief. 

You twisted a little more, trying to get a little more comfortable. Swinging your leg over his waist, his hand settled on your hip, aiding your movement as you straddled him. 

He groaned appreciatively, sinking deeper into the kiss. Into you, like you were a lifeline. You gasped as he tugged your hair, a sultry moan rumbling in your chest. His lips turned up, smiling against yours, only for him to gasp as you rolled your hips. 

Wicked, he thought. Struggling to gain composure as you did it again, nipping at his bottom lip. 

“Fuck,” he cursed, parting his lips so his tongue could meet your own. 

You couldn’t remember the last time anyone had kissed you like this. Like the tension had built so much—grown so hot—that you felt frantic. Kissing Jack was as thrilling as you thought it would be. The way he cupped your head, tugged your hair. The way he gripped your hip, fingertips digging into your flesh as he guided your movements.

And he was just as into it as you were, his erection pressing against your core, straining against his scrubs.

You wanted him to be the one to initiate things further. He hadn’t mentioned any specifics, but from how raw his grief was about losing his wife, you assumed this was the first time he was even kissing another woman. You didn’t want to do anything to spook him—he deserved to be comfortable—to not be pushed, even if your body was begging your brain not to listen to itself.

“I want this to last,” Jack mumbled. “Fuck, it won’t if you keep this up.”

You giggled, cupping his face as you kissed him slowly. “We have all night, Jack.”

You slowly, deliberately, rolled your hips, watching his eyes screw shut as he groaned. Both hands settled on your hips, anchoring you in place, stopping your oh-so-sweet torture.

“God, you’re the devil,” he said breathily.

You hummed, sliding your hands down his chest until you were tugging at the hem of your own shirt. You were more than comfortable being the only one naked—or semi-naked. Jack watched with hooked eyes and bated breath as you pulled the material over your head, throwing it somewhere across the room.

You’d find it later, or you wouldn’t. Maybe Jack would take it home as an excuse to see you again. That thought made you almost giddy.

Jack moaned your name, hands skimming up your sides. Thumbs brushing the underside of your breasts.

“Jack.” You sounded desperate even to yourself, but he looked at you so hungrily, so ready to devour, that you lost your train of thought. 

“Say my name again,” he pleaded.

You slowly rocked your hips, placing your hands on his and moving them to cup your breasts. “Jack,” you repeated, feeling your nipples harden under his palms. He looked like he was going to pass out, fingers squeezing your breasts, head dipping to capture a nipple in his mouth. “Oh, fuck. Jack.”

He growled lowly, the vibration sending shivers to your core. You stilled, legs squeezing either side of his waist, hands flying to his hair to tug it as his teeth grazed your nipple.

You hissed as he lightly bit down, back arching your chest further towards him. He closed his eyes and hummed, lightly raking his nails down your back. You shivered, skin prickling at the sensation.

Jack smiled as you tugged his shirt, hitching up the black scrub tee, as well as his pale undershirt. Your fingers trailed over his abdomen, his lips seeking yours once more as you worked his shirts higher. Jack groaned, briefly breaking the kiss to tear the shirts over his head.

His chest was spotted with freckles, a mixture of dark and light. You trailed your fingers over his collarbones, fingertips tickled by the hair covering his pecs. He leant back against the pillows, watching you curiously explore every protrusion, every defect. Evidence of his time in the military was more than just the prosthetic leg, but also the shrapnel scars and muscles.

God, he was magnificent—so fucking beautiful.

Your breath hitched as you felt his hips flex, cock straining desperately against his scrubs.

“Tell me what you want, Jack.”

It was a simple request,  yet one you weren’t sure was going to be answered. You thought for sure this was all that would happen, that his mind would win out and put a stop to this. You desperately didn’t want that to happen, but the ball was in his court—it had to be.

Jack’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, trying to process your words. Your hands settled around his head, fingers twirling his hair, scratching his scalp.

“You,” he eventually breathed out, like he was afraid of his own answer. “I want you.”

He sought your lips, slower this time—more calculated, like he wasn’t afraid to want. The desire still burned beneath your skin, one that was more intense, yet every bit as frantic—as dangerous.

The temperature in the room felt like it had been dialled right up. Perspiration dotted at your temples, Jack’s body just as hot beneath your touch. You rocked your hips slowly, gasping as he pinched one of your nipples, his hips rocking up to meet yours. 

“Jack.” 

Sinful, that was the only way Jack could describe it. The way you touched him, the way you kissed him. God, he was in over his head and about to cum in his pants like a starving teenaged boy. 

“Don’t leave,” he pleaded, watching you put distance between the two of you. 

“I’m not,” you assured him, taking a second to tenderly cup his cheek. “I’m getting a condom.”

Jack felt stupid, laughing deliriously as you grabbed a condom from your bag. His chest rose and fell heavily, watching your tits sway with each step. How they hung when you bent over, and how good your ass looked in your pants. 

The foil packet was taunting him as you walked back to the bed. His cock strained agonisingly against his pants, desperate for relief. He lazily palmed himself, watching your eyes drop to his lap. 

You bit your lip and he groaned as he watched you tuck your thumbs into the side of your pants, slowly wiggling them down your body. 

“You’re killing me,” he panted. 

Jack watched you crawl towards him on the bed, hand roughly squeezing his cock as he took in your soft, supple body. Each dip, each mark, all signs of a life lived. 

You reached for his pants, untying the drawstring that kept them cinched tight at his waist. Jack exhaled heavily through his nose, watching your face for any sign of hesitation. Any sign that this wasn’t something you wanted. 

He didn’t see it. 

He felt your soft touch ghosting over his pelvic bone. He lifted his hips, helping you remove his pants, before he was pulling you into his lap again. You grinned as you straddled his waist, nothing between you now as you rolled your hips. 

Jack was a goner. The heat of your cunt wrapped around him, the way you kissed along his jaw. His fingers flexed against your waist, digging into your flesh, as your arousal coated his hard length. 

“Fucking hell,” he cursed lowly, desperately trying to gain some self-control. He felt way too close to the edge, too far gone, but you were everywhere. You were everything. “Please.”

“Please what, Jack?” You asked softly, nipping at his ear. You hummed as he gripped your hips a little tighter, an arm snaking around your lower back and holding you still. Body flush against his own. 

“I need you.” 

His voice sounded foreign to him. So husky, so distraught, so wildly aroused, but you looked exactly how he felt. Horny, needy, desperate. God, and here you were, sitting in his lap, bare pussy sliding against his cock, and he couldn't think—couldn’t breathe. 

Your lips found his, frantic. Teeth clashing, mouths bruising, tongues tasting like there was no time left. Like this was the pinnacle—the crux—his be all or end all. 

You fumbled with the foil wrapper, Jack’s arm snaking around your waist to keep you still–pinned against him.

“God, listen to you,” he said. “So fucking wet.”

Sinful. Jack couldn’t even think straight. 

“Jack,” you whined. 

He took the condom from you. You shuffled back, drawing him in for a kiss as he rolled the rubber onto his length. 

His fingers sought the spot between your legs that was drenched. The sloppy wetness was like music to his ear, reiterating that this wasn’t just one-sided. That you were as far gone as he was. 

He raised you, hands firmly gripping your ass as he held your gaze. Your hands locked behind his head, bottom lip taken between your teeth as his tip nestled at your entrance. 

When you lowered yourself onto him, neither of you dared breathe. The air felt electric, your bodies anchored together. 

Jack’s groan rumbled in his chest, rippling up his throat. “Fuck, baby.”

Your head was swimming. You inhaled raggedly, pressing your lips to Jack’s in an effort to ground you. But he was moaning, a delicious sound that had you clenching down around him. 

“Fuck, move. God, please,” he begged, voice strained as he desperately tried to hold his orgasm at bay. “Baby.”

You rocked your hips, pushing him back further into the pillows so you could raise your hips and sink yourself down onto him again. Hand splayed against his throat, lips pressed to the corner of his mouth. He cupped the back of your head, the other arm still wrapped tightly around your lower back. His own hips bucked, desperately seeking your thrusts. 

You gasped, cradling his head to your chest as you rose to your knees and he fucked up into you, the sound of his balls slapping your slick cunt flooding the room. 

“Ja-aa-aack,” you moaned, a desperate giggling falling past your lips. “I’m so close.”

“Shit,” he cursed, hips stilling as the hand that cupped your head slid between your bodies. Thick fingers circling your sensitive bundle of nerves. “Come for me, baby.”

You were there. You were seeing stars, and Jack was relentless. His fingers, his cock, his words. Your head swam as you moaned, as your body reached its breaking point and he pushed you over the edge. 

Your body was a cacophony of euphoria. The tightness in your abdomen that snapped. The moans rippling from your chest from the man you cradled in your arms. The way he held you, even with your tidal wave of arousal surged from you. Unprepared. Unrelenting. Unwavering. 

“Fuck, fuck,” he groaned, his hips stuttering as he held you tight, bodies joined together. And still, you throbbed around him. Body overcome with aftershocks—convulsions. The way you squeezed him just right as he spilled inside the condom, clinging to you desperately like he could lose himself if he dared let you go. 

It took a minute, maybe a couple, before your breaths calmed. Synchronised. His hand tenderly stroking your hair, bodies completely spent. 

B-a-t-h you tapped on his shoulder. 

Y-e-s he tapped back, pressing a kiss to your forehead, but neither of you making the effort to move just yet. 

[lbelongiiu]

DANA EVANS | THE PITT 1.08 "2:00 P.M"