living and loving

ira | 19 | being myself | black | 🐝

[notwhatitseems-2]

‧₊˚♪ 𝄞₊˚⊹ about me ‧₊˚♪ 𝄞₊˚⊹

ira, 19, they/she, black, lesbian | free congo/sudan/palestine | pro-black | bigots dni | not normal abt anything

sometimes i write if i’m in the mood! i love music and being a musician. i love reading as well. i’m currently watching iwav and the pitt (baran al-hashimi save me). beyonce beyonce beyonce. that’s it. older woman lover

always looking for moots and ppl to chat to, so feel free to talk to me abt wtv! just be respectful obvi

[maximoffwitch]

🦴 + baran al-hashimi. maybe one of the two breaks a bone and needs help around the house?

BREAK A BONE BUT NEVER A PROMISE

thank you for sending this in 🥹 fun fact i have never broken a bone in my life :o part of my 3k summer celebration <333

tags: soft wife baran; fluff; comfort

word count: 446

Baran wakes to the sound of breaking dishes. At first, still half-asleep, she thinks Kaveh has gotten into the cabinets that are too tall for him to reach on his own in an effort to make a surprise breakfast. But then she remembers her son is at her father’s this weekend and sees the other side of the bed is empty, and she frowns.

As Baran slips out of bed and into her robe, she spots your crutches still leaning against your bedside table, the sight causing her to rush out into the kitchen.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Your wife’s sharp tone freezes you. After a beat, you turn slowly—well, turn as well as you can on one foot.

“Making breakfast,” you answer slowly.

“And breaking all of our dishes in the process?” Baran raises a challenging brow, and you have the decency to shrink.

“I–” you pause, unable to come up with a valid excuse. You know your wife is angry, and rightfully so, but more so, you can see the concern written in her face.

“Baby.” Baran softens as she crosses the kitchen. When she’s within arms reach of you, she puts her hand on your hip and you immediately transfer your weight from the counter and into her embrace. “You should be in bed.”

You huff, lightly placing your hand on your wife’s shoulder to balance yourself. “I was hungry.”

“Then you should’ve woken me up, azizam,” Baran counts, her voice teetering on the line between wife and doctor.

“You just worked a double, Baran. You need your rest.” You shoot her a pointed look before shrugging. “Besides, you spend all day taking care of patients. I don’t want to be another one on the list.”

At this, Baran frowns. She knows breaking your foot has been causing you more frustration than pain. You haven’t said anything yet, but she sees the subtle signs—both as a physician and as your wife.

“You’re not another patient for me to take care of,” Baran says, her chocolate orbs boring into your eyes as she brushes a hair from your face. “You are my wife. Eshgham. Nafasam. To hameye zendegimi.”

Baran kisses your forehead softly before resting her own against yours. “My love. My breath. You are my whole life,” she translates and squeezes your waist.

You crack a small smile, trying to ignore the burning in your eyes. “I love you too,” you reply before kissing her properly. The feeling of her lips against yours never gets old, no matter how many years you’ve been together.

“Next time,” she mumbles, her breath still warm against your mouth, “come to me. Promise?”

“I promise.”

[notwhatitseems-2]

why would a man be there…

[as-syllable-from-sound]

chapter fifteen: tell me what did you learn from the tillamook burn ⋆ . ࿔ ˚ (the wound series)

baran al-hashimi × exgf!attending reader .𖥔 ݁ ˖<𝟑. ݁ ˖ | wc: 4.3k | previous chapter | series masterlist

summary: twelve years ago, baran broke up with you, her girlfriend of four years, to start dating your mutual friend soheil, so she could try and make her family happier and set her life on the track she thought she wanted. twelve years later, she’s not sure it was the right decision.

In other words: How Baran loved and lost you.

notes: angsttt this all all angst and hurt and no comfort. and inaccurate representation of the residency application process!

If you, or anyone, were to sit Baran Al-Hashimi down at a café over a cup of coffee and ask her to tell you about Soheil Rezaei, she wouldn’t really know where to begin.

Suppose she started in 2010, her first year of medical school at Stanford. She could tell the story of how they first met in Introduction to Probability and Statistics for Clinical Research — which, just for the record, was one of the most boring classes she'd ever had to take — and he sat a few seats to her left. He saw her name on the attendance list on the first day projected up on the whiteboard, got her attention after class and asked her if she too was Iranian. Apparently, he was forming some kind of network at Stanford that she was reluctant to join, but ultimately did, and grew to love.

But there were so many other things in 2010 that she would rather tell you about. Why would Soheil be the part worth telling? Besides, you were still her person then, the story didn't belong to him yet.

Say she started in 2011. Up until that point she’d only seen Soheil once-or-twice a month and while it was always lovely, he really wasn’t a leading character in her life. But he was there, she supposed.

They had been assigned as MSA partners in the second semester of that school year for a full research project to be completed over two years. She was nervous when they started, anticipating she’d have to take on a lot of the work.

She was pleased to realize that not only was Soheil actually a smart man, but he was nice.

She had told you about him, of course. At the time you knew him almost more than she did, being in many of the same labs and lectures as him. You knew Soheil, because everyone knew Soheil, and liked him, because he treated Baran well.

You had been fine with how much time the two of them spent together. More than fine, actually. You had met him a few times at your apartment when he and Baran worked there, and Baran had found something amusing and slightly awe-some in watching you and Soheil navigate each other. It was painfully awkward and points, sometimes hilarious, but overall, very sweet. At your cores, you were both trying to be decent, and she found it so adorable.

No, she wouldn’t start in 2011. In all honesty, she would begin with 2013.

The Stanford library closed at midnight on Sundays. She and Soheil had claimed the corner table near the windows that overlooked the quad, at 5 PM. Now, at 11:45, they were among the last people left.

Soheil was scribbling Kaplan-Meier curves she recognized from a week's worth of arguments onto the whiteboard. He was clearly thinking so much faster than he was drawing because his sketches looked like shit and Baran had stopped being able to follow him entirely.

"Okay okay, stop," she finally called. "Time-out."

He didn't look up. "What did I lose you on?"

"The control group stratification. You have them broken down by age, not disease stage, and I'm not sure if the survival curves are accounting for that or—"

"We can pop it into the secondary analysis in Appendix B." He kept drawing.

She hummed and made a note. “That only leaves us more work for later, though."

He finally stopped, capped the marker, turned around and leaned back against the whiteboard, exhausted from standing for six hours.

"I’ll handle it, I promise. Are you hungry? I’m absolutely starving."

"There's a vending machine by the south staircase."

"I'm asking if you want real food." He gestured at their table spread of crumbled chip bags and coffee cups. "All you’ve had are Gardetto's."

"There's nothing open near campus."

"Twenty-four hour place, two blocks away," He was already reaching for his papers, wiggling his eyebrows with a smile. "Nepalese, I think. Maybe Tibetan. We could find out."

Baran considered this, but ultimately shook her head. “Maybe some other time, but I’d rather we stay focused for the next 15 minutes so that I can just go home and sleep with a clear conscience.”

He had laughed at that, but then was holding out a salad container from his bag.

Baran’s eyebrows shot up. "You brought that from home?"

"I bought it at Trader Joe’s but it has tomatoes and I can’t stand those," He gestured with it. "C’mon. This way you can still eat something before going to bed.”

“What did you eat?”

He had said something then that had faded from Baran’s memory over the years, but it had made her laugh. Something inconsequential, probably not even that sophisticated of humor in hindsight. Soheil had a very loud laugh that bubbled out of his chest, and Baran found herself tickled by it and she had laughed with him. When she finally wiped her eyes when she looked up at him through it, he was watching her with an expression that she recognized, so intimately, from you.

The laughter slowed in her throat.

For a moment neither of them said anything. The library was nearly empty around them, the fluorescent overhead half-dimmed for closing.

Soheil looked away first.

He closed his laptop swiftly, stacking his papers swiftly, standing up the same, all while averting her eyes.

"I think we're done for tonight," he said, clearing his throat. “I think we made really good progress. You alright if we pack up?”

"Yes," Baran said, trying to blink away the surprise in her eyes and hopefully stop the color she could feel creeping across her face. “Yes, we’ve almost finished the discussion section, and then I think we’ll be good for doing the final pass.”

Soheil grinned, holding out his fist near her.

Baran quirked a brow. “Are you serious?”

“Indulge me.”

“I’m not a frat boy.”

“Neither am I. C’mon, pound it.”

She made a face at him, then tapped her fist lightly against his.

“Happy?”

He beamed. “Thrilled.”

He walked her home and she felt her heart thrumming in her chest up to the point where they said goodnight at the corner where their routes split. Baran walked the rest of the way home, let herself in, and stood in the kitchen for a long time with her coat still on and her keys still in her hand.

She did not call you.

That was the part she kept coming back to, years later. Not the look nor the laugh nor the way she’d almost let herself go to dinner with him, despite turning down your invitation earlier that same day in order to finish their project.

She doesn't give half a shit about any of that, really. That’s not what continues to haunt her to this day.

If you were to sit Baran Al-Hashimi down at a coffee shop and ask her why she didn’t call you at midnight those twelve years ago, her heart would break, and she would probably tear up, but she still wouldn’t be able to tell you.

—

February 14th, 2013.

The email had been sitting in your inbox since early morning but you hadn't opened it until after your last lecture out of conviction that not-looking at it was a surefire way to manage your anxiety about what it might say. You’d been waiting for weeks to hear back from PTMC, ranting anxiously to Baran about it, the two of you planning what to do if you got it, what to do if you didn’t.

You opened it standing in the hallway outside the lecture hall with your bag half-slung over your shoulder and read it three times before it became real.

You had gotten in. Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center’s Emergency Medicine residency. Only seven spots in the program, and they had given one to you.

You called your mother first, then your sister, who screamed so loudly you had to hold the phone away from your ear. Then you stood in the hallway for a moment, coat still half-on, and thought about Baran.

She was in the library. You knew because she'd texted you an hour ago complaining about the heating system, which had been broken for a week and which facilities had promised to fix three times now. You nearly dashed there in your excitement, wanting to tell her face-to-face.

She looked up when you came through the door, curls bouncing around her head. She tried to read your expression before you even opened your mouth, eyes going wide with nerves.

"Eshgham, what happened?"

You told her with a watery, jittery smile as you held out your phone with the email still open on the screen.

She read it. Then she looked up at you, and something moved through her eyes like thunder but was gone before you could name it. Then she was standing, and she had her arms around you, and she was warm and she smelled like the same shampoo she'd used since your first year and her grip was so certain and so solid that you felt the last of your held breath come out of you in a rush.

"Oh my god! I'm so proud of you," she laughed wetly into your shoulder. "I mean it, baby, I am so proud of you."

You held on a little longer than necessary, just enjoying the feeling of being wrapped up in her hold.

"So," you grinned when you finally pulled back, cheeks flushed from your little mad-dash and also just the general feeling of being so thrilled and overwhelmed. "Pittsburgh?"

"Pittsburgh," she agreed, sitting back down. Her eyes glistened soft and thoughtful, her hands folded in front of her on the table.

"We should talk about it," you said. "What it means for logistics, school, moving… all of that."

"We should," Baran agreed. She reached out and squeezed your hand once, firmly, across the table. "But later this week. Tonight you should just be happy."

You looked at her. Something in the way she said it — tonight — registered briefly and then didn't, because she was smiling at you and squeezing your hand and you had just gotten into your first choice residency program, and so you let it go.

She took you to dinner instead. She ordered the expensive pasta and let you steal half of it and laughed at something you said so hard the table next to you turned to look, and it was, by every available measure, a perfect evening.

Though you never did talk about Pittsburgh.

—

March 3rd, 2013.

The thing about Baran was that she never lied to you. In four years you could count she had been anything less than direct, and even then it was usually a matter of timing rather than intention — she would get to the thing, eventually, in her own way.

So you believed her, in March, when she said she was thinking about it.

You were at your kitchen table, the remnants of dinner still between you, and you had finally asked the question about the two of you moving to Pittsburgh because it had been two weeks and you hadn’t discussed it.

"I'm thinking about it," she said, and her eyes were steady and her voice was even and there was nothing in her face that suggested anything other than the truth. "There's a lot to consider."

"I know," you said.

"My research is here until at least the summer. And my mother has been asking about me coming home more, so I've been thinking about what the next few years look like geographically. And I don't—" She paused, fingers tracing the rim of her glass. "I don't want to make a decision about my career based on yours. That's not how I want either of us to operate."

All of that was reasonable. All of it was Baran, the way she actually thought, the way she had always thought — carefully, with both her heart and her head, refusing to let one override the other. You had loved that about her since the beginning.

"I'm not asking you to decide anything based on mine," you said. "I'm asking what you want."

She looked at you for a moment. Something moved behind her eyes that you couldn't quite read, which was unusual enough that you noticed it.

"I want to figure that out," she said. "Can you give me a little more time?

You gave her more time.

—

April 19th, 2013.

You had seen Soheil before, of course. He’d been in your apartment a handful of times, you’d cooked the man dinner for the three of you when he was over late working with Baran, the two of you even got drinks once (rumors had sprung up, naturally, but one loud reminder to the student body that you only liked women was enough to shut it down.)

He arrived that afternoon to work on the MSA, unaware you'd be there, and when Baran let him in he registered your presence with a quick, easy smile and said, oh good, backup which made you like him immediately and made Baran roll her eyes with the particular fondness she reserved for people she actually liked.

The three of you worked in the apartment for a while, Soheil and Baran at the table and you on the couch as they read their work to you and you offered edits, told them where it got confusing or convoluted.

He was…easy? He took up exactly the amount of space he needed and not an inch more, argued his points clearly and then let them go when Baran pushed back, was quick to laugh at himself when he was wrong. At one point he and Baran slipped briefly into Farsi over something in the research and then caught themselves and switched back, both apologizing, and you said don't apologize and meant it.

When he left in the early evening he shook your hand at the door and said it was nice to finally be able to see you in your element — you had always loved writing and volunteered at the Writer’s Center every other Thursday to help students with this exact thing — and the finally struck you as warm rather than strange, like he had been truthfully looking forward to it.

Baran closed the door and leaned back against it for a moment. She seemed lighter, somehow, than she had in weeks, which you had chalked up to the research going well, to the fact that they were finally almost done with their mammoth project.

"He's great," you said, because he was.

"He is," she agreed, already moving toward the kitchen and away from you.

—

May 28th, 2013.

The two of you were on a very long walk in the early evening, the air still holding the day's heat, the sky going amber and pink at the edges. It had been such a beautiful evening, and you remember that you’d gotten a bit choked up as you thought about leaving California. You had graduated earlier that month, and would be heading to Pittsburgh in five weeks.

Baran had stopped walking with you as you both looked over the mountain down into the valley below. She said she had been doing a lot of thinking.

You said you knew.

She said she didn't think she was going to come to Pittsburgh.

"I don't want you to think this is about not wanting to be with you," she said carefully. "That's not what this is."

You stared at her for a very long moment, feeling your heart sink to the bottom of the mountain. “What?”

“I just think—”

"I've been waiting for three months to talk to you about this, Baran, and I'm standing here in — what, five weeks — five weeks before I leave, and now you're telling me no?” You breathe, eyes wide and angry and welling with tears.

She looked at you steadily though you knew the stillness was costing her from the way she bit down hard on her lip.

Some part of you that loved her wanted to reach for her and another part of you that loved her was suddenly terrified.

"I think," she said slowly stepping forward, "That I have been trying to make a decision about my life by imagining myself in someone else's. But, every time I try to picture Pittsburgh, I can't quite make it mine. It— I don’t know, Y/N, it just looks like yours."

"That's not—" You pressed your hand to your forehead, turned away from her, turned back. The valley below was so gorgeous, the sky bleeding behind her. "Then why haven’t you said anything this whole time? If this is about it being in Pittsburgh—"

"It's not the city."

"Then what?"

She pressed her lips together, trying to will the tears not to fall from her eyes. "I think we want different things for ourselves in the future. And I think if we try to hold this together across that distance, we will spend a long time making each other smaller than we are. And I love you too much —"

"Baran," and her name melted from your mouth like a mournful prayer, "Please don’t spin this into something generous you're doing for me."

"I'm not!"

"Have you already decided?" You asked, backing up a few steps away from her. "Just tell me. Have you already decided and you brought me here to tell me?"

Something moved in her face.

There it was.

"How long?" you whispered. "How long have you already known?"

Her eyes were steady and sad and completely, devastatingly certain. That goddamn certainty. You had the sickening sense that she had already been here, in this moment, long before she brought you to it.

"Is it Soheil?" you whispered.

She closed her eyes. Your Baran, who had never once lied to you, had been carrying this alone because she couldn't find a way to tell you something she hadn't yet found a way to tell herself.

"I don't know what it is yet," Baran’s voice broke. "I don't know how to explain something I don't fully understand. I just know that I—that there are things I want, for my life. Things I have always wanted. And I—"

She stopped. Pressed her hand briefly over her mouth. Dropped it. "I don't think I can have all of them."

It was only years later you’d been able to parse through what she had meant high on that mountain under the gorgeous sky, standing so brilliantly under the fading sun. It was only later you were able to re-evaluate that night through the lens of her life: how Baran had fought her whole life to be taken seriously; watched all the struggles her mother navigated; was all but disowned by her father; how tired she was before she really even started.

How much even those first 26 years of living had cost her.

A life with Soheil would cost her less.

A life with a husband, a man within her culture, marriage, children. The prospect of that kind of life meant something deep to her. She just didn’t realize she could have had so much of that with you.

You saw none of that at the time. You didn’t understand it at all: the only thing you knew was that you loved her so much you could not breathe and she was telling you it was over.

"I am so sorry. I need you to know that this is the hardest thing I've—" She stopped again. Looked away from you, out over the valley, blinking hard.

"You are the great love of my life. I need you to know that. For whatever else, I need you to know that I mean that."

“That makes no sense. If you loved me so much, you would’ve talked to me,” you snapped, but your voice was aching and raw. “You would make an effort to stay.’

Baran let out a shuddering breath, tears rolling down her cheeks. "I have been trying so hard to figure this out. But I can’t go to Pittsburgh, Y/N. We can’t do… this forever.”

You gaped at her, stunned. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? Just because we're women, this was always just a phase? That eventually, we’d both just ‘wake up’ and find a nice man in our MSA group?”

"That’s not what I said," Baran said desperately, "Y/N—"

"No, let me speak,” Your hands were shaking with anger now. "Because it sounds like what you’re saying right now is, that if I’d been a man, you wouldn't even be hesitating. That you’d be packing your bags right now?”

“Eshgham—”

“But I’m not a man, so what then? These past four goddamn years have been, what, an experiment?"

“Stop!” Baran snapped, grabbing you fiercely by the wrist. “Fucking listen to me, Y/N!”

If you hadn't been so distraught, you might have laughed at the pure desperation on her face as she pulled you closer.

“Please, Y/N,” she begged, eyes searching across your face. “This isn’t how I want us to end. Please. Please.”

“What are you asking me to do?” you rasped.

Baran’s hand was still on your wrist, but it wasn’t holding anymore.

“I’m asking you to come down the mountain with me,” she said. “We'll go home, and we figure out how to do this without…”

She searched for the word, failed, and shook her head once. “I don’t know. I want us to talk about this more.”

“Now you want to talk?”

“I want us to not do this here,” Baran whispered. “This was a mistake on my part, and I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to derail like this, and I don’t want us to rush out of this. Can you please just walk down with me?”

…

That’s how you found yourself in your tiny apartment, posters dancing across the walls, the lighting so warm and hospitable that you were sick with it as Baran sat across from you on the couch.

The daggers of your anger had simmered down into something softer, and aching. You were not an angry person by nature. You had always prided yourself on that, on your ability to keep a lid on things even when someone probably deserved the fallout of it.

But you were honestly just exhausted.

That night was the last night you would speak to Baran for twelve years. You had both talked for hours, in circles at first before eventually landing on a clarity that neither of you had really been able to access earlier on the mountain: You were going to move to Pittsburgh, and she was not.

She had an interview at Northwestern that she was supposed to fly out for early the next morning. You’d known about it for weeks, and obviously were just going to stay in California until she came back, but you no longer saw the point. While she was gone at Northwestern, you would leave for Pittsburgh. It would probably make the whole thing easier.

She had panicked when you had said that, offered to cancel it. She said you could stay and talk more, figure it out properly, not like this, Y/N, not tonight.

You shut her down, seeing some of what she had been explaining on the mountain. There was really no “more time.” The curtains were closing and the lights were slowly coming on from overhead, the audience was being ushered out.

She was trying to be gentle and let your relationship end as softly as possible, but you were breaking up either way. You couldn’t stay in the theater until it closed for good. It was better just to leave while it was still playing something beautiful.

You helped her pack up her suitcase, fill up the little boxes she was bringing full of her notes and her work. You waited with her as the cab pulled up to the curb to take her home. You let her hug you even as you felt your soul had floated away from your body and you were nothing more than a skeleton that she was squeezing, trying to get you to talk to her, to share one last moment.

Her face had that same expression you had seen on the mountain, but gone was the altitude and sky. Before you was just a hurting and confused woman.

“I don’t want this to be the last thing,” she whispered, hands warm against your cheeks and red-rimmed eyes desperate for some sign from you.

Maybe, if you had summoned something then, you could’ve made her take it all back. If you snapped out of it, you could’ve shown her what she was losing, what would become of her staying in California, settling down with Soheil, and what would come of their marriage; some things beautiful, some not so much. Even now, you don’t know if she would’ve given it up.

But there had been a wound in you as you stood on that sidewalk in May at 26 years old. It was blackened and burned you apart from inside-out, holding you captive with a fog so thick you couldn’t speak around it. Out it had shut all of the light, all of sensation, all of Baran. You couldn’t offer her anything.

So you let her hug you, and then you let her leave.

[notwhatitseems-2]

hmm baran x coworker!reader or baran x wifey who ends up in the hospital…

[lotties-ashwagandha]

LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES

baran al-hashimi x reader, 1k words.

baran doesn’t bake much, but you do. she makes sure she always gets a taste of the finished product.

Baran doesn’t bake much, but you do. She thinks it must be a difference in the way you think.

You don’t measure ingredients much anymore. You let the portions pour in as they may, a bit of this and a bit of that, and if there is too much sugar then there is too much sugar.

It irks her to watch you sometimes. She stands just behind you and peers over your shoulder and tries to mentally calculate just how many cups of chocolate chips you’re putting into those cookies, what you think you’re doing with that extra bit of butter.

She asks you about it one day. “You have measuring cups, don’t you?”

You nod, looking back at her briefly — you didn’t realize how close she had come to you. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Do you want me to get them for you?”

“No, that’s okay.”

She becomes very tense. She itches to dig through your drawers for the measuring cups, to throw out the jumble of ingredients in your mixing bowl and start fresh from scratch. “Why not?”

You shrug. “I’ve done this so many times, I can guess how much I need.”

She softens at that, because familiarity is comforting, especially when it has to do with you.

She comes close again and wraps her arms around your waist, balancing her chin on your shoulder — being taller than you has its advantages every once in a while.

“I won’t ask if you want to taste the cookie dough,” you say, mixing the last of the ingredients. “I don’t want another lecture on the risks of raw eggs.”

“Why do you think I’m over here? I have to make sure you’re using your head.”

“Is that it?”

She hums in response, meant to affirm her earlier statement.

“It’s not that you just enjoy my company? Or that you always get this clingy on your days off?”

“I’m not clingy,” she murmurs, but she dips her head down to rest her forehead against your shoulder and you start to think otherwise. “Just supervising.”

You give her the benefit of the doubt.

You reach for the baking sheet you’ve laid out and start to spoon little balls of dough onto it, rows of three, and mindlessly you spoon up some cookie dough to taste test — it doesn’t make it up very far before Baran is grabbing your wrist and lowering it back down.

“Sorry,” you say. “I had to try, and I thought you were distracted. It’s like you’re half-asleep on me right now.”

“I have a ten year old boy,” she says. “Even asleep, I’m fit for damage control.”

She says it like a joke, but it makes you a little sad. You don’t want her to be in a state of constant vigilance at home, definitely not around you, when that’s all she is dealing with at work as well. It’s no wonder she is so tired.

You pat the space on the counter just around the corner from where you’re working. “Sit down.”

She does so, too tired to put up a fight.

“Put some music on,” you say, and hand her your phone. “The kind you like.”

She unlocks your phone — she knows the passcode — and soon you hear the familiar first track of Baran’s favorite playlist start to play through the kitchen.

“There is no damage control to be done here,” you say. “Not when Kaveh is with his grandparents and it’s just you and me.”

Baran yawns and leans her head back against the above cabinets, letting her eyes fall closed. “Okay.”

“And now that you’re distracted I’ll just take this spoon…”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” she sighs.

“There’s not even any left,” you roll your eyes, sliding the cookie sheet into the oven. “I made some extra cookies, though. I’ve learned from my mistakes.”

“What mistakes?”

You cross your arms, coming to stand in front of her. “Well, last time when I made cookies, I took them out of the oven and set them aside to let them cool. I wasn’t gone for ten minutes before I came back into the kitchen and every single cookie was gone, Baran.”

She opens her eyes and raises a brow, shrugging. “You must have misplaced them.”

“Right. I misplaced an entire sheet of cookies.”

“Sounds like a definite possibility.”

You step between her legs, hands running up and down her thighs. “Tell me one thing, will you?”

One of Baran’s hands comes up to trace the line of your jaw, a soft smile ghosting over her lips. “Sure.”

“Were you nauseous after eating that many cookies? Like, did it make your stomach hurt?”

She averts her eyes, looking anywhere but at you, until eventually she nods. “I nearly threw up at the grocery store afterwards. I passed the bakery and the smell of all the sweets nearly made me faint.”

You shake your head, the vision too clear in your mind. “That is… very impressive.”

“Thank you.”

“I mean it.”

Her tone is laced with sarcasm. “Yes, and I’m very grateful you’re so supportive.”

You lean in and kiss her then, domestic and unhurried, a sense of calm settling over the two of you in the warmth of your home and in the slow rhythm of the music.

When you eventually part, Baran’s mind is elsewhere.

“How many cookies would you say are in a batch?” Baran asks, with one hand on the back of your neck and the other on your shoulder and her voice sweet as though she has just asked you to marry her or have another child with her.

You blink. “I don’t know, I didn’t really count them.”

“Oh,” she frowns. “Will you?”

“Count them?”

She nods. “I want to get a sense of how they might be rationed.”

“Should I just… make another batch for you?”

Baran shrugs, looking down at her lap as if it is of little consequence. “If you want to.”

And you know how you are about to spend the rest of your afternoon.

—

—

—

cookies I baked recently 🙂‍↕️ chocolate chip and butterscotch. I think this weekend I’m going to try my hand at a blueberry-lemon tart? maybe baking will be my new thing.

the pitt taglist: @slutforabbyanderson @babyblueb3ll @thursdayygrrrl @postflash @poseiden12345 @bobbybeyonce @azishimi @chaithetics @cmckaysdollpuppy @misismilian @mimzamo @maximoffwitch @krumblin @sadoutlaw

[follows-the-life-ahead]

interrupted | cassie mckay

Main Masterlist | Cassie Mckay Masterlist 

summary: You and Cassie are in a secret relationship, but your coworkers are constantly trying to catch the two of you together and prove their suspicions. OR, 3 times you narrowly avoided getting caught after being interrupted in the worst possible moments + 1 time you finally did.

pairing: cassie mckay x female!reader

word count: 5.4k

a/n: i have been working on this all week, and im so happy its finished, it turned out bigger than i had initially intended it to... but what can i say? i was inspired! hope you guys like it, because i sure did enjoy writing it!

1.

“You’re staring again.”

Cassie barely looked up from where she was leaning against the break room counter, one hand curled loosely around her to go coffee cup. The light of the break room overhead cast a tired sort of glow across her features. The sleeves of her light grey undershirt were pushed up to her elbows, exposing the soft skin of her forearms.

Still, even exhausted, she looked so unfairly good.

“Can you blame me?” she asked, her voice slightly raspy by fatigue.

You felt heat immediately creep up your neck.

You rolled your eyes to try and hide the effect she had on you, as you leaned back against the vending machine, across from where she stood, with your arms crossed loosely over your chest. The break room was empty for once, the door was ajar muffling the sounds of the chaotic ED outside.

“God, you’re impossible,” you muttered.

The corner of Cassie’s mouth twitched upward teasingly.

“And yet,” she started casually, yet lowly in the empty room, setting her coffee down beside her before stepping closer to where you stood, “you still love me.”

Cassie stopped directly in front of you, close enough that you could smell the lingering soft scent of her shampoo mixed with the scent of fresh, warm coffee. One of her hands settled against the vending machine beside your hip, caging you in without really meaning to.

You looked up at her and immediately regretted it. Not because you didn’t like how she was looking at you, but rather that you liked it way too much to maintain a professional posture. The look she was giving you made your stomach flip and your heart beat increase embarrassingly fast against your chest.

“You know, Santos is getting suspicious,” you whispered, your voice quieter now that Cassie was standing so close to you.

Cassie leaned one shoulder lazily against the vending machine you were leaned onto, her eyes still fixed on your face. “Santos is always suspicious about everything,” she said.

You let out a soft laugh. “Yeah, but now she’s interrogating me.”

Cassie lifted her eyebrows in question. “What do you mean?”

“She’s been pressing me about where I’ve been wandering off to most nights.”

At that, Cassie snorted quietly, the sound warm and fond all at once. You watched the corner of her mouth lift slightly before she stepped even closer, if that was even possible, until the front of her scrubs brushed lightly against your own.

“She’s been literally cornering me every chance she gets.” you muttered, lowering your voice despite the fact the break room was empty besides the two of you.

Cassie’s hand then settled against your waist, and her thumb brushed absentmindedly against the fabric of your own undershirt, the small movement was enough to send warmth curling low in the pit of your stomach.

Cassie seemed to notice this immediately, as a faint, knowing smile pulled at the corner of her mouth at your reaction, leading her to lean even closer to you.

“She’s gonna figure it out eventually,” Cassie whispered.

You swallowed hard at her words. “You sound weirdly too okay with that.”

Cassie’s fingers tightened slightly at your waist before sliding just barely beneath the hem of your scrub top, her touch was warm you could feel the heat of her hand straight through your undershirt.

“Maybe I am.” She admitted softly.

Your breath caught embarrassingly fast at that, as you stared straight at her, your faces now inches away from each other. And before you could respond, she kissed you.

Quick at first. Just a brief press of her lips against yours, familiar and warm yet entirely unfair and unprofessional for where the both of you stood. But then, as if automatically, your fingers came to loosely press against the front of her scrub top, and Cassie made that all too familiar quiet sound in the back of her throat, the one that always seemed to destroy your ability to think, against your mouth before kissing you again, deeper this time.

The hand that was on your waist tightened slightly, pulling you closer until your entire body was pressed back against the vending machine. You could still taste the coffee she drank a few minutes ago on her lips. Your breath caught when her hand moved to the hollow of your back pushing your body further into hers.

“Cass…” you murmured against her mouth, slightly out of breath, though you weren’t entirely sure if your words came out sounding like a warning or encouragement.

And judging by the way Cassie kissed you again immediately after, she didn’t know either.

Her hand tightened gently at your waist as she leaned into you, slow and deliberate, savoring the moment before the two of you would be pulled back into work. Your fingers curled into the front of her scrub top instinctively, wrinkling the fabric beneath your hands as her lips moved against yours with lazy confidence, pulling her to you.

God. This was dangerous. But Cassie’s lips were always your undoing.

Then, a low muffled voice echoed down the hallway outside.

Both you and Cassie seemed to wake from the spell you were under and paused for a second, neither of you moving. The voice got louder, closer, as someone was approaching the break room.

After a few moments the door opened wildly, revealing Whitaker.

The both of you jumped apart instantly.

Cassie stepped back first, fast enough to be impressive, grabbing her abandoned coffee cup from the counter like absolutely nothing had happened. Like she hadn’t just been kissing you stupid against the vending machine thirty seconds ago.

Meanwhile, you were trying desperately to calm your heavy breathing before Whitaker noticed anything. Which was difficult considering your heart was still pounding against your chest.

Whitaker stopped mid-step into the room, as if he hadn’t noticed the two of you immediately, completely lost in his own thoughts. Before he blinked rapidly and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to just barge in,” He apologized, awkwardly lifting his hands in surrender. “Did I interrupt something?”

“No,” you answered immediately, perhaps a little too fast.

“Not at all,” Cassie added smoothly, without even looking at him properly as she lifted her coffee cup and took a slow sip.

Whitaker’s gaze flicked between the two of you, slow and uncertain.

You crossed your arms casually, in hopes it looked natural and not like you were actively fighting for your life. Cassie on the other hand looked perfectly composed, like she hadn’t just been pressed against you a minute ago.

“We were just talking,” you added, your voice much steadier this time.

Whitaker visibly relaxed at that. His shoulders dropped just a fraction as the tension started to ease out of him. “Oh, okay.” he said, nodding once, as he glanced at the coffee machine, then back between you two, still mildly hesitant but no longer suspicious. “Cool.”

As Whitaker moved to the coffee machine, Cassie continued sipping her coffee like absolutely nothing had happened. You on the other hand, let out a quiet breath through your nose, moving to slowly uncross your arms, as you pushed off the vending machine.

Carefully, you dared a glance at Cassie, who was already looking at you.

Her expression was calm and composed, apart from the slight barely there smirk at the corner of her mouth.

Your stomach flipped slightly at that. You narrowed your eyes at her, trying but failing to look annoyed. Cassie’s smirk deepened just a fraction in response.

That had been a close one.

2.

You were snuggled together on Cassie’s couch after a draining shift.

Her apartment was dim except for the warm yellow glow of the lamp beside the couch and the flickering light of some random late-night film neither of you were actually paying attention to. Your takeout containers sat abandoned on the coffee table, along with Cassie’s discarded phone and your hospital badge tossed carelessly beside it.

Cassie was stretched over you lazily, one arm braced beside your head while the other rested low against your waist beneath the hem of your shirt. Her hair was slightly messy from your fingers running through it, and her eyes looked heavy with exhaustion despite the small smile lingering on her lips.

“You know,” you murmured against her mouth between kisses, your voice quiet, “we should go on more dates.”

Cassie kissed you again before answering you. “We go on tons of dates,” she mumbled against your lips.

You snorted softly, your fingers sliding through the hair at the back of her neck. “Sneaking sandwiches between hallways at work are not dates.”

Cassie hummed thoughtfully, brushing another kiss against the corner of your mouth before moving lower along your jaw. “It is if we’re together.”

You laughed softly as she kissed your jaw, the sound barely escaping you before dissolving into a quiet breath.

One of your hands came to her back, your fingers sliding underneath her shirt, your palm brushing against the warm skin there. Cassie exhaled quietly as she settled more comfortably against your body. The couch cushions dipped beneath the two of you, as Cassie’s lips moved slowly to your neck, unhurried and warm, sending a shiver down your spine when she bit lightly at your pulse point.

You could feel her smile against your skin at that. One of her hands made its way to your waist, slipping beneath your shirt, her fingertips warm against your side as she caressed your skin.

“Cass—” you whispered breathlessly.

Then, your phone suddenly rang.

Neither of you moved.

Cassie stayed exactly where she was, her mouth still lapping at your skin while her hand tightened slightly at your waist beneath your shirt.

You tilted your head back against the couch with a quiet breath as Cassie moved to kiss against your collarbone, clearly having no intention whatsoever of stopping now that she finally had you alone and all to herself. You reached with one of your hands blindly to the arm of the couch behind you, your fingers fumbling around until you were able to grab your phone.

You glance down at it to check the caller ID.

Whitaker.

You rolled your eyes at the terrible timing Dennis had and tossed your phone somewhere onto the couch beside you without even bothering to check where it had landed, far more focused on the feeling of Cassie’s mouth against your neck than whatever Whitaker possibly wanted right now.

The second your hand returned to the back of Cassie’s neck, she made a soft approving sound against your skin. You barely had time to laugh before she nipped lightly at your collarbone, just enough to make your breath hitch. Your fingers tangled into the soft hair at the nape of her neck, once more.

Then your phone started ringing again from wherever you’d thrown it minutes ago.

Cassie groaned dramatically as she let her head rest tiredly against your shoulder. “Oh my god.”

Your ringtone sounded somewhere from beside you on the couch cushions.

Your hand reluctantly slipped from the back of her neck as you blindly reached for your phone again, fumbling around the cushions until your fingers finally closed around it.

Cassie kept her head against your shoulder, while her thumb brushed lazy circles against your waist beneath your shirt.

This time it wasn’t Whitaker's name that was displayed on your screen. It was Santos. You stared at her name for a second, letting out a sigh. You silenced the call and your phone, and tossed it aside once more.

Your hand came up to stroke Cassie’s cheek as she rested her chin on your shoulder, you regarded her fondly as you told her who had just called you. “It’s just Santos.”

She nodded absentmindedly, and her lips found yours once more, more rushed and impatient this time, as her frustration took over from the constant interruptions the both of you have been having lately. She leaned further into you, deepening the kiss, as one of her arms planted next to your head, holding most of her weight up to keep her from crashing into you. Your legs parted slightly to let her settle closer between them, her body pressing more fully against yours now.

Cassie exhaled softly against your lips when your fingers slipped from the hair at the nape of her neck to the back of her head, and for a second it felt like the rest of the world disappeared entirely.

Until.

Cassie’s phone rang loudly from the coffee table beside the couch.

You both jumped slightly at the sound of it. Cassie closed her eyes briefly and pressed her forehead to yours. She sighed feeling deeply frustrated at the occurring situation. Both your hands came to rest around her waist squeezing softly, holding her while you sighed softly in disappointment as well.

For a second neither of you moved, as her phone kept ringing insistently on top of the coffee table.

Cassie pulled back just enough to glance towards the glowing screen, “It’s Dana.”

You exhaled softly through your nose, tilting your head slightly as one of your hands came up from her waist to brush lightly against the side of her head. “Then you should answer it,” you muttered, leaning in to press a quick but soft kiss to her forehead. “Might be important.”

Cassie let out a small, reluctant huff before finally pushing herself up from you, breaking contact slowly like she didn’t fully want to. She moved across the short space between the couch and the coffee table, to find her phone. Her fingers closed around it, the glow of the screen lighting up her tired features for a moment before she turned back toward you.

You sat up on the couch, bringing your knees to your chest, as one arm came to rest against the couch cushion at your side, to hold your head up to look at Cassie, as she sank back down beside you, with her legs slightly spread as she brought the phone to her ear.

“Yes, Dana?” she said into the phone, voice steady despite everything, while one hand lifted automatically to push her messy bangs back from her face.

Meanwhile, you stared at her.

God, how you loved to stare at her.

At her disheveled hair, a result from your hands running through it. At her shirt, that was all wrinkled from being pressed against you. At her gold chain that dangled around her neck, and the contrast it brought against the faint flush that still lingered on the skin of her neck.

She looked absolutely breathtaking.

You bit your lip as you leaned further into the couch, your eyes fixed on her, completely and shamelessly captivated by her presence.

“No…” Cassie murmured, eyes closing briefly as she listened to Dana on the end of the line. You couldn’t exactly make out Dana’s side of the conversation, just the faint, indistinct chatter through the speaker. So, you took that as your opportunity to slowly straddle her lap, your knees settling comfortably on either side of her hips. Cassie’s hand instinctively came to rest against your thigh, as you leaned in to press kisses down the side of her neck. “I don’t know why she wouldn’t be answering Santos and Whitaker.”

She glanced down at you, as she felt your smirk faintly against the side of her neck, her grip on your thigh tightening just a fraction. “Why?” she asked Dana, even though the answer sat on her lap right there in front of her. “Is everything alright?”

Cassie listened to Dana, her eyes flicking away from you for a second like she was trying to refocus, shoulders subtly straightening. “No,” she said after a beat, her voice steadier again. “I haven’t seen her. She’s probably busy.”

“Tell them she’s probably fine, just doesn’t want to be bothered,” Cassie said into the phone, her voice steady, though her attention kept slipping towards you.

Your hands slid underneath her shirt, your fingers meeting her warm skin once more. Cassie inhaled sharply at the contact, her shoulders tensed above you, her head tipping back slightly as she tried, and failed, to stay focused on what Dana was saying. Her grip on your thigh wandered to your hip, like she needed something to anchor herself with.

“Yeah… look, I gotta go now,” she said suddenly, faster this time, words tumbling out a little rushed. “I’m in the middle of something.”

Cassie’s breath caught against her throat once more, as you moved to press open mouthed kisses to the exposed skin of her neck. “See you tomorrow. You’re welcome. Bye.” She said, and ended the call.

The phone dropped onto the couch beside her without missing a beat, as she let her head fall back against the cushions with a long, frustrated exhale, with her eyes closed.

“So?” you asked her, looking at her through your lashes.

Cassie tilted her head slightly toward you, opening one eye to look at you. “Nothing worth worrying about,” a faint smirk tugging at the corner of her lips as she held your gaze. “Where were we?”

Before you could answer her question, her hands slid back to your hips, her grip firm and familiar, pulling you closer until there was no space left between the two of you. Your arms wrapped around her neck, your fingers tangling into her hair once again, her strands still slightly messy from before. Cassie exhaled softly after a particular firm tug, and her nose bumped yours affectionally, before she pulled you in for a particularly hot open-mouthed kiss.

3.

The locker room was empty by the time you finally made it there. As you rolled your shoulders to relive some of the days tension you made your way to your own locker, rummaging through your things.

Cassie slipped into the room sometime later, as she made a bee line to her own locker, and leaned her back onto it with her head tipped back briefly against the cool metal behind her.

You watched her for a second, across the narrow aisle, while pulling your bag from your locker.

“Tired?” you asked her softly.

Cassie cracked one eye open to look at you. “What gave it away?”

You laughed quietly, while slinging your bag over your shoulder. “The fact you look two seconds away from passing out.”

“Hm.” The corner of her mouth twitched faintly, “Could be worse.”

You stepped closer to her, leaning lightly against the locker beside hers. The metal felt cool against your shoulder, and Cassie turned her head slightly to look at you. Even exhausted, there was something about the way she looked at you that always made your stomach flutter.

The sleeves of her long-sleeve undershirt were pushed up to her forearms. Her hair was messy from the days shift. Her gold chain peeked out slightly from beneath the collar of her scrubs when she shifted in her feet.

Cassie's gaze dropped briefly to your mouth before returning to your eyes. “You’re staring,” she murmured.

Her voice was low, rough around the edges after a twelve-hour shift and too little sleep.

You leaned your shoulder more firmly against the locker beside hers, you could feel the warm radiating from her body against your upper arm. “It’s your fault,” you said eventually. “You’re too distracting.”

She let out a quiet huff of amusement. “That sounds like a you problem.”

You rolled your eyes immediately, but the smile pulling at your lips ruined any chance you had of looking annoyed.

Without another word, you reached to caress her cheek for the front of your scrubs and tugged you closer until you were standing right in front of her. Her lips brushed yours before you could form a sentence.

Your hands settled instinctively against her hips while Cassie’s slid up to the back of your neck. The kiss lingered for a moment longer than either of you had first intended. It wasn’t rushed, nor desperate, it was the kind of kiss that came after an exhausting shift, it was comfortable, familiar.

The both of you seemed to melt against the other, and you felt Cassie’s hand slip into your hair, her fingertips lightly scratching against your scalp, and you heard yourself hum against her lips. A quiet laugh escaped her when she felt the reaction she got out of you.

As the both of you pulled back for air, Cassie’s forehead found yours. Her eyes were soft, as she gazed at you through her lashes, you couldn’t help but smile at her. Then, your hands came up, and gently caught her wrists, that had been around your neck, bringing her hands down to your lips and pressing a quick kiss to her knuckles.

“Let's get you home,” you said softly.

One of your hands went up to cup her cheek, your thumb brushing lightly across her skin before you leaned forward and pressed one last kick kiss to her lips. When you pulled back, Cassie smiled at you.

Then you turned toward your locker, reaching out to close the metal door with a soft clang. But, even then, one of your hands remained linked with Cassie's.

That’s when the locker room door swung open.

Both of you dropped the others hand with an impressive speed.

And in the doorway stood Javadi, who seemed to have stopped dead in her tracks. Her eyes were wide behind her exhausted expression as she clearly hadn't expected anyone else to still be there.

For a second, nobody said anything.

Cassie immediately turned toward her locker and reached for her bag as if absolutely nothing had happened seconds before. Like the two of you hadn't just been kissing. Like her fingers weren’t just tangled against your hair.

The metal locker door of Cassie’s locker rattled softly as she grabbed her jacket from the inside, her movements calm and unhurried.

“Sorry,” Victoria said, lingering awkwardly in the doorway.  “I didn’t know anyone else was here.”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it,” you answered her immediately.

Victoria blinked at you, and then her tired eyes moved between you and Cassie, clearly picking up on the strange atmosphere hanging in the room, as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

Cassie as calm as ever, threw her jacket over one shoulder and slung her bag over the other. “We were just leaving.”

Victoria visibly relaxed at that. Her shoulders dropped slightly, as though Cassie’s answer had solved whatever concern was beginning to form in her head. “Oh, okay.”

Cassie shut her locker door before glancing at you, the corner of her mouth twitching slightly, and then she simply headed towards the exit, seemingly unbothered and calm. As she passed by you, the back of her hand brushed lightly against yours subtly, and quick.

That was enough to make your pulse quicken, and a shiver make its way up your spine. Victoria's gaze followed Cassie toward the door before slowly returning to you with her eyebrows furrowed, looking confused.

You took that as your cue to leave.

“Goodnight, Vic.” You nodded once at her, with a small awkward smile.

Victoria blinked. “...Goodnight?”

But you were already halfway out the door before she could ask whatever questions were currently forming in her head.

+ 1

It happened because Cassie was careless.

The shift had ended horribly late, everyone from day shift was exhausted, or half-delirious, or both. To your luck, both you and Cassie, had the day off tomorrow, so that was a plus. Your apartment was the closest, the one you shared with your two roommates, who also happened to be your coworkers, Santos and Whitaker.

So, it became the obvious choice without much discussion, as you’d reassured Cassie that both Dennis and Trinity wouldn’t be home until the very early hours of the next morning. Since, Santos was going out with some of the day shift crew to the karaoke bar nearby, and Whitaker was going to Amy’s for something farm-related you couldn’t quite remember and were too tired to care.

Which meant you had the place all to yourselves for the rest of the night.

The two of you barely made it past your bedroom door before exhaustion completely caught up to you both. Your clothes were swapped for much more comfortable ones, and your bed immediately became the only thing that mattered in the world. Cassie curled around you as soon as the both of you collapsed onto the bed, one of her arms slid around your waist, pulling your back into her chest, her body was warm and solid against your own.

By the time you stirred awake, the room was brighter.

You opened your eyes slowly, still half caught in sleep, your body heavy and warm under the blankets. Your room was slightly illuminated by the half-opened blinds you’d been too tired to close last night. Something warm and strong was pressed to your back, an arm slung around your waist, its grip tightening ever so slightly as you stirred, pulling you further into the warmth.

You exhaled softly, relishing on the feeling of Cassie’s body wrapped around yours. You turned carefully onto your side, so you could face her. Cassie was still asleep. Her hair was all over the place, her expression completely unguarded, she looked so peaceful right there and then, that it made your heart flutter.

“Stop staring,” Cassie mumbled, with her voice rough with sleep, and her eyes still closed. “and go back to sleep.”

You huffed a quiet laugh under your breath, shifting a little closer without thinking, letting your forehead rest against hers. Her arm tightened around your waist in response, pulling you closer like she was trying to drawn you back into sleep with her.

Before you could answer her, the faint hum of the microwave turning on from the kitchen cut through the quiet of the room. And for a second you seemed to recall why you had so suddenly stirred awake. Realization dawned upon you. Your entire body locked as you pushed yourself up slightly on the bed, your eyes darting instinctively toward the bedroom door like it might confirm what you already knew.

Then your gaze drifted to your bedside table.

To your phone.

You tapped it twice to check the time.

“Shit,” you blurted out immediately, fully awake now.

Cassie shifted behind you, an arm still half wrapped around your waist but her grip loosening just enough for you to turn more properly toward her. Strands of her hair  were sticking out in every direction across the pillow, her expression slowly shifting from sleepy into utter confusion.

“Cassie, we overslept,” you whispered, already sitting up more as your hands dragged across your face.

Footsteps could be heard from outside your room. You lowered your voice even further, urgency creeping in. “Whitaker and Santos are home already, and they’re up.”

Cassie opened her eyes then, her face still etched with sleep, blinking slowly as she shifted against you. And then, very slowly, she exhaled, before answering your panicked whispers, “Of course they are.”

One of her hands came up to rub at her forehead like she was trying to remain awake. Then she stretched, seemingly completely unbothered by the information you just gave her, as she rolled onto her back with a soft exhale, her other arm still loosely draped over you.

“What time is it?” she asked, voice calm and etched with sleep.

You stared at her for a second before muttering to her that it was almost half past six in the morning.

Cassie didn’t react the way you had expected her to. She just stared up at the ceiling for a second, like she was processing the situation, then gave you a small shrug in response like Whitaker and Santos being home was something mildly inconvenient to the both of you.

“It’s fine,” she said lowly, still perfectly relaxed. “We just wait until they leave for work.”

Your lips parted in surprise at her words. “…You’re way too calm about this.” You murmur.

Cassie looked at you seemingly more awake now, one of her eyebrows lifting slightly at your words. She shifted a little on the mattress, the bedsheets rustling softly as morning light shined across her features through the blinds. “They’re not going to just barge into your room at this time in the morning,” Cassie said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

She reached for you again, tugging you back down onto the mattress to lay down next to her. The sheets were still warm, tangled slightly around your legs as you hesitated, half-protesting even as she pulled you closer.

“When they know it’s your day off,” she added, already pressing back into you.

“You underestimate them both,” you muttered, though you still let yourself lie back down beside her.

Cassie made a quiet sound of disagreement, completely unbothered, as one of her hands slid to rest at your hip as she drew you in against her. “You need to relax,” she murmured, as her head dipped into the crook of your neck, her warm breath brushing against your skin as she breathed you in slowly.

“Cassie,” you warned, though it came out weaker than you meant to. “I’m being serious,” you added, shifting slightly against her hold.

She hummed against your skin, before lifting her head to look into your eyes. “So am I.”

And then she kissed you.

It was slow at first, just enough to steal whatever composure you had left in you, before her lips lingered, deepening the kiss. Her hand tightened at your hip as she guided you more firmly onto your back, the mattress dipping with the both of your weight as she followed you down. Cassie’s arm came up to as she braced herself onto the pillow beside your head, holding her weight above you as she pressed her body to yours just right.

One of your hands came up to the back of her hair, fingers tangling against her strands as you tilted your head slightly, letting yourself sink into the feeling of her mouth against yours, slow and warm. Your other hand found its way beneath the hem of her shirt, palm pressing against her back, feeling the rise and fall of her breathing.

By then neither of you were paying attention to your surroundings.

Which was why neither of you noticed the door of your room opening.

“Holy shit,” Santos exclaimed from behind you.

You and Cassie jerked apart at that.

But it was too late already.

Santos stood frozen halfway into the room holding a sweater in her hand.

“What?” You heard Whitaker’s voice ask, as he made his way to the room and peeked over Santo’s shoulder.

You watched as his expression changed in real time, from confusion, to recognition, and then to something between horror and disbelief. Santos, on the other hand, lit up like she’d just won the lottery.

“I knew it!” she practically shouted, pointing triumphantly between the two of you, glancing over at Whitaker to see if he was seeing the same thing she was. Whitaker seemed to not have heard her, as he just stood there with his mouth agape, and his eyes so wide you could’ve sworn they would pop out of his skull.

“Can you knock?!” you blurted, still half sitting up in bed, pointing vaguely at the door.

But Santos didn’t even acknowledge you, as she went and stepped further into the room, to place the sweater she had on her hand on the back of the chair in your room. “Fucking finally.” She said, completely unfazed.

“Let’s go, huckleberry,” she added, already turning back toward the door. “I need to get to work to collect my prize money.”

Whitaker just blinked at her, lowering his head in your direction as an apology, before both of them walked out, pulling the door to your room shut behind them.

You stared at the now closed door.

Then slowly turned your head to the side to look at Cassie. You were still out of breath by the whole situation. And Cassie was still propped on her elbows, her breathing slightly uneven mirroring your own, her hair completely wild. As soon as you’d turned to look at her, she’d let out something between a scoff and a laugh, as she fell back onto the mattress, her hands coming up to run through her hair.

“Well,” she said casually, “guess it’s not a secret anymore.”

interrupted ⋆˚࿔☆ (fic moodboard)

[as-syllable-from-sound]

armed and dangerous⋆ 𖤓 ⋆˚࿔ (baran al-hashimi x wife!reader) is it really any surprise that baran goes all out for her son's bring-your-parent arts and crafts day?

the pitt au | established relationship | ~2.7k | divider cred | notes: all fluff, just baran being a little bit of a control freak!!

FAMILY CREATIVITY DAY! Saturday, October 12th, 10am–12pm. Join us for a morning of art, connection, and fun! All families welcome. Light refreshments provided.

You hum at the flyer that Kaveh's teacher handed to you through the car window while you were waiting in the carline. A Saturday. You weren't on call and neither was Baran.

You take a picture of it right there in the pickup line, the car behind you be damned, and text it to your wife.

you: [image attached] 

you: thoughts

The three dots appear immediately. She must be on a break.

🤎: Oh, this is very cute. I wonder what the project is.

🤎: Do you think it's something we bring materials for or they provide everything?

🤎: Also what does "light refreshments" mean?

🤎: Are we talking fruit and crackers or are we talking actual food? Are we expected to bring anything?

🤎: I can stop at Giant Eagle on the way home from work.

🤎: Do you think any of the kids have nut allergies? Would you please ask Kaveh?

You stare at your phone. The car behind you honks. You pull forward six inches.

you: are you fr right now

🤎: What?

you: b, it’s an art event for second graders

🤎: ?? 

you: "light refreshments" will mean a little bowl of goldfish crackers next to a juice box situation 

🤎: I already looked it up on the school website, it says "collaborative mixed media collage" which is actually really fun. Mel was just telling me how collage has such a rich history as an artistic medium—

You put your phone in your cupholder rather than finishing reading because you are in a school zone and you are a responsible adult. Also, you’re grinning so wide at the windshield that an elementary schooler who catches sight of you might shit their pants. 

You pick the phone back up at the next red light.

🤎: —and i think i have some good scissors at home so the paper edges will be much cleaner. 

you: you are not bringing your good scissors to kaveh's school 

🤎: Sure I will. They can go my purse.

you: it’s not a bring your own scissors event, b

🤎: That is why I am going to put them in my purse. 🙂

—

Saturday arrives and Baran is up before you. You find her in the kitchen at eight-fifteen in her Lululemon set, her jug of a water bottle on the counter and a bowl of fruit cut into precise little cubes beside it. Kaveh is in his chair eating cereal. There is already, somehow, a small tote bag by the door, fit to bursting with supplies.

“Oh my god,” you stop walking. "Don’t tell me you packed a bag.”

"Kaveh packed a back," she corrects, without looking up from her phone.

You glance at your son, quirking a brow. He grins toothily and shakes his head. 

"Right,” you grin, rounding the table to kiss his curls. “What’s in Kaveh’s bag?”

"Scissors and a bone folder. Oh, we also found some washi tape I had left over,” Baran lists, “Plus a few good magazine pages I pulled last night—"

"Y— Kaveh pulled magazine pages?"

"From the ones we were going to recycle anyway."

"When?” 

“Last night?” “Kaveh went to bed at 7.”

Baran frowns. “Well, I did the magazine part. I couldn't sleep."

Kaveh calmly takes a bite of cereal. "Maman also printed some pictures," he offers helpfully.

You turn to gape at your wife.

"They were reference images," she clarifies, taking large sip from the bucket bottle. "For composition."

"Baby," you say.

"Don't."

"Sweetheart."

"I mean it."

"It’s a second grade—"

"Kaveh, are you done with your cereal?" Baran asks, very loudly, in the direction of your son.

"Almost," says Kaveh.

"Take your time, azizam." She picks up her Hydroflask — truly the size of a small child, you've always thought, a gallon jug with a straw — and takes a long, dignified sip, looking at you over the rim with an expression that communicates, very clearly, that this conversation is over.

You love her so much it's honestly a little embarrassing.

—

Kaveh's school gym has been transformed, sort of. There are round tables covered in butcher paper and each table has a big tray of supplies in the middle, kids magazines, construction paper, tissue paper, glue sticks, safety scissors, stickers. A hand-lettered sign on the wall says CREATE SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL TOGETHER  and there are, as you predicted, goldfish crackers next to juice boxes on a folding table by the door. Kaveh's teacher greets you both near the entrance.

"Dr. Al-Hashimi, Dr. Y/L/N! So glad you could make it." She crouches to Kaveh's level. "Kaveh, do you want to pick your table?"

Kaveh points immediately at the table closest to the snack station.

"Fantastic choice, buddy," you tell him sincerely.

Ms. Blake straightens up and gestures broadly at the room. "So the project today is totally open, families just work together to make a collage. The theme is 'us,' so whatever that means to your family! There's no wrong way to do it. Just have fun."

"Wonderful," says Baran warmly. "Is there a particular size constraint on the final piece?"

"No constraint!" Ms. Blake says brightly. "Just whatever fits on the paper!"

"Great," says Baran. "And the adhesive provided is just the glue sticks?"

Ms. Blake blinks. "...Yes?"

"Perfect," says Baran, smiling. "Thank you so much."

You wait until Ms. Blake has moved on to the next family, then you turn to tease your wife, but her head is down into her tote back, hands already rummaging through it to pull out her own supplies.

“There she goes,” you whisper to yourself as Kaveh dashes off to greet his friends and their families who are taking their seats. “B, I need you to have fun."

Baran looks up from where she’s rummaging through the bag. "Sorry? I am going to have fun."

You put both hands on her shoulders, look her dead in the eyes, and say: "Baran. Please put the bone folder away."

She holds your gaze for a long moment.

Then she puts the bone folder back in the bag.

"Thank you," you say.

"You're lucky I love you," she frowns. You just laugh and kiss her cheek, leading her to the table by the small of her back.

—

Within ten minutes of sitting down, Baran has organized the supply tray. Not dramatically, just — tidied it. The magazines are stacked by approximate size. The tissue paper is in a small pile off to the side. She has looked through approximately forty pages of a National Geographic with the expression she wears when she's reading a lab result, head slightly tilted, completely still.

She pulls out a page. Blue water, some kind of aerial shot. Holds it up to the construction paper background she's already selected — a deep navy. Nods once, to herself.

"Maman," says Kaveh, who is on his third helping of goldfish and has crushed four capri suns, and has cut out a picture of a golden retriever with the safety scissors. "Can I put the dog on it?"

Baran looks at the dog picture, her navy paper. “Yes, fandogham. Let’s put it in the bottom left corner."

Kaveh slaps the dog picture enthusiastically in the center.

The corner of Baran's mouth tightens almost imperceptibly. You press your lips together.

"What if," Baran says carefully, "we tried it over here—" she nudges it gently toward the left— "just to give the other elements some room?"

"I like it better here," says Kaveh.

"I think the dog could stay," you tell her, rubbing a grounding circle on her back.

"The dog can stay," Baran says with a bit of tension to her voice. YOu watch her distract herself by trimming the edge of the blue water page with a precision that is making the dad at the next table visibly insecure. He has been trying to cut a straight line with the safety scissors for five minutes. 

He glances at Baran's scissors.

"She came armed," you tell him, quietly, with great sympathy.

He tsks. “Smart woman. These safety scissors are sh— crap.”

You grin. “Oh man, don’t let her hear you say that. I’ll never hear the end of it.”

A warm, amused voice from beside you, without looking up: "I can hear you."

—

Twenty more minutes pass.

"You know," you say conversationally, watching your wife hold a piece of tissue paper up to the light, "Ms. Blake said there's no wrong way to do it."

"Sure, but there is a right way," Baran replies, tilting it again. She notices a crinkle and frowns, placing it down and selecting a new one to inspect.

"Well, so, no. That is exactly the opposite of what she said."

Kaveh ignores you both, tongue sticking out as he sorts through the various little cutouts he’s made. He picks one and brandishes it to you guys.

“Is that a wheel of cheese, baby?” you beam.

"Uh-huh," he nods. “I’m gonna put it on.”

You look at Baran, who is trying so hard to fight back her grimace.

"Where are you thinking?" she asks.

Kaveh points to the upper right corner.

"Next to the moon?" Baran asks. Her task of the past ten minutes has been cutting out planets and stars and asteroids from a cosmology magazine she found in the stack. She’s been planning an elaborate sky.

"No, it is the moon," Kaveh says. “Like the story with the cow where she's playing the fiddle and jumps over the cheese moon.”

You pull a face. “I’m 90% sure that was a different story.”

"Interesting," Baran responds to him, elbowing you in the ribs, but she's smiling now. "Making it a celestial body. Kaveh, that's very creative."

Kaveh accepts this as his due. "I know," he says, and reaches for more goldfish.

—

About forty minutes in, you have, collectively: the aerial water shot, the cheese moon, a golden retriever and two dobermans, Spiderman next to a cutout of red carpet Lady Gaga (Kaveh really liked her outfit,) a cutout of that the tsunami from that one famous panting, some random house from that one realtor show with the twin brothers — all framed by four strips of washi tape that Baran has placed with a level of care that you find both ridiculous and deeply attractive.

You are in charge of the text elements, which means you are cutting letters out of magazine headlines. You are doing this badly. Your hand slipped cutting out the B so it looks like a 3. Your A is missing the crossbar. 

Suffice to say, you can feel Baran sweating next to you.

"You can say it," you tell her, very focused on cutting out an H for Kaveh.

"You're doing great," she says, very carefully.

You hold up your jagged P. "I think I nailed this one."

She just hums, eyes not leaving your hands, and you decide to take pity on your wife.

"My love,” you say pleasantly, “Would you like to do the letters?”

Her hand is already out.

You grin “Wow, so you actually think I suck. I didn't even finish the thought.”

"Oh, you were going to offer me the scissors,” Baran teases, wiggling her fingers. “C’mon, we’re on the clock here.”

You put them in her hand. She's already reaching for the magazine before they've fully left your fingers, flipping through with the same focused efficiency she brings to everything, and within about thirty seconds she's found a headline she likes and is cutting clean and even. You try to absorb what it is she’s doing that you obviously were failing at, but aside from the fact she rotates the paper rather than the scissors, it seems just to be her. Naturally composed, completely absorbed, dedicated to the job.

Kaveh has pressed flower stickers up and down her sleeve at some point in the last twenty minutes. She hasn't said a word about it. She finishes the letters, wipes the dried glue off Kaveh's hands before her own, and then holds the collage out to him at arm's length, tilting it slightly.

"What do you think?" she asks him. "Is it good?"

“I think it’s okay,” he nods, “But look at what I found!”

He holds up a children’s magazine from the 1990s that has the three little pigs on the front. “It’s us!”

Your eyes giddily shoot to Baran’s, half expecting her to self-implode, but you’re surprised to find she’s grinning.

“I think you’re right,” she replies warmly, finger tapping the book. “I think that one is Mommy.”

You squint toward the one she’s pointing at. “What, why?”

“Because those two are doing labor,” Baran gestures to them, then lowers her voice to whisper in your hear. “Your piggy isn’t doing shit.”

“Woah!” you grin, “Hey, I’ve been trying to help but I keep getting benched.”

This is true. After Baran took over cutting you suggested adding some pretty little flower stickers on the “grass” (represnted by a thick strip of green paper Kaveh had pasted down) and were met with two resounding, disgusted Nos.

"Mmhm. Excuses, excuses," she tuts, already reaching for the magazine. You watch her carefully cut out the three little pigs with the same scissors she used for the letters, clean around every curve.

She hands the cutout to Kaveh, who immediately glues them down slightly crooked, but Baran just laughs.

You lean in and press your nose to her temple, just for a second, and she tips her head toward you without thinking about it. 

"For what it's worth," she murmurs, "I think your piggy is very cute."

“That sounds like a terrible euphemism.”

She pulls back, scandalized, and slaps your arm. “We’re in our son’s second grade classroom.” “He doesn’t know what that word means,” you defend with a beaming smile, then turn back to your son. She huffs, but she's smiling, and she stays leaning against you.

“Kav,” you prompt. “What do you think, bud? All done?”

He tilts it a full 360 degrees, mimicking his Maman, then nods. “All done.”

—

You carry the collage out to the car. Kaveh runs ahead to press his nose against the car window, which he does every single time, without fail, despite the fact that it is his car and he knows exactly what is inside it.

Baran falls into step beside you. Tote bag over one shoulder, Hydroflask in her other hand. The October air is cool and bright and the trees on the block are just starting to turn.

"Fun?" you ask.

She considers it the way she considers everything, properly, all the way down. "Yes," she says. "Really."

You look at her. The small smile she's not bothering to hide. The flower sticker still on her sleeve, right where Kaveh put it two hours ago.

"You know," you say, "the collage is really beautiful, B."

She glances at you sideways, a little pleased, trying not to show it. "Kaveh did most of it."

"Kaveh did the cheese moon and the three little pigs," you say. "You made it beautiful."

She's quiet for a moment. "It was a good morning," she says, simply, and you can hear everything she means by it.

You take the tank of a bottle from her so you can take her hand instead, and she lets you without comment, fingers finding yours easy and warm. You stop walking. She takes one more step before she realizes, and turns back to look at you, brow lifting slightly in question. 

You answer it by stepping forward and kissing her, free hand wrapping around her waist. She makes a small sound against your mouth, warm and soft, tilting her head to make it deeper.

When you pull back she's looking at you with sparkly eyes and a pleased quirk to her lips. "What was that for?”

"You are a very good mom," you tell her. "And I had a really good day."

She holds your gaze for a moment, then pulls you back in by the front of your jacket and kisses you again, slower this time, high on happiness.

Kaveh peels himself off the window and turns around with a smear of grime across his forehead, a toothy grin on his face.

Baran pulls back, smooths your collar down with both hands, and goes to get the keys. She wipes the grime off with her sleeve, the flower-sticker side, and says absolutely nothing about it.

masterlist <3

[maximoffwitch]

don’t hate the player | b. al-hashimi

PART 3 – SERIES MASTERLIST

summary: you stop by the hospital to return baran’s jacket but also to pick up emery for breakfast, leaving baran with a mess of conflicting feelings.

word count: 1.5k

tags: mcsteamy reader; jealousy; mutual pining; more slow burn; swearing (emery makes an appearance lol)

a/n: not sure if the title makes the most sense but i can see the connection in my head and that’s all that matters ig lol. next part will have more direct interactions!

<PREVIOUS PART>

“Hey, D.” You approached the central nurses’ station from the ambulance bay, a tray of coffees in one hand and a light-blue athletic jacket in the other. “You know where Baran is?”

“Why are you here?” The charge nurse asked in lieu of an answer, appraising your jeans and sweater over the bridge of her glasses.

“Baran lent me her jacket after the whole cric fiasco, so I thought I’d return it to her.” You held up the article of clothing like it was evidence and set the drink tray on the counter.

“Al-Hashimi,” Dana pointedly corrected, a lilt of teasing in her voice, “is in south 15 treating a patient, doing her job. You ever heard of that, Barbie?”

“Ouch.” You clutched your chest with mock offense before holding out a cup for her to take. “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”

Dana’s stare sobered and softened slightly as she accepted the drink and took a sip, letting out a hum of approval when she tasted her usual order.

“So you came all the way down here on your day off just to return a jacket?” Dana raised a brow, not bothering to hid her disbelief, and you couldn’t blame her.

If it were anybody else’s jacket, you would’ve just held onto it until your next emergency consult, and who knew when that would be. No, actually, you wouldn’t have even done that. If it had been anybody else, you would have just given the jacket to Walsh or Garcia, or even Shamsi, and had them to return it for you.

Yet, here you were, on your rare day off, bringing coffee for people, all to return Baran’s jacket.

Baran.

You had only interacted with the woman twice but there was something about her that piqued your interest. Obviously she was attractive, there was no questioning that, and she was clearly more than competent to run the ED, seeing as the department was no longer one breakdown away from complete collapse. But there was something else, something more, that caught your attention.

Whether it was the way she carried herself with a composed air of compassion, or the fact that she didn’t back down from your flirtatious quips, or how her big brown eyes practically bore into your soul every time she looked your way, you weren’t sure. But whatever it was, it had you down in the emergency department at 7 am with the hopes of speaking with her again.

You couldn’t exactly tell Dana all of that, though based on the look she was wearing, you had a feeling she already knew.

Before you could explain why you were really here, the woman in question approached you, her soothing voice cutting through all the chaos.

“Doctor—” the syllables of your last name rolled off Baran’s tongue with ease, causing your insides to coil— “to what do we owe the pleasure?”

“I wanted to give this back to you.” You held up her jacket before pushing the tray now holding only two cups in her direction. “I also come bearing caffeine.”

“Oh, thank you.” Baran smiled, pleasantly surprised, as she took the jacket from you. “You didn’t have to come all the way down here just to return this.”

She noticed you weren’t in your scrubs, your autumn outfit making you look softer than usual.

“I wanted to see you.” Your lips curled up into a grin, and Baran clung to the trace of earnestness in your voice.

Then, as if to play it off, you shrugged and added, “I had to pick something else up anyways.”

Baran’s eyes narrowed barely, but before she could ask further, Emery Walsh ambled up to the station. “So I’m a thing now?”

“Finally,” you groaned, rolling your eyes as you plucked the cup of coffee labeled “DC” out of the tray and handed it to the other surgeon. “You usually take this long to do a routine cholecystectomy?”

“Just trying to match your speed, Spook,” Emery retorted, taking a sip of the drink before scowling. “What the fuck is this decaf shit?”

“You have a problem.” You shot her a glare, one that told her you knew about her personal consultation with cardio a couple weeks ago. “You can get order whatever you want at breakfast. My treat.”

“You spoil me,” Emery snarked as she downed the rest of the coffee.

Baran watched the interaction with an itchy feeling creeping up her spine. She couldn’t tell whether this was just another instance of you being naturally flirtatious or if you and Emery were going on a breakfast date. After all, you had come all this way on your day off just to pick up the surgeon. Either way, Baran felt a pool of envy twist in her gut.

“I should get back to my patients,” she excused herself with a tight smile. “Thank you for returning my jacket.”

Sensing the shift in the other woman, her expression more tense and posture more rigid, you softened. “Wait.”

Baran paused, turning slightly on her heels as you grabbed the last paper cup from the tray and held it out for her.

“This is for you.”

As Baran reached out to accept the drink, her fingers brushed against yours, the slight contact sending a jolt straight to her chest.

“Your usual.”

When she raised a questioning brow, you chuckled awkwardly. “I asked around.”

Baran couldn’t help the amused glint in her eye at the sight of the faint blush dusting your cheeks. There wasn’t enough time to figure out the whiplash of emotions she had just experienced in the last five minutes, so Baran simply raised her cup.

“Thank you,” she said your name fondly. “I hope to see you around.”

“Likewise,” you replied, a satisfied smirk creeping back onto your lips.

Nodding, Baran turned on her heels and disappeared into the chaos of the emergency department. Your eyes followed her retreating figure, admiring the curves and angles of her movements, committing them to memory.

“You’re drooling.” Emery’s deadpan voice interrupted your trance.

You slapped her hand away from your face, earning a laugh from her. “Shut up,” you grumbled.

“I see Yoyo wasn’t lying.”

“About what?” You frowned at the idea of your two friends talking about you. The three of you had a friendship where if two of you were talking about the third behind their back, it was usually out of concern. While that concern did manifest itself in the form of snippy, sarcastic comments, it was still concern nonetheless.

“You have a crush,” Emery sang with a teasing grin.

“What? No, I don’t,” you refused quickly, too quickly, which Emery noticed, her grin widening even more.

“You returned her jacket,” Emery noted.

“After she lent it to me,” you countered, but the other surgeon ignored you.

“On your day off,” she finished with a pointed look.

“And—” she held up her hand to silence whatever argument you had ready— “you brought her coffee, her usual at that.”

Emery wiggled her brows suggestively.

“I brought you coffee,” you argued teasingly.

“Yeah, but decaf,” she said it like a curse word.

“Because you’re a bitch,” you quipped, and Emery let out a hearty chuckle.

“What are you two still doing here?” Dana’s Yinzer accent interrupted your bantering as she reentered the nurses’ station. “Go talk about Barbie’s crush somewhere else,” she said, having clearly heard enough of the conversation.

“Not a crush,” you corrected, grabbing the empty drink tray from the counter with one hand and pulling Emery’s elbow with the other.

“Okay, lover girl,” Dana muttered under her breath, shaking her head at you and Emery, as the two of you continued to bicker on your way out.

From across the department, standing at a computer, Baran watched the entire exchange with narrow eyes. While she couldn’t hear the words you and the other surgeon were exchanging, to anyone with eyes it looked like flirting, and based on the little she knew about you, she’d take one guess to say that’s what was happening. You and Emery seemed to interact with an ease and familiarity, and Baran couldn’t help but wonder what kind of history was there.

As her eyes followed you out the door, she took a sip of the drink you had given her. The familiar flavors of Assam tea with a splash of milk and just a dash of sugar hit her tongue, and yet it tasted warmer, sweeter, as if somehow the fact that you went out of your way to find out her order changed the taste.

“Hey, doc,” Dana’s voice snapped her back to the moment. “Labs are back on South 15, and we got an ambulance ten minutes out. Girl with a failed epi-pen”

Baran inhaled sharply and straightened her posture. “Thanks, Dana,” she said, taking the tablet from the nurse to scan the lab results.

As she moved to go check on her patient, her half-full paper cup still sitting on the desk, Dana interjected with a knowing smirk, “Don’t throw that away. Looks like it’s got some important information on it.”

Baran frowned, but before she could ask, the other woman was already walking away. Turning around, Baran picked up the cup and rotated it. As the sleeve slid down an inch, she finally noticed a line of digits scribbled on the cup and she knew it could only be one thing.

Your number.

[notwhatitseems-2]

i can’t believe it

baran al-hashimi x reader

-

i can feel past your skin into your energy

or

casual dominance w baran

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔:･

baran who always has a hand on your back, guiding you. especially in public (imagining weekend farmer's market trips), she wants to keep you close.

baran who wants you to send pics of all your meals to make sure you're fueling yourself even when she's not there.

baran who puts her hands on your waist and moves you. needs to grab something from the cabinet while you're standing there? she comes up to, gently grips your hips, and gently nudges you. (she really just wants her hands on you 24/7)

baran who initiates a lot of contact. if you sit down further away on the couch she's grabbing your legs and pulling them into her lap. she pulls you on top of her in bed.

baran who is big on eye contact. envisioning you being upset and venting but not even looking in her general direction. she grabs your jaw and guides your gaze back towards her.

baran who sprinkles in praise pretty much whenever she talks to you

"good job, baby." "doing so well." etc etc

baran who helps you get ready. puts on your necklaces, straightens your shirt, fixes your collar, your smudged makeup, etc.

#projecting #needthat

[dykeol0gist]

Enigma

Summary: What began as casual has turned into something that is decidedly not. To save yourself from the hurt, you’ve distanced yourself from Cassie… You’ve tried to at the very least. But what if she feels the same?

Word Count: 2.1k

A/N: This has been in my drafts since April oops. Y’all we’re getting degree #1 in two weeks, but I’m still chemistry’s bitch. If you like your sanity don't go into STEM (do it).

You’re an enigma in the ED.

Cassie prides herself in being able to read others, her coworkers and patients alike. Her father tells her it’s what makes her a good doctor; more than that, a good mother. She can take one look at Harrison and know that he’s caught a bug going around at school. Not you, though. You’re wholly different in the way you carry yourself. Clear and concise, but guarded. There is the you she observes with your coworkers. You’re friendly, but you hold them at arm’s length all the same. There is the you she sees with patients. Caring. Always willing to seek other methods if something isn’t working out. Then there is you with her. You’re fluent in sarcasm. You always have something to say or a means to deflect. But there is something… off about it now.

It doesn’t bother her.

It shouldn’t bother her.

But you’ve not always been this way. There was a time, not too long ago, wherein it wouldn’t have been uncommon to see the two of you deep in conversation—despite the odd remark here and there. That was then and this is now. You’re both professionals in your shared field. You’re both consenting adults. But it’s not lost on her, the way you find her in a crowded room. It’s subtle—she’d miss it if she wasn’t looking for it—but when the ED exists in this temporary lull wherein the storm that is patient intake calms enough, she sees you seeing her. When you stand at the nurse’s station, chatting it up with Princess and Perlah, idling the time away while you wait to get labs back on a patient. When your attention shifts by a slight. 

It’s not frequent, no, but once or twice, she’ll catch it—catch you. It’s a momentary lapse, she’s half-certain, because the moment you realize you’ve been caught staring, your attention is anywhere and everywhere else.

But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s happened.

Doesn’t change the fact that she’s noticed.

That she wishes you wouldn’t look away.

And, like the enigma you are, you let nothing on.

That is, of course, until she finds you in the parking lot with your hands tucked away in your pockets, staring aimlessly at your car. From a brief glance, she can already tell the prognosis is not good. You were off an hour ago. You should be home. Or, at the very least, you shouldn’t still be here. Yet, here you are. She doesn’t envy you—that, she knows for certain.

Despite it all, she still prods: “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” you say without looking at her, then—You freeze. It dawns on you in real time just who stands behind you. You give her a glance over your shoulder. She could already see the bone-tiredness in your stance, but now she can see it in your face. You concede, then nod. “It’s alright.”

Your tone is colder. Clear and concise, but guarded.

It bothers her in a way she cannot explain.

“Doesn’t look alright.”

That was, perhaps, unnecessary of her to say, but she’s not wrong. She can tell, because the look you give her is telling enough. There’s no lie you can spin that will better explain why you’re still in the parking garage even though you were off of work an hour ago—so you concede and nod again. This time it feels more like an admission than anything before. You move to lean against the hood of the car so that you're facing her properly. “Shit battery won't jump.”

“I told you you should've replaced it.”

“I know,” you agree.

This might be the most you two have spoken outside of work in weeks. Admittedly, she's missed this more than she should. Regrettably, she's missed you more than she should. “I can give you a ride,” she offers before she can think better of it. Briefly, she wonders if she's overstepped your own self-subscribed arm's length shtick. Briefly only.

You look tired beyond your means. Today has stretched the both of you paper thin and, to add insult to injury, your car has chosen this moment to turn its issues into your own issues. Were it any other day, you'd turn down her offer, but she can see the gears and cogs grinding in your brain. To leave your car here overnight means you'll take the bus home. To take the bus home means you'll wait for it then wait at the station to switch buses. It means, to get home, you're more than likely looking at an hour or longer of travel when you're already dead on your feet. 

“I can't ask that of you.”

“You're not asking. I'm offering.”

“It's out of the way.”

“When has that ever stopped me before?”

It's never stopped her before.

She likes spending time with you 

“Cassie…” There is something careful about the way you say her name. Something guarded. Pleading, almost. At its core, it is you. The you that rests beneath the sarcasm and the quick wit. The you she knows too well. 

“You’re already late getting home.”

It takes great effort for you to concede this time. That, she can tell. She can read it, plain, on your face. The battle of wills. Will you, won’t you? Why should you? Why shouldn’t you? You’ve spent so long building walls around yourself. Can you really allow them to fall so easily?

“Okay.”

“Okay,” she repeats, nodding.

She watches as you collect your belongings from your car. Watches as you give it one final, miserable look before trailing after her. Not long ago, this was habit. Tradition. Perhaps not the final or miserable part, but there was a time where she would give you rides home—to your apartment or her own, it didn’t matter.

There’s something damningly familiar about the way you slide into the passenger seat. An echo of something else. Something which has always been. Something which you must try your hardest to stifle and to strangle or else or else it will come back. You blame your fool heart. The organ that lacks sense and settles into this familiarity like a crutch.

The ride starts in relative silence as you push into the city proper. The weight of today settles over the both of you like a dense fog. You lost a frequent flyer hours into your shift and you fear it set a precedent for the remainder. She was an older woman, but a friend all the same in the years since you began your residency. You’d spent what was probably too long working on her even after you knew she was gone.

You had to try.

Had to keep trying.

It’s in your bones, this thing.

This need.

This is the work you do; the work you will continue to do.

She is one person, but her absence feels monumental.

It doesn’t bother you most days. It does, but it doesn’t. Death. Loss… The works. You’re surrounded by it. You learn to live with it. You must. You’re supposed to be okay with it. Supposed to pack up your baggage and move from one patient to the next with an efficiency you used to have. But it chips away at you, you think. There are pieces of yourself, a handful of which you’re not sure you will ever recover.

And you’re supposed to be okay with that.

You are.

You’ve long since resigned yourself to that fact.

You work in emergency medicine.

Still…

You see the car’s trajectory. It’s not lost on you when Cassie pulls into an empty parking lot that is most certainly not the street in front of your apartment—you would know. You give her a look. You’re not very good at running from your problems, you think. If you were, you wouldn’t have agreed to this car ride. What an astounding observation you’ve made. Quite ground-breaking. What will you observe next?

“Can we talk?”

“It seems I have no choice.” You don’t mean to speak with such a bite. Correction: you do. You don’t mean for it to sound so… unfounded. This time she gives you a look. You’re being mean. You don’t want to be mean, especially to her. So you nod. “Why the sudden distance?”

Why are you icing me out, she means.

Why can’t we talk about this, she means.

Your arrangement was purely casual. On the off chance neither of you worked late or had any other obligations, you’d spend the night together. It was supposed to be casual. But you’re an honest-to-god fool who went and fucked it all up. You enjoyed the lazy mornings a bit too much. The hours in which the two of you laid side-by-side, breathing one another in. You enjoyed the late dinners and the subpar coffee runs. The post-shift debriefs and the long stretches of silence that follow after particularly grating days.

You enjoy her—too much.

It shows, you think.

You could lie. Tell her some fabrication. You’re busy. Or you’ve found someone else. Neither lie holds any merit. She knows you too well. Where does that leave you? To tell the truth?

Perish the thought.

Either way, she expects an answer.

Expects something from you that you’re not so sure you can give.

“I fucked up.”

That is apparently the last thing she expects from you, because her face twists into confusion. “What?”

There’s still time to lie.

Still time to bail. To make a quick exit stage right. But deep down, you know you’re better than that. Or that’s what you tell yourself at the very least. You shake your head—that in itself feels more an admission; a concession, than anything else. “I can’t keep doing it.”

“It,” she repeats, then the recognition dawns. “Us?”

“I woke up one morning and realized I like you more than I should and—I don’t know… it’s just not in the cards.” You don’t look at her when you speak. You don’t think you could if you tried. You’re not made for casual. Casual doesn’t even scratch the surface. You’re made for something deeper. Something you cannot have with Cassie.

She’s staring at you, wide-eyed. You can see it in your peripheral vision. You wonder what she’s thinking. You look at her. Scratch that. You do not want to know what she’s thinking. The silence in the car is stifling. It’s suffocating, actually. You’ve made your peace with this. “I’m gonna walk,” you say with less certainty than you mean.

“What?”

You’re throwing this poor woman through the ringer.

“I’m just a few streets over.” You’re already gathering your belongings. “I think I need a walk.”

“You’re not walking.”

“Cassie—”

“No,” she says, interrupting you. “You don’t just get to say that and run away.”

So you pause. You don’t push out of the seat and out of the car and down the road. You sit still. You cannot recall a time in recent memory you’ve been so aware of your breathing. So aware of everything around you. 

“You’re infuriating sometimes.”

It’s your turn to be confused. “Why?”

“Because you’re you.”

You blink.

“You're a good person.”

You're no longer sure where she's going with this.

“I—What?”

“You make it so easy.”

It.

You’re suddenly very aware of your breathing, but for an entirely different reason.

“Cassie.”

She reaches for your hand and you allow her to take it. The contact feels like a relief after the day you’ve had. She just holds it, but it means so much. It is a statement without words. Perhaps better than your own. You cannot imagine ‘I fucked up’ being very high in the scale of phrasing. This, though, you can.

“How long?” you ask.

At this, she glances away. Momentarily, but you catch it all the same. She shakes her head and looks like she wants to laugh. “The beginning.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“I saw this scrappy resident.”

“Scrappy? Like the dog?”

She gives you a look.

You return it in kind.

“Scrappy is a word.”

“It’s also the name of an—”

“—Can I just kiss you?” she interrupts. Her attention shifts from your lips up to your eyes, then back down to your lips. She has you pinned with just her eyes. You realize now, that this is exactly where you want to be.

“Do I get to finish my Scrappy lecture?”

“No.”

“Well, fortunately for you, I like you well enough to ignore your apparent disinterest in my opinions on Scrappy-Doo.”

She blinks. She just asked to kiss you and you’re talking about a fucking dog from a children’s tv show. What the fuck?

“Please kiss me before I say something stupid again.”

[as-syllable-from-sound]

persuadable ⪩⪨

baran al hashimi x fem!reader - 2k words - age gap (r is late 20s, baran is 40) - you and baran have been hooking up for a few months, never really going beyond that. one satruday you run into her at your favorite museum, and she has a guest | from this poll |

note: happy pride month gays. love y'all. unhh. (the sound is included in the message.)

Every other week, Kaveh stayed at Baran's house, which meant that every other Saturday, they ended up at the Carnegie Museum of Art.

It was one of Baran's favorite traiditons. The museum itself was stunning on its own, but it was made lovier when a tiny little body was pattering next to her, pointing out this-and-that, talking his little head off with questions, darting around the exhibits while Baran tried to mindfully enjoy it.

Baran had loved this museum since she was roughly fourteen years old and miserable on her middle school trip to D.C. She had gone to a nice enough school that they could afford to do an afternoon stop in Pittsburgh on the way home, and Baran had wandered into the museum half-asleep and walked back out feeling rearranged. There were many things about Pittsburgh that, now 40, she tolerated rather than loved. But this place had stayed in her bones.

Kaveh, unfortunately, was seven. He was usually a fantastic sport, but there were only so many oil paintings a child could stare at before he felt he'd seen them all.

Still, every Saturday Baran asked, “Do you want to come with me today, joonam?”

And every Saturday her sweet boy said yes.

She always let Kaveh lead when they visited the museum because there wan’t a single exhibit she didn’t enjoy and she had learned really quickly that if he felt he had control over what they were seeing, the longer he was able to last. 

Usually, this meant they ended up in the sculpture hall. Kaveh adored the tall, skinny statues there with his entire little heart.

“They look silly,” he would whisper loudly, staring up at the long bronze limbs and dramatic poses with complete delight.

And every single visit, without fail, he would eventually turn to Baran with barely-contained excitement and say, “Māmān, take a picture.”

Then he’d plant himself beside the statues and imitate them as seriously as possible, long face, arms thrown awkwardly into the air, knees bent at impossible angles as Baran gleefully snapped his photo.

Kaveh was bounding back to her side and standing up on his tip-toes to see the fruit of his photo shoot. She was showing him the latest one, his nose wrinkling with pleasure at his own performance, when his head snapped to the side with the speed of a small animal catching a scent.

Baran had about half a second of confusion before he pulled in a breath and used every bit of it:

“DOCTOR Y/N!!!”

Baran jolted so hard she nearly dropped her phone.

“Kaveh—”

Too late.

Across the gallery, you turned around and Baran’s heart sunk through every floor of the museum. It seemed like an awful collision of her two worlds that she very carefully kept separate.

She knew you in fragments that didn’t belong in a place like this, your scrubs and tired eyes after a long shift that always softened when you saw her, you padding through her kitchen at night, stealing water from the fridge like you lived there too, you half-asleep against her shoulder, breath warm.

She also knew how your voice sounded when it went all high-pitched and breathy, whimpering pleas of her name in her ear as your hands scraped down her back, her kissing your neck—

And now there you were. Dark jeans, a soft cream sweater with the sleeves pushed up to your elbows, a tote bag from a college Baran had never heard you mention, rings stacked on your fingers that caught the gallery light. Your hair was different than she'd ever seen it. You looked soft.

She watched your expression move through confusion and arrive at something warm and surprised and delighted.

"Hi, Kaveh," you called across the gallery.

Kaveh was already moving. He crossed the room at a pace that was technically not running because his feet were not fully leaving the floor at the same time, but was in every other sense running. You crouched down to meet him and he wrapped his arms around your neck without preamble, without hesitation, the way children do when they've decided about a person.

"You're here!” he beamed.

"I am here," you laughed, settling back on your heels with your arms resting on your knees, completely unbothered by the contact with the museum floor. "What are you doing here, little dude? Are you an art guy?"

Kaveh pulled back and shrugged. "Sometimes," he said. "Māmān likes it a lot more than me though. But she says it's good for my brain."

"Smart woman, your mama."

Baran had crossed the gallery at a more appropriate pace and arrived to find you already looking up at her, easy and warm, not making anything of it.

"Dr. Al-Hashimi."

"Dr. Y/L/N." She heard how formal it sounded and internally winced. She cleared her throat and softened her tone. "Small world. I'm sorry about the ambush."

"Please don't be," you beamed, standing. "This is the best thing that's happened to me all morning."

You had met Kaveh twice before and Baran had kind of freaked out both times (you knew good and well she didn’t really want you two interacting, didn’t want to blend whatever fuck-buddy situation you had going on with the version of her life she was presenting to her son) but both interactions had been really, really lovely. You’re not sure what you did to earn Kaveh’s adoration, but you were glad you had it as the adorable little boy beamed up at you, staring at you like you hung the stars.

Baran, standing slightly to the side, was also looking at your face. For completely different reasons. She took in the different style of your hair, the jewelry she hadn’t seen because it was kind of a pain to wear rings at work, the tote bag with your college insignia — a school Baran had not known you attended, had never heard you talk about, another piece of the woman she hadn’t had yet.

There were so many pieces.

“Are you here alone?” Baran heard herself ask.

You smiled. “I am, embarrassingly enough. I just like it here.” You paused. “Mom-son date?”

“We come most Saturdays,” Baran said. “When Kaveh is persuadable.”

“It’s an awesome hangout spot,” you nodded warmly, trying to will your heart to stop fluttering. Baran looked so… touchable? Something about her was calmer, more settled, and you wanted to soak it in like a sapling begging for just a drop of water to sustain it, but she was here with her son. And you were just a friend. Barely even that.

“Well, it was lovely to see you both,” you started to turn, “I hope you—”

Kaveh latched onto your arm, eyes going big with sudden sadness. “Wait, are you going?”

You froze, mouth falling open a bit, and your eyes shot to Baran. Sure, you liked her company and loved her son, but you knew this woman had boundaries and you never took that personally. 

“Um, well, Kaveh—”

"Don’t go yet because we are looking at statues and you can join us," Kaveh said excitedly. "Do you want to see?"

You blinked. Your eyes still searching Baran's face. 

It was sweet, Baran realized. She allowed her head to tilt, a warm smile to come across her face.

"Yes," she said warmly. "Join us. We could use the company."

Huh. You shook of your shock and replaced it with an eager nod of your head.

"I'd love to," you replied, a similar smile pulling at your lips. "Show me."

—

You fell into step beside her at an easy distance, and Baran noticed that too — the careful inch of space you maintained, not crowding her nor presuming that the invite meant she, all of the sudden, wanted you on top of her.

You talked to Kaveh mostly, crouching when he pointed at things, asking him questions that took his opinions seriously, which made him stand a little taller each time.

"That one is super sad," Kaveh pointed at a bronze figure with its head bowed.

"Hm," you studied it. "What do you think he's sad about?"

Kaveh thought about this. "Maybe he lost something."

“Lost something?” Baran prompted.

“‘Cause his head is down, Māmān,” Kaveh replied. “He’s lookin’ for it.”

It surprised a laugh out of you — real and unguarded, bubbling up from your chest and floating out into the high-ceilinged room — and Baran's eyes went straight to your face.

She'd heard you laugh before. But not like that. Not with nothing behind it but the simple fact that something delighted you.

She looked away before you could catch her looking.

She was noticing things she had no particular right to notice. The way you paused longest in front of the landscapes. The small private smile when something caught you, unannounced and unperformed. The fact that you knew which paintings were which without looking at the placards.

Initially she had been bracing herself for some level of awkwardness bred from the reminder that you existed in a different compartment of her life, one that didn't belong here under the high windows with her son. But you hadn't made it awkward. You just looked very content not to be alone on a Saturday, and it made her heart twist.

She felt herself begin to unknot.

"You come here often?" she nudged you with her hip as you walked again, and didn’t miss the way your eyes twinkled at the contact.

"Most weekends I'm not working," you tilted your head at the room around you. "There's a painting in the next gallery I've been coming back to for about a year."

"Which one?"

You smiled a little. "I'll show you when we get there."

In the decorative arts wing Kaveh grabbed your hand to drag you toward a suit of armor, and you let him, and Baran watched your face when he pressed his small nose against the visor to peer inside. The expression you wore was so soft, so unself-conscious, that it caught her off guard.

She had long wondered what you were like when you weren't managing anything at all, be it your poise at work or your manners in her apartment or your ecstasy in her bed. Maybe this was it. Maybe this was exactly what you looked like laid bare. 

—

They reached the end of the last gallery with the slow inevitability of a good afternoon running out. Kaveh had gone boneless against Baran's side around the second hour mark, dragging his feet and clinging to her arm, suddenly non-verbal.

You crouched down to him. "It was very good to see you, Kaveh. Thank you for the statue tour."

"You can come next Saturday," Kaveh offered, hand reaching out to fiddle with the neckline of your shirt.

Baran watched your face. She saw you almost smile  and then she watched you catch it and smooth it over.

"That's a very kind invitation," you said carefully, to Kaveh, but you were still looking at her.

The restraint of it was so practiced and so deliberate that it nearly hurt. She had put you here  in this careful, curtailed space  and you had stayed in it without a word of complaint, because she'd asked you to a few months ago. Please don’t ask about my ex-husband, please don’t ask about my son. You had nodded and respected it ever since, because that was the kind of person you were.

She had an empty afternoon ahead of her, but you were full of so many little pieces that had started to crack away from your skin and fall into her palm just over the course of an hour. She wanted more. She wanted every shard until she could build your full mosaic.

"We were going to get lunch," Baran said. "There's a place around the corner Kaveh likes."

She paused, small and deliberate.

"I would like it if you came."

Baran watched the surprise dance across your eyes even though you tried to remain nonchalant. You were a very smart girl and she knew you understood exactly what she was actually saying. This was very different from when you would brush shoulders in the hospital, or when your phone would buzz with a "Are you free tonight?"

"Are you sure?" you asked softly.

"Very sure," she said, then raised her brow with a smirk. “Do I have to say please?”

You looked at her for a beat longer, something soft and open moving through your expression, and then you smiled so large it changed your whole face.

"Okay," you said. "I'd like that."

Kaveh grabbed both your hands at once, one each, and lurched forward without ceremony.

Baran let him pull her out into the light.

—

masterlist <3

[emilys-bangs]

𝐬𝐮𝐠𝐚𝐫-𝐜𝐨𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐞𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 | 𝐞.𝐰

Tags: established relationship, fluff, fem!reader, reader is drunk, emery is a softie, tiny bit of grumpy x sunshine, reader wears emery’s jacket, no use of yn

Summary: Emery especially likes you when you’re drunk. (You especially like her when she’s soft.)

Word count: 1.1k

Emery toys with the car keys in her pocket as she strolls into the bar, her eyes sharp, instinctively scanning the space in search of you. It's dimly lit and thick with people, louder than she can stomach these days. You like to tease her for it, how she's gotten older, more weary, but she's well past the days of hangover-less morning-afters and music that pounds its way through her skull. 

You're decidedly not. Which is why she very carefully makes her way through drunken parties, sidestepping trays and drinks, until she finds you.

You don't notice her at first, the bright glare of your phone screen washing over your face, your knee bouncing with a restless rhythm as you scroll through something. Emery glances at her own phone. It's been a little over fifteen minutes since you'd called her, telling her to come over. She knows you get anxious about it, so she'd stayed in her clothes instead of changing into something for bed, picked up her keys the minute her phone rang. 

Fifteen minutes in this traffic is a miracle, and yet Emery's stomach is still heavy at the look on your face. She's too far away for her voice to carry, but you finally set your phone down, hands wringing together as you scan the bar. 

Your eyes find hers almost immediately. You perk up, your face brightening as you wave an excited hand. "Em! Hey, over here!"

Her smile drops when she gets close enough to see a damp blotch down the front of your shirt, the fabric clinging to your skin. "What'd you spill, hon?" She frowns, shrugging out of her jacket. You give a shrug of your own as she wraps it around your shoulders.

"Wasn't me, some dude wasn't looking." Your lips press together into a small—much to your dismay—pout. You get your arms through the sleeves and adjust the cuffs around your wrists, eyes a little glazed as you look up at her. "Spilled half his bottle on me."

Emery fits the zipper and tugs it up your chest. "Fucker. Where is he, I'll gut him." She murmurs, relieved when your lips pull into a smile.

"You would?"

"Sure I would. You cold?"

"Just sticky."

She keeps an arm around you as you slip out of your stool. You exchange goodbyes with your friends and gather your things, promising them another hangout, soon, soon, teetering a little into Emery's side. She holds out a hand in an idle wave and nudges you around, starts guiding you through the crowd. You're not entirely wasted, but she still keeps her arm firm around you, planting you to her side. 

Your fingers hook into the waistband of her sweatpants. Emery hides a smile, steering you away from a waiter with a full tray. She could never say it, but she loves the way you cling—especially when you get like this, all soft and uninhibited. Perfectly hers.

Out on the street, she hears your voice clearer, a little thickened with a slur.

"Will you shower with me?"

She adjusts her grip on you, complying when you loop your arm through hers and hug it to your chest. "Can't exactly trust your hand-eye coordination, now, can I?"

Your smile peeks out from behind her arm. It seeps into your voice, ringing like a bell. "You can just admit you want to, Emsie."

Emery pauses, her brows knitting. "Who the hell is that?"

You laugh, eyes bright, and she kisses you. Emery hates it when people kiss on the street, in the middle of a sidewalk, but you make her do it without thinking. She can't help it, never can. She's long ago stopped trying. 

You taste like the drinks you've had—sweeter, messier than you usually are. Emery feels the slow rush of your pulse under her thumbs.

"Thanks for comin' to pick me up." You say happily. She hums, wipes a bit of loose makeup under your eye.

"Did you have fun?"

"Mhmm." You take her hand and wrap her arm around your side again, tangling your fingers with hers instead of letting go. "Missed me?"

Emery's lips twitch. "I don't know if I've ever told you, but you're a little self absorbed."

"That," you laugh, poking her side, "is Em code for yes. I missed you too, baby."

She hates how her stomach flips, how she melts when you say it, so saccharine. Emery shakes her head as she pulls out her keys from your—her—pocket and unlocks the car.

"I don't think that's healthy for either of us."

You blow a raspberry. "Who cares about healthy?"

She stopped caring about a lot of things since she'd met you. 

Your cheeks are visibly hot as Emery opens the car door for you, her hand on the small of your back to nudge you in. You frown down at the high step and reach for her arm, clutching her bicep as you get on. It doesn't usually give you much trouble, but your balance is a little off, and your shoes are less than practical. 

"Got you," Emery murmurs, looping her arm around your waist, sweeping the other one under your legs and lifting you the half inch distance into the high seat of her jeep. She leans back and reaches for the seatbelt before you can, pulling it snug across your body and buckling you in.

Your smile is lopsided when she looks back up at you. "I could've done it, Emery." You say softly, tangling your fingers in her hair.

"I know." She cups her hand over yours, leans in to kiss you. You wrap both your arms around her neck like it's a hug, making her laugh, tilt her head back to press a kiss to the corner of your mouth. "But I missed my girl."

She feels the heat radiating from you. Truth is, she can't always get herself to say stuff like this, sickeningly gentle, but sometimes it slips out and she lets it. It's all the better for watching you melt, the smile splitting your cheeks even as you bite your lip, try to hold it.

Emery thumbs it out, feels the heat along your jaw as she steals one more kiss. It breaks with your laughter, low, airy giggles she'd never hear in the light of day.

"Softie." You mumble.

Unfortunately so.

[notwhatitseems-2]

send help

will be posted tn perchance perhaps

[as-syllable-from-sound]

chapter fourteen: my little hawk, why do you cry? ⋆ . ࿔ ˚ the wound series

baran al-hashimi × exgf!attending reader .𖥔 ݁ ˖<𝟑. ݁ ˖ | wc: 3.3k | series masterlist | previous chapter |

summary: baran is getting emotionally jumped from all sides while reader puts tinsel on a CPR dummy and eats skittles for dinner. notes: eeeek final chapter before THEEEE angst chapter so maybe enjoy the softer parts of this while you can. my ao3 babies know what's coming

The next stretch in her shift didn't require very much thinking for Baran. There were chart updates for the GI transfer, a medication clarification for Princess, a brief exchange with Lupe about a patient in triage that Baran handled on something close to autopilot as she let the flow of the ER carry her. 

It was a blessing that the past thirty-ish minutes hadn’t been as jam-packed for her, because she was, beneath the surface, trying to do several things at once. 

She was thinking about Louie, who she had not known and whose death had nonetheless managed to get inside her in the way certain losses did. 

She was thinking about Robby, and how she’d overheard little whispers that whatever argument had occured was so bad that you had just zoned out during it, just absorbing it. Not fighting back.

She was thinking about the EGD, and the feeling of standing next to you at the head of that bed, watching you beam with pride.

And she was thinking, against her better judgment (and in direct violation of the promise she had made herself not three minutes ago,) about a nine-dollar charm that you claimed to forget you were wearing.

"I forget it's there most days."

Baran had been turning that sentence over and over in her head since the moment you said it. It was a very fucking frustrating sentence because of how many ways you could’ve possibly meant it. On one hand, it could mean absolutely nothing. Maybe the charm had simply become unremarkable to you over the years. It was just something you wore out of habit, nothing else. 

…Or. 

There was also a version where you forget about the charm precisely because it had become so constant that your body no longer registered it as separate from itself. That it was something so important to you that it had almost become apart of your being.

She was very aware how dramatic that sounded even in her own head, but the notion was too tempting not to at least ponder. In any event, Baran was painfully aware of which version she wanted to be true.

To distract herself, she checked on Rachida, who was stable and drowsy from the heparin drip. The drugged-up young woman had a great deal to say about the aesthetics of the hospital and the magazines she had read while she was waiting in chairs and the clothes she was going to buy her newborn daughter and Baran listened with genuine delight as she finished up the checkup. 

"Thank you," Rachida had said, a beaming smile on her face as she pulled the blanket higher over her rounded stomach. “It’s nice seeing doctors here who look like me.”

It had made something in Baran glow.

"I’m glad I can help," Baran had replied softly, and just for that moment, thanked whatever had brought her to that particular room on that particular day.

—

It was Dana who found her later.

Baran had rushed outside to receive another transfer patient from Westbridge, but the ambulance was running a few minutes behind, which meant Baran was having a few moments of quiet in the bay when Dana joined her.

"How you holding up, hon?"

Baran considered several responses and settled on honesty. "I've had easier first days."

Dana chuckled. "I hear you. We’re throwin’ a lot atcha."

"I suppose."

"And I’m sure Louie didn't help."

Baran was quiet for a moment. "Surely not. I’m sorry for your loss. The debrief was lovely, though.”

Dana just nodded, popping what looked like a piece of gum into her mouth. "Was Doc okay?”

Baran blinked. “When, just now?”

“An hour ago. When the two of you stepped out.”

“Oh. Yes. She and I went for a quick walk.”

That made Dana smirk. "I should’a known. She always does that kinda thing after a bad case.”

“The strolls?”

Dana grinned without judgment. "It’s a good way to cope. Some people cry in the break room. Not naming names, but it’s true. Some people take a few minutes to go outside and chuck some stuff. Some people go full robot for twenty and then come out the other side. Not Doc, though. That woman is a lapper. Though you probably know that."

Baran did know that. It had been one of the things she'd found both adorable and occasionally maddening about you, back when she'd had the standing to find things about you maddening.

“I suppose she is.”

There was silence for a moment as Dana checked her watch and Baran craned her neck to see if she could spot the incoming ambulance. When there was no luck, she decided to switch the subject. 

"About Dr. Robby," Baran started carefully.

"Mm," Dana hummed, a sign she was listening but wouldn’t offer anything until directly asked.

"Is he—?"

Dana exhaled through her nose, which she was quickly learning to be the Dana equivalent of a lengthy editorial. “I’m gonna keep this short, but, look. Robby is not a bad man. He just has the misfortune of being a very overworked and very tired man, bless his heart. There's a difference between those things, but today the two are looking pretty similar, and it’s not lookin’ great for the lucky people on the receiving end of it."

Baran nodded once, slowly.

"He'll come around. Or he won't, and he'll leave for this spirit quest, and it won't matter,” Dana added.

Baran nodded, appreciating that answer way more than the alternative, which would have been reassurance she didn't quite believe.

"Apparently Y/N told him she was worried about him," Baran said. "I heard he didn’t take it well? Is that normal for him?"

Dana's mouth tightened briefly. "He has a… funny habit of letting people worry about patients all day long, give everything they've got to whoever walks through those doors, run themselves into the ground for strangers. But once ya try to turn any energy of that toward him? Ka-boom. He gets hot like a firecracker." 

Baran pulled a subtle face at that.

Dana shook her head. "Anyhow. Doc’s been trying to crack that particular nut for years now."

Hm.

Baran tried to envision you a decade younger, badge clipped proudly to your shirt, walking into this very ER as a resident. She tried to picture you introducing yourself to Robby, to Dana, making your way through your first shift at PTMC. 

She found, somewhat to her chagrin, that it wasn't difficult. You had always been the kind of person who located the center of a room within minutes of entering it. She imagined you'd walked in here at whatever age and within a week everyone in the hospital had known your name and within a month they'd started calling you Doc and within a few years you had become someone around which the whole department orbited.

She imagined it hadn't been so different from what you were like at Stanford, actually.

A lifetime ago there had been an August afternoon, sweltering like it was today, sweat beading on her shoulder blades and trickling down her back. 

Baran’s things were only half unpacked placed neatly around the dorm room, because she'd been waiting to see where her roommate would want to put things before she committed to any particular arrangement. Baran was reclined on her bed, reviewing the orientation schedule (which she had printed, and highlighted the sessions she wanted to attend) and crafting her afternoon schedule when the door swung open.

What she had not been expecting was the way your face had opened up the moment you saw her. You looked, for all the world, like running into her in this particular room at this particular moment was the best thing that had happened to you all day.

"Oh, hi!" you'd said, thumping your bag down. "You must be Baran! I'm so glad you're already here, I was actually worried I'd be first and I never know what to do with myself when I'm first somewhere."

Baran had buffered for a few moments. She had prepared for a number of possible opening gambits and that had not been among them.

"I'm—yes," she'd managed. "Baran Al-Hashimi. And you're—"

"Y/N," you'd offered warmly, shaking her hand firmly. Before she could even process her emotions at that you had already withdrawn, head swiveling slightly, taking in the half-unpacked boxes, the metal bed and the dingy closet with a tickled grin.

"I like what you've done with the place."

Baran blinked at you, slightly thrown. "I haven't done anything with it yet. I was waiting."

"For what?"

"For you. To see where you wanted things."

Your energetic expression melted into something softer as you hopped up onto your bed, bouncing slightly.

"That is super kind of you," you'd said sincerely, smiling at her. “Now that I’m here though… wanna decorate?”

She found herself smiling back.

The two of you had spent the following 45 minutes trying to speed-set up the room before orientation, throwing up posters and slamming down sheets, shifting the beds and desks into a cooler orientation. Baran found herself laughing when you displayed a hideous lime-green inflatable chair that you supposedly had bought at Target on a whim only thirty minutes ago. She found herself grinning as you complimented the rug she brought from home. She found herself actually enjoying your company, however hectic.

She had not, at twenty-two, had ever encountered someone who managed to enter her life so easily.

She shook the memory away despite the sense of longing and warmth it made swirl in her chest.

"How long has she been here?" Baran asked.

"Twelve years almost to the day," Dana said with a particular kind of pride that wasn't possessive so much as it was fond. "Came in as a resident, as I said. Robby kinda took her under his wing. Which probably explains some of what you're seeing between them right now."

Baran waited.

"Robby's going through something," Dana said finally, chewing her gum thoughtfully. "Has been for a while. And most people in this building either can't see it or aren't looking hard enough to." 

Baran felt something click into place.

"And she can, which he can't stand," she said.

"Mhm. Doc’s too close to it all," Dana said simply. "Known him too long. And she's…”

“Perceptive?”

Dana snapped her fingers. “Perceptive. And for most of the fine folk here, that's a comfort. They feel understood. Robby hates it.”

Baran looked out at the drab scenery. The bay was still empty, the concrete sitting flat and grey in the afternoon light.

"He's leaving today," she said.

"Yep."

"And she's going to let him go without resolving any of it?”

“Probably. The whole situation is a pain in my behind, believe me, but I think it’s what he needs right now. And Y/N is a big enough girl that she’ll let Robby do what he needs to do, not what she wants him to do.”

Baran smiled. “You’re pretty perceptive yourself, Dana.”

“Only ‘pretty?’” Dana teased, hip-checking her. “Give me some more credit, Dr. Al-Hashimi.”

—

After running charge on the Code, Baran found herself with a second wind and a very strong appetite. A quick glance at her watch confirmed she could take about three minutes to run into the break room, grab the snacks she brought, and quickly eat before doing her next rounds.

You were there perched on the counter next to Perlah, one leg swinging, a neon energy drink cracked open in your hand and a crumpled bag of Skittles in the other.

Her eyes narrowed at your selection. “Are you serious?”

You shook your head. “Don’t judge me Dr. Al-Hashimi. What are you in here for, your fried-air crisps? One ice cube?”

“Almonds,” she muttered, already moving toward the fridge. “And a pear. Where is my—”

She was three steps in when she saw it.

A CPR doll was propped against the far wall in one of the chairs with red, white, and blue tinsel wrapped twice around its neck. Someone had also, she noticed, tilted its head to the left so that its plastic eyes bore into whoever entered the room.

Baran’s face fell flat, entirely unimpressed. "Who is the joker that did this?"

"Guilty."

You were grinning from your seat on the counter, popping more candy into your mouth.

Baran looked at you. Then the mannequin. Then you. "When could you possibly have had the time to do this?” Perlah shrugged, stealing a green Skittle from your bag. “It only took us like, thirty seconds.”

"Jesse did the scarf," you said. "I did the posing. Perlah wanted to add sunglasses but we couldn’t find any."

"This is a medical training device!”

"That no is currently using,” you countered. “It's also the Fourth of July. We need a little more joy around here."

“I second that,” Perlah grinned. “Doesn’t it build morale?”

Baran was much too hungry to get into it with the two of you, so she decided to just let it go. She crossed to the counter to get her snacks from the fridge, and you watched her produce something from her pocket and begin slicing the pear carefully.

You crumpled your bag of candy and banked it off the rim of the trash can from four feet away. It went in clean and Perlah whooped from beside you, slapping your hand in celebration.

“Back to it,” you smiled, already hopping down from the counter.

Baran took a bite of pear, chewed, and nodded once.

“Back to it.”

—

The baby was in Bay Six and very much awake.

She was lying in the isolette, her big eyes tracking Baran in a slow and wondering way as she wriggled and made tiny little noises that weren’t quite babbles but that Baran responded to in kind. 

Smiling, she reached in carefully and rested two fingers against the baby's palm. The chubby fingers closed around them immediately and the baby’s little legs kicked out like a tadpole as she cooed, little spit bubbles foaming up at her mouth that Baran gently wiped away with her gloved finger.

She had not worked with pediatric cases since Kabul.

Correction: she had not let herself work pediatrics since Kabul. She had structured her return intentionally to the VA with the understanding that she would be serving adult patients, a population of veterans who needed what she had to give and from whom she could receive what she needed in return. 

Kabul had taken a great many things from her. She had made a kind of peace with most of them, but it had taken something specific from her relationship to small patients and pediatric cases in the like. She much preferred to work around that particular absence rather than through it.

Dasht-e-Barchi had been a maternity ward. Of course it had been full of babies.

Baran didn’t let her mind go there very often. The memories lived in a part of her that she kept carefully locked that she would absolutely not be thinking about unless she was home, or with her therapist, or near a bottle of wine. She needed a very specific kind of environment at hand if she was going to try and process those memories, and today could literally not be a worse time.  

The baby girl made a small vocalization that seemed directed vaguely upward, at the ceiling or the light or possibly at Baran's face, it was hard to tell. Baran peered down at her.

There had been hundreds of tiny babies just like this one over the months she'd been in Afghanistan, small and clumsy and entirely dependent on the particular machinery of care that the maternity ward represented. 

She had worked alongside those doctors and midwives that had been lost. She had eaten with them and shared music and stories and, when possible, laughed with them. Those lighter moments had always seemed quick and a little desperate, everyone aware how fleeting they were, how slim the chance a time again would come to sit and laugh and share in quiet company.

When then the men with guns had come, none of that had mattered.

Baran exhaled slowly through her nose.

The baby in front of her had a chart. A social worker assigned to her case. Warm blankets. A nurse who had checked on her recently and would check on her again. 

Whatever had brought her to those waiting room chairs, whatever desperation or fear or impossible circumstance had led someone to leave her there, she was safe now.

While Baran couldn’t reach back through time and put her body between the ward and the men who destroyed it, (and she had spent a significant portion of the last five years learning to live with that particular limitation) she could play with this baby as she checked her vitals and her charts. She could make her coo as she stroked her baby-soft cheek, tickling her little toes. She could sing softly to her in Farsi and get her to smile.

She thought briefly of Kaveh when he was a little baby, all chubby little limbs and an impressive head of dark curly hair. She had held him in the first hour after he was born in terror, knowing exactly how many things could go wrong. 

Soheil, to his credit, had been a saint that day. It was only later that he recounted the story, laughing at the thought of how Baran had apparently frozen up the millisecond her baby boy was placed in her arms and had immediately started sweating.

She missed when her baby boy was this tiny, but Kaveh had grown into such a beautiful and vibrant kid. And Baran would be lying if she said it wasn’t a lot more fun to hang out with your child once they could talk and walk and dance with you and sing the songs you taught them and screech with you while you tried to kick their ass in Mario Kart.

He was the simplest part of her, the part that had never required very much justification or examination, a part she loved completely and without ambivalence. 

There were many mistakes she had made as a young adult. But she wouldn’t change a single thing that would erase her son’s existence. She had regrets, sure, but her boy would never be one of them.

She was still standing there, fingers loosely held, the room quiet around her, when the door opened behind her.

When she turned she realized it was Samira, who was not the person she had been expecting.

The resident had the grace to look slightly abashed at having interrupted something, her eyes moving quickly from her face to the baby and back again.

"Sorry Dr. Al, " she whispered, “Dana said you might be in here. There's a— well. I don't want to pull you out if you need a minute."

"It’s completely fine," Baran reassured her. She gave the baby's fingers one last gentle press before carefully, slowly, extracting her hand from the grip. The baby's fingers remained curled for a moment after, grasping at the air, before relaxing. "What is it?"

“There’s a call for you from upstairs.”

Baran frowned, stripping off her gloves and disposing of them as she followed Samira out of the room and back into the Pitt, which was teeming with patients in various stages of assessment and treatment, the board full and moving, doctors and nurses whizzing around with charts and patients and medications to administer.

She found you, without meaning to, across the room. You were at the board with Dana, pointing at something, talking. You hadn't looked up.

Baran picked up the phone, and winced at the voice in her ear.

“Hello? Mhm. Oh, okay. Yes, I will be right there.”

She turned to Samira, but was met by the sight of her and Robby instead. 

“C-suite wants to see me upstairs.”

.𖥔 ݁ ˖<𝟑.𖥔 ݁ ˖

come to talk to me over on ao3 @lieutenanttrouble !! tags: @jackiefromgreenland

[spexialvixtimxunit]

-> PT. 1 || Good Karma

one more time for me || d.e

The Pitt SMAU - [18+ MNDI]

navigation

summary: reader does a good deed and gets everyone donuts

tags: emma, joy, and james mentions because why not. ogilvie hate (not really), slightly suggestive??

reader in the gc

reader and dana

reader in the gc

° ˖ ⋆˚ 。° ˖ ⋆˚ 。° ˖ ⋆˚ 。° ˖ ⋆˚ 。° ˖ ⋆˚ 。° ˖ ⋆˚ 。° ˖ ⋆˚ 。

like and comment if you you enjoyed this! reblog to boost my content <3

!! i do not give permission for any of my works to be copied, duplicated, reposted, or entered into ai for training purposes!!

[notwhatitseems-2]

i’m envisioning casual dominance w baran

walk with me, walk with me