Hello my loves!!! Welcome to my account it’s going to basically full of memes, art and writings from different fandoms. Here’s a link to my Ao3 account if you want, all the writing pieces I write here will be put into Ao3 as well.
Nachowifigorl….. is she/her, bisexual, multi fandom, uni student, loves tv shows & movies, reader, avid sports watcher, physically a virgin but mentally a slut. I’m at uni and I work part time so I’ll be writing whenever I can, I’ll do my best to post regularly.
pairing: clark kent x f!reader | genre: smut | wc: 3.1k | KENT <- collab m.list (be sure to check out the other lovely fics & stay tuned for more!!!)
summary: clark can’t leave you alone—even when he really, really should. the pressure builds… and something has to give.
warnings: explicit sexual content (18+), clark cusses 2.5 times, unprotected sex (p in v), pussy drunk!clark, rough sex, loss of control, furniture breaking, overstimulation, nsfw themes + language, reader called “baby”
a/n: clark breaks the bathtub while fucking you. that’s it. that’s the fic. A BIG THANK YOU to @tw1sters for including me in this collab!!! i had so much fun writing this and can’t wait to read everyone else’s!! hope you guys enjoy! <3 //graphics: @sparklingsin — thank you ash for the beautiful header below. still can’t get over how talented you are!! 🤍🤍
Clark was supposed to be leaving for work.
Well, that had been the plan, at least. He was mostly dressed for it too, shirt crisp, tie half-adjusted, sleeves buttoned, everything in place except the last few steps that would actually get him out the door.
His shoes waited by the couch. His jacket was draped neatly over the dining room chair. Just a few final adjustments and he’d be gone.
It should have been simple. Really, it should have. But when it came to you, simple had never been something he could count on.
You were minding your own business. Relaxing. Existing. Apparently, that alone was enough to ruin whatever focus he had left.
Clark stood at the sink, adjusting his tie in the mirror, fingers working at the knot with practiced precision. He fixed it once, then again, and again, like something about it still wasn’t sitting right, even though it had been perfect the first time.
Behind him, the tub sat visible in the reflection, and you were there, sunk low in the water, completely at ease. Steam filled the room in slow curls, softening the edges of everything, including you.
Clark’s eyes kept flicking toward you in the mirror, quick at first, then slower. Then longer. And longer. Long enough that he’d forget what he was doing entirely before dragging his gaze back up to his own reflection like that might somehow fix it.
He swallowed hard and forced his attention back to his tie.
Focus.
Clark straightened, running a hand through his hair before adjusting his glasses, eyes fixed on his reflection to anchor him there, to keep him moving, to keep him from—
His gaze slipped again.
Slower this time. Heavier in a way where he couldn’t even pretend it was accidental.
The water moved when you shifted your legs, the surface breaking just enough to catch and follow, offering brief, shifting glimpses before settling again. Droplets clung to your shoulders and throat, slipping slowly over your skin each time you moved, tracing small paths he couldn’t stop noticing. The whole room felt warm with it, thick with quiet and water and the faint scent of whatever you’d poured into the tub.
You weren’t even doing anything, not really, which only made it worse. Clark couldn’t seem to look anywhere else, or think of anything else for that matter.
That didn’t stop him from trying, though.
And God, did he try.
Clark let out a slow, steady breath, deeper than it needed to be, like it might push whatever this was back down where it belonged.
“Alright, baby,” he said, voice quieter than usual. “I have to go.”
He turned and stepped closer as he said it, already leaning down before the sentence had fully settled between you. It was supposed to be quick. Normal. Just one last soft kiss before work.
Clark’s hand braced on the edge of the tub as his lips met yours, gentle and familiar, something that should’ve ended there but didn’t. You were warm, your mouth slightly parted, soft where you gave under him without resistance.
He lingered a second too long, catching the faint drag of your lower lip before pulling back just barely, his breath brushing yours.
His gaze dropped to your mouth again—and stayed there.
Something tightened in his chest, heavier now, pushing up from where he’d tried to bury it.
He kissed you again.
Longer this time.
And then again, deeper, his mouth pressing into yours with intent, the kiss opening, getting away from him, losing whatever restraint had been left in it. His hand on the tub clenched tighter, grounding himself in the strain while the other came up to your face, thumb pressing along your jaw as he pulled you into him.
He should have stopped. He knew that. Knew that this was the last thing he should be doing right now.
The thought flickered, thin and useless, drowned out by the way you felt, by the way your lips moved with his, by the immediate reaction in his body. Heat hit him low and sharp, his cock caught tight beneath his slacks, the pressure there before he could even pretend otherwise.
Still, he didn’t pull away.
His mouth stayed on yours, each kiss deepening with every second he didn’t stop. His breathing shifted, uneven, heavier now, pulling through his nose in quiet bursts that brushed hot against your skin. Every inhale came tighter than the last, tension winding through his chest instead of easing down.
You laughed softly against his mouth, a quiet, breathy sound that brushed his lips when you spoke. “You’re gonna get all wet,” you murmured, the words light, amused, as if this was still something easy. Still playful.
His response came in the way his mouth pressed harder to yours, more insistent, the kiss turning urgent without pause. His hand flexed against the edge of the tub again, grip tightening, fingers pressing into the porcelain for resistance, for something solid to hold while everything else slipped further out of his control.
A faint sound gave under his palm.
Small. Thin. Barely there.
A hairline crack split through the porcelain, too quiet for anyone but him to hear, but he caught it all the same. That faint give beneath his hand, the smallest surrender under pressure, something yielding when it shouldn’t have.
It echoed too closely. Too much like the way his restraint had been going, not all at once, but splitting, fracturing, giving in pieces he wasn’t getting back.
He didn’t notice himself leaning closer at first. It just happened gradually, his weight shifting forward, his body following where his mouth already was, where his focus had narrowed completely.
The edge of the tub pressed into his body, then more and more. He kept going. Closer. Further. Until there wasn’t really a line left to cross.
His weight tipped past the edge before either of you could slow it, one knee dropping into the water, then the other, his mouth still fixed to yours. The bath surged around him, spilling hard over the sides as his clothes soaked through all at once. His shirt and pants stuck to him in seconds, ruined and heavy, water streaming from the fabric and pooling across the floor.
It didn’t matter. None of it did. The mess, the sound, the fact that he had been halfway out the door minutes ago. All of it dropped away under one singular focus.
You.
His hands were already on you, firm, urgent, pulling you up and into him with a kind of need that made it clear he was past the point of caring how it looked. Water sloshed violently with the movement, spilling over again, your body shifting against his as he maneuvered you onto his lap.
It wasn’t neat or careful. It was messy, rushed, a little clumsy in the way urgency always was with him when he got like this. Clark moved fast, driven by how badly he needed you there, by how little patience he had left to get you there any other way.
You startled, breath catching sharply, the surprise obvious in the way your hands braced against him, the way your body reacted to the suddenness of it. He didn’t ease up, didn’t even think about slowing down. His mouth found yours again, rougher, open, all urgency now. He sank lower into the tub beneath you, water shifting hard around his body, soaking him through completely, but it didn’t register. Not with you on him.
His hands moved like he couldn’t pick a place, like he needed all of you at once. One slid up your back, broad and hot, pressing you down into him, fingers spreading between your shoulder blades before sweeping lower. The other traced down your side, slow for half a second before taking hold of your hip, then shifting again.
Higher.
His hand closed over your breast, fingers curling around the weight of it as he squeezed. His thumb moved slowly over your nipple, pressing, rolling, pulling a breathy reaction from you. The sound you made hit his mouth, and he swallowed it instantly, tongue pushing in to taste it, to take more of you anywhere he could.
His hips worked beneath you with no real attempt to hide it anymore, rolling up against you with purpose. His cock pressed against you through the soaked fabric of his slacks, the friction pulling a low, strained sound from him as it jumped against you, needy and insistent. His hands settled harder at your hips, keeping you right where he needed you.
Steam hung thick around you both, heat wrapping tight, softening everything around the edges until even his glasses began to fog.
It registered for half a second—
That was all it got.
Clark’s hand shot up, ripping the glasses from his face before they could fog over completely. He tossed them aside without looking, the frames skidding across the bathroom tile with a sharp crack that failed to pull his attention.
His mouth crashed into yours again, deeper, sloppier, breath hot and wrecked as his hands went right back to you, gripping, sliding, squeezing like any space between his hands and your body was too much.
Clark wasted no time. One hand dropped from you just long enough to fumble at his belt, fingers clumsy with urgency as he yanked it loose. The buckle knocked dully against itself before he shoved his pants down, fabric resisting under the water, soaked and clinging as he forced it out of the way beneath you. The movement jostled you both, water splashing up and over the edge again, but he didn’t pause, didn’t dare break the rhythm of his mouth against yours.
He didn’t give you the usual slow slide, didn’t ease you into it like he normally would. The second he freed himself, he was already pulling you closer, lining himself up more by need than patience, his breath catching the moment he found you before pushing in all at once.
The stretch hit immediately, sudden and full, pulling a cry from you as your body clenched around him. Clark groaned at the feel of it, low and broken, his head dipping forward like the sensation had knocked the rest of him loose.
“Shi—”
The word broke apart in his throat, cut off into something rougher.
There was no time to adjust, no chance for your body to catch up before his hands found your hips and started moving you again. His hands locked onto you, fingers sinking in as he guided you into motion, pulling you down onto him, lifting you back up, setting a pace that hit hard and fast right from the start.
Water sloshed violently with every movement, spilling over the edge in steady waves, the sound of it mixing with breath and skin and the wet slide of your bodies coming together again and again.
It didn’t take long before you caught it, matched it—
Then took it.
Your hands twisted into his soaked button-up, fingers curling tight in the fabric as you shifted your weight and rode him properly, not just following anymore. You bounced on him, harder now, faster, the angle changing as you ground down between each lift, dragging him deeper every time you came back down. The friction got to him immediately.
A ragged sound slipped out of him, as you took over, his hands braced at your hips while your pace started pulling him apart. Each movement worked more out of him, left him less steady, less able to hide how badly you had him.
You felt too good.
Too tight, too warm, too perfect around him, every bounce pulling another rough sound from him, every grind making his grip tighten.
He was already gone.
Fucked out in a way that stripped him down to instinct, to reaction, to nothing but the feel of you working him over. He could feel it bleeding into everything else too, that lack of control, the way heat built behind his eyes each time you sank down, the way his strength kept threatening to slip into his hands where they held you. Even the air leaving him came out wrong now, too hot, too wrecked.
He tried to keep it all in check, tried to rein it in before it got away from him.
Clark’s jaw tightened, breath snagging as his hands clung to you with a care the rest of him had no room for. Everything in him wanted to push harder, take more, fuck up into you with all the strength he kept buried under skin and restraint. He held it back by inches, barely, muscles locked beneath you while his touch stayed careful through sheer force alone.
It worked.
Mostly.
Until you leaned forward.
Your arms slid around him, pulling him close, pressing your body flush against his as his breath broke hard in his chest. The sound of his name left you in a low, wrecked moan, dragged straight out of you with the roll of your hips, each one locking tighter around him.
“Baby—” he tried, the word breaking halfway through, strained, like the start of a warning he already knew wouldn’t survive the next second.
You didn’t slow down, didn’t give him the space to finish it, and he didn’t fight for it either. The warning lost shape in the way you kept moving, in the fact that he didn’t want you to stop at all.
Your hips drove down again and again, relentless, the pressure building with every movement, taking him deeper each time, too much and not enough all at once. It stacked on him fast, sensation piling as his hands dug into your waist.
And then your hips sank lower.
One deep, filthy grind.
It pressed him all the way in and held him there, your weight settling fully, the drag of it hitting something sharp and exact that tore straight through whatever control he had left.
Clark’s entire body seized before a loud, guttural groan ripped out of him as he came hard, hips jerking up into you on instinct.
His hand slammed down with it, the force splintering through the side of the tub hard enough to break a chunk loose. Porcelain gave way beneath his palm, the side splitting open as water flooded through the gap and rushed across the floor.
At the same time, his eyes flashed.
Just for a split second.
A flare of heat vision shot wide, too sudden for him to catch, striking the metal faucet behind you with enough force to shatter it clean. The pipe split with a harsh snap, water bursting out hot and pressurized, hissing into the room and adding to the chaos.
“Shit—”
His eyes squeezed shut instantly, jaw clenching hard as he tried to rein it back in, like he could force himself under control if he just held tight enough. His arms wrapped around you, pulling you in, locking you against him as another rough groan tore out of his chest, muffled against your skin.
Water poured around you now, from the split-open side of the tub, from the broken pipe, soaking everything, flooding the tile, but he didn’t stop.
He couldn’t.
Your reaction caught somewhere between your lungs and your throat, a choked inhale, a sound that never fully formed as the pace hit too fast, too hard. Your body tried to respond, hands tightening on him, fingers gripping into soaked fabric, but every attempt got swallowed by the next thrust, the next snap of his hips that stole whatever you were about to say.
The break in the tub shifted everything, the side giving way enough to let his legs spread wider beneath you, changing the angle completely. He felt it and used it without hesitation, hips bucking up into you even as he was still coming.
He kept you pressed to him, hands locked at your hips as he fucked up into you through the broken rush of water, through the soaked mess around you, through the wreckage of everything he’d already let go too far.
“I’m sorry—” he gritted out, the words catching as his hips snapped again. “I’ll fix it—I promise—just—” His hands pressed harder into your hips, breath shuddering hot between you.
That was the only thing left in his head.
Need.
His pace changed, not easing, only deepening, his body rising to meet yours as he dragged you down against him in heavy rolls that kept him buried inside you while he chased the feeling again and again. His hands moved with it, guiding the motion, making you feel every inch of him as he ground up hard, breath breaking with each grind.
Clark forced his eyes open, pulling himself back into it, into the moment, into you. His brows pulled tight immediately, mouth parting on a ragged breath as his gaze dropped between you, locking onto where your bodies met. He watched the way you took him, the way he disappeared inside you with every movement, and the sight tore another wrecked sound from his chest.
The reaction chased up his spine just as fast, too much, too immediate, and his head tipped back on instinct, eyes squeezing shut again before it could go any further. His jaw clenched, teeth grinding as he tried to contain it, tried to fight that heat building fast and dangerous behind his eyes again. It came back stronger, hotter, threatening to spill if he lost even a fraction more control.
But that didn’t stop him.
“Keep—” his voice faltered, breath catching, “keep going—don’t—”
You could see how badly he was fighting it. It was there in the hard set of his jaw, in the faint tremor running through his hands, in the way his breathing refused to settle even after everything. The pressure hadn’t eased. If anything, it had gotten worse.
Your mouth parted, instinct kicking in, ready to ask if he was sure—but he caught it.
Maybe it was the way your hips stilled for half a second. Maybe it was the breath you pulled in, that slight pause before you spoke. Whatever it was, he felt it instantly, his hands locking at your hips hard enough to keep you there.
“Don’t—fuck—don’t stop,” he groaned.
His hips ground up as he pulled you down harder, the motion breaking his words into something rougher, something he barely seemed to realize had left him.
The edge of it cracked just as fast as it came.
His voice dropped in sync with your hips, the tone softer but no less strained—
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IT’S NOT FUNNY IT’S VERY LOGICAL THAT HE WOULD HAVE ADJUSTED TO LIVING LIFE WHILE HE WAS IN SPACE BECAUSE IT’S DIFFERENT FROM EARTH BUT I CAN’T FUCKING BREATHE
Summary: You were trained to be a weapon—silent, precise, untouchable. A swan that bites, a peacock that dazzles only after the strike. Trained by women who believed softness was a lie and love a liability, you learned to move silently, to kill without leaving a trace. You were never meant to want. Only to execute. Jason Todd sees you and knows immediately: you don’t soften. You consume. You meet like survivors circling the same wound—watchful, armed, too close. What grows between you isn’t tenderness. It’s hunger, pressure, and inevitability. Love doesn’t bloom here. It overflows. And when the world comes for what they made—you don’t run. You devour.
Tw: this fic has themes of Graphic violence, blood/gore, death (both canon and non-cannon ), trafficking, PTSD, possessive behavior, explicit language, eventual smut and implied mental health. DEAD DOVE. DO NOT EAT
(Masterlist) CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE: WHEN HOME BURNS PT. 2
The Plume Palace was dying in real time.
Flames roared through ancient halls, devouring silk banners and centuries of history. Smoke choked the mountain air, thick and black, turning the night into a choking inferno. Explosions still thundered in the distance as secondary arsenals cooked off. The once-sacred courtyards were now slaughter grounds—stone slick with blood, bodies sprawled in broken heaps.
You and Jason moved through the chaos like two predators cut from the same violent cloth. Your rifle was up, eyes scanning every shadow. Jason stayed glued to your flank, shotgun barking whenever a Vale or LexCorp soldier dared show their face. You didn’t waste rounds. When one got too close, you closed the distance—claws extended, ripping through tactical armor like it was paper. A soldier raised his rifle; you caught the barrel, twisted, and drove your claws straight through his throat. Blood sprayed hot across your face. You took his spare magazines without blinking, slamming them into your vest as you kept moving.
Another tried to flank. You spun, dismembered his arm at the elbow with a brutal swipe, then put two rounds through his visor before he could scream.
Jason glanced at you—half-impressed, half-worried.
“You’re not even breathing hard.”
You didn’t answer. Your focus was razor-sharp, every sense tuned to the nightmare around you.
You stepped into the main courtyard.
And paused.
Your rifle snapped up instantly, barrel aimed at the rooftop of the burning eastern hall.
There she was.
Jia.
Casually perched on the edge of a collapsing roof like she was watching a street performance. One eye still covered by that sleek black patch, the other gleaming with unhinged delight. She whistled—sharp, mocking—then slow-clapped, the sound cutting through the roar of flames.
“Bravo,” she called down, voice dripping with venomous glee. “Look at you. All grown up and ripping throats like the good old days. Lady Dracula’s back in the house.”
You didn’t lower the rifle.
“Get down here and say that to my face.”
Jia grinned wider, legs swinging like a child on a swing.
“Oh, I would. But this view is just too good. All that fire… all that blood… it suits you.”
Jason shifted beside you, shotgun trained.
“Jason,” you said without looking at him, voice low and deadly. “Go. Help the others.”
He hesitated, grip tightening on his weapon.
“I’m not leaving you with her.”
You finally glanced at him—eyes glowing faint green at the edges.
“I have her. Go.”
He searched your face for half a second, jaw clenched. Then he nodded once—reluctant—and melted into the smoke toward the lower levels.
Jia laughed.
“Sending your little guard dog away? How sweet.”
The second Jason disappeared, you moved.
Like lightning.
You switched weapons mid-stride—dropping the rifle for the suppressed SMG slung across your chest—and opened fire. Rounds stitched across the rooftop where Jia had been. She was already moving, flipping off the edge with reckless grace, landing in a roll that carried her into the smoke.
You pursued.
The fight was savage.
Jia was chaos—fast, unpredictable, laughing even as you clipped her shoulder and blood sprayed. She threw knives from hidden sleeves, one grazing your cheek. You closed the distance in a blur, slamming her into a burning pillar. Embers rained down as you drove your knee into her stomach. She gasped but still grinned.
“You know what the best part is?” she wheezed, blood on her teeth. “Your mother screamed so pretty when we dragged her out. And that little sister of yours… Blaire, right? Her cries were like music. High and sweet. I bet she begged just like you did when you burned—”
You snapped.
No warning. No thought.
Your claws extended fully—long, razor-sharp—and you drove your entire hand straight through her chest.
Jia’s eyes widened in shock. A wet, choking gasp escaped her as you twisted, feeling ribs crack and organs tear. Blood poured hot over your wrist, down your arm, splattering across your face and chest.
You ripped your hand free in one brutal pull.
Jia dropped like a broken doll, eyes glassy, mouth still open in a final, silent scream.
For a moment you stood over her—chest heaving, claws dripping, fangs fully extended. The old hunger roared back to life. The taste of blood on your lips was copper and salt and satisfaction. You dragged your tongue across the back of your hand, licking a streak of red clean without thinking. Lady Dracula, they’d called you in the underground pits for a reason.
The feral part of you purred.
Then you heard footsteps.
Jason rounded the corner, shotgun up, eyes widening at the sight of you standing over Jia’s corpse, blood painting your face like war markings.
He didn’t flinch.
But he saw it—the shift in you. The hunger. The monster barely leashed.
“You….good?” he asked carefully.
You wiped your mouth with the back of your hand, smearing red across your cheek.
“I’m fine.”
You weren’t.
————
MEANWHILE….
Bruce, Tim, Dick, and Damian moved through more of the collapsing underground passages with grim purpose. Justice League backup had arrived—Green Arrow and Black Canary providing cover fire as they evacuated the surviving girls.
Tim scanned the group, voice gentle but urgent.
“Is there a girl named Blaire? Small, dark hair, about nine?”
The protective line shifted. One of the older girls shook her head, eyes wide with fear.
“She was with the younger ones… but they took some when they breached the second chamber. We tried to stop them—”
A distant explosion rocked the tunnel.
Dust rained from the ceiling.
Bruce’s voice was calm steel.
“We’re moving. Now. Stay together. And you must be quiet.”
The evacuation contuined—fragile, terrified children being herded through collapsing stone corridors while League remnants and League backup fought a desperate rearguard.
But no one had seen Blaire.
Not yet.
————
Back in the burning courtyard, you stood over Jia’s body, blood still dripping from your claws, the taste of it lingering on your tongue.
The palace groaned around you as another wing collapsed in flames.
Jason watched you carefully—rifle lowered but ready.
Then your comm crackled.
Tim’s voice, strained:
“We’ve got most of the girls—but we can’t find Blaire. She’s not with the group.”
Your blood ran cold.
The feral hunger in your veins sharpened into something far more dangerous.
Pure, protective rage.
You looked at Jason, eyes glowing bright green now.
“Then we tear this place apart until we do.”
The hunt had just become something far more personal.
And heaven help anyone still standing in your way.
summary — jack used to press his thumb inside of your wrist, just to feel your pulse. he’s been thinking that lately. he’s been thinking about that a lot.
content / trigger warnings — 12.6k words. angst, heavy, heavyyy angst, emotional neglect, reader leaves jack, no explicit breakup scene, hurt/no comfort, medical setting, pulmonary embolism, pulmonary embolism most likely presented inaccurately based on what i could find on wikipedia, reader is unconscious, references to ptsd/ptsd implied, jack’s past military service mentioned, insomnia, crying, lots of themes of loneliness, dissociation compared to being a fugue state, grief, pining, jack not being the very best at this relationship so maybe ooc?
author’s note — yes i have no range all i can write is a yearning man after he massively messes up; i wanna try being more versatile though so send in requests so i can make an attempt at being a Little more creative. i wanted to get this out because i started writing it while season 2 was coming out
The coffee maker had been broken for three days because the carafe wouldn’t click into place anymore, so if you didn’t press down on it while it brewed, the coffee pooled around the base and ran out onto the counter. You’d been meaning to tell Jack. You kept forgetting. Or maybe you kept remembering at the wrong times—when he was asleep, when he was in the shower, when he was already halfway out the door—and so for three days you’d been holding the carafe down while scrolling on your phone with the other. The kitchen did permanently smell of burnt coffee because some of it still got under there and cooked against the warmer. Nobody had complained, though.
You were holding the carafe down now.
It was 6:47 in the morning. The light through the kitchen window was the same shade as weak tea. You’d forgotten your socks again, so your feet were going cold against the tile. You’d pulled the cuffs of your sleep shorts down as far as they’d go. You hadn’t slept. You’d gone to bed at eleven and lain in the dark for a while, just to get up at two and read on the couch. You’d ate a piece of toast at four.
He was meant to be home at six-thirty. It was 6:48 now. You checked the clock on the microwave, the clock on the stove, and the clock on your phone, all of which disagreed by between thirty seconds and two minutes, and none of which mattered because the only clock that mattered was the sound of his key in the lock, and you hadn't heard it yet.
You kept thinking about the fucking carafe.
You kept thinking if you told him, if when he came in that you had to hold the thing down, he’d put his hand over yours and it would become a thing. A small, but real thing. You'd been living on smaller ones lately. The other night he'd touched the back of your neck when he passed you in the hallway and you'd thought about it for two days.
The coffee finished. You let go of the carafe. You poured two mugs—his first, the one with the chip on the rim that he insisted he liked because it made the coffee taste better, which wasn't true but was the kind of thing he said sometimes, the kind of thing that used to make you laugh—and then yours, the one your sister had given you for your twenty-eighth birthday, the one with the hairline crack that had been there so long you'd stopped worrying it would split. You put two sugars in his. You put nothing in yours. You stood at the counter holding both mugs by their handles and you waited.
You’d been putting two sugars in Jack’s coffee for almost three years that you’d started doing it without thinking. You thought, briefly, about not putting sugar in his, about making his coffee wrong. You thought about whether he’d notice. You wanted him to notice. No, you didn’t want him to notice. You put the two sugars in, and stirred them with the small spoon you always used. The wrong coffee would have been a test, you realized, and you weren’t ready to give a test you already knew the answer to.
6:53.
You set the mugs down. You picked them up. You set them down again. You went to the window and looked out at the parking lot like you were sixteen and waiting for a boy to pull up, except you were thirty-one and you lived with him and there was no reason to be standing at the window except that you couldn't sit down. Sitting down would mean admitting you were waiting. Standing was a thing you happened to be doing in the kitchen near the window. It wasn't the same.
You heard the key jangle at 7:04.
Your body reacted the same way it had been reacting for three years now. There was an involuntary lift in your chest, this small gladness, and the fleeting, euphoric thought of oh good, Jack’s here. It happened milliseconds before you could decide whether you were allowed to feel it anymore; it happened in the half-second between the key turning and the door opening. You hated that it still happened. You hated that you were unsure whether you hated it.
He came in. He looked at you. He eyed the mugs on the counter. He looked back at you.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” you said.
He left his jacket on and held onto his bag. He stood in the doorway like a man who’d come into the wrong apartment and was figuring out how to exit without being mean about it. His hair was flat on one side from where he’d been pushing his locks through it. There was something on the cuff of his scrubs, a dried, dark spot. He—like always—smelled like the hospital, and underneath that he smelled like himself, and underneath that, faintly, he smelled like coffee that wasn’t yours.
He’d stopped somewhere on his way home.
You filed that thought away into this ever-growing compartment of Jack your subconscious mind had started months ago, and your conscious mind was just catching on. You were getting good at filing things away. You had a whole drawer of them now, in your head, organized chronologically: the night he hadn't come to bed; the morning he'd left without saying goodbye; the Tuesday he'd told you he was too tired to talk and then you'd heard him on the phone in the bathroom, laughing, low, at something somebody else had said. You didn't open the drawer. You just kept putting things in it. You'd open it later. You'd open it when you were ready.
“I made coffee,” you said, because that was how it was supposed to go. That was how it always went.
“I had some,” he said.
“Okay.”
He was looking past you, at the cabinet behind your head, at nothing, you realized. He’d hadn’t met your eyes since he came in, and you were realizing you had stopped considering it avoiding, because to avoid would mean he was putting in the effort to. When had this become the nature of it all? You couldn’t remember the last time he looked at you. You were going to remember the not remembering later. When had you become a thing his eyes had learned to skip over?
“Long night?” you asked.
“Yeah.”
You waited with bated breath. There used to be a ‘yeah,’ then a story. There used to be a ‘yeah, this guy came in, you won’t believe what he did to his hand.’ He’d sit at the counter and tell you, gesturing with his coffee, and you’d put your chin on your palm and listen with both ears. Sometimes you’d laugh and sometimes you wouldn’t and once you’d cried. He’d reached across the counter and put his thumb under your eye and say, “Hey. Hey. Come here.” And then you’d go around the corner and he’d hold you for a long time without saying anything.
You waited.
“I’m gonna shower,” he said.
“Okay.”
He moved past you without touching you. There was a moment—a half-second, less, the time it took for him to pass behind you in the narrow space between the counter and the table—when you felt the air shift. The possible moment he could have put a hand on your hip, on the small of your back, on the top of your head; when he could have done any of the small unthinking touches he used to do without thinking. But he moved through the space like you were a piece of furniture he was navigating around. You heard the bathroom door close. You heard the shower turn on.
You stood at the counter for a while.
You picked up his mug, the one with the chipped rim, and you held it with both hands. It was still warm. The two sugars hadn't dissolved all the way; you could feel the grit at the bottom when you tilted it. You thought about pouring it out. You thought about drinking it yourself. You thought about a lot of things.
You set it down.
You sat at the table. You hadn't sat down all morning. Your hands were colder than they should've been. You put them between your thighs to warm them up. You looked at the chip on the rim of his mug, the small white triangle of it where the ceramic had broken away two years ago—you'd done it, actually, you'd been washing dishes and you'd knocked it against the faucet and you'd stood there holding it and almost cried because it was his favorite, and he'd come up behind you and looked at it and laughed and said ‘Baby, it's a mug, it's fine, I like it better now,’ and he'd kissed the top of your head and taken it out of your hands and put it back in the cabinet—and a thought came unbidden to you, one of those with clarity that came in the morning after a night of no sleep.
He doesn’t love me anymore.
You hadn’t decided the thought. It arrived, came through the kitchen window like a weak-tea light and the scent of burnt coffee. The thought sat across the table from you with folded arms as it waited for you to say something back.
You sat there for a long time, listening to the shower run, and somewhere far away you could hear a car door slamming and a dog barking and the building above you starting to wake up, all of it the wrong sounds for this hour, all of it the sounds of a day beginning, and you sat at your kitchen table in your sleep shorts with your cold feet on the tile and you thought, okay.
The shower kept running. You got up to hold the carafe down for the second pot.
It was for you because the act of making coffee was the only thing your hands knew how to do at the moment, and your hands needed something to do or you were going to start crying at the kitchen table, and you weren't going to start crying at the kitchen table because if he came out of the shower and found you crying you would have to explain it, and you didn't have an explanation that would fit in the space he was willing to give you.
‘You don’t love me anymore,’ it’s not a sentence you could say out loud to Jack. It was a sentence you could barely say to yourself. You'd thought it once and now it was in the room and you needed to do something with your hands.
You filled the carafe at the sink. The water ran cold over your wrist and you watched the little bones move under your skin and you thought about how he used to take your hand sometimes and turn it over and press his thumb to the inside of your wrist, just there, where the pulse was, and hold it, like he was checking and making sure. You used to ask him what he was doing and he’d always say, ‘Nothing.’ Then, he’d add, ‘I just like knowing.’
You hadn't felt his thumb on your wrist in—you didn't know. You couldn't remember the last time. That was the thing about the things he used to do. They stopped happening and you didn't notice on the day they stopped, you noticed three weeks later when you reached for the memory of the last time and it wasn't where you'd left it.
You poured the water into the machine. You pressed the button. You held the carafe down.
The shower was still running. The shower had been running for twenty-two minutes.
The coffee maker beeped.
You let go of the carafe. You poured. You added milk—too much, your hand slipped, you didn't bother to fix it—and you took the mug to the table and sat down and you didn't drink it, you just put your hands around it and held on.
You thought about your sister.
You thought about your sister, the phone call you’d had with her four months ago in October. You’d been on a walk and she’d asked how Jack was and you’d said he was good.
She’d been quiet on the other line for a second too long, which meant she'd already heard the answer in your voice and was just giving you the chance to say it out loud. You’d told her you were fine, you were fine. You’d meant it. You were fine in October. You'd been worried about him but you'd been fine. And she'd let it go, because she was good like that, because she didn't push, and you'd gotten off the phone and kept walking and not thought about it again.
You were thinking about it now because you realized she knew before you did.
You were thinking about how lonely had been a slow leak. How you couldn't point to a day. How if someone asked you, later, about when it started, you wouldn’t have an answer that would satisfy them, you'd just have a list of small things and the dawning understanding that the small things had been a shape that had been apparent to everyone but you.
The shower stopped.
You looked up.
The silence after the shower was always loud, for the apartment adjusted, the pipes ticked, the bathroom fan still spun. You heard him moving around in there. The squeak of his palm on the foggy mirror. The click of the cabinet. The small domestic sounds of a man getting ready to come out and face his life. You sat at the table with your hands around your mug and you thought, very clearly, very calmly to not ask him.
Don't ask him what's wrong. Don't ask him if he's okay. Don't ask him if he still wants this. Don't ask him anything. If you ask him he will tell you and you cannot un-hear what he tells you and you are not ready, you are not ready, you are not ready.
He came out in sweatpants and a t-shirt, toweling his hair, as he balanced on his crutches. The steam came out with him in a soft cloud, and for one half-second—the half-second before he saw you sitting there—his face was open. Tired. Wrecked. Human. You saw him. You saw the man you'd loved for almost three years, the man who'd stood at this counter in October and pressed his mouth to the top of your head and asked, rhetorically, what he would do without you. The man who you were pretty sure you would have married if he'd asked, the man you'd been so quietly, stupidly, completely sure of that you'd never even let yourself worry he might not be sure of you.
He saw you and his face closed.
It was the smallest thing. It was a thing you'd seen happen maybe a hundred times in the last few months and never quite let yourself name. It was like a door shut behind his eyes. The towel kept moving in his hand but something in his shoulders went still, the way an animal goes still when it sees you coming.
He stood there with the towel around his neck. He was looking at the floor between you. He had a tan line on the back of his neck from his work badge lanyard, you'd noticed it last week, a small pale stripe. You'd thought about pointing it out to him and you hadn't, because you weren't sure anymore which kinds of small noticings were welcome.
You opened your mouth.
You were sitting at the table with your hands around your mug and you'd made yourself a promise eleven seconds ago and you opened your mouth anyway because some part of you was already past being careful, some part of you was already at the bottom of the hill and rolling, some part of you had decided it would rather know than keep not-knowing, and you opened your mouth and you spoke, “Jack.”
His gaze was still fixed to the floor. “What?”
“Are we okay?”
The towel stopped moving. The kitchen got very quiet. You could hear your own heartbeat in your ears in the slow heavy way it did when you were about to be told something that was going to rearrange you, and you sat very still at the table with your hands around your mug and you watched him decide.
He took a long time to decide, enough that you understood what the answer was going to be. He was giving you mercy, you supposed, to prepare your body. You felt your shoulders settle. You felt your jaw loosen. You felt the very small private animal of yourself curl up tight somewhere behind your ribs and go quiet, the way it did before bad news, the way it had done in the doctor's office when you were nineteen, the way it had done at your grandfather's bedside, the way it had done—once, years ago, in a different life—when a different man had told you a different version of the same thing. You knew this feeling. Your body knew this feeling. Your body was already mourning.
He pulled the towel off of his neck and held it beside the crutches.
“I don’t know.”
You waited, eyes fixated on him.
“I don’t—” He started, then stopped. “I’m tired. I’m really tired. Can we not do this right now?”
“Okay,” you said.
“I just got off a fourteen-hour—”
“Okay.”
“Don’t—Please don’t ‘okay’ me that way.”
“What way?”
“Like that. Like you’re—” He lifted his free hand up from the hold on his crutch and gestured vaguely in your direction. “Like you’ve decided what I’m gonna say.”
“Have you?”
“What?”
“Decided.”
He looked at you for the first time since he’d come home. His eyes were on your face as opposed to something past it, and you almost flinched, because you'd forgotten what it felt like to be seen by him and the remembering hurt worse than the forgetting had. His eyes were red. He looked like he hadn't slept in days, even though he'd slept yesterday, you'd watched him sleep yesterday, you'd brought the blackout curtain closed all the way like you always did and you'd put a glass of water on his nightstand like you always did and he'd slept for six hours and woken up and gone to work and now he was standing in your kitchen looking like he hadn't slept in a year.
“Don’t,” he said, voice quiet. “Don’t push this on me right now. Not right this second.”
“When, then? Tomorrow? Next week? March?” Your voice was very even, you were almost impressed by it. “Just tell me when, Jack. I’ll write it down. I’ll wait.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” He shook his head as he turned away. He was going to walk out. He was going to walk into the bedroom and close the door and you were going to sit at this table for another hour and then go to work and come home and find him gone again and the whole thing would go on, the whole thing would keep going, the slow leak, the quiet drawer, the small white triangle on the rim of the mug.
“I just—” he started, stopping at the threshold of the bedroom. He had his back to you. “I just don’t know how to do this anymore.”
You did not move an inch. You did not move and you did not move and you did not move. You sat at the table with your hands around your mug, watching the back of his head, for he had said it without facing you. He’d hadn’t been brave enough to say it to your face, even though that was the truest sentence he’d said in a month, he’d said it to a doorframe.
You set your mug down on the table.
The sound it made was very small. A soft tock. You'd set it down a thousand times before. You'd set it down this morning. The mug didn't know anything had changed. The mug was a mug. You looked at it. You looked at the small ring of moisture it had left on the wood. You looked at your hands on either side of it, palms-up, empty.
“Okay,” you said.
You went to work that day. You weren’t sure what happened, what you wore, who you talked to, whether you ate lunch, and you won’t be able to. The day will be a white space in your head. A fugue state boiled down to its lowest, least harmful level. Your body had gone to work and answered emails and sat in a meeting and microwaved something for lunch and your mind had been at the kitchen table in your apartment, hands around a mug, listening to Jack’s words like a bruise that keeps being a bruise even after you stop pressing it.
You'd sat in the parking lot of your building for eleven minutes before you'd made yourself get out of the car. You'd looked up at your window—third floor, second from the left, the one with the plant on the sill that you'd bought him for his birthday last year, a stupid little succulent he'd named Gerald for reasons he'd never adequately explained—and you'd seen that the blackout curtain was still closed, which meant he was still asleep. You had maybe forty minutes before he got up for his shift, and you'd thought about driving away. You'd actually thought about it. You'd thought about driving to your sister's, two hours north, and walking into her kitchen and sitting down at her table and letting her ask you what was wrong. You'd thought about it long enough that your hands had moved to the gear shift. And then you hadn't done it, because some part of you was still hoping, standing at the kitchen counter at six-forty-seven in the morning holding two mugs of coffee. Some part of you was going to keep standing there until he told you, in plain words, to stop.
His mug from the morning was still on the counter. The coffee in it had a film on top now, a dull skin you could break with the tip of your finger.
You sat on the couch in the living room and he got up at six-fifteen. You heard the alarm first—the soft one he'd set when you started staying over because the regular one had made you flinch—and then the rustle of the sheets and the soft thud of his feet on the floor and the particular small sound he made every morning when he stood up, a half-grunt, the huh of a man whose body had been disagreeing with him for years and who'd made peace with it. You'd loved that sound. You'd loved being the only person who knew it.
He came out.
He was dressed for work — black t-shirt, scrubs slung over his shoulder, hair still wet from the shower he must have just taken, the second one in twelve hours — and he stopped when he saw you on the couch.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
“You’re home.”
“Yeah.”
He stood there for a second like he was going to say something. You watched him consider it, as though there were random english words bouncing in his mind he was trying to piece together to get what he wanted. You didn’t know what. Or you did know what. You weren’t sure.
“You want me to turn on the light?” he asked.
“It’s okay.”
“Okay.”
He went into the kitchen. You heard him open the fridge. You heard him close it without taking anything out. You heard him fill a glass of water at the sink and drink it and set the glass down on the counter—on the counter, where you'd find it later and wash it and put it away—and then he came back into the living room and he stood in the doorway and he looked at you.
“I’m sorry about this morning,” he said.
You looked at him, trying to force your lips to not turn downwards from the corner. “Are you?”
Your question came out sharper than you wanted it to. The edge had been put on it by the part of you that had been awake for more than a day and had realized, in its wake, that Jack had unlearned how to meet your eyes.
A muscle moved in his jaw. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m sorry—yeah.”
“What are you sorry for, Jack?” Your voice still had that even thing in it, that surprising calm thing, like someone else was operating you from inside. “What part are you sorry for?”
“I don’t—” he said, “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
You shrugged stiffly. “What you’re sorry for.”
“I’m sorry I was short with you. I was tired. I shouldn’t have—”
“You told me you didn’t know how to do this anymore.”
He closed his eyes, and you could see the way his face twisted at the action. “That’s not what I meant. I can’t think straight when I haven’t slept and you’re—”
You cleared your throat. “Did you mean it?”
He didn't answer for long enough that you understood he was going to lie about it, and he understood that you understood, and you both sat in that mutual understanding for a second, in the gray light, in the quiet apartment, and you watched him choose.
“I meant I was tired.”
It was the worst possible answer. It was the answer of a man who knew that yes would end the conversation and no would be a lie he couldn't make himself tell, and so he'd found a third door and walked through it, and you stood on the other side of the door and you looked at it and you thought, oh.
Oh. He’s a coward.
This was not a thought you had ever had about him. You had thought he was a lot of things. You had thought he was guarded and tired and weighed down and difficult; you had thought he was kind, in a private way, in a way most people didn't get to see; you had thought he was the smartest person in most rooms and you had thought he knew it and didn't care; you had thought, sometimes, when he was sleeping with his hand on your stomach, that he was the love of your life. You had never thought he was a coward. You had never thought he was the kind of man who would refuse to answer a yes-or-no question from a woman who had loved him because answering would cost him something he wasn't willing to pay.
You were thinking it and you were watching your face not show it and you were watching him relax, fractionally, because he thought he'd gotten away with it, because you hadn't pushed and he thought the conversation was ending in the same manner the conversations had been ending for months now, with both of you agreeing not to look directly at the thing in the middle of the room. And some terrible new part of you—a part that had been born this morning at the kitchen table, a part you didn't recognize and weren't sure you liked—wanted to let him think it. You wanted to let him walk out the door thinking he'd managed it. You wanted to give him this one last small dishonest peace before you took everything else away.
“Okay.”
He looked mildly surprised, but he hardly showed it. “Are you okay? Are we good?”
“Yeah, Jack.”
He looked at you for a long second and you held his gaze, and his face flickered—a part of him that knew that your yes was one with a stone in it—and he chose, once again, to not ask. He chose, again, to be tired.
“Okay,” he said. “I gotta go. I’m gonna be late.” Then, he added, “I’ll see you in the morning.”
You nodded.
He started coming towards the couch. You hadn’t expected that. You'd been bracing for him to just leave, to grab his bag and go, and instead he came over to the couch and he stood in front of you and he leaned down and he kissed the top of your head—like he was your father, like he was your friend, like he was anyone but the man who used to kiss you on the mouth at any opportunity he received—nd his hand brushed the back of your neck, briefly, and he smelled like soap and like him and like the faint trace of the antiseptic that never really came off him.
He said into your hair, quietly, “Get some rest, baby.”
He hadn’t called you that in seven weeks. You had not meant to keep count. You had become aware, somewhere around the fifth week, that you were keeping count in the back of your head, the small ruthless math of being unloved by someone who used to love you. You were certain he was saying goodbye.
He didn't know he was saying it. He thought he was being kind. He thought he was patching it. He thought he was leaving for his shift and he'd come home in the morning and the two of you would keep doing what you'd been doing, the slow leak and the quiet drawer.
He had no idea, but your body knew. Your body had known since the kitchen this morning. Your body had been ahead of you all day. Your body was, even now, in the small private dark of itself, already at the door, already in the car, already three exits down the freeway with one suitcase and the mug from your sister already gone, already gone, already gone.
“You too, Jack.”
He pulled back and looked at you. You saw the whole man, you saw the version of him that loved you and the version of him that didn't know how to and the version of him that was about to lose you and didn't know it yet, all of him stacked up in one face for one stupid second in the gray February light of your living room, and you almost said it.
Don’t go. I’m going to leave you. I’m going to leave you tonight, while you’re at work. I’m going to be gone when you come home. This is our last chance. Look at me. Tell me to stay.
You let him go.
He picked up his bag from the chair by the door. He picked up his keys from the bowl. He paused, very briefly, with his hand on the doorknob—you knew you would lie awake and replay that pause and try to decide if it had meant anything, if he had almost turned around, if he had felt the thing you were feeling and chosen against it the way he chose against everything now— and then he opened the door and he went out and he closed it behind him.
It came up through your stomach. It came up through your chest. It came out of your eyes without your permission and without any of the sounds you'd been expecting, like a quiet steady leaking, the way a faucet leaked, the way a roof leaked, a small humiliating involuntary grief of a body that had been holding still for fourteen hours and couldn't hold still anymore. You sat on the couch and you cried and you didn't wipe your face, because there was no one to see, because the apartment was empty
Because the man who used to put his thumb under your eye and say ‘Hey. Hey. Come here’ was on the freeway going to the hospital and he was never going to do that again.
When you stood up. Your legs were stiff. You went to the bathroom and you washed your face with cold water and you looked at yourself in the mirror —your eyes were red, your mouth was doing a thing—and you decided to go to the closet.
You grabbed the suitcase and set it on the bed. It still had the tag from the August trip on the handle. Some hotel in Vermont. You'd gone for a long weekend. He'd held your hand on the walk to dinner the first night and you'd thought this was it, the thing you wanted for the rest of your life.
The tag had your handwriting on it, with his name and the hotel address as the contact—you'd filled it out for him at the airport because he'd been on the phone with the hospital—and you stood looking at the tag with your own handwriting saying JACK ABBOTT in your slightly-too-loopy capitals.
You took the tag off the handle. You set it on the dresser. You did not throw it away. You weren't ready to throw things away yet. You were ready to take things out of the closet and put them in a suitcase. You'd worry about throwing things away later.
The kid wouldn’t stop crying. Jack didn’t blame the kid. The kid was four and he had a piece of LEGO lodged so far up his left nostril that it was going to need a procedure room, and the mother was crying when she came in, and he knew she’d have to explain to everyone later it was only ninety seconds on the phone. Jack put his hand on her shoulder to stop her from crying, and she didn’t. So, for about thirty minutes, the kid and his mother were like a background noise that nobody had asked for.
He was washing his hands now. He'd gotten the LEGO out—it had been a small red one, a 1x2, and he’d held it up in the forceps so the kid could see, and joked that he’d grown a LEGO, and the kid had laughed once through the snot and then started crying again, and Jack had handed the LEGO to the mother in a specimen cup and told her she could keep it as a souvenir, which had been a joke, which she had taken seriously, and she had thanked him three times on the way out. He was thinking about whether he could get away with eating the second half of his sandwich before the next chart hit.
It was 10:47. The board was light for a Tuesday, which meant the q-word wasn't allowed out loud, which meant he was thinking it in his head, which counted, which meant somewhere in the city right now someone was about to do something dumb with a ladder. He'd been doing this long enough to know better. He kept thinking about it anyway. The board was light. He was going to eat his sandwich.
“You owe me twenty bucks.”
Dana, who’d decided this was her twice-in-a-blue-moon night shift, behind him.
“For what?”
“LEGO. I had a LEGO.”
“You bet on a LEGO? In a four-year-old’s nose?”
“Mateo had a marble. Shen took penny. Ellis took battery.”
He dried his hands. He turned around.
“Eat the sandwich,” Dana said.
“Mhm.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m gonna eat it, Dana.”
He went to the break room. The sandwich was where he'd left it on top of his locker—turkey on rye, the rye going a little stale at the edges, made by him—and he took it back out to the desk and ate it standing up.
He got two bites in before Ellis called from the desk, “Abbott.”
“Hm?”
“Pittsburgh General called. They’ve got a transfer they want to send us.”
“Why?”
“They’re full.”
“Liars.”
“They say they’re full.”
“Tell ‘em to go cry about it.”
“I told them you said that.”
“Really,” Jack drawled.
“I told them we had capacity. Female, early-thirties, came in two hours ago with shortness of breath, chest pain, hemoptysis. Clots in her lungs. Both sides. PE. She passed out in triage. They had to put a tube in to help her breathe and they started her on blood thinners but she's getting worse, not better. They want her transferred.”
Jack chewed. “How bad?”
“They’re scared her heart can’t keep up. They don't know if they need to push the clot-busters or just keep her supported and pray. They want a second set of eyes before they pull the trigger, and we’ve got the beds.”
He swallowed. “Fine. ETA?”
“Twenty minutes. They’re loading her now.”
“Bay?”
“Two.”
“Tell Mateo to set up. I want the ultrasound at the bedside before she rolls in, not after.”
“Already did.”
“You’re showing off.”
“I’m always showing off, Doctor.”
He took another bite of his sandwich. He set the sandwich down. He knew the sandwich would go unfinished. He knew it moment Ellis had opened her mouth, which was a thing he should have learned by now and somehow kept not learning. He looked at it for a second. He picked it up. He took one more bite for the road. He chewed it on the way to bay 2.
Bay 2 was ready. Mateo had the ultrasound at the head of the bed and a tray of intubation supplies on the side table and a runner had hung two bags of saline on the IV pole and the monitor was on, blank and waiting, and the overhead was at the low setting, which Jack liked, which he had asked for once two years ago and which had become a thing that just happened now when he was running the bay, the kind of small institutional accommodation a department made for an attending it had decided to keep.
“You good?” he said to Mateo.
“Always.”
Jack pulled a gown off the rack and shrugged it on over his scrubs. He pulled gloves out of the box on the wall and he stood at the head of the bed and he waited.
He liked the waiting.
This was something he had figured out about himself a long time ago, in a different uniform, in a different country. He liked the minute before. The minute when you knew something was coming and didn't yet know what it was going to ask of you. Other people hated that minute. Other people filled it with chatter or with checking their phones or with the small fidgeting of a body that didn't know what to do with itself. He liked it. He stood very still and he let his hands hang at his sides and he ran the algorithm in his head—bilateral PEs, borderline pressures, tachy to the one-thirties, possible RV strain—and he felt the small clean focus of his brain narrowing down to the work, and underneath the focus, almost imperceptible, the thing he wasn't going to look at directly, the small persistent low-grade hum that lived in his chest now and that he had stopped trying to name.
“Two minutes out,” Ellis called from the desk.
“Copy.”
He pulled his mask up over his nose. He flexed his fingers in the gloves. He looked at the empty gurney space at the foot of the bed and he waited.
The doors banged open at 11:04.
EMS came through first, two of them. The gurney they were pushing had a person on it and the person had a tube coming out of her mouth and her chest was rising in the small mechanical way of a chest being ventilated by someone else, and Jack stepped forward to the head of the bed and he said, ‘gimme the report,’ and the medic at the head said, “Thirty-three-year-old female, history per General is unremarkable, presented to them at twenty-one hundred with two hours of progressive shortness of breath, syncopal episode in triage—”
Jack was examining her chart. He usually took the chart in one hand and he scanned the top line for the name, DOB, the allergies, and that was his muscle memory. His hands started it before his eyes did. His eyes did it before his brain did. His eyes landed on the name on the top of the chart and his brain—
His brain stopped.
His brain stopped like a needle lifted off mid-song. The whole bay went very quiet, which it wasn’t, for it was full of sound—monitors pinging, the medics still talking, Mateo on the other side of the bed saying something—but inside Jack’s head, it was very, very quiet. It was a sort of quiet he hadn’t heard in a long time; it came before bad things, as a result of the absence of his own thoughts.
He looked at the name on the chart. He looked at it for what he would later think was a long time and was actually about a second and a half.
He looked up, and he looked at the face. The ace had a tube taped to the corner of your mouth. Your hair was—someone had pulled it back at General and tied it off with those rubber things they kept in the jar at every ER—
Your face. Your face was your face.
Your face was the face he had—your face was the face that had—your face.
Your face was older.
That was the first thing his brain managed to think after it had finished stopping. Your face was older by two and a half years. There were small things that were different. There was a barely-there line between your eyebrows that had not been there. There was a small softness around your mouth he was trying to name, but failing. Your hair was a slightly different color by a few shades. Maybe you’d stopped getting the highlights you used to. Maybe you’d started getting something different. Jack was clueless what you’d started to do differently, but he knew that you had.
Two and a half years had happened to your face without him, and his brain started taking a clinical inventory of the years he had not been allowed to see. His brain—for the first time in much too long—understood that time had been real. He’d understood time had happened, and you’d been alive for it. That you’d aged, and he’d not been there.
His eyes went down to your throat. He’d made an involuntary decision to look. There was a thin gold chain resting there he didn’t recognize. It was small and the kind of chain you’d buy for yourself or have given it to you from someone else. This chain, Jack realized, had been on your neck for an unknown amount of time, in some unknown place, during unknown evenings he couldn’t be a part of.
His eyes went down further. To your hand on the sheet. To your right thumb. The cuticle was bitten. The cuticle was bitten down to the bed of the nail, the way you used to bite it when you were anxious about something, the way you bit it the night before a big work meeting or the morning of a doctor's appointment or the time you were waiting to hear back from the bone scan on your aunt. The cuticle had been bitten recently. You had been anxious recently. He did not know what about. He did not get to know what about.
“Dr. Abbott?” Mateo called from across the bed, and it sounded like his voice came through a long tunnel. “Dr. Abbot, everything good?”
His hands were on the chart. His hands were still on the chart, and his eyes were on your face, and his mouth was not doing anything. His mouth was a part of his body he had forgotten about. He could feel his pulse in his neck. He could feel his pulse in his hands. He could feel the small mean drop of his stomach that he hadn't felt in two and a half years and that he recognized immediately, the way you recognized a smell from a place you used to live.
“Get me Dana,” he said to Mateo. His voice was the voice he used in the ER. His voice was a small miracle. He didn't know how his voice was doing that.
“Doctor—”
“Now. Please.”
Mateo scrambled off. Jack looked back down at you.
You were—the color was bad. He could see that without looking at the monitor. Your face was the wrong color, it was the exact one of someone whose heart was not pushing blood the way it was supposed to, and your chest was rising in the wrong way, because it was one that was being made to breathe. There was a small patch of dried blood at the corner of your mouth where the tube must have nicked you on its way in, and your eyelashes—Jesus fucking Christ.
Your eyelashes. He had not—there had not been a single day in the last two and a half years when he had not thought about your eyelashes, not specifically, not the small fact of their existence, the fact that they sat on your cheeks when your eyelids were closed, the small fringe of them, the small fringe of them that he had—that he used to—
He stepped back from the gurney, his prosthetic causing him to stumble back slightly. He didn’t mean to, his body had done it. His body had taken one step away from you and his body was, right now, his body was making a series of very small decisions about him without consulting him, his body was the only thing in the room with any sense, his body was controlling him because his brain was haywire.
“Jack,” Dana said firmly at his elbow.
He couldn’t look at her.
“Jack. Look at me.”
He looked at Dana.
Dana had her hand on his elbow. Dana was looking at his face. And Dana. Dana was a woman who had known him for a long time and who was looking at his face and Dana's own face did a thing, did a small terrible quick thing, and then it didn't do the thing anymore, and her hand was on his elbow and her voice was very low and very even and she was saying, “Step out.”
“No.”
“Jack.”
“No, Dana.”
“You can’t—”
“I know. I know what I can’t. Get Ellis. Ellis runs it. I want eyes on. I am not leaving.”
“Jack.”
“I am not leaving, Dana.”
She looked at him for a second that felt like a year, the small assessing look of a woman who had run more codes than most cardiologists and who was, right now, doing math, fast math, the kind of math that took into account him and her and the patient on the gurney and the resident across the bed and the medical board of Pennsylvania and whatever the fuck else lived in Dana’s marvelous head, and then she nodded.
“Stand at the head. Do not touch her. Tell Ellis everything you know.”
“I don’t—don’t anymore—”
“You know her, Jack. That’s what you know. Tell Ellis what you know about her medically. Allergies. Meds. History. Anything you have. Then you stand at the head and you keep your hands behind your back.”
He nodded, because words were foreign to him right now. So, he nodded.
Dana squeezed his elbow once and let go and turned for Ellis, and Ellis came at a jog from the desk. Jack moved up to the head of the bed and he stood there and he put his hands behind his back like Dana had said and he looked down at her face and he thought about the kitchen.
He thought about the kitchen for one second, the kitchen at six-fifty-three in the morning, the cold coffee on the counter and the key beside it and the small tag on the suitcase handle in the closet that he hadn't found until two days later when he was looking for something else, the small tag with her handwriting on it and his name on it.
He thought don’t. Not now. Don’t.
He looked at your face.
He cleared his throat quickly and said, “No allergies. NKDA. She—sulfa makes her stomach hurt but it’s not a real allergy; she’ll say it is because it’s easier. But write down sulfa. She—she was on a dose of OCP a couple years ago, but I don’t know if she still is. I don’t know what she’s on now. I don’t—”
His voice cracked, a little glitch it had not done in a long time. He cleared his throat again.
“She gets migraines, maybe twice a year, with aura. She used to take excedrin for them. I don’t know what she takes now. I don’t know what she takes. No surgeries. Tonsils when she was eleven. That’s it. Non-smoker, was. Is. Drinks socially.”
Ellis nodded. “Got it.”
“She’s—there’s family history. Her mom had a—fuck, she had a—a clotting thing. After her second pregnancy. She was on heparin for a while. Her sister got tested; she got tested. They were both negative. But it’s in the chart somewhere. It should be in the chart.”
“Okay.”
“It is in the chart, Parker. I’m telling you.”
“I believe you, Jack. We’ll look.”
“There’s—she’s got a thing. She said she doesn’t like the idea of being intubated in front of strangers. She’s scared of it. She told me she didn’t want it. If she can hear us, if there’s any way, I know she can’t, but if she can, somebody should tell her she’s safe.”
Ellis looked at him for a moment. “I’ll tell her.”
He nodded and made himself stop. He could feel the next thing he was going to say lining up behind his teeth and he made himself not say it.
‘She sleeps on her left side. She can’t sleep on her back, it gives her bad dreams. If you have to put her flat for any reason, she’s going to wake up panicking. Just—be ready for it.’ He could feel the small careful instruction-manual of you that he had been keeping in his head for two and a half years, the small useful nothings. ‘She likes the room cold when she sleeps and she gets cold hands when she’s scared. She wants water but never says yes to it, so just put it next to her. She always wants water.’
He understood, standing at the head of your bed with his hands behind his back, that none of this was medical. None of that was his to give. None of it belonged in Ellis’s notes about you. Ellis was looking at him for something useful, and the only thing he could think of was that you like the room cold. He could not say it, though what he would not give to be able to spill his guts about you, talk about you to anyone who listened until the sun came up and his throat was raw.
“She’s healthy,” he said. “She—from last time I—she’s healthy.”
“Thanks, Jack,” Ellis nodded again gently and looked at him.
She looked at him with a face he was going to think about later, as she understood in real time, and Ellis, to her enormous credit, the credit of a doctor he was going to think about with gratitude for the rest of his life, did not say anything about it. Ellis took the report from the medic and started moving.
“Okay, let’s get a repeat set of vitals,” she said, turning back to your bed. “Bedside echo, second large-bore IV if she doesn't have one, and someone get me the chart from General, the actual chart, not the summary. Mateo, walk me through the heparin dose.”
Jack stood at the head of the bed with his hands behind his back and he looked down at your face and he did not touch you and he watched your chest rise on the ventilator and he watched the small dried patch of blood at the corner of her mouth and he watched your eyelashes on her cheek and he thought, please.
He stood at the head of your bed with his hands behind his back like a man at a funeral and he thought please, baby and he watched the ventilator breathe for you, and somewhere out at the desk a phone was ringing, and somewhere down the hall a kid with no LEGO in his nose was being discharged with a sticker, and the clock on the wall said 11:07, and Jack Abbott did not move and did not move and did not move.
He thought about how Ellis was good. He’d always known it. He had a file in his head about her, and it was filled it words like competent, fast, doesn’t panic, asks the right questions, and that file was being updated in real time tonight now. Because Ellis, right now, in this bay, with this patient, being the doctor Jack would have wanted in this room for someone he loved if he had been able to choose, which he had not been and could not be, and the choice was Ellis. And Ellis was good, and Jack stood at the head of the bed with his hands behind his back and he watched Collins work and he tried not to be grateful in a way that would make his face do anything.
Mateo gave the probe to Ellis. She took it. She gelled it. She tucked the sheet down off your chest in the small careful way she would for any patient and Jack looked at the ceiling for a half-second because he could not look at your chest under fluorescent light with a stranger's hand moving across it, even Ellis’s hand, even the hand of a doctor he trusted. He looked at the ceiling. The ceiling tile above bay 2 had a small water stain in the shape of nothing, really. The shape of a stain. He had stood under this water stain before. He had stood under it last month and the month before and probably a hundred times. He had never seen it before in his life.
He had the algorithm in his head. He could feel it running. He could feel the part of him that was a doctor doing the thing it did, the small clean calculation of everything to do medically. And underneath, he could feel the other part of him. He could feel the man who had once watched you sleep next to him for six-hundred-and-forty-three nights, and that part was making a sound he could not hear out loud, a small high frantic sound, the sound of a thing being held under water.
“What do you want to do?” Ellis asked.
He realized she knew what to do. Ellis knew exactly what to do. She was asking him because he was the senior attending and because asking him kept him in the room, kept his hands attached to a function, kept him from being a man standing at the head of a gurney watching the love of his life turn the wrong color under fluorescent light. She was throwing him a rope. She was throwing it casually, the way you would throw a rope to someone who didn't yet know they were drowning, and Jack looked at Collins and Collins looked back at him and Collins did not blink and Jack thought, Parker Ellis. Parker Ellis, you good and decent woman. I am going to remember this.
“Half-dose.”
“You sure?”
“She’s young. Full dose risks the bleed. We watch.”
“Agree.”
“Get the Radiology in case.”
“Already paged.”
“You’re showing off again, Ellis.”
“You’re slow tonight, Doctor Abott.”
They looked at each other, and the exchange was the closest thing to mercy he was going to get for a while, and they both understood it, and they both let it pass without naming it, and Ellis turned back to your bed and started working and Jack stayed where he was, at the head, with his hands behind his back, and he watched.
This was a thing he had observed about himself in difficult moments before, mostly in a different uniform in a different country; his perception narrowed in stages. First, the room got smaller; the room got quieter; the room developed a kind of underwater quality, where sound came to him on a small delay, where people's mouths moved a half-second before the words got to him. His own pulse was the loudest thing he could hear. He was at the underwater stage now. He had not been at the underwater stage in a long time. He had forgotten how it was almost peaceful, almost, the small mean peace of a brain that had decided it could not handle the regular speed of things and had slowed everything down.
Your hand was on the gurney with the palm turned up. Someone — the medic, probably, at General, hours ago — had put a pulse ox on your index finger and the small red light of it was glowing through the pad of your finger, and your hand was slack and pale on the white sheet and your fingers were curled in the soft way of a hand whose owner was not currently making decisions about it, and Jack looked at your hand and he thought to make himself stop thinking.
He could feel his thoughts coming behind him like waves, and he tried to brace and he tried to think don't hard enough that the memory would go around him instead of through him, and it didn't work, it never worked, he had been trying not to think about specific memories of you for two and a half years and he had not once succeeded in not thinking about a memory once it had decided to arrive, and the memory arrived like a crash.
It was a Sunday morning a long time ago, in his apartment, in the bed that had been his apartment's bed before it had been your apartment's bed before it had been his apartment's bed again, and you had been asleep on your side facing him and he had been lying on his side facing you, awake, watching you, in the way he sometimes did and never told you about, and your hand had been on the pillow between your faces with the palm turned up, the way it was turned up now, the small slack curl of your fingers, and he had reached out very slowly so he didn't wake you and he had pressed his thumb to the inside of your wrist, just there, where the pulse was, and he had felt it, the small steady beat of you, and he had thought ‘thank you.’
He had thought it as a sentence with no addressee. He had thought it the way men in foxholes thought it. He had thought thank you, and you had not woken up, and he had taken his thumb off your wrist after a while and you had slept on, and he had lain there for another hour watching you sleep, and that had been a Sunday in — he didn't know. He didn't know what Sunday it had been. He had a lot of Sundays like that one filed away and he had stopped, at some point, trying to keep them in order.
He was at the head of your bed and he wasn’t allowed to touch you.
Your hand was on the sheet with the palm turned up and the small red light of the pulse ox was glowing through the pad of your index finger and your pulse was being read by a machine instead of by him and Jack stood at the head of the bed and he did not move and he did not move and he did not move.
When the tPA went in, Jack knew it went in and it went around and it found the clot and it started to break it up, and you started to get better the way ice melted, slowly, in increments you couldn't see while you were watching, only in the aggregate, only when you looked away and looked back.
So the next twenty minutes were a vigil. The next twenty minutes were Jack and Ellis and Mateo and other people standing around your bed and watching the monitor and watching your chest and watching your color, and the monitor pinged in its small mechanical way and your blood pressure stayed at eighty-six and your heart rate stayed at one-forty and Jack stood at the head of the bed and breathed through his nose and counted, in his head, very quietly, because he had nothing else to do with his hands and his mouth and his eyes.
He counted to a hundred.
He counted to a hundred again.
He was on four hundred when his blood pressure went up by four points.
Jack looked at the monitor; he watched your blood pressure. He watched your blood pressure sit at ninety for a few seconds and then go to ninety-two. He watched your heart rate come down from one-thirty-five to one-thirty-two. He watched the numbers and he did not let himself feel anything about the numbers and he stood at the head of the bed and the small slow tide of the room came back up around his ankles and, even though he didn’t, felt like he had one, healthy breath he could take instead of the shallow ones he’d been taking.
He thought, okay. He thought it the way you’d said it that morning. He thought it in your voice, he heard it in your voice, and he stood at the head of the bed and kept repeating the word and he watched the numbers and they kept on being good.
Ellis exhaled. Jack hadn’t even realized Ellis had been holding her breath, and the only reason he noticed it was because she let it out. Ellis shook her head once, very small, and said, “Okay. We’re getting somewhere.” Then, she looked at Jack and said, “Abbott, sit down.”
“I’m fine,” Jack said, not missing a beat.
“You’re gray, Abbott.”
Jack stayed silent because, frankly, he had no idea what color his face was. He had no information about his face—he didn’t care about his face—because it was somewhere far above him being operated by remote. But Ellis was looking at him with a look he’d never seen on her, at least directed on him, and Jack thought he really must’ve looked bad.
“Five minutes,” Ellis said. “Go sit down. Drink some water. I won’t leave her. I’ll call you if anything moves.”
“Please—”
“Five minutes.”
Jack looked at Ellis, then he looked at you. He was not going to win this one and that the smartest thing he could do was to take the five minutes she was offering and come back functional.
He walked through the bay doors and past the desk and past Dana, who did not look up from the phone, who knew not to look up, who was a woman of great and terrible mercies, and he walked down the hall to the supply closet on the left, and he opened the supply closet and he went in and he closed the door behind him and he stood in the dark for a second and then he turned the light on and he leaned against the metal shelving with the gauze and the saline and the small disposable speculums on it and he put his hands over his face.
Jack hadn’t cried in a long, long time. He wasn’t sure if he still could. The mechanism was there, somewhere, but he had not, since the morning he had come back home and seen your key on the counter and the cold, day-old coffee mug beside it, made it work. He’d come close. He had come close a number of times. He’d stood at his own kitchen counter for too long, his weight foot had gotten sore because of how much pressure he was putting on it, and the tears had not come. The only thing that accompanied him was this tug at his chest that started dull, then grew into this feeling of thousands of tiny knives stabbing into his ribcage.
He stood with his hands over his face and his back against the shelving and he breathed for a count of four in and a count of six out, which was a thing he had been taught a long time ago by a therapist with a kind face whose name he could not currently remember. He breathed and breathed, but all his brain could conjure up was the trip the two of you never made it on.
The cabin, the one you were supposed to be going to in June, only months after you left. You’d booked it in October, and you’d been excited about it. Jack had been so, so excited about it. You had a running list of things you wanted to do—a hike, a swim in a strange place, a restaurant with things neither of you had heard of—and you’d emailed him the list with the subject line, “june???” and he’d emailed back, “yes ma’am,” and that was that.
He’d gone to the cabin alone four months after you’d left. He’d taken the time off he’d already booked, gotten in his car, and drove four hours to the cabin. He’d checked in under his own name and the receptionist asked if there had been a change to the reservation, because there were two names on it. He knew it was downright silly to have expected you there; he hadn’t run into you in Pittsburgh, so there was no possibility you would have shown up here. He said no, the other person couldn’t make it. The woman at the front desk had nodded politely and given him the keys.
He’d done none of the things on your list. He had sat on the dock and looked at the lake and thought about you. He’d thought about whether you knew the dates of the trip you’d planned. Were you also thinking about the dates? He had thought about whether you were thinking about him thinking about you. He had eaten badly. He had slept badly.
On the third day, he had walked into the woods behind the cabin and he had sat down on a fallen log and he had stayed on it for an hour as his chest felt like it was caving in. The light had changed while he was on the log. The light had gone from the late afternoon kind to the early evening kind, and at some point he had registered that the light had changed, and he had gotten up off the log and walked back to the cabin, and he had checked out the next day a day early. He had driven home. He had not told anyone he had gone.
He took his hands off his face.
He looked at the ceiling of the supply closet. He turned the light off. He opened the door. He walked back down the hall. He walked past the desk. Dana, again, did not look up. He went back into bay 2.
Ellis looked at him and nodded, which he returned.
Your blood pressure was ninety-six over sixty. Your heart rate was one-twenty-eight. Your color, under the fluorescents, was — your color was a fraction less wrong than it had been five minutes ago. The ventilator was breathing for you in the same small mechanical way. Ellis started charting at the foot of the bed. The new nurse was checking the IV.
Jack went back to the head of the bed and put his hands behind his back.
He didn't know how long he stood there because he had stopped looking at the clock — there was a clock above the door of bay 2 and he had stopped letting his eyes go to it, because every time he looked at it less time had passed than he thought, every time he looked at it the small mean math of the clock told him that the universe was running slow tonight on purpose, and he had decided at some point that he was not going to look at the clock anymore.
“Jack?” Dana’s voice called.
“Mm?”
“Her sister’s here.”
He stood at the head of the bed and he looked at you and he held very still and he thought about something. He thought about the suitcase tag. He thought about your hand on the pillow on a Sunday morning a long time ago.
He thought about the small dried patch of blood at the corner of your mouth where the tube must have nicked you on the way in and which someone, at some point, was going to have to wipe off, and he thought, very clearly, with the small clean clarity of a man in a supply closet, that he wanted to be the one who wiped it off.
He wasn’t allowed.
“You don’t have to, Jack,” Dana said when he didn’t respond.
“I’m going, it’s okay.”
Dana looked at him for a long second with the look she had, the look he had earned over years, the look that said that while she is, in fact, his nurse, she could be his friend or his mother or his nurse, if he needed her to be any of those for the next ten minutes. He looked back at her and he didn't say anything. She nodded, once, and she stepped aside.
He walked out of bay 2.
He could see your sister, standing at the desk, in a coat that was too thin for the weather, with her purse on her shoulder and her phone in her hand and her hair pulled back from her face, which he had only ever seen her do twice, the first time when your father had been in the hospital four years ago and the second time when she had come to yours and Jack’s apartment for Thanksgiving and burned the rolls and cried about it in the kitchen and let him hand her a glass of wine.
She had a wedding band on, which she had not the last time he’d seen her. The ring was a thin gold band. She had a small gold charm on a chain around her neck.
He knew her face. He knew the way she held her phone.
He knew, even from down the hall, that she had been crying in the car on the way over and had stopped before she came in, because that was the kind of thing your sister did, that was a specific habit she had, and he had liked her very much, once, and she had liked him very much, once. It was a kind of likeness that came from knowing the other person loved their mutual person right.
The last thing she had ever said to him out loud had been “She's okay. I just wanted you to know she's okay,” on a phone call four months after you’d left, and she had hung up before he could say anything back. She was the closest he could get to you without getting to you, because the one time he’d tried calling you, it rang five times before he, in the most honest words he could put it, chickened out.
When she turned and saw him, there was the flash of recognition. Then, he could practically hear her think ‘of course it’s you, of course it had to be you.’ Then her face did the thing he had been bracing for, the polite hard face of a woman who had not forgiven him and was not going to and was, right now, going to have to talk to him anyway because her sister was on a ventilator. She stood at the desk with her phone in her hand and she watched him walk toward her.
He put them in the pockets of his scrubs. He took them out. He put them behind his back. He took them out again. He let them hang at his sides.
“Hi,” he said.
She looked at him and seemed like she wanted to frown. “Hi, Jack.”
Jack had been bracing for cruelty. It was then he realized she was choosing to be kind to him. Why, he wasn’t sure. But the only conclusion he could come to was that she wouldn’t punish him for what he’d done, and instead let the world do it. The world was doing a fine job.
“She’s stable.” He cleared his throat because it sounded too heavy again. “She’s gonna—she’s gonna be okay. We're moving her to ICU in a little while. She's gonna be okay.”
She looked at him and Jack watched her eyes fill up. Your sister was, like you, a person who did not cry in front of people if she could help it. He stood there and watched her not cry, and he understood, with the clarity of a man who loved you and could not stop doing so, that she didn’t cry in front of people because you didn’t cry in front of people. Because the two of you had learned it from the same kitchen, the same mother, the same childhood with the same set of rules about what was and was not allowed to be done in a room with witnesses.
She let her eyes fill up and she looked at the ceiling for a second and she breathed through her nose and she looked back at him and she said, very quietly, “Okay. Okay. Thank you.”
“I didn’t—Doctor Ellis ran most—”
“Thank you, Jack.”
He gave her one jerky nod. Then, he looked at the floor and nodded again and he stood there.
“Can I—” he started, then stopped himself because he wasn’t sure what he was asking.
Your sister hummed, slightly urging him to continue.
“Can I see her? Once she’s in the ICU. Can I—I don’t have to go in. I just, I would really like to. Once, if that’s okay.”
This woman had stood in your kitchen one Sunday afternoon a long time ago and watched him put his hand on the back of your neck while you laughed at something the neighbor’s dog had done and who had thought, in that moment, that, yes, Jack is the one for her sister. This woman had also, four months later, sat with you on the phone while you cried in a parking lot in a different city. The look she gave him contained both of those things. It was a look that contained more than Jack could parse, and he stood in the hallway of his ER and he looked at your sister and he waited.
“I don’t know, Jack,” she said.
He nodded, and it was more unstable than before.
“I don’t know if she’d want that.”
“I know,” Jack said, and this time, there was no denying the shakiness accompanying his voice. “I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“I’ll think about it, okay?” Jack was nodding along to whatever she said now, because this, this, he’d have to make peace with. “I’ll see how she feels, and maybe I can bring it up—?”
He nodded and he could not say anything and he stepped back from the desk. Before he could turn around, another question slipped from his mouth, “Was—is she okay? In the last while, was she taking care of herself? Happy? Sleeping?”
He was making a mess of it. He could feel his face doing the thing it did when he was making a mess of it.
“She’s been okay, Jack.”
He nodded and nodded and nodded.
Your sister picked up her purse from where it had slid down her arm and she adjusted her coat and she looked at him one more time and she said, “It’s nice to see you, Jack.”
She said it like a small kindness she was giving him because she had decided, in these past few minutes, that she was going to give him this one thing. Like giving a stranger directions to a place you knew they probably weren't going to find. She said it and she meant it and she also did not mean it, and Jack stood as he watched your sister walk past him toward bay 2, where Dana was waiting to take her in, and he stood there until she was gone, and then he stood there a little longer.
Jack Abbot X Foc (Amber)
Main Masterlist, [Ao3]
Amber just wants to finish her practicum at PTMC, be done and have a career she put off for years. Her dysfunctional family is not helping her trying to achieve her goal. But, everything feels a bit lighter when she meets Jack Abbot. Coworkers to lovers
Warnings: Job inaccuracies, Past child abuse, Alcoholism/alcohol abuse, abuse
Word Count: 36k+
Ongoing: 25/33
* = Mature
Chapter One: If The Bones Are Good
Chapter Two: Reality
Chapter Three: The Bar
Chapter Four: First Day
Chapter Five: Letters
Chapter Six: Too Close to Home
Chapter Seven: The VA and Coffee
Chapter Eight: The Night Shift
Chapter Nine: Nocturnal
Chapter Ten: Sturdiness
Chapter Eleven: Tender
Chapter Twelve: Support
Chapter Thirteen: Late Night Phone Call
Chapter Fourteen: Stargazing
Chapter Fifteen: Flirt and Work
Chapter Sixteen: Day Off
Chapter Seventeen: MIA
Chapter Eighteen: Promise*
Chapter Nineteen: Morning After
Chapter Twenty: Comfort
Chapter Twenty-One: Like A Moth
Chapter Twenty-Two: Alive
Chapter Twenty-Three: Selfish*
Chapter Twenty-Four: Tender Morning
Chapter Twenty-Five: Tender
SUMMARY: When an angry patient attacks you at work, you do everything in your power to hide how bad it is from Jack. Unfortunately for you, his dog, Buddy, knows best, and is quick to alert him to how bad things are as soon as he gets home.
NOTES: Aggressive patient, physical injury, Jack has a retired military dog, the dog is very protective of reader, hurt/comfort, established relationship.
NAVIGATION | PITT MASTERLIST | KO-FI
a/n — technically a part two to dog’s best friend, but can absolutely be read as a standalone !
“I just need you to stay seated for a second, alright?” you say, voice soft, even, the same tone you use with every difficult situation, steady and careful without ever sounding condescending.
The patient doesn’t like it. You see it in the way her shoulders tense, the sharp turn of her head, the flicker of something reactive and unpredictable behind her eyes.
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“I’m not,” you reassure gently, hands visible, posture open. “I’m just trying to help you, ma’am.”
The metal tray is already in her hand before you fully register it.
“Hey!”. It’s Samira’s voice, a sharp warning from somewhere behind you, but it comes a second too late.
The patient swings. Not hard enough to seriously injure on its own. But combined with the shove that comes with it, it’s enough. The impact glances off your shoulder, but the force of the push sends you stumbling backwards, your foot catching awkwardly on the edge of the trolley behind you.
There’s a split second where you try to correct it. Your balance almost rights itself. Then, your heel slips.
You go down hard.
Your hip hits first, the shock of it jolting up your side before your shoulder follows, and then your head clips the edge of the cabinet behind you with a dull, sickening crack that makes your vision flare white.
The world tilts. Sound distorts.
You suck in a breath too fast and it catches halfway, your ribs protesting sharply as pain blooms deep along your side, spreading outwards in a way that feels heavy and wrong.
“Shit!”
“Hold her back!”
“Move!”
Hands are on you immediately. Too many. Too fast.
“Don’t move,” Dana says firmly, already crouched at your side, one hand braced against your shoulder to keep you grounded.
“I’m fine,” you manage automatically, even as your voice comes out thinner than you want it to. “I just slipped—”
“You didn’t slip,” Samira cuts in, sharper than usual, already scanning you quickly. “She shoved you.”
“I’m fine,” you repeat, trying to push yourself up.
Your body protests instantly. A sharp, deep pain lances through your ribs and your breath hitches before you can stop it.
Dana presses you back down without hesitation.
“No, you’re not getting up yet.”
“I’m okay,” you insist, though your hand has already moved instinctively to your side, fingers pressing there like you can contain the ache if you just hold it still.
“Yeah,” Langdon mutters, crouching on your other side, one brow raised. “You look fantastic.”
You glare weakly. “I am—”
“You’re wincing,” Mel says gently from behind them. “Just stay down a second.”
Across the bay, Robby steps in, taking in the scene quickly, his expression tightening slightly as he looks between you and the now-restrained patient.
“What happened?”
“They got knocked,” Dana says, not taking her eyes off you. “Hit their head on the way down.”
“I’m fine,” you say again, the words automatic now, like muscle memory.
Robby’s gaze lingers on you a moment longer than you’d like. Assessing. Weighing.
Then, “Get them checked,” he says. “No arguments.”
You open your mouth to argue anyway. Close it again.
The check is quick. Too quick.
Vitals steady. Pupils reactive. A few questions you answer without thinking, even as your head still feels slightly off and your ribs ache every time you breathe too deeply.
“Probably just bruised,” Langdon says, though there’s hesitation there. “Keep an eye on it.”
“I will,” you say.
You go back to work. Of course you do. It’s slower now. More careful. Every movement measured so you don’t aggravate the pain blooming along your side, every breath kept shallow enough to avoid the sharpest edge of it.
You don’t let anyone make a fuss. You don’t give them the chance.
By the time shift change creeps in, you’re running on stubbornness more than anything else.
Your body feels heavy. Your head dull. Your ribs worse. But you’re still standing. That counts for something.
You see Jack the second he walks in.
It’s instinct, the way something in you softens at the sight of him, even through the ache, even through the exhaustion.
He sees you just as quickly, and immediately, his expression changes. “What happened?”
No hello. No lead-in. Just that.
You blink. Too slow. “…nothing.”
His eyes narrow slightly.
You can see him clocking it, the stiffness in your posture, the way you’re holding yourself like you’re trying not to move too much, the faint mark forming near your hairline.
“Don’t do that,” he says quietly.
“Do what?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Lie to me.”
You huff a small breath, trying for normal. “I’m not lying. I just got knocked a bit. It’s fine.”
“Knocked how?”
“Patient,” you say quickly. “It happens.”
His jaw tightens. “You hit your head.”
“I’m fine.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“You didn’t ask a question.”
Jack steps closer, his hand coming up instinctively, hovering for a second before brushing lightly near your temple, careful.
You flinch. Just slightly. Jack notices anyway.
“Hey,” he says, softer now. “Talk to me.”
“I am,” you insist, forcing a small smile. “It’s nothing, Jack. Just a bruise.”
“You don’t look like it’s nothing.”
“I’m just tired.”
“That’s not what this is.”
You don’t let him push further. You can’t, because if you stop holding it together now, you’re not sure you’ll be able to start again.
“I promise I’m okay,” you say, gentler now, stepping into his space, your hand brushing his arm. “I’m just going to go home, sleep it off.”
Jack searches your face. Longer than you’re comfortable with. “…yeah?”
You nod. “I promise.”
You kiss him before he can argue again. Soft. Quick. A distraction more than anything.
“I’ll text you,” you add.
He doesn’t look convinced. But he lets you go.
You don’t realise how much you’ve been holding in until you get home.
The door shuts behind you. Your bag slips from your shoulder. Everything collapses.
The pain hits first. Sharp. Deep. Your ribs screaming the second you stop forcing yourself to breathe carefully around it. Your head throbbing dully where it connected earlier. Your whole body suddenly too aware of itself.
Then the tears. They come fast. Uncontrolled. Your hands come up to your face as your shoulders shake, the sound breaking out of you before you can stop it.
“It hurts,” you whisper, voice cracking.
Soft paws hit the floor behind you. Buddy is there instantly.
No hesitation. No distance. Just straight to you, pressing in close, whining low as his nose nudges at your hands, your face, your shoulder, anywhere he can reach.
“Hey, Buddy…” Your voice wobbles as you drop one hand to him, fingers tangling in his fur. “I’m okay,” you murmur, even as you cry. “I’m okay—”
He doesn’t believe you. He licks at your cheek, catching tears, pressing closer until you sink down with him, your body folding as he crowds in, solid and warm and there.
Buddy doesn’t leave your side once. Not when you get up slowly. Not when you change. Not when you ease yourself into bed with a quiet, pained breath.
He jumps up beside you without hesitation. Circles once. Then presses himself along your back, heavy and grounding, his head resting near your shoulder like he’s keeping watch.
You fall asleep like that. Hurting. Exhausted. But not alone.
Jack knows something is wrong before he even gets the door fully open.
It isn’t logical at first. There’s no noise, no obvious sign of anything being off, but the second the latch clicks and the door gives, the silence hits him wrong, too heavy, too still, like something’s settled where it shouldn’t.
Then, there’s movement. Fast. Low.
A sharp bark that cuts straight through the quiet.
Buddy is there instantly, planted between Jack and the hallway like a barrier, body rigid, ears forward, a low, warning growl vibrating through his chest in a way Jack has never heard directed at him before.
“Hey, Buddy…” Jack stills, hands lifting slightly in reflex, not defensive, just careful. “Buddy.”
The dog doesn’t move.
If anything, he braces harder, stance widening, blocking the path to the bedroom completely like he’s guarding something.
Another bark. Sharper this time. Urgent.
Jack’s chest tightens. “Alright,” he murmurs, voice dropping instinctively, steady, controlled. “Talk to me, what’s going on?”
Buddy huffs, pacing a tight step forward, then back, torn between holding his ground and needing Jack to follow.
It clicks immediately. Not aggression. Protection.
Jack’s stomach drops. “…where are they?”
Buddy barks again. Turns. Looks back. Then looks at him.
Jack doesn’t hesitate. “Okay,” he says quietly. “Okay, I’m coming.”
Buddy doesn’t fully relax, but he shifts just enough to allow it, moving ahead of him down the hall, glancing back every few steps like he’s making sure Jack is still there. Still following. Still paying attention.
The bedroom door is half open. The light is off.
Jack pushes it gently. “Sweetheart?”
No answer.
His chest tightens further as he steps inside.
You’re there. Curled on your side, exactly where he expects you to be, and somehow still wrong. Too still. Too tense even in sleep, your body drawn in slightly like you’re protecting something.
“Hey,” he says again, softer now, stepping closer.
Buddy is already at the side of the bed, whining low, tail flicking anxiously, nose nudging lightly at your arm.
You don’t wake straight away.
Jack reaches you in two steps, sitting carefully on the edge of the bed, his hand hovering for just a second before resting lightly on your shoulder.
“Hey, sweetheart.”
You stir at that. Just slightly. A small sound leaving you, somewhere between a breath and a soft groan as you shift without meaning to.
The movement pulls a reaction out of you immediately. A sharp inhale. A wince. Your hand tightening instinctively at your side.
Jack stills. “There it is,” he murmurs quietly.
Your eyes open slowly, heavy with sleep, disoriented for a second before they land on him.
“…Jack?” Your voice is rough. Small.
“Hey,” Jack exhales softly, relief flickering across his face for just a second before it’s replaced with something more focused. “Yeah, it’s me.”
Buddy immediately pushes closer the second you’re awake, nose nudging your cheek, then your shoulder, then settling half across you like he’s making sure you stay put.
“What…” you start, blinking. “What time is it?”
“Too early for you to pretend you’re fine,” he replies gently.
You try to smile. It doesn’t quite work.
“I am fine.”
Jack doesn’t even entertain that.
“Mhm,” he hums, eyes already scanning you properly now, taking in the way you’re holding yourself, the tightness in your posture, the faint shadow of bruising starting to show along your side where your shirt has shifted. “What actually happened?”
“Nothing,” you say automatically. Too quickly.
His gaze flicks up to yours. Flat. Unimpressed.
“Try again.”
You hesitate. Just for a second. It’s enough.
“A patient knocked me,” you admit finally, quieter now. “It’s not a big deal.”
Jack’s jaw tightens immediately. “Knocked you how? You can’t just leave it at that, baby.”
“I fell,” you say. “It’s just a bruise.”
Buddy lets out a soft, unhappy whine. Jack glances at him briefly, then back at you.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “He doesn’t seem to think so either.”
You huff a weak breath. “He’s dramatic.”
“Yeah,” Jack repeats. “Funny. So are you.”
You try to push yourself up. Bad idea. The movement pulls a sharp, involuntary sound out of you before you can stop it, your hand flying back to your ribs as pain flares hot and immediate.
Jack’s hand is there instantly, steadying you before you can even properly lose balance.
“Hey, easy, easy.”
“I’m fine,” you insist again, breath uneven now.
“No, you’re not,” Jack says, still calm but firmer now, his other hand coming up to gently guide you back down against the pillows. “Lie back.”
You don’t argue this time. You don’t have the energy.
Buddy shifts with you immediately, repositioning so he’s still pressed against your side, careful, oddly careful for his size, like he knows exactly where not to put weight.
Jack notices. Files it away.
“Where?” he asks quietly, his hand hovering just above your ribs. “Show me.”
You hesitate. Then, slowly, you move your hand just enough to indicate the worst of it. His touch is light when it comes, fingers pressing gently along the area, assessing. You flinch. Harder this time.
“Shit, okay,” Jack murmurs, more to himself than you. “Yeah, that’s not nothing.”
“It’s just bruised,” you say weakly.
“Maybe,” he replies. “Maybe not.”
You look at him. A flicker of worry finally breaking through everything else.
“It’s not broken. I got checked out. Ask Robby.” He doesn’t answer straight away. Which is answer enough. “Jack, please.”
“Hey,” he says softly, immediately, his hand coming up to your face instead, thumb brushing lightly under your eye where tears are starting to gather again. “Don’t get upset about it. Not your fault.”
“I didn’t want to make a fuss,” you admit, voice cracking slightly. “It wasn’t that bad at work, I just—”
“You came home and cried,” he says quietly.
You freeze. “How did you—”
He glances at Buddy. Buddy, who is currently pressed against you like a guard dog with a personal vendetta.
“Right,” you mutter weakly.
Jack’s expression softens. A lot. “You should’ve told me,” he says, not accusing, just honest.
“I didn’t want you to worry,” you whisper.
He huffs a quiet breath. Too late for that. “You don’t get to decide that for me,” he says gently.
Your throat tightens. “I know.”
There’s a pause. Soft. Then, “Alright,” he says, shifting slightly. “We’re going to fix you up, okay?”
You blink. “We?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Me and him. You know we can’t leave him out of anything.”
Buddy lifts his head slightly at that, like he’s been formally acknowledged.
Despite everything, you almost laugh.
Jack doesn’t rush you. That’s the first thing you notice. Even with the tension sitting tight in his shoulders, even with the way his eyes keep flicking back to your ribs like he’s already running through worst-case scenarios in his head, he keeps everything slow. Measured. Like if he moves too fast, you’ll bolt or break or both.
“Alright,” he murmurs, shifting off the bed briefly. “Stay there.”
You don’t have the energy to do anything else. Buddy does. The second Jack steps away, Buddy’s head lifts, ears pricking forward, a low, suspicious rumble building in his chest again like he’s not entirely convinced this is still safe.
“Hey,” Jack says without looking at him, already grabbing what he needs. “Pack it in.”
Buddy huffs. Doesn’t move. Doesn’t relax. You reach down weakly, fingers brushing through his fur.
“It’s okay, Buddy,” you murmur softly. “He’s helping.”
Buddy’s attention flicks to you immediately. That’s all that matters.
Jack comes back with a small kit, nothing dramatic, just basics, but it’s the way he carries it that tells you everything. Familiar. Practised. Focused.
He sits beside you again, closer this time. Close enough that your knees brush when he shifts.
“Can I?” he asks quietly, his hand hovering near the hem of your shirt.
You nod.
He moves carefully. Slowly lifting the fabric just enough to expose your side. The bruise is worse than either of you expected. Dark already. Spreading. Angry under the skin, the kind of deep, blooming discolouration that makes your stomach twist just looking at it.
“Fuck,” Jack exhales quietly. Not surprised. Not pleased either.
“It looks worse than it feels,” you say automatically.
It’s a lie. A weak one.
Jack glances at you. Doesn’t call it out. Doesn’t need to.
“Does it hurt to breathe?” he asks instead.
“A bit.”
“How much is a bit?”
You hesitate. “More than a bit.”
He nods slightly, like he expected that. “Any sharp pain when you move?”
“Yes.”
“Dizziness? Nausea?”
“No.”
“Headache?”
“A little.”
He takes that in, nodding with a frown. Then his hand comes back to your side, touch light, deliberate, pressing just enough to assess without making it worse. You tense immediately. A sharp inhale slipping out before you can stop it.
“Sorry, honey,” he murmurs, instantly easing off.
“It’s okay,” you whisper, even as your eyes sting again.
“No,” he says quietly. “It’s not.”
That lands. Heavier than anything else has. Your lip wobbles slightly before you can stop it. You look away.
“I really thought it was fine,” you admit, voice small now. “At work it didn’t feel this bad.”
“Adrenaline,” he says simply.
You huff a weak breath. “Yeah.”
There’s a pause. Then, “Hey.”
You look back at Jack. His hand comes up to your face again, thumb brushing lightly under your eye where tears have started slipping free again without you realising.
“You’re alright,” he murmurs. “It looks bad, but you’re okay.”
“I feel stupid,” you whisper.
His expression tightens. Not at you. At the word.
“Don’t,” he says softly.
“I should’ve just stopped. Let them check it properly. Told you—”
“You got through your shift,” he cuts in gently. “That’s what you were focused on.”
“That doesn’t make it smart.”
“No,” he agrees quietly. “But it makes it understandable. I know what you’re like.”
You swallow. Your chest tightens.
“I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it,” you say, barely above a whisper now.
“You don’t get to decide that it’s not a big deal,” he replies, not harsh, just steady. “Not when it’s you.”
You don’t argue. You can’t.
Buddy shifts slightly, pushing his head more firmly into your lap like he’s trying to insert himself into the conversation. You let your hand fall to him automatically, fingers threading through his fur.
Jack watches it for a second. Then, “Alright,” he says, softer now. “We’re going to assume bad bruising, maybe a cracked rib. No heroics for a few days.”
You let out a quiet breath. “Okay. I can live with that.”
“I’ll grab some ice,” he adds.
Buddy immediately lifts his head again. Watching. Tracking. Jack pauses. Looks at him.
“I’m coming back,” he says dryly.
Buddy blinks. Considers it. Then settles again, barely. You laugh softly despite yourself. It hurts. You do it anyway.
By the time Jack comes back, you’re more settled. Not better, but calmer.
He helps you adjust carefully, guiding you so you’re propped slightly, a pillow tucked behind your back to keep pressure off your ribs. Every movement is slow. Considered. His hands never far from you.
“Gonna be cold, sorry,” he warns quietly, pressing the ice pack gently against your side.
You flinch. Then relax. “That’s actually nice,” you admit after a second.
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Usually is.”
The quiet settles again. Different now. Softer.
You’re watching Jack without meaning to.
The focus in his expression. The care in every movement. The way he keeps checking in without making it obvious.
“You’re not mad?” you ask after a while.
He looks up. Brows drawing together slightly. “Mad?”
“That I didn’t tell you.”
There’s a pause. Then, “No,” he says.
You blink. “Really?”
“I mean, I’m not thrilled,” he adds honestly. “But I’m not mad at you, sweetheart.”
That eases something in your chest. You didn’t even realise it was there.
“I just didn’t want to worry you,” you repeat softly.
“You don’t get to make that call,” he says again, gentler this time. “You tell me, I worry. That’s the deal.”
Your lips twitch slightly. “That’s not a very fair deal.”
“No,” he agrees. “Works for me, though.”
You laugh quietly. It pulls at your ribs. You wince.
His hand is there instantly. “Easy.”
“I’m okay,” you murmur. “Stop being funny.”
“I know. I’ll try,” he says.
Buddy shifts again, this time climbing more deliberately across the bed until he wedges himself firmly between you and Jack, his body pressed along your side, his head settling heavily across your lap like he’s decided his position is now permanent.
Jack stares at him. “Really?”
Buddy doesn’t move. Doesn’t even acknowledge him. You smile softly, your hand resting automatically on Buddy’s head.
“He’s just making sure I’m okay.”
“Yeah,” Jack mutters. “I can see that.”
There’s a pause. Then, carefully, deliberately, Jack shifts closer anyway. Working around the dog rather than moving him. His arm slides gently behind your back, pulling you just slightly closer so you’re supported without putting pressure on your ribs.
Buddy allows it. Barely.
You melt into it. Exhaustion catching up all over again now that everything else has settled. Your head tips lightly against Jack’s shoulder. Your hand still resting on Buddy.
“I’m really tired,” you mumble.
“Yeah,” Jack murmurs softly. “I know.”
Your eyes slip closed. Between them, you’re completely boxed in, warmth at your back, solid weight at your front, hands anchoring you in place like nothing is going to let you fall apart again.
“Stay,” you whisper, barely conscious now.
Jack’s arm tightens slightly around you. “I’ve got you.”
Buddy huffs softly. Settling deeper. And for the first time since it happened, you actually relax. Sleep comes easy after that.
All three of you tangled together in the quiet.
— COME AND JOIN MY TAGLISTS !
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how i'd love to go to paris again (and again) | j. abbot
pairing jack abbot x fem!reader x michael robinavitch
summary after jack casually floats the idea of adding a third, you don’t let it stay theoretical for long—what starts as curiosity turns into something a lot more real when robby gets pulled into the space you and jack have built together. (#threesometime #neverforgetchallengers) (ao3)
tags/warnings MDNI (18+) explicit sexual content, age gap (mid-20s / 50s), established relationship with you and jack, living together, unlabelled jack and robby sexualities (bi?), attempt at a true love triangle (et tu, challengers (2024) except no cheating & u and jack r <3. but rabbot under(over?)tones), unprotected p in v, oral (f/m, m/f) handjobs (f/m, m/m), masturbation, praise & teasing, dom!ish robby, bratty!ish reader, lowkey switch/softdom jack idk, finger sucking, domestic, drinking, brief hospital/medical stuff / orthopaedics (r3), porn with... context?, hint at robby internalised homophobia? possibly ooc for jack sorry, title reference to the 1975 but not inspired by the song more just bad pun bc... paris... threesome... get it
wc 18.3k words
spin off of the fic: my (wo)man on willpower | j. abbot - can be read solo!
Robby doesn’t look confused so much as… unconvinced.
He sits back in the booth, one arm slung along the backrest, beer loose in his hand, eyes moving between you and Jack like he’s watching a consult go sideways.
“…You two wanna try that again,” he says, slow, “but in English this time?”
Jack huffs under his breath, already regretting opening his mouth. He drags a hand over his jaw, glancing at you like he’s half-tempted to pull the plug on the whole thing.
“Told you,” he mutters, low. “Bad pitch.”
You nudge his knee under the table—not hard, just enough. Don’t bail.
Robby catches it. Of course he does. His eyes flick down, then back up, something sharpening.
“Oh, don’t tap out now,” he says, leaning forward, forearms braced on the table. “You brought it up. I’m listening.”
Jack opens his mouth again—
“—No,” Robby cuts him off, not even looking at him. “She talks.”
There’s that tone. The one he uses with residents when they’re dancing around something obvious. Not unkind. Just… direct. Your breath catches for half a second. Not nerves exactly—more the weight of being looked at like that. Seen through, a little.
Jack glances at you, something softer there now. A small nod. Go on.
You shift in your seat, tucking one leg under you slightly, grounding yourself before you speak.
“It’s not… open,” you start, careful. “We’re not looking to—change anything. Not really.”
Robby watches you the whole time. Doesn’t interrupt. Doesn’t fill the silence for you.
“It’s just—” you exhale, a small, almost embarrassed huff of a laugh, “—we trust you. Both of us do. And you’ve been… there. With us. For a while.”
“Unfortunately,” he mutters.
Jack snorts. “Speak for yourself.”
But Robby doesn’t look away from you.
You hold his gaze. “It’s not random. It’s not… about finding some person to fool around with. It’s you.”
That lands. You see it in the way his jaw shifts, just slightly. The humour doesn’t disappear, but it tightens around the edges.
“…Right,” he says, slower now.
Jack leans forward, elbows on the table, finally stepping back in. “It’s not a free-for-all,” he adds, dry. “We’re not pitching some kind of ER orgy.”
“Shame,” Robby says flatly.
You almost laugh, tension breaking for a second.
Jack shoots him a look. “Be serious for one second in your life.”
“I am serious,” Robby says. Then, to you—“I’m just making sure I understand what the hell you’re asking me.”
His gaze drops briefly—to your hands, the way they’re curled loosely around your glass—then back up again.
“What are you actually offering here?” he asks.
You hesitate—not because you don’t know, but because saying it out loud makes it real. Jack shifts beside you. You feel his knee press into yours, steady, grounding.
“It’s not just sex,” you say, quieter now.
Robby’s brow lifts. “No?”
You shake your head. “It’s… us. Still us. Just—” you glance at Jack, then back at Robby, “—with you in it. Sometimes. If you wanted that.”
There’s a long beat.
Robby leans back again, dragging his hand over his mouth, thinking. Really thinking.
“You two have been together, what,” he says, glancing at Jack, “two years now?”
“Nearly three,” Jack corrects.
“Nearly three,” Robby repeats. “You know, you… you live together. Don’t kill each other. That’s impressive.”
“Thank you,” you say, dry.
His gaze shifts back to you again, softer this time—but heavier, too.
“And you’re both telling me this doesn’t… complicate things.”
Jack answers this time, steady. “Everything’s already complicated. This wouldn’t change what we’ve got. We’ve talked, we trust each other, we trust you.”
Robby studies him for a second longer than necessary. There’s history in that look. Long-standing, unspoken understanding. The kind you only get after decades of knowing someone.
“…You’re serious,” he says finally.
“Yeah,” Jack says.
Robby exhales, a quiet, disbelieving laugh under his breath. He tips his head back for a second, staring at the ceiling like he’s trying to reset his brain.
“Jesus Christ.”
You don’t rush him. Neither does Jack. When he looks back at you, it’s different now. Less amused. More… considering.
“You’re asking about the three of us…” he tries, trailing off.
You nod. “Yeah.”
His eyes flick, just briefly, to where your leg is still angled toward Jack’s, the easy closeness of it. Then back to your face.
“And you’re both just- you’re… good with it,” he says.
Your voice is quieter when you answer. “Wouldn’t be sitting here if we weren’t. You’re attractive, smart, funny. And I think you’ve always secretly had a thing for at least one of us. Maybe both, but, one way to find out, I guess.”
Robby drums his fingers once against the table, then stills them.
“...Christ,” he mutters again, but there’s a hint of something else in it now. Not just disbelief.
Interest. He looks at you properly then. Not the quick, passing glances from before. This is slower. Measuring.
“You always this persuasive?” He wonders.
You tilt your head, a small smile pulling at your mouth. “Only when it matters.”
That earns the faintest huff of a laugh.
“Yeah,” he says. “I can see that.”
Jack shifts beside you, not tense—but alert. Watching the shift happen in real time. Robby notices that too. His mouth quirks, just slightly.
Your phone buzzes—once, twice, then a string of messages lighting up your screen.
You glance down, already half-standing. “I’ve gotta go. Park needs me—Isla called in sick.”
Jack doesn’t even hesitate. He’s already reaching into his pocket, keys in hand. “Take the car. I’ll ride back with him.”
You take them, brushing his fingers briefly. “Thanks, baby.”
You lean down—meant to be quick, but it doesn’t quite stay that way. Your mouth presses to his, warm, familiar. He lets you, hand coming up to your cheek, thumb catching just under your jaw, holding you there for half a second longer than necessary before you pull back.
There’s a flicker of something in his eyes when you do. You straighten, turning— Robby’s already looking at you. Not subtle about it. Rarely is.
“Michael,” you say, softer, a small nod.
He repeats your name—flatter, rougher, like he’s testing how it sits in his mouth.
You don’t linger. You head out.
The door swings shut behind you.
Jack watches it a beat too long. Then exhales, leaning back into the booth, dragging a hand over his mouth like he’s resetting.
Robby doesn’t look at the door. He looks at Jack. There’s a slow, almost amused curve to his mouth. Not mocking. Just… processing.
“Alright,” he says. “Who’s idea is it?”
Jack doesn’t bother pretending. “Mine.”
Robby lets out a short, disbelieving breath. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“When?”
Jack shrugs, reaching for his beer. “Remember that detox sexless cult thing she did a few months back?”
Robby snorts. “Yeah. You turned into the most unbearable version of yourself I’ve seen in twenty years. Which is saying something.”
“Appreciate that.”
“Walking around like—” Robby gestures vaguely, “—like a cat in heat.”
Jack huffs a laugh despite himself. “Yeah, well. After you left that morning, we had our… you know, usual great sex - not adding as part of the pitch, you already know how good the sex is -”
“-get to the point,” Robby says, with a slight snicker.
“Some point, I mention… I don’t know, marriage, foreplay, a third. We finish up, and… we’re just talking.”
“Talking,” Robby repeats, deadpan.
“Yeah. Try it sometime. With a professional, even, they do that.”
“Hard pass.”
Jack ignores him, a faint smirk tugging at his mouth. “It came up. Not seriously at first. Hypotheticals. What we’d be into, what we wouldn’t.”
“And you landed on me,” Robby says.
“Yeah.”
Robby watches him for a second. Longer than usual. “…Both of you.”
“Both of us.”
That lands differently.
Robby leans back, dragging a hand over his jaw, thinking. Really thinking now—not just reacting.
“That’s your girl,” he says finally. “You’ve built something there. I’m not—” he shakes his head slightly, “—I’m not interested in screwing that up.”
Jack’s expression doesn’t change much, but something in it settles. He nods once.
“I wouldn’t be asking if I thought you would.”
Robby glances at him, sharper now. “You don’t get to decide that for me.”
“No,” Jack agrees easily. “But I do know you.”
A beat.
“And I trust you,” he adds.
it hangs there. Robby exhales slowly, gaze dropping to the table for a second before coming back up.
“…Yeah,” he mutters. “That’s the problem.”
Jack’s brow lifts, faintly amused. “That I trust you?”
“That I don’t take that lightly,” Robby shoots back.
Silence stretches for a second. Then Robby leans forward slightly, forearms braced on the table, voice dropping a notch.
“And you’re fine with it,” he says. Not a question. “Me and her.”
Jack doesn’t flinch. “Yeah.”
“Really.”
“Yeah.”
Robby studies him—searching for cracks, for ego, for something careless. Doesn’t find much. Jack kept his pride in check. He wasn’t a jealous person, not really. He was secure in himself. Something Robby envied, sometimes.
“…She’s—” he starts, then cuts himself off, jaw tightening slightly. “You know what she is.”
Jack huffs a quiet laugh. “Yeah. I do.”
“Twenty-something,” Robby continues. “Smart. Looks like—” he gestures vaguely, then shakes his head. “You’ve seen her.”
Jack smirks faintly. “I have, yeah. A lot of her. It’s great.”
Robby’s mouth twitches despite himself.
“And she looks at you like you hung the moon half the time,” he adds.
Jack’s expression softens just a fraction. “Sometimes.”
Robby nods once, slow. Then—
“…You really telling me you’ve never thought about it? About her” Jack asks, casual—but not careless.
Robby lets out a quiet breath through his nose, leaning back again.
“That’s not a fair question.”
Jack tilts his head at his friend. An insistence in his eyes to go on.
Robby tips his head back slightly, staring at the ceiling for a second like he’s debating how honest he wants to be.
Then he looks back at Jack.
“…Well I’m not blind,” he says.
Jack doesn’t react much. Just watches him.
“She’s—” Robby exhales, searching for a word, then gives up and settles for, “—she’s a lot. Sweet.”
Jack’s mouth ticks. “She is… You ever think about her while jerking off?”
Robby lets out a low breath at that, clicking his tongue at his friend's bluntness. Fuck it, they’re being honest. “Yes.”
Robby’s a little surprised when he sees the slow blink from Jack, a nod. Maybe irritable.
“What?” Robby scoffs. “You’re cool with the prospect of me fucking your girl? But what I do with my hand in my spare time is… what, some sort of line being crossed?”
“I didn’t say anything, alright. I’m all good here. Just didn’t think you’d admit it,” Jack nods with insistence. “What about during sex? Thought about her then?”
“...On occasion, yes, I’ve- she’s popped up there, yeah.” Robby admits with brief hesitance.
That’s as far as he pushes it—but it’s enough. Jack nods once, like this one he expected. Like it doesn’t threaten anything.
“Fair,” he says.
Robby glances at him, something like disbelief creeping back in. “You’re taking that a lot better than I thought you would.”
Jack shrugs. “She’s hot. You’re not dead. Tells me you’ve got a working dick, at least.”
Robby lets out a short laugh at that, shaking his head.
Jack took a sip of his beer, then—because he wasn’t finished, because he never really was with Robby—tilts his head slightly.
“What about me?”
Robby scoffs immediately, too quick. “Oh, come on.”
“No, seriously,” Jack says, glancing at him sideways. Casual on the surface, not casual underneath. “No shame, total honesty here. Twenty years, no secrets, all that bullshit.”
Robby drags a hand over his beard, already feeling the trap closing. “You’re unbelievable.”
“Have you?” Jack asks, like he was asking about the weather.
A pause.
Robby stares at the table, jaw working once.
“…You first,” he mutters.
Jack doesn’t even blink. “Yeah.”
Robby let out a slow breath through his nose, eyes dropping, like he was doing the math on how much of himself he was willing to hand over tonight.
“Man, it’s not even—” Jack went on, shrugging a shoulder. “Half the time that shit doesn’t mean anything. Brain just throws things at you. Doesn’t make you anything.”
Robby let out a short, humourless huff. “Right.”
“What,” Jack presses lightly, “you worried about the gay implications?”
Robby shot him a look. “Don’t—”
“—What? Say ‘gay’?” Jack says, not unkind, but not backing off either.
Robby glances up as a couple walks past, waits them out, then leans back in his seat, voice lower.
“We’re talking about whether I’ve jacked off thinking about another guy,” he says, flat. “Yeah, the… ‘gay’ of it all crossed my mind. Excuse me.”
Jack just nods, like that was fair.
“I just… I guess, I didn’t realise—” Robby starts, then stops, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I mean, you know, are you—”
Jack shrugs, easy. “I’ve been with a few. Never made a whole thing out of it. Don’t really care to.”
Robby gives a small, disbelieving shake of his head. “Figrues. Army man.”
“Yeah, well,” Jack mutters. “You don’t have to slap a label on it, Rob. Doesn’t have to mean anything bigger than it is.”
“I’m aware,” Robby says, maybe a little sharper than he meant to. Then, quieter—like it cost him something— “…It’s crossed my mind.”
Jack’s mouth pulled into something faintly smug. Not cruel—just… satisfied.
“Crossed your mind,” he repeated. “Interesting wording.”
“Don’t start,” Robby warns, but there was less heat in it now.
Jack huffs a quiet laugh. “It was easier getting you to admit you think about fucking my girlfriend half our age than it was getting that out of you. That’s saying something.”
“Fuck you,” Robby mutters, rolling his eyes—but there was a reluctant grin there now, breaking through whether he liked it or not.
Jack shrugs, taking another sip. “Options apparently on the table.”
Robby shakes his head, but didn’t argue. Didn’t fully look away, either.
Something in the air had shifted—subtle, but real. Not a line crossed, exactly. More like one finally acknowledged.
Robby studied him for a second, longer than necessary. There was history there—years of it, unspoken things sitting just under the surface, things neither of them had ever had to name.
Jack didn’t push. Just leaned back, easy.
“Think about it,” he tries. “Or don’t. Nothing changes.”
Robby nods once, short. “Yeah.” A few seconds of quiet. “…You still need that ride home?” he asks.
Jack snorts. “Oh, a ride home? Wow. Subtle.”
“Shut up.”
“Flirting now, are we?”
“You are not a funny man, Jack Abbot, don’t think otherwise,” Robby says, but he was already smiling, just a little.
★★★
2 WEEKS EARLIER
threesomenoun — three·some — ˈthrē-səm
1: a group of three persons or things : trio
2: a golf match in which one person plays their ball against the ball of two others playing each stroke alternately
3: a sexual encounter involving three people
“Are you trying to say you wanna play golf?” Jack says from the stove, not even turning around as he stirs the pan like it personally offended him.
The kitchen smells like garlic and butter—onions already softened down, carrots and capsicum still holding a bit too much bite. He’s got one hand on the wooden spoon, the other braced on the counter, solid and steady in that way he always is.
You’re perched up on the counter, one leg swinging lazily, phone in hand.
“Yes,” you say dryly, scrolling. “I’m deeply passionate about golf. The balls. The stroking of the balls—”
“—I get it,” Jack cuts in. “You want a threesome.”
You look up at him, unimpressed. “I don’t want a threesome. I love twosomes. Specifically with you.” A beat. “But I’m not opposed to… expanding the sample size.”
Jack snorts, finally glancing over to you. “Expanding the—Jesus. That’s how you pitch wanting to fuck my best friend?”
“You brought it up,” you shoot back, pointing your phone at him like evidence. “Don’t act like this wasn’t your idea. ‘Oh baby, we should add a third, Robby would give me notes’—”
“I did not sound like that.”
“—If anything,” you continue over him, “I think you wanna fuck your best friend.”
“Alright,” Jack mutters, turning back to the pan. “Not what I sound like. And c’mon—you know you’re all I wanna fuck.” He nudges the vegetables again, frowning. “I think these are done.”
“They’re not.” You don’t even look up when you say it. “Anyway… I doubt he’d even be down for it,” you say. “I barely think he likes me as a friend.”
Jack lets out a quiet scoff at that.
You narrow your eyes. “What?”
“I think he’d fuck you in a heartbeat if I said I was okay with it,” Jack says, like it’s obvious. Then, distracted again—“I really think these are done, hon.”
“Test the carrot,” you say, still scrolling. “If it’s soft enough, it’ll break with pressure.”
He presses the spoon into one. It doesn’t budge.
“…Needs longer,” he admits.
“How do you know that?”
“I just did what you said, I—”
“No,” you interrupt, looking at him properly now. “How do you know Robby would fuck me?”
That slows him down.
Jack exhales through his nose, shoulders shifting as he leans back slightly against the counter, thinking.
“I know him,” he says. “Twenty years of it. And I know you.” A beat. “There’s something there. A thing. You’ve always had good chemistry.”
You huff lightly. “A vague… thing, maybe.”
You hesitate, then—because you don’t really do half-truths—
“I did have a bit of a crush on him,” you admit. “Before I met you.”
Jack stills. Not dramatically. Just enough.
“I don’t anymore,” you add quickly. “It faded. Pretty fast, actually. It was early—before I started coming down to ED properly. He’d come up sometimes, consults, whatever. I think it was just…” you shrug, searching, “…older. Authority. Bit of an asshole.”
Jack’s mouth pulls slightly at that, something between amused and unimpressed.
“Glad to know you don’t have a type,” he mutters.
You lean in closer from the counter, nudging his shoulder lightly with your knee.
“Hey,” you murmur. He glances up at you. “I like them a little shorter,” you say softly.
Jack blinks.
Then rolls his eyes, a huff of laughter slipping out despite himself as you grin and go back to your phone.
“Unbelievable,” he mutters, turning the heat down, a small smile at the corner of his lips.
★★★
The thing about a third—about this third—was that it… kind of just felt natural. Like there was so little reason to not do it, to not try it, invite it.
It wasn’t sudden. It was something that had been sitting under the skin of things for so long it stopped feeling foreign the second it was named.
Robby had never been separate from Jack.
Not really. People liked to pretend friendships had clean edges—this is where I end, this is where you begin—but that had never been the case with them.
Too many years. Too many nights that blurred into mornings, too many arguments that never quite resolved but never quite broke them either.
They’d dragged each other through their twenties, stumbled into their thirties, and settled—somehow—into their forties without ever untangling.
They knew each other in ways that made distance feel artificial.
And Robby had always lived in that tension.
He didn’t soften easily. Didn’t trust softness when it showed up uninvited. Jack had always been the exception to that rule—steady enough to withstand it, patient enough not to demand more than Robby could give. But patience didn’t mean absence.
There were things between them that had never been said out loud. Not because they didn’t exist, but because saying them would’ve required a kind of clarity Robby had spent most of his life avoiding.
It was easier to file it under something else—loyalty, history, proximity. Easier to laugh it off, to redirect, to let it sit in that grey space where it didn’t have to be examined too closely.
Then you came along. And you didn’t disrupt that balance. You just seemed to understand it.
You didn’t wedge yourself between them, didn’t ask Jack to choose, didn’t look at Robby like he was something to tolerate or compete with. You moved through it like it already made sense to you. Like there was room.
And God—there was something about you.
Not just that you were beautiful—though you were, in a way that made people look twice without meaning to. Not just that you were younger, brighter, sharper at the edges in a way that made everything feel a little more alive. It was the way you saw people.
The way you saw Jack—fully, without flinching, without trying to fix him or soften him into something more palatable. The way you leaned into him like you trusted him to hold the weight of that. The way you touched him without hesitation, like affection was a language you spoke fluently.
And worse—
The way you looked at Robby sometimes, like you were trying to figure him out and already had.
He’d noticed it long before anyone said anything. Of course he had. The small things. The way your attention lingered just a second longer than necessary. The way you didn’t pull back when he got too close, didn’t flinch at the edge in him that made other people cautious.
You met it. Sometimes you even matched it. And that—more than anything—was what made him careful. Because wanting you was one thing.
That was easy enough to dismiss, tuck away under instinct, under biology, under the thousand other justifications people used to avoid looking too closely at themselves.
But wanting you like this—in the context of Jack, with Jack, because of Jack. That was something else entirely. It brushed up against things he didn’t have neat categories for. Things that felt uncomfortably close to lines he’d spent years pretending weren’t there.
And Jack…
Jack, who didn’t do anything halfway, who didn’t offer things he wasn’t sure about—was sitting across from him like this was just another extension of something already solid. Like this wasn’t a risk so much as… an opening.
That was what threw him. It wasn’t the sex or the implication, it was how Jack totally trusted him. With you, with this, with Jack himself.
And Robby didn’t trust himself nearly that much.
That was the problem. Beneath all the deflection, all the dryness and sarcasm, the sharp edges, there was something undeniably real threading through all three of you. Not clean, not simple—but real in a way that resisted being dismissed.
Jack had never been particularly private about you. Not with Robby.
Not in the way people usually were about relationships—careful, curated, keeping the good parts polished and the rest tucked away. Jack wasn’t built like that. He didn’t gush, didn’t sentimentalise—but if he’d had a couple drinks in him and it’d been a long week, you came up. Inevitably.
Not in a soft-focus, hearts-and-flowers way.
In details. In fragments. In the way you got under his skin and stayed there.
The way you kissed him, made him feel every ounce of his own flesh and blood, grounded, and above at once. In how much he adored your figure, or some ridiculous position, some ridiculous story of stamina and libido, your mouth, his mouth, your hand, his hand.
Robby had learned, over the years, to let it wash over him. Half-listening, half-not. It wasn’t discomfort exactly—more like… he didn’t know where to put it. There was something about hearing your name in Jack’s mouth like that that sat strange in his chest.
“What the fuck do you mean six times?” Robby had said once, a laugh breaking through despite himself as he tipped his beer back.
They were sprawled out on the grass like they hadn’t aged out of it—backs damp against the ground, shirts sticking, the heat of the day still rising up through the dirt. The city hummed around them, distant enough to ignore. It felt like being twenty something again, except their knees ached when they stood and everything they didn’t talk about sat heavier.
It was one of those nothing nights, sometime back in Spring. End of a shift. A few beers. Waiting for you to finish upstairs while Jack pretended he wasn’t being watched over by the hospital.
Jack didn’t even open his eyes. “I mean she came six times,” he said, easy. “Working up to eight.”
Robby snorted. “You’re talking like it’s a personal best.”
“It is,” Jack said. “You don’t set goals, you stagnate. That’s what my therapist says.”
“Jesus Christ.”
Jack grinned faintly, still flat on his back, arms folded behind his head like he had nowhere else to be. “What’s your number?”
Robby shrugged, taking another sip. “I don’t know. I don’t have a number.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Nope.”
“Bull.”
Robby dragged a hand over his mouth, already regretting engaging. “…Four. Maybe.”
Jack turned his head slightly, considering that like it mattered more than it should. His fingers tapped absently against the neck of the bottle.
“Four,” he repeated.
“Some of us aren’t treating it like a competitive sport,” Robby muttered.
Jack huffed. “It’s not me,” he said. “It’s her. She’s a natural.”
“She really that good?” Robby had slipped as a question. Maybe for his own curiosity, maybe because he knew Jack would’ve gotten to it at some point. Both, likely.
There was a beat.
Robby stared up at the sky like it didn’t matter either way. Jack shifted slightly, something quieter settling into him now.
“She’s—” he paused, like he was trying to find a word that didn’t sound ridiculous and failing. “She pays attention. Like she’s studying you. Figures out what works and then—just… doesn’t let up. Like I’m constantly high around her. And man, she-” Jack cleared his throat. “She does this thing with her tongue.”
Robby exhaled through his nose, slow.
He didn’t say anything.
“She swirls it, right around the underside, traces it—the entire thing with the flat part. Goes between, you know, broad strokes, little ones, then she’ll—fuck,” Jack had mused. “…She’ll use the space beneath her tongue, suck, and still use her tongue at the same time. I can’t describe how good it feels,” Jack had explained, his words slurring slightly but still carrying a strange clarity. “Fucking… incredible.”
Robby couldn’t have helped but picture it. The image of you, on your knees, long lashes batting at him, as you brought him to the edge. He sipped his beer, fingers a bit tighter around the neck of the glass.
“She makes the prettiest noises, like a… I don’t even know,” Jack added, quieter now, almost to himself. “Moans and screams, and so… Christ. Like she doesn’t even realise she’s doing it, possessed.”
“Alright, that’s enough,” Robby cut in, not sharply, but firm.
Jack just smirked, eyes still shut. “You asked.”
“I didn’t ask for a breakdown.”
“Semantics.”
Robby shook his head, but there was a faint smile tugging at his mouth despite it. He finished the last of his beer, letting the cold settle something in his chest that had nothing to do with the heat.
A pause stretched between them. Jack sipped his beer. Then—
“What’s the deal with you and Noelle?” Jack asked, casual in that way that wasn’t casual at all.
Robby’s jaw shifted.
“She’s… fine,” he said.
Jack cracked one eye open. “That sounds promising.”
Robby huffed. “It’s not—” he cut himself off, shook his head. “Don’t think it’s going anywhere.”
Jack watched him for a second. Then nodded, like he’d expected that. He handed Robby his own beer, watching as Robby took it after a moment, sipping from it himself
“Yeah,” he said. “Bummer.”
Another beat. Robby sat up, bracing his forearms on his knees, their shared beer dangling loose between his fingers.
“Don’t think I’m built for it,” he said finally.
Jack didn’t move. “For what?”
“This,” Robby gestured vaguely. “Relationships. The staying. The… showing up part.”
Jack was quiet for a second.
Then—
“Now that’s bull,” he said, not unkindly.
Robby glanced at him, a faint, tired smirk pulling at his mouth. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “We’ve known each other, what—twenty years? You’ve stuck around that long.”
“That’s different.”
“Is it?”
Robby didn’t answer that. Jack pushed himself up onto his elbows now, looking at him properly.
“You don’t get to pretend you can’t do something just because you haven’t done it right yet,” he said.
Robby scoffed lightly. “Didn’t realise you were gonna get philosophical on me.”
“Yeah, well,” Jack muttered, reaching for his beer. “Hate to break it to you, man, but you’re not some unfixable case.”
Robby laughed at that—short, real.
“Garcia said I’d make a good ex-husband,” he said.
Jack snorted. “See? Even she thinks you can commit.”
“That’s not what that means.”
“Close enough,” Jack sighed. “Lie down, will you. You’re so damn tense.”
Robby let out a low groan but did it anyway, dropping back into the grass beside him, one arm flung over his eyes like he could shut the world out for a second.
The ground was still a little damp from the morning rain, cool through his shirt, the air thick and warm in that late-night way where everything feels slower, looser.
They went quiet after that. Easy quiet. The kind that only comes after years—no need to fill it, no need to perform.
“Aw, you two are so cute.”
Jack sat up immediately.
You stood a few feet off the path, lit half by a flickering streetlamp—scrubs wrinkled, hair a mess like you’d been running your hands through it all day, hoodie tied loose around your hips. One of Jack’s old military backpacks hung off your shoulder like it belonged there.
For a while there, Robby had forgotten the whole reason they’d been in the park to begin with was to wait for you.
“Hey, baby,” Jack said, voice softening without him meaning it to. “You finish alright?”
You just nodded, already moving toward him.
You didn’t hesitate—never did. Leaned down, pressed a quick kiss to his cheek that turned, halfway through, into something closer to his mouth. Warm. Familiar. You lingered just long enough that he had to chase it a second.
“Miss me?” you murmured, barely pulling back.
“Always,” he said, easy. A little drunk, a little honest.
Robby watched it happen from the ground, not even pretending not to.
You dropped down in front of Jack, cross-legged, close enough your knees brushed his thighs. His hands came up immediately—instinct, habit—sliding over your arms, grounding, checking.
Then his mouth found your neck, a soft press just under your jaw, before his hands settled at your shoulders, working slow circles into muscle that had no business being that tight at your age.
You exhaled like you’d been holding it all day.
“Jesus,” you muttered. “Keep doing that.”
“Yeah?” Jack hummed against your skin, a little smug.
“Mhm.”
You tipped your head slightly, giving him better access without thinking. He took it.
Across from you, Robby shifted, propping himself up on his elbows now, watching the two of you with that same look he always got—half amused, half something else he never quite named.
“Robby,” you said, glancing over at him, “how the hell are you drinking after that shift? You guys were slammed.”
“Sometimes a drink’s all you get,” he said. His voice was steady, but his eyes flicked—brief, involuntary—to where Jack’s hands were still working into your shoulders. Then back to your face. “Ortho must’ve been a dream, though.”
You let out a dry laugh. “Oh yeah. Absolute paradise. Park was being a complete asshole to one of the R1s. Kid looked like he was gonna cry.”
“Sounds about right,” Robby muttered.
Jack’s hands slowed, thumbs pressing deeper into a knot that made you suck in a breath.
“Careful,” he said. “You’re gonna fall asleep right here.”
“Honestly?” you said, eyes half-lidded now, “tempting.”
There was a beat. Quiet again—but different this time. Fuller.
You shifted slightly, leaning back into Jack without thinking. Your hand found his knee, resting there, absent, like it belonged.
Robby noticed that too. Of course he did.
You glanced up at Jack then, studying him for a second longer than necessary.
“…You been talking about me?” you asked.
Jack snorted, immediate. “What?”
“You’ve got that look,” you said, squinting at him. “And he’s looking at me weird.”
“I always look at people weird,” Robby said, flat, from the grass.
You didn’t even look at him. “Yeah, but this is a different weird.”
Jack huffed a laugh under his breath, shaking his head like you were ridiculous, even as his mouth betrayed him. “We were just talking about your—what was it—immense beauty. Your sex appeal. Your many talents.”
His mouth brushed your neck again as he said it, like he couldn’t quite help himself.
Robby let out a quiet breath through his nose. Not quite a laugh. Something drier. “It’s not far off.”
You stilled. Then slowly turned your head, looking at Jack properly now.
“What did you say to him,” you murmured, low, dangerous in a way that wasn’t entirely serious—but not entirely not.
Jack leaned in, said something under his breath—too quiet for Robby to catch. Your reaction was immediate.
You smacked his leg—right on the prosthetic—with a sharp thwack.
“Jack.”
He barely flinched, just grinned, caught your wrist before you could do it again.
“If you actually told him that,” you said, pointing at him, “I swear to god I’ll take this thing off and beat you with it.”
“That’s dramatic,” Jack murmured, still holding your hand. “And also physically unlikely.”
“It’s true, though,” he added, softer now, mouth near your ear again. “You’re very good at it.”
You rolled your eyes, but your shoulders had loosened, leaning back into him again despite yourself.
Robby watched the whole thing like it was a film he hadn’t agreed to sit through, but couldn’t quite look away from either.
“So the tongue thing’s real then?” he asked, almost idly.
Jack groaned. “Alright. We’re done here.”
You laughed—bright, cutting through the heaviness of the day shift still clinging to all three of you—and turned into Jack properly this time.
It wasn’t quick. Not really. Soft at first, then deeper, your hand coming up to his jaw, holding him there. He responded without thinking, one hand sliding to your waist, pulling you closer, grounding himself in something he knew.
Robby looked away. Not fast enough.
You pulled back eventually, brushing your nose against Jack’s.
“I’ll drive,” you said quietly. “You’re drunk.”
“I’m not drunk,” he said automatically.
“You’re pretty drunk,” you corrected.
A beat.
“…Alright. Could be a little drunk,” he conceded.
You smiled, already reaching into his pocket for the keys like it was second nature. He let you. Fingers brushing yours as you took them, just for a second longer than necessary.
“Don’t lose the car,” he muttered.
“No promises.”
You stood, stretching slightly, then glanced down at Robby.
“You good?” you asked, softer now.
He met your eyes, something unreadable passing through his expression before it settled back into something easier.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m good.”
You nodded like you believed him.
“Night, Michael.”
There was a flicker at that—something small but real.
“Night,” he said.
Jack let you haul him up, weight shifting automatically to his left as he got his balance, your hand steady at his arm without making a thing of it. He adjusted, rolled his shoulders like he always did, then followed your lead without argument.
“Text me when you get home,” he called back to Robby.
“Sure. Have fun with your girl.’ Robby had said, lying back down.
“I definitely will,” Jack nodded.
You were already walking, his shoulder brushing yours, easy. He leaned down slightly as you hit the path, murmuring something low against your hair that made you let out a quiet, breathy laugh—something private, something just for him.
Robby watched you both go.
Didn’t move.
The grass was still damp under his back when he lay down again, staring up at a sky that refused to give him anything clear.
He exhaled slowly, dragging a hand over his mouth.
So, when you and Jack finally put it to him—cornered him in that quiet, deliberate way the two of you had—Robby wasn’t as hung up on the logistics of it as he probably should’ve been. The dynamic, the risk, the aftermath—those were the things a smarter man might’ve led with. But that wasn’t where his mind went first.
It went somewhere simpler. Sharper.
Just how pretty were the noises you made? How soft was your tongue? Would you like it if Robby was cruel—if he held your head down and made you choke on him?
And Jack… steady Jack. What did he look like when he finally came? Did he like being teased, kept right on that edge until it snapped? Would he grip Robby’s hair, or would he stay controlled even then, taking it without losing that composure?
It wasn't an abstract curiosity. It wasn’t even entirely sexual, not at its core. It was about access.
About seeing something of both of you that no one else did. About being let into a space that already existed—intimate, closed, complete—and being told there was room for him inside it.
And that—more than anything else—was what made it difficult to dismiss.
★★★
Ortho is down for a consultation when you get called in.
The patient is already under—intubated and sedated, leg secured in traction. The CT is up on PACS, the fracture obvious even before you zoom in: a displaced mid-shaft femur, clear shortening, classic muscle pull deformity.
“Yeah, that’s a transverse mid-shaft femoral fracture,” you say, pen tapping the screen. “You can see the displacement here, and the overlap—this is why the leg looks shortened clinically.”
Santos leans in, her eyes slightly wide. “Fuck.”
You shake your head. “It looks dramatic, but it’s stable from what we’ve got. No obvious vascular compromise on imaging. Ortho will likely take her for an intramedullary nail.”
Santos lets out a breath.
You scroll through the scan again, adjusting the windowing. “We’ll just want to repeat neurovascular checks pre-op and post-reduction. But she’s straightforward.”
“Thank god,” Santos mutters. “I was so not bothered to call for another consult.
A knock on the glass interrupts you. You glance up.
Robby.
He’s already halfway through sanitising his hands when he steps in, eyes flicking once to the screen before landing on you.
“Ortho’s down in ED?” he says.
“Yeah,” you answer, a little too aware of him in the doorway. “Santos messaged me. Femur fracture.”
He leans in beside you to look at the CT, close enough that the space shifts—clinical, but not entirely neutral. He’s tired in the way only long shifts make you, sleeves pushed up, forearms marked faintly by pressure lines from his undershirt.
“Looks like a clean nail,” he says.
“Assuming ortho behaves,” you reply.
He huffs something like a laugh. “They won’t.”
“No,” you agree. “We never do.”
Santos clears her throat. “While I’ve got you—Huckleberry and I are having a Parisian party next Friday. At our place. You should come. You and Abbott, of course.”
You pause slightly.
“A Parisian party?” you repeat.
“Yeah,” Santos says, warming to it. “Paris-themed. Like… French food, wine, decorations. The Eiffel Tower and shit.”
Robby makes a quiet sound behind you—almost a laugh, quickly disguised.
You glance at him, but he’s still looking at the scan like nothing happened.
Santos continues, mildly confused. “Have either of you been to Paris?”
“No,” you say.
Robby: “Nope.”
Santos nods like that still tracks logically. “Yeah, me neither. Barely even been to Canada.”
There’s a beat.
“Anyway,” She adds, already backing toward the door, “You’re invited too, Robby. Maybe the three of you come together or something. You’re all close”
“...Sounds good, Santos, we’ll let you know,” Robby says with a nod. “North Twelve?”
“Consider it done.” Santos says dry, nodding.
The door shuts behind her. Silence settles back in—clean, clinical, familiar. Except Robby is still standing close enough that you’re aware of him in a way you shouldn’t be during a trauma consult.
He glances at the CT again. “Paris-themed party,” he repeats flatly.
“Don’t even,” you say immediately, because you can hear it in his tone already, trying to hide your own smile.
“What?” he says innocently.
You turn slightly toward him. “I know exactly what you’re thinking.”
He finally looks at you properly now, mouth twitching. “I’m not thinking anything.”
“You’re absolutely thinking something and at work nonetheless? Inappropriate.”
“I’m thinking Santos should never be allowed to plan anything,” he says.
“Liar.”
That earns you a brief, quiet exhale of amusement. You finish with the scans and walk out, Robby hot on your heels as you head to the nurses station.
“You think you’ll go?” he asks.
“No,” you say. “Jack and I have the night off. We’ll be busy.”
“Right,” he nods.
A beat.
“You?” you ask.
“I’d rather not spend my night around a bunch of drunk residents,” Robby says with a quiet exhale. “So, no.”
“Come over then,” you offer, stopping at the nurses’ station.
Robby gives you a look. “Thought you said you two were busy.”
“You can be busy with us,” you say, looking up at him, pen tapping lightly against the chart. “Or just Jack. Or just me. He told me you’ve thought about it either way.”
A faint sigh leaves him. “Right. I forgot he can’t keep anything to himself.”
He leans against the counter, lowering his voice slightly as his eyes flick briefly across the station—Dana watching from a few bays away, already narrowing her gaze like she’s clocking something she hasn’t labelled yet.
“Have you?” he asks softly.
“Thought about you? In that way?” you clarify.
He nods, a slight tilt to his head, curious.
You hesitate just long enough to make it honest.
“Yes,” you admit. “You’re tall. Kind. Your beard’s nice. You’re probably a little meaner than Jack, which interests me.”
That earns the smallest twitch at the corner of his mouth. Something deeper in him satisfied.
“Abbot’s a lover boy at heart,” Robby says. “Gives in easily. ‘Specially for you.”
You nod, like that tracks. “Most of the time, yeah.”
That earns a quieter look from him. A pause that sits just slightly longer than professional. Then, more carefully, “Is it true you had a crush on me?”
You tilt your head. “God, he really just— Doesn’t keep anything to himself.”
Robby exhales through his nose. “Not at all. I’ve been subjected to that man and his inner workings for too long.”
You bump his shoulder lightly with yours, just enough contact to make the space between you feel intentional.
“Was it a yes?”
“To the crush?” You consider it. “Yeah.”
That makes his eyebrows lift slightly.
“Before Jack,” you add, like it matters in a technical sense. “Older, authority figure, slightly emotionally unavailable… I think I might just have a pattern.”
Robby hums, low. “Tracks.”
There’s a beat where neither of you moves away. Then he says, quieter, “And now?”
You don’t look away when you answer. “Now, it’s just… different.”
That hangs there. From somewhere down the hall, a monitor beeps sharply, breaking the moment just enough for it not to tip into anything else.
You glance back down at the chart, already half-moving on.
“I’ll let you know when we get a room open for the femur nail lady.”
And then you’re gone—already walking toward the elevator, the conversation left hanging in the air behind you. Robby watches you go.
A quiet breath leaves him through his nose. He taps his fingers once against the counter, then pushes off it, turning back to the screens like he needs something solid to land on.
Dana appears beside him a second later, sliding into the space like she’s been waiting for exactly this moment.
“What’s with that?” she asks.
“...What’s with what?” he replies, arms folding loosely, eyes still on the monitor bank.
“I mean,” she says slowly, “what’s with flirtin’ with Abbott’s girl in front of everybody?”
He doesn’t look at her when he answers.
“That’s not flirting,” he says evenly. “We were just talking.”
“Yeah,” she says, nodding toward the bay. “Just rolled in. Need you over there.”
“Alright,” he says.
And he follows her down the hall, expression already reset.
★★★
“—Hey. Hold on a second,” Jack says, breath a little uneven.
“No, don’t—don’t hold on,” you protest, already moving, frustrated at the interruption. Your hips roll, trying to sink deeper, but his hands clamp down on your waist—firm, grounding, stopping you.
“Hey. Easy.” A breath. “Just—gimme a second, alright?”
You huff, but you stop. Barely. Your thighs tremble, hovering just above his cock, the tip brushing against your wet slit. “This better be good.”
He lets out something like a quiet laugh, more breath than sound. “Yeah, I’ll try not to waste your time.”
A beat. He looks at you properly now—focused, a little too clear-headed for the situation. His thumb traces a slow circle on your hipbone, soothing, but his eyes are sharp.
“Just… wanna get this straight,” he says.
Your hands shift on his chest, nails dragging lightly. “Okay. Then say it.”
He nods once. “He can be there. He can watch, he can fuck you.” A pause. “But there are lines.”
You tilt your head, watching him. “Such as?”
His grip tightens just a fraction—not enough to bruise, enough to mean something. “Such as—you don’t forget who you’re with.”
You raise a brow, a smirk pulling at your lips. “Hard to forget when you’ve got your dick in me half the time I’m not at work.”
“Smartass,” he mutters. Then, quieter—“I’m serious. He doesn’t get to know how you taste. That’s mine.”
“Uh-huh…” You roll your hips lazily, not sinking down, just letting the head of his cock nudge against your clit, making him hiss. “So this is allowed?” You lift up, then lower just an inch, teasing the tip against your entrance.
“Yeah, allowed,” Jack nods, his jaw tight.
“Mm. This?” You lean down and kiss him—sweet, slow, your tongue brushing his lower lip before you pull back with a soft pop.
He nods into the kiss, groaning when you start to move again, lifting your pussy off him completely. The air hits his wet shaft and he shudders.
“Yeah? What about this?” You wrap your hand around his cock, giving it a slow, deliberate stroke from base to tip, slick with your own arousal. You squeeze just a little, watching his eyes flutter.
“All allowed,” he grates out, “but his mouth isn’t getting near this, alright, that’s all—” He cuts off as he grabs you by the hips, guiding your pussy back down, lining you up and shoving it back in with a single, brutal thrust. Your moan rips out of you—loud, breathy, grateful. His cock fills you so deep you feel it in your throat.
“Yeah? That good with you?” he asks, voice rough.
You nod, already starting to ride him—slow at first, just a rock of your hips, teasing the angle. “What about you and ’im?” you ask, breath hitching as you grind down.
Jack shrugs—or tries to. “What don’t you want?”
“No blowjobs either, then,” you say, voice a little strained as you lift up and drop back down, feeling every ridge. “’S for me.”
“Sounds good to me.” His hands find your hips again, but he doesn’t guide—he just holds, letting you set the pace. Letting you take.
You pick up speed, thighs burning, your clit grinding against his pubic bone with each roll. The room fills with the wet sound of your pussy gripping his cock, and you tilt your head back, letting him see the arch of your throat.
His hand comes up, thumb brushing along your jaw, pulling your focus back to him when you drift.
“Right here,” he murmurs.
You meet his gaze. That same look—steady, a little rough around the edges, but sure. His.
“Good,” he says, softer now. His thumb drags across your lower lip, and you part your mouth, just enough to suck the tip of it in. His eyes darken.
And when you move again, it’s slower. You rock forward, letting his cock hit that deep, sweet spot, and you moan against his thumb. You pull off it with a wet sound, then lean down to kiss him again—dirtier this time, tongue and teeth, whimpering into him.
“Yeah,” he breathes against your lips. “That’s better.”
★★★
It’s late into the evening on Friday when you hear Jack on the phone.
“No, can’t,” Jack says, pacing your living room, phone tucked to his ear while he half-heartedly folds laundry and gives up halfway through. “I’m home. She’s cooking. Smells like I’m about to get fat and happy.”
“Baby, can you come try this?” you call from the kitchen.
“One sec,” he says, then quieter, back into the phone—“What’d you wanna do?”
“Nothing,” Robby mutters. “I… I don’t know, man. I don’t feel like crashing Santos and Whitaker’s… house party. We could go for a drive. Hike.”
Jack stops mid-step. “A hike,” he repeats. “At nine-thirty at night.”
A beat.
“Yeah, not happening,” he decides, dropping the laundry basket and heading into the kitchen.
You’re at the counter in that barely-there nightgown—soft, short, riding up your thighs as you lean forward, aggressively chopping an onion like it personally offended you. Eyes glossy, blinking through it.
Jack pauses in the doorway for half a second longer than necessary.
Then—business as usual.
“Alright,” he says, stepping in behind you, close enough that his hand brushes your hip on the way past. “What am I trying?”
You nod at the stove. “Carbonara.”
He leans over, tastes it, hums—low, approving.
“Yeah,” he says into the phone. “She’s showing off.”
You bump his arm lightly. “I am not.”
“You are,” he says, kissing you quick, easy, like he’s done it a thousand times. “It’s working.”
You smile despite yourself, wiping at your eyes.
On the phone, Robby exhales. Rough. Tired.
“Hike’s dumb,” Jack says, shifting tone without making it obvious. “What’s actually going on.”
“Nothing,” Robby says. “Just… can’t sit still. Garcia was on my ass all day, Al-Hashimi wouldn’t shut the fuck up—”
“—Hey,” Jack cuts in, calm, steady. “Take a breath.”
You glance over at him. He’s not looking at you anymore—focused now, locked into that mode.
“You’re good,” he says. “You’re not thinking anything dumb, right?”
A pause.
“…No,” Robby says. “Just need to… get out of my head, I don’t know.”
Jack hears it. You do too. That edge. That restless, pissed-off with nowhere to put it thing.
“He can come here,” you say, like it’s obvious.
Jack looks at you—quick, assessing—but there’s no resistance there. Just a flicker of something else.
“Yeah,” he says into the phone. “Come over. Food’s ready soon.”
“I don’t know, man—” Robby starts.
You reach over and take the phone straight out of Jack’s hand.
“Hey, Michael.”
There’s a beat.
Jack watches you now, not even pretending to focus on the onions anymore.
“…Hey,” Robby says, slower. “Heard you were cooking.”
“Mhm,” you hum, leaning back against the counter, bare leg brushing against Jack’s where he stands beside you. “Plenty to go around.”
Jack’s hand settles at your hip automatically. Not possessive—just there.
Robby hears the shift anyway.
“This a setup?” he asks.
You smile slightly. “You always this suspicious, or just with me?”
A quiet scoff from him.
“You should come,” you add, softer—but not innocent. “You sound like you need it.”
A beat. Jack’s thumb presses lightly into your hip. Grounding. Present.
Robby exhales. “Yeah. Guess I can make it.”
“Guess you can,” you say easily.
Silence again—but it’s different now.
You glance at Jack.
He nods once.
“Door’s unlocked,” you say. “Twenty minutes.”
You hand the phone back.
Jack takes it, fingers brushing yours briefly, then brings it back to his ear. “You heard her. No pressure.”
A pause.
“…Alright,” Robby says.
The line clicks dead.
Jack sets the phone down on the counter, then looks at you properly. A slow once-over. Not subtle.
“What?” You raise a brow.
“Nothing. Nothing at all. I’ll finish the laundry.” He gives you a deep kiss to your neck, hands trailing over your figure as he mumbles into your skin, fingers gently pushing aside the light material. “You gonna stay in this?” He asks.
“‘S that alright?” You wonder, leaning into his touch.
He inhales sharply against your skin, lips leaving your skin. “Sure.”
★★★
You’re out on the balcony when it comes up.
Jack’s place sits high enough that the city feels almost staged—Pittsburgh stretched out in warm light, bridges lit up in clean lines, traffic moving steady below like it never really stops. It’s one of those late summer nights where the air sticks just slightly to your skin, warm but not suffocating. There’s music drifting from somewhere down the block, a party you can’t see but can feel in the background.
The balcony’s not small—wide enough for a proper table, a few chairs, space to lean without feeling cramped. Jack had insisted on that when he bought the place. Said if he was going to spend money, it’d be on something worth standing still for.
Your plates are mostly cleared, carbonara half-finished, wine and beer sweating into the wood.
“Have either of you done this before?” Robby asks.
Jack shakes his head immediately. “No.”
You don’t answer.
You’re thinking—actually thinking, head tilted slightly, finger lifting to tap against Jack’s arm like you need him to hold on a second. That’s when it hits him, belated and faintly incredulous, that this apparently hadn’t come up when the idea itself had.
“…Have you?” Jack asks, turning to you, already suspicious.
“I am thinking,” you murmur, brows pulling together like this is a serious recall exercise.
Robby raises a brow, watching you now, something amused creeping in despite himself.
“What do you mean you’re thinking?” Jack presses. “That’s not… I don’t know, something you half do or something. You’d know.”
“Or something,” Robby mutters under his breath.
You shoot him a look, then roll your eyes. “Okay—no. I don’t think I’ve had a threesome.”
“How can you not think you’ve had a threesome?” Jack wonders.
You lean back slightly, folding one leg under you, the fabric of your nightgown shifting higher on your thigh without you bothering to fix it. You don’t notice how both men’s gaze drop there.
You exhale, already regretting engaging. “Because—technically—no one actually got fucked, there was no penetration by anybody, so, grey area?”
There’s a beat.
Robby’s mouth twitches.
Jack blinks. “...Right.”
“Okay?” you continue, defensive now. “It was—hands. That’s it. Group situation, but not… full commitment.”
Robby huffs a quiet laugh, shaking his head. “Group situation,” he repeats.
“Shut up,” you mutter.
“Another guy or girl?” Jack asks, too quickly.
You hesitate just long enough to make it interesting. “…Both.”
Jack leans back like you’ve just told him something deeply inconvenient. “...Huh.”
Robby lets out a low whistle through his nose. “So not a threesome. Just… poor project management.”
You laugh despite yourself. “Oh my god.”
“That’s a foursome that lost direction,” he adds, dry.
“Whatever,” you shrug. “Med school was fun for me. Sorry I had range.”
Jack eyes you, something between amused and slightly thrown. “I’m just saying, that’s a hell of a thing to casually drop over dinner.”
You smirk faintly. “I’m surprised you haven’t.”
Jack scoffs. “I’ve had opportunities.”
“Mm,” you hum, unconvinced.
Robby glances at him sideways. “That sounds like a lie.”
“It’s not a lie,” Jack says, defensive now. “I just—never felt the need.”
“Right,” Robby says. “Till now.”
Jack gives him a look. “Till now.”
Something passes there—quick, familiar, not entirely friendly as Robby sips his beer.
After, you step out to the edge of the balcony, forearms resting against the railing. The city hums below you, the air warmer now, carrying the smell of food and distant smoke.
Inside, you hear Jack moving—plates, running water. Robby’s voice low, asking something, already familiar with the space.
“Thanks, baby,” you say when Jack comes back out, taking your plate.
You lean in, press a quick kiss to his cheek.
“Thank you,” he murmurs, hand coming up to your hair, messing it slightly with a small, easy smile.
You push him away lightly. “Don’t start.”
Robby watches it for a second before picking up the empty bottles, holding them loosely by the necks.
“Next to the fridge?” he asks, like he hasn’t been here a hundred times already—like tonight isn’t slightly different.
“Yeah,” you nod. “Recycling. Thank you.”
He gives a short nod and turns— You catch his wrist. It’s not forceful. Just enough.
“Hey,” you say, softer.
He looks down at you.
There’s a pause—his eyes dragging, just briefly, lower before coming back up. You’re close enough now to feel the heat off him, the faint roughness of his breath after a drink, after a long day.
You use his forearm to pull yourself up just slightly— and kiss him. It’s not rushed. It’s far from tentative either. Close. Testing.
His beard scratches lightly against your skin, rough in a way that makes you more aware of it, not less. He stills for half a second—then responds, mouth softer than you expected, hand hovering like he hasn’t decided where it’s allowed to land.
Your teeth catch his bottom lip briefly. That’s what does it.
“Starting without me?” Jack’s voice cuts in, dry. “Bit mean.”
Robby pulls back instinctively, like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t—even though—
Even though.
You smile a little, letting go of his wrist as he clears his throat.
“Next to the fridge,” Jack adds, nodding toward the bottles.
Robby nods once, wordless, moving past him.
Their shoulders brush as he goes. Not accidental. Jack doesn’t move out of the way.
He watches Robby for a second longer than necessary, then looks back at you.
You end up on the couch.
It happens naturally—plates abandoned in the sink, TV flicked on for noise more than anything else. Some late-night rerun playing low in the background, colours shifting across the room, low lamps lighting the room.
Jack’s in the middle, halfway through some story from work—one of those cases that stuck with him. Complicated, strange, the kind he can’t quite let go of.
You’re tucked into his side, knees curled under you, your hand idly playing at the back of his neck—fingers brushing through his hair, absent, familiar. You nod along, half-listening, more focused on the rhythm of his voice, the warmth of him.
Robby’s behind you. Close enough that you can feel the heat of him through your back, even before his hand settles on your thigh—slow, absent movement, like he’s not even fully aware he’s doing it.
Up. Down. Not pushing. Not asking. Just there.
Jack keeps talking.
You lean in without really thinking about it—your lips brushing along his jaw, then just below it. Light. Familiar. Not rushed.
Jack’s hand comes up to your lower back automatically, pulling you in a fraction closer, steadying you there.
Robby’s hand doesn’t stop. If anything, it shifts—just slightly higher, fingers brushing warmer skin now where the fabric gives way.
Jack feels it. His hand stills for a second at your back—then relaxes again.
He doesn’t pull you away. Doesn’t say anything. You exhale softly against his neck, your breath warm there, your fingers tightening slightly where they rest behind him.
And for a second—just a second—you’re aware of both of them at once.
Jack in front of you, steady, grounding. Robby behind you, quieter, heavier—watching more than speaking.
Jack’s gaze lifts. Meets Robby’s. There’s a beat. Not long. But long enough. Something passes between them—wordless, measured. Something you can’t read.
Jack gives the smallest nod. Barely there. Robby’s jaw shifts slight. Then Jack looks back at you.
Your hand slides from his neck to his jaw, turning him slightly, and you kiss him properly this time—slow, deliberate. He leans into it without hesitation, one hand firm at your waist.
When you pull back, it’s not far. Just enough. Just long enough to turn.
Robby’s already looking at you. Not surprised. Not really. Just watching. You close the distance like it’s nothing—like it’s always been this simple—and kiss him too.
Different. Not softer, not harder—just new. Testing. His hand stills on your thigh for half a second before it shifts, coming up to steady at your side, like he’s grounding himself in it.
There’s a quiet breath from him—almost a huff, almost disbelief.
“This is fun,” You murmur.
You don’t give him time to overthink it.
You lean back between them again, tipping your head slightly, and they follow without being told.
Jack’s mouth finds one side of your neck, familiar, certain.
Robby hesitates for a fraction of a second— then doesn’t.
The other side. Slower. More deliberate. Like he’s learning something he’s not used to having.
You exhale, a soft sound you don’t quite hold back this time, and your hands come up instinctively—one finding Jack’s hair, the other Robby’s, fingers threading through both, holding them there.
For a second, it stays like that. Balanced.
Then you shift, just slightly—hands tightening, guiding as you move the two of them, their lips almost naturally coming to find one anothers, moving them like ken dolls, before you drop your hands, watching with a small smile, as Robby's immediacy for control goes against Jack's. Robby’s hand deepening into your thigh, grip tight as he kisses Jack.
Jack pulls back first, breath uneven but still controlled, his eyes flicking to yours like he’s checking in—like he always does.
His hand slides up your spine, slower now, deliberate where it had been absent before. His palm is cool against your overheated skin, the contrast making you shiver as it traces upward, then back down again, lingering just enough to feel intentional.
You lean back into him, lips finding his neck again—dragging slowly over the roughness of his skin, the faint scrape grounding, familiar. You press a little firmer this time, less thought, more instinct.
When you pull back, it’s only barely. Your breath catches—not dramatic, just… aware. Of him. Of Robby. Of both.
Jack’s hand presses more firmly into your back, keeping you close, steadying you like he can feel the shift too.
“Baby,” he murmurs, voice low, softer than before. “Feeling needy?”
You nod against him, answering with your mouth instead—kissing along his jaw now, slower, more deliberate.
“Yeah,” he exhales, a quiet sort of understanding in it. “I know, hon.” A beat. Then, quieter—“You want me, or him?”
You hesitate. Not long—but long enough to matter.
Robby’s hand shifts on your thigh, moving from the outside to your inner thigh, firm but unhurried, easing you open just slightly—testing, not taking. Waiting to see what you’ll do with it.
“It’s alright,” Jack starts, voice still calm, like he’s talking you through something he already trusts. “Go ahead. She likes it when you—”
“—I’ll ask you for help if I need it, alright?” Robby cuts in, low and even.
They exchange a look—brief, sharp, understood.
You lean over, pressing a quick, soft kiss to Jack’s cheek—something sweet, grounding—before shifting your weight and climbing into Robby’s lap.
He stiffens for a second. Just a second.
Robby’s always been hard to read. Time’s etched itself into his face, but there’s still that wall there—something held back, something controlled. Maybe it’s nerves. Maybe it’s you. His best friend’s girl, sitting on him like this—close, warm, curious.
“You okay there, Sasquatch?” you tease, tilting your head up at him.
His hands find your thighs again almost immediately, like muscle memory kicking in. His gaze flicks—down, over you, then back to your eyes. Briefly to Jack. Then back again.
“Sasquatch? Really?” he murmurs, one hand moving up to cup your breast through your top. His palm is warm against you, sending a shiver down your spine. “That’s what you’re going with?”
“Beard, tall… same thing, no?” you shrug lightly.
That earns the faintest hint of a smirk.
“She always cracking jokes before getting fucked?” Robby asks, giving your breast a firm squeeze. His other hand slides lower, ghosting over your stomach before cupping your mound through your panties
“Depends,” Jack admits. “One time I got G.I Joe for an hour.”
“He was in uniform, in my defense,” You defend, brief before you try moving your hips over Robby’s fingers, eager. “Come on, Michael.”
Robby's fingers press harder against your core, rubbing slow, firm circles that have you arching into him, a sweet whine escaping your lips, his eyes enamoured with how your mouth parts, breath warm against him.
“What a cute noise you make, sweetheart,” Robby murmurs. “Ask me nicely now.”
You hesitate, desperate as his fingers continue to move achingly slow over your wetness.
“Ask or I give Jack my hand right now instead and you can wait your turn for another hour,” Robby tells, voice low and soft, not looking away from where his fingers glide over your seeping core.
“Please,” you murmur, voice breathy and desperate. “Please fuck me with your fingers.”
You crash your lips to his—harsh, messy, tongues thrusting quick and slick, his beard scraping rough red trails across your cheeks and chin. He growls low into your mouth, yanking your panties aside with brutal force, calloused fingertips dragging through your dripping folds, parting your lips wide before ramming two thick fingers knuckle-deep into your clenching pussy—no mercy, no prep.
You gasp ragged into the kiss, a high-pitched moan ripping free as your lips break away, saliva trailing shiny strings from his mouth to yours. You latch onto his neck, teeth grazing the salty skin, sucking hard as you grind down fierce onto his invading digits—walls squeezing tight around the stretch, juices flooding hot over his palm.
“Move your fingers toward her ventral,” Jack instructs from the side, voice calm but edged with that teasing know-it-all tone, his hand sliding warm along your spine.
Robby exhales sharp through his nose—mild irritation flashing in his eyes at the unasked advice, jaw clenching as he shoots Jack a quick, heated glare. But he curls his fingers obediently upward inside you, knuckles grinding rough along your front wall to hammer your g-spot precise and relentless. Your moan swells louder, body jolting as fresh gushes of slick coat his hand, pussy slurping obscenely around each pump.
“Christ, you’re making a mess on me, aren’t you, kid? Huh?” Robby rasps, voice gravel-thick with mean delight, eyes locked on the filthy sight—your swollen pussy lips gliding and sucking greedily over his plunging fingers, riding them frantic.
He twists his wrist sharp, scissoring the digits wide to pry your hole open, thumb mashing down hard on your throbbing clit with every brutal thrust—wet schlicks echoing loud, your thighs trembling slick against his forearm, arousal trickling warm down to soak his jeans.
He adds a third finger suddenly, forcing the burn deeper, stretching your cunt taut as he moves, hooking mercilessly on that spongy spot.
“You getting close?” He asks, low and rough, listening closely to your moans, how they become pitchier, breathier, as sweet as Jack described. You nod, a loose yes, focused only on how your core winds up to the edge. “That right?”
Your cries pitch wilder, back arching as he pinches your clit between thumb and knuckle, rolling it rough while his fingers churn your insides, coil tight in your core.
“What else she like?” Robby asks Jack, glancing over at his friend now, fingers never slowing their rhythm inside you.
Jack taps his index and middle digit to his lips, nodding toward you. Robby nods back, hums at the sight of you, curious.
Robby yanks his fingers free abrupt—your pussy clenching empty, a whine tearing from your throat at the aching void, hips bucking needy for more. He brings those soaked digits up to your face, gripping your chin firm to still you, watching hungry as you part your lips instinctively.
His fingertips tease your bottom lip, smearing your own cream glossy, before you suck them in deep—tongue swirling eager around the thick lengths, lapping every tangy drop, hollowing cheeks as saliva drips messy down your chin.
“Atta girl, you’re a fuckin’ mess now aren’t you?” Robby murmurs, gaze glued ravenous to your bobbing mouth, cock throbbing harder under you. “You wanna cum?”
You nod, frantic around his fingers, eyes pleading.
“Not yet,” Robby denies, voice almost gentle, yet harsh at once. “Barely seen what you can do.”
You exhale shaky as he pulls his fingers out with a wet pop, trailing spit from your chin before cupping your whole face possessive, holding you locked on him.
“Go over to him. Make him feel good,” Robby orders, jerking his chin at Jack.
You nod, movements sluggish from the edge he left you on.
“On the floor, knees, now,” Robby snaps, voice brooking no argument.
You slide off his lap reluctant, crawling back to Jack beside him on the couch. He smiles soft at you, fingers threading gentle through your hair, cupping your cheek as he brushes strands aside, gaze roaming tender over your flushed skin.
“You alright there?” he asks nicely, thumb stroking your jaw.
You nod eager, hands diving straight to his sweatpants, palming the rigid bulge straining there—heat pulsing under your touch.
You tug the waistband down, freeing his cock—thick shaft springing up heavy, veins bulging, head slick with pre-cum. Your fist wraps tight around the base, pumping slow firm strokes up to the tip, twisting slick over the crown to spread his leak.
Jack inhales sharp, but you drop fully to your knees between his spread thighs on the rug, the rough weave biting into your skin. You lean in, lips parting wide to swallow his cockhead first—tongue flicking the slit to lap salty pre, then sliding down inch by veiny inch, throat relaxing to take him deeper.
“Look pretty down there,” Jack murmurs with a small smile, hand light in your hair, just cradling.
“You’re so soft with her,” Robby remarks from beside, voice mixed with mocking and earnestness as he watches you work, his own tenting obvious.
Jack shrugs, a quiet groan escaping as you hollow your cheeks, sucking vacuum-tight while bobbing steady—saliva pooling at the corners of your stretched lips, dribbling down his balls. Your hand strokes what your mouth can't reach, twisting wet on the upstroke, tongue pressing flat along the underside to trace every ridge.
Robby's gaze burns hot—flicking over your arched back, your drool-slick chin, eyes that dart between Jack's tense face, Robby's hungry stare, then flutter shut as you deepthroat him full, nose burying in his pubes. He fixates on Jack's cock vanishing slick between your lips, throat bulging visible. Then up to Jack, whose fingers grip tighter into your scalp—not shoving, just anchoring as his neck cords tense.
“Good job, sweetheart,” Jack praises breathy, hips twitching minimal into your rhythm.
Your moan vibrates around his length, humming deep to make him shudder, spit bubbling messy as you pop off to lick sloppy stripes up his shaft, sucking each ball into your mouth turn before plunging back down.
He groans low, head lolling back, “Fucking… perfect. So perfect, always.”
Tension crackles thicker between them—Jack's free hand drifts casual at first, then deliberate, palming Robby's thigh before cupping the massive bulge in his jeans, squeezing firm through denim. Robby stiffens, eyes meeting with Jack's, breath hitching as Jack rubs slow circles over the thick outline, thumb pressing the zipper ridge where pre darkens the fabric.
“You alright there, man?” Jack scoffs, a light smile. “Can’t handle it?”
It’s a challenge. It always is with them. Has been since they were twenty something.
Jack knows exactly what he’s doing—knows the tells. The slight tilt of Robby’s head, the way his weight shifts more onto one side, the flicker of something sharper behind his eyes. He’s seen that look in bars, in fights, in operating rooms when things went sideways.
Robby doesn’t back down from anything. Least of all him.
Then Robby exhales slowly, something almost like a laugh under it, eyes locking onto Jack’s—steady, unflinching.
“Oh, I can handle it just fine,” Robby agrees with his own smile. “Go ‘head.”
Jack groans at your relentless mouth—fast and wet, then slowing perfect against him—his hand stroking over Robby’s clothed cock, deliberate and slow, denim rasping under his palm. He leans in first, crashing his mouth to Robby's—sloppy, urgent, tongues battling fierce right above you, beards grinding rough, wet sucks and grunts filling the air. Jack's fingers knead Robby's bulge harder, unzipping halfway to delve inside, wrapping firm around the hot shaft through boxers.
You pull off Jack with a gasp, spit stringing from your lips to his glistening tip, replacing your mouth with your fist—pumping slick and steady along his veiny length, thumb swirling over the slit to smear pre-cum. Your eyes lock on their kiss, Jack's hand slowing on Robby as your thumb teases tentative over his own sensitive crown, tongue darting out to lap the edge of his slit.
“Oh fuck,” Jack moans into Robby’s mouth, breaking away to watch you lick him sweetly, hips bucking light into your grip.
Your free hand joins Jack’s on Robby’s cock, fingers overlapping his as Robby undoes his belt buckle with a metallic clink, shoving jeans and boxers down his thighs. His thick cock springs free. You spit thick into your palm, slicking it hot before gripping him base to tip, stroking in tandem with Jack—your hand twisting wet on the upstroke while his squeezes the root, veins pulsing under your combined pressure.
Robby hisses through clenched teeth, thighs tensing as you both jerk him off rough, pre dribbling over knuckles, your mouth still working on Jack’s cock.
Jack's strokes on you falter to lazy pumps, his fist gliding easy over your saliva-lubed skin as he watches Robby swell thicker in your shared hold. “Fuck, feel that grip? She’s got hands made for this,” he rasps, voice husky, eyes dark on Robby's face.
Robby grunts approval, thrusting shallow into the double stroke. Jack pulls back suddenly, nodding down at you. “Let him feel how good your pretty mouth is, baby.”
You release Jack reluctant, his cock twitching angry-red in the cool air as he takes over—fist flying fast over his shaft, slick echoing. You shift on your knees, turning to Robby, who grips his base and taps the fat head heavy against your cheek—wet smacks on flushed skin, taunting drip of pre-painting streaks.
“Dreamt about this once,” he admits, voice low. “The way Jack described it, you’d think you have the mouth of an angel. That right? You an angel?” He wonders.
You lick your lips in anticipation, hand between your legs, fingers gliding over your folds.
“Seemed pretty desperate for my boyfriend there too,” You remark, not looking away from Robby’s gaze.
His jaw tightens. “He’s pretty good with his hand, but I think you can do better with your tongue.”
You part lips wide, tongue out flat as he slaps his cock deliberately across it, underside dragging salty over your tastebuds before shoving in brutal—half his length in one thrust, stretching your jaw.
You gag wet but suck hollow, cheeks caving as you bob frantic, hand pumping the rest in sync. Saliva floods fast, bubbling down his sack as you swirl tongue under the ridge, hollowing deep to milk him. Your fingers are quick against your wetness, dripping between your thighs, your other hand planted at Robby’s thigh.
“Shit—yeah, like that,” Robby growls, free hand fisting your hair to guide rough, not forcing but controlling the pace—pulling you off to tap his cock on your tongue again, smearing spit and pre glossy before ramming back in.
He fucks your face shallow, hips snapping precise, balls swinging to nudge your chin while Jack jerks himself faster beside, groans syncing with yours muffled around Robby's girth.
You sweep the underside of your tongue around Robby’s cock, soft wetness coating him, slow, then fast, hearing how Robby’s hand tightens harder in your scalp.
Jack leans close, breath ragged as his fist blurs over his cock, tip weeping steady. “Enjoying yourself?”
“Fuck off,” Robby mutters, focused on your mouth, your eyes as they look up at him, wide, watery.
Your fingers slip between your thighs, dipping into your soaked pussy, rutting slow circles over your clit as you kneel between them, mouth stuffed full on Robby's cock. Spit drips messy down your chin, mixing with the slick from your own folds as you finger yourself deeper, chasing that tight coil building low in your belly.
“I’m good,” Jack rasps, eyes locked on your hand working your cunt, his fist pumping steady over his own cock. “Slow down, sweetheart.”
Your fingers comply, easing to lazy drags through your wetness, eyes flicking up to watch Jack slow his palm in sync, thumb circling his flushed tip. His free hand drifts back to Robby's thigh, squeezing hard muscle as he watches you deepthroat—throat bulging obscene with each plunge, gags turning wet and rhythmic.
Robby's taunts rumble gravel-deep: “Fucking hell, you gonna let me cum in that mouth, honey?” He pops free with a gasp, cock throbbing inches from your face, tapping insistent on your cheek—left, right, smearing sticky pre over flushed skin—before you dive back voluntary, nose grinding into his pubes as you swallow him full, humming vibration to wrench a guttural curse from his chest.
“She can take it,” Jack murmurs, voice thick. “Can you, baby? Come on, speak now.”
You moan muffled around Robby's girth, pulling off with a slick pop, resting your head against his still-clothed thigh as your fingers plunge back into your pussy, rutting frantic. “Mhm.” You kiss alongside his shaft, tongue tracing veins lazy, lips brushing hot skin.
“So damn sweet now,” Robby murmurs, hand loosening from your scalp to pet gentle through your hair, watching your fingers disappear knuckle-deep. “That feel good?”
You nod against his thigh, licking slow stripes up his cock, pumping your pussy deliberate—thumb flicking your clit, hips rocking into your hand, edge creeping close, breath hitching sharp.
“No more of that, alright?” Robby nods down, eyes sharp on your body. “Yeah? You listening?”
You groan, fingers curling harder inside yourself. “Fuck you—you wanna cum, I get to cum too.”
Robby tilts his head, that piercing look—the one Jack knows spells trouble, before ripping into a resident. Jack nearly laughs, slowing his strokes to a tease. “Not how it works,” Robby says flat, voice dropping steel.
You glance at Jack, pleading.
“Don’t look at him,” Robby orders, tone snapping stricter, hand fisting your hair tight to force your gaze back. You gulp, thighs clenching empty as you pull your fingers free, pussy clenching needy on nothing. “Put both hands behind your back if you’re gonna act like a fuckin’ brat.”
Reluctant, you clasp your hands behind you, knees aching on the floor, tits heaving with each breath. Robby nods approval, gripping his base to feed his cock back past your lips—slow at first, letting you savor the stretch, then thrusting deeper as you hollow cheeks vacuum-tight.
Your tongue flattens under his shaft to lap the frenulum relentlessly, swirling wet around the head on every upstroke before slamming down throat-deep, gag reflex crushed to nothing. Saliva floods obscenely, bubbling at the corners of your mouth, dripping strings to his balls as you bob frantic—suction pulling groans from his gut, nose buried in coarse hair, throat milking him like a fist.
You hum constant vibration, eyes watering up at him, popping off to spit thick on his length before sucking one ball then the other into your mouth, rolling tongue heavy before plunging back down full.
“Jesus Christ—yeah, there we go…” Robby snarls, hips snapping erratic, free hand clamping your nape to hold you buried as his cock swells impossibly thicker, balls drawing tight.
He floods your mouth suddenly—hot spurts painting your tongue thick and salty, cock pulsing ropes down your throat as you swallow greedily around him, not spilling a drop. He rides it out shallow thrusts, groaning ragged until spent, pulling free with a wet schlick.
“Fuck,” he pants, watching your tongue swipe clean over his softening head, lapping the last beads from his slit.
You fall back onto your heels, knees throbbing, core dripping wet and aching empty down your thighs. Swallowing his load thick, you stand shaky, and lean down to Robby, core exposed from your barely there nightgown. You grab him by his jaw, fingers at his chin, watching as his hand catches your wrist.
You smile at that. “Go on,” Your fingers linger near his mouth, covered with your wetness. “Jack prefers the real deal. You shy all of a sudden, Mikey?”
Robby reluctantly opens his mouth, trying and tasting your wetness, sucking your fingers clean.
“Atta boy,” You say sarcastically, moving them out of his mouth. “You think you can still fuck me, old man?” You whisper.
“Watch it,” Robby murmurs.
“You can, in the corner, while Jack finally makes me cum.” You whisper. “Jack,” you grab Jack’s hand, walking away with him as Jack follows suit behind you.
“Up and at it,” Jack tells Robby over his shoulder as he follows you.
“Fucking hell,” Robby mutters, taking a second before following after.
You hum satisfied, leading them stumbling to the bedroom, the air electric behind you.
In the dim glow, you strip your nightgown overhead, leaving ruined panties—crotch soaked dark—and a lacey bra barely containing your tits. Their eyes burn hot as you climb onto yours and Jack's bed, kneeling center.
Jack follows instant, standing at the edge, hands cupping your jaw rough-tender, leaning down to crash his mouth to yours—passionate and devouring, tongue fucking deep to taste Robby's cum lingering salty. You moan into it, hand snaking to grip his cock again, stroking firm base-to-tip.
Behind Jack, Robby's hands roam his back, trailing firm over shirt fabric before gripping the hem, yanking it up and off in one pull. Jack moans muffled into your kiss when your fist pumps faster, hips bucking into your grip, but he breaks away gasping as cool air hits his bare chest.
Robby presses close from behind, chest flush to Jack's back, beard scraping his shoulder as lips latch onto Jack's neck—sucking a mark deliberate.
“Baby, lie down for me,” Jack instructs.
You nod, lying down on your back, knees spread apart like second nature. He tilts his head, as Robby’s lips trail over his skin.
“Enjoying yourself?” Robby echoes Jack's earlier words, hand meeting at his cock briefly, feeling Jack stiffen and inhale sharply at that. “You gonna make your girl cum, or do I have to do that?”
“Fuck off,” Jack murmurs. “Go sit in a corner and wait, or somethin’,” Jack mutters, hands dragging you by the underside of your knee, gently towards the edge as he kneels on the bed, as Robby steps back with a chuckle.
“Think I got her ready, though, so, shouldn't take long,” Robby says. “Unless you’re not as skilled as you’ve been bragging to be.”
“Oh, my god, one of you make me cum or else I’m doing it myself, Jesus,” you whine.
“Oh, baby,” Jack murmurs, kissing at your inner thighs. “I’m leaving you waiting here.”
“She’s being a brat. Have some patience, honey,” Robby insists, tilting his head at you in mock. “But she’s right, hurry up, Abbot, Christ.”
Jack swipes his tongue along your core, and you moan, your wetness ready and eager from Robby's fingering and your own arousal. He licks slow and firm, teasing your sensitive flesh.
Robby watches from the side, his cock still tucked away in his jeans, as he observes you writhing under Jack's talented tongue. His expression is heated, hungry, clearly enjoying the show.
"Mmm...you look like a-" you moan, too lost in sensation to finish the thought. "A fucking nun, Michael," you finally manage, nodding towards his henley. "You aren't hot in that? Take it off already, fuck,"
Robby clicks his tongue, a light roll of his eyes. "You could ask me nicely. Here I thought you were so polite and sweet," he chides.
Jack’s tongue is a relentless, wet invasion, fucking into you with a rhythm that steals your breath. You clench around him, a tight, pulsing grip, your fingers tangled in his silver curls, thighs locked around his head like a vise.
Your eyes stay fixed on Robby’s as he discards his shirt, the fabric whispering to the floor. The snick of his belt sliding free from the loops makes you tighten your legs around Jack even more, a shiver of anticipation racing up your spine, as Jack laps at your pussy.
“Wider,” Jack grunts, his voice muffled against your pussy. He pushes your thighs apart with his hard biceps, one big hand splayed over your hipbone, pinning you down. “Stop squirming. Take it.”
From the foot of the bed, Robby watches, arms folded over his bare chest. He looks like a professor observing a dissection—calm, analytical, utterly in control. “How close are you?” he asks, his tone clinical.
“Mm, close,” you manage, the words breaking on a moan as Jack’s tongue flicks hard over your clit.
“You make such pretty sounds. He was right about that,” Robby hums, stepping closer. He sits on the edge of the mattress, his calloused hand coming up to cup your cheek. His thumb strokes your skin, sweetly, but his brow is furrowed, his gaze intense. “Callin’ me a nun, and you still got this thing on, honey.” He hooks a finger under the strap of your bra and flicks it sharply against your skin, a sting of sensation.
Jack’s tongue plunges deep again, and you arch off the bed, a choked cry leaving your lips. Your eyes don’t leave Robby’s as his hand slides down, cupping your breast through the lace. He admires the weight, the shape, his fingers tracing the curve.
“Want me to fuck you first, or GI Joe there?” Robby recalls, a smirk playing on his lips.
He doesn’t miss the way your mouth curves in a smile, even as your eyelids flutter shut. Jack quickens his pace, his hands now gripping your thighs like he’s holding you together.
You’re too close, teetering on that blinding edge. Words are impossible.
“Answer me,” Robby instructs, his voice dropping low and stern. His hand kneads your breast, then slips inside the cup of your bra, his fingers finding your nipple. He rolls it, pinches it just shy of pain. “Who do you want first?”
“You,” you gasp, the answer torn from you instinctively, desperately.
Robby’s smirk widens. “You hear that, Abbot? I get to break her in first.” He doesn’t look away from you as he says it.
He leans down, his hand sliding between your legs. Jack pulls back without a word, letting Robby’s fingers trail through your soaked folds, delivering a slap to your clit. You shiver violently, a string of high, needy moans escaping as he collects your wetness on his fingertips. He brings them back to your mouth, his other hand still working your nipple.
“I was right,” you murmur, breathless. “Knew you’d be mean.”
“Yeah? You like it?” Robby wonders, though he already knows.
You bite your lip, refusing to answer.
He pushes his wet fingers past your lips, pulling your jaw open with a firm pressure. The look he gives you is pure command—dark, expectant. Obey.
“I like it,” you moan around his fingers, the admission almost reluctant. Your grip tightens in Jack’s hair. “Fuck—I’m gonna—oh fuck—”
“Yeah?” Robby hums, petting your hair now, his other hand still at your breast. He watches your mouth hang open, watches the pleasure wreck you. “Eyes on me. Come on. No, no. No closing them. You keep ’em right here.” His gaze holds yours captive. “Good girl… good girl, aren’t you? Bratty, but you just needed to cum a little, isn’t that right?”
You whimper as Jack’s tongue sweeps over your oversensitive clit one last time, lapping up your juices as you shatter. Your orgasm crashes through you, white-hot and convulsing, your body bowing off the bed as you cry out.
“Good job, baby. Fucking hell,” Jack mutters against your thigh, his voice rough with praise.
He comes up your body, his hand replacing Robby’s on your breast, kneading possessively. His lips find yours in a messy, wet kiss, tasting of you. Tongues swiping, teeth clashing briefly as you chuckle into the kiss, wet and sloppy as he moves to your neck, sucking hard around your jaw, yoru neck, hand trailing over your figure, squeezing, gentle, rough all at once.
“My favourite girl in the world, you know that,” he murmurs against your skin, kissing at your collarbone.
You grin, feeling as Robby captures your mouth with his own, a brief pause as he watches Jack worship your figure. Jack slides a finger over your core, feeling as your back arches, how you gasp into Robby’s mouth.
“You aren’t a brat, are you baby?” Jack murmurs, rubbing tight circles at your clit, hearing how you whimper at the feeling, fresh from your orgasm. “No, honey, not for me, isn’t that right? Yeah, I know, I know… my sweet girl,” He replaces Robby’s mouth with his own, dragging over yours as you nod into the kiss.
“Told you. Lover boy,” Robby remarks to you.
You grin into the kiss, before Jack pulls away and naturally seems to find Robby’s lips.
You watch, a strange heat pooling in your belly, watching as Jack immediately leans in and kisses Robby. It’s harsh and sweet all at once—a clash of teeth and soft sighs. You thought you might feel a spike of jealousy, but instead, a warm, possessive pride swells in your chest.
Robby stands, briefly cupping Jack’s jaw in a gesture that’s both dismissal and affection before pushing him gently aside. Jack moves from between your legs, sprawling onto his back on the bed. Robby’s hands are on your waist, and you yelp in surprise as he manhandles you with effortless strength, flipping you onto your stomach.
He drags your ruined panties down over your ass, off your legs, and sends them flying to a corner of the room with a flick of his wrist. Your bra is next; he unclips it with one practiced hand, and the lace joins the panties.
“Ass up, sweetheart,” Robby instructs, his voice thick. He lands a sharp, stinging tap on your bare ass cheek. He has one knee on the bed, the other foot planted on the floor.
You obey, pushing yourself up onto your knees and elbows. Jack is lying in front of you now, his gaze heated. You reach for his prosthetic leg, helping him with the quick-release mechanism. Robby hands you the second one without a word—a seamless, understood exchange. Jack kisses you, sweet and grateful, as he sets the limb aside.
"That's it," Robby mutters, positioning himself behind you. You feel the blunt head of his cock pressing against your slick entrance, teasing, and then he thrusts forward in one brutal, seamless motion.
Filling you so completely the air leaves your lungs in a whoosh. He sets a punishing pace immediately, each thrust driving you forward toward Jack.
Robby inhales sharply at the feeling of you. You adjust to him, moan loud and silent all at once at the feeling.
“Shit,” Robby mutters. “Fuckin’ hell, you know much Jack’s raved about this pussy? Callin’ it the treasure of the fucking ocean.”
His hands grip your hips like anchors, fingernails digging into your soft flesh as he sets a merciless rhythm—pounding into you with a force that drives your body forward with each impact, making the headboard knock rhythmically against the wall. “Perfect fucking pussy, sweetheart, you know that?”
You moan at his words, clenching even tighter around him.
“How the fuck do you leave home, Jack— Jesus Christ,” Robby says as he quickens his pace slightly, watching as your ass moves from the harsh contact of his hips against you.
“Life or death, and that’s it,” Jack says.
“Come on, give him some love, kid,” Robby tells.
Jack’s cock is hard and leaking against his stomach. You lean down, taking him into your mouth, swallowing him deep. He groans, his hands coming up to cradle your head. “Fuck, just like that,” he rasps.
You’re split between them—Robby fucking into you from behind with deep, possessive strokes, and Jack’s length hitting the back of your throat. The dual sensation is overwhelming. Robby’s hips slap against your ass, the sound filthy and wet.
“You like being used like this baby?” Jack wonders, your moans vibrating against him.
You don’t answer, focused on the sensation of Robby’s cock harsh within you.
“He asked you a question,” Robby pants, moving his hand to your hair, tight as you look up at Jack, watery eyed.
“Uh-huh,” you nod.
“See? Not so hard,” Robby groans.
Jack smiles a bit at that, caressing your face as you occupy your mouth with Jack’s cock. He groans. The taste of salt and heat floods your tongue as you take him deep, your lips stretching around his girth. You hollow your cheeks, sucking hard as you bob your head, letting him feel every ridge of your throat as you swallow him down. Your nose presses against his pelvis, and he groans, his fingers threading through your hair.
"Just like that… Just like that," Jack chokes out, his head falling back as his hips buck up involuntarily, his hand tightening on your jaw. His thumb presses against your cheek, forcing your mouth wider, and you feel every ridge and vein of his cock sliding deeper down your throat. "Come on now, so close."
The words vibrate through you, but before you can double down, Robby leans over your arched back, his chest sweaty and hot against your spine, his lips brushing the shell of your ear. "Make him wait."
You pull off Jack's cock with a wet pop, a thick strand of saliva and pre-cum stretching between your lips and his glistening tip before breaking. Jack's frustrated groan cuts through the room, his hips twitching in empty air.
"Fuck off, Mike," Jack growls, but his hand remains gentle in your hair, fingers stroking through the sweat-damp strands as you whimper from the brutal pace behind you.
Robby's cock is driving into you with relentless accuracy, the head of him hitting that deep, spongy spot inside you with every thrust, sending electric jolts through your core. Your inner walls flutter and clench around him, helpless against the assault.
"You gonna be a brat too, then?" Robby says, shooting a lighthearted glare at Jack over your shoulder.
Before Jack can retort, you clench down hard around Robby's shaft, a desperate whine escaping your throat. Robby's rhythm stutters for half a second, a low curse spilling from his lips. "Fucking—hell, god, doll. You are so goddamn tight, y'know that?"
His pace becomes brutal, each thrust driving deeper, harder, the angle punishing. His balls slap wetly against your clit with every impact, the sound filthy and rhythmic. You feel the slick heat of your own arousal coating his shaft, dripping down your thighs with every punishing stroke.
"She's close," Jack murmurs, his voice softer now, almost reverent.
You shift forward, pressing open-mouthed kisses across his stomach, your tongue tracing the soft lines of his abs, tasting salt and skin, over the light freckles. You moan into his flesh, the vibration making his muscles jump, and then his palm cups your cheek, thumb brushing over your bottom lip, holding you warmly.
"Look at you," Jack whispers, his eyes dark and soft at once. "So beautiful like this. Taking us both. You're doing so well, baby."
“Go ahead, cum,” Robby growls into your ear, his hand snakes around your hip, his fingers finding your clit. He rubs tight circles against the swollen nub while he continues to pound into you, and the sensation is electric—each thrust driving his fingers harder against that sensitive bundle of nerves. “Now.”
You moan around Jack’s cock as you break, your pussy clenching wildly around Robby’s thrusts. The convulsions milk him, and with a low groan, he buries himself to the hilt and pulses inside you, hot and deep.
"Fuck," he breathes, his forehead pressing against your shoulder blade, his body shuddering through the aftershocks.
He pulls out slowly, and you feel his cum begin to seep from you.
“Goddamnit,” Robby murmurs, a pant.
Before you can even catch your breath, he spits into his palm, the sound crude and purposeful. He reaches down, slicking up Jack’s cock, which is already hard again and straining against his stomach. Jack groans, a deep, ragged sound at the touch.
“Your turn,” Robby tells him, his voice rough with use.
But instead of letting you face Jack, Robby guides you. His strong hands on your hips turn you, maneuvering your spent body until you’re straddling Jack, but facing away from him. Your back is to Jack’s chest, your ass pressed against his hips. You can feel Robby’s cum, warm and wet, slicking the way as you settle over Jack’s length.
Jack’s hands come to your hips, steadying you. “Easy, sweetheart,” he murmurs, but his voice is tight with need.
From the foot of the bed, Robby watches. He’s kneeling there now, his eyes dark and hungry, fixed on the place where your bodies move against one another, well practiced. Jack’s fingers slide between your legs, through the slick mess Robby left behind. He gathers it on his fingertips, his touch making you shiver, he brings those wet fingers to your lips.
You open for him, tasting Robby’s salty tang on Jack’s skin as he slips his fingers into your mouth. You moan around them, your tongue swirling. Jack’s eyes never leave Robby’s as he then pulls his fingers free, back to your cunt, a slight shudder once more, and brings them to his own lips, sucking them clean, tasting his best friend.
Robby watches this whole exchange, his chest rising and falling rapidly.
“Atta girl,” Jack pants against your ear, his hands tightening on your hips.
Then he guides you down, and you sink onto him with a broken cry. He fills you completely, the stretch delicious, the sensation of being stuffed so soon after your last climax making your head spin. You’re so sensitive it’s almost painful, a sweet, overwhelming ache.
You begin to move, rising and falling on his cock, finding a slow, grinding rhythm. Your hands brace on Jack’s thighs behind you for leverage. The angle is deep, each descent hitting a spot that makes you see stars.
“That’s it,” Jack encourages, his voice a rasp in your ear. His hands roam your body—gripping your waist, palming your breasts, thumbing your nipples.
You increase your pace, bouncing on him, the wet sounds of your joining filling the room. Your head falls back against his shoulder, your eyes fluttering shut.
“Eyes open, sweetheart.”
Robby’s command cuts through the haze. Your eyes snap open. He’s moved closer, kneeling right beside the bed now, his face level with where you’re joined with Jack. He’s watching every slide, every glide, his expression one of rapt fascination.
“Look at you,” Robby murmurs, his voice thick. “Takin’ him so well."
His praise fuels you. You lean more back, hands coming up behind you to Jack, angle pushing him even deeper, as you whimper, sharp gasps, teetering on the edge again.
“Baby, I’m gonna cum,” Your moan, soft.
“Fucking- shit, go ahead, honey, cum f’me,” he moans.
Your orgasm crests, a silent scream trapped in your throat as your body tightens. You clench around Jack, a series of violent, fluttering spasms that milk his length.
Jack curses, his hips bucking up into you. “Fucking—just like that—”
As you’re pulsing around him, Robby leans in. He captures Jack’s mouth in a sudden, fierce kiss over your shoulder. You can hear the wet slide of their lips, the soft grunts and sighs. It’s raw and intimate, and it sends another shockwave of pleasure through your oversensitive nerves.
Robby breaks the kiss. “Lift up for a second, kid,” he breathes against your skin.
Dazed and pliant, you raise yourself up, Jack’s slick cock sliding almost all the way out of you. Robby’s hand replaces you, wrapping around Jack’s shaft. He gives him a few rough, efficient strokes, his thumb smearing the pre-cum beaded at the tip.
“Missed the taste of you,” Robby mutters to Jack, his eyes locked on his friend’s face as he works him.
Jack just groans, his head thrown back, his hands gripping your thighs. Then Robby guides you back down, easing you onto Jack’s cock until you’re fully seated once more, stuffed to the brim.
“Go ahead, finish,” Robby growls, his command for both of you.
You begin to move again, a slow, rolling grind now, utterly spent but driven by the need to feel Jack lose control. He’s close—you can feel the tension in his body, the way his breath hitches.
“Come on, Jack,” Robby urges softly, his hand returning to your clit, applying just enough pressure to make you whimper. “Fill her up. Give her what she needs.”
That does it. With a shattered cry, Jack’s hips piston up once, twice, and then he stills, buried deep inside you as he comes. You feel the hot pulses of his release joining Robby’s already there, flooding you.
Jack kisses at your shoulder blades, near your neck, as you relax your body entirely, shaky breaths with your back against his chest. His arm coming around you automatically, instinctive, like it always does. His hand slides up your arm, slow, grounding, fingers brushing your shoulder, your collarbone—checking, not asking out loud but asking anyway.
Robby puts a hand to your jaw, tapping your cheeks lightly with his fingers, watching as your eyes lazily find his.
“You alright?” he murmurs, voice rough, softer than it’s been all night.
“Mhm,” You nod, catching your breath.
“There she is,” Jack murmurs against you, pressing a kiss into your hair, lingering there a second longer than usual.
Robby doesn’t move right away.
He’s sitting beside you both, elbows on his knees, head tipped slightly forward, breathing steadier now—but there’s something in his posture, something looser than before. The edge is gone. Or at least… dialed down.
You shift, peeling yourself gently from Jack, turning toward Robby. For a second, there’s that flicker—uncertainty, maybe. Not doubt. Just… recalibration.
Then you lean in and kiss him. It’s different now. Slower. Softer. No urgency behind it.
Robby’s hand comes up to the back of your head, not guiding, not demanding—just holding you there, thumb brushing lightly at your hairline. He exhales through his nose, a quiet thing, like he didn’t realize he’d been holding onto something.
When you pull back, you stay close.
“Hey,” you say, softer.
“Hey,” he echoes.
Jack watches the two of you. His hand still rests low on your back, thumb moving in slow, absent circles like it always does when he’s settling you.
Jack kisses gently at your bare back, “Be right back,” he murmurs against you, before you hear him leave the bed, putting on his temporary prosthetic.
You hear him leave, pulling away from Robby who watches Jack as he leaves the room, headed for the hall.
You groan and flop onto the bed, Robby moving the blanket over you, maybe suddenly prudeish as he picks up presumably Jack’s shirt and hands it to you. You hum, put it on.
“Jesus,” you murmur, voice soft, wrecked. “I think my legs might actually fall off.”
That gets a quiet huff out of Robby.
He’s sitting up at the edge of the bed now, dragging a hand down his face, then through his hair. He looks… different, a little. Looser. The usual edge sanded down.
“Yeah,” he mutters. “Think you’ll live.”
You glance over at him, managing a small smile.
He’s already reaching for his boxers, pulling them back on, movements unhurried. The gold chain at his neck catches the low light—the Star of David resting against his chest, rising and falling with his breathing. There’s something grounding about it. Familiar. Normal.
There’s a beat.
Then, softer—
“…You good?” You ask.
He turns your head toward you. “Yeah.” He thinks for a moment, a shake of his head as he lets himself admit– “Needed that. Needed to be… not alone, I think.”
You watch him for a second—something thoughtful in your expression.
“That something you’d wanna do again or is this a one and done situation?” You wonder earnestly, rolling onto your side as you look up at him. “
Robby doesn’t answer straight away. He looks at you—really looks, like he’s trying to figure out what the question actually means underneath what you asked.
Your hair’s a mess, Jack’s shirt slipping off one shoulder, eyes soft but steady on him. Hickies across your neck. Not fragile. Not asking for reassurance. Just… asking.
His jaw shifts slightly.
“…You always this direct after something like that?” he mutters.
You huff a quiet laugh. “I’m an ortho resident. I don’t have time for interpretive dance.”
That almost gets a smile out of him. He exhales, leaning back more fully, one hand rubbing absently at his chest like he’s trying to settle something under the surface.
“It’s not—” he starts, then stops. Tries again. “It’s not really a ‘one and done’ kind of question.”
You tilt your head slightly. “Why not?”
He glances at the door—where Jack disappeared—then back at you.
Because Jack’s not just some guy. Because this isn’t just sex. Because there’s history here that predates you by decades and still manages to feel unfinished. Because he already feels it sitting somewhere in his chest, heavy.
You seem to pick up where his head is at, a nod. “Do you have… like, real feelings for him? Or me?”
Robby scoffs a chuckle. “I don’t have time to think about that.”
“Just time to fuck us though. Well, not Jack, sure he’ll give me a complaint about that later.” You murmur.
Robby smiles a bit. “You two are… perfect for each other. I still don’t get how he found you.”
“I don’t know either, to be honest,” You admit. “But he cares about you. Like a lot. And so do I. And it’s not just because your dick is great, promise. You’re always welcome with us, whether its sex, comfort, food, all three. We aren’t picky people.”
“Picked up on that,” Robby nods, quieter now. “What are your plans? With him, I mean. He mentioned something about marriage.”
You smile a little—more to yourself than anything—your hand drifting, almost unconsciously, to your left ring finger.
“No idea,” you admit. “However long he wants me around, I guess.”
Robby huffs a soft breath, leaning back against the headboard. “Well, if age’s anything to go by, you’ve got a good couple of years.”
You smack his arm lightly. “You’re literally older than him.”
“I’m not marrying you,” Robby shoots back, deadpan.
“You’re an ass,” you sigh.
That earns you a small smile.
The door opens.
Jack steps back in, towel slung over his shoulder, a glass of water already in hand. He pauses just inside, taking in the room in one sweep—quick, practiced. You, curled on your side in his shirt. Robby at the edge of the bed, quieter than usual.
“My leg’s killing me,” Jack mutters, like it’s an afterthought, already moving back toward the bed.
You push yourself up onto your elbows, frowning. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” he says, dismissive in that way he gets, like pain’s just background noise. He hands you the glass. “Drink.”
You take it, still watching him. “You say that about everything.”
“Because everything’s fine.”
Robby snorts under his breath. “Yeah. That’s a healthy coping mechanism.”
Jack shoots him a look as he sits down, stretching his leg out carefully. “Oh, I’m sorry—did you want to compare notes?”
Robby raises his brows. “Not particularly.”
Then Jack exhales, leaning back into the headboard. His hand finds your thigh automatically—absent, grounding, like he needs the contact without thinking about it.
His gaze flicks between the two of you, lingering on Robby for half a second longer than necessary.
“What’d I miss?” he asks.
You shift, settling back into him, your cheek brushing his shoulder. “Marriage.”
Jack huffs. “One night with my girl and you’re already trying to steal her? Alright. Good to know.”
Robby lets out a quiet chuckle.
“With you, idiot,” you correct.
Jack glances down at you. “Oh, him and I are getting married now?”
You roll your eyes and, just to be difficult, shift toward Robby instead—curling lightly into his side.
It lasts all of two seconds.
Jack’s arm hooks around you and pulls you straight back against him.
“Relax,” he mutters, pressing a kiss to the top of your head, holding you there against his chest.
Robby watches that, something unreadable flickering across his face before it settles again.
Robby stays the night.
Not in the same way—there’s a natural rhythm to it. He gives you and Jack space without being asked, drifting out into the living room, the quiet murmur of the TV carrying faintly down the hall. At one point you hear the balcony door slide open, then shut again.
He’s not intrusive. Never has been.
But he doesn’t leave, either.
if u havent read it, i'd recommend reading my (wo)man on willpower! this is a spin off of that, i suppose. focuses more on jack x reader, though. :D
a/n: girls i have another like 700 words i had that as a short scene of santos speculating why u didnt make it to her paris party (oh my god im so funny paris because threesome haha i know right, please dont click off this), and i might post that later, but my ao3 will get the full thing if u wanna just see what it was. the 1000 block limit on tumblr genuinely my opp fr.
anyway thank u guys all for the support on my (wo)man on willpower, so proud of that fic and so sweet the reblogs and comments! i wish u could see my grin every time! and yall hammered me for this so i hope its up to standard, meets an expectation or two. i had a lot of fun just exploring the dynamic, you x robby, robby x jack, jack x you, like i am a true believer in true love triangles, so hopefully that came across, but admittedly, still keeping jack and reader endgame obvi, so.. also sorry if it aint gay enough, i told yall i do not read mlm stuff, just not for me. i love it! just dont like, actively read it yk! i also just wanted to have fun with the prose, emotional stuff, etc, and idk. hopefully the smut isnt terrible, that shit is hard as hell! like, positions, dirty talk?! dirty talk is hardddd guys!! then like the build to it, ugh. i wish i had a smut class at my uni or something so i could really get into the weeds of it, and spend time endlessly editing it. i really couldve spent another few days editing this but honestly wanted it OUT and DONE !! need to lock in got exams soon team. okay sorry for this long as hell authors note ! lmfaoo. hope yall liked!
Summary: You were trained to be a weapon—silent, precise, untouchable. A swan that bites, a peacock that dazzles only after the strike. Trained by women who believed softness was a lie and love a liability, you learned to move silently, to kill without leaving a trace. You were never meant to want. Only to execute. Jason Todd sees you and knows immediately: you don’t soften. You consume. You meet like survivors circling the same wound—watchful, armed, too close. What grows between you isn’t tenderness. It’s hunger, pressure, and inevitability. Love doesn’t bloom here. It overflows. And when the world comes for what they made—you don’t run. You devour.
Tw: this fic has themes of Graphic violence, blood/gore, death (both canon and non-cannon ), trafficking, PTSD, possessive behavior, explicit language, eventual smut and implied mental health. DEAD DOVE. DO NOT EAT
(Masterlist) CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO: WHEN HOME BURNS PT. 1
The Batwing descended through thick smoke like a predator diving into hell. Night had swallowed the Kunlun Mountains, but the Plume Palace lit up the darkness from within—orange flames clawing at the ancient rooftops, black smoke billowing into the sky like the palace itself was bleeding out. Explosions had torn through arsenals and training halls, sending debris raining down the cliffs. The air smelled of burning silk, melted jade, gunpowder, and death.
The ramp lowered before the craft even fully touched down on a fractured stone courtyard. You were the first one out—boots hitting scorched ground, rifle up, eyes already scanning through the haze. The heat hit like a wall. Embers drifted past your face like dying fireflies.
Your boot splashed into something warm.
You looked down.
A puddle of blood—thick, still spreading, reflecting the flames above. It soaked into the sole of your boot with a wet sound that cut straight through the roar of fire.
Everything in you locked in.
No hesitation. No breath. Just the cold, sharp click of a switch flipping inside your chest. You raised your rifle, cheek welded to the stock, moving like a shadow given teeth. The group fanned out behind you—Batman, Nightwing, Red Robin, Robin, and Jason at your flank like a loaded shadow.
“Split,” Bruce ordered, voice cutting through comms. “Damian and I take the eastern wing. Tim, Nightwing—western corridor and overwatch. Jason, you’re with her. Find the underground chambers. Move.”
You didn’t wait for confirmation. You were already melting into the smoke.
Jason stayed right beside you, rifle up, eyes sharp.
The palace was a slaughterhouse.
Bodies lay in piles and scattered heaps—Plume assassins in torn dark silks, their blades still clutched in dead hands. LexCorp and Vale soldiers in tactical gear, helmets cracked, throats torn open by claws or blades. Some had been cut down mid-run. Others lay in defensive clusters, as if they’d tried to shield something behind them. Blood ran in rivers along the stone grooves, mixing with spilled gunpowder and shattered jade tiles. The air tasted of copper and charred flesh.
You stepped over a young attendant—no older than sixteen—her hanfu burned half away, a single precise gunshot wound through her forehead. Her eyes were still open. You didn’t look away. You couldn’t.
Jason’s voice was low in your ear.
“Stay sharp. They’re still here.”
You didn’t answer.
You just moved faster.
Then—steel clashing. Grunts. The wet sound of blades meeting flesh.
You broke into a run, Jason right behind you.
Around the corner of a collapsing corridor, Lingwei was fighting for her life.
She was badly wounded—blood pouring from a deep gash across her abdomen, one arm hanging limp, face streaked with soot and crimson. But she was still standing. Still swinging her dao with lethal precision, cutting down two Vale soldiers in a whirlwind of steel. Another rushed her from the side—she barely deflected, staggering as fresh blood spilled from her mouth.
You didn’t hesitate.
You raised your rifle and opened fire—three rapid shots dropping the attackers flanking her. Jason added suppressing fire, dropping two more who tried to rush from the smoke.
Lingwei staggered, sword dropping from her grip as she fell to one knee.
You sprinted forward, sliding to her side in the blood-slick stone.
“Lingwei—stay with me!”
You pressed your hands to the worst wound, trying to staunch the bleeding. She was losing too much, too fast. Her breathing was wet, ragged, eyes already glazing.
She grabbed your wrist—weak but insistent—pushing your hands away.
“No… time.”
You ignored her, pressing harder.
“Where is she? Where’s Blaire? Where’s my mother?”
Lingwei’s mouth opened. Blood spilled over her lips in a thick stream, running down her chin. She coughed once—wet, choking—then managed a broken whisper.
“Lower… chambers… tried to… get them out…”
Another wet cough. More blood.
Her grip on your arm tightened with the last of her strength, nails digging in like she was trying to anchor herself to this world a little longer.
“You must… protect what’s left…”
Her eyes locked on yours—one final, fierce look.
Then her hand went slack.
She was gone.
You stared at her face for a heartbeat—then gently closed her eyes with bloodied fingers. Your hands were shaking. You took her spare magazines anyway, loading them into your vest with mechanical calm that didn’t reach your eyes.
Jason crouched beside you, rifle still up, scanning the smoke.
“We have to keep moving.”
You stood slowly, rifle in hand, voice low and lethal.
“Then let’s burn the rest of them.”
—————
MEANWHILE….UNDERGROUND
Bruce, Tim, and Dick moved through the lower tunnels like ghosts in the dark.
The passage narrowed, ancient stone slick with condensation and blood. The sounds of distant fighting echoed faintly from above, but down here it was quieter—too quiet.
Then they found them.
Dozens of girls—some as young as eight, others teenagers—huddled in the deepest chamber. The seasoned Plume fighters had formed a protective wall at the front: older girls, some still holding blades or makeshift weapons, standing between the younger ones and the entrance. Their faces were streaked with dirt and tears, but their stances were steady. Trained. Ready to die protecting the little ones behind them.
One of the older girls raised a trembling sword as the Batfamily appeared.
Dick raised his hands slowly.
“We’re here to help.”
A younger girl peeked out from behind the line, voice small and terrified.
“They took some of us… the ones who fought back…”
Tim was already scanning for threats, voice soft.
“We’re getting you all out. Stay together.”
Bruce moved forward, cape sweeping, voice calm but commanding.
“Follow us. Stay quiet. Stay close.”
The protective line of older girls didn’t lower their weapons immediately. They watched with haunted eyes—children who had already seen too much.
One of them, no older than fourteen, blood on her cheek, finally spoke.
“If you’re lying… we’ll kill you first.”
Bruce met her eyes.
“We’re not lying.”
The group began to move—fragile, terrified, but alive.
Above them, the palace continued to burn.
And somewhere in the smoke and flames, you were carving a path forward with claws and fury, searching for the only family that had ever truly mattered.
The war had come home.
And you were going to make it regret ever touching what was yours.
summary : you live off of frank- his touch, his gaze, his kiss, the feeling of him everywhere - and he's just as obsessed with you. so honestly, you find it quite appalling when he asks you to behave.
warnings : semi-public fingering (oops ?), size kink, smut, p in v, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it), oral (f!receiving), established relationship, reader is constantly horny for frank, suggestive use of text messages- lmk if i missed any.
word count : 11.1 k
a/n : as usual- not proofread !!! and it has come to my attention that i have to mention that this is indeed only about the fictional character of frank castle and not about the actor playing him. thanks and enjoy the read ! based on this request.
Frank and you are what other people around you would describe as a velcro couple.
Which is fair.
You’re pretty sure there hasn’t been a single day in your relationship where one of you wasn’t touching the other somehow. Frank’s hand at the small of your back while you brush your teeth. Fingers linked in grocery store aisles. Kisses stolen in hallways. Sleepy morning quickies and rough goodnight fucks because the man is insatiable and you are constantly aroused whenever his hands reach anywhere near your waist- which is constantly.
You live off him.
His touch.
His attention.
The weight of his eyes on you from across a room.
And Frank? Frank is somehow worse.
The man acts like prolonged physical separation causes him actual psychological damage. If you walk past him, he reaches for you automatically. If you’re standing nearby, eventually you end up tucked against his chest whether you remember moving there or not. Half the time he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it anymore.
Which means, honestly, the two of you are unbearable in public. Not in an obnoxious way. Just in a deeply obvious one.
The kind of couple that naturally gravitates toward each other in every room without even thinking about it. Frank standing behind you while you make coffee, chin on your shoulder, massive arms wrapped around your waist like he physically cannot start his morning unless you’re pressed against him. You absentmindedly stealing bites off his plate while he pretends to be annoyed despite immediately sliding the entire thing closer to you. Nobody has ever seen Frank Castle willingly share food before you.Now he hands you the last fry without even looking up.
Humiliating behavior, honestly.
And the touching never stops. If you’re sitting beside him, eventually his hand ends up on your thigh. If Frank’s sitting down anywhere for longer than five minutes, he’s tugging you into his lap automatically, barely interrupting the conversation while doing it. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world for a six-foot-three wall of muscle to casually manhandle his girlfriend into his lap in the middle of game night at Karen’s apartment.
“You know chairs exist, right?” Curtis asked once. Frank didn’t even look up from where his chin rested against your shoulder.
“Mhm.” That was the entire response. Meanwhile you were curled against his chest looking unbearably pleased with yourself.
It gets worse at home. Way worse.
Because the second the apartment door closes behind you two, personal space completely ceases to exist. You’re draped across him on the couch within minutes. Frank’s fingers hooked lazily beneath your shirt while he watches TV, absentmindedly tracing shapes against your stomach. Your legs tangled together under blankets. Slow kisses traded between conversations. Foreheads pressed together while brushing your teeth because apparently standing separately in the bathroom is unacceptable now.
And sleeping?
Forget it.
Frank sleeps like he’s trying to fuse your skeletons together. One arm around your waist. One leg thrown over yours. Face buried against your neck. If you move too far away in your sleep, he unconsciously follows until you’re tucked back against him again. Sometimes you wake up at three in the morning practically pinned beneath two hundred pounds of warm, snoring ex-marine.
And somehow you still sleep better like that. Frank claims he does too.
But you’re just as bad. Maybe even worse.
You are constantly reaching for him, hands slipping up his shirt to trace the outline of his muscles, hands drifting towards his pant buckle the second there's the semblance of privacy. You are a freak for this man. Everything he does turns you on.
Hands sliding up his chest while you compliment him. Kissing the corner of his mouth just to watch his expression change. Whispering filthy things into his ear while he’s trying to focus in public because you enjoy watching the exact moment his composure starts cracking.
Frank always starts out pretending he’s stronger than this. But the truth is Frank folds almost immediately when it comes to you. The second you start kissing his neck slowly or climbing into his lap with that look in your eyes, the man is done for.
Gone.
Especially when you get clingy about it. That’s what really destroys him. The way you seek him out first. Like you can’t help yourself. Like your body naturally gravitates toward his whenever you want attention or affection or him specifically. Which is often.
Very often.
So who can blame you when he walks out of the bathroom, smelling like cologne and wearing that tight suit of his ?
You look up from the vanity, pressing your earring clasp closed just as the door thuds behind him.
It’s unfair, honestly.
Frank always cleans up well, but suits on that man should probably qualify as psychological warfare. The dark fabric stretches tight across his shoulders, sharp enough to make him look even broader somehow, and the white dress shirt beneath it is rolled just enough at the forearms to expose strong tan skin and thick veins running down to his hands.
His hands.
Which already ruin your life on a daily basis.
And then there’s the smell.
Warm cologne layered over soap and Frank himself - clean but still distinctly him underneath it all. Your stomach flips instantly.
Frank notices immediately.
Of course he does.
His eyes flick toward you while he adjusts the cuff of his sleeve, and there’s a tiny pause when he catches the look on your face.
“…What?” he asks slowly. You stare at him for another full second. Then your eyes drag deliberately down his body. Back up again. Frank exhales once through his nose, already recognizing that expression.
“No,” he says immediately, pointing at you before you can even speak. “Absolutely not.” You blink innocently.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.” He’s trying to sound firm about it, but there’s already amusement tugging at the corner of his mouth. Which means you’ve already won, really. Your gaze drops again while he reaches for his watch on the dresser. Big mistake. The movement pulls the fabric tight across his back and shoulders, and your entire brain melts straight out of your ears. And god- you can see the firm outline of his dick pressing through those tight dress pants, and you have to bite your lip to stop yourself from dropping to your knees in front of him right then and there and wrapping your lips around him just to suck him dry- for what would be the third time today.
Jesus Christ.
You stand slowly from the vanity stool and walk toward him without breaking eye contact. Frank watches you approach with immediate suspicion.
“Baby.”
“Hm?”
“We gotta leave in twenty minutes.”
“I know.”
“You’re lookin’ at me weird.”
“I’m looking at you respectfully.”
“Bullshit.” You smile sweetly as your hands slide up his chest, smoothing over the front of his dress shirt. Even through the fabric you can feel the solid warmth of him beneath it, broad and steady and distractingly strong. Frank’s jaw tightens a little. “There it is,” he mutters.
“What?”
“That look.”
“What look?”
“The one that gets us banned from being on time to things.” You laugh softly, stepping closer until your bodies press together. Frank’s hands land automatically on your waist like muscle memory. Always there. Always touching you somewhere. Your fingers drift up to straighten his tie unnecessarily slowly.
“You look really pretty tonight,” you murmur. Frank snorts quietly.
“Pretty?”
“Mhm.” Your nails scrape lightly along the back of his neck. “Very pretty.” His eyes darken immediately.
“Careful.”
“You smell good too.”
“Baby.”
“And this suit?” Your voice drops softer. “Actually evil of you.” Frank’s grip tightens slightly at your waist.
“You’re startin’ shit.”
“Am I?” You tilt your head innocently before leaning up just enough to press a slow kiss beneath his jaw. The reaction is immediate. A rough inhale. His fingers flex against your hips.
“Jesus Christ,” he mutters under his breath. You hide your smile against his neck and kiss him again. Slower this time. Lingering just enough to feel the exact moment his composure starts slipping. Which is your favorite part. Frank tries so hard at first. That’s what makes this fun. Because he always starts out acting like he has self-control. Like he’s capable of resisting you when you decide you want his attention.
Meanwhile you know exactly how easy he is for you.
One kiss to his neck and the man starts looking at you like he’s fighting for his life. Your hands slide beneath his suit jacket, palms flattening against his chest. Solid muscle shifts beneath your touch, warm and familiar and addictive enough that you honestly don’t know how you’re expected to function around him daily.
“You know,” you murmur thoughtfully, “we could skip the event.” Frank lets out a low laugh.
“No.”
“No?”
“No.” You pout slightly against his throat.
“But I’m a lawyer. I can make excuses professionally.”
“You are not seducing me outta your work thing.” You lean back just enough to look up at him.
“Feels like I am, though.” Frank visibly clenches his jaw. He shakes his head and pushes you away from him firmly.
"Baby, this is the first time i'm meeting your colleagues." You snort, smoothing your hands on the silky red fabric near your waist that has now been ruffled by Frank's bruising grip.
"No , it's not. You know Matt and Foggy already." You tease, turning around to lean over the vanity and check your lip liner. Frank scowls.
"Alright then. First time meeting them as a normal human and not someone that needs to stand trial for murder." he taps his foot on the floor. "What i mean to say is- these people are your friends. I want to make a good impression."
"Of course you will, Frankie. How could you not ?" Frank sighs, shoving his hands down his pant pockets, which does nothing to relieve the stretch around his groin, making your eyes drift down naturally, and your thighs clench.
"Well, for instance, they won't like me much if you're not behaving."
You freeze.
Frank immediately regrets the wording. He sees it happen in real time - your shoulders going still, your head tilting ever so slightly as your eyes lift to meet his in the mirror.
“…Excuse me?” you ask slowly. Frank pinches the bridge of his nose.
“You know what I mean.”
“Oh, I know exactly what you mean.” You turn around fully now, leaning back against the vanity with your arms folded across your chest. The silky red dress hugs your body distractingly tight, and Frank has to actively force his eyes back to your face. “Behave?” Frank sighs.
"Just for one night, baby. One night. Hell, not ever the whole night- just the few hours of the event."
You stare at him for a long moment.
Then slowly - very slowly - you narrow your eyes.
“Frank Castle,” you say with dangerous calm, “are you asking me to stop expressing my love for my own boyfriend?”
“I’m asking you to stop trying to climb me in public.”
“That feels oppressive.”
“That feels accurate.” You scoff dramatically, pushing off the vanity.
“One night?” you repeat softly.Frank nods cautiously.
“One night.”
“No flirting?”
“Within reason.”
“No touching?”
“You can touch me.”
“Oh, thank god.”
“Normal touching.” You blink at him.
“Frank, define normal.” His jaw tightens instantly because he knows exactly what you’re doing.
“Baby.”
“Is thigh touching normal?”
“No.”
“Chest touching?”
“You already do that too much.”
“Kissing?”
“Not every five seconds.” Your expression turns genuinely offended.
“Frank.”
“What?”
“That is our culture.” A laugh escapes him before he can stop it. Low and rough and fond despite himself. You immediately perk up at the sound. Frank drinks you in - and god, a part of him is scolding himself for not taking you up on your offer to just stay home. That fucking dress on you is- well, it's doing things to him. The silky red fabric hugs every inch of you like it was designed specifically to ruin him. Tight around your waist. Dipping low enough at your chest that his eyes keep dragging there against his will. The slit along your leg flashes skin every time you move, and Frank is pretty sure he hasn’t had a coherent thought since walking out of the bathroom.
For a second neither of you moves. Then Frank sighs heavily, like he’s preparing himself for battle.
“Alright,” he mutters. “Rules.” You gasp softly.
“Rules?”
“Yes.”
“This is getting kinky.”
“Jesus Christ.” He drags a hand down his face while you beam at him. “No whisperin’ filthy shit in my ear in front of your coworkers.” You pout immediately. “No sittin’ in my lap during dinner.”
“That feels targeted.”
“No disappearin’ into bathrooms together.” You look horrified now.
“Frank.”
“And no givin’ me that look across the room all night.” You blink innocently.
“What look?”
“The one that makes me forget my own name.” A pause. Then your entire expression melts into delighted satisfaction. Frank groans quietly the second he sees it. Frank points at you instantly. “See? That face right there. That’s exactly why we need rules.”
-------
Unfortunately for Frank, his rules forgot to include dirty texts.
The venue is jam-packed. You have no idea how Matt and Foggy managed to fill up this venue, but they did. However, you lost Frank about ten minutes in. Matt dragged him off to talk about "life" which is obviously a stupid code word for whatever vigliante shit is going on in Hell's Kitchen.
And you are incredibly bored.
You watch the ice swirl around your cup, the little umbrella perched inside the fruity drink Foggy pushed your way now laying limp and damp. Across the room, Frank stands with Matt and Foggy, looking deeply uncomfortable despite the glass of whiskey in his hand. His suit jacket stretches distractingly across his shoulders as he listens to whatever Matt is saying, expression unreadable but clearly not enjoying himself. it does make your heart clench though. Because hes' trying - for you.
He knows how much you love Matt and Foggy. You grew up with Matt- and obviously met Foggy when Matt started bringing him around during his uni days.
Frank’s trying.
He really is.
Because this matters to you. These are your people. Your friends. Your world. And he wants them to like him. Which means he keeps trying to focus on Matt talking about neighborhood cases and Foggy complaining about paperwork and Karen laughing somewhere nearby.
Frank keeps glancing toward you between conversations. Not constantly. He's trying very hard not to. Which honestly makes it worse. Because every few minutes his eyes flick across the room automatically like he needs visual confirmation you’re still there, and every single time he looks at you, you catch him staring. The first few times, he recovers quickly.
Looks away. Takes a sip of whiskey. Pretends Matt wasn’t mid-sentence when Frank completely stopped listening.
But god, the sight of you in that fucking dress, sipping on your drink, talking to one of your old clients, it breaks him down into pieces.
He tells himself to stop looking. He doesn’t. The third time he catches your smile from across the room, it’s over. Matt is still talking - something about procedure, or patrol routes, or whatever legal-adjacent thing he thinks Frank is supposed to care about - but Frank is already gone mentally. His grip tightens slightly around his glass.
And you're not doing any better. It's like you've been physically restrained- only a great amount of distance will make you keep your hands to yourself. And it's taking every inch of your will to stay rooted in place. You shift in your seat, crossing your legs a little tighter under the table. It doesn’t help. Not even slightly. Because Frank looks unfairly good like this. Suit jacket open now, sleeves pushed just a bit higher like he’s forgotten they’re supposed to stay neat. The whiskey glass in his hand does nothing to soften him - if anything it makes him worse. Too controlled. Too grounded. Like he belongs exactly where he is and not, objectively, across the room from you. Matt says something and Frank smiles and answers lively. Foggy laughs at something and Frank reacts, grinning as he takes a sip of his drink.
Without thinking, you pull your phone out of your purse.
YOU
i'm wet just looking at you
You watch as Frank's hand instinctively goes to his pocket when his phone buzzes. He pulls it out, glances down, and immediately stills. Even from across the room, you can see the slight tension that settles in his shoulders. He stares at his phone before putting the phone back down, clearing his throat. You smirk, taking a slow sip of your drink before typing back.
YOU
i need you inside me. like so fucking bad, frankie.
Frank's eyes lift from his phone, scanning the room until they land on you. The look he gives you is part warning, part something darker that makes your stomach clench. You bite your lip, enjoying this far too much.
YOU
Remember this morning? When you had me bent over the kitchen counter?
You watch his throat work as he swallows. He shifts his weight slightly, and you know you're getting to him. Frank types something, then deletes it. Then types again. Deletes it again. He's half in the conversation with the others, half staring at his phone as if someone just texted him with extremely important news. So, just to add more fuel to the fire -
YOU
[six attatchements]
The first image appears - it's you from a few weeks ago, sprawled across your bed in that black lace set he loves. The one he said made you look like something out of his dirtiest dreams. Frank's jaw tightens as he swipes to the next one. This time, you're on your knees, hands pressed to the bed in front of you, your breasts pushed up in the lace, and Frank runs his tongue over his teeth, as if remembering what the material felt like against his lips as he ripped it off. Matt notices Frank's distraction mid-sentence.
"Frank? You with me?" Frank clears his throat, locking his phone without responding to your texts. He slams his phone down, hands shaking, trying to hide the heat rising up to his cheeks. He clears his throat, one too many times, before grabbing his cup and downing all of it, breathing hard. You turn away from him, sipping on your drink, trying to not look too satisfied with yourself as you send him another final text.
YOU
I want to go home right now and I want you to eat me out
God, if they were anywhere else, Frank would've dropped everything and dragged you home. One thing Frank loved more than you in this life ? Spending hours- and I mean hours- between your legs, holding your thighs apart, devouring you like a man who hasn't had access to fresh water in weeks of travelling in the dessert.
But here? Now? With Murdock and Nelson watching?
Frank's face is a study in self-control. A muscle jumps in his jaw. He picks up his empty glass, stares at it like it's personally offended him, and then sets it down with a click that's just a little too loud. He's trying to listen. He really is. Matt is saying something about… zoning laws? Frank nods along, but his eyes have that glazed-over look of a man running on pure instinct and pure spite. You can practically hear the thoughts screaming through his head.
Don't look over. Don't you fucking dare. You're doing this on purpose. You knows exactly what you're doing. Think about you moaning his name baseball. Think about the way you take all of him so well … dead puppies. Think about anything other than your thighs wrapped around his head.
It's a losing battle. His gaze betrays him, flicking across the room to you for the hundredth time. You catch it, of course. You always do. And you reward him by slowly, deliberately, crossing your legs. The silk of your dress whispers against your skin, and you see his throat work as he swallows hard. He looks away, but the damage is done. You've got him. Matt, bless his oblivious heart, is still talking.
"—so the precedent is tricky, Frank. If we can establish a pattern of negligence on the part of the landlord, we might have a case, but it's going to require a lot of footwork." Frank makes a noncommittal sound, a low grunt that could mean anything. His hand is clenched into a fist on the bar. Foggy, thankfully, seems to have picked up on the tension, or maybe he's just excited about the mini egg rolls coming around on a tray. He engages Matt in a side conversation about the merits of tempura versus fried, giving Frank a precious moment of reprieve. Frank doesn’t even realize he’s made a decision until he’s already acting on it. It starts small - subtle. A shift in posture. A slow exhale through his nose like he’s thinking too hard about something that absolutely does not require thinking. Matt is still mid-sentence, Foggy is laughing at something off to the side, and Frank is nodding at all the right moments while clearly hearing none of it.
Then his phone buzzes again in his pocket. He doesn’t look at it this time.
That’s new. Instead, he sets his empty glass down with controlled precision and clears his throat once. Twice. Like he’s trying to reset his entire brain.
“Everything alright?” Matt asks, head tilting slightly. Frank doesn’t answer immediately. Because across the room, you shift again - just slightly - and it looks like an accident to everyone else. But Frank knows better. He drags a hand over his mouth, eyes narrowing faintly as if he’s just remembered something genuinely urgent. Something catastrophic. Something that absolutely requires him to leave this building right now or the world will collapse.
“…Yeah,” he says finally. Foggy pauses mid-bite of something fried.
“That sounded like a lie.” Frank ignores him. Already reaching for his jacket.
“I gotta go.” Matt blinks.
“Go?”
“Yeah.”
“Frank, we’re kind of in the middle of—”
“I just remembered that i left the oven on.” Silence. Even Foggy stops chewing. Matt slowly tilts his head.
“Your… oven.”
“Is on,” Frank repeats, like it’s the most normal thing in the world. “Yeah.” You, across the room, straighten so fast your drink nearly tips. Foggy frowns.
"You started cooking before you came to an event ?" Foggy asks. Frank rambles, shaking his head, swaying on his feet.
"Yes, I did." He clears his throat. "Excuse me." Matt opens his mouth, then closes it again. Because even he can tell something about this is wrong, but he’s not entirely sure what. Frank is already moving. He doesn’t run. Frank Castle does not run out of social situations. He simply exits them aggressively with purpose. He’s halfway across the room in seconds, threading through people like he’s on a mission—because, technically, he is. You’re watching him approach now, eyes bright with something dangerously amused.
“Frank - ” Matt starts, but Frank is already gone from that conversation mentally. He reaches you. Stops just long enough to grab your wrist.
“Frank?” you ask sweetly, like you didn’t just dismantle his entire self-control with six images and a sentence that should probably be illegal. He leans in slightly, voice low.
“We need to get the fuck out of here,” he mutters. You blink.
“Why the urgency?" There’s a beat. You stare at him.vFrank stares back, dead serious. Frank stares at you like you are the only stable object in a universe currently trying to kill him.
“We need to leave,” he repeats, voice low, clipped, absolutely final. You tilt your head.
“You already said that.”
“Yeah."
“And you also said something about an oven.” Frank’s jaw tightens.
“It’s fine,” Frank calls over his shoulder immediately, too fast, too loud. Then, softer, to you again: “We are leaving. Now.” You don’t move. You just look at him. And Frank—who has faced actual armed men without flinching—visibly loses another percentage of his sanity. You’re being half-dragged now, heels catching slightly as he steers you through the crowd with zero patience left for anything resembling dignity.
“And also,” Frank adds, as if remembering a second disaster mid-escape, “the kitchen’s on fire.”
“Frank.”
“And the dog is on fire.”
“Frank!" That finally breaks you. A laugh slips out, sharp and breathless, and Frank tightens his grip on your wrist like he’s punishing you for it.
“Stop laughing,” he mutters.
“You’re insane,” you whisper back, still laughing.
“Yeah,” he says simply. “Move.” Behind you, Foggy is openly wheezing now. Matt is calling your names like he might actually try to follow. Frank doesn’t slow down once. He gets you out into the hallway, door swinging shut behind you both with a heavy thud.
And the second you’re outside the noise, outside the crowd, outside everything— Frank stops. Turns to you. Looks at you in that suit, that dress, that expression that still has him absolutely wrecked even after all that chaos. Then he exhales sharply, like he’s been holding his breath for ten straight minutes.
“…You done?” he asks. You tilt your head.
“With what?” Frank’s eyes drop to your mouth for half a second before snapping back up.
“Playing with me.” You smile slowly.
“No.” A beat. Frank closes his eyes like he’s praying for strength he does not possess.
“Yeah,” he mutters. “Knew that was gonna be the answer.” Then he’s already pulling you down the hallway toward the exit again—faster now, less controlled, like the last thread of his restraint finally snapped clean through.
And honestly?
You don’t resist. Not even a little.
He doesn’t slow down. Doesn’t explain. Just mutters something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like “never letting you bring a phone anywhere ever again,” and keeps moving like if he stops, he’ll lose the last shred of restraint he’s been clinging to all night.
You, unfortunately, look delighted.
The walk to the car is quiet in that charged way where neither of you can risk speaking too much. Frank opens the passenger door for you with a little more force than necessary. You slide in, smoothing down your dress like you haven’t just ruined a man’s entire evening with six images and a single sentence. Frank shuts the door. Hard. He gets in on his side a second later and just sits there gripping the wheel for a moment like he’s recalibrating his entire nervous system.
“You’re unbelievable,” he finally says. You tilt your head.
“You love me.” A beat.
“…Yeah,” he mutters, like it annoys him that it’s true. The drive is painfully slow. Not because of traffic—because Frank is driving like every red light personally insulted him. His hand keeps flexing on the steering wheel, jaw tight, eyes forward, but every few seconds his gaze flicks to you anyway. You’re not helping. You’re sitting there all soft and smug, legs crossed, fingers resting in your lap like you didn’t just set his brain on fire. Every time you adjust your position slightly, the fabric of your dress shifts, and Frank exhales like it physically pains him.
“You’re doing that on purpose,” he says once.
“Doing what?” He glances at you briefly.
“Existing like that.” You smile.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He lets out a short, humorless laugh and shakes his head, like he’s trying to decide whether he’s in love or losing his mind. By the time you reach the apartment building, Frank is done pretending he’s fine. The elevator doors close behind you with a soft ding, and the second you’re alone, something in him snaps. It’s not gentle. Frank steps into your space immediately, hands going to your waist like it’s instinct, like he’s been holding himself back all night and the second he’s allowed, he just stops.
“Frank - ” you start, but it comes out breathier than intended when he pulls you in.
“Don’t,” he mutters. Then he kisses you. Hard. It’s not patient or teasing or even particularly careful. It’s the kind of kiss that carries hours of restraint and frustration and the memory of your texts still burned into his brain. His hands slide up your back, fingers tightening at your waist like he’s anchoring you to him, like if he doesn’t hold on, you’ll vanish again and he’ll lose his mind. You make a small sound against his mouth that only makes him groan low in his throat. He backs you up against the elevator wall, your back thudding the metal bar. You groan, and he slips his tongue in your mouth, hand tangled in your hair.
The kiss is all teeth and desperation, a frantic clash that tastes of whiskey and the lingering sweetness of your drink. His other hand slides down from your waist, over the curve of your hip, to grip your thigh through the silk of your dress.
"Frank," you gasp, pulling back just enough to breathe. He doesn't let you get far, just follows your mouth, kissing you again, deeper this time, his tongue exploring your mouth like he's trying to memorize every inch of you.
"Shut up," he mutters against your lips, his voice rough with need. "Just… shut up." You obey without a second thought, and his hands grip at your ass as he presses you against his erection, one hand drifting up to softly wrap around your throat to keep you steady as you trying your best to not rid him of his clothes in this public elevator.
"I hope you know-" he breathes between kisses, "That the second we get into that apartment you're done for, woman." The threat is a promise, and it sends a fresh wave of heat pooling in your stomach. You can't help the small, breathy laugh that escapes you, a sound that's pure challenge. His eyes, dark and wild, meet yours. He doesn't like being laughed at, not now, not when he's this close to the edge. His grip on your throat tightens just enough to make your breath catch, not to hurt, but to remind you who's in charge here.
"Think that's funny?" he growls, his voice a low rumble against your lips.
"I think you're all talk," you taunt, your voice a whisper. "Unless you're planning on taking me right here in this elevator." His jaw works, and for a split second, you think he might actually consider it. The idea is intoxicating—being taken by him here, in this cold, metal box, the ding of the floors marking the rhythm of his thrusts. But then the elevator shudders slightly, a sign that you're approaching your floor, and the moment is broken.
"Fuck," he mutters, pulling back just enough to look at you. "You're so fucking beautiful." he rasps, dragging his thumb across your bottom lip, gathering the smudged lipstick off your chin. Your lips graze his jaw, his soft spot, and he shudders against you, hands palming your waist as he drags your forward again. He groans, his head falling forward to rest against your shoulder. "You're going to be the death of me."
"What a way to go," you whisper, your hands sliding up his chest to tangle in his hair. You pull his head back, forcing him to look at you. His eyes are dark, pupils blown wide with lust, and you feel a surge of triumph, hot and potent. Frank makes a sound that’s half warning, half surrender.
And then— The elevator dings. You both freeze.
Too late. The doors slide open on the next floor and a group of people step in mid-conversation, laughing, talking, completely oblivious to the fact that Frank Castle currently has you pressed against the wall like he forgot how elevators work. There’s a beat of silence. Someone clears their throat.
“Oh—sorry,” a woman says quickly, eyes flicking between you both like she’s trying not to assume anything. “Didn’t realize—” Frank immediately steps back like he’s been burned. You straighten your dress slowly, trying very hard not to laugh.
“Going up?” one of the men asks awkwardly. Frank nods once, jaw tight.
“Yeah.” The doors close again. The elevator is suddenly packed, way too small, way too bright, and absolutely suffocating in the worst possible way. Frank stands rigid behind you, one hand gripping the railing like it’s the only thing keeping him from continuing what he started, the other still steady on your waist, keeping you pinned to him, conveniently hiding his arousal. Everyone in the elevator is busy with something- too busy , in fact , to notice Frank's hand snake up the back of your dress. To notice the way his thumb presses against the cotton of your panties from behind. You bite the inside of your cheek to keep from gasping. His thumb is a brand, a point of searing pressure against the damp fabric, moving in slow, deliberate circles that are designed to drive you insane. You can feel the heat of his palm through the silk of your dress, his fingers splayed across your lower back, holding you in place. It's a silent, secret assault, a punishment for your earlier taunts, and it's working. Your knees feel weak, your breath catching in your throat.
"Frank," you whisper, your voice barely audible, a plea and a warning all in one. He doesn't answer. He just leans in closer, his breath hot against your ear.
"You wanted to play," he murmurs, his voice a low, rough rumble that vibrates through your entire body. "We're playing."
He presses his thumb harder, rolling it in tight, agonizing circles until you nearly forget there’s anyone else in the cramped, fluorescent-lit box. A bead of sweat slicks down your spine. You keep your gaze pinned to the floor numbers, refusing to blink, and let your lips part just enough for a slow, careful breath. Your pulse thuds in your throat, loud as gunfire. Frank moves with military efficiency—nothing wasted, nothing visible from the front. Anyone who glances your way will just see the two of you pressed a little too close, maybe think you are the couple that can’t shut up about each other for five minutes. His eyes are fixed on the cheap steel paneling, but the set of his jaw says he’s doing nothing but counting the seconds until this ride ends. You can’t stand still. The pressure of his thumb sends little electric shocks up your legs, and you press your knees together tight, shifting your weight from foot to foot. His thumb hooks over the side of your panties, softly moving the wet fabric to the side, his fingers tip dragging against your folds. You look back at him, eyes wide.
“Frank-” He tuts, shaking his head.
“Don’t make a sound,” he says, barely moving his lips. His thumb slides between your folds and finds the slick, sensitive swell of your clit, and you nearly loose your grip on the polite-lady mask you’d hastily reassembled after the other passengers had entered. It would have been embarrassing if you didn’t want it so badly. If you weren’t already soaked through and desperate for him. The elevator is practically humming with the small talk of strangers, some blather about brunch plans and the weather—shit that barely registers over the white static in your head. Guilt and delight warr in your belly as you feel Frank’s thumb work impossibly slow circles, every movement careful, controlled, just this side of mean. A bartender would kill for a hand that steady. He knows he’s tormenting you back for that stunt you pulled. You can feel the smug, possessive tension radiating off him, shoulders squared, jaw set. And you can’t do a thing about it except stand there and take it. There are only three more floors. That’s a mercy and a curse. Frank eases the tip of his finger inside you, just enough to make you breathe out hard, then curves it up and away with devastating precision. There’s a moment - a suspended half-second - where you genuinely think your knees might go, right here in the moving tin can, with the nice couple and the guy in basketball shorts two feet away. You press your tongue hard against your back teeth, every inch of your body straining not to react. The elevator dings. One of the guys steps out, the conversation behind you still going but probably about to drop off a cliff if any of them actually looked over. Frank doesn’t stop. His hand is careful and relentless, moving just so, like he can already hear exactly what it would take to make you lose all coherence and is timing it down to the wire.
Ding !
7th floor.
Your floor.
You break away from Frank, who is smirking at you as you dash out of the elevator. The doors close and you slap his chest.
“What the fuck, Frank ?” He smirks at you, pressing a soft kiss to your temple as he reaches into your purse for the keys blindly.
“You started it, mama. Don’t forget that.” He gets the keys in on the first try, which he privately scores as a minor victory given the state of his brain. The lock gives a stutter, then the door swings in and he crowds you inside. The apartment is cold and dim, just the little orange lamp on the credenza flicking some warmth over the wood floors, but he doesn’t even bother with the lights. He just sets you against the inside of the door and kisses you again, arms braced around your shoulders like a barricade. There’s a laugh still trapped in your lungs, and he swallows it, one hand holding your chin steady, the other wandering—a little lost, a little starved—down the slick of your dress and into the thigh slit.
“Frank,” you say, muffled, but you’re already looping your arms around his neck and pulling yourself up, both feet off the ground, until his hands catch under your thighs. “If I had known this is what a simple text would get me… I’d have texted you before we even left.” You breathe into his mouth as he drops you on the kitchen counter, spreading your legs so wide you feel a twinge of pain in your hips bones. His large hands push up your dress, his eyes filled with hunger as he drops down to his knees, kissing his way up your legs.
“You’re fuckin’ evil, y’know that ? Hell, i was tryna get to know your friends- and you’re sending me nudes.” You scoff, helping him rid you of your panties for good.
“Not nudes. Explicit images.”
“Still.” He looks up at you and god- the sight of him. That suit, the watch, the very smell of him is intoxicating. Your pussy pulses at the sight and you whine. He frowns at you, but it’s harmless. “We had rules, baby. You said you would behave.” You laugh, breathless, finding his hair with both hands.
“Yeah, well. I lied.” You tip your head back as his lips travel higher. “I was going to.. but then I saw you across the room and all I could think of is how fuckin’ big you are and how full you make me feel-”
“Baby-”
“And how badly I needed you.” You gasp, looking down at him. He’s starting up at you with his lips parted, inches away from fully giving in. You can tell he’s a little bit ticked off- he did genuinely want to get to know your friends.
But you just scramble his brain.
You fuck him up to a point of no return, and god, how is he supposed to say no to you when a single graze of your skin against his makes him go hard like a teenager that cant control himself. He groans and before he can decide against it, he pushes his nose against your clit, his tongue lapping at your folds. You whimper, falling back against the counter, eyes rolling back, hand tangled in his hair. Your thighs wrap around his head and he has to stop himself from moaning at the sensation. Your stiletto heels dig into his back, and he softly hooks his arms around your thighs to drag you further against his mouth. He works his tongue in slow, devastating circles, not bothering with teasing because both of you know exactly what you want and how you want it. The scratch of stubble against the soft skin of your inner thighs is a threat and a promise—he’s not stopping until you shatter. The noise you make is animal, an open-throated whine that only eggs him on. It’s so unfair, how broad he is, how the span of his hands presses your legs apart until you’re splayed open on the edge of the counter, legs shaking from the effort of keeping yourself upright. You clutch his head in both hands, knees threatening to buckle even though you’re already seated, and all you can do is let Frank devour you like you’re his last meal. He’s always been greedy—never enough, never satisfied with just a taste. His tongue fucks into you, fast and slick, and then he pulls back, lips shiny, steadying your hips while his thumb finds your clit and just holds it there—a slow, grinding pressure that makes you see stars. He doesn’t stop. Not when your moans get louder, not when you try to clamp your thighs around his head, not when you plead and curse and dig your nails into his scalp. If anything, he redoubles his effort. Jesus Christ, he looks so good like this. The suit. The hands. The intensity of his focus. Like he could do this forever, just keep you pinned to the counter, legs spread, and eat you out until you forget your goddamn name.
You come so hard you almost black out, vision blurring white at the edges, a sob catching in your throat. Frank doesn’t let up, not even as you shudder and gasp, his tongue flicking slow and gentle now, coaxing every last spasm out of you before he finally pulls back. His face is flushed, lips wet, eyes black with hunger. He stands up, licking at his lips.
He does not take his eyes off you as he rises, huge hands sliding up your quaking thighs, thumbs pressing bruises into the soft flesh above yout knees.
The suit is a mess now, tie askew, top button lost somewhere in the blur, and he looks gorgeous like this: rumpled, flushed, wrecked on you and by you. He leans close, breath hot on your ear, and you shudder when his zipper rasps down.
“You think you get to act like that, huh?” His voice is rough, gravelled. “You think you can just wind me up in public, send me pictures, get me hard for you like a fuckin’ teenager?” His knuckles drag up your inner thigh, just shy of too rough, and he grins when you flinch and then spreads your legs even wider for him.
“You proud of yourself?” You want to say yes but it comes out as a whine, his name wrecked. Frank’s hands—those enormous palms, the ones that had once broken a man’s jaw with a single punch—slide up your thighs, leaving a trail of heat in their wake. He keeps you wide for him, thumbs digging deep into the delicate flesh above your knees, a half-growl of approval rumbling in his chest as he looks at you: slick, open, and already starting to tremble from the aftershocks. He’s hard as a fucking rock, the outline of his dick straining so high against his pants that it looks comically obscene, threatening to tear clean through the expensive wool.
Frank leans in, crowding you back against the cabinets so completely that you couldn’t slide away if you tried, his mouth at your ear again.
“Gonna fuck you so good,” he mutters, and it’s both a promise and a threat. He’s promising to fuck you so good you never pull a stunt like that again- even though you both know you will.
This magnetic attraction between the both of you is palpable, always has been- and it’s not going away anytime soon. He shoves his pants down enough to free himself—fuck, he’s so hard it hurts just looking at him, the head of his dick flushed dark, thick veins standing out along the length. He gives himself a rough stroke and you feel the heat pool low in your gut all over again, greedy and desperate. You can hear how wet you still are when he lines up against your slick entrance and notches in, the stretch already making your legs shake. He doesn’t ease himself in, not really; he’s too big for that, and both of you know it, so the first push is bruising, the head splitting you open in a way that’s almost too much, but you can’t get enough of it. You whine, fingers digging into his shoulder blades. he groans at the feeling of your nails through the shirt, wanting to feel you against his skin. His hand comes up to roughly cup your cheek and jaw, pressing comforting kisses to your face.
“Y’alright ?” He rasps, hips softly nudging as he pushes himself in a little bit more. “S’not too much ?” You nod, though the gasp that escapes you sounds guttural. Every nerve ending feels inflamed, every cell in your body calls out for more. Frank isn’t even all the way in yet and already you want to sob from the stretch, the pressure, the feeling of being split open by a man who acts like he wanted to climb inside and fuse himself to you.
“Good girl,” Frank says, voice breathy with restraint, eyes locked on the place where he disappeares inside you. He grips your hips, rolling them forward, and you feel him push deeper, impossibly so, the whole length of him crowding every inch of your insides. He watches your face, brow creased, and his own breathing staggers. The kitchen counter bites into your ass but you don’t care, didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world as Frank buries himself to the hilt. You could never get over it, how absurdly big he is. Frank's hand tightens around your hip.
"J's breathe through it, mama. That's it. Attagirl." He hums, softly rubbing circles on your hip as he works on unbuttoning his shirt with one hand- the need to feel your hands pressed against his skin is overwhelming, like a living thing burning inside of him.
Frank finally gets the last button undone and shoves the dress shirt off his shoulders—leaving the sleeves bunched at his elbows, but he can’t be bothered to care about anything except the need to get his skin on yours, to feel you clawing at his back, your hands trembling and desperate. He sucks a shallow breath in as you wrap your arms around his neck, your body going molten and loose as he rocks into you. The stretch is relentless in the best way, each thrust knocking moans out of you that barely sound human, each one making his cock twitch and pulse inside you like he’s seventeen again. He likes the way your hips fight him, instinctively trying to jerk back from the fullness, but he stills you with a hand wide across your stomach, holding you flush and tight against him.
“Fuck, look at you,” he grits out, voice pure sandpaper, watching the way you bite your own hand to keep from screaming.He fucks forward, slow at first but so deep you swear you could feel him in your ribs, and you lose all sense of time or place.
“That’s it, baby, that’s it,” he grinds out, pacing himself only because he wants to draw this out, wants to ruin you completely. His praise goes straight to your head, between your legs, and you can’t help sobbing out his name. “So fuckin’ good for me. Always so good.” Every thrust rocks your body against the counter, your back arching, chest pressing against him. He’s barely pulled back before you’re clawing at his arms, pulling him deeper, loving the way his cock drags along every nerve ending, perfectly punishing. Frank’s rhythm is a hard, steady piston, helmed by those slabs of muscle for shoulders, and it’s all you can do to hold on, to ride the bright edge of pain-pleasure that he’s mastered like a science. He frames your face with both hands, fingers sticky where they’d just been inside you, and he kisses the side of your mouth like he’s trying to memorize how you taste after you’ve come.
“Always knew you were trouble,” Frank huffs, his voice shredded, “but I didn’t think you could ruin me like this.” He’s not lying. You see it in the way his gaze skips down your body, jaw flexing. There’s a reverence there—a kind of awe that you can make him feel this out of control, that he wants you this bad. God, you never should’ve gone to that stupid event.
You should’ve stayed here and done this, over and over again- all night.
“God, you’re so fucking perfect.” He leans in, biting the corner of your jaw, and you feel his stubble burn against your cheek.His hand curls under your ass, hefting you closer, and you can’t contain the desperate moan bubbling up in your throat as the angle digs into that spongey spot deep inside you.
“Frank- mmph- fuck !” You whine, thighs wrapping tighter around his waist, sucking him in deeper inside you. He’s all muscle, all heat and hardness and relentless drive, his voice a low, cracked thunder in your ear.
“You know what you do to me? Fuck, you drive me insane. Can’t think straight, can’t walk into a room and not wanna take you apart.” There’s a possessive edge to the words, like he needs you to know how completely he’s ruined. He braces one arm beside your head and uses the other to pull your thigh over his shoulder, opening you as wide as you’ll go on the cold granite. You’re panting, slick and open and so wet you can hear it every time he pounds in, the slap of his hips against you obscene in the stillness. You feel him everywhere – in your bones, in your teeth, your skull buzzing with pleasure. Your eyes roll back and you press your hands to the hard planes of his chest.
“God, so good, Frank. Fuck-” You choke on a sob as he hits that same spot again. Frank’s grip is bruising and perfect, and he slams into you with a precision that’s half violence, half worship—like he’s trying to prove something, to mark you in a way that’ll hum in your bones for days. You can’t even catch your breath properly, not with how deep he’s fucking you, not with the way it keeps getting better every time, like he’s always been meant for this, for you. Your nails drag down his chest, scoring tracks over the ridges of muscle, feeling the sweat starting to bloom under his skin. He loves it, that feral scrape of pain and ownership, and he’s not even trying to hide how much.
“Goddamn, baby, you’re—” He can’t finish, not with the way you clamp down on him, not with how you melt under his hands. The words fracture into a choke and he just watches you, drinking in your desperation, the way your mouth falls open. Frank’s hand slides up, tracing the line of your throat, his thumb braced under your jaw, holding you still so he can see every flicker of pleasure on your face. He needs to see it—needs to memorize it, the way your mouth drops open, the way your eyelids fluttered and your whole body tense in his grip.
Jesus, he wants to live here, right at this edge, right in this moment where you can’t stop repeating his name, where you cling to him like you’d drown if he let you go.
He loves that you let him do this to you, that you always meet him headlong, hungry, never shy, never pulling back. Every time, you let him take you apart and build you back up. He can’t imagine wanting anything else. Not ever.
He presses his forehead to yours, sweat slick between your skin, and slows his hips just enough to make you whimper, to make you open your eyes and the look in them is pure desperation and unequivocal love.
“Yeah, baby ? Pretty girl wants to come ? Hmm ?”You nod, jaw clenched, lungs burning. You want to say something, anything, but all you can do is reach for him, clutch at the back of his neck, needing him impossibly close. Frank’s hand tightens at your waist, anchoring you as he drills into you—harder, deeper, like you’re the only thing in the world that matters. You feel yourself spiral, every muscle tensing, pleasure spiking hot and bright through your core until it’s all you are, until everything narrows down to just him and the way he fills you.
“God, baby, look at you,” he says, voice a snarl softened into something starved. “So fuckin’ pretty, so fuckin’ sweet. Look at the way you take it. Always take all of me, don’t you? Fuck, I love you.” You make a sound, a wretched, greedy noise, and it’s so undignified but you don’t care. You’re nothing but need. Frank has you locked down with the weight of his hips, the crush of his chest, and the absolute conviction in his hands. For a beat, it’s just the two of you in the universe: the electric taste of skin; the ragged gasp of breath; the way you go molten when he grits out “so perfect for me, always my perfect girl, always.” The words are rough, more like a dare than a compliment, but with Frank you know it’s the highest praise in the world. You want to live up to it, want to be every bit as good as he says.
He braces you with one arm, holding you steady while the other hand comes up to your face, thumb rough and sweet at your cheek. You feel him shake - he’s trying so hard to hold back, to make it last longer. The silk of your red dress is completely crumpled now, bunched up so high on your hips that you fear no amount of ironing or steaming will bring it back to it's former glory. Frank reaches up and tugs the front of the dress down, revealing the heavy swell of your breasts he adores. He pulls the straps down your shoulders, baring you for him, filling his hands with you, like he wants to remind himself you’re real, that this is happening, that you’re his. He thumbs your nipple, and the sensation is so sharp it ricochets straight to your core, wrung out and raw and so close you could cry. He keeps his eyes fixed on you—hungry, reverent, desperate—and you see it in his furrowed brow and trembling lips, the way he’s holding himself back for you, for this, for as long as he can manage.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Frank mutters against your skin, voice gone hoarse with need. He bites just enough for you to feel it, then soothes the sting with his tongue, laving circles until your head tips back, eyes squeezed shut. “You love it, don’t you? Love when I take it all for myself.” You nod helplessly, nails digging half-moons into his shoulders. Your whole world telescopes down to the way he bites and sucks, the obscene, slick drag of him inside you, the counter edge cutting cold against your ass while everything else burns. Every nerve ending is tuned to his rhythm, every cell in your body screaming more, harder
“Come on, sweetheart. C’mon.” It’s a plea and a command. His face is right in yours, sweat beading at his temple, and you lose all sense of dignity, legs locking around his hips, dragging him even deeper. The next thrust is a knockout punch, a shockwave that rips through every cell, and you’re gone. The orgasm is blinding, a detonation that rips all language from your brain, replaces your veins with liquid fire. Frank is right there with you, his hands clutching so tight at your ass and thighs you know you’ll find fingerprints in the morning, every muscle in his body locked and trembling. He buries his face in your neck, groaning into your skin, breath hot and damp as your name slips out in a strangled, desperate whisper. He keeps moving, slower now but just as deep, coaxing every aftershock until you think you might actually collapse, arms and legs trembling with the wreckage of it. He grinds in, not letting you escape the fullness, and you can feel the twitch and pulse of him as he comes, cock jerking against your walls, his whole body shuddering through the release. The sound he makes isn’t even human – a raw, wrecked noise, like he’s breaking apart. His grip on the leg slung over his shoulder tightens and he groans.
“Fuck- fuck.” You whine at the overstimulation, your body jerking. Frank tries to gather himself, bracing against the countertop, but his vision stutters, blacks out at the edges. He rides the waves of aftershock, savoring the pulsing grip of you around him, the way your slick, overheated body trembles in his hands. There’s a cut on his knuckle—he must’ve knocked it on the edge of the counter in his rush to pin you down. He notices it only because you touch the back of his hand, thumb stroking soft over the abrasion, grounding him. For a second, there’s just the sound of both your harsh breathing, the sting of sweat in his eyes, the residual buzz of that elevator adrenaline. The world could go to hell outside and he wouldn’t care. Frank leans into you, presses his brow to your collarbone, waits for his pulse to come down.The world narrows to the ache of him inside you, still pulsing, and the warm, wrecked hush of your mingled breathing. He holds you there, his arm banded tight around your waist, his other hand still cupping the back of your head like you might tip off the counter and drift away if he lets go. He noses into the shallow of your neck, the scruff of his jaw scraping a path up to your ear.
“Jesus - fuck,” he mutters, barely audible.
You giggle, a hiccup of relief and disbelief, and the sound vibrates through his lips where he presses them to your collarbone. He kisses you there, soft this time—a thank you, a benediction. Your dress is a massacre, rucked past your hips, the straps sliding off your shoulders,yet to frank you’ve never looked more beautiful. He eases your leg off his shoulder and you whine, eyes flying shut. He shushes you, brushing your sweat damp hair away from your face.
“Hey.. hey.. You okay, baby ? You with me ?” You can’t answer, not at first. The aftershocks roll through you in dizzy waves, every nerve still vibrating. Frank’s hands are everywhere, broad and grounding, and you can’t remember how language works, let alone how to get your lips and your lungs and your brain to collaborate on a single word. He tuts.
“Baby, i need you t’talk to me. You alright ?” He asks, cupping your cheek and kisses your forehead repeatedly. You nod, gripping his wrist as you lean in to the affection, eyes fluttering closed. He holds you steady, breathing hard, still cradling your face like it’s the only thing that matters. His thumb skims your cheekbone, lingering in a slow, lazy sweep, and he searches your eyes for something—confirmation, maybe, or just the reassurance that you’re really, blissfully here with him. When you finally manage a word, it’s more a sigh than a sound.
“Holy shit.” Frank’s mouth curves into a battered little smile. He presses a kiss to the corner of your lips, then your jaw, then down the column of your throat, making a slow, careful inventory of everything he bruised or bit or worshipped. He relishes the heat coming off your skin, the way your pulse still goes wild under his tongue. You can feel the bruises blossoming already, and you hope they last.
He leans back to look at you properly, hair mussed, the collar of his shirt hanging half-off, body still flush against him. You let your face rest in his palm, cheek smashed against stubbled knuckles, and try to blink your vision back online. The kitchen tile is cool under your heels. The world wobbles and pivots, everything off-kilter but in a way that makes you want to laugh.
He kisses your forehead again, softer.
“That’s my good girl. Knew you could take it, huh?” His voice is smug but his thumb swipes a lazy, loving line over your cheek. Frank chuckles, the sound vibrating through his chest and into yours. He shifts his weight, still buried deep inside you, and the movement sends another wave of pleasure-pain rippling through your oversensitive body. You whimper softly, clutching at his shoulders as if trying to anchor yourself to reality.
"Easy there, mama," he murmurs against your temple. He grips your hips, kissing your forehead again. "Gotta pull out, sweet girl. Breathe f'me alright ?" You nod. Slowly, he pulls himself out of you, the drag sending your body into overdrive. Your eyes clench shut, nails digging into his biceps. Frank swears under his breath the second he feels you clench around nothing. His forehead drops briefly to your shoulder, eyes squeezed shut like even pulling away from you takes effort.
“Christ,” he breathes. Your body jerks at the loss of him, thighs trembling violently around his hips, and Frank is immediately there again—hands firm on your waist, keeping you steady while your breathing goes ragged.
“I know,” he murmurs, voice rougher now, softer too. “I know, sweetheart.” You’re still floating somewhere several feet above your own body, head fuzzy and warm, every inch of skin oversensitive. Frank reaches down automatically, thumb stroking slow circles against your thigh, grounding you while he presses lazy kisses along your jaw.
“You still with me?” he asks again. You blink at him slowly.
“Unfortunately.” That gets a tired laugh out of him. Real this time. Deep and wrecked and fond.
“Unfortunately?”
“You nearly killed me.”
“Mhm.” He kisses the corner of your mouth. “And whose fault was that?” You think about it seriously for half a second.
“…Yours.” Frank snorts.
“Absolutely not.”
“It literally started because you wore a suit.”
“You saw me wear the suit before we left.”
“And I suffered privately at first.”
“That’s not what happened.”
“You can’t prove that.” He shakes his head against your shoulder, smiling despite himself. There’s lipstick smeared faintly near the corner of his mouth now, and his hair is completely destroyed from your hands tugging through it. He looks ruined in the most spectacular way imaginable. You reach up weakly and smooth your fingers through the dark strands near his temple.
“You look pretty again,” you murmur. Frank groans instantly.
“Baby,” he warns.
“What? It’s true.” Your thumb traces lazily across his cheekbone. “Very pretty. All sweaty and mean.”
“I was not mean.”
“You fingered me in a crowded elevator.” His mouth twitches.
“…Alright. Little mean.”
“Mm. Criminal behavior, honestly.”
“Says the woman sendin’ me filth while I was tryna make friends.” You grin sleepily.
“Did they like you?” Frank huffs out another laugh and finally straightens enough to look at you properly. His eyes drag slowly over your face, then lower—taking in the state of your dress, the marks blooming across your skin, the completely dazed expression you’re failing to hide. And something in his face softens immediately.
There it is.
That look.
The one underneath all the heat and possessiveness and rough hands. The one that always catches you off guard no matter how many times you see it. Like he still can’t believe you’re real. Like loving you is the easiest and most terrifying thing that’s ever happened to him. His hand comes up to cradle your jaw carefully.
“You okay?” he asks quietly. The concern in his voice is so genuine it makes your chest ache. You nod, leaning into his palm without thinking.
“Better than okay.” Frank studies you another second like he’s making sure. Then he kisses you again—completely different this time.
Slow.
Tender.
Still hungry, because Frank honestly doesn’t know how to touch you without wanting more, but softer now. His mouth moves against yours with exhausted affection, stealing little breaths between kisses while his thumbs stroke along your waist beneath the ruined silk of your dress. You hum against his lips, melting instantly.
“There she is,” he murmurs.
“What?”
“My girl.” The words hit you right in the chest. You smile lazily, hooking your arms around his neck again.
“You’re clingy.”
“Says you.”
“I’m adorable about it.”
“You’re a menace.”
“But I’m your menace.” Frank’s expression immediately goes helpless in that way it only ever does with you. Like you’ve reached directly into his ribcage and squeezed his heart in your fist.
“…Yeah,” he says quietly. “You are.” For a minute neither of you moves. You just stay there tangled together in the dim kitchen, breathing each other in while the city hums faintly outside the apartment windows. Frank’s hands roam absentmindedly up and down your back beneath the dress, soothing now instead of demanding. Your fingers trace the warm skin at the nape of his neck. Eventually, you glance toward the hallway.
“We never ate dinner.” Frank follows your gaze for half a second before looking back at you. Then, without warning, he bends and lifts you straight off the counter into his arms. You yelp softly, clutching his shoulders automatically.
“Frank!”
“What?”
“You can’t just pick me up every time I say something.”
“Watch me.” You laugh, breathless, as he carries you toward the bedroom like you weigh nothing at all.
“I thought we were getting food!”
“We are.”
“When?” Frank nudges the bedroom door open with his foot, eyes already darkening again as he looks at you sprawled in his arms.
okayyy sooo would you be willing to write some smut head canons for frank castle and how he’d be post-maria and doing all that again for the first time in a long time? only if it’s something you’d be comfortable with:)🫶🫶 really you could write anything and i’d eat it up bc there’s barely anything for him🙃
PAIRING: frank castle x fem!reader
WARNINGS: mentions of death and family loss, angst, smut, p in v, multiple orgasms, lil praise kink, good aftercare
A/N: oh anon it's like you read my mind--smut and angst are two peas in a pod for me ☺️ my first request, thank u lovely!! i hope i did him justice lol i could go a lot deeper into this…
everything that Frank is becomes wiped away after maria, nevertheless his children. he's a complete shell of a man. and while he dedicates his free time—which he has a lot more of now—as a vigilante, it doesn’t fix the true thing that’s broken.
you’ve been seeing him for about a month. the reserved and brawny man that came into your father’s store every once and a while. it wasn’t dating, at least not yet. you’d gotten to know Frank pretty well, but there’s things you notice that you don’t ask about. he appreciates it more than you know.
after a few dinners at your apartment, each one usually followed by a movie and then a kiss goodbye. but a month into this relationship, and Frank doesn’t leave one night.
he caresses your hand after cleaning the dishes with a softness you wouldn’t expect from a man that looked like him. he looks at you with the slightest bit of suggestion.
it doesn’t take much to end up in bed. he’s quick in taking off each piece of clothing from your body before he realizes that he hasn’t done this in a long time. you’re naked underneath him—god, he’d be lying if he said the sight of you didn’t knock his breath from his lungs—and he hesitates. you notice.
you cup his cheek with your hand so his eyes meet yours. “We don’t have to do anything,” you offer. what did he do to deserve someone so sweet?
“No,” Frank tells you. he moves your hand from his cheek to where his boxers cover his length. the weight of it drops in your palm. “I want to.” he says before leaning down to your neck, his lips attaching themselves to your skin.
when he’s inside you, he feels complete. his hips initially buckle from the feeling of your warmth as you climax simply from the size of him. he isn’t even fully inside and your back arches from the bed.
“Oh, baby,” he says before moving his hips. he pulls from you like a slow drag before jutting himself inside again, a sharp but beautiful feeling exact that spot in your core. “That’s it. Take it all so good for me.” his broad frame nearly covers your entire body; you haven’t ever been this physically close to someone and it feels electrifying.
he praises you again, and again, and again. each time you come undone around him, every time your eyes roll back into your hear, and when he releases over your thighs. he stifles a groan as he digs his face into your shoulder, your hands dragging over his back for any sense of him that you can get.
he cleans you up like a gentleman. as he does, you exhale heavy breaths, your heart racing, and you hadn’t even done any of the work!
“I think I won” you say to himdeep down, settled with the memory of his wife and an acceptance of his past, Franks thinks the same.
pairings: frank castle x fem!reader series synopsis: You hit him harder, sobbing openly now, body shaking. “We’ve been here a thousand times,” you cry. “A thousand fucking times. Every fight feels the same. Every apology feels the same. I’m so tired of this.” warnings: mdni!! bf!frank castle, emotionally unavailable!frank castle, baker!reader, reader mentions having a bakery once, lots of angst, they love each other so bad, protective!frank, pet names (sweets, sweetheart, baby), karen, foggy & matt mention, canon punisher gore, smut (light choking, oral fem receiving, thigh riding, size difference, praise kink, frank talks you through it, soft!dom frank, sub reader, unprotected piv, multiple orgasms), frank kisses your tears away, using sex as a way to deflect from talking about feelings (don’t do this!), not proofread, a fuck ton of I love you’s and I’m sorry’s. mans best friend masterlist total word count: 5.6k mia’s love note: Thank you for 330 followers!!! I’m so excited to continue to share my writing with you all! I hope you love this as much as I do. Frank has such a special place in my heart and I genuinely wish more people wrote for him. Fine i’ll do it myself…
You cleaned your hands on the flour-dusted apron, fingers dragging absentmindedly over the fabric as your eyes traced the neat row of raspberry croissants lined up on the tray. The dough was glossy and proofed just right, layers visible where you’d folded them again and again with practiced precision. Baking always grounded you. It quieted the endless noise in your mind, gave your hands something gentle and exact to do. Baking was a comfort.
You lifted the pan carefully, opened the oven, and slid the croissants onto the rack. Warm air rushed out, carrying the faint scent of butter and sugar. You smiled to yourself, already imagining the way the kitchen would smell in twenty minutes.
The front door slammed shut.
You straightened immediately, heart skipping. “Frankie?” you called, wiping your hands again as you rounded the corner.
Frank Castle stood in the entryway.
He was covered in blood. Dark red smeared across his jaw, splattered over his shoulders, soaked into his clothes. Purple bruises bloomed along his face. You knew without needing to ask that not all of it was his. That never made it easier.
“Jesus, Frankie,” you said, instinctively taking a step toward him before stopping yourself short. You didn’t want to touch the blood. Didn’t want to smear it, didn’t want to acknowledge how much of it there was.
He grunted in response, already moving past you toward the bathroom like his body was on autopilot. You stared at the bloody footprints he left behind on your clean floor, jaw tightening.
“You’re making a mess,” you said, frustrated, following him anyway.
Frank didn’t answer. He reached the bathroom, turned on the light, and started peeling off his black tactical shirt. It stuck to his skin where the blood had clotted. When he finally yanked it free, it hit the floor with a heavy thud.
Normally, the sight of Frank Castle shirtless would do dangerous things to you. His body was all solid muscle and scars, broad shoulders and strength earned the hard way. But when he rolled his shoulder and fresh blood pulsed from two angry bullet wounds, your stomach dropped.
You rushed forward without thinking, your hand landing on his bicep as you pushed him so he faced you.
“Are you okay?” you asked, even as you knew how stupid the question sounded.
“I’m fine, sweetheart,” he said.
Frank was never cruel to you. Never sharp or dismissive. With you, his voice softened, rough edges worn smooth. You adored his puppy dog eyes, the way his gaze lingered on you like you were something precious. Even his voice, more growl than sound, felt safe when it was aimed at you.
He was good to you. He loved you. A fact that still stunned him some days.
He was flawed. Emotionally guarded. Terrible at talking about anything that hurt too much. His patience ran thin with the world, and his protectiveness over you bordered on obsessive. You didn’t mind the possessiveness. You found it comforting, even attractive. Frank’s instincts were sharp. When he told you to be careful, there was always a reason.
What you did mind was the silence. The shutting down. The way he retreated into himself when things got too heavy.
You hadn’t pushed at first. Early on, you’d told yourself it would change. It hadn’t. When things grew serious, when you became his weakness, when his enemies noticed you, that was when you started pushing. You couldn’t keep pretending you didn’t see the darkness creeping closer.
“C’mon, Frankie, talk to me,” you said, grabbing a towel and running it under warm water. You started wiping the blood from his neck and chest. “You’re hurt.”
He groaned when you brushed the skin near his bicep. You looked up, worried, only to find him smiling at you.
“Love ya, baby,” he said. “But I don’t really wanna talk about it.”
He never struggled to say he loved you.
You sighed softly. “Okay.”
You turned and rose onto your tiptoes, reaching for the first aid kit on the shelf. Your fingers brushed air just short of it when you felt Frank’s body heat behind you. His uninjured arm reached past you and grabbed the kit with ease. You couldn’t help watching the way his muscles flexed, at the power contained there.
He handed it to you and sat on the edge of the tub. “Tell me about your day, sweets. Wanna hear all about it.”
There it was. The deflection. The shift back to you. He was an expert at that.
Your usual bright energy dimmed as you disinfected his wounds, but you tried anyway. “Well, I woke up and cleaned the house. And then I stopped by the bakery to see if Peter finally figured out the mixer. And then, oh!” Your face lit up despite yourself. “I found this new raspberry compote recipe. I got so excited I went for a run, then to the store after.”
You worked carefully, removing one bullet and letting it clink into the metal bowl. Frank watched you like he always did, fond and quiet.
His hand came up suddenly, gripping your wrist and stopping you mid-motion.
“You left the apartment?” he asked, voice low.
“Yeah!” you said brightly, completely missing the shift in his tone. “Went for a run. It was great. I saw Karen too. She’s doing really well.”
That was your flaw. You didn’t always notice when he was upset. When you were unknowingly digging yourself deeper.
You noticed when he took the tweezers from your hand.
“Thought I told you to stay here,” he said.
“You did, but—” you started.
“Nah, baby,” he cut in softly, the dangerous edge creeping into his voice. “I told you I was goin’ out to deal with someone who threatened you.” He let out a humorless scoff. “You went for a run.”
Your stomach twisted.
“How am I supposed to protect you when you don’t listen to me?”
He stood and moved back to the sink. You flinched as he shoved the tweezers into his wound and pulled the bullet free in one brutal motion.
“I’m sorry,” you said quietly. “I knew you’d take care of it.”
“You don’t assume he’s already dead before I get back,” Frank said, grabbing the kit and walking out, leaving you standing alone in the bathroom, heart pounding.
The oven timer beeped faintly in the kitchen, completely out of place against the silence he left behind. You zoned out.
The timer goes off again.
Not the gentle chime it used the first time, but the sharper, more insistent beep that feels like it’s cutting straight through your chest. You flinch, dragging in a breath you didn’t realize you were holding, and turn back toward the kitchen.
The apartment smells warm. Butter and sugar and fruit. Comfort. Normalcy. Everything you were trying to preserve.
You wipe your hands on your apron again even though they’re already clean, then open the oven. Heat rushes out, fogging the air for a moment as you slide the tray of croissants free. They’re perfect. Golden brown, flaky layers crisped just right, raspberry filling bubbling slightly at the seams like it’s trying to escape.
You set them on the stovetop and move them to the cooling rack with careful precision, forcing yourself to focus on the small details. The way the pastry crackles softly when it shifts. The way the kitchen light reflects off the glaze. The way your hands know exactly what to do even when your heart feels like it’s unraveling.
You glance toward the kitchen table.
Frank is sitting at the table, shirtless, hunched forward, shoulders tense as he stitches himself up like this is just another chore. The first aid kit is spread out in front of him, gauze and alcohol wipes scattered carelessly. Blood dots the table where his arm rested.
The needle flashes under the overhead light as he pulls it through skin with practiced efficiency.
You hate that he’s so good at this.
You stay where you are for a moment, leaning against the counter, arms folded tight across your chest like that might hold you together. The only sounds are the faint hum of the refrigerator, the soft clink of metal, and Frank’s controlled breathing.
“I made the raspberry croissants,” you say finally.
Your voice sounds small in the open space.
He doesn’t look up. “Smells good.”
You swallow.
“I tweaked the compote,” you add, because talking is what you do when you’re nervous, when you’re sad, when you’re trying to keep something from slipping away. “Less sugar. A little lemon zest. It balances the acidity better. The raspberries can get too sharp if you don’t—”
“Mhm.”
That’s it.
Something in your chest cracks.
You push off the counter and step closer, stopping a few feet from the table. You can see the blood on his hands now, dark and tacky, smeared across his knuckles. You can see where the stitches pull his skin together in angry lines.
“You could’ve waited,” you say quietly. “I could’ve helped you.”
He tightens a stitch with a sharp tug. “I don’t need help.”
“I know you don’t need it,” you snap, the words coming out before you can stop them. “That’s not the same thing, Frank.”
That finally gets his attention.
He pauses, needle suspended between his fingers, then looks up at you. His eyes are tired. Not angry. Not cruel. Just worn down to the bone.
“You done,” he asks.
“No,” you say immediately, stepping closer. “I’m not.”
He exhales slowly, like he’s trying to keep himself in check. “Baby, I just got back. Can we not do this right now.”
“When then,” you ask, voice trembling despite your effort to steady it. “Before you leave. After you come back bleeding. Or never.”
His jaw tightens. He looks back down at his hands and keeps stitching. “I told you to stay here.”
“And I told you I’m not a child,” you shoot back. “I went for a run in broad daylight, Frank. I didn’t disappear. I didn’t do anything reckless.”
“You left,” he says flatly. “That’s the problem.”
You let out a short, bitter laugh. “No. The problem is you think you get to lock me inside my own apartment because you’re scared.”
“I’m not scared,” he says immediately.
“You are,” you insist, tears burning behind your eyes. “And I get it. I do. But you don’t get to control my life because of it.”
He drops the needle onto the table with a sharp clatter. “You think I want this.”
“I think you don’t talk,” you say, voice breaking now. “I think you shut me out and then get mad when I don’t magically understand what you’re thinking.”
He pushes back from the table and stands abruptly. Blood seeps from the unfinished stitches, running down his side.
“You think I don’t know that,” he growls. “You think I don’t hear myself every time I tell you to stay put.”
“I think you’d rather bleed alone than let me help,” you say, wiping at your cheeks angrily. “I think you’d rather push me away than admit you’re scared to lose me.”
He takes a step toward you. “You think this is easy. Bein’ the reason you could get hurt.”
“And you think pushing me away keeps me safe,” you whisper.
“It keeps you alive,” he snaps.
The words hit like a slap.
You stare at him, chest heaving. “At the cost of what, Frank.”
Silence. Heavy. Crushing.
He looks away first.
You turn back toward the counter, hands shaking as you grab a croissant without thinking. You break it open, steam curling into the air, the smell so warm it almost makes you sick.
“I made these for you,” you say quietly. “Because you like raspberry. Because I thought you’d come home and we’d sit at this table and you’d tell me nothing and I’d pretend that was enough.”
Frank slowly sits back down at the table, shoulders slumping like this drained him. He reaches out and takes the croissant from your hands, breaking it again with surprising gentleness.
“You burn yourself,” he mutters checking over your hand.
You huff out a shaky laugh. “Always thinking about everyone else.”
He hands you the larger half and keeps the smaller one. He eats slowly, eyes never leaving you.
“They’re good,” he says quietly.
You nod. “I know.”
The silence settles again, thicker now, loaded with things neither of you knows how to say.
You stand a few feet away from him, arms wrapped around yourself, chest heaving as you try and fail to breathe through the pressure building behind your ribs.
“This can’t keep going like this,” you say again, but this time your voice cracks completely.
Frank’s jaw tightens. “We already did this.”
“No,” you sob, shaking your head. “We didn’t. We circled it. Like we always do.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t care,” you cry suddenly, the words spilling out of you before you can stop them. “I don’t care if you’re keeping me safe if it means you come home like this. If it means I’m scrubbing blood out of the grout and watching you stitch yourself up like you’re dead.”
He stands, towering over you, voice rising. “This is who I am.”
“And I’m exhausted,” you scream back, tears streaming down your face. “I am so fucking tired, Frank. I can’t take it anymore.”
He steps closer. “You think I like hurting you.”
“I think you don’t stop,” you sob. “I think you don’t even try.”
“That’s bullshit,” he snaps. “Everything I do is for you.”
You laugh hysterically through your tears. “You don’t get to say that. Not when I’m the one left holding the pieces every time.”
You step into him, fists coming up and hitting his chest again and again, weak and frantic, fueled by heartbreak rather than strength.
“I can’t do this,” you cry. “I can’t do this again. I can’t watch you bleed and bleed and bleed and pretend loving you makes it okay.”
He doesn’t stop you. He doesn’t grab your wrists. He just lets you hit him, eyes dark and pained as your hands thud uselessly against his chest.
“That’s it, baby,” he says roughly, voice low but steady even as you fall apart. “That’s it. Let it out.”
You hit him harder, sobbing openly now, body shaking. “We’ve been here a thousand times,” you cry. “A thousand fucking times. Every fight feels the same. Every apology feels the same. I’m so tired of this.”
His hands hover at your sides, unsure, like touching you might shatter you completely. “I don’t know how to be anything else.”
“That’s the problem,” you choke. “I’m drowning trying to survive you.”
Silence crashes down between you, broken only by your sobs and his uneven breathing.
“You saying you’re done,” he asks hoarsely.
You don’t answer. You can’t.
You step back, shaking your head, wiping your face with trembling hands. “I can’t have this conversation right now.”
You turn and walk out of the kitchen, past the croissants, past the bloody table, past him calling your name once, quietly.
You grab your phone with shaking fingers and step into the bedroom, closing the door behind you like it might hold the pieces together.
You slide down against it, knees to your chest, sobbing as you hit call.
“Karen,” you choke the second she answers. “I think… I think Frank and I might be breaking up.”
The words hang there, terrifying and real, as the other side of the line fills with her soft, concerned voice.
Frank doesn’t come into the bedroom right away. Hours pass first.
Long enough for your tears to dry into that tight ache behind your eyes. Long enough for your phone to buzz with a worried text from Karen you don’t answer. A missed call from Foggy and a voicemail from Matt. Long enough for the apartment to go quiet except for the dull thud of weight plates and the sharp exhale of Frank’s breathing from the other room.
You know that sound.
You’re flat on your back, staring at the ceiling, blanket pulled up to your chest like armor. You don’t have to see him to know what he’s doing. He does it every time things get this bad. When the words get too heavy and the truth starts circling too close, he works his body until his mind shuts up.
It’s his way of not leaving.
The bedroom door finally opens, slow and careful, like he’s afraid the sound might spook you. You don’t turn your head, but you feel him there. The heat of him. The weight of him filling the doorway.
He smells like sweat and metal and soap. Cleaned up. Stitches finished. Shirtless again.
You feel the mattress dip as he sits on the edge of the bed.
Silence stretches.
“You okay,” he asks quietly.
You laugh once, broken and humorless. “No.”
He nods like he expected that. “Yeah.”
He doesn’t touch you right away. That’s how you know he’s trying. When Frank’s trying, he hesitates.
“I shouldn’t have yelled,” he says. “Shouldn’t have made you cry.”
You turn your head then, finally looking at him. His jaw is clenched, eyes tired and earnest in that way that always undoes you.
“You shouldn’t be working out with stitches.” you say softly.
He shrugs. “Didn’t know what else to do.”
“That’s the problem,” you whisper. “You never know what else to do.”
He looks at you for a long moment, then shakes his head. “I don’t want us to end.”
Your throat tightens. “I don’t either.”
He reaches out, fingers brushing your arm, tentative like he’s asking permission. You don’t pull away.
“I feel like we’re drifting apart.” he says, voice rough.
You close your eyes, tears spilling again despite your best effort. “Yeah I fucking know.” You say sarcastically “Big deal, we’ve been here before and we’ll be here tomorrow.”
The words land between you, ugly and familiar.
He exhales hard, hand sliding up to your shoulder. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” you say immediately, like it’s reflex. Like it’s instinct.
“I don’t know how to fix this,” he admits.
“You don’t try to fix it,” you whisper. “You just… distract yourself from it.”
His thumb brushes your collarbone, slow and grounding. “I know.”
You open your eyes and look at him. “You’re so sweet to me.” You sit up slowly, forehead pressing into his chest. He wraps his arms around you immediately, like he’s been waiting for permission the entire time. “No other guy could compete.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs into your hair. “I hate hurting you.”
“I hate that this is what our relationship has become.” you whisper back.
He pulls back just enough to look at you, hands coming up to cradle your face. His thumbs brush under your eyes, gentle, reverent.
“I don’t want to talk anymore,” he admits quietly. “I just want you.”
And there it is.
The familiar turn. The place you always end up when words fail and feelings get too sharp. You should stop it. You know you should. But your body leans into his touch anyway, betraying every boundary you swear you’ll set next time.
You kiss him first, soft and desperate.
He deepens it immediately, hands firm at your waist, grounding you, pulling you closer like this is how he keeps you from slipping away. It’s not rushed. It’s not gentle either. It’s loaded. Heavy with all the things neither of you can say without breaking something.
This is what happens every time.
You fight. You cry. You almost leave. But then his mouth is on yours again, swallowing the sob that builds in your throat, and you let it happen. You let him pull you into his lap, your smaller frame folding against his broad chest like you were made to fit there. His hands are everywhere, steady on your back, tracing the curve of your spine, then cupping your ass to hold you close. He's so much bigger than you, his muscles corded and unyielding under your touch, a wall of heat and strength that makes you feel safe even as everything inside you aches.
"I'm sorry," he whispers against your lips, voice gravelly and low. "God, baby, I'm so sorry." His forehead presses to yours, breath mingling, hot and ragged. "I love you. I love you so much it fuckin' scares me sometimes."
You cling to him, fingers digging into his shoulders, nails biting just enough to leave faint marks. "I love you too, Frankie," you murmur, the nickname slipping out like a secret, soft and intimate. "But this... it hurts. Every time."
He nods, eyes dark and shadowed, thumb stroking your cheek. "I know. I hate seein' you like this." A tear escapes, trailing down your face, and he catches it immediately, leaning in to kiss it away. His lips are gentle, pressing soft and lingering against your skin. "Don't cry, sweetheart. Please. You're too beautiful for tears."
His words wrap around you, warm and praising, easing the knot in your chest just a little. You know he means it, every time he looks at you like this, like you're the only thing keeping him grounded, it chips away at the sadness. "You take such good care of me," he continues, voice dropping to that rough murmur that sends shivers through you. "Cookin' for me after long nights, patchin' me up when I come home bleedin'. No one else does that. No one else could. You're so good to me, baby. So perfect."
The praise lights something in you, a submissive pull that makes you arch into him, seeking more. Your hands slide down his chest, feeling the hard planes of his pecs, the ridges of his abs, still faintly damp from his workout. His skin is warm and marked with fresh stitches you eye worriedly, but he doesn't flinch when you trace them lightly.
"Frankie," you breathe, shifting in his lap. The heat between your legs presses against his thigh, thick and solid under his sweats. You rock once, experimentally, and a soft whimper escapes you. It's not enough, but it's something, friction that builds the ache into need.
He groans low, hands tightening on your hips. "Yeah, that's it. Use me, sweetheart. Grind on my thigh like that." His voice is encouraging, dominant but so soft, guiding you without force. He shifts his leg, pressing it firmer against your core, and you gasp, starting to move in earnest. Your panties are soaked already, the fabric dragging wetly over him as you hump his thigh, chasing the pressure.
"Look at you," he praises, eyes locked on your face, drinking in every flush and bite of your lip. "So beautiful when you move like this. My good girl, takin' what you need. I love watchin' you. Love how you feel against me." His hands help you, lifting and lowering you slightly, controlling the rhythm just enough to make it intense. You're smaller than him, easy to maneuver, and he uses that to his advantage, making sure every roll of your hips hits right.
Tears prick your eyes again, not from pain now, but from the overwhelming mix of it all. The sadness lingers, heavy in your chest, but his words, his touch, they soften it. "I'm sorry," you whisper between gasps, grinding harder, the seam of his sweats rubbing your clit just right. "For yelling back. For makin' it worse."
"Shh, no," he soothes, one hand sliding up to cup your face. "We're both sorry. I love you, baby. That's all that matters right now." He kisses you then, deep and slow, tongue sliding against yours as you ride his thigh faster. The build is quick, heat coiling tight in your belly, and he feels it, senses the way your body tenses.
"Cum for me," he murmurs against your mouth. "Let me feel you soak my leg. You're doin' so good." The praise tips you over, and you shatter with a cry, thighs clamping around his, pussy clenching as waves of pleasure crash through you. He holds you through it, kissing your neck, your jaw, whispering, "That's my girl. So beautiful when you cum. I love you."
You slump against him, panting, but he doesn't let you rest long. His hands are gentle as he lays you back on the bed, peeling off your shirt with reverent care. "Let me take care of you now," he says, voice thick with emotion. He kisses down your body, collarbone, breasts, tummy-muttering praises the whole way. "God, you're gorgeous. Every inch of you. You're everything, sweetheart."
He tugs your panties down, settling between your legs. Your legs splayed wide to accommodate his broad shoulders, and he looks up at you with that intense gaze. "I'm gonna make you feel good," he promises, then leans in, mouth hot on your pussy.
His tongue is flat and broad at first, licking slow from entrance to clit, tasting the mess you made on his thigh. You moan, fingers threading into his short hair, pulling lightly. He hums approval, the vibration making you twitch. "Taste so sweet," he growls, then sucks your clit gently, tongue circling it with precise flicks. One hand grips your thigh, holding you open, while the other teases your entrance, finger circling before sliding in knuckle-deep.
"Frankie," you whine, hips bucking. Tears well up again, the intensity mixing with the emotional weight, and one slips free. He notices immediately, pulling back just enough to kiss it away from your cheek before returning to your pussy, licking harder now, finger curling inside you to hit that spot.
"Don't cry, baby," he says between laps. "I hate it. You're too pretty for that. My beautiful girl, always takin' such good care of me. I love you so much." He adds a second finger, stretching you, pumping slow and deep while his mouth works your clit. The praise keeps coming, soft and constant: "So good for me. Openin' up like this. Cum on my tongue, sweetheart. Let me taste it."
It builds fast again, his big frame pinning you down just enough to make you feel owned in the best way. You scratch at his shoulders, nails dragging red lines down his back as the orgasm hits, pussy fluttering around his fingers, flooding his mouth. He groans, lapping it all up, not stopping until you're trembling.
"That's it," he praises, kissing your inner thigh. "Knew you could. So perfect." He crawls up your body, shedding his sweats to free his cock, thick and hard, veins prominent, tip leaking. He's huge, especially compared to you, and the sight makes your core clench in anticipation.
He notches himself at your entrance, rubbing the head through your slick folds. "You ready for me?" he asks, voice rough but eyes searching yours for any hesitation.
"Yes, Frankie," you breathe, wrapping your legs around his waist. "Please. I love you."
"I love you too." He pushes in slow, inch by inch, stretching you wide. It's intense, the burn mixing with pleasure, and you gasp, nails raking his back harder, leaving welts. He hisses but doesn't stop, bottoming out with a deep groan. "Fuck, you're tight. So good around me. Takin' me like you were made for it."
He starts moving, thrusts deep and measured, not rushing. One hand slides up to your throat, fingers wrapping lightly, just enough pressure to make your pulse jump under his thumb, a soft choke that heightens everything. "Breathe for me," he murmurs, dominant edge peeking through. "My good girl. So beautiful like this, all flushed and mine."
Tears come again, the emotional dam breaking as he fucks you tender but intense, each roll of his hips grinding his pelvis against your clit. "I'm sorry," he whispers with every thrust, kissing your tears away, lips soft on your cheeks, your eyelids. "Sorry for hurtin' you. For not bein' better. I love you. God, I love you."
"I love you too," you sob, scratching deeper into his back, the pain grounding him as much as it does you. His praises don't stop "You're amazin', baby. Lovin' me through all this shit. No one compares. You're my everything." pushing you higher, the coil tightening.
He shifts, angling to hit deeper, hand still light on your throat. "Cum on my cock," he demands softly. "Wanna feel you squeeze me. Be good for me, sweetheart."
The orgasm rips through you, pussy clamping down hard, milking him as you cry out his name. He follows soon after, burying deep with a guttural moan, cum filling you hot and thick. "Fuck, yes," he gasps, collapsing over you but careful not to crush, kissing your tears one last time.
You hold each other in the quiet aftermath, his big body enveloping yours, breaths syncing. The sadness lingers, a quiet undercurrent, but for now, it's enough. "I love you," he whispers again, like a promise. "Always."
You both stay like that for what feels like forever, tangled in the sheets, his massive frame curled protectively around your smaller one. Frank's chest rises and falls against your back, his arm draped heavy over your waist, holding you close as if letting go might unravel everything you've just pieced together. His skin is slick with sweat, the scratches you left on his back stinging faintly where your nails dug in, but he doesn't complain, never does. Instead, he presses his lips to the nape of your neck, soft and lingering, breathing you in like you're the only thing that calms the storm inside him.
"Love you," he murmurs again, voice muffled against your hair, rough but tender. His hand strokes lazy circles on your hip, thumb tracing the curve there with a gentleness that belies his size. "More than anything, baby. I'm sorry it always gets like this. I hate makin' you doubt us."
You nestle deeper into him, your body still humming from the aftershocks, pussy tender and full from where he spilled inside you. The sadness hasn't fully lifted, it's there, a quiet shadow in the room, but his warmth chases it back, making it bearable. "I love you too, Frankie," you whisper, turning your head to catch his eye. He's watching you with that intense, earnest gaze, the one that always makes your heart ache in the best way. "We just... we gotta figure it out. For real this time."
He nods, forehead resting against your shoulder now, his breath warm on your skin. "Yeah. We will. You're too good to me for me not to try harder." His free hand comes up, fingers brushing your cheek, wiping away the last trace of dampness from your tears. "God, you're beautiful. Even after all this. Especially after. The way you give yourself to me... takin' care of my sorry ass when I don't deserve it. No one else could handle me like you do. You're my everything, sweetheart."
The praise washes over you, soothing the raw edges of your emotions, and you feel yourself relax fully into his hold. His body is a fortress around yours, thick thighs pressed against your legs, his cock softening but still nestled close, a reminder of how deeply connected you are. You reach back, threading your fingers through his, squeezing. "Stop being so sweet," you tease softly, though your voice wavers with leftover emotion. "You'll make me cry again."
"Don't you dare," he says, half-growling, half-laughing as he nuzzles your ear. "I can't stand seein' those pretty eyes wet. Not 'cause of me." He shifts slightly, pulling you tighter, his chest fully against your back now, heartbeat steady and strong thumping through you. The room is quiet except for your shared breaths, the distant hum of the city outside forgotten. His hand drifts lower, cupping your breast gently, thumb grazing your nipple in absentminded affection, not pushing for more, just holding, grounding.
You let out a contented sigh, the tension from earlier melting away in the cocoon of his arms. But then your phone buzzes on the nightstand, the screen lighting up with another text from Karen. You glance at it, the words "Everything okay?" staring back, and reality creeps in. The fight, the tears, the almost-breaking point, it all feels too fresh to ignore her worry.
"I gotta text Karen," you say reluctantly, not wanting to move from this perfect spot. "Tell her it's a false alarm. She texted earlier, probably thinks the worst."
Frank grunts in acknowledgment, loosening his hold just enough for you to reach for the phone. "Yeah, go ahead. She's a good friend. Worries 'cause she cares." He doesn't let you go far, though, his arm stays around you, chin resting on your shoulder as you type out a quick message: Hey, sorry for worrying you. It's fine now. Just a rough night, but we're good. Talk tomorrow? You hit send, then set the phone down, sinking back into him with a small smile.
"There," you murmur, lacing your fingers with his again. "False alarm."
He kisses your shoulder, soft and reassuring. "Good. Now come back here." His voice is low, dominant in that gentle way, pulling you fully against him once more. "I ain't done holdin' you yet."
And in that moment, wrapped up in his strength, you almost believe tomorrow won't bring the fight back.
content warnings 𖨂 NSFW. minors do not interact, fem!reader, age gap (reader is in her 20s, frank 40s), oral (f receiving), frank talks you through it, squirting
“Yeah, sweetheart, relax f’me,” Frank’s lips move against your thighs, his voice drowning in between your legs. You’re splayed on the bed, your skin pebbling from nerves as Frank splits you open. He’s slow to crawl up the bed, savoring the view of your cunt on full display for him.
“Already drenched and I haven’t even touched you there yet,” Frank’s confidence is clear in his tone and movements. Slowly, he attaches his lips to your pussy, and he’s calculated with the way he kisses your sex. As you look down at him, your head propped on a pillow, your eyes roll back at the sensation of his tongue flicking against your clit.
“Feels so good, Frank…” You say, the bashfulness is evident in the shake of your voice as you manage a sentence out without being interrupted by an unadulterated moan. A warm glow from the sunset paints the room, and Frank basks in the shining light as he licks up and down your slit. It isn’t long until he’s got a finger slipped inside of you, then two as he begins to stimulate you in every way possible. He’s careful at first, getting you accustomed to the wet feeling of his tongue circling your clit and his fingers scissoring you open, but as soon as your hips start lifting off the bed, that’s when Frank gets to work.
“Told you, baby, told you I know what I’m doing,” Frank almost sounds intoxicated— nearly drunk off the taste of your cunt alone. He curls his fingers, brushing them against your g-spot while nibbling and sucking on your clit. With shaking legs, you try to close them around Frank’s head because the stimulation is much too intense, but he’s pushing your legs apart as soon as he feels the pressure around his ears. “There you go, baby. Doing so good. Let it go, yeah?”
At just the sound of Frank praising you, your body jolts forward and your walls squeeze around his fingers. It’s loud— your moans, Frank’s gasps of amazement, the sound of your squirt painting the inside of your thighs. Sheepishly, you look at him while your ears ring and chest heaves as if you went minutes without air. “I didn’t know that was going to happen.”
Synopsis: Your boyfriend Frank comes home with a few cuts and scrapes. You fix him up just in time for dinner, and some late night TV.
Requested; see full request here!
Warnings: literally none. Just fluff.
Frank came stumbling into your apartment covered in blood again, at six pm. You were on the couch, a book in hand and a record spinning on the player in the corner, when he left his muddy boot prints on your welcome mat.
"Hello to you too." you say, as he closes the door behind him, nudging off his boots and leaving them by the door. He grunts as he does so, clearly injured as you get up from your seat. "What was it this time, huh?"
You place a hand on his arm as he turns to you, his face softening. "Nothing you gotta worry about." He brings a hand up to brush the hair back from your eyes, and you smile, shaking your head.
"It is when you come to me bleeding at dinner time." you nudge him towards the couch and he complies needing minimal convincing.
Frank notes the supplies that are set out by the kitchen counter, the ones that you bring over to him now. "Were you expecting me?" he questions, clearing his throat at a stab of pain in his shoulder.
"No, I was waiting for my other wanted criminal lover actually."
Frank laughs, and you revel in the sound. "Oh yeah? You got more than one of us?" he reaches for you as you come toward him on the couch, calloused fingers flexing before they even touch you.
"Yeah, this other guy, he's real good with his hands, and he always shows up right before dinner with a bloody nose." you press a tissue to Frank's face as you step between his legs, wiping away the blood on his upper lip.
Frank hums in agreement, warm hands coming up to place featherlight touches on your waist, legs, and arms. You ignore the touch despite the goosebumps that rise along your skin, and force his jacket from his shoulders, and then his shirt from over his head. You want to make quick work of his injuries. You're hungry and have a date with some pasta later.
"How was your day?" he asks, as you assess the damage to his shoulder. Another bullet has grazed him, but at least it's not imbedded in him this time.
"It was good, until someone shot at my guy, apparently." you disinfect the cuts on his skin, and Frank seems to blush at your choice of words. Your guy. Yeah, he is, isn't he?
"Well, I shot back. So, don't worry your pretty head too much, yeah?."
Frank can't miss the loud roll of your eyes. "That's exactly what I worry about."
You're not as mad as you should be at his interruption of your night. At the blood on your couch and the dirt at your front door. You're not as angry as you were the first hundred times this happened. You're still pissed, although internally, but less so that usual. Frank can tell by the way you lean down to his seated height, and kiss him. It's soft, and the touch of your hand doesn't hurt at all despite the bruises on his skin that your fingers graze.
Your hair, loose and messy, tickles his face as you deepen the kiss, but he doesn't mind one bit. When you pull back, Frank's smiling. The sight is so rare, so clearly saved for you, and it makes your heart beat a little faster.
"What'd I do to deserve that?" Frank says, leaning forward subconsciously as you stand straight again, as if his body wants to follow without his permission.
"Nothing. That kiss is on loan." You're teasing him, smile growing and any irritation you once had fading away like clouds after a storm. Frank stands, nodding in mock understanding.
"Loan, huh? So you're gonna want it back sooner or later?"
"Preferably sooner."
"Alright then." Frank steps forward, leaning down to kiss you again, repaying your affection from before. His hands, so hard from war and work, hold you so softly that your knees want to go weak at the touch. He pulls you into him, not minding one bit when you accidently step on his toes as you stumble forward with his gentle tug. You gasp against his mouth, partly a laugh, and Frank takes the opening to deepen the kiss. His tongue fights with yours, and you let him win. You always do.
Your hands come up to his shoulders, so used to the routine, and Frank winces.
"Shit sorry." you completely forgot about the bullet graze on his shoulder blade.
"S'okay." he tries to kiss you again, but you turn your head to the side, allowing his lips to land on your cheek.
"As much as I need that loan paid back, I'm hungry Frankie."
Frank grumbles, bringing his kisses down to your neck. "mhm, me too."
You push his head away playfully, "Not that kind of hungry." that's partly the truth, because while you are starving for some pasta and a cold drink, the sight of Frank still shirtless in your apartment is making you want something else. Nevertheless, you step away from him, and move toward the kitchen.
"Go clean up, I'm gonna make us something." You gesture toward the bedroom, where there is a drawer full of clothes for the man who always seems to come over covered in blood and dirt.
Frank lets out a breath, looking over you with something like admiration. "Yes ma'am." he moves with a slight limp toward the bedroom, and you head toward the cupboard of pots and pans.
You fill a pot with water and put it on high heat while Frank cleans up, and you move with practiced swiftness as you get the ingredients for your grandmothers pasta sauce recipe. When Frank returns to the kitchen, he looks cleaner. His new shirt smells like your laundry detergent, like you've marked your territory unintentionally.
He comes up behind you as you chop vegetables, arms sliding around your waist and his chin coming to rest on your shoulder. "What we making, sweetheart?"
His voice, so low next to your ear has you thinking about things meant for the bedroom, and not the kitchen. "Pasta." you chop the bell peppers with steady hands, despite Frank's breath on your neck.
"What do you need me to do?" He's not so subtly breathing in your perfume as he speaks.
"You can grate some cheese?" you nod toward the grater on the counter beside the chopping board you use, and Frank nods, squeezing your waist once before moving toward the fridge.
In your personal opinion you are a relatively good cook. You know you aren't terrible, and while you burn the occasional thing, for the most part you know what you're doing. But still, cooking with Frank is a little nerve-wracking. Cooking for anyone is really, but you so badly want him to like what you make, that you go a little quiet while the sauce simmers in the pan.
His voice is low as you drain the pasta water from the pot. "You doing alright?" you can feel his hand, not touching you but ghosting close to the small of your back. You've always been fascinated by the amount of heat that rolls off him at any given moment.
"Yeah," you put the pot down, taking the sauce off the heat, but your mind isn't all with the task. You feel Frank's hand, finally finding a place on the back of your neck.
"What's going on in that head'a yours?" his fingers squeeze the nape of your neck, releasing tension there as he plays with the chain of your necklace.
You look over your shoulder at him, smiling softly "I'm just focusing." you mumble, bending to pull the plates out from the drawer below the counter. Frank's hand trails down your back as you do so, but never lower than is respectful, despite the fact you've been with him officially for months.
You set the plates on the counter, opening another drawer to get some forks for the both of you. You hand them over your shoulder giving Frank another job to do. He doesn't need you to use words, he simply takes them and moves toward the table. You can hear the gentle clicking of the metal hitting the wood, and you smile at little at his soft obedience.
You bring the plates over quickly after him, once you've piled them both high with food, and you smile as Frank pulls a chair out for you, forever old fashioned. You have never once tried to replace Frank's family, never tried to fit in the role his wife once did. But you do feel like you could be a part of a family with him, if he'll have you. It's starting to look like he feels the same.
For the most part you both eat in silence. It's comfortable and calming to just be next to each other, but when Frank does speak your heart swells with relief.
"Best meal I ever had." he mumbles, partly to himself but loud enough for you to hear. You can't help but bashfully duck your head, smiling as you bring another bite of pasta to your lips.
"Why d'you look so surprised?" he nudges your foot with his under the table, and you kick him softly back.
"I just really wanted you to like it." you speak truthfully, though the empty plate in front of him speaks for itself. Frank pushes his chair back, the legs making a sound as they scrape against the floor. He stands, picking up his empty plate before leaning over the table and placing a kiss to the top of your head. His free hand is gentle against the back of your head as he does so, and you miss the touch when he pulls away.
"You don't gotta worry about that." You hear his plate clatter in the sink, followed by another mumble. Something along the lines of "Love everything you do."
Your stomach twists as the quiet words—ones your unsure if you were meant to hear—settle in. You're in love with him, you know that for sure, but you haven't said it yet.
You stand with your own plate and move to the sink where Frank has already begun cleaning the dishes. You nudge him with your hip, as you put your own plate in the sink. "You don't have to do that." you say, trying to take the brush from his hands.
"I want to." he says, not allowing you to help him. While you appreciate it, and you've had exes in the past who would never do the dishes even at gunpoint, you want to spend your time with him doing something other than chores.
"I want you to come sit with me." you say, a hand on his arm. You avoid touching the wound on his shoulder, hand gently wrapped around his bicep instead. "Let them soak, we'll do them later."
You give his arm a gentle tug. "Please?"
You watch Frank fold slowly, expression shifting as he drops the brush and tries his hands on his jeans. "Alright."
You love him. You love him so much it hurts.
He follows you to the couch, watching your every step with admiration while you aren't looking. His eyes scan over you, your house, the place where he's now come to stay so often. He'd know his way around with his eyes closed. He hasn't been this close to someone in years. Close enough to know their habits inside and out, to know that you struggle with eye contact, that you can't look at him when you cry. That you sing, but only in the shower, and that you love the color green.
He watches you sit, sinking into the plush cushions and follows suit soon after, lifting an arm as an invitation for you to tuck yourself into his side. You take his silent offer, and shuffle closer, allowing his arm to lock you into place. It falls warm and secure around you, and you place a hand over his arm, holding it there.
It's weird to have him like this when the rest of the world knows him as something entirely different. And you know that part of him too. The part that comes home with blood all over him, the part of him that stays silent on certain days, deep in brooding thought. The man that had everything, then nothing, and now something. Now you.
Frank reaches for the remote and turns on the TV, the quiet buzz of commercials filling your place. He flicks through the channels, nothing much on, until he finally lands on some old movie you've never seen before. It's better than a vacuum commercial, and you lie there with him, staring at the screen. But you can feel him, his eyes, watching you. They silently scan over you, every part tucked into his side. He doesn't say a word. Doesn't have to.
You know what he's thinking, because you're thinking the exact same.
This is good. This is safe. This is home.
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