get thee to a fucking nunnery, you fucking whore!

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[softundermoonlight]

Your love is my turning page - J.A

☆ Jack Abbot x Residentfem!Reader ☆ Read on AO3

summary: The human body has five senses. It took every single one of yours to fall in love with Jack Abbot. (22.6k)

contents: fluff, hurt/comfort, slow burn, jack is a big softie, idiots in love, reader navigates denial in egypt, protective Jack, mutual pining, implied age gap (early 30s reader), friend!cassie, physical assault (à la dana s1), mean!Robby (but gets better), there was one coat, baby Jane Doe situation, medical procedure (cpr), panic attack, pre-s1 to post-s1

a/n: it took a while but it's finally here! thank you for your patience, i really hope it was worth the wait. per usual, i am incredibly grateful for my part-time beta reader and full-time wife @dyingofeverything

Six months. Six whole months working at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, and you had come to the undeniable conclusion that the emergency department there was completely fucking insane.

Not in the entrancing, cinematic, ‘medicine is chaotic but no worries, we are all heroes without capes’ manner that people relished to romanticize on television, oh no. Here, it was a permanent combat – with the lack of stretchers, the budget cuts from the administration, the endless stream of patients who should have been transferred someplace else long ago, the attendings… Or rather, the singular day attending.

Freshly arrived from three years of residency in Boston, you had expected intensity, long hours and exhaustion that sank into the bones, but nothing could have equipped you for Robby, your personal tormentor, who somehow managed to make every shift resemble a test you hadn’t studied for and whose spirits varied faster than a mood ring. One second, he surveyed you as if a resident ought to be conversant with all diagnosis ever recorded in medicine, and the next, a patronizing scoff spilled past his lips as though you were a teenager who had wandered into his service. He was, in every possible sense, a trial by fire.

Thankfully, PTMC had its perks.

Cassie McKay had been one of the first. About a decade older than you and a second-year resident, she had taken you under her wing in no time, slipping into the role of colleague and older sister effortlessly.

More than once, Cassie had aided you in situations you hadn’t yet learned to navigate, particularly when it came to addicts: while others approached them with thinly veiled judgment – if they even dared come close – Cassie had taught you how to read the fright underneath the withdrawal symptoms, how to let silence do some of the work…how to make them feel human again.

And outside the hospital, on the rare days neither of you were being held hostage by the shifts, she had dragged you downtown more than once with her son Harrison, who would tug at your hand until you sampled all the available pierogies and hotcakes, reminding you for a brief moment that even far from your family, there were people making space in their lives for your presence.

Then, there were Perlah and Princess, the undisputed queens of the ER gossip, who happily educated you on its social ecosystem: who was sleeping with whom, which resident had a breakdown in the bathroom, which nurse had nearly punched Park the Shark from ortho…If there was news, the two nurses had it.

And, of course, there was the night shift. Or, as they proudly called themselves, the Night crawlers.

Being drafted onto those shifts occasionally to cover staffing shortages, it hadn’t taken you long to grasp that they operated like an entirely different department, Ellis and Shen being your guides into that nocturnal world. Straightforward and dry-humored, they showed you which vending machine stocked edible sandwiches at two in the morning and which bars around the PTMC weren’t infested with first-years residents.

Also through them, eventually, came Dr. Jack Abbot.

The first thing you noted about him before your first night shift on Thanksgiving Day was his voice.

Low, raspy, unhurried in a manner that compelled the whole room to lean toward it, the sound had echoed in a conspiratorial tone against the walls of the ER, and though you couldn’t discern his figure at first – only the cluster of night staff gathering near the nurses’ station – you found yourself unconsciously stepping closer when his speech commenced.

There was something about his intonation that gave you the urge to listen harder, like the rest of the room had started conversing in a language you suddenly itched to master above all else.

“Alright, team,” he had drawled, sensing a grin on the face you couldn’t yet glimpse. “Tonight’s gonna be ugly, so let’s do what we do best.” A few groans answered him as he let the silence hang a second longer. “C’mon, you know the words.”

The man cleared his throat, and the dry amusement in his tone deepened. “We are the Night crawlers,” he began.

The response came without delay from the rest of them in one united voice. “We are the Night crawlers.”

“We deal with the weirdest and the wildest,” he continued, and you caught Ellis’ eyes then, whom, with her arms crossed and a sharp smirk, had a little of something else in her expression…pride, you realized – to be part of this team certainly, to belong to this odd, scrappy unit that appeared to transmute those painful hours at the hospital in a home.

You could perceive, in the way she glanced at you, how badly she wanted you to experience this too, the invitation so clear it almost made your chest ache. She beckoned her chin at you once, to which you shook your head, not feeling eligible of being part of this strange ritual.

The man kept going. “Because…”

The entire night crew joined him this time, chanting, “Because we are the weirdest and the wildest of them all!”

That was the moment where you had suffered a very petty little twist of envy in your gut. And yes, it had been an absurdly childish thing to resent – this stupid, ridiculous form of belonging wrapped in gallows humor – and you didn’t know it yet, but the more they would recite it throughout the shifts, the more a traitorous fluid that felt close to vitriol would climb the back of your throat.

Fuck, you would end up cursing for the next six months, you wanted a chant too. And the easy camaraderie and the dry jokes and even the way they gave the impression to acknowledge one another’s limits without asking…but no, instead you got Langdon who snapped at you when it was not one of the nurses (a habit he picked up a few months ago and very far from his common temper, or at least that’s what Perlah said) while playing buddy-buddy with Robby, and Collins, who already had a foot halfway through the door of the PTMC. Quite the A-Team.

So yes, of course you had been jea— As you looked up, a pair of hazel eyes found yours through the half-crowded station, and for one suspended second, you had failed to recall anything: what you were doing, what you were thinking, all was gone.

The man – the one who had spoken, you gathered belatedly – was leaning against the nurses’ main desk, grayish curls falling over his forehead. Freckles scattered over the bridge of his nose, down his cheeks, and you could already note them continuing lower, disappearing beneath the collar of his scrubs. Your attention as well as your eyes dropped to his arms.

With rolled-up sleeves, his broad forearms were completely bare, revealing more freckles there too, like painted constellations in shades of brown. His hands were large, blunt-fingered, the kind that probably could operate eyes closed without a single sign of fear.

When your gaze rose once more to his face, you found the beginning of a smirk taking hold there, as if he had noticed every second of your absolutely-not-ogling and deemed it entertaining.

The rest of the room going back in motion, you sensed Ellis saying something, likely your name, but the sound came from far away. “Abbot,” was the first word you finally achieved to hear from her as she glanced between the two of you. “This is the new senior resident I told you about. The one from Boston.”

He pushed off the counter and crossed the short distance leisurely. There was something unusual in the rhythm of his stride, not enough to call it a limp and gone again before you could properly identify it, your attention stolen elsewhere as he stepped beneath the fluorescent lights. Up close, his eyes looked more green than brown, crinkling a little as he smiled.

“Jack Abbot,” he announced, extending a hand that you took.

His palm was warm and calloused, the grip firm without being performative. The contact lasted no longer than any ordinary handshake, but your nerves were unwilling to accept that fact, awareness skittering up your arm in static sparks. Then, you offered him your name, which he repeated, every vowel sounding fuller, every consonant more deliberate, until it no longer felt like the one you had heard your whole life but a newer, better version of it. You found yourself convinced that no one had ever pronounced it so rightly prior to today.

“Boston, hm?” he queried, his head tilting as he folded his arms, the gesture emphasizing his frame and the width of his shoulders. “And why Pittsburgh?”

You glanced at Ellis, hesitant of the approach to carry with him, but she only watched you with open enjoyment, your eyes traveling to the man. “The director of my residency did his here,” you shrugged. “He thought the experience would toughen me, I guess.”

Dr. Abbot nodded slowly, as if considering the wisdom of that decision. “Well then,” he declared, the corner of his mouth twitching, “welcome to the madhouse.”

You surprised yourself by grinning in response. “Thank you, Dr. Abbot.”

He looked like he might add something else, but was interrupted by one of the nurses who called for him to sign off a chart, forcing him to turn away while you stood there, a strange warmth in your chest.

Six months passed, and you unveiled him in pieces.

Jack Abbot turned out to be a phenomenal doctor and an even greater man. Efficient without being showy and sharp without making people feel stupid, he had never once snapped for sport or sneered at mistakes. He corrected, explained when he had time, and more significantly, let the weight of failing emergencies fall where they should: on the work, never on the people straining to do it.

The first time he handed you a scalpel during a procedure, his fingers brushing yours for the briefest second, a thin coil of heat had wound low in your stomach, paired with a rush of your pulse – probably due to the three cups of coffee. Absolutely not because Jack had leaned past you to check a monitor and murmured, “Careful, Boston. You’ve got good hands, but I’d rather not lose a finger tonight.”

That’s the moment where you registered the smallest tremor in your hand holding the instrument, forcing a stammered, “I-yes. Of course. Sorry. Lots of…caffeine.”

He had looked at you for half a beat longer than necessary, a sentiment you couldn’t pinpoint flickering across his face, before he returned to the patient, instructing you calmly to make the incision.

And then there had been the praise.

Which was fine. Perfectly fine. It didn’t affect you at all.

“Good job,” he had insisted after an emergency preeclampsia case, his voice roughened by the exhaustion of a double shift as he added your name, hand resting on your arm in quiet passing as you felt his eyes on you – eyes you had noticed earlier were more gold than hazel that day.

You had snapped your gaze up so fast from the scan you almost gave yourself whiplash. “T—Thank you, Dr. Abbot.” It had been pathetic, criminal even, the way your own tongue had suddenly weighted like lead in your mouth.

Jack Abbot, for his part, had only given a small nod, his thumb brushing once against your sleeve before his hand fell as naturally as it had arrived and moved on to the next patient as if he hadn’t just short-circuited your system.

You had been irritated at yourself for the rest of the shift. Troubled by the way your heart had beaten harder at those two simple words than at any compliment you had received in the last three years, though that, at least, was easily explained: none had done so in a very long time. Annoyed whenever he teased you about the manner your organized the charts, or the fact that you drank your coffee with four sugars and cream, forcing you to look away so he couldn’t notice the reaction it caused.

But again…everything could be explained. Adrenaline. Exhaustion. Sugar rush. Singlehood.

Definitely not the rough drag of his voice when he greeted you personally at shift changes instead of tossing a collective “morning”, finding you first to do so (not Robby – who, to your endless surprise, had turned out to be his best friend, his ‘brother’ in arms. Nor Collins or Dana or Langdon. You. Always You.). It certainly had nothing to do with the way his gaze rested on you after a difficult procedure or a loss, checking silently all along the night that you were fine and no, it absolutely was not about the broadness of the hand that reached for the chart in your hand.

There was nothing to see there. Nothing to feel. Nothing at all.

──────────

I. TOUCH (noun.) – the ability to know what something is like by feeling it with the fingers

When you woke up this morning, your first thought was: it’s going to be a good day.

First, because for once you had opened your eyes without a blaring alarm shredding your skull from the bedside table, courtesy of your day off. And second, because when you stepped out of your small one-bedroom apartment and into the street, the sun was bright enough to make you squint, a balmy breeze brushing your face as a cloudless, blinding blue sky stretched above the line of buildings.

It was the exact kind of June day you had been awaiting for since you moved to Pittsburgh.

Taking the bus downtown with your phone in your pocket and your keys in the other, Ellis’s recommendation was clutched in your hand, the name of the book she swore you would like written in her slanted, impatient handwriting on the back of Shen’s Dunkin receipt.

She had slipped it into your bag two days ago during the change-of-shift report with a pointed look that made arguing impossible. Therefore, as the good friend you were…you went to the library, found the book, and even treated yourself with a cup of coffee to complete the ‘good day’ routine with four creams and four sugars per usual – the kind of drink that Cassie would label as an aberration with a mothering tone while nonetheless having a taste of it.

After that, you set off to your destination: Emerald View Park.

The plan was simple, comprised of a good book, coffee, the sun and twenty-four uninterrupted hours during which nothing was expected of you, where nobody required anything. Where your body wasn’t wound tight, bracing for the next code.

So, you deliberately took your time as you strolled along the tranquil path leading up to the park, the quietude around gradually coaxing the tension from your shoulders. The trees were lush and green, their leaves casting dancing shadows across the sidewalk while one of your hands remained wrapped around the coffee, the other holding your book securely against your side.

Yes, all in all, it was supposed to be a good day.

Until somebody screams.

It detonates someplace ahead of you on the trail, a sharp cry that cuts clean through the air, rapidly joined by another. And another. A moment later, you comprehend what they are shouting.

“Somebody call 911!”

“He just collapsed!”

“Is there a doctor?”

One second you’re there, relishing in the first day of summer in Pittsburgh and the next, you’re sprinting, the book you’ve been holding falling from your palm, soon followed by the cup, who hits the ground and bursts open, dark liquid splashing across the pavement in a brown arc. You barely register it as you approach the origin of the noise, a few bystanders surrounding a man on the floor.

“Sir?” you ask, dropping to your knees beside him. “Sir, do you hear me?”

Your hand travels automatically to his face, tipping his chin upward and checking his mouth for blood or vomit or anything that might obstruct the airway, but no, nothing.

“Sir?” you try once more, louder this time.

The man doesn’t answer, an ugly shade of gray coloring his features. Two fingers slide to the side of his neck, pressing against his carotid artery: no pulse. Leaning down, your ear hovers above his mouth while your eyes stay fixed on his chest, waiting for the rise and fall that never comes.

The doctor in you takes over so abruptly it’s almost frightening. The novel, the drink, the bench in the heat – all of it ceases to exist, replaced by the emergency and every step that has to ensue. You are no longer a woman on her day off anymore: you are a doctor. You are the hands that have to move and the decisions that have to be taken.

“Someone call 911 if it hasn’t been done and tell them we have an unresponsive adult in cardiac arrest,” you shout, barely registering the response from somewhere behind you.

“The dispatcher is on the line!”

“Good. Everyone else, back up. Give me room,” you order, positioning your hands over the lower half of his sternum and locking your elbows, every piece of you now occupied by the counting in your head.

Thirty compressions. Hard, fast enough to save. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Thirty comes quickly, so you tilt his head, seal your mouth over his and give two breaths.

Nothing. Again. Thirty compressions. Two breaths. Thirty compressions. Two breaths.

The world contracts until there’s nothing but your palms and his sternum and the relentless rhythm of a metronome you force into a heart that refuses to beat, striving to keep him here for another minute, another breath.

“Ma’am,” the woman with the phone quavers, voice tight with fright. “The operator says an ambulance is on the way!”

You don’t nod. You can’t. You don’t speak either. You need every second of focus you have, every ounce of oxygen, every bit of strength in your arms. Thirty compressions. Two breaths. Again.

Three minutes speedily become five. Five turn into seven.

The muscles in your arms begin to ache, the strain descending from your trapezii to bury itself along your spine, but still, you never let the cadence falter, holding the man in the world by the force of your hands, refusing to surrender.

You pay no attention to the fire building beneath your skin, to the sweat that runs in rivulets down your temples and along your jaw, nor to the June sun pressing unremittingly against the back of your neck. You even manage to ignore the frantic thump of your heartbeat who pulsates in your ears.

Ten minutes. Eleven.

The tendons in your shoulders feel as if they are being pulled apart one by one, but it’s when the distant wail of sirens threads its way through the trees – faint at first and then swelling until it drowns out everything else – that relief crashes over you, almost turning your stomach.

The ambulance skids to a stop nearby, its rear doors swinging open with a metallic groan as two paramedics rush with a stretcher that rattles over the pavement while you keep compressing, only dimly aware of them kneeling by your side.

“Doc?” one of them – a man you vaguely recognize from your time at the ambulance bay – queries, to which you nod. “Which hospital?”

“PTMC,” you manage between breaths. “Closest one.”

His colleague glances from your hands to the patient’s chest. “You want us to take over?”

You shake your head. “No.” Another compression. “I found my rhythm.” Thirty. Two breaths. “I’m good.” You lift your gaze to meet hers. “Let’s go.”

They exchange a quick look before the stretcher is slide into place alongside the patient.

“On three,” the first paramedic announces, but you scarcely hear him over your own breathing as the man is transferred with swift movements.

Without wasting another second, you climb onto the stretcher itself, one knee planted on either side of the patient’s hips to keep your shoulders stacked over your locked elbows so you can keep the compressions going while the paramedics secure the straps around the patient’s torso and your legs. The doors slam shut. Thirty. Two. The ambulance lurches forward. Thirty. Two.

The city flickers past in blurry strips through the back windows, the only other element you’re capable to register apart from the tremble of your arms – not sufficient to fail you, but just enough to warn how you are still only flesh and blood, capable of collapsing.

The paramedic by your side keeps checking the numbers: oxygen, blood pressure, pulse…nothing.

Fifteen minutes. Eighteen.

Gradually, your body slips into a peculiar state, shutting itself off from the exertion as the discomfort turns distant and abstract, like the sun scorched each and every sensation out of your nerves until all that remains now is the motion. Thirty compressions. Two breaths.

Your wrists are no longer wrists, only hinges, and your shoulders reduced to frayed ropes stretched to their breaking point. Thirty. Two. Again. Thir— You are halfway through another cycle when the ambulance jolts to a stop and the world slams back all at once.

The cold, artificial air of the emergency department crashes over you, shocking your sweat-soaked skin and in an instant, you are returned in the one place you know as well as your own home, with its alarms resounding in the distance and the endless stream of voices and wheels overlapping each other. The stretcher barrels down the hallway, the noise only growing louder with every passing second.

A voice cuts through it, calling your name from the edge of your vision. It’s Langdon, sprinting, brows drawn together in surprise but swiftly discarding the shock in favor of the situation.

“What do we have?”

You force the words out around the effort.

“Man in his forties, I think,” you pant. “Fell in the park. No pulse, no breathing. I’ve been doing CPR for the past…twenty-one minutes. Give or take.”

Langdon’s eyes flick to the patient, then right to you, but before he gets a word out, another voice reaches you from behind him, rough and amused, followed by the scrape of his shoes against the floor.

“Had nothing better to do on your day off, Boston?”

You shouldn’t find solace in that familiar drawl and yet, even half-bent over a man whose life hangs beneath your palms, perspiration cascading into your eyes, the sound of Jack Abbot’s voice settles over you as delicately as a hand at the small of your back in a crowded room, grounding.

Managing a deadpan tone without turning your head, you respond. “Oh, it was my day off?”

The stretcher is pushed into Trauma 1, Collins calling for the crash cart as people swarm into motion around it as they prepare the transition from compressions to the defibrillator and the next stage of the fight.

“Okay, we’re ready,” Langdon announces. “Get down.”

This is when it hits you.

How you’re not moving swiftly enough – no, worse, at all, anchored by the shape of what your arms and legs have been doing for nearly twenty-three minutes under the sun, in the ambulance and through the corridor of the PTMC. Your limbs seem poured from lead, impossibly heavy and stubbornly rigid, muscles cramped into knots that refuse to slacken.

“Get down, now!” He shouts.

“I’m trying!” you snap, and it comes out breathy and frustrated because you are trying. God, you really fucking are.

You also want to prove to Langdon and Robby and every single person in this service that you are competent, reliable, not some rookie day-shift resident who happens to be passing through. No, you are a doctor who doesn’t freeze, doesn’t break. You are here to stay.

Your thoughts are cut short when a firm arm wraps securely around your side from behind, lightly dusted with fine hair, providing your body with the support it has stopped being able to catalyze on its own.

The skin of the forearm is rough under your hand where it seizes on instinct, the muscle beneath clenching as it takes your weight without complaint, feet finally meeting the floor. However, for one terrifying second, the world tilts sideways, knees threatening to fold underneath you, but the arm doesn’t leave, keeping you upright while goosebumps race up your flesh.

The contact lasts only a few seconds, yet it feels impossibly intimate amid the frenzy around you, as though the noise of the trauma bay has receded just to leave the pressure around your waist and the reassuring certainty that whoever is holding you has absolutely no intention of letting you fall.

Turning your head, you discover Jack Abbot there, and your mouth opens automatically. “Thank y—” You don’t get the rest out.

The expression on his face alters in a heartbeat, no trace of humor lingering as his hand tightens at your side, giving way to something sharp and alarmed. A cold thought sinks into your chest: perhaps you are about to pass out right here in the trauma room, in front of everyone, and make a spectacle of yourself on what was supposed to be initially a good day off.

Before it fully roots in your mind, Abbot leans closer and murmurs, “I’ve got you,” taking more of your weight into his body.

Let yourself go, some tired part of you seems to tell, he will not drop you.

The epiphany dawns on you: you are safe in his arms. Not because he is gentle, granted he is. Nor for he is careful, although he is that too. But for the reason that his hold never wavers, backed by the certainty of what his own hands are capable of – inspiring the same faith in you without ever asking for it.

Steering you out of the room, he guides your numb legs into motion while you cling to his shoulder without meaning to, the hallway rushing past in a blur of light and noise. Over Abbot’s shoulder, you catch a glimpse of Robby speaking with Dana.

Abbot doesn’t slow. “Robby,” he calls, calm but unmistakably urgent. When Robby looks up, the former tips his chin once in a silent demand that requires no elaboration.

Robby’s gaze lands on you and he does a visible double take, eyes darting from your face to the arm encircling your waist.

You can practically witness him trying to piece together why his resident is in the middle of the department on her day-off, transported by his best friend and looking like she just run through a furnace.

But Abbot doesn’t afford him time to ask, he simply keeps walking, using his shoulder and the sturdiness of his body to get you in the break room with a minimum of fuss.

Pushing the door open with his free hand, Abbot ushers you toward one of the chairs, only letting go once your weight settles into it. Even then, he doesn’t step away directly, one broad palm coming to rest against the back of the seat, sufficiently close that you can practically perceive its warmth traveling through the worn plastic and into your spine.

“I’m sorry,” you mutter, not sure what you are apologizing for. Collapsing? Making him drag you out of the trauma room? For becoming one more thing demanding his attention on a day where he is already pulling a double?

He dismisses it with the smallest shake of his head, not wasting a single word on an apology he clearly has no interest in entertaining and instead, goes straight to the fridge.

The cold light of it spills across his face as he opens it, washing his features in a cool white tone and softening the tired lines gathered around his eyes – whose hazel shade recedes, replaced by the same greenish-blue sheen as the fragment of comet you once saw while visiting family in Quincy.

Studying the shelves for a few quiet seconds, he shuts the door with an apple juice in hand, sinking to his left knee between your parted feet as he unscrews the cap and holds it out.

A beat passes, yet he doesn’t let go when your hand finds the bottle. His eyes travel across your face, from one eye to the other, lingering on your pupils before dropping briefly to your cheeks, your lips, your neck…

Only when he seems satisfied does he release his grip on the juice.

“Come on,” he murmurs. “Drink this, Trouble. You have to get some sugar in there.”

Trouble. The nickname lands with a little jolt in your chest, but your body is far too exhausted to dwell on it.

Your fingers are still a little clumsy from overuse as you force down a first swallow, then a second, the sweetness of the apple almost startling after the dry ache in your throat.

You manage a weak, grateful, “Thank you, Dr. Abbot.”

Instead of adding another word, he reaches up and, with the back of two fingers, brushes the damp strands of hair away from your forehead where they’ve plastered by the sweat.

The contact is brief, barely there. Just the pads of his fingers brushing at your temple and hairline…but nonetheless, the touch is relieving like a cool cloth on hot skin, eyelids craving to close around the sensation as your body leans instinctively.

But, just as quickly as it came, his hand falls.

“I thought I already asked you to call me Jack,” he smiles.

Oh, that you remember well enough, each single instance of it etched in your mind.

Jack. You want to call him Jack. Jack. Jack. Jack. It’s a nice name. A normal one. You would even say that it’s a perfectly, ordinary irrelevant sequence of sounds that doesn’t make your heart beats faster. Or make you quiver at night when the apartment is too silent and your own thoughts are too loud. And it’s wholly reasonable to do that, after all he is your colleague so…you should call him Jack.

You indulge in another sip of the juice to buy yourself a few seconds and gather some courage. Clearing your throat and inhaling, you finally let his name find its way onto your lips.

“Thanks…Jack.”

Something in his face alters, softening in such a subtle manner that you might have missed it had you been less attentive, concealing the corner of his mouth threatening to curve as he glances down.

That’s the moment where you register, belatedly, how he strives to shift his weight on the left leg, the motion exposing a subtle tremor, a tension in the angle of his stance. The realization dawns on you with a pang of guilt: how he is more run-down than he wants anyone to notice and that you’ve only worsened it by making him carry you and kneel.

You glance at the chair beside you and nudge your chin toward it.

“Sit with me?” you ask, feigning obliviousness. “Just...to make sure I don’t pass out right now?”

He doesn’t even pretend to ponder about it. “Sure.”

Getting up, he pulls the chair close enough that the space between you recedes from view, and you observe in passing – no longer than the blink of an eye – the small exhale of relief that escapes him once he is seated. You know that it would be your case too if you were sixteen hours in a double shift.

“So,” you wonder after a minute, picking absently at the cap of the bottle with your thumb, “if I call you Jack, does that mean you’re finally going to drop the Boston and Trouble thing?”

He leans back, folding his arms across his chest and pretending to consider it with counterfeit seriousness.

“Mm…I don’t know. Trouble suits you, after all. Look at you today.” He gestures vaguely at your entire state. “Day-off. Beautiful morning…” His mouth twists with a dry, knowing smirk. “And still you manage to find your way back here.”

You huff a breath and take one last sip before setting the juice on the table, flattening your hand there. “What can I say? Been missing everyone too much.”

“Oh, everyone?” he echoes, not bothering to veil the amusement warming his voice. “I’m offended.” He tips his head ever so slightly. “And here I thought I had a special place in your heart.”

The words are light, as though he is simply tossing another joke into the room but the way he says them sends a traitorous shiver skittering through your veins, for there is something tucked beneath them that you are far too tired to untangle.

“You know,” you tease, forcing some bite into the words, “for someone who’s supposed to check on a patient, you’re remarkably committed to giving her a hard time.”

“But I am checking on the patient,” he tuts, studying your features with exaggerated professionalism. “Turns out she is responsive, argumentative…very much her usual self, I would say.”

A laugh escapes you despite yourself, all breathless and tired. “You’re impossible.”

“So I’ve been told.”

He places a hand on the table, a few inches away from yours, not touching but sufficiently close that you can sense the possibility of it humming in the space amidst your fingers. The quietude that ensues is comfortable, threaded with the distant noise of the unit outside the break room and the sound of your own breathing finally slowing down.

Throwing a quick gaze to the side, you catch a glimpse of the stretcher rolling to the elevator, the man’s chest finally rising on its own beneath the oxygen mask.

You let out a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding before turning back, only to find Jack already staring at you.

He asks, softer now, “Feeling better?”

You nod, despite the term ‘better’ feeling generous. “Yeah. Thanks for the…” You gesture vaguely at the entire situation. “Yeah.”

“No worries. You’re the one who did the most.”  Your mouth parts to protest, but he doesn’t give you the chance. “You…” He tilts his head to be certain you hear him loud and clear, eyes never departing yours.

“You’ve done a great job out there. You saved this man.”

It’s almost revolting, really, how these simple, unadorned phrases land hard in your ribcage – probably from the way in which he declares them, like they are undeniable facts. Suddenly, you hate him for it. Hate how he can make words weigh this much. Hate how seen he makes you feel.

Your gaze drops to the table, because there is only so long a person can sit across from Jack Abbot and pretend their body isn’t responding to his voice and hands and attention.

Clearing your throat, you stand a little too hastily, muscles still behaving as if they belong to someone else, yet tarrying suddenly sounds far more dangerous than leaving.

 “I should probably go.”

Before you can take a step, Jack’s hand settles around your upper arm. It isn’t meant to block you: there’s no pressure in his hold, no desire to pin you in place – only the gentle oath of a man prepared to catch you if you wobble.

“Text me when you get home, okay?” he breathes.

You look at him, caught off guard. “You don’t have to—”

“I know.” His thumb shifts almost absentmindedly, drawing one slow stroke over your arm until coming to rest once more. “But I’ll worry anyway.”

You try to swallow past the weight gathering in your throat.

“Okay…” The corner of your mouth lifts despite you. “…Jack.”

“There you go,” he rasps, one of his private smiles tugging at his lips. “See? Doesn’t hurt that much.”

Letting out a meek, embarrassed huff of laughter, you are suddenly marooned in the rapid, thudding rhythm of your own heartbeat. “I’ll have to get used to it.”

His gaze lingers on yours for longer than it should, stretching the silence into a suspended moment that neither dares to disturb.

“So will I.”

You blink once, brain tripping over the sentence, then racing back to examine every syllable, every letter, every possible meaning hidden inside those three words. So will I. Used to what? To hearing you call him Jack? To worrying about you? To…this?

But before you can ask, he lets his hand slip from your arm, the warmth disappearing with it only to leave behind the ghost of where his thumb had traced your skin.

Rising to his feet, he folds his hands behind his back as the attending in him returns bits by bits.

“Drive safe, Trouble.”

You release a long-suffering breath through your nose. “And there it is.”

Shrugging but not hiding his smirk, he replies. “Some habits are hard to break.”

You shake your head, grinning helplessly as you toss the juice bottle into the trash, fixing your attention on the mundane task, on the plastic beneath your fingers, on anything to keep your mind from drifting into his So will I. Or the look in his eyes. No, you don’t think about them at all.

You take a step toward the door, another, and it’s only when you reach the threshold that you pause long enough to glance over your shoulder.

He hasn’t budged. He is still where you left him, staring.

You lift a hand. “Bye, Jack.”

His reply drifts after you into the hallway, voice laced with a smile. “See you around, Boston.”

──────────

II. SIGHT (noun.) – the faculty to perceive light, color, and shapes using the eyes

“The heat stroke didn’t cause any brain damage,” you explain, observing the woman’s eyes glisten with terror, a hand clutched around her phone, “your mother is simply confused. It’s often expected in situations like this. But there’s no organ failure either. Now all we need to do is watch her sodium and temperature for a few more hours, and then she should be free to go.”

Her mouth quivers as she glances over your shoulder toward her mother’s sleeping frame, the lines of strain easing only a little at the sight of the older woman lying there, on the path of recovery.

“So…she’s going to be okay?” she chokes out, voice faltering on the last word.

“She will need water, rest, and someone to stay with her for a few days,” you list gently. “But otherwise yes, she’s going to be okay.”

The daughter swallows laboriously, nodding in agreement as you discern the relief submerging her. Free hand flying to her face, she chases the tears that have gathered in the corner of her eyes.

You offer her a small, comforting smile and step back. “If you need anything else, press the call light and a nurse will be there. We’ll keep an eye on h—”

Interrupting you mid-sentence, a voice rises from the doorway, causing for your stomach to plunge like a brick dropped into water.

“Doctor, can I speak with you?”

Whirling around, you find Robby, standing a few feet away, his stethoscope hanging around his neck while his hands clamp the tubing sufficiently hard to blanch his knuckles – a far more telling sign of his state of mind than the clipped smile fixed on his face.

But the worst part isn’t even that brittle mask. No, it’s how tired he looks underneath it.

It’s not the ordinary superficial exhaustion that can be chased with a few hours of sleep and a cup of coffee, but a denser, heavier, tired-to-the-bone kind. One that has soaked into the very marrow of him, weighing down his shoulders and hollowing his eyes until it has become woven into the man himself.

The sort that twists a cold knot in your stomach as you wonder, not for the first time, how much longer it will be before Michael Robinavitch collapses.

You nod once. “Excuse me,” you murmur to the woman, stepping into the hallway and trailing your attending to the nurses’ station.

Robby withholds his words until you’re well out of earshot of the patient’s room, exhaling audibly through his nose as his features settle into that half-exasperated, half-impatient expression you’ve long since learned to interpret without translation.

“What are you doing?”

There it is: no preamble, no sugarcoating, just the characteristic Robby tone you dread.

You stare at him, genuinely thrown. “What?”

Rubbing a hand over his face and dragging it down as though striving to wipe his own irritation, he repeats slowly, “What are you doing?”

You exhale, attempting a peaceful approach despite your spine going rigid. “That woman is my patient’s daughter,” you explain. “She was scared when she got the call. Full-blown panic attack. I had to explain that the heat stroke hadn’t caused any neurotrauma or organ failu—”

“We don’t have time for this,” Robby interrupts. “You think I don’t see her? I do. I see every frightened husband, every terrified son, every daughter waiting for someone to tell them it will be okay. But I can’t stop for all of them.” He rocks his weight from heel to toe, like a human pendulum swinging on an invisible axis. “Because while I’m doing that, somebody else’s mother is still waiting to be treated. It’s a difficult shift, we’re barely getting started, and I need you focused.”

“I am focused!” The answer comes out sharper than you intend, to which he lets out a dry, humorless laugh, shaking his head. “She needed a doctor to explain!”

“Her mother needed a doctor,” he fires back without missing a beat. “She got one, now move on to the next patient. If her daughter wants explanations, she can wait like everyone else.” You open your mouth once more, but he bends until he is eye level with you, making sure you can’t escape the words he wants you to register.

“Stop trying to save everyone’s feelings and start saving lives.”

Those words cut deeper than they should.

Yes, you’re used to Robby’s sharp knives. Used to the condescension and the belittling and the sarcasm that perpetually seems to find the one bruise he didn’t know was there, but most days, you wear it like it’s just another layer of the hospital – one that you can shrug off once you’re home, telling yourself that it’s not personal, that it means nothing as you scrub your body raw in the shower to purge a phantom bleeding.

But this time…it does register. This time the wound is gaping wide.

Maybe it’s because the waiting room is packed, triage already overflowing at eight in the morning, the August heat outside only exacerbating the situation by making people louder, more desperate and impatient. Or perhaps it’s because he says it here, in front of doctors and nurses – your colleagues – who pretend very hard to be absorbed in their work.

You force your shoulders to remain squared, swallowing down the taste of iron at the end of your throat as you give him a flat, “Yes, sir,” spinning on your heel before he can add anything else.

Your lungs feel too compressed. Your skin burns beneath the scrubs. All narrows down into a single need: to scream where no one will witness it.

You head for the stairwell without pondering too much about it, the one that leads to the abandoned wing, but on the way, Cassie, who is typing on the computer, catches sight of your face. “Hey,” she smiles carefully. “You okay there?”

Shit. She has heard it too, you realize.

You plaster on a smile, muscles lock into a painful grimace that arrives a little too briskly to be convincing. “Yep. Perfect.”

Cassie studies you for a few more seconds, undoubtedly aware of your feeble lie, but she doesn’t stop you – only gives the tiniest, compassionate nod with a whispered “Take ten, honey. I’ve got your back.”

You bolt down the corridor to avoid anyone who might pry, the staircase door yielding beneath your palm with more force than intended, metal slamming into the wall with an ugly clang. You stumble inside, chest rising in rapid, shallow breaths, prepared to lash out a scream the second the door closes behin– You stop.

For one disorienting beat, you simply stand frozen, your brain taking a moment too long to make sense of the shape on the stairs.

Jack Abbot.

He is there – which doesn’t make any sense in the first place, considering his shift ended over an hour ago – sitting on one of the lower steps, head tipped against the wall, eyes closed and every line of his face slack with an exhaustion you’ve never seen on him before.

Wearing his usual association of black shirt and camel cargo pants, he sits with the right side of the latter rolled to just below the knee, both hands busy working over the exposed skin of the leg.

No. Not his leg. What remains of it.

The prosthetic rests on the step below him, expert fingers massaging the residual limb, but your brain refuses to process what you are witnessing. Instead, it circles back to the obvious again and again until the clues topple into place like a line of falling dominoes.

The limp in his gait after spending too many hours on his feet. The way he rebalanced his weight whenever he assumed no one was paying attention. The subtle tremor that had run through his other leg two months prior while kneeling in front of you.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. How have you not realized?  How have you been blind to something so obvious?

You are a doctor. A competent one, supposedly. The signs had been there all along, laid out under your nose, similar to a trail of breadcrumbs and yet, somehow, your brain had refused to pursue them, too occupied memorizing his hands and voice and the ever-changing hues of his eyes.

Too consumed by the realization, you fail to notice Jack’s lids lifting, studying you for a while and taking in the emotions crossing your face.

“Hey, Doc.”

His voice is low and gravelly from what has clearly been a grueling night, but there’s no alarm in it, no trace of abashment. He makes no move to cover himself, simply contemplates you with a patient expression, and in doing so, leaves you on your own to carry every ounce of the awkwardness yourself.

Spluttering, your hands lift on reflex. “Sorry—I was—Robby—" Shit, that sounds awful. You take a deep breath, the words tumbling out subdued before you can sort the confession. “I didn’t know.”

“Yeah,” he snorts, the corner of his mouth twitching. “I figured.” He pats the space beside him on the step. “It’s not exactly something that comes up over coffee.”

You move on instinct rather than thought to sit next to him, careful not to knock down the prosthetic and letting the two of you be swallowed in the silence and stale air of the stairwell. Folding your hands in your lap, you can’t help but throw a look at Jack, whose penetrating gaze is already fixed on your face.

And somewhere in that look, you recognize it – that same apprehension you have heeded in patients’ eyes, whether in burn victims when visitors arrive or in women after mastectomies: the dread of being looked at differently once a truth is noticeable, of revulsion or pity or discomfort, of the person across from you abruptly deciding to abandon you…the fear of being reduced to the thing that happened to you.

He is bracing for the change in your eyes. Not because it’s you, but because it could have been anyone. That somewhere along the way, the world taught Jack Abbot that this is what people do.

And God, how you hate the world a little more for it.

After a beat, you clear your throat, blurting the first thing that comes to mind. “So…does this make you Steve Austin?”

Jack blinks, recognition clicking into place. “The Six Million Dollar Man?” he asks slowly, as if trying to determine whether you’ve truly lost it.

“Yeah.”

Quiet hangs between you for the briefest moment until it happens: Jack laughs.

No, not the short, amused huff you’ve heard him give Robby or Dana at times, nor the dry chuckle he makes whenever he’s deliberately annoying the Night crawlers. This, is a real laugh – all warm and startled and unrestrained, echoing off the concrete walls of the stairwell.

You fall silent under the spell of a sound you don’t recognize.  

It transforms his entire face. The weariness that had colored his features only moments ago seems to dissolve beneath the force of it, washed by an irrepressible grin. Dimples appear where you didn’t know they existed, freckles stand out against the flush creeping over his skin and, in the space of a heartbeat, thirty years slip from his shoulders.

There is no Dr. Jack Abbot. Just Jack.

You can practically picture the teenager he must have been: wild curls refusing to stay combed, a battered guitar slung over his shoulder, scrapped knuckles from climbing where he wasn’t supposed to, the kind of boy next door who always talked himself out of punishment with nothing more than that grin.

“You know Steve Austin?” he asks, still laughing in disbelief.

You shrug, fighting a smile at the oddly intimate gratification of having managed to surprise him. “What can I say? My dad loved old shows.”

Jack cocks an eyebrow, tilting his head with overplayed suspicion. “Are you calling me an old man?”

“Well…” you smirk, glancing pointedly at the artificial leg, then at him. “You know the adage…If the prosthetic fits…”

A snort escapes him before he can stop it. Still shaking his head, he bends to roll his pant leg back over the liner. “Careful, Hotshot. Wouldn’t want to be assigned to triage for a month.”

“That would be some serious abuse of attending privilege, Dr. Abbot,” you gasp, pressing a hand to your chest in mock offense.

“Probably.”

Despite how he delivers the answer with perfect composure, you still discern the amusement lingering around his eyes, giving him away entirely. The corners crinkle ever so slightly, one side of his mouth threatening to betray him until he reins it back in…apparently, he has decided you shouldn’t know how much he’s enjoying himself.

Which is admirable effort. Really. But it fails spectacularly.

You lean against the wall, feeling the last of the tension leak from your shoulders. “I’ll report you.”

“To HR?” he dryly counters. “They already ignore my mails, so…”

You blink at him. “Wow. You write mails?”

“I know,” he deadpans, giving a slow shake of his head. “My carrier pigeon died last month.”

“Poor thing,” you whisper, biting the inside of your cheek in a valiant but unsuccessful attempt to suppress another giggle.

Jack ducks his chin in what is clearly meant to be a solemn nod. “Thank you. He would have appreciated.”

That’s what finally does it. A guffaw bursts out of you before you have the slightest chance of halting it, one hand flying instinctively to your mouth in a hopeless attempt to muffle the sound. Across from you, Jack only drinks in the view with that same toothy grin, as if he had planned this from the very beginning just to get the sound out of you.

It takes a full minute for the laughter to subside, and another for your breathing to recede into a regular rhythm, the last remnants coming out in little huffs each time you catch sight of his expression.

When the silence finally returns, it no longer feels like the previous awkward quiet. It’s gentler. Comfortable.

Jack lets it linger for a few more seconds, gaze drifting to the concrete steps then returning to you. There’s something thoughtful in his expression now, the humor softening at its corners. “So…”

You tilt your head, smile easing.  “So?”

“What about Robby?” he elaborates, tipping his chin toward you.

The name catches you off guard. Your fingers tighten intuitively around the fabric of your scrub pants, the jolt traveling all the way to your fingertips. “What?”

“You said his name earlier.” Jack’s brows draw together. “What happened?”

Under the insistence of his piercing stare, your eyes flee to the safety of the chipped edge of the stair beneath your shoes. “Oh.” You swallow. “Um…Yeah.”

He shifts, settling his back against the wall too, one shoulder angling toward yours to face you more fully. The movement is almost insignificant, barely more than a change in posture, and yet it alters the entire space of the stairwell: the quietude narrows until the outside world – the monitors, the voices, the endless rolling of gurneys – ceases to exist beyond the heavy fire door so only the two of you subsist. You feel…naked. Seen.

“So?” he asks once more, quieter this time.

Picking and worrying at the ragged edge of hangnail, you try to decide how much of the truth to offer.  “It’s nothing, really,” you reply with a small voice.

Jack scrutinizes you, eyes dragging leisurely from left to right like striving to read what you’re not verbalizing.

“If it really was nothing,” he rasps, “you wouldn’t have barged in here like this, Boston.”

For once, the nickname doesn’t land like a joke, but as a hand held out in the dark. An invitation. Or perhaps a key, turning in a lock you hadn’t realized you’d been keeping shut.

Because yes, you do want to tell him what’s been sitting there in your ribs, all ugly and viscous and impossible to overlook. To complain about Robby. About the words, the tone, the manner he can make you feel twelve feet tall one minute and six inches high the next. You desire, desperately, for someone to reassure you that you aren’t useless or too lenient. That you aren’t disappointing everyone who gave you a shot here.

But Jack and Robby are best friends.

More than that, really. Brothers. The ER cowboys.

They celebrate Chrismukkahs and Thanksgivings together, sit on the rooftop to talk when the unit is attempting to swallow them whole in its orbit. They’ve witnessed each other become partners, attendings, husbands. Watched life take things away just as quickly and carried one another through every milestone in between.

And that, is what obstructs the words at the entrance of your throat.

Because you don’t want to hear Jack excuse it. You don’t want the man who just had you crying with laughter to tell you that Robby is under pressure, that Robby means well, that Robby is hard on everyone, that you shouldn’t take it personally.

The math is instantly done: they have twenty years of friendship behind them, you have nine months.

Two decades of shared shifts and shared grief and shared lives against two hundred and seventy-three days of being a resident-perhaps-friend.

What could your hurt possibly be worth next to that?

It’s nothing. You are nothing.

“What?”

Your head jerks up, only then registering that the last part had slipped out aloud as his entire body tenses at once. Shit.

“No,” you rush to stammer with a bated breath, shaking your head. “No, no, no! I’m not—I didn’t mean—”

His voice drops an octave. “Did he say that?”

The question is so subdued it’s almost worse than if he had snapped it. Even the stairwell feels a little colder at the contact of it, the hairs on your arms rising.

“No!” you blurt out, panicked. “No, he didn’t say—it’s not that, it’s just…” You swallow, draw in a shaky inhale, and finally permit for the truth to drip out of your mouth with no polish left to conceal it. “I don’t know how to stop disappointing him.” There. The truth plain and bare.

Jack’s frown deepens, but not at you – at the thought of someone making you say that.

“Hey, listen to me,” he whispers, paired with your name. Not Boston or Trouble or Doc. Your real name. The sound steals your attention, acutely aware of the fact that he almost never uses your name unless it matters.

His fingers wrap around one of the hands which had been gripping hard on your leg, and though his touch is light, it’s sufficiently steady to cease the tremor you hadn’t even noticed building in your forearm. The pad of his thumb caressing absentmindedly over your knuckles, he continues, “Robby’s biggest flaw…is that when he is drowning, he forgets everyone else is trying to keep their heads above water too.”

He pauses, and that instant lasts an eternity in the span of a single breath. “And you…” His voice changes at the word. Softer. Replete of an emotion you are too cautious to designate. “You are the resident everybody wants around.”

A watery, disbelieving snort escapes your lips. “That’s a terrible lie, Dr. Abbot.”

He tilts his head just enough that there is nowhere else for your eyes to go but back to his.

You hadn’t sensed how close the two of you had drifted together until now, so much so that the warmth of his breath fans over your face each time he speaks. So close that you can note how, under the fluorescent lights, his eyes have shed their usual hazel shade to yield to a rich honey brown instead, flecks of gold catching around the irises whenever he stirs.

“Ellis and Shen ask me every week if they can steal you for nights,” he states plainly. “Collins made a bet with Ahmad that you’d be an attending next year. Langdon trusts your judgment.”

You make a strained little sound. “I don’t think—”

“I trust you.”

He lets a beat pass before adding quietly, every word spoken as if willing to stand behind them for as long as you require him to. “And I’m proud of you. Do you know why?”

When you find yourself incapable of answering, he does it for you.

“Because you never make patients feel stupid. Doesn’t matter if they’re scared, or embarrassed, or angry, or convinced they’re wasting everyone’s time…you always find a way to remind them they’re still a person before they’re a patient.” His thumb dances in slow, abstract circles over your skin, tracing what feel like half-formed letters you can’t quite decipher. “And that’s not something you can teach.”

The words cut through you with the devastating precision of a scalpel, slipping past every defense you’ve stitch shut since medical school – since the first time someone in a white coat who self-proclaimed themselves a professor made you feel small. I trust you is the first incision, clean and deliberate against your chest. I’m proud of you, sinks deeper, dissecting right in between your ribs.

And the worst part is that he has absolutely no idea what he’s doing to you. How he is undoing years of self-doubt, debriding your wounds with nothing more than his voice.

How from now on, whenever Robby will question you, all you’ll think is: Jack believes in me.

“So yes,” he murmurs, blissfully unaware of the turmoil he just formed in your chest. “I’m proud of the doctor you’re becoming.” His thumb brushes unhurriedly over your knuckles once, twice. “But I’m even prouder of the person who’s becoming that doctor.”

The silence that ensues is enormous as you sit there, dumbstruck, conscious of your surroundings at once: the stairwell light humming overhead, the distant voices bleeding through the door, your own breathing which sounds unbearably loud…and, above all, the impossible fact that his hand is still wrapped around yours as if holding your hand is the most natural thing in the world.

Perhaps deciding he has said more than enough, Jack gives your hand one last, reassuring squeeze before guiding it back onto your knee with care, fingers lingering for the briefest moment, reluctant almost, as he releases it with the same care one might use to handle fine china.

Neither of you utters another word.

Instead, he shifts on the step and reaches for the prosthetic resting ahead of him, fitting it into place with the ease of a man who has repeated the same sequence thousands of times.

He pushes himself to his feet with a grunt, smoothing the fabric of his cargo pants over his thigh and descending the few steps to the door.

His hand halts on the handle. “Hey.”

You look up. The corners of his mouth lift into that same boyish, mischievous grin you caught earlier when he laughed.

“If I’m Steve Austin,” he asks, “does that make you Jamie Sommers?”

Before you brain can catch up, he’s already gone, the door swinging shut behind him while you remain where you are for a long time, staring at the empty spot.

Jamie Sommers.

You are familiar with that name. You even know who she is, but still, your hand fumbles for your phone, almost dropping it as you get the search open to be certain.

Jamie Sommers, also known as the Bionic Woman.

And Steve Austin’s love interest.

Oh.

──────────

III. SMELL (noun.) – the ability of perceiving scents through the olfactory system

By the time your Uber turns onto the street leading to the Wintergarden, you are already regretting the dress.

Not because it isn’t stunning – no, really it is. The emerald silk gleams beneath the passing lights of Third Avenue, the fabric cascading in liquid folds over your lap, the sort of dress to mesmerize Matthew McConaughey in a mid-2000s romcom.

The real issue is that stunning doesn’t equal warm.

But that’s a concern that neither you nor Santos had predicted when going shopping two weeks ago. Since then, Pittsburgh has dropped under twenty-eight degrees, the frost sticking to the cars and sidewalks, resulting in a wave of patients coming to the ER with all sorts of chilblains, fractures and even a few lacerations from icicles.

You should have worn a suit like Ellis suggested. Or at least brought a coat despite Santos’ vehement objections about ‘ruining the silhouette’. Or, better yet, stayed in bed with fuzzy socks, tacos and cinnamon grilled stickies while rewatching your comfort show.

Instead, you are on your way to the PTMC Annual Benefit Gala in a backless dress on December fucking 20th.

For this entire fiasco, you hold accountable Santos, who had bullied it into existence.

You still don’t fully know how becoming friends with her occurred. She had arrived three months ago on the day with a sharp tongue and a stare that could probably cut sutures if she tried hard enough. But it turns out that her personality was a wrapped trick, for underneath all of that sarcasm, it took you one look to recognize a woman who would go to war for her loved ones.

So, the moment she notified you on that first day about the pills in Langdon’s locker, you had chosen to listen, to not question. That had mattered. And, when a week later she discovered you were from Boston and christened you Marmee March, you had no choice but to accept your fate.

From that point on, Trinity Santos has treated your life like a project she is determined to improve – tonight being no exception.

When she found out you had been invited to the gala alongside Robby and Jack as the senior resident chosen to represent the department’s efforts throughout the Pittfest shooting, she straight off seized control of your existence, dragging you from boutique to boutique on your day off with Whitaker in tow.

Red dresses had been vetoed pronto. “You are supposed to look fucking lethal,” she had sighed while tossing one back on the rack, “not like Mrs. Claus or a holiday decoration.”

The black ones, rejected with equal disdain. “No, no, no. You are not attending a funeral.”

The only purple one had been held up and scoffed at. “Do you want to look like Barney the t-rex? Because I don’t think you do.”

Even Whitaker, who had seemed so uncomfortable in every store that you felt apologetic on his behalf, proscribed the blue dress you preferred on the grounds that it resembled too much like the pathology department’s scrubs.

In the end it had necessitated an absurd amount of searching to find the one you’re wearing tonight. But the moment you stepped out of the fitting room, Whitaker had gone crimson clear to the tips of his ears while Santos had eyed you up and down, letting out a low, mock-flirtatious, “Damn, Marmee.”

You had known right then and there that the search was over.

Looking at your form in the mirror, you had fleetingly wondered why this particular shade of emerald felt so…right. Familiar. Soothing. It undoubtedly wasn’t because it evoked somebody’s eyes. Absolutely not.

The Uber pulls to the curb, interrupting your restless hands from flattening the fabric.

As you pay and step out in heels that are openly torturing your toes, the cold air assails you pitilessly, sinking icy teeth into your exposed shoulders and the bare length of your spine.

“Fantastic,” you grumble to nobody, gathering the hem of your dress in one hand and clutching your purse in the other as you throw a glance toward the end of the avenue where the glass spires of PPG Place rise amidst the towers.

The city is beautiful in winter, you have to concede it.

The giant Christmas tree radiates in the distance, reflecting its lights across the garlands and accompanied by the unmistakable voice of Sinatra drifting from the hidden speakers all along the sidewalk. Ahead of you, the Wintergarden appears almost chimerical, shaped alike a towering crystal castle, valets stationed at the entrance to open the doors.

The whole town seems arrayed for a holiday. You, meanwhile, are one gust away from death by hypothermia.

Thankfully, as you cross the threshold and hand your purse to the coat check, the warmth shrouds you in a heavy blanket, thawing the goosebumps right off your bare skin. The comfort lasts all of three seconds, up until your eyes are irresistibly drawn to the ballroom at the end of the corridor.

You had expectations for tonight. Yet nothing could have prepared you for a room so breathtaking and ostentatious and…ridiculous, actually.

With its grand display of crystal chandeliers and long tables draped in ivory linen while a live quartet plays for the tuxedos and gowns, the luxury drips in nauseating abundance from every corner. Even the air reeks heavy with it, a fragrant cocktail of jasmine, tuberose and polished wood.

This, is a gala in honor of the people working at PTMC.

A celebration of the doctors as well as the nurses who spend most of their days saving lives, elbow-deep in blood, feces and vomit. A commemoration for those who perform medical miracles on a shoestring budget while the suits responsible for the shortages toast to their own philanthropy with expensive champagne and an air of Debussy.

What a fucking ironic farce.

You are still standing there striving to swallow the lump in your throat when you spot him.

A few feet away, he talks with a bunch of men screaming old-money socialites and executives that you don’t bother to identify, for the room itself narrows down to Jack Abbot the instant you catch sight of him.

He wears a taupe suit with a dark brown waistcoat – the sort of outfit that makes a man seem expensive without aiming to be. The tailored cut broadens his shoulders, defining the solid physique underlying with such ease that your appraisal lingers longer than it ought to.

On him, this color should be illegal. Because at this distance, you can envision how it emphasizes the green-gold in his irises once you are close enough to observe them properly.

As though some invisible string tugs at him, his gaze flicks to the side only to land on you and halt. For a millisecond, he forgets himself, his mouth parting and whatever sentence he had been listening to abandoned someplace in the depths of his mind.

His eyes travel unhurriedly over the emerald green of your dress, its silk varying with every breath you take, and rise along the line of your collarbone to your neck, then higher still, to your face.

Refusing to let this man understand the effect he possesses on your body, you lift an eyebrow in silent challenge.

The reaction is immediate.

Biting his lower lip to contain the smile threatening at the corner of his mouth, he turns back to the circle of men, listening with the appearance of attention. He nods when expected, even offers a brief reply, yet every few seconds his focus wanders back to you of its own accord, as if assuring himself that you are still here.

Just as you are about to drift closer to save him from his predicament, a hand flashes at the edge of your vision.

You turn, only to see there Robby in a midnight blue tuxedo, the bow tie sitting a little too neatly at his throat.

“Care for a dance?” he asks, glancing between Jack and you and the unspoken exchange hanging in the air. “Or…are you busy?”

You blink. It takes several heartbeats for the question to penetrate your brain.

“Um…” Robby clears his throat as your brain persists in flatlining, and the sudden, horrifying realization sets in that you have been gaping at his hand long enough to invite discomfort. “Oh. Yes,” you manage, a little breathless. “Of course.”

You don’t even recall taking it.

One moment you’re dawdling on the sidelines of the ballroom and the next, you’re standing in its center, Robby’s hand at your waist while the other clasps yours as the quartet commences a slow waltz. His grip is cautious, the steps precise, forcing you to acknowledge a point: Robby is a wondrous dancer.

One who looks about as pleased to be at this gala as a cat in a bath.

“I heard from Gloria that your evaluation with the department went well,” he whispers so as not to talk over the musicians.

Your grip tightens reflexively around his fingers. “Really?”

“Mm-hmm,” he hums, stepping you sideways. “The board asked me if I thought you were ready for the attending position.”

You stare at him, practically losing your footing during the next measure of the waltz. “And?”

Robby raises the hand resting at your hip to nudge his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose, only to slide it to its previous position. “And I said…” He pauses, maybe weighing the sentence one last time. “…that our hospital couldn’t find a better doctor for the job.”

You are floored. Truly, absolutely floored. Yes, you knew you had a serious chance of being selected – after all, Collins has moved to Portland and Langdon is still in rehab, making you the only internal candidate left. But hearing that Robby had said it out loud, that he had apparently pushed for your application…it constricts your ribcage in a manner you aren’t prepared for.

His mouth twitches at your expression, not sufficient to be labelled a smile.

“I know,” he sighs, directing his focus anywhere but on you. “Shocker.”  You yet can’t absorb what he has declared when he continues in a more solemn tone. “But you have to understand something before I leave.”

Leave.

The word lands strangely in the conversation.

You know he means the sabbatical he has talked around the past month, the one everyone keeps deluding themselves is only temporary. But right here, in this room, with this voice…it sounds like a different definition. Sadder. Final.

“I kept throwing you into the deep water because I needed you to know what it feels like when you are the one responsible. How cold it is. How lonely. God—” He lets out a laugh devoid of humor. “Don’t make the same mistakes as me. Don’t let this job drown you. Have a life. Okay?”

As you peer up at him, what catches you off guard isn’t the advice, it’s the pain underneath. All the grief and the guilt of a man drowning in the tide of his own ghosts, consumed by the crushing reality that he couldn’t save Leah, couldn’t save Adamson, and perhaps can no longer save himself.

You nod, not convinced any other response is adequate. “Yeah,” you agree softly. “Don’t worry, Robby. I know.” The corner of your mouth lifts involuntarily. “Jack already gave me the speech.”

The mention of the man draws the first genuine smile you’ve witnessed on his features all evening.

“I’m sure he did.” He guides you through an underarm turn, slowing to not step on your dress. “I’m glad,” he adds after a beat. “That you both have each other when I’m gone.”

A crease forms between your brows. “Robby—"

He shakes his head, cutting off your words before they can ask questions that hurt. “Jack…” he murmurs in secrecy, throwing a look over your shoulder to the doctor in question. “He is a good man. And he deserves good things.”

The quartet concludes the piece prior to a response from you, strings ascending into a final note that echoes in the air for the room to applaud politely. Robby and you offer each other one brief salute, uncertain how you both ended up having this conversation at all, parting for different areas of the room.

Your first instinct is to retrieve a glass of champagne at the refreshment table simply so you can occupy your hands with something that isn’t your own thoughts, but just about two steps on the way, you note that Jack is no longer at his previous position.

Instead, you find him and Caleb Jefferson discussing together at one of the tables, far from the rest of the crowd. The latter spots you first, his face brightening in that easy, welcoming way of his as he beckons for you to come over – which you are more than grateful to comply to, your current social battery hanging by a thread.

Jack rises as you approach, chair scraping over the floor as he gives it to you with a smooth pull, hands hovering near your arms as he ensures you sit without wrinkling the dress.

“You cleaned up nice tonight, Boston.”

Lowering yourself into the chair, you struggle to refrain your smile. “That’s the best you’ve got?”

“Oh no,” he objects with feigned seriousness, palms remaining near for a second longer than necessary. “I had a whole speech prepared.”

Tilting your head up to look at him, you tease, “And what happened to it?”

“You showed up.”

Caleb chuckles outright at that and presents his hand for you to shake. “Is he always like this with you?”

A sudden snort escapes you.

Jack finally sinks into the seat beside you, close enough that your knees brush beneath the table – barely, the contact no more than a whisper through the fabric, but more than enough to snag your attention all the same.

“Yes Doctor,” you reply, going for an amused tone as you glance at Caleb. “I would even say he’s tamed tonight.”

Without missing a beat, Jack reaches for the wine bottle, pouring a glass for you prior to filling his own. “Give me a few minutes to get into the groove.”

Dinner falls into an easy rhythm after that, with Caleb on one side and Jack on the other, who keeps attending to you with no comment.

There’s the breadbasket that migrates across the table until closer for you to reach. And later, when you abandon the mushrooms in a neat little pile at the edge of your plate, he wordlessly scoops them onto his own, replacing them with a spoonful of his rice.

At some point during desert, while the psychiatrist speaks about some new administrative mandate nonsense you are only half listening to, Jack’s arm rests along the back of your chair, his thumb idly brushing the polished wood only inches from where your shoulders meet your neck.

The highlight of the evening comes when the hospital’s chief executive officer, Trent Norris, pauses at your table to commend your ‘promising future’ and ‘the department’s confidence in your trajectory’.

You thank him as gracefully as you can manage, but the real reward is catching Jack covering his smile behind the rim of his water glass.

By the time the ballroom begins to thin around eleven, you seize the opportunity to make a discreet French exit.

Purse in hand, you slip through the doors and into the night, only to stop dead the instant the December air collides with your cheeks and the bare skin of your body, stealing the breath straight from your lungs.

Outside, the snow has been descending for hours, unnoticed behind the Wintergarden windows, burying the street below a thick white blanket that appears to have muffled all of Pittsburgh. Even the Christmas music coming from the speakers farther down the avenue sounds distant.

“Shit,” you curse, a pale cloud of breath fleeing past your lips.

Fumbling your phone out of your clutch, you open Uber and search. Nothing.

You refresh. Still nothing. One more time. The same message greats you: Uber is currently unavailable in your area.

“Shit,” you repeat, resignation supplanting the annoyance.

Wrapping your arms tightly around yourself, you mentally sort through the increasingly terrible options.

Cassie? No. Harrison is with her tonight, and besides, you’re fairly certain that her stupid court-ordered ankle bracelet doesn’t allow her to come this far downtown.

Walking? Absolutely not. At this temperature, you’d die of hypothermia before making it the first mile.

The bus? Probably suspended. If Uber can’t get through the snow, public transportation doesn’t stand much of a chance either.

Go back inside and wait for the snow to—A sudden warmth settles over your frame.

Looking down, you find yourself enveloped in a charcoal peacoat, its weight so comforting it makes you instinctively lean into it. The wool is still heated from the body that had been wearing it only moments ago, and with the coziness comes the scent you’ve begun to associate with one person only.

There’s sandalwood, some patchouli, and underneath both, that one elusive fragrance you’ve never quite managed to identify despite catching it countless times whenever he stood close enough to review a chart over your shoulder or hand you an instrument.

It’s clean. Soothing. Entirely him.

You drink in another breath, completely unbidden.

“You’re gonna get cold,” you murmur without turning.

Jack steps around until facing you. He lifts the collar of the coat a little higher around your neck, careful fingers smoothing the thick fabric so it sits properly over your dress.

“Don’t worry about me,” he says quietly. His gaze flicks over the snow-covered street, then right back at you. “What were you doing?”

You lift the phone still clutched in your hand. “I was looking for an Uber,” you admit, sheepish. “But, um…” You glance at the deserted road where not a single pair of headlights appears through the curtain of flakes. “Yeah. Don’t think it will happen now.”

Nodding, he fastens the front of the jacket one button at a time, tucking you in until you’re swallowed by the wool and the indisputable scent of him. “So…now you’re planning on turning into an icicle?” he teases, sliding his hands down your upper arms as he takes in your shiver.

A breathless, self-conscious chuckle catches in your larynx. “Yep. I thought I would make a pretty snowman.”

“Very.”

The corner of his mouth lifts. “Come on, Trouble.” He nods toward the path that leads to Smithfield Street. “I’ll drive you.”

It takes a second, at worst two, to form the decision. After all your dress is too thin for December, and furthermore after spending hours indoors, your heels are killing your feet, and you’ve reached the point where your fingers and toes no longer quite feel like they’re attached to the rest of you.

“Okay.”

He awaits for you to collect your skirt into one hand and silently offers his arm for you to loop through.

The path to his car is slick from a thin sheen of ice, and you aren’t entirely certain which of you is helping the other stay upright. His gait is uneven on the frozen pavement, careful rather than hesitant, each step placed with the precision of a person long accustomed to adapting to their surroundings.

By the time you reach his SUV, the cold has gone deep into your limbs.

Opening the passenger door, Jack offers you his hand to aid you climb in, closing it cautiously behind. The temperature within mirrors the one outside, the leather seats on the brink of glacial beneath the material of your dress.

He gets in the driver’s side moments later, but right before starting the engine, one of his hands disappears in the direction of his right trouser leg, fingers tweaking the prosthetic into a more comfortable position.

Then, he reaches for the ignition, the engine rumbling to life, and switches on the heated seats.

Relief washes over you with such force that your lashes fall on your cheeks, but you barely have time to enjoy it when you perceive movement in your periphery.

Opening your eyes, you discover Jack leaning over the center console, one arm stretching for your seat belt and guiding the strap with precision so that it doesn’t catch the silk of the gown nor pinch your skin.

He is sufficiently close that the details of his features come into focus: the scattered freckles across his cheeks comparable to a dusting of stardust, the slight irregularity of his upper front tooth while gnawing his lip, the crease between his brows deepening with attention as he works.

But the best part is his eyes. Bathed in the glow of the dashboard, they have shed every trace of green, warming instead into the rich liquor color of a cognac.

The buckle clicks into place.

“There,” he murmurs, his breath feathering alongside your neck.

You peer up at him with a helpless smile. “Hoping for a five-star rating?”

He doesn’t answer. In lieu of a reply, he adjusts the heater a little higher and shifts the car into gear, your grin faltering at his silence.

Had you pushed the joke too far? Maybe it had sounded childish. Maybe he’d only been helping out of courtesy and you’d mistaken kindness for familiarity. Shit, what a way to make the drive uncomfortable.

You part your lips, searching for words to smooth over whatever invisible line you might have crossed, but the apology never departs your mouth. In the blink of an eye, Jack’s hands find yours where they’ve remained folded in your lap, cupping them tenderly to draw them up to his face.

A first breath of warm air grazes over your chilled knuckles, rapidly followed by another. And another.

The sound is barely more than a whisper in the enclosed car, intimate in a manner that ignites a searing ache of desire in your lower belly, made all the more ardent by the fact that he never once looks away.

There is no other noise aside from that and the hum of the heater. No other sensation than the one of your hands coaxed to life.

“More like hoping that my favorite resident doesn’t lose her fingers,” he smirks after another measured breath.

“Favorite?” you echo, forcing a lighthearted tone that can’t quite mask the strained edge underneath. “I thought Ellis and Shen were your favorites.”

His thumbs stroke the backs of your hands in soothing circles.

“They’re my favorite Night Crawlers,” he replies. “Very different category.”

You swallow. “And…what am I?” you hear yourself ask, the question slipping out in a quiet rush.

Jack’s mouth twitches as he lowers your hands onto your lap, his own returning on the wheel. “One day,” he declares. “Maybe. But not tonight, Boston.”

The ride home is serene in the best way, with Christmas songs crooning from the radio and the city gleaming in shades of white under the streetlights. Wrapped in his coat, you sink deeper into it, his scent growing more familiar with every passing mile, until the thought of arriving at your apartment feels disappointing.

It takes a few turns for you to notice how the route is…different. Longer.

Your eyes hover on the avenues and boulevards rolling past the window, up until joy blooms someplace in your ribcage as you register he isn’t choosing the fastest way across town.

He’s making the journey last.

You say nothing. He doesn’t either.

At every red light, he glances at your face, checking that you are still cozy, still warm, still awake. Each time, you answer in your own soundless language: a small nod, the ghost of a smile, a breathed, “I’m good.”.

By the time he pulls up in front of your building, midnight has long since come and gone, fresh snow blanketing the pavement to transform the curb into an ice rink.

Jack is the first to step out, circling the SUV to open your door. He offers his hand, steadying you against the frozen pavement as your heels meet the slick ground, fingers entwining to guide you at an unhurried pace through the weather until you arrive at your building’s entrance.

Reluctantly, you let your hand slip from his to fish your keys from your clutch.

“Thank you so much, Jack,” you begin, turning toward him in the shelter of the awning, the words seeming hopelessly insufficient for all that has occurred over the past hour. “I don’t know how to—”

Lifting one hand, he shakes his head with a smile. “It’s okay. It’s on my way.”

You tip your head and, without granting yourself the chance to reconsider, close the small distance separating you. Your fingertips find the lapel of his waistcoat, pressing the fabric where it has twisted beneath the jacket.

“Liar,” you murmur.

His irises follow the movement of your hand before leisurely climbing to meet yours once more. “You didn’t just clean up nice tonight, you know?”

The blood rushes to your cheeks, all of a sudden fascinated by the snowflakes piling up on the parked cars.

You clear your throat. “Thanks. You—” A sharp inhale. “You looked pretty good too.”

A grin ghosts across Jack’s face. His hands drift to the peacoat that is still on your shoulders, fingertips absently toying with one of the buttons. For the briefest instant, you’re convinced he’s wondering how to ask for it.

“Oh! I’m-I’m sorry,” you blurt, fumbling to unfasten it with clumsy digits. “Take it back.”

But he closes his hands over the fabric with more firmness than previously, halting the motion with a shake of the head.

“No.”  

The single syllable is low. Certain. A heartbeat passes.

Then, softer, he repeats, “No.” He draws a slow breath through his nose, his jaw clenching as though wrestling with words that refuse to come.

“It’s…” His eyes flick to yours, and the next sentence seems to cost him something. “Keep it. You’ve just retired the jacket, sweetheart.”

Time stills.

Sweetheart. The endearment hangs there in the winter air between you, startling and gentle at once. Sweetheart. You become acutely aware of the snow collecting at the back of his curls, the faint cloud of each exhale, the unwavering way he’s staring at you now that the word has fled his lips. Sweetheart.

Neither of you speaks. Neither of you moves. Even Pittsburgh seems to have fallen into a reverent silence.

As a lone snowflake lands onto your cheek, Jack lifts a hand without a second thought, brushing it away with the pad of his thumb. The touch is featherlight, yet it lingers just beneath your lashes for some time, reluctant to surrender the contact.

“Get inside,” he breathes, the command carrying the weight of a plea.

You nod, although it takes a second to recall how, for there are a hundred things pressing against the back of your teeth, each more frightening than the last.

“Goodnight, Jack.”

That familiar, private smile finds him again.

“Goodnight,” he echoes, adding your name in a tone that follows you all the way to your apartment door.

Inside the quietude of it, darkness welcomes you.

You leave the lights untouched, allowing the room to remain steeped in blue shadows, the furniture reduced to nothing but shadows and shapes. Your purse slips from your shoulder onto the console, your heels join the floor with two muted thuds, and for a long moment, you simply stand there in the quietude, enveloped in the warmth of the coat.

Only then do you draw it closer, burying your face in the collar.

The scent returns instantly. The patchouli, the sandalwood…that one impossible note impossible to describe to anyone else and impossible to forget once you know it.

You breathe it in once. Twice. Three times.

The fragrance enfolds you so completely that the meaning of home stops feeling like the furniture or the walls or even the city outside your window.

It feels like his jacket draped over your body. Like the memory of his hands heating yours.

And, unmistakably…like Jack Abbot.

──────────

IV. HEARING (noun.) – the special sense by which noises and tones are received as stimuli

Ten o’clock on a New Year’s Eve shift is the most accurate comparison with Prometheus’ torture to ever exist.

No, seriously. If you could pick between a vulture tearing and devouring your liver every day of your immortal existence and drunk teenagers on a rampage in South 15…you would choose those birds of prey any day.

At least they would have the courtesy to be predictable. The teenagers, not so much.

“Stop touching that,” you call across the department for the third time, marching toward them with the tablet tucked under your arm. “If you try to rip that curtain down one more time, I promise you’ll spend the rest of the night on sedatives. And good luck explaining that to your parents.”

One of them lifts his head from a basin, face greenish and pupils sufficiently wide to absorb the fluorescent lights overhead. “We told you, ma’am, we’re eighteen!”

“Sure, sure,” you sigh, examining that everyone’s IV is infusing properly with no backflow of blood into the tubing. “So why are your IDs stating sixteen?”

“Those things are lying!” another one protests, only to be interrupted by a violent wave of nausea that has him gripping tight onto the metal pole for balance as he bends over his own basin.

You turn away to prevent them from testing your patience in a brand new manner, crossing the department in the direction of Central 7 where a patient with second-degree fireworks burns is waiting for you to assess the damage to his palm, your mind running through the treatment plan while attempting to ignore the small cries that have been resounding for the past half-hour.

Constricting items off. Soap. Vaseline. Bandage. Ibuprofen.

Twenty minutes there is all you need before you’re required in West 12 for an elderly man who fell in the bathroom with a possible fractured hip.

Then, there’s the ambulance bay, where a twenty-four year-old woman has a laceration across the forehead. And a suicidal man in Behavior Health 1. A sex accident in North 6. A nasal foreign body removal in Central 11.

By ten fifty, you start to regret every single aspect of your life that led you here tonight, birth included.

By ten fifty-eight, you call the OR for what appears to be the tenth time.

“Hi, it’s me again,” you say into the phone, propping your shoulder against the nurses’ station while maintaining a visual on the trauma bay.

Knowing their lines by heart when they’re overflowing, you monotonously repeat your own. “Yes, again. I know. I’m sorry. I just want to know if the OR is ready for Trauma Two.” You let out a sigh. “I understand that you have other patients, but um…”

You peer through the glass at the patient whose arm has been nearly severed after being struck by a motorcycle, the mangled limb immobilized as best as possible by Shen, blood gushing through the layers of gauze.

“…but I really need ortho to come down like right now.”

The person on the other hand responds words you can’t quite make out over the endless wails of a baby somewhere behind you.

You close your eyes, rubbing the bridge of your nose. “Right. Park. In ten minutes. Thank you.”

Hanging up, you relish the one glorious millisecond of quietude that fills your ears.

A baby’s scream shatters it. Once. Twice. Three times.

Your gaze lands on the North Nurses’ Station where Lena, who’s in charge tonight, stands behind the desk, sorting through a stack of paperwork with one hand and talking on the phone with the other.

“Hey, what’s that crying?” you ask when she finishes her call. “It’s been going on for some time.”

Lena pauses, glancing toward Peds, only to return to you with a drained shake of her head. “A baby Jane Doe,” she explains. “Left at a firework station. No note. No bag.”

Your eyebrows pull together.

“On New Year’s Eve?” you exclaim, looking once more in the direction of the cries.

She sighs, offering you the patient smile of a nurse who’s been through enough in this place to have lost the ability to be surprised by human beings. “Honey, if you think people take a break just ‘cause the clock is gonna strike twelve, you’re in the wrong line of work.”

You exhale through your nose, placing your tablet on the nurses’ station.

“A firework station, you said? A Safe Heaven location?”

“Yeah.” She beckons for you to follow as she walks to the pediatric room, you falling into step beside her.

“The exam showed she’s twenty-one days old,” Lena continues, her voice becoming increasingly difficult to grasp as the baby’s screams grow louder with every step. “Thankfully, the firefighters heard her over the fireworks, so she stayed outside only a few minutes.”

Your stomach tightens. “And physically? How is she doing?”

“Mild hypothermia and some smoke inhalation from the street celebrations, but she’s stable. Wolke finished checking her vitals a while ago so now we’re waiting for CYF to get a caseworker down here, but with holiday traffic…” She pauses, giving you a pointed look. “We both know it’s going to be a while.”

You nod silently, the wailing growing louder still – or perhaps you simply hear it more clearly now that you’re no longer attempting to bury it beneath the rest of the department’s noise.

Lena catches the expression on your face, and the corner of her mouth lifts knowingly.

“But you can try to calm her if you want. Henderson has, but…” She chuckles. “It wasn’t exactly a success.”

Your eyes travel to the glass door, to that tiny shape stirring inside the bassinet, then back to the chaos of the hospital surrounding you.

“Okay,” you agree, already reaching for the handle, but you have a moment of hesitation, turning to Lena. “Um…if someone is looking for me, can you tell them I’m here?”

She pats your arm with a pleased expression. “Sure thing, kid.”

The door shuts behind you in a silent thud.

The first thing you do is switch off the overhead lights, letting the harsh glare disappear until only the illumination from the corridor filters through the glass panel, casting the room in a muted luminosity far more suitable for the small patient inside.

As you sanitize your hands, the baby lies in the hospital bassinet, fists clenched beside her face, her cheeks flushed and damp with tears while her whole body trembles with the effort of making herself heard.

“Hey, sweetheart,” you murmur.

You approach slowly, keeping your voice low so she can register your presence prior to your hands touching her and causing her to startle. When you finally lift her from the bassinet, you are cautious to support her head and neck, drawing her to your chest till the warmth of her body nests beneath your collarbone.

“There you are,” you coo, one hand cradling the back of her head as the other adjusts its support under her bottom and thighs. “I’ve got you. Don’t worry, sweet.”

Her cries don’t ease. If anything, they grow louder, the sharp bawls vibrating straight through your chest.

“That’s okay,” you soothe, swaying from one foot to the other. “You can cry, bug. That’s allowed.”

You arch your spine a little to permit for the hand at her head to travel down the swaddle covering her back, tracing slow circles in between her shoulder blades and sliding upward to stroke gently the fine hair at the nape of her neck. Your thumb brushes along the soft curve of her ear as it resumes to the repetitive motion over her spine.

“I know, I know.”

A hiccup catches in her throat amid the cries as you rock her from side to side, maintaining a measured and even rhythm.

“You were cold out there, weren’t you? Everyone gets grumpy in the cold.” Another wail answers you. “Yeah, I know. I’m not saying you’re grumpy.”

The right side of your mouth raises despite yourself, forcing you to acknowledge that exhaustion has apparently reduced you to having a one-sided conversation with a baby and that, oddly enough, you adore it.

“Although, bug, for someone who’s only twenty-one days old, you have a pretty impressive set of lungs. No wonder the firefighters heard you.” You run the tips of your fingers up her neck, curling them around the soft fuzz of her hair. “That was a very bad place to spend the new year, right?”

As you keep talking, her cries commence to fracture, each new outburst shorter than the previous one, followed by increasingly long pauses where she draws deep shuddering breaths that cause her body to rise against yours.

“There you go,” you praise, veering away from the door to carry her farther into the dim corner of the room. “You don’t have to be scared anymore, I promise. We’re all here for you.”

Eventually, as the minutes pass, the sound dwindles into exhausted whimpers until the next time her mouth opens, it isn’t to scream but to search blindly for something to pacify her – the something in question turning out to be your scrub top.

“Oh no, I don’t think so, sweet,” you laugh quietly, readjusting your arm beneath her until she is more securely nestled alongside your chest, vaguely registering behind you the click of the door opening.

Turning your head, you halt at Jack’s frame standing in the doorway.

For a moment, neither of you says anything.

He has gone downright still, one hand lingering on the handle while the other hangs loosely at his side, and there is a look on his face that sends a strange current straight through your body before you can even begin to grasp the reason.

You have witnessed it in the past.

It’s the same emotion he had worn eleven days ago when you said goodbye at your building’s entrance after the gala: same quiet joy, identical softness around his eyes, same almost imperceptible hesitation, as though he had been on the verge of expressing what was on his mind and, at the very last second, had decided to keep it to himself.

You hadn’t figured out what it meant then. You still haven’t. Apparently, you’re going to keep wondering.

His eyes drag from your face to the baby curled against your chest, snapping back to you.

“Hey,” he finally breathes, barely louder than the hum of the corridor.

“Hey.”

Closing the door prudently behind him, Jack crosses to the sanitizer dispenser, rubbing his hands together as he makes his way toward you, his footsteps deliberately light so he doesn’t disturb the baby.

“Who’s this little lady?” he asks, lowering his voice even further.

“Jack Abbot, Jane Doe.” Tilting your head, you turn to the girl and adopt a conspiratorial whisper that is nevertheless pitched so he can listen to every word. “Jane Doe, Jack Abbot. Don’t worry, sweet. I know he looks like a grumpy old man, but it’s a big lie.”

“Oh, yeah?” Jack smirks, his head tilting just enough to accentuate the graying curls along his hairline.

“Yep.” You sway the baby gently from side to side, fighting the laugh on your lips.

“You’re just an old man.”

One of his hands flashes up to press dramatically over his heart.

“Ouch.” The wounded expression would almost be convincing if the amusement weren’t giving him away. “And here I was going to offer some help.”

You pursue your lips, pretending to weigh the proposition, your gaze deliberately tracing the length of his forearms. “Hmm…” The silence stretches for another heartbeat. “You know what? Good idea. We need to put those muscles to work.”

“That’s more like it.”

The words are supplemented with the faintest huff of laughter, although the teasing evaporates as soon as you start transferring the infant into his arms, both of your bodies turning cautious.

You conserve a hand at the back of her head to support the neck as you guide her to his chest. “Okay, just like that,” you murmur.

“I’ve got her.”

But despite it, you don’t let go instantaneously, and Jack doesn’t appear particularly interested in asking you to.

For several seconds, your palms remain there, overlapping his as you ensure the baby’s body is properly supported along his broad chest, your fingers stroking his knuckles whenever you smooth the swaddle. The contact lasts longer than necessary, neither of you inclined to be the first to break it, until eventually you withdraw your hands, allowing him to sink into the chair beside the bassinet, cradling the baby with delicacy.

He looks down at her.

“Why are you crying, pretty girl?” he asks quietly.

And that is the precise moment when your brain ceases to function, neurons undergoing a structural collapse at the vision filling your irises.

Jack is holding a baby.

Jack-stupidly-hot-Abbot is holding a baby.

You stare at him, unable to help yourself, watching his large hand covering almost the entirety of her back as he rocks her, thumb rubbing gently along the edge of the swaddle while his eyes lock on her face.

Somewhere, in the back of your mind, a small voice gives up pretending.

Fine, you like Jack. That’s no longer a secret even to your brain: you are hopelessly attracted to him.

Except…no. That isn’t quite right either.

Attraction is too simple a word. It makes it sound as though the only thing you desire is his body and nothing else, like the entire problem could be solved by getting him into bed and finally discovering what his hands feel like on your naked skin when they aren’t holding a scalpel.

And yes, you want those things, pretending otherwise has become increasingly ridiculous, but that isn’t the part that frightens you.

What you truly desire are the ordinary things.

How he takes his eggs in the morning, whether he cuts his sandwiches diagonally or straight down the middle, if he steals the blankets when he sleeps or makes sure you have enough.

You find yourself yearning to know what book sits on his nightstand, whether he leaves it open facedown when he falls asleep, what he uses as a bookmark. To know what’s his favorite mug, if he hums while cooking, hates cilantro or even talks in his sleep.

You want to know who Jack Abbot was like before the war and whether he thinks about you as often as you think about him.

And, most dangerously of all, you crave to know if there is a Christmas present hidden underneath his bed with your name on it, just as there is one beneath yours, waiting patiently to—

“Old dream maker, you heart breaker…”

Your thoughts come to a halt at the sound of his voice, Jack singing no more louder than a whisper.

His voice is altered here, the familiar rasp still present but mellowed by the low notes ricocheting in the dim room, distracting you, even for a brief second, from the emergency department awaiting on the other side of the door.

There are no more stretchers and monitors and shouting.

Only the three of you, a bubble drifting through the hailstorm.

He keeps swaying the little girl, who gives a small sigh alongside his chest, her body relaxing further into him.

“Wherever you’re going, I’m going your way.”  His voice unexpectedly quivering, he clears his throat, almost embarrassed by it, and lifts his eyes to yours before continuing. “Two drifters, off to see the world.”

The baby’s eyelids flutter once, twice, then close.

Something about the words lodges inside your ribcage. Two drifters.

You glance at Jack, at the tired lines around his eyes, at the gentleness in his expression, and for an instant the song sounds less like a simple lullaby meant to soothe a scared baby, but more like…an intimate ode to two people who have spent too long wandering in the dark, only to finally find their shore.

Unable to withstand the raw intensity of his stare, you look away, choosing instead to drag the empty chair and sit beside him.

“There’s such a lot of world to see,” he continues, and you find yourself captivated not simply by the melody, but by every variation in his voice.

Somewhere, between one breath and the next, the exhaustion you’ve been trailing since the beginning of the shift catches up with you, your head growing heavier as you fight it. Unable to resist any longer, your temple finds Jack’s shoulder, the fabric of his scrubs warm beneath your cheek.

“Moon river…” Not shifting away, Jack rectifies his posture so you can rest more comfortably, his head eventually sinking down to rest on yours. His cheek brushes your hair as the final notes leave his throat. “And me.”

The silence that ensues feels full rather than empty.

You remain there for a while, half-curled into the crook of his neck, the baby sleeping, up until you murmur, “Didn’t know you sang.”

Jack’s mouth curves, his breath fanning over your hairline.

“I used to be in a band when I was in high school,” he answers, his voice still hushed so as not to disturb the fragile slumber he has coaxed out of the little girl.

Your fingers rise to rest over the swaddle draping her back, brushing his by accident. His hand glides just so that the pads of his fingers find yours, the contact light, yet perceivable from the tips of your nails to your acromion.

“A band?” you ask, lifting your head to look at him without making an attempt to put distance between your bodies. “Really? What did you play?”

“Guitar.”

A smile paints his face as his gaze drops to the baby, his index finger tracing over your own in an absentminded stroke. “My parents were so tired of seeing me hang around everywhere with my Strat.”

You let out a snort, battling the motion it creates for fear of losing the sweet, strange weight of this moment.

“And did you have fans?” you tease.

Jack hums, considering the question with exaggerated solemnity. “Our moms.”

Hopelessly grinning, you are caught off guard when a yawn claws its way out of your throat.

“Sorry,” you mumble, bringing the hand that is on the girl’s back to your mouth to hide it behind your palm as your eyes sting. “It’s the shift. Lots of patients.”

“I know,” he replies gently, and there is something in his tone that forces you to lower your hand and peer at him once more. He hesitates an instant and adds, so quietly you almost miss it “If you want—”

“Two minutes!”

The shout comes from the hub, loud enough to slice through the quiet and break the spell.

You straighten promptly, sleepiness vanishing as you raise your head from his shoulder and whip it around, a smile on your face as voices call out the remaining minutes till midnight. Turning back to ask Jack what his New Year’s resolution is – probably one sarcastic like surviving another year in this department – the words die at your throat.

His eyes are unfocused. Not sleepy, nor tired…elsewhere.

His breathing is peculiar: brisker, shallower, and the fingers that had been laying so delicately over the baby’s swaddle have gone rigid, his whole body drawing taut as though an invisible threat has creeped in the room without warning.

“Jack,” you call him, uncertain. No answer.

The first firework detonates outside.

Jack jolts so violently that the small girl startles, a distressed sound escaping her throat. Driven by reflex, you gather her back into your arms, tucking her face into your chest to muffle the noise while your palm cups her other ear.

By the time the countdown ticks down someplace beyond those walls, you already understand where Jack has gone.

“Ten!”

You snap his name again, sharper this time. “Jack!” Still nothing.

“Nine!”

His expression hardens in a flash, seizing your breath.

Every trace of warmth vanishes from his face like a door has slammed shut behind his eyes, the pupils blown wide until all the hazel you know so well evolves into something darker, distant, unreachable.

“Eight!”

His fingers clamp around the arms of the chair, tendons standing out underneath the skin as his fingernails threaten to puncture the material.

“Seven!”

His jaw locks and you recognize the expression.

Not from him exactly, but from patients carrying wounds that never show up on scans, from soldiers whose bodies recall terror before their minds have time to name it, from a silence born when still hearing the screams on the field.

“Six!”

Pulling the baby even closer, you ensure her small face is nested into the fold of your scrubs to muffle the worst of the noise.

“Five!”

The fireworks begin to rise, each explosion outside reverberating through the building until the noise swallows the very air from the room.

“Jack,” you breathe, aware that his name alone won’t be enough.

“Four!”

His breathing fractures into shallow, jagged pieces – three rapid, desperate inhales that never quite reach his lungs. You comprehend now that he isn’t here anymore, not completely, that some part of him has been dragged in a place you can’t follow.

“Three!”

Holding the little girl securely, you lift the hand shielding her ear and bring your fingers to his face instead. He doesn’t recoil from the contact, but the muscle in his jaw is rigid under your palm.

“Two!”

Outside, Pittsburgh seems to hold its breath, the whole city suspended in the final seconds leading up to midnight.

And, with Jack still trapped in his trance, your instincts override your reason.

“One!”

The fireworks erupt all at once, accompanied by the distant roar of voices celebrating across the town and bleeding through each wall of the hospital.

You lean forward before he can disappear any further in the darkness of his memory and press a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

The instant your lips touch him, the tension running through his body gives way, the stiff set of his shoulders melts like a knot loosening under pressure, and a long breath leaves him – shaky, pained, and thick with relief.

You retreat only a couple of inches, your hand still on his cheek as you whisper, “Happy New Year, Jack.”

His eyes find yours again, wet and unguarded.

For a second, he says nothing. He simply looks at you, the shade of his irises close to roasted chestnuts in the somber light, travelling between yours as if committing the sight to heart before it can be taken from him by the next explosion outside. Then, his eyelids fall closed and his forehead lowers gently until it rests against yours. You meet him without hesitation, forehead to forehead, breath to breath.

“Happy New Year, sweetheart,” he responds.

You remain anchored there for what feels like hours, neither of you willing to break the spell. Outside the room, the countdown is already a memory, the hospital having resumed its relentless rhythm.

Yet inside this fragile pocket of quietude, the three of you are content to let the rest of the world carry on without you, even for a little while longer.

“Thank you for bringing me back,” Jack breathes at last, the familiar gravel returning to his voice after what must have been an eternity of holding his throat too tight.

You open your eyes, a flutter stirring in your chest when you notice his are still tightly shut.

 “Always,” you reply, voice hovering amid a promise and a confession.

The door opens.

You both separate so quickly that your elbow bumps the side of the chair, the baby stirring on your chest without waking, and when you look in the direction of the door, Ellis is already standing in the doorway, her sharp stare taking in everything in a single sweep: the sleeping infant in your arms, Jack’s expression, the distant that has just appeared between you.

One eyebrow rises.

There’s a moment where you are certain she is about to say something catastrophic or embarrassing, but whatever she catches in Jack’s face makes the amusement drain from her own, replaced by practical focus.

“You’re being asked, boss,” she informs him, already stepping back into the hallway. “Polytrauma incoming.”

Jack shifts back into motion.

“On my way,” he answers, and the authority in his tone returns with such effortless force that you remember why the whole department listens whenever he speaks. Long gone is the man who had been singing Moon River to a frightened baby, and in his place stands Jack Abbot, the attending.

However, before he leaves, his gaze drops to the baby snuggled into your scrubs, and the sudden softness in his features feels private, stolen.

He bends to press a tender kiss to the top of her head, then straightens just enough to cup your cheeks with his warm palms. Holding you there, he leans down to brush a feather-light kiss on your forehead.

You strive to ignore how your heart skips.

Jack draws back, a smile tugging at his lips as he turns toward the door. “See you later, my ladies.”

The door closes behind him.

After a long period spent staring at it, you exhale and sink deeper into the chair, adjusting the girl against your chest until her cheek rests comfortably over your heart, lulled by the rhythm of it. And God, how fast it beats.

You look down at her sleeping face, her mouth slack on your top as the rise and fall of her breathing gradually synchronizes with your own, your hand dancing over the swaddle in slow circles.

You wonder if she can perceive how utterly betrayed you are by your own body.

Because this isn’t adrenaline anymore.

Nor coffee, nor a sugar rush, nor any of the other excuses you’ve been feeding yourself for months. This is something else – a something you’ve been refusing to name.

You think of the stolen moments you’ve accumulated without realizing they were becoming precious: the warmth of his hand around yours in the stairwell, the way he made you laugh about The Six Million Dollar Man until your stomach hurt, the coat he placed over your shoulders a fortnight ago that now hangs in your wardrobe and still carries his smell.

You think of the way he says your name, of the dry amusement when he teases you, of the quiet praise he offers when he thinks you need to hear it.

And now, you think of his voice singing Moon River in this room, sufficiently soft to make the entire world fade.

You close your eyes just as the baby sighs alongside your chest.

Outside, the hospital begins another year.

But for once, you don’t care about the noise past these walls, for you’ve finally stopped pretending.

You know.

Your heart beats for him.

──────────

V. TASTE (noun.) – the faculty of perceiving the flavor of substances through sensory receptors on the tongue

The last time you took a swing to the face, you were fourteen.

It occurred at one of your friends’ slumber parties during a game of spin the bottle, which, in retrospect, had been a spectacularly terrible choice for a room full of hormonal teenagers.

You had spun it with one wish: that it would land on Morgan, your best friend whose lips you had wasted an embarrassing amount of time daydreaming on yours. Instead, the neck veered left and came to a dead stop on Rory, prompting his girlfriend, Claire, to deliver a nasty right hook, giving you no time to process what was happening.

You went home that night with a swollen cheek, a bruised ego and an extremely valuable lesson in the art of ducking a punch.

Alas, you discovered eighteen years later that very little had changed, and you were still shit at it, though to be fair, you could blame that on the fact that your hands had been busy taking the guy’s blood pressure when his volatile temper, aggravated by a Penguins loss, tipped into an uglier territory.

And yet, here you are.

Standing inside an elevator with an icepack pressed upon your mouth, staring at your own reflection in the polished metal doors as the floor numbers ascend to the rooftop, wondering how exactly you have gone from soon-to-be-attending to another statistic in an ER incident report, another name reduced to a line on a spreadsheet alongside Dana and who knows how many others.

All because some drunk hockey fan opted to use you as his personal stress toy, his fist knocking something loose inside you that you are far less prepared to treat than the swelling on your lower lip, which is beginning to throb beneath the cold.

You know it isn’t serious, you know that.

The cut is shallow, your teeth are intact, your jaw moves normally, your pupils are equal and reactive…if you were examining someone else right now, you would probably tell them to apply ice intermittently and take a Tylenol for the pain if necessary, then send them on their way.

But the thing is, there’s a vast distinction between recognizing that your body is medically fine and convincing your nervous system that you are well too.

The cold air bites your face the instant you step onto the rooftop, making you regret not taking your – Jack’s – coat from your locker on your way up here. Still, you don’t turn back, choosing rather to cross the few feet over to the railing.

The city lies below you, Pittsburgh glittering under the January sky, the buildings illuminated in scattered squares of yellow and white while headlights thread through the streets like veins. For a few seconds, you simply stand there, one hand gripping the balustrade and the other maintaining the pack in contact with your injured lip.

“Oh, fuck off,” you mutter when you perceive the first tear roll down your cheek.

You wipe it away with the heel of your hand, only for another to follow, and another, drawing a shaky inhale through your nose as you turn your focus back toward the city and try to force your breathing into something steadier.

Those tears aren’t only for the pain, not really, because layered with the throbbing ache in your face and the lingering shock in your nerves is a sentiment harder to quell: the humiliation of recalling how feeble you had felt barely ten minutes ago, thirteen floors down, when one moment of violence had stripped all your training and composure and authority to nothing more than a body striving to protect itself.

You hate that your body remembers every second of it.

Hate that your hands are still trembling and that you needed to walk away from the department so that neither Santos nor Cassie would notice just how profoundly it had shaken you.

But above all, you hate that some selfish part of you wishes someone were here. No, scratch that, not just anyone.

Him.

You yearn for the one person whose presence has become synonymous with safety without ever consciously deciding that it should be. You crave his dry jokes when you’re too angry to laugh, his hands when yours won’t cease tremoring, his voice when your thoughts are too loud.

You want Jack.

The epiphany is still landing someplace soft inside your sternum when the scraping sound of the rooftop door opening reaches you, accompanied by the particular rhythm of his footsteps, a cadence you’ve memorized over the past several months.

You hear him halt several feet behind you.

“You planning on making my life difficult tonight, Boston?” he asks, his voice carrying that familiar amusement, although something underneath it is quieter and far more concerned.

Inhaling slowly, you smear away the evidence of crying before turning your head sufficiently for him to hear you.

“I’m fine,” you manage, straining to keep your voice level through a stiff lip. “You can go back downstairs.”

The footsteps don’t retreat, but advance until his body heat radiates beside you, and, ahead of any protest, his palm closes gently around your wrist.

“Jack, seriously—” you begin, but he cautiously coaxes the icepack from your grip, his touch hovering enough time for you to register the contrast of his hand enfolding your own trembling one.

“Humor me.”

His index finger slips beneath your chin and turns your face fully toward him, the touch filled with such tenderness that it almost hurts more than the punch.

His gaze travels over your mouth, examining the swelling along your lower lip, the small split, the faint smear of dried blood at the corner, only to rise higher and catch on the tears still clinging to your lashes.

And something in him changes.

You have seen Jack exasperated. Have seen him exhausted, haunted, sarcastic, worried, even vulnerable in ways he rarely allows anyone to witness.

But this, is different.

His eyes have always been impossible to categorize, fluctuating between hazel, sage, amber and bronze depending on the light, but tonight every softer hue seems to have been distilled, leaving behind something fierce and close to molten. The green and brown are swallowed around his pupils by burnished gold threaded with copper underneath the rooftop’s lights, like the last embers of a fire that refuse to die even after all around has turned to ashes.

His jaw clenches once, twice. The muscle jumps as if anger is physically striving to force its way out of him and you practically expect it to crack his teeth, but he throttles it, channeling it into a stony expression, infinitely more dangerous than an outburst.

This isn’t rage that burns wildly.

It’s the heat trapped inside a furnace after the doors have been sealed shut, immense and suffocating, held there only because Jack is making a conscious decision not to let it consume the room.

His thumb traces prudently along the edge of your lips, reverently avoiding the bruised skin.

“Who did this?” he asks.

His voice is subdued – so much so that it frightens you more than shouting ever could.

You try to turn your face away, but his finger remains beneath your chin, gentle but firm, refusing to let you disappear from his sight. “It’s nothing.”

“I didn’t ask what you thought it was,” he replies, his gaze never leaving yours. “Who did this?”

As you look back at him, you register for the first time how breathless he is, not enough that anyone downstairs would have noticed unless they were paying close attention, but now that you’ve known him for fourteen months, you can recognize the signs of how tightly he’s holding himself together just to keep his chest from heaving.

He is angry. Furious perhaps. But deep down, something else has taken root.

Fear.

You can see it now, lurking just below his controlled expression, in the meticulous way he tracks your features as though cataloguing every mark, every swelling, every hidden spot that might ache, hunting for injuries you’ve kept to yourself.

He probably picked up your name right before handover, and at the mention of the code Hula Hoop, instantly beelined for the elevator without bothering to press for more details.

Suddenly, you grasp that if you don’t respond, he’s perfectly capable of going downstairs himself and piecing it together.

“An intoxicated man,” you ultimately admit, your voice barely carrying over the wind. “He became agitated during the examination.”

Jack’s expression doesn’t break, his jaw still visibly strained as he returns the icepack to your lower lip, adjusting it with the care of someone terrified that even the slightest pressure might flare your pain.

“Was he restrained or sedated?” he asks after a moment, holding you pinned with his stare. You nod.

“And will you press charges?” Another nod.

“Good.”

The word departs him with an exhale, the tight line of his shoulders easing by the smallest degree, although the residual anger stamped across his features lingers, and you know exactly where it takes root: the man who thought he could lay a hand on you.

Your eyebrows draw together at the abruptness of his relief.

A faint, humorless curve touches his mouth.

“I’m sure Robby wouldn’t have appreciated dealing with a hemorrhagic-shock patient right before the end of his shift.”

Something close to a laugh escapes you, and you place your hand over the back of his, hoping to bleed some of the dormant tension from it.

“He would have definitely kicked your ass,” you murmur, attempting a shaky smile. “Or stolen your leg.”

The joke falls between the both of you.

You know right away that it hasn’t reached your eyes because Jack doesn’t even pretend to smile this time, only observing you with an attentiveness that makes you feel bare, as if he can see where the bravado ends and the hurt begins.

His hand shifts alongside your jaw, fingers spreading unhurriedly until there is room for yours to slide between them.

You seize the chance.

Your fingers thread together, fitting into the spaces amidst his with an ease that feels absurd after months of keeping every shared touch unsaid, the solid back of his hand pressing against the palm of yours as he guides them upward to rest on your bruised cheek.

The heat of his skin seeps through you.

“You don’t have to hide with me, you know,” he murmurs.

The wind weaves through his grey curls, lifting a few strands from his hairline as he takes a slow, deliberate breath, his unblinking eyes centered on yours with an intensity that renders the cold completely irrelevant.

“If you’re hurt, or scared, or angry, or—or even tired, I want to be here for you,” he continues, his thumb tracing a slow path under your eye. “I trust you, you trust me. This is how it works between us.”

You swallow the lump gathering in your throat, pushing the icepack away from your mouth with your free hand. “You make it sound so simple.”

“It is,” he insists softly, his thumb leaving the curve of your cheek to trace the bridge of your nose – a touch so deliberate it feels less like an exam and more like being sculpted into memory, etching every line into the timeless marble of his mind.

You shake your head, unable to look away from him. “It doesn’t feel simple.”

His irises wander across your visage, pausing on your own before falling to your mouth and returning once more.

The sight of it sends an odd, weightless sensation through you, as if gravity has suddenly cut its strings and left the rooftop floating into the night.

“Not with you,” you finish, the confession nothing more than an exhale on his skin.

Something flickers in his expression, an emotion you’ve never quite seen so raw in the past, stripped of the gallows humor he so often uses as armor, causing the blood to rush thick and warm in your veins.

“What does it feel like, then?” he asks.

Your eyes drop to his mouth, tracing the sharp line of his lips and hoping that your brief peeking didn’t betray the surge of desire you just felt, but the subtle hitch in his breathing confirms that he has noticed exactly where your attention went.

“You…” you begin, only for the rest of the sentence to disappear somewhere behind your teeth. “You should go.”

He doesn’t move. “Do you want me to?”

The question hangs a moment.

You remain silent, and Jack doesn’t fill the void for you. He merely waits with a steady, unhurried patience far more crushing than demand or pressure – a tranquility that exposes the truth until it’s impossible to deny you’ve stood on the precipice of this moment for months.

“Because if you want me to go back downstairs,” he adds, wetting his lips with a slow swipe of his tongue. “I’ll go.”

You lean closer to him before your mind can fully catch up with the decision, drawn forward by something deeper than thought till the cold is long forgotten, thawed by the warmth radiating from him.

“I don’t want it.”

His breath catches. “Boston…”

“No,” you interrupt, your fingers tightening around his. “Don’t call me that.”

For the first time since he stepped onto that rooftop, a genuine flicker of joy paints his features. “Okay,” he murmurs. “What should I call you?”

Your heart stumbles at the question, for the truth is already suspended at your lips, an unspoken phantom he recognizes just as clearly as you do, and there’s something so intimate about hearing him say the word aloud. “You know.”

He takes a half-step closer, offering a polite choice to back away, yet his body eclipses the whole of Pittsburgh until his eyes are the only anchors left in existence.

“Sweetheart.”

You bridge the distance in a heartbeat, stopping only when your mouths hover on the verge of touching, your lips parted as you breathe shakily and feel how the heat of his exhale mingles with yours.

His eyes drop once more to your mouth.

“My sweetheart,” he whispers before closing the last inch of space.

The kiss is exceedingly delicate, almost unbearably so, as if Jack doesn’t quite trust the moment yet, like finally holding you after months of glances, guarded gestures and reassuring words might shatter whatever fragile bond has been growing between you.

His lips are warm despite the January air, far softer than you expected, and you can’t be certain if the kiss lasts for a mere second or an entire lifetime.

When he pulls back by barely an inch, your eyes open at the same moment, simply for the joy of gazing at each other.

Surprise fills his expression, beneath which lies a disarming, boyish vulnerability – the kind you’ve caught glimpses of before, like that day in the stairwell, but never quite this close. It’s as though even Jack Abbot hadn’t entirely believed this would happen until he felt your mouth against his.

Neither of you speaks – or even dares to.

You lean forward again, and this time there’s no hesitation.

Whatever self-restraint has tethered the two of you to opposite sides of an invisible line for months ultimately snaps.

His hand releases yours just so his arm can circle your waist while your fingers tangle in the fabric of his scrub top and pull him closer, his other hand cupping the side of your neck.

In the process, the icepack slips from his fingers and hits the concrete with a clatter someplace near your feet, forgotten in the blink of an eye as your free hand finds the curls at the back of his head, your fingers threading through them until an ‘accidental’ tug drags a deep, guttural sound from somewhere starved in his throat that goes straight through your core.

His mouth parts against yours, the kiss deepening as his tongue caresses the seam of your lips, and all of a sudden, everything you’ve spent months trying to explain becomes painfully simple, for you know exactly what you want, and it’s him.

You taste the iron of your blood where your split lip has bled, the salt of your earlier tears, and beneath it all, the unmistakable trace of the coffee he must have had right before his shift.

For a few suspended seconds, nothing else exists – no hospital, no patient several floors below, no bruise.

Only Jack.

You barely notice when your back meets the rooftop railing, but Jack does, of course, and he pulls away just enough to breathe, his arm tightening around your waist.

“Wait,” he rasps, forehead hovering close to yours. “Easy, love.”

He presses another brief kiss to your lips, almost apologetic, adding quietly, “Not there.”

You blink at him, slightly breathless and more than a little light-headed. “What?”

“We are not kissing against this,” he declares with a smile, throwing a glance to the balustrade behind you.

Despite the unbridled hammering of your pulse in your ribcage and your lips still tingling from his, a laugh bubbles up. “Oh, really? Doctor’s orders?”

“Oh yes, absolutely,” he assures you solemnly, resting his forehead against yours as his thumb strokes all along the base of your neck. “Who knows when that thing was installed?”

You glance over your shoulder at the railing and snort. “Good thinking.”

Releasing your hold on him and taking a few steps in the direction of the nearest wall, you leave him behind with a fleeting expression of confusion until you turn around and lean back against the brick, raising your index in a slow, unmistakable gesture for him to come closer.

The confusion vanishes, replaced by that adorable crooked smile.

Within seconds, he is standing in front of you, his arms braced upon the wall on either side of your head, his body so close that you can catch the heat pouring from him.

His eyes roam all over your face without the slightest attempt to conceal how thoroughly he’s devouring you.

“You really are trouble,” he breathes.

You reach up to loop your hands around his neck, and his right arm abandons the wall to lock around your waist, gathering you against him until even the air can’t find a way between your bodies.

“Yet who’s the one who came up here to see if I was all right?” you tease, peering into his eyes.

“Always,” he answers without hesitation.

He holds your gaze for a long moment, his eyes burning amber underneath the rooftop lights, and you suddenly grasp why you’ve spent fourteen months finding excuses to observe them: they have always given him away. Even when his mouth and his jokes and his nicknames didn’t, there always were his eyes to scream the truth.

You meet each other halfway with neither hesitation nor fear anymore, surrendering to the sweet ambrosia of his mouth and the roughness of his stubble against your skin. His hand is firm at your waist, the other rising to cradle your jaw with a tenderness that has always been there.

You have adored the feeling of his hands when they reached for you in that trauma room, adored the sight of him laughing with you in the stairwell, adored the scent of him lingering inside the coat he once placed around your shoulders and adored just as much his voice singing Moon River to a frightened baby in the middle of a chaotic New Year’s Eve shift.

You’ve fallen for every version of him you’ve been allowed to encounter.

But this…this is different.

Because the moment you feel his tongue tangled with yours and his hand finds the hem of your scrub top, you finally discover the one sense you’ve been missing.

And God, how you love the way he tastes.

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[ofstarsandvibranium]

Painted Eyes

Fandom: Shawn Hatosy - RON2

Pairing: Titus Danforth x GN!Reader

Summary: The portrait of you and Titus is finished and now hangs in the dining room. Despite the painter capturing your likeness perfectly, they missed something: the softness in Titus' eyes when he’s with you.

A/N: Based off Shawn’s look here with the LA Times.

Shawn Hatosy Masterlist

You stare up at the painted portrait of you and Titus. Beside it is the one of his father, and a portrait of him and Ursula sits on the other side.

Painted Titus is staring back at you, his eyes hard, but a slight smirk on his lips. For your painted version, you’re staring out, eyes filled with fondness and a soft smile on your lips. Your hand on Titus’ heart, his arm around your waist.

You hear heavy footsteps approaching, entering the room and stopping beside you, “You look so beautiful,” your husband says, staring up at the portrait that’s captured your attention.

You hum, “You look just like your father here,” your eyes flit to Chester Danforth’s portrait. Both men have stoic faces, the corner of their lips in a slight upturn, as if taunting the painter with intimidation and mockery.

“Thank you,” Titus murmurs.

You sigh and give a slight shake of your head, “The painter got your eyes wrong though.”

Titus looks at you with furrowed brows, “No he didn’t.”

You shake your head again in disagreement, “They look so…hard. Emotionless. That’s not how they look.”

“Yes, they do,” your husband insists, slightly amused.

You fully turn yourself to your husband, “Not when you’re with me," you wrap your arms around his waist and look at him, "I wanted him to capture how your eyes are when you’re with me.”

Titus, in turn, places his hands on your hips, “And how do my eyes look when I’m with you?” he asks in a gruff whisper.

You untangle your arms from him to slide your hands up and rest on his chest, “They’re soft and full of love whenever you’re with me. I wanted the painter to capture that Titus Danforth. Because that’s the Titus Danforth that’s so much more than what his family perceives him to be. That's the Titus I fell in love with.”

And you see those eyes soften even more as they gaze upon you. Those eyes proof that Titus isn’t just a hardened, ruthless killer, but also a man who’d given his heart to you. A man in love.

Titus hums and pulls you closer, “Can’t let everyone my weakness.” His nose grazes against yours.

You giggle, "Your weakness...and your strength."

"Damn right," he murmurs before pressing his lips to yours.

[ofstarsandvibranium]

I like a guy but I’m not his type so I’m trying to help him find a girl. 🙂

[sintaera]

Could you please, I am begging you from the bottom of my heart, write something for Baelor Targaryen who's forced into a marriage with female!reader, who he totally doesn't want as he is still grieving Jena, but Baelor is always attentive, loving and caring, but the reader develops Hanahaki disease? Because the reader believes so irrecoverably that Baelor doesn't reciprocate the reader's feelings, but once the Grand Maester, against your wishes, informs Baelor that if he doesn't intervene, the disease will consume you!? Please.

I truly hope that this was what you had in mind, because this absolutely broke my heart!

𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐒 | 𝐁𝐀𝐄𝐋𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐆𝐀𝐑𝐘𝐄𝐍.

“You made flowers grow in my lungs, and though they are beautiful, I cannot fucking breathe.”

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: sexual content, explicit material, hanahaki disease, angst, blood loss, yearning, unrequited love, minors dni.

The halls of the Red Keep had never felt so cold, even in the height of summer. You stood before the High Septon in your wedding gown of deep crimson and black, the colors of House Targaryen, though the fabric weighed upon your shoulders like iron chains.

Baelor Targaryen, Prince of Dragonstone, stood beside you, his dark hair catching the light from the stained-glass windows, his mismatched eyes fixed somewhere beyond the Septon's shoulder.

He had spoken the vows in a steady voice, the same voice that had once commanded armies and soothed a dying wife. Now it was yours to hear, yet it carried no warmth meant for you.

You had known, of course. Everyone at court had known. Jena Dondarrion's death still hung over him like a mourning shroud that no amount of time seemed able to lift.

The Lady Jena had been his great love, the mother of his children, the woman for whom he had once smiled freely.

You were the political necessity, the alliance sealed in blood and duty after the realm demanded a new mother for the realm's future. Your own house had offered you without hesitation.

You had gone willingly enough, believing that kindness might grow into something more. You had not expected the depth of the void that still belonged to another woman.

The ceremony ended with the exchange of cloaks. Baelor's was heavy with the embroidered three-headed dragon, and when he settled it about your shoulders his fingers lingered for a moment against the nape of your neck.

It was the first time he had touched you with any intention beyond the formal. You felt the heat of his skin even through the layers of silk and wondered, fleetingly, if he felt anything at all.

Then the moment passed, and he turned to face the assembled lords and ladies with the composed mask of a prince who had already given too much of himself to the realm.

That night he came to your chambers as custom demanded. The candles had burned low, casting long, wavering shadows across the carved posts of the bed and the deep crimson hangings that matched the cloak he had placed around your shoulders only hours before.

You heard the soft scrape of the connecting door, then the quiet tread of his bare feet on the stone. He wore only a loose black robe, catching what little light remained and when he drew near, you caught the faint scent of him, clean skin, a trace of the sandalwood soap the royal baths used, and beneath it something warmer, uniquely his.

He was gentle.

He asked permission before every touch, his voice low and steady in the hush of the room.

“May I?” he murmured as his fingers first found the laces at the back of your shift. You nodded, and the fabric whispered as it slid from your shoulders.

The air against your newly bare skin felt cool; his hands, when they followed, were warmer. He traced the line of your collarbone with the pad of one thumb, slow and deliberate, as though mapping territory he was not yet certain he had the right to claim.

You felt the slight roughness of sword calluses against the softer skin of your breast, the careful weight of his palm as he cupped you there, testing, waiting for any sign of discomfort.

He spoke your name softly in the dark, as though testing the sound of it against the silence that still carried another woman’s memory.

The syllables left his lips like something fragile. You answered with his, and the single word seemed to settle something in him.

When he lowered his mouth to the curve of your throat, you felt the heat of his breath first, then the gentle press of lips, the faint scrape of stubble he had not fully shaved away. His beard scraped your cheek, and smelling faintly of the same sandalwood.

You lifted a hand and threaded your fingers through his hair, and he made a quiet sound—almost surprised—against your skin.

He moved over you with the same measured care he brought to everything else. One knee between yours, the solid weight of his body held carefully above, never crushing.

When he finally settled between your thighs, he paused again, eyes searching yours in the dimness.

“Tell me if I hurt you,” he said, and the honesty in the request made your throat tighten. You felt the blunt pressure of him, the slow, careful stretch as he pressed forward, the heat of him filling you inch by careful inch until he was fully seated and both of you were breathing harder than the act alone required.

He held still, forehead resting against yours, giving your body time to adjust. The scent of him was stronger now, mixed with the faint metallic tang of new joining.

Only when you shifted beneath him, a small roll of your hips that drew a low breath from his chest, did he begin to move.

The rhythm he found was unhurried, deep rather than frantic, each stroke deliberate. You felt the flex of muscle in his back beneath your palms, the slight tremor in his arms as he held his weight, the way his breath hitched when you tightened around him.

His mouth found yours once, a soft, open kiss that tasted of the wine from supper and something sweeter underneath. When the pleasure built—slow, almost reluctant, as if your body itself was uncertain it was allowed—he seemed to sense it.

One hand slipped between you, fingers skilled and patient, circling until the tension coiled and broke. You cried out softly against his shoulder; he followed a few heartbeats later with a quiet, broken sound that might have been your name again, or might have been something else entirely.

When it was done he did not pull away at once. He held you for a time, still joined, his breathing slow and even against the damp skin of your neck. One hand stroked the length of your spine in long, absent passes.

You felt the gradual softening of him inside you, the cooling of sweat along your joined sides, the steady thud of his heart against your breast. In that quiet interval you thought perhaps that the holding itself was a kind of beginning.

The candles guttered.

Somewhere beyond the windows the Blackwater moved against the walls of the city. You drifted in the circle of his arms, the scent of him and the lingering warmth of his body the last things you knew before sleep took you.

In the morning he was gone before you woke, already at the small council table, already carrying the weight of the realm.

The place beside you was cool. Only the faint indentation of his head on the pillow and the lingering sandalwood on the sheets remained. You rose alone and told yourself that this was the shape of a Targaryen marriage.

Duty first. Affection later, if the gods were kind.

Baelor was attentive from the first week.

He did not force himself upon you again until you indicated readiness, nor did he retreat entirely into the solitude of his grief. He held your hand when the court expected it. He guided you through the labyrinth of courtly manners with quiet patience.

When you stumbled over the names of lesser lords from the Stormlands or the Reach, he corrected you gently, never with the sharp edge that so many Targaryens carried like a second blade. In the evenings he would sit with you in the solar overlooking the Blackwater, speaking of the day's affairs, asking after your comfort, ensuring the servants brought the foods you preferred from your own childhood table.

He remembered that you disliked over-spiced dishes. He remembered that you preferred honeyed wine to the heavy Arbor reds. He was, in every outward measure, a good husband. A good man.

And yet.

You watched him when he thought no one looked. You saw the way his gaze lingered on empty chairs at the high table, chairs that had once been occupied by a woman with dark hair and a ready smile.

You noticed how, on certain anniversaries—the date of his first wedding, the date of Jena's death, the namedays of the children she had given him—he withdrew to the godswood and remained there until the stars wheeled high above the red leaves of the heart tree.

You heard him murmur a name in his sleep that was not yours. Jena. Always Jena. The love you felt for him grew in the spaces between his kindnesses, fed by every careful gesture, every soft word, every moment he chose to remain near you rather than vanish into his grief.

It was a quiet, desperate love, the kind that asked for nothing and received less than nothing in return. You told yourself that duty was enough. You told yourself that a man who treated you with such consideration must, in time, come to care.

You told yourself many things as the weeks turned into months and the seasons shifted around the Red Keep.

You learned the rhythms of his days.

You learned that he rose before dawn to train in the yard with Ser Gwayne Corbray or whoever of the Kingsguard was free. You learned that he preferred to break his fast alone with reports from the realm rather than in the crowded hall.

You learned that he visited the nursery each evening without fail, speaking to his children of their mother with a tenderness that made your throat tighten. You never intruded on those visits. You waited in the corridor sometimes, listening to the low murmur of his voice, and then slipped away before he emerged.

The love you carried for him became a private thing, something you tended in the quiet hours when no one else could see.

The first petal came on a morning when the rain fell soft against the windows of your chambers. You had woken alone, as you often did.

Baelor rose early for the small council. You had coughed once, a dry tickle in the back of your throat, and something pale and soft had landed upon your palm.

A single white petal, edged in the faintest pink. You stared at it for a long time. You knew the stories. The maesters spoke of Hanahaki in hushed tones when they thought the highborn were not listening, a disease of the heart that bloomed in the lungs of those who loved without hope of return.

Flowers grew where the unrequited feeling festered, and in time they choked the breath from the body. There was no cure save the return of that love, or the surgical removal of the roots, which took the feelings with them and left the sufferer hollow as a drum.

You crushed the petal between your fingers and flushed it away with the morning wash water. You told no one.

Days passed. The cough remained mild at first. You hid it behind handkerchiefs and quiet excuses of the changing seasons, of the damp that rose from the Blackwater after storms. Baelor noticed, of course.

He noticed everything that concerned those under his care. He sent for the Grand Maester on the third day, his brow furrowed with genuine concern as he stood at the foot of your bed.

“It is nothing,” you said, your voice carefully light, though the petal that had risen with the words scraped the inside of your throat. “A remnant of the damp. I will be well soon enough.”

The Grand Maester examined you with the practiced detachment of his order, his chain of office clinking softly with each movement. You met his eyes while the attendant pages were dismissed and, in a voice low enough that only he could hear, you begged him. “Say nothing of this. Not to the prince. Not to anyone. I will not have him burdened further. He has carried enough.”

The old man hesitated. His lined face showed the conflict of a man sworn to truth and healing. “My lady, if this is what I suspect—if the roots have already begun—”

“It is not. And if it were, it is my burden alone. Promise me. Swear it upon your chain.”

He promised, though the reluctance sat heavy in the lines around his mouth. You returned to your duties with a smile fixed in place.

You sat beside Baelor at supper and listened to him speak of the Reach harvests and the movements of the Ironborn along the western coasts.

When his hand brushed yours beneath the table in a gesture meant for comfort, your heart clenched so tightly that another petal rose in your throat.

You swallowed it down with a sip of watered wine and prayed he had not noticed the brief catch in your breath.

The disease advanced with the quiet persistence of ivy climbing a stone wall. Petals became clusters.

The cough deepened from a tickle to a rasp that left your chest aching. At night, when Baelor slept in the chamber beyond the connecting door, you would kneel by the chamber pot in the dark and retch soft white blossoms into the darkness.

They smelled faintly of the gardens at Dragonstone in early spring, or so you imagined. You never knew the true scent of the flowers that grew from unreturned love.

You only knew that each one carried a piece of the feeling you could not speak aloud, and that discarding them felt like discarding fragments of your own heart.

Baelor grew more attentive still as the weeks wore on. He ordered the windows of your rooms sealed against drafts and had the braziers kept burning even on milder nights.

He had the cooks prepare light broths and honeyed teas laced with the herbs the maesters recommended for lingering coughs. He sat with you through long afternoons when the rain kept the court indoors, reading aloud from the histories of Aegon's Conquest or the songs of the Age of Heroes, his voice a low, steady river that soothed even as it wounded.

You loved him more for every kindness. The flowers loved the increase of that love. They thrived upon it, sending finer roots deeper into the soft tissue of your lungs.

One evening he found you in the godswood, leaning against the heart tree with your arms wrapped around your middle, your breath short and your face pale against the white bark.

He crossed the distance in three long strides, his black cloak flaring behind him, and caught your elbows before you could sink fully to the tangled roots.

“You are unwell,” he said. Not a question. His mismatched eyes searched your face with an intensity that made the petals shift and rustle inside your chest. “I have sent for the Grand Maester again. This has gone on long enough.”

“No.” The word tore from you sharper than you intended, edged with a desperation you could not fully hide. “Please. It is nothing. Only fatigue from the long days. I will rest. I promise.”

He did not believe you.

You saw it in the set of his jaw, the same strong jaw that had once faced the Blackfyre rebels across a field of blood without flinching. But he did not press further that night.

He simply guided you back through the torchlit corridors to your chambers, his hand warm and steady at the small of your back, and remained there until you pretended the deep breathing of sleep.

When the connecting door finally closed behind him with a soft click, you curled onto your side and coughed until the sheets were dotted with pink-tinged petals and your throat felt raw as scraped parchment.

You begged the maesters again and again in the days that followed.

The Grand Maester, the younger ones who attended you in secret when Baelor was occupied with the council, even the midwife who had once served your mother in the years before your presentation at court.

All of them received the same plea, delivered in a voice that grew weaker with each telling. Do not tell him. Do not force this knowledge upon a man still grieving the loss of his first love. Let me carry it. Let me die with it if the gods demand it, but do not make him the instrument of my cure or my end.

They agreed, some with tears standing in their eyes, some with grim nods of men and women who understood the weight of a prince's sorrow. You were the princess now, after all. Your word carried the weight of the crown's expectation.

Weeks blurred into a haze of carefully managed appearances and private suffering. The court began to whisper of your frailty. Ladies behind fans speculated about a possible pregnancy that would not take, or a weakness of the lungs inherited from some distant ancestor.

Baelor canceled planned hunts in the kingswood and postponed a tourney that had been months in the arranging so that he might remain near the Red Keep. He brought you books from the library towers, rare volumes bound in cracked dragonhide and written in the elegant hand of long-dead maesters.

He spoke of his children with a careful hope, of how they might come to love you in time if you were patient with their grief as he had been patient with his own. He never spoke of Jena in your presence, though you felt her absence like a third person standing in every room the two of you shared.

You loved him for the silence as much as for the words he did offer.

The flowers multiplied in the dark of your chest.

Then came the night the blood first joined the petals.

You woke choking, the taste of iron thick and metallic on your tongue. Red stained the white blossoms that spilled from your lips onto the pillow in a grotesque scattering.

The pain was no longer a dull, manageable ache. It was a living root system spreading, thorns and fibrous stems twisting through soft tissue with a slow, deliberate cruelty.

You pressed a cloth to your mouth and stumbled to the window, gasping the cold night air that rose from the river. Below, the Blackwater glittered under a thin, indifferent moon.

For a long moment you thought of the drop, of the water that might end the suffering before the flowers finished their work. The thought passed like a shadow. You loved him too much to leave him with another death to carry. You returned to the bed and waited for dawn with blood drying on your chin.

In the morning Baelor found the stained cloth you had tried to hide beneath the mattress. His face went very still when he unfolded it, the pupils of his eyes darkening as he took in the evidence.

He said nothing at first.

He only gathered you against his chest with arms that were strong and careful in equal measure, and held you while the residual shaking worked its way through your frame.

You felt the steady beat of his heart against your cheek and wondered, not for the first time, if that heart still belonged entirely to a dead woman whose name he spoke only in sleep.

“I will not lose you,” he murmured into your hair, his voice rough with something that sounded like fear. “Whatever this is, we will face it together. You are not alone in this keep.”

You wanted to tell him then.

The words rose with another wave of petals that scraped and tore. You swallowed them both down and forced a smile against his tunic. “It is only a chill that has settled deep in the lungs. The maesters will see me through with their teas and their rest. You must not worry so.”

He left for the small council with a promise to return by midday, his hand lingering on the doorframe as though he might change his mind and stay.

The moment the door shut and the sound of his boots faded down the corridor, you summoned the Grand Maester once more. Your voice was raw and thin when you spoke the command.

“You will say nothing. Do you understand me? If he asks after the blood, you will speak of seasonal fevers and the need for prolonged rest. Nothing of roots. Nothing of flowers. Nothing of the true cause. Swear it again.”

The Grand Maester's chain rattled as he bowed his head, the links of silver and gold and iron catching the light. “My lady, the roots are advancing faster than I first believed. Without intervention of one kind or another—”

“Without my leave, there will be no intervention of any kind. Swear it upon the chain you wear and the vows you took.”

He swore.

The words came heavy.

You believed him because you had no other choice. The alternative was to watch Baelor's face when he learned the truth, and that was a pain you were not yet ready to inflict.

That afternoon Baelor returned earlier than expected, the council session cut short by some matter he did not explain. He found you seated by the fire in the solar, a book open but entirely unread in your lap, the pages turned only to give the appearance of occupation.

He dismissed the servants with a quiet word that brooked no argument and knelt before your chair on the stone floor. His hands took yours with infinite care.

“Tell me the truth,” he said, looking up into your face. “I am no fool, and I am no stranger to the signs of a body failing. I see the way you hide your coughs behind your hand. I see the color leaving your cheeks day by day. I have lost one wife already to the cruelty of this world. I will not stand idle while another slips from me into the dark.”

The words struck deeper than any blade forged in the forges of King's Landing. Another wife.

That was all you were in the end.

The replacement.

The duty the realm had demanded when the first love was gone. You pulled your hands free of his and turned your face toward the fire so he would not see the tears that rose unbidden.

“There is nothing to tell beyond what the maesters have already said. I am tired. The season has been harsh. That is all.”

He rose and paced the length of the solar, his black cloak swirling behind him like a living shadow. You watched the set of his shoulders, the way grief and worry warred in the lines of his body, the way his hands flexed and released at his sides as though seeking something solid to hold.

He was a good man. He deserved peace after all he had endured. He did not deserve to know that the woman forced upon him by the needs of the realm was dying for love of him, her lungs filling with the physical proof of a feeling he could not return.

That night the Grand Maester broke his word.

You learned of it only when Baelor burst through the connecting door in the small hours before dawn, still dressed in the dark clothes he had worn to supper, his hair disheveled and falling around a face that looked carved from pale stone.

His eyes were wild in a way you had never seen, not even in the rare moments when the weight of the realm pressed too hard upon him. Behind him stood the Grand Maester, face ashen beneath the weight of his chain, the links clutched in both hands as though they might anchor him against the storm of a Targaryen's wrath.

“Is it true?” Baelor's voice was low, almost gentle, and all the more terrible for the control that barely contained the breaking beneath. “Is it Hanahaki that has taken root in you?”

You tried to rise from the bed. Your legs failed beneath you. You sank back against the pillows as a fit of coughing seized your entire body with a violence that left no room for dignity. Petals and blood spilled across the coverlet in a grotesque bouquet of white and crimson.

Baelor was at your side in an instant, one arm supporting your shoulders with careful strength, the other wiping the mess from your lips with the sleeve of his own tunic. His hands trembled against your skin.

“Answer me,” he whispered, the word almost lost beneath the sound of your struggling breath. “Please. I need to hear it from you.”

You could not speak.

The roots had tightened around your voice as if the disease itself sought to silence the truth. Only a thin, wet sound escaped your lips. The Grand Maester spoke in your place, his voice heavy with the guilt of a broken confidence.

“It is advanced, my prince. Further than I first judged. The flowers have taken deep root in both lungs. Without the reciprocation of the love that feeds them, or the surgical removal of the growth itself—which would take the feelings with it and leave her hollow—she will not last the turning of another moon. Perhaps less, if the bleeding continues at this pace.”

Baelor's face drained of what little color remained. He looked at you as though seeing you truly for the first time, stripping away every careful distance, every quiet grief, every measured kindness he had offered. What remained in his expression was raw and terrified and utterly human.

“You knew,” he said to you. Not an accusation thrown in anger. A broken realization spoken into the space between your bodies. “You knew what was growing inside you and you hid it. You begged them to keep the knowledge from me.”

You managed a single nod.

Another cough tore free of your chest with a force that bent you double. More blood. More petals, now edged in deep crimson as if the flowers themselves had begun to bleed.

Baelor gathered you into his arms fully, lifting you as though you weighed no more than one of the children he still visited each evening. He sat upon the edge of the bed and cradled you against his chest, rocking slightly, the way a man might rock a child through a nightmare or a dying lover through her final hours.

“Why?” The word was barely sound, torn from somewhere deep in his throat. “Why would you do this? Why would you choose silence over the chance of help?”

You forced the answer past the obstruction that sought to choke it. Each word cost blood. “Because you still love her. Because I am only the woman the realm gave you when she was gone from your side. Because I could not bear to make you choose between the dead and the living, between the memory you cherish and the duty you were forced to accept. Because I love you enough to die rather than force your heart to speak words it does not hold.”

Something broke in him then.

You felt it in the way his arms tightened around you, in the full-body shudder that ran through his frame as if a blade had found a soft place between his ribs. He pressed his forehead to yours, his breath coming in harsh, uneven bursts that warmed your bloodied lips.

“You fool,” he said, and the word was the softest, most devastating endearment you had ever heard spoken. “You beautiful, stubborn, self-sacrificing fool. Do you think I have not seen you these many months? Do you think I have not felt the way the very air in a room changes when you enter it? Do you think the kindness I have shown, the care I have taken, the way I have rearranged my days to remain near you, do you think any of it has been only the cold performance of duty?”

He drew back enough to look into your eyes, though the movement cost him. Tears stood in his gaze, bright and unashamed against the dark of his Targaryen features.

“I grieved Jena. I will always grieve her. She was the mother of my children and the great love of my youth, the woman who taught me what it meant to give a heart fully. But grief is not a wall that bars all else from entering. It is a scar that remains upon the skin while the rest of the body learns, slowly and with pain, how to live again. And I have been living again, every day that I have woken to the knowledge that you were somewhere in this keep, every moment I have watched you navigate the vipers of this court with a quiet strength that put seasoned ladies to shame, every night I have lain awake listening for the sound of your breathing through the connecting door and found myself calmed by the simple fact of your nearness.”

His voice roughened further, breaking on certain words. “I did not speak of what was growing in me because I feared it was too soon after her death. Because I feared you would see only the shadow of another woman in every care I offered. Because I am a man who has already failed to keep one wife safe from the world's cruelties, and I could not bear the thought of failing another by offering a heart that still carried such deep scars. But I love you. Gods of old and new help me, I love you with a depth that frightens me more than any battlefield ever did. I have loved you for longer than I dared admit, even in the privacy of my own thoughts. Longer than the first petal ever took root in your lungs.”

The confession struck the roots like a blade forged of pure light and truth.

For a moment the crushing pain eased, as if the flowers themselves recoiled from the honesty that denied their reason for existing. Then it surged tenfold, a final desperate flowering.

Your body convulsed in his arms. Blood and blossoms poured from your mouth in a terrible, unending flood, soaking the front of Baelor's tunic, staining his hands to the wrists, dripping onto the floor in dark pools that mixed petal and vital fluid.

He held you through every spasm, murmuring broken reassurances against your hair, his own tears falling freely into the mess that covered you both.

“I am here,” he said, over and over, the words a litany against the dark. “I am here. You will not die for lack of love. Never again. Do you hear me, my heart? Never again will you lack for it while I draw breath. I will spend every remaining day of my life proving the truth of what I should have spoken months ago. I will speak it until you grow weary of the sound of the words. I will show it in every touch of my hand, every glance across a crowded hall, every breath I take in your presence. You are not a replacement for what was lost. You are not a duty the realm forced upon a grieving man. You are the woman who brought light back into rooms I had believed would remain dark forever. You are my wife. My love. My second chance that I was too blind, too afraid, and too burdened by old sorrow to claim openly when first it was offered.”

The flowers came harder still for a time, as though the disease itself fought the truth that would ultimately starve it of the lie that had sustained its growth.

You choked and gasped and clung to the fabric of his tunic with what little strength remained in your fingers.

Baelor rocked you through it all, his voice a continuous stream of promises and endearments and soft apologies for every day of silence, his hands never still as they stroked your hair, wiped the blood from your lips, pressed gently against your chest as if he could reach inside by force of will alone and tear the roots free with his bare hands.

“Stay with me,” he begged, the prince who had faced armies reduced to a man pleading with the gods. “Stay. I cannot lose you. Not when I have only just found the courage to name what you have been to me all this time. Stay. Please.”

Time lost all meaning in that chamber.

The air filled with the copper scent of blood and the sweet, cloying perfume of dying blossoms that had never belonged in a living body.

Servants hovered at the edges of the room, faces pale, until Baelor's sharp glance sent them scurrying for more cloths, more basins of water, more of the rare herbs the Grand Maester called for to ease the violent passage of the flowers.

The old man worked around the two of you with careful hands, but Baelor refused to release you even for the changing of the soaked sheets.

When they tried gently to take you from his arms, he made a sound low in his throat that was more dragon than man, and they retreated without further attempt.

Slowly, so slowly that you almost missed the turning, the torrent began to lessen. The petals that emerged were fewer, smaller, less heavily tinged with the red of your own blood. Your breathing, though still ragged and painful, no longer carried the wet, drowning rattle that had marked the worst of the crisis.

Baelor felt the change in the same moment you did. He pressed frantic, careful kisses to your brow, your temples, the corner of your mouth where blood still lingered in the cracks of your lips.

“That is it,” he whispered against your skin. “Let them go. They have no place in you any longer. My love is yours. Fully. Completely. Without reservation or the shadow of another memory standing between us. Let the flowers wither for lack of the lie that once fed them. Let them die as they should have died the moment I first knew my own heart.”

You drifted in and out of awareness for what felt like hours. In the moments of clarity you saw his face above yours, wrecked and beautiful in the candlelight, the face of a man who had stared into the abyss of a second great loss and refused with every fiber of his being to let it claim what he now openly named as his.

You managed, once, to lift a trembling hand to his cheek. He turned into the touch immediately, as though the contact itself were a form of salvation he had not dared hope to receive.

“I believed...” Your voice was a ruin of sound, scraped raw by blood and petals. “I believed so completely that you could not... that the space in you still belonged only to her...”

“I know.” He caught your hand and held it against the wetness of his own tears. “I know what you believed, and I know why you believed it. The fault is mine for allowing the silence to grow so long and so deep. And I will spend the rest of the days the gods grant me undoing every hour of that belief. You will never again have cause to doubt the place you hold. I swear it by the old gods of the North and the new gods of the Seven, by the blood of the dragon that runs in my veins, by every precious memory of Jena that I will always carry with honor and every new memory I fully intend to make with you in the years ahead. You will not lack for love. Not for a single hour of a single day. Not for a single breath that leaves your lungs free of flowers.”

The Grand Maester approached with cautious steps once the worst of the bleeding had slowed. “The crisis appears to be passing, my prince. If the love is true and returned without reservation, the roots will begin to wither from lack of the unrequited soil that sustained them. She will need long rest. Careful tending. Time measured in weeks rather than days.”

Baelor did not look away from your face even as he answered. “She will have all three without measure. And she will have me. Every day. Every night. For as long as she will tolerate the sight of me at her side.”

They cleaned the bed around you as best they could while he still held you cradled against his chest. Fresh sheets were brought from the linen stores.

Warm water scented with healing herbs. Soft cloths that would not abrade tender skin. Baelor himself washed the blood from your face and throat and the hollow of your collarbones with a tenderness that made fresh tears rise in your eyes and spill over without shame.

When at last you were settled against clean pillows and beneath a coverlet that did not reek of iron, he lay beside you fully clothed, one arm carefully beneath your shoulders, the other resting lightly over your heart as if to guard the place where the roots had so nearly claimed you.

“Sleep now,” he said, his voice a low rumble against your hair. “I will be here when you wake. And the morning after that. And every morning the sun rises over this keep for the rest of our lives.”

You slept.

The dreams that came were not of choking darkness or the slow unfurling of petals in places they did not belong, but of open skies above Dragonstone and the sound of a low, steady voice reading the histories of the realm beside a fire that never needed tending.

When you woke, the sun had climbed high enough to cast long rectangles of light across the stone floor. Baelor was still there, his eyes shadowed with exhaustion but clear of the wild terror that had filled them in the night.

He smiled when he saw your eyes open, a small, careful smile that held more genuine hope than you had ever seen upon his face since the day of your wedding.

“Good morning, my love,” he said, and the simple words settled into the empty spaces the flowers had left behind in your chest like a balm.

The ache remained, deep and persistent, but it was different now. Healing, perhaps, or the first true beginning of it.

You reached for him with a hand that still trembled, and he came willingly, gathering you close once more against the solid warmth of his body.

In the days that followed, the remaining petals came loose in smaller and smaller amounts, each one a pale reminder of the lie that had nearly killed you.

Each emergence was met with Baelor's unwavering presence, his voice speaking the truth of his heart, his hands offering the comfort you had once believed you would never fully receive. He spoke of his love as if the words themselves were a form of medicine stronger than any the maesters could brew, and perhaps they were.

He told you of the precise moment he had first noticed the way your quiet laughter could ease something tight and long-clenched in his chest. He told you of the nights he had stood outside the connecting door in the dark and fought the urge to enter simply for the comfort of being near the living warmth of you.

He told you of the fear that had kept him silent for so long, the fear of dishonoring Jena's memory by moving forward too quickly into a new love, the fear of offering a scarred and imperfect heart to a woman who deserved far better than the remnants of another man's grief.

You listened to every word. You believed him more completely with each telling, the belief sinking deeper than the roots had ever reached.

The disease, starved of the lie that had given it life and purpose, continued its slow retreat. The Grand Maester confirmed with careful examinations what your body already knew in the easing of its pain.

The roots were dying. The flowers would not return. You would live.

Baelor never left your side for longer than duty absolutely required, and when the small council called him away, he returned as soon as the matters of the realm allowed, often carrying some small token that spoke of his thoughts during the separation, a book he thought you might enjoy, a single flower from the gardens of the keep that was of the ordinary kind that grew in soil rather than lungs, a letter from one of his children in which the young writer asked after your health with the careful formality of a child taught to be polite.

He introduced you to those children properly when next they visited the capital, not as the new wife of political necessity, but as the woman he loved and intended to keep close for all his remaining days.

The children, still young enough to accept what their father told them with open hearts, began to call you by your name with growing ease and even, in time, with a tentative affection that warmed places in you the flowers had never touched.

The court noticed the change, as courts always notice such things. The whispers shifted from concern over your mysterious frailty to speculation about the sudden and obvious closeness between the Prince of Dragonstone and his second wife.

Baelor ignored the whispers as he had ignored so many others in his life. He held your hand openly in the halls. He kissed your brow in the sight of assembled lords and ladies without shame or hesitation.

He spoke of you with a quiet, steady pride that left no room for doubt in the minds of those who heard him.

One evening, weeks after the worst of the crisis had passed and your strength had begun to return in measured increments, you walked with him in the godswood beneath the watchful face of the heart tree.

The red leaves stirred in a soft wind off the river as Baelor stopped beneath the white branches and turned to face you fully, taking both of your hands in his.

“I should have told you sooner,” he said, the words carrying the weight of true regret. “I should have found the courage to name what I felt before the first petal ever took root in your body. For that silence, and for the suffering it caused you, I will always be sorry in a way that words cannot fully express.”

You shook your head, the motion gentle. “You were grieving a great loss. You were trying to be careful with a heart that had already been broken once by the world's cruelty. I understand the caution, even if it nearly cost us both everything.”

“Understanding does not erase the nearness of the loss.” He lifted your hands and pressed a kiss to each set of knuckles. “I will not be careful with my words again. Not where you and the truth of my heart are concerned. You will hear that I love you every day that the sun rises. You will feel the truth of it in every action I take. If the realm demands my presence in some far corner of the Seven Kingdoms, you will know without doubt that my thoughts remain with you. If the years ahead bring new griefs, as the years always do in the game we are forced to play, you will not face them alone. This I vow before the old gods and the new, and before the heart tree that has witnessed so many of my private sorrows.”

You rose on your toes and kissed him then, soft and certain and free of the fear that had once colored every touch. He returned the kiss with a reverence that made the last lingering ache in your chest ease further into memory.

When you drew back, his eyes were bright with unshed tears and something warmer.

“No more secrets between us,” he said. “No more hidden petals flushed away in the dark. No more believing yourself unloved or unwanted in the space of my heart. Promise me that much.”

“I promise,” you answered, and meant it with every part of the self that had survived the flowering.

He drew you against him, and together you stood beneath the red canopy of the heart tree while the sun sank toward the dark waters of the Blackwater Rush.

The future stretched before you both, uncertain as all futures must be in a realm of shifting alliances and old blood, but no longer empty of the one thing you had once believed yourself forever denied.

Baelor Targaryen, once a man defined almost entirely by the weight of his losses and the duty that followed them, had chosen to love again with open eyes and an open heart.

And you, who had nearly died for the lack of that choice being spoken aloud, would live to see every day of the promise he had made in blood and petals and tears.

You would never lack for love again.

In the months that followed the crisis, the memory of the flowers faded into something almost dreamlike, a dark chapter closed firmly by the light of spoken truth.

Baelor remained true to his word in ways both grand and intimately small.

He learned the songs of your childhood home in the riverlands and hummed them under his breath while he worked through the endless correspondence of a prince.

He commissioned a portrait of the two of you together from one of the finer painters in the city, not as the formal prince and his political bride, but as husband and wife sharing a private moment, and he hung the finished work in the solar where he spent his quiet hours.

When the first anniversary of your wedding approached, he did not allow the court to mark it with the usual stiff formality of public celebration.

Instead he took you by ship to Dragonstone for a full fortnight, where the salt wind off the narrow sea and the sight of the ancient stone dragons seemed to wash away the last lingering shadows that had clung to the difficult beginning of your life together.

There, on the high cliffs above the crashing waves, he spoke again of Jena, not with the raw and consuming grief of the early months of your marriage, but with a gentle, settled remembrance that made room for the living without diminishing the dead.

He spoke of how she would have wanted him to find peace after her passing. He spoke of how he believed, in the quiet of his heart, that she would have liked you for your quiet strength and your refusal to demand what could not yet be freely given.

And then he turned from the past entirely and spoke only of the present he shared with you and the future he fully intended to build, day by day, with the woman who had nearly died for love of him.

You listened to every word the sea wind carried, and the love that had once grown sharp thorns and choking stems in your lungs now settled into something steadier and deeper, free at last of the fear that had nearly ended you.

When night fell over the island and the stone dragons kept their eternal watch, Baelor held you close in the chamber that had once been his alone and whispered the words you had once believed you would never hear spoken with such certainty.

“I love you. Today. Tomorrow. For all the days and nights the gods see fit to grant us in this life. You will never lack for it. Not while I draw breath. Not while my heart still beats in my chest.”

And you believed him.

Fully. Completely.

Without the shadow of a single petal left anywhere in the world to cast even the smallest doubt.

There would be councils and conflicts, the growing of children and the slow turning of seasons.

But that particular anguish—the quiet, internal drowning of a love believed unrequited—had been faced in blood and honesty and defeated by the simple, powerful act of a good man finding the courage to speak.

Baelor had learned to name the truth of his heart before it was too late for the woman who carried it. And you had learned that sometimes the most attentive, loving, and caring of men need only the terror of a near-loss to finally give voice to what has been growing in them, quietly and steadily, all along.

You lived. You loved without fear. And the flowers never returned to the light.

[ofstarsandvibranium]

I love me a good hanahaki disease fic 😭

[sem-ra]

Devotion in the Dark (Vampire!Baelor x Reader x Vampire!Maekar) - Chapter 2 of 3

Series Masterlist   ✦    Chapter 1   ↜   Chapter 2   ↝   Chapter 3   ✦   read on ao3

Summary: As the princes’ attention becomes harder to resist, Dragonstone’s darker nature makes itself known. Friendship, fear, and desire tangle together until a single act of cruelty changes everything.

Word count: 12K

Tags: 18+/MINORS DO NOT INTERACT, SEXUAL EXPLICIT CONTENT, vampire au, arranged hostage situation/political hostage, power imbalance, dark romance, blood kink, fingering, oral sex (f receiving), light choking, age gap, she/her pronouns, AFAB reader, English is my second language

Please let me know if I’ve missed anything!

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, setting, or story of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. This work is a fanfiction created for enjoyment and non-commercial purposes only.

Author’s note: Thank you all so much for the love that you have given to the first chapter! I truly hope you enjoy this one as well. Leave a like, reblog or comment if you do ☺️

The next morning the atmosphere within Dragonstone felt different, almost wrong in a way. The castle always possessed an undercurrent of tension, a sense that something dangerous lingered beneath every conversation and every action. Yet this felt sharper. 

Servants hurried through corridors with unusual urgency. Guards moved in larger numbers than before, the clang of armour echoing from courtyards below, carrying through open windows. 

Something happened, you thought. Or was about to.

You intended to meet the ladies for breakfast, but instead a servant intercepted you before you reached the hall.

“The princes request your presence, my lady.”

Bewildered for a moment, you followed without question.

The outer courtyard was a hive of activity. Targaryen banners snapped violently in the wind and magnificent horses stomped restlessly, black-clad retainers moving with grim efficiency, loading supplies. The air smelled of leather, steel and rain. A storm was brewing somewhere beyond Dragonstone's shores.

Your throat seized the moment you saw them.

Baelor stood beside the captain of the guard, speaking quietly while several knights listened nearby. He wore dark riding leathers beneath a long black cloak fastened with a three-headed dragon clasp. 

Maekar stood a short distance away, one gloved hand resting upon the pommel of his mace. His attire was darker still, black leather and a black cloak adorning him. The only brightness upon him came from his pale hair and striking eyes.

The stillness of their bodies unsettled you more than any movement would have. They looked less like princes and more like predators waiting, for the moment you entered the courtyard, both turned toward you. Heat rushed to your cheeks so quickly it almost hurt.

Did they know?

The question struck you before you could stop it.

Did they know of every thought that had plagued you these past few days.

Did they hear you whisper their names the night before?

Baelor dismissed the captain with a quiet word before turning fully toward you. A small nod invited you closer.

“My princes.” You curtsied.

Baelor’s gaze swept over you briefly.

“You look tired, dōna riña.” His voice was soft. “Is everything well?”

“I…” You swallowed the lump in your throat. “I slept poorly, that is all.”

“Did you now?” The faint amusement threading through his voice caught you completely off guard.

Beside him, Maekar made a low sound that was suspiciously close to a laugh.

“Did dreams plague you, little dove?” He asked.

Your stomach dropped. For one long, terrible second you forgot how to breathe. Baelor’s mismatched gaze lingered on your far too knowingly, before he looked away. It was as though hearing you whisper their names at night affected him more than it should have.

Mortification burned through you completely.

“My princes, I-!”

“We hear many things here.” Baelor interrupted gently. “Even whispers spoken in the dark.”

Both brothers looked at you knowingly, barely concealed hunger swirling in their eyes. Maekar looked entirely too pleased with your discomfort.

Gods, your face burned as though it was hit by the power of a thousand suns. Thankfully, you were spared further humiliation by one of the guards approaching quickly, speaking to the princes in low and urgent High Valyrian.

The change in Baelor was immediate, his expression hardening and any trace of amusement vanishing. 

Duty replaced it. Duty above all.

The shift fascinated you. The prince from the balcony, the man who had listened to stories about your brother, was gone in a blink. In his place stood the Hammer. 

And it was a sight to see.

Maekar noticed your stare, and his nostrils flared slightly. Baelor slowly turned towards you as the guard left.

“You must remain inside your room after supper.” He said. 

It was not a suggestion, but rather concern hidden beneath command. 

“Do not stray from the ladies while we are gone. And do not wander the castle alone while we are absent.”

“Absent?” You frowned despite yourself. “Where are you going?”

“Hunting Faith Militant zealots.” Maekar answered before Baelor could. The contempt in his voice was unmistakable.

“Several have been spotted near the Crownlands.”

You had heard the rumours, something about burned farms and missing peasants. Then another whisper about a chapel where several thralls had been discovered dead. There was a name that surfaced whenever those rumours were spoken, and whether he was a perpetrator or not.

Aerion. Maekar’s second son.

The stories surrounding the Targaryen heirs travelled through every noble household in Westeros, regardless of loyalty.

Baelor had two sons, Valarr and Matarys. Both were raised in the Red Keep, close to their grandsire and being prepared for future rule. There were whispers that it was because Baelor did not wish that the princes spent their entire lives among the ancient darkness of Dragonstone.

Maekar’s children were kept at Summerhall. The great summer palace was built for the royal family, far from their ancestral seat. Daeron, Aerion, Aemon, Daella, Aegon and little Rhae were said to spend most of their days there beneath the care of tutors, knights and loyal courtiers. The fact that they were raised separated from Baelor’s children remained a mystery, and the arrangement only encouraged further speculation.

You knew little beyond rumour, only that children born to the ancient Targaryen bloodline were becoming rare.

The whispers were always the same, how bearing such children was costly and difficult to the mother. To carry the child without undergoing the ancient blood rite demanded sacrifices few survived, even the father was willing to help.  Immortal blood did not mingle willingly with mortal flesh, and the burden often claimed either mother, child, or both before the birth was through.

Yet, the blood rite was not a simple gift easily given to anyone fortunate enough to marry into the royal house. It remained a closely guarded privilege, granted only at the Crown’s discretion. Some were never even offered it, and others, it was said, refused of their own accord.

It was common knowledge that Aelinor Penrose, wife to the bookish Prince Aerys, was not offered the blood rite. Whether Alys Arryn, wife to Prince Rhaegel and the mother of his three children, had been offered the same choice remained a matter of quiet speculation.

Prince Baelor’s late wife, Jena Dondarrion, refused such a fate altogether. She had done what duty demanded of her, giving the Crown two heirs before declaring she would bear no more. Immortality held no allure in her eyes. She had fulfilled her obligation to her husband and the realm, and neither pleading nor expectation had ever changed her mind.

Lady Dyanna Dayne, Prince Maekar’s beloved wife, was offered the blood rite and she had intended to accept it. Many whispered that the strength of Dayne blood, coupled with Maekar’s unwavering devotion, had allowed her to bear six children without ever undergoing the transformation. It was spoken of as nothing short of a miracle. Yet, even miracles demanded their price as she perished bringing their sixth child into the world, leaving behind her prince and the children she had fought so fiercely to give him.

And that is where the stories always ended. Not with answers but with silence, for no one spoke of what became of those who accepted the rite, nor could they describe the ritual itself.  The questions simply dissolved into whispered glances and hurried changes of subject, as though the knowledge itself belonged only to the dragons, and those bound to them.

But, neither prince appeared interested in discussing family histories now, as their gazes were hardened and you could wager a guess as to why.

Prince Aerion possessed a reputation all on his own, which preceded him wherever he went. He was a brilliant prince, beyond question, but equally dangerous. He was volatile, unpredictable, and possessed of a cruelty that made even seasoned courtiers tread carefully in his presence. 

Baelor stepped closer, his hand lifting and cupping your cheek, his thumb gently brushing against it.

“We will return.”

The words should have reassured you, instead they filled you with sudden unease. 

You spent weeks trying to make sense of their attention, trying to understand them, trying not to yearn for them, trying not to think about them. And now the thought of Dragonstone without them felt strangely wrong.

I do not want them to leave, you thought.

Baelor saw it, the realisation flickering behind his eyes. Maekar saw it too, and the corner of his mouth twitched. 

As Baelor let go of you, Maekar sauntered closer.

“Try not to dream about us too sweetly while we are away, little dove.” He said.

The horrified gasp you let out seemed to delight him further.

When both brothers turned to go to their horses, the courtyard sprang back into motion around them. Orders were shouted, and cloaks billowed in the strengthening wind. Within moments they rode out, surrounded by guards and retainers.

And you remained where you stood, watching them go while too many emotions battled within your chest: relief, concern, frustration, and something else.

Something you stubbornly still refused to name.

Dragonstone became almost lighter in their absence. The noble guests relaxed visibly when the princes vanished beyond the gates, and conversations grew louder, laughter echoed in the halls. Even the servants seemed less tense, moving with less urgency than before. 

It seemed the castle breathed easier without its masters. But to you, it felt wrong. 

You felt abandoned.

Throughout the following nights, you caught yourself listening for footsteps that never came. More than once, you glanced toward a corridor because you thought you heard their voices, only to find it empty.

At dinner, your eyes drifted instinctively toward the dais. The high table stood occupied by stewards, lords and ladies left in their stead.

Not them.

A small disappointment settled heavily in your chest before you could stop it, brows furrowing. Lady Bethany noticed immediately, and you could feel the disapproval radiating from her.

“You have looked at the dais at least four times tonight.” She stated dryly.

“Nonsense.” You said, reaching for your goblet and hoping it would disguise the sudden dryness in your throat.

Across from you, lady Elinor hid a knowing smile behind her sleeve.

“You miss them.” 

The words carried the delighted certainty of a young lady discussing a courtly romance. 

“I do not.” You retorted quickly.

Elinor’s smile only widened. 

“Then why do you always look disappointed whenever someone else enters the hall?” She asked.

You opened your mouth, then closed it again. Because there was no answer you could safely give. Because you did not dare say it aloud, say your true feelings into existence. 

Silence followed, and Bethany set down her fork.

“I hope you know what you are doing.” 

The severity in her voice immediately drew your attention.

“The fact that you are here is precarious enough. One miss-step and you may lose your head.” She continued.

You swallowed.

They would not do that to me.

The certainty arrived immediately at first, but doubt followed close behind as your consciousness whispered.

How did you know? 

Truth be told, you barely knew them. You knew their presence more than their words, the weight of their attention on you, the way conversations seemed to fade whenever one of them looked at you. The strange, unspoken understanding that lingered in every glance, as though something passed between the three of you that no one else could perceive. 

You knew the stories whispered about them, the tales of the Hammer and Anvil who inspired equal measures of fear and admiration. Whose powers stretched far beyond the realm, who could command armies with a word and end lives with little more than a passing thought.

You knew what they were, and yet…

When Baelor smiled at you, it always reached his mismatched eyes, and it was warm enough to ease the tension from your shoulders. There was a gentleness to him that felt almost impossible against the backdrop of every tale ever told about the Targaryens. 

Maekar was different, for his attention hid beneath restraint and measured words, revealing itself in fleeting moments. Yet, you were certain that, if he made a promise, the Seven themselves would sooner break faith than Prince Maekar Targaryen.

You could not explain why those small moments were rooted themselves so deeply within you. Perhaps you were a fool, perhaps they were simply skilled enough to make anyone lower their guard.

Yet your heart refused every warning your mind presented.

They would not come to you as they have done so far, if all they desired was to harm you. Men like Baelor and Maekar had no need for pretence, they did not court the trust of a young noblewoman merely to destroy her. If they wished you dead, you would already be buried.

Bethany watched your expression carefully.

“You see?” She said softly. “You must be cautious. Keep away from them.”

You lowered your gaze instead of answering.

Outside, rain struck the castle windows, the storm that had threatened for days finally arrived. Fortunately, the conversation drifted elsewhere before you were forced to defend yourself further.

But Bethany’s words lingered, as did your own certainty.

The only solace you found was in a letter from your brother. The raven arrived not long after Baelor and Maekar departed, small and travel-worn. Its feathers ruffled from the long journey across the realm, but the parchment tied carefully to its leg bore the familiar sigil of your house.

For a moment, you simply held it, a piece of home carried across hundreds of miles.

Your hands trembled slightly as you finally broke the seal.

Dear sister,

Maester Kiran writes the letter in my stead because my hands tire quickly now. But he insists that my words are clear enough for you to hear as I mean them. I do suspect that he changes some of them when he believes I am being too childish. He denies this, of course.

Have you found any dragons yet?

I have read that Dragonstone still keeps the bones of old dragons beneath the castle. Ask if you might visit them, and if they let you, please draw one for me. Make it accurate, not like the ones in the books where they always make the wings too large and the necks snake-like. Though perhaps the wings were large, they were dragons after all.

I wish I could see them myself.

Do not be sad when you read that, for I do not mean it as I once have. Septa Maren says that fear is a wasteful use of a short season, and I have decided she is probably right. I still think she is cruel for saying such things so plainly.

I am not afraid as I once was though.

There are still days when I tire faster, but Maester Kiran says I must be patient. Everyone here tries to treat me as though I might break, and I wish they would stop. I am still myself, I still enjoy books, I still dislike boiled vegetables. And I still think our cousin is unbearable.

I miss you. Please come home if you can.

If you cannot, please write to me. Tell me everything. Tell me what Dragonstone looks like, what the sea sounds like, whether the castle is truly as dark and frightening as the stories claim. Tell me if the princes are as terrifying as everyone says they are.

I would rather have your letters than nothing at all.

Your brother,

Beren

You read it once, then again, and again until the words began to blur and you had to look away. You did not cry, you refused to, though you were fairly certain your nose betrayed you exactly as he had once said it would. 

That night, you wrote back by candlelight.

You described the sea surrounding Dragonstone, the way the castle seemed carved from shadow and flame, and of the endless corridors that made it feel older than memory itself. You promised to find the dragon bones he had asked about and draw them properly, even if you suspected no drawing could ever capture something that had once ruled the skies.

You also wrote to him about the princes. Not the rumours, or the fear that followed their names. Only that Baelor was kinder than the stories claimed, that Maekar was quieter, but not as cold as people believed. That perhaps there were different kinds of dragons in the world, the ones carved into stone and bone, and the ones who still walked among men.

The warmth of Beren’s letter remained with you for several days. You kept it close, tucked carefully amongst your belongings. It was a reminder of home, that somewhere else beyond the castle walls, someone still waited for your return.

Then, only days later, another letter arrived.

Your house’s seal was pressed into wax which was the colour of dried blood. It bore no familiar comfort, for you knew the hand that had written it before you even broke the seal.

Your uncle.

Niece,

Words travel even to the corners of the realm, and I am told the princes regard you with greater favour than a guest such as you ought to expect. I confess some relief at this. It would be a poor use of the arrangement I made if you were to squander such an opportunity through fear, or foolishness.

I must share with you unfortunate news that your brother’s health continues to decline. I have engaged new healers from Essos at a considerable expanse, which I trust you will remember when you are in a position to repay the kindnesses afforded to you.

See that you remain useful to your hosts, and useful to our house. Nothing more is required of you.

And that was it, no warmth within the words, not even an imitation of it.

You had expected as much, and yet something inside you tightened as you read them again. 

The arrangement…

As though your presence here, your days spent among strangers, your fears and hopes and every uncertain moment since arriving at Dragonstone, were nothing more than a bargain struck and recorded.

You did not tear or burn the letter, you simply folded it neatly once you were finished with it. You put it aside, and returned to Beren’s letter, tracing the letters until the bitterness and loneliness began to fade.

And as the days folded away and you waited for the princes’ return, you began to realize there was another absence you had started to feel.

The dreams changed as well.

They came less frequently than before. They were less vivid, less consuming. Sometimes you would glimpse Maekar’s silver hair disappearing around a corner,  and other times Baelor’s voice would call your name from somewhere beyond reach. Once you dreamed of standing within the feast hall alone, the three thrones empty, turning around searching for them.

You awoke before finding them.

Their absence followed you into waking hours.

You found yourself lingering in places where you had last spoken with them. The sea gallery, the battlements, certain corridors. As though some part of you expected them to appear if you waited long enough.

Each time you rose from the bed, you asked servants whether they returned. Each time as you walked with the ladies to retire, you looked toward the gates

Waiting, always waiting.

Days passed, still no sign of them. 

And despite the lightness touching the halls, you discovered that you preferred it the other way. Because the castle without the princes felt incomplete. Because you felt incomplete without them.

And so, you found yourself counting the days until they returned.

The following afternoon, you and several of the nobles were granted leave to visit the beach beneath Dragonstone’s cliffs, escorted by a small retinue of guards. You welcomed the chance to leave your thoughts in the castle behind, if only for a few hours.

Together with Bethany, Elenor, and several of the other ladies, you descended the winding path toward the shore. The breeze carried away much of the heaviness that had settled over your thoughts, and for the first time in days, your chest felt lighter.

Before long, your companions drifted ahead, their laughter carried faintly on the wind as they wandered along the shoreline collecting shells and smooth stones left behind by the tide. 

Drawn to the restless sea, you lingered behind, watching the waves roll across the dark sand before retreating once more into the endless expanse. A familiar voice reached you. 

“My lady.”

You turned, watching as Lord Jasper of House Costayne came closer. He bowed with more flourish than courtesy demanded, dark hair stirred by the breeze. 

“Lord Jasper.” You bowed your head.

“I had hoped I might find you.” He wore an easy smile. “Though I must confess that I am glad for us to be without sterner company.”

His gaze swept to the castle and back. 

“No mismatched eyes or silver-haired shadows lurking nearby.”

You could not help but frown at his sentiment.

“The princes are away.”

“So I have heard.” His smile widened, pleasant and entirely too knowing. “Hunting Faith Militant zealots, I am told. Truly grim business. Though I confess, it is rather pleasant to speak with you without a prince’s eyes cutting into me from across the room.”

“I do not think they are as frightening as you make them.” You confessed easily.

“No?” He lifted an eyebrow. “Then perhaps I have simply had the misfortune of earning Prince Maekar’s disapproval.”

“I am sure you exaggerate, my lord.”

“I assure you, I do not.” He said, placing a hand dramatically over his heart. “The way he has looked at me, I found myself wondering if that hour would be my last.”

A laugh escaped you before you could stop it, for you knew there was some truth in it.

“You did not think so, my lady?” He asked lightly, looking at the sea. “Truthfully, I envy them.”

“You envy them?” You were surprised at his statement.

“They have your attention far more often than the rest of us.”

Heat crept unexpectedly into your cheeks. “My lord…”

“Oh, do not look so alarmed.” He chuckled. “I mean no offense, for half the court has noticed it.”

“Noticed what?”

“That whenever one of the princes enters a room, everyone else around you ceases to exist for a little while.”

Your heart stumbled. 

“I think you imagine too much.” You mumbled, looking at the sea.

“Perhaps.” He sounded unconvinced. “Shall we continue walking?”

The gravel crunched softly beneath your shoes, as both of you walked at an easy pace.

“How fares your brother?” Jasper asked after a moment. “The last we spoke, you told me he had been unwell.”

“He…” You hesitated before smiling faintly. “He wrote to me recently. He is still ill, but in better spirits than before.”

“I am glad to hear it.”

You did not hear any jest or untruthfulness in his voice.

“I know how it is to wait for letters from home. They become precious things.”

You glanced toward him, surprised by the quiet sincerity in his expression.

“Thank you.” You whispered.

The conversation drifted to easier subjects after that, to the sea, to the Valyrian tapestries, to the strange weather that forever surrounded Dragonstone. Lord Jasper proved an attentive listener and an effortless storyteller, and for a fleeting moment, you understood why he was so well liked y the rest.

When you reached Bethany and the other slides just as the castle bells sounded the approaching evening meal, he slowed.

“I have enjoyed borrowing your company for a little while.” His smile returned, touched with mischief. “I only hope Their Graces do not think I have stolen too much of your attention.”

Before you could answer, he bowed and turned away. You watched him go before returning to the ladies.

It had been a somewhat pleasant conversation. Yet, later that evening, as you lay awake listening to the sea break against the cliffs, you found yourself remembering the way he had spoken of the princes.

He had not spoken with fear or admiration, but rather with  the careful curiosity of a man trying to solve a puzzle.

That thought lingered as sleep slowly claimed you.

The scream tore you from a dreamless sleep. 

That alone was not unusual, as Dragonstone was a castle filled with strange sounds. The wailing storms, the cries of prisoners, the shrieks echoing through distant halls that no one ever seemed willing to explain. But something about this scream was different. It was raw and sharp with terror. Then came another, and this one sounded less human than the first.

Your eyes snapped open. For a moment you lay frozen in bed, heart pounding violently against your ribs. Then, you swung your legs over the side of the bed, bare feet touching the cold stone floor.

Another cry echoed through the stone, and beneath it, so faint you almost imagined it, a sound like something tearing.

A part of you knew you should stay where you were, in the safety of your own room. Instead, you reached for your robe.

By the time you opened your chamber door, several other guests were already peering nervously into the corridor. Bethany stood amongst them.

“Go back inside.” She told you immediately. “Whatever is happening, it is too dangerous for us.”

You should have listened, for every instinct told you to. But another thought crossed your mind before any reason could stop it. 

What if something had happened to Baelor? What if Maekar was hurt?

If you were injured, they would come to you, surely. That thought alone carried you forward, and you slipped away before Bethany could catch your sleeve and stop you.

You went down one corridor, then another, deeper into the castle than you went before. The screams had stopped now, only a distant echo remaining, as if the stone itself were still absorbing the sound. You descended a spiral staircase winding beneath Dragonstone, and the further down you went the warmer and thicker the air became. Beneath the scent of stone and old candlewax lingered something else, coppery and unmistakable.

Blood.

The realisation settled cold in your stomach just as familiar voices drifted up from below. And something else, a low and wet sound you did not let yourself name.

You stopped near the bottom of the staircase, partly hidden by shadow. The chamber ahead of you was vast and ancient, directly carved into the volcanic rock. Candlelight flickered unevenly across black pillars that seemed to drink the light rather than reflect it.

And there they were.

Maekar held a young man in an iron grip, one arm locked across his chest, the other forcing his head aside each time he lunged. It should not have been possible, the way he stood his ground. The young man thrashed with the desperate strength of something no longer entirely sane, and Maekar did not so much as shift his footing. His sleeves were torn, and his jaw was clenched tight. The young man’s pale hair was cropped short, blood smeared across his face, and his violet eyes gleamed in the dark, wild and dangerous.

“Aerion, stand the fuck down.” Maekar’s voice did not rise.

It did not need to, for it echoed through the cavern the way thunder rolls through a valley. There was no hesitation in his restraint, he was in absolute control.

“They deserved it!” Aerion snarled, his voice sounding almost feral. “They had it coming.”

“You murdered them.” Baelor’s voice cut through the chamber. 

It was cold, far colder than you had ever heard it before. 

“I taught them a lesson.” The young man laughed, and it cracked strangely in the middle, as though something underneath it had slipped. “They insulted our house.”

“And now they are dead.”

“Would you have left a matter of Targaryen honour in doubt, uncle?”

Baelor moved.

One moment he stood several steps away, the next he was directly before Aerion. And you had never seen a space vanish so quickly. There was stride, no run, it was as though the chamber itself had folded to bring him closer. His mismatched eyes, especially the violet one, gleamed the same as his nephew’s and brother’s. But where theirs looked wild, his gaze had gone terribly and unnaturally calm. Blood stained his hands and the front of his doublet, dark and still wet.

For the first time, you saw him stripped of every courtly illusion. The prince from feasts and balconies was gone. In his place stood something ancient wearing a familiar face. His stillness was so absolute,  that even the torchlight around him seemed to hesitate, flames guttering low near his shoulders. His expression was carved from stone and power radiated from him, as befit the Hammer.

“We are rulers, boy.” Baelor said. “Not beasts.”

Aerion snarled and lunged again. Maekar hauled him back without visible effort. It was only then that your gaze finally dropped to the floor and saw the bodies.

And you recognised them, two lords you had shared a table once or twice, nodded to in passing corridors, and whose names you never quite learned. Their throats were opened, dark and glistening, and something about the wounds looked more like a feeding left unfinished.

“Oh Gods!” The whisper escaped before you could stop it. 

Silence crashed through the chamber as every head turned towards you at once, as though some single thread connected all three of them and was just pulled taut. Baelor and Maekar went utterly still. In their preoccupation with the current situation their senses had failed them. But now, you held their full attention and they watched you with that unbreathing and unnatural stillness. 

This was not the attention they gave you in the halls, or during feasts. Not the careful restraint, or the quiet toying you had grown almost fond of. This was something else, something that lived beneath the princes, wearing their faces the way a shadow wears a shape.

Baelor’s eyes widened slightly, and you thought that you could see something shift behind them, some careful leash slipping around his neck.

Aerion inhaled once, sharp and deliberate, nostrils flaring, tongue dragging slow across blood-stained lips.

“She smells so sweet.” His voice had dropped into something low and hungry. “So frightened.”

Maekar tightened his hold immediately. 

“Enough! Calm yourself boy.” His voice cracked like a whip through the chamber. “She is not yours!”

“You should not be here.” Baelor said, his gaze not leaving yours.

He moved again, so fast you barely registered it. One heartbeat, he stood across the chamber, the next he was in front of you. He grasped your hair, tugging at it, and buried his nose in the crook of your neck. He inhaled deeply, murmuring something low in High Valyrian against your skin, as fangs faintly scraped at the line of your throat. 

Your pulse hammered so loudly you were certain the whole chamber could hear it. Shivers ran up your spine and heat spread low in your stomach at his uncourtly touch.

Instinctively, your hands found his arms, and beneath the palms his stillness felt less like a man holding himself back, and more like a hunter deciding.

Behind him, Aerion strained forward with a sound that was inhuman. Maekar hauled him back with a grunt of effort, the first effort you had seen from him all night, shouting something to Baelor that you barely registered over the roar of your own blood in your ears.

“Baelor…” You breathed his name, hissing softly as his grip tightened at the sound of his name leaving your lips.

He closed his eyes and for a long moment nothing in the chamber moved at all. Not him, not Maekar, and not even the air itself. Then, slowly as though every inch cost him a battle you could not see, he forced himself to take a step back, and then another. 

He looked at you, unable to fully disguise the hunger still burning behind his eyes, his jaw locked tight enough to ache.

“Leave now, sweet girl.” He said, his voice strained and almost pained. “Please.”

The plea frightened you more than any command could have. Because for the first time since arriving at Dragonstone, you understood, with total and sinking clarity, that whatever existed between you and the princes had become something dangerous.

You turned and ran.

And long after the chamber vanished behind you, you still felt their gazes following you through the stone, patient, hungry, and entirely unhurried.

It was the way a hunter watched it had already decided it would not let go of.

The next day, the castle felt too still, as though the events of the previous night were sealed away behind layers of stone and silence. No one spoke of the screams and no one spoke of the honoured guests who never appeared again at supper. Dragonstone swallowed the truth as it swallowed everything else. 

You took breakfast in your chambers, unwilling to see anyone, and least of all your friends.

Your thoughts refused to settle. Again and again, your mind returned, to Aerion’s wild eyes, to Maekar’s cold fury, to Baelor’s bloody hands, to his nose buried in the crook of your neck, to how his fangs pressed against your skin.

You turned each memory you have shared with the princes over endlessly.

Bethany had warned you to be cautious.

Your uncle had reminded you that you were a political pawn.

Reason insisted you should keep your distance.

Instead, you wondered if Maekar felt jealous at how close Baelor came to tasting your blood first, by how instinctively he had reached you first.

The thought should have embarrassed you, but instead it fanned the flames of desire singing in your veins. 

When you had first come to Dragonstone, your intentions had been simple enough: earn their goodwill and secure whatever advantage might one day help your brother and your house.

Yet, somewhere along the way, those intentions began to unravel. 

You no longer sought their company because duty demanded it. You found yourself watching for them in crowded halls, and listening for familiar footsteps in distant corridors. Whatever this had become, it no longer had anything to do with understanding Dragonstone’s rulers or winning their favour for Beren’s sake.

No.

Whatever would come of it now would be because, against every warning and every measure of good sense, your heart had begun to choose them of its own accord.

A quiet groan escaped you as your silent maid tugged at your hair, bringing your mind back to the present. You stared at yourself in the mirror. A dark red gown was your choice of dress for the day, the colour perhaps being a subconscious choice. A simple gold and pearl necklace rested at your throat, offering the only softness in your appearance.  

You were adjusting it when a sharp knock sounded at the door, and one of the maids rushed to answer it.

“My lady.” A young steward entered and bowed. “Prince Baelor invites you to join him in his solar.”

The summons caught you entirely off guard, and yet, you would not think of refusing it.

A little while later, you found yourself standing before the door to his solar, knocking softly and entering at his command. The room smelled of old parchments, candle wax, and incense. Dornish, you thought, as the sweet smell lingered in the air, reminiscent of exotic fruits and distant summers. 

Baelor turned as you entered, standing near a large table scattered with maps and correspondence.

For a moment, neither of you spoke. His mismatched gaze moved briefly over you, taking in your hair, the dark gown, and the necklace. You swallowed loudly and lowered yourself into a curtsy.

“My prince.”

The title felt strange now, somehow too formal after what had happened.

“Come closer, dōna riña.” Baelor said, his voice gentle as it had always been.

You obeyed, crossing the chamber and stopping before him. You were close enough to see the exhaustion lingering beneath his composure, to notice that he seemed older somehow than he had the day before.

“I wish to apologise for yesterday.” He said softly, his eyes remaining fixed upon yours. “It was not my intention for you to see me in that way. And…”

His gaze flickered briefly away before returning. “And for me to lose control.”

The honesty of the words surprised you. 

“But you did not.” You said, though you were not entirely sure it was true. 

A faint, humourless laugh escaped him. “I nearly did.”

The admission settled heavily between you, neither of you looking away. At last, you took a small step closer.

“You stopped.” You said softly. “You did not harm me.”

Something in his expression shifted at that, not relief, not exactly. Something more akin to guilt.

“I should have stopped myself from even coming that close to you. Frightening you…” He murmured, hesitating before gently adjusting a loose strand of hair that had escaped its pins. “Frightening you was never my wish.”

You almost leaned into his touch.

“I was not frightened.” You whispered.

A faint smile touched the corner of his mouth. “My brave girl.” 

The fondness in his voice startled you. 

“But you were so frightened when you first arrived. Of Dragonstone, of us… now look at you.”

He stepped forward slowly, leaving you room to retreat if you wished. He left you a path, a choice, and you realised he was making certain you saw it. Even when his eyes betrayed how badly he wanted you close. 

So you did not move, looking at him keenly. A shadow passed through his eyes and his jaw tightened.

“I told you before, you should truly stop… you should not look at me this way, my dear.”

“And what way would that be?” You held his gaze, your pulse thundering. Warmth spreading between your thighs at the look he was giving you.

“Like you have already forgiven me for my past transgressions…” His voice dropped to a dark rasp. “And for the things I have not yet done.”

His hand was a shock of coolness against your flushed skin. You let out a shaky sigh, leaning into the touch. He was so controlled that his fingers almost trembled with the effort.

His thumb grazed your cheek, dragging slowly toward the corner of your mouth. His eyes locked onto your lips and he inhaled deeply. You blushed as you realised he could smell you, your need for him, and his eyes darkened immediately afterwards.

“Gods…” He murmured, leaning in. “May I, dōna riña?”

You were not sure if he was asking permission to kiss you or to sink his fangs and taste your blood, but the thought of both made your core ache. And deep inside your most treacherous heart, you knew you would say yes to both.

“Yes…” You whispered, your noses brushing and your fingers digging into the heavy fabric of his shoulders. “Please, my prince…”

“Baelor…” His breath was a hot contrast to his skin against your lips. “Call me by my name.”

You barely had time to nod before he pressed his lips against yours. It began with a flicker of restraint, a kiss that felt almost too reverent. But as a low moan escaped your throat, the dam broke. He molded his mouth to yours with a sudden starving intensity. His hand slid up to cup the back of your head, fingers tangling in your hair to tilt your head back. You pressed your palm against his chest, feeling the unnatural, terrifying stillness beneath his doublet. 

He deepened the kiss, his tongue sweeping into your mouth to claim you. And though he fought for control, you could feel the strain beneath it. It was a hunger that went beyond lust. It was a craving for closeness, for blood, for something that had been denied for too long.

He broke away abruptly, his forehead resting against yours, his eyes now completely consumed by black.

“Baelor…” You whimpered, voice trembling. 

He groaned, a sound of pure agony and want. His hands grasped your waist, his grip bruising and possessive, as he spun you around and pushed you back against the wall. He buried his face in the crook of your neck, inhaling your scent. With a light touch, he unclasped your necklace, letting it clatter unheeded to the floor.

“Will you let me touch you, sweet one?” His tongue flicked against the sensitive shell of your ear, sending a violent shiver down your spine.

“I would let you do anything to me…” 

For one single moment, you were unsure if you said the words out loud until Baelor captured your lips again in a bruising kiss.

His hands dove beneath your skirts, hiking the fabric up to your waist. His fingers found the silk of your smallclothes and cupped you firmly. A low groan escaped him at the sheer amount of wetness soaking through the fabric. He pressed against your clit, rubbing it in firm strokes that made your toes curl and your head toss back against the stone wall.

Your arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him closer. A loud, broken whine escaped you as his cool fingers pushed aside your smallclothes and prodded your entrance. He slid one finger inside you, the second following soon. He thrust them in you with wanton abandon, stretching you open while his palm ground relentlessly against your clit. Your walls clenched violently around his fingers.

“I am so sorry, my perfect girl.” He murmured, his lips trailing a path of fire along your jawline. “I will repent until the end of my days for the fright I have caused you.”

You let out a breathless laugh, the pleasure consuming every corner of your mind. 

“Only if this is how you always repent.”

He chuckled, pressing against you as his fingers thrust faster. “This is just the beginning of my apology.”

Then you felt it, the thick, rigid press of his hard cock against your thigh. He moved his mouth to the pulsing vein in your throat, his lips grazing the skin where his fangs would normally sink in. A tremour ran through you. You were on the precipice of release, your pulse fluttering wildly beneath his mouth.

“Baelor-”

“I will not bite you.” He groaned against your skin. “Not unless you explicitly ask… not unless you are certain you want me to.”

He accelerated his pace, his fingers driving deep and fast into your soaking heat, his palm pressing harder against your clit. You whined, your hands clutching his hair, pulling him closer.

“Come for me, my dear.” He commanded. “Let me feel your forgiveness…”

Your release hit you like a tidal wave, a crashing orgasm that left you sobbing. Your unrestrained moans were swallowed by his fervent kiss. This was more intense than any dream, an explosion of sensation that left you shaking in his arms.

Would Maekar give you the same release? The thought came unbidden, as Baelor parted away from you.

He slowly withdrew his fingers, and you felt heat creep up your spine as he brought his hand to his mouth. He slowly licked his fingers, savouring your taste with a look of absolute devotion.

You opened your mouth to speak, your heart still racing, when a loud knock echoed through the room. Baelor’s jaw tightened, the predatory hunger vanishing instantly as his prince’s mask slid back into place.

A steward entered carrying a stack of parchments and ledgers, unaware of the tension lingering within the room.

“Your Grace.”

He bowed stiffly before crossing the solar.

Baelor sighed slowly.

The table was already buried beneath correspondence. Reports, petitions, messages bearing the three-headed dragon seal. The burdens of Dragonstone never slept, and neither it seemed did its prince.

The steward began placing documents across the table. Each one appeared to pull Baelor further from the moment you had shared.

His shoulders straightened and the prince who commanded armies and judged disputes settled firmly behind his eyes.

Yet his hand found yours, wrapping firmly around it. You felt his thumb brush lightly across your knuckles before he reluctantly released you.

“You should go, dōna riña.” He said gently. “I will find you later.”

Something warm unfurled within your chest at the promise, a small smile settling in your lips as you nodded and curtsied. 

“My prince.”

Baelor inclined his head, but his eyes remained on you until you reached the door. Only when you slipped through the door did he turn back to his duties, with visible reluctance.

And while you walked slowly, you knew one thing with terrifying certainty.

If Baelor sent for you again, you would come running. 

Walking from Baelor’s solar, you found yourself wandering in a daze. His voice lingered beneath your skin, refusing to settle. Your fingers drifted unconsciously toward your lips before you caught yourself. You could still feel the ghost of his fingers inside of you, and your release clinging to your thighs. 

The castle seemed strangely distant around you. Somewhere in the distance, steel rang against steel and you followed the sound without thinking. 

One of the inner courtyards was transformed into a training yard centuries ago. Stone walls enclosed the open space, while knights sparred beneath the watchful eyes of captains.

You walked the edge of, following the torchlights. Suddenly, the air shifted around you, replaced by a sudden presence that made you shiver. As you reached the turn, a hand clamped on your arm, yanking and pushing you against the wall. You gasped, heart racing, but deep down you knew who it could be. You looked up to find Maekar staring at you, his violet eyes seeming brighter than usual.

“I see my brother has already made his apology. He did it faster than I expected.” His jaw flexed.

He had abandoned the formal layers of court for a simple linen shirt, the sleeves rolled carelessly to his forearms. The collar hung open at his throat and chest, scars and white hairs peaking out from underneath it. 

“How did you know?” You asked.

“I can smell him on you.” He said, jealousy evident in his voice. 

Heat flooded your face. If he could smell Baelor, then he could also -

“Yes, I can smell you too.” He snorted softly, though there was little amusement in his voice. “Did you enjoy the way he apologised to you, little dove?”

Swallowing loudly, you nodded. You knew by now lying to him was futile. “Yes, my prince. I enjoyed it very much.”

Something dark flickered across his features and for a moment he simply stared at you.

“He was… kind to me.” You said, though the both of you knew what you meant by kindness.

He scoffed loudly and rolled his eyes.

“Gods preserve me.” He said, no real malice in his words. “He always does this.”

“Does what?” You tilted your head to the side.

“Makes people believe he is the reasonable one.”

A faint smile tugged at the corner of your mouth. But before you could say anything else, his eyes narrowed and he leaned in. 

“Did he taste you?”

“No…” Your voice trembled. “I mean yes… but not my blood.”

Maekar understood the meaning behind your words.

“Fucking hells Baelor.” He said gruffly. “Pretending restraint means he wants something less.”

He crowded into your space, his heavy frame pinning you against the stone as his rough fingers grabbed your chin. They were colder and rougher than Baelor’s.

“Lucky for you, little dove. I have no such qualms.”

You gasped as he leaned in and pressed his lips against yours hard, the kiss all consuming. Your hands found purchase on his shoulders, gripping the shirt tightly as he pressed his whole body against yours. 

Gods, what would Baelor think of you if he saw you now? 

But those thoughts perished as soon as Maekar tugged your lower lip between his teeth. It was as though he knew what you were thinking, as though he could hear your thoughts. You parted your lips instinctively and he slipped his tongue in, tasting every inch of you.

“My prince…” You moaned.

“No. Say my name.” He groaned against your lips. “I want to hear it.”

With his hand on your chin he moved your head to the side, opening your neck to him. He pressed open mouthed kisses along your jaw and neck, inhaling your scent before biting your neck lightly. His fangs did not puncture your skin, but their bite sent shivers up your spine and heat spread once more between your legs that day.

“Oh, Maekar-” You gasped.

“He was gentle with you, was he not?” He licked the spot. “Like you might shatter if he wanted you too much?”

“He was trying not to hurt-" You moaned as his lips were hot against your neck. “He was trying not to hurt or frighten me.”

Immediately he looked at you, thumb now pressing against your lower lip and dragging against it.

“We both know you can handle more.” He almost growled, pupils wide and pitch black against pale purple. 

His free hand grabbed one of your breasts, squeezing it roughly through the fabric. 

“Pretty, little dove. You can handle more, hmm?”

You nodded fervently. You could and you wanted more, so much more.

“I need words, girl.”

So like his brother, you thought before answering. “Yes, my- Maekar.”

A breathless laugh escaped him. Suddenly, he dropped to his knees, startling you, rough hands gathering your skirts and pushing them away. 

“My brother may have kissed you first.” He grumbled, placing your leg over his shoulder. 

Your breath hitched at the implication. 

“But I will properly taste you first, little dove.”

He buried his nose between your legs, inhaling you deeply.

“Maekar, somebody could-” The words died in your throat as he pressed his tongue over your small clothes, all rational thoughts disappearing.

“Nobody will.” He said, as his fingers gripped your small clothes and tore them away from you. Cool air hit your exposed folds, your hands pressed against the stone wall. 

“Nobody would fucking dare interrupt a prince’s meal.”  

The first touch of his tongue against your folds was an icy shock to your core. He did not simply lick, he tasted you with a feral, starving hunger, tongue sweeping deep into you. The sensation was a raw claim that made your toes curl, as he latched on you like a starved man, like it was the last thing he would do.

Your hand threaded through his hair, gripping it tight.

“Fuck…” He groaned, palms firmly grasping your thighs. “You taste sweeter than blood.”

His lips sealed tightly around your clit, tongue swirling around it with a relentless pressure. A loud moan escaped you as he flicked it with a precision that pushed you to the edge of delirium. As his tongue continued to feast, he slid one finger inside you, quickly followed by a second. He did not ease them in, stretching your walls in such a way it made you gasp loudly. Every lap of his tongue and every thrust of his fingers felt like a brand, marking you as his in the most primal way possible.

“Is this better than your dreams, little dove?”

You bit your hand to stifle your moans. Your fingers dug into his hair, hips bucking uncontrollably against his face as you sought more of his tongue and fingers. The risk of being seen, the thought of someone finding you pinned and exposed, your thighs spread wide for him only added fuel to the fire, desire singing through your veins. The sheer audacity of his hunger for you, of his mouth and hands on you drove you over the precipice.

“Maekar! Please-” You cried out, voice breaking. “Oh Gods, please do not stop!”

He did not slow down, burying his face even deeper into your heat, his tongue pressing against your clit, shattering your remaining control. Your orgasm hit you like a physical blow, a violent spasm that started from within your core and that radiated outward, leaving you sobbing and trembling. Your walls clenching against his fingers tight, and you collapsed against the wall, breath coming in jagged and broken gasps.

Maekar did not pull away immediately, desiring to taste every drop of your release. He stayed there, face pressed firmly against your swollen folds, his tongue licking every drop while his fingers pressed inside your for a few more moments, feeling the aftershocks of your climax. His breathing was heavy and ragged against your inner thighs

When he finally stood, the transition was not as jarring as you expected. As your skirts fell back in place, he looked at you, disheveled and completely undone, with a flicker of predatory heat and pride.

“Gods…” He murmured. “You have no idea what you do to me… to us.”

Us… that word struck inside your head like a bell. Not a competition between brothers, but something shared.

You did not get a chance to give it more though as he kissed you fully, like a man furious with himself for wanting you. You groaned as you tasted yourself on his tongue.

Suddenly, his whole body stiffened and he pulled away from the kiss. His attention shifted from you to the expanse behind him. His jaw tightened, whatever warmth he had for you vanished from his features. You followed his gaze, which had turned predatory and alert.

Nothing moved, at least, no at first. Then you caught it, a flash of familiar pale hair disappearing.

Aerion… The realisation struck you instantly.

When Maekar looked back at you, his expression was hardened.

“Leave, now.” He ordered. 

The command left little room for argument. You glanced once more towards the corridor, but nothing remained. Only shadows and stone. Only the unsettling feeling that someone, perhaps, had been watching.

Gripping your chin, he pulled your gaze towards him. 

“Go back to the sheep.” He pressed a bruising kiss against your lips. “I will find you later.”

After your nod he finally released you and you slowly walked away, but not before turning back to look at him. Shivers danced along your spine as he watched you with an unreadable expression, before melting into the shadows.

The following days blurred into a strange sort of bliss. They became a dizzying cycle of devotion and desire that left you permanently flushed and aching, shaped by the paths the princes led you through.

In public, everything remained proper, the princes maintaining their dignity, and you maintaining yours.

Yet still, glances became conversations, and conversations became understanding. You began recognising the subtle ways they sought you out. Baelor’s gaze always finding yours across a crowded hall, Maekar appearing at your shoulder whenever another lord had your attention for too long. You found yourself smiling more often than you had in years. 

The other guests noticed, but none dared say anything. 

In private, however, you were their shared secret, for neither prince intended to surrender your company to the other easily. It was not quite a competition. Still, you were a prize they fought over not with words or swords, but with the relentless desire to make you fully theirs. 

Whenever Baelor spent hours with you, Maekar always appeared to you before you retired for the day. And whenever Maekar disappeared with you into the dimly lit chambers, Baelor inevitably found a reason to request your presence in his solar later.

Neither acknowledged it or needed to, you understood. And, if you were honest with yourself, you enjoyed the attention far more than you should have. You succumbed to them both easily, like a touch-starved kitten. 

Baelor was your sanctuary. In the quiet intimacy of his solar or the sweeping expanse of the balconies overlooking the sea, his touch was a slow burn. He would pull you close, his hands sliding beneath your skirts to find you already wet for him, his lips tracing the line of your throat while his fingers worked you into a frenzy. Promises of eternal devotion were whispered against your skin, his voice a low vibration that made your core tremble. He always treated your pleasure as though it was sacred ritual, and he was your most devoted follower. 

Maekar was the storm. He would corner you in the darker corridors, the stone walls cold against your back while his body pressed into you. With your permission, he simply took. He would rip your bodice open just enough to suck your nipples raw, his teeth grazing the peaks until you whimpered. His tongue was cool against your folds and he enjoyed the risk of a servant or courtier turning the corner to find you pinned and panting. He always would intentionally slow his pace just to hear you beg for the release he so cruelly withheld.

You had offered to please them, to sink to your knees and take them both, but they refused. For now, they only sought your pleasure and your surrender. They wanted to see you undone by them.

The dreams still came, for Dragonstone seemed determined to haunt your sleep. Sometimes you dreamt of wandering endless halls, other times you dreamt of silver hair disappearing around distant corners. You also dreamt of mismatched eyes watching from the darkness.

Yet they no longer held the same power over you. Reality had become far more dangerous, for it wanted you, it sought you out, it looked at you with ancient eyes and spoke your name softly.

The castle no longer felt like a prison. For every hour you spent with the princes, every conversation and touch shared, every lingering glance exchanged, made one truth increasingly impossible to ignore.

You were no longer merely surviving Dragonstone.

You were beginning to belong there.

The storm outside drove the ladies indoors. Rain lashed mercilessly against the narrow windows as the hearth crackled in the chamber, shadows dancing across the walls as the wind howled. Since the princes were occupied elsewhere and Dragonstone was locked beneath endless rain, the ladies settled into restless company. Conversation had long since ceased to be about anything of importance, and gossip became the evening’s main entertainment. 

You sat between Bethany and Elinor, your needle moving half-heartedly through cloth none particularly cared to finish. 

Every few moments your thoughts wandered, and the thread remained suspended uselessly above the cloth. They went to Baelor, to his quiet smile, to the long conversations, to his hand around your neck, his chest firmly pressed against your back. They went to Maekar, to his scowl, to his mouth against yours in a rough kiss, as though he wished to devour the breath from your lungs. 

Your needle slipped and you winced, causing Elinor to giggle. 

“That is the third time it happened.”

She nudged your shoulder playfully with hers, her own hopeless embroidery in her hands.

Bethany glanced over.

“Are you feeling alright?” 

“Yes… I am.” You said, quickly continuing your work. “I am simply… distracted.”

“That is indeed true, you have been distracted for the better part of an hour.” Elinor observed.

“I have not.” You retorted weakly.

“You have.”

Bethany’s mouth twitched, though she wisely kept her eyes upon her work. You tried to concentrate, threading the needle through the cloth. Elinor watched you for another few moments before speaking again.

“You have been different lately.” 

Your fingers stilled as you looked at your friend.

“Different?” You repeated.

Tilting her head, Elinor studied you. “You look softer. Less afraid, perhaps.”

Blinking several times, you looked back at your embroidery. “I think I have finally grown accustomed to the castle.”

“Hmm.”

The sound contained considerably more skepticism than the word itself ought to have managed.

“I think she is right.” Bethany added. “You do seem less afraid than you were when we first arrived.”

“I was never afraid.”

Both girls simply looked at you, and you sighed in defeat.

“Very well, perhaps I was.”

Elinor smiled triumphantly at that. She returned to her embroidery, though her attention remained firmly upon you. 

“But I must tell you, Bethany and I did wonder at first whether you were simply playing the game well.”

You glanced toward her.

“Winning the princes’ favour….” She continued. “The way any sensible hostage would.”

“There is no shame in that.” Bethany added, finally looking up. “It is what any of us would do in your place.”

You opened your mouth, ready to agree, but Elinor’s expression changed. Her teasing smile faded into something more knowing.

“But it is not that anymore, is it?”

Your hands went still and Elinor set her embroidery aside entirely.

“You do not merely pretend to enjoy their company anymore.” She said matter-of-factly. “You actually do. I have watched you for weeks.”

Warmth crept slowly up your neck, and you cleared your throat.

“I do not know what you mean.” You retorted.

“Oh, I think you do.” Her grin returned, slow and delighted. “You have grown fond of one of them.”

The words struck far too close to the truth and you looked away. Elinor’s eyes widened at that.

“Oh, you have.”

“I have not-”

“You have!”

Several of the other ladies glanced over, while Bethany’s expression had gone carefully still. Elinor leaned closer, lowering her voice as though she were about to reveal some grand political secret.

“Which one?”

You stared at her. 

“Which prince has captured your heart?”

A few of the ladies had begun listening openly now.

“Elinor.” Bethany warned.

“What?” Elinor spread her hands innocently. “I am merely asking what everyone else is thinking.”

You looked around the chamber, noticing how several girls immediately pretended to be absorbed in their embroidery.

“Prince Baelor?” Elinor asked. “Or Prince Maekar?”

Your silence, and the colour climbing your cheeks doomed you entirely. The chamber erupted at once into a flurry of overlapping voices.

“I knew it!”

“It was hardly a secret-”

“They never stop staring at her!”

“Which one though?”

“Prince Maekar surely-”

“No, it is Prince Baelor-”

“But she always stared at Prince Maekar!”

“I disagree, it was the Crown Prince she was looking at.”

“She looks at both of them the same way, I have seen it-”

“Please stop.” You said mortified, to no effect whatsoever.

Unfortunately, nobody listened as delight and scandal moved through the room like a struck flint catching dry grass. The ladies continued talking over one another, excitement in the air, all of them thoroughly enjoying themselves at your expense.

Bethany pinched the bridge of her nose, before yelling: “Enough!”

That quieted most of the ladies present, yet Elinor continued to look at you. Her expression changed, disbelief replacing any amusement left. 

“Oh.” She exclaimed.

You knew exactly what she was about to say, and you closed your eyes.

“What?” Bethany’s eyes flitted between you. 

“It is not just one prince, is it?” Elinor asked, something sharper than teasing entering her voice as the realisation settled over her. “You care for both of them.”

Silence spread through the chamber, as the words landed like a blade. Bethany’s face went from carefully still to something close to horror, and nobody spoke, because nobody could think of anything to say that would make it less true.

Not even you, for denying it now, denying your true feelings after weeks of carrying them silently, would have been a lie too large. For Baelor soothed something restless within you, for Maekar awakened something more reckless. And increasingly, you found yourself unwilling to relinquish either.

“That is enough.” Bethany stood abruptly, the sharpness in her voice reverberating through the room.

She knelt before you, taking your hands firmly in hers, the fear in her eyes piercing through you. Whether it was for you or herself, you were not sure of. 

“Listen to me carefully.” She begged. “You must stop this, stop before there is no turning back.”

You swallowed hard.

Too late, the thought arrived instantly. It is already too late, for they are dear to me.

“You do not understand… creatures like them-” She lowered her voice. “They are dangerous. Being a paramour to princes is dangerous enough, but Targaryens…”

Her hands tightened their grip around yours. 

“Targaryens take what they want. When powerful men want something, people suffer. And when they tire of it, when they tire of you, people suffer even more!”

Your chest tightened as you looked at her. 

Surely, the princes would not tire of you, you thought. Surely not, not the way they acted around you now.

Elinor shifted awkwardly, her earlier delight being drained away entirely now, replaced by something more solemn.

“I was only teasing her.”

“You should not.” Bethany looked at her. “Not about them. Never.”

Unease settled over the gathered ladies. 

You knew you should feel guilty, that you should not foster such feelings for your captors, for the men who had brought you here to be judged. But instead you found yourself wondering what either of them would say, if they could hear this conversation now. Would they be amused? Would they mock you for it, later, in the dark of their chambers?

The thoughts frightened you more than you expected it to.

Before you could untangle it further or say anything, a voice drifted from the doorway.

“How touching.”

Prince Aerion leaned casually against the doorframe and every woman in the room froze at once. No one had heard him enter. Your blood turned to ice as his bright violet eyes swept across the chamber, lingering, studying, judging every single one of the ladies in turn the way a butcher considers cuts of meat.

The candles nearest the door guttered as he stepped inside, as though the flames themselves had recoiled. His gaze settled on you last, and stayed, a slow smirk curving his mouth.

“So much talk about my father and uncle.”

Nobody dared interrupt him.

“I did not realise they inspired such devotion.” He sneered. 

He drifted further into the room, entirely unhurried, the way something predatory moves when it already knows it has all the time it needs.

Bethany rose slowly, dipping into a curtsy that did not quite hide the fear she felt.

“Your Grace.” She said. “Forgive us, we were speaking foolishly.”

“Yes. Foolish indeed.”

The room felt smaller with every step he took, the air becoming thinner and colder somehow, though the hearth still burned steadily. His gaze never left you.

“My uncle…” He said with contempt. “Always pretending to be so honourable, so noble.”

You instinctively stepped backward. Aerion noticed and his smile only widened.

“My father, pretending to be so good.” His eyes dragged slowly down your frame and back up. “And you…”

“Your Grace-” You tried. “Prince Aerion, you must understand-”

“You want both of them.” He said it like an accusation, like it was something filthy. “How greedy of you.”

“Your Grace, it was only harmless gossip.” Bethany tried to regain control of the situation.

But Aerion ignored her entirely. His attention remained fixed on you, and every instinct in your body screamed a single word.

Danger.

“You make them weak, did you know that?” He asked.

Aerion’s voice had changed. The mocking edge remained, but it had dropped into something quieter, almost conversational. A chill travelled the length of your spine.

“What?” You gasped.

“You heard me.” His eyes remained fixed upon you.

“I could never-” Your voice caught. “How could I even-”

“You have.” The words came with quiet certainty.

“I wonder which one will destroy the other first.” He continued, a cruel smile pulling at his mouth. “All over a lowborn, Blackfyre bitch like you.”

The world seemed to stop, and for a moment you could neither move nor speak. The insult barely registered, because it was the accusation beneath it that left you frozen. The suggestion that whatever had begun between you and the princes could become a weapon against them.

Beside you, Elinor had gone deathly still.

“We-” Bethany’s voice trembled. “Elinor was only jesting.”

Your heart dropped into your stomach as you turned towards her. You could hardly believe she had said it. You knew she was frightened, you could see it plainly now in the rigid set of her shoulders and the colour that was drained from her face. 

But that is no excuse! Your thoughts were loud.

But Aerion did not care about fear, his gaze shifting slowly and hungrily first to Bethany, then to Elinor.

The latter was not looking at Aerion, but stared at Bethany instead. There was something in her expression that you had never seen before. Hurt and betrayal raced behind her eyes. The dawning realisation that Bethany’s attempt to save you placed her in the line of fire instead.

“No.” The word left you before you could think.

You stepped forward, placing yourself between Aerion’s gaze and Elinor.

“Bethany did not mean anything by it, and neither did Elinor. They were frightened, and they were speaking carelessly.”

Your voice shook, but you forced yourself to continue.

“It was my fault. I should have stopped them, stopped them from jesting.”

Aerion regarded you in silence, then his sneer returned.

“You do not jest about Targaryen honour.”

The chamber fell utterly silent, even the storm outside seemed distant now. For the first time you understood that whatever game you thought you were playing at Dragonstone had never belonged to you at all.

Then Aerion moved. He was too fast, monstrously fast, faster than anything with a human shape had any right to move. Elinor barely had time to gasp, let alone scream, before he seized her by the throat, her feet leaving the floor entirely.

“No!” You screamed, lurching towards him. “Your grace, please do not harm her. She is innocent!”

He looked directly at you, and something ancient and starving moved behind his eyes.

“No Blackfyre supporter is innocent.” 

He smiled, wide and wicked, fangs catching the firelight.

The sound that followed immediately seemed impossibly loud, a single final crack that you would hear again in your dreams for months afterwards.

The room dissolved into panic as women screamed, fleeing towards the door in a tangle of limbs and terror. You watched as Elinor’s body folded and collapsed to the stone floor, already still in a way that living things never were, while Bethany’s scream tore through the chamber as she threw herself down beside her. You could not breathe, you could not think as blood roared so loudly in your ears that the world seemed to tilt sideways around it. Your throat felt impossibly tight, and all you could do was only stare.

Aerion turned towards you, hatred burning openly in his eyes and replacing whatever amusement had lived in his face a moment before.

“You see?” He asked, stalking closer, each step unhurried. “You Blackfyre whore will end up just like her after they are done with you.”

You shook your head, though the words came out barely above a whisper.

“No, they would not.”

“How do you know?” Aerion sneered, closing the last of the distance between you in a single stride. “How do you know that once my uncle and father tire of you, this will not happen to you as well?”

Tears streamed freely down your face now, your whole body trembling.

“I do not believe you.” You voice cracked. “They would not do this to me.”

His hand fisted in your hair, wrenching your head back, baring the long line of your throat to him.

“Pathetic whore.”

You saw his eyes brighten to something almost luminous, fangs lengthening as he leaned in close enough that you could feel his breath against your skin.

Then another voice tore through the chamber, loud enough to shake dust from the rafters.

“AERION!”

Maekar did not walk into the room. He materialised from the shadows, the space between one heartbeat and the next folding shut around him. Fury blazed in his violet eyes as he looked upon his son, and for one strange, dizzying moment, you felt nothing but relief at the sight of him. A relief so total it nearly buckled your knees.

“Let her go.” He growled.

“Father-”

“LET HER GO!”

Aerion snarled and shoved you to the ground rather than release you gently, your palms scraping hard against stone.

“You have become pathetic, father. You think to supplant mother with her?”

“Watch how you speak to me, boy. You know nothing.”

“I should have killed her instead.” Aerion’s eyes darkened.

Maekar lunged at him without an ounce of hesitation. The force of the impact sent Aerion crashing clear across the chamber and into the stone wall hard enough to crack it, dust and shattered rock raining down. Bethany curled her body over Elinor’s as though she could still shield her from anything, sobbing loudly. You watched father and son collide again and again, faster than your eyes could properly follow, blurs of violence and silver hair and torn cloth.

“Idiot!” Maekar shouted. “What were you thinking?”

And then another figure appeared.

Baelor.

You never saw him cross the room. One moment he stood somewhere far across the chamber; the next he knelt beside you, calling your name, his voice cutting through the ringing chaos in your skull like the only true thing left in the world.

You stumbled toward him, and his arms closed around you immediately, pulling you flush against his chest. One hand cradled the back of your head while the other wrapped firm around your waist. He shielded you from the violence unfolding around the room, saving you from a sight you had already seen too much of.

“It is alright.” His voice cut through the chaos, an anchor amidst the storm. “I have you, dōna riña.”

Your hands clenched desperately in the fabric of his doublet, your face buried in the crook of his neck, breathing in the cold and familiar scent of him, as though it alone could hold the world together.

“Please… please do not leave me.” The words escaped before you could stop them, small and broken.

Something shifted in his expression, flashes of grief, guilt, something old and aching moving through it all at once. His hand tightened against your hair.

“Never.” He promised, low and certain. “I will never leave you.”

You did not see the look Maekar gave you as he finally dragged a snarling, bloodied Aerion from the room. You did not see the fear, or the darkness gathering behind his eyes, or the way his gaze lingered on you a moment too long before he forced himself to turn away.

Nor did you see Bethany, still kneeling on the cold stone beside Elinor cradling her, tears cutting clean paths through her cheeks, lifting her head to look at you.

Her expression held far more than grief, for there was blame swirling behind her eyes.

And hatred.

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[ofstarsandvibranium]

Maybe This Time Masterlist

Fandom: The Pitt

Pairing: Jack Abbot x F!Reader

Summary: You and Jack had history; years of working together, you the resident and he the doctor. You had an unspoken thing between you two that never came to fruition. You left for a fellowship in California and now you’re back three years later.

A/N: definitely some inaccuracies with medical procedures and med school stuff

Part 1

Part 2 

Part 3 

Part 4 

Part 5 

Part 6 

Part 7 

Part 8

[ofstarsandvibranium]

All I see is Titus Danforth here…

[ofstarsandvibranium]

there’s no way this man can be real. 😂

[ofstarsandvibranium]

Three Little Words

Fandom: Widow's Bay

Pairing: Tom Loftis x F!Reader

Summary: You and Tom have been dating for four months. You two love each other, but haven't exchanged those words just yet...until Tom let's them slip out during an intimate time.

Warning: smut - oral (male receiving), p in v, praise, and some subby!Tom

Tom Loftis Masterlist

Your elbow is propped up on the table, your cheek resting against your hand as you listen to Tom speak another journalist visiting the island. Patricia couldn't attend the dinner so you stepped in for her. As the event coordinator, you share all the planned festivities the journalist can observe during Founder's Week. Overall though, it's Tom that does most of the talking.

It's a surprise to you to Tom speak so passionately about the town, especially since he grew up with negative views towards (and still kind of does). Regardless, it was very arousing to you. To see and hear the passion in his voice, stirs something in you. You place your free hand on his thigh and he glances at you for a moment, before relaying some of the things he's worked on since becoming mayor.

Eventually, the dinner ends and Tom is in high spirits. Your arm hooked around his as you leave The Salty Whale. You two watch the journalist hop into her rental car and drive away. You take the opportunity to lean in, pecking Tom's lips, "You did so well, honey."

He beams at you, "Thank you. Yeah, I think that went very well. I just hope she enjoys the rest of her week here."

"I'm sure she will," you run your hands down the lapels of his jacket, "Let's head home. I wanna show you how proud I am of you," you purr into his ear and he can't help but shiver.

He clears his throat, "Yep. Got it," he places a hand on your lower back and gestures to his Jeep, "Let's go!"

You giggle as he guides you to the car.

______________________

When you two arrive at Tom's home, Tom calls out for his son, "Evan! Evan, you home?" You and Tom remain still, listening for any sound to indicate his son was home.

Hearing nothing, you and Tom bound up the stairs, giggling like teens. Tom makes it a point to immediately lock his door as soon as you shut it. You pull off your shirt and shimmy out of your jeans. You help Tom with his pants as he throws off his jacket and begins to unbutton his shirt.

You press your lips to his in a fervent kiss and then pull away. Tom is fumbling with his belt and you slap his hands away, undoing the belt and his pants with ease. He pushes down his boxers, length already getting hard.

You nod towards the bed, "Lay down."

He gulps, "Yup. Got it."

He crawls onto the bed, settling on the pillows. He watches as you slide your underwear down your legs, kicking to the side. Your bra following it shortly after.

You make a slow approach to him, on your hands and knees, inching closer and closer to him. His eyes watching your every move.

You giggle as you wrap your hand around his length, hearing Tom murmur, "Oh fuck," under his breath as you give his shaft a little squeeze.

You hum, "You don't know how hot it was to see you talk up the town like that," you lick a stripe up the underside of his length.

Tom runs his hands down his face, stopping at his cheeks, "Holy fuck."

You can't help but chuckle, "Don't lose yourself so soon, Tommy Boy," you give him a wink and take his tip into your lips.

His body physically shudders as you suck on him. Your eyes never leaving his as your tongue swirls around the tip, pausing to suck him a little.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he grumbles, gripping the comforter underneath him as you take him further into your mouth, head slowly bobbing up and down his length. You hear Tom take a deep inhale and loud exhale.

You pull him from your mouth, "You okay there, honey?"

He groans and nods, "Yup. Good. So...good," he clears his throat, "Gotta be honest here, sweetheart. Don't think I'm gonna last long tonight."

You grin at him, "That's fine. Tonight's all about you anyway," you give him a wink, taking him into your mouth again.

You can't help but find it endearing how much Tom is trying to fight his own orgasm. He brings his fist to his mouth, biting down at his knuckles as you take him all the way to your throat and pull him out again.

You sit back, hand now moving up and down his length, your saliva coating him up, "It's okay, Tom. You can cum."

He shakes his head, "Nope. I can-I can go longer."

"Ooohh don't challenge me, baby. You know I love a challenge," you crawl further up him, your pussy grinding down on him.

"Cheater," Tom moans as his dick slides against your pussy.

"You shouldn't have challenged me," your hand goes in-between you two and you guide him into you. You've been wet since the restaurant, so he enters you with ease.

Tom lets out a sharp breath and tries steady breathing, as you press your hands right on his torso and begin to fuck yourself on him. He places his hands on your hips.

"Come on, Tommy Boy. Just give in already," you smirk down at him, his face red, a sheen of sweat forming over his chest and head.

He shakes his head, "Nope. No, I can-I can do this."

Your hands run up his chest and then as you drag them back down, your nails dig into his skin, "But you don't have to hold back. Not for me. Never for me."

He grips your hips tighter and then rolls you over. You yelp in surprise but laughter follows, "Tommy!"

He grins at you, "Sorry. Just...wanna hold you," he murmurs, forehead resting against yours as he starts thrusting into you this time.

"That's it, baby. Take what you want. Lemme feel it," you gasp, as he hooks your leg over his hip, hitting you deeper, "Fuck, yes!"

You bring your hands to cup his face, "So good, Tom. You're so good. And such a good mayor. Oh fuck! Right there!"

"Close," he breaths out, a sharp intake, "Shit. Shit! Fuck! Oh fuck!" he's moving his hips hard and fast as his orgasm washes over him. The bed shaking with his erratic thrusts. Your hands still cupping his cheeks, you watch as he face scrunches up as he cums.

He groans, hips making sharp thrusts after another, "Fucking...shit."

You chuckle, "There we go, honey," you wipe away the beads of sweat on his brow as his body stills and he slowly pulls out and away from you.

He rolls onto his back, staring up at the ceiling, panting like crazy, "God I love you."

You arch a brow at him as you prop your head up with your hand, "You do?"

He looks at you with wide eyes and begins to fumble over his words, "I-I-I mean, yes. But if you-you, you know, don't feel the same way, then you can just ignore what I said. It's-It's been a while since I was with anyone and you know, we've been together for months, but it's fine. It's fine," he tries to get up and leave, but you pull him back down.

You weigh him down with your upper body resting on his, "Tom, hey, it's okay. I love you too."

He looks at you in surprise, "You do?"

You can't help but laugh at his surprise, "Of course, I do. You're so incredibly endearing and you care about the town, even if you say you don't. I know you do and I love how much you love your son, even if he's being a rebellious teenager. I love how you make me feel seen and heard. I love how you are willing to deal with Kathy just so you can bring me lunch. I love you so much, Tom Loftis."

You want to keep the look on Tom's face right now locked inside your brain forever. His eyes full of love, a soft smile on his lips, "I love you," he says again, much softer and meaningful this time.

"I love you too," you lean in and peck his lips, "I love you," you kiss his nose, "I love you," his cheek, "I love you," his head, "I love you," his other cheek, "I love you." and his lips again.

The man is beaming so wide, it makes your heart want to burst.

He wraps his arms around you, head on his chest and you listen to his heartbeat begin to steady itself.

"I'm so lucky to have you," he whispers, his hold tighens.

"Ditto," you whisper back, causing him to chuckle, your own following it.

[ofstarsandvibranium]

Three Little Words

Fandom: Widow's Bay

Pairing: Tom Loftis x F!Reader

Summary: You and Tom have been dating for four months. You two love each other, but haven't exchanged those words just yet...until Tom let's them slip out during an intimate time.

Warning: smut - oral (male receiving), p in v, praise, and some subby!Tom

Tom Loftis Masterlist

Your elbow is propped up on the table, your cheek resting against your hand as you listen to Tom speak another journalist visiting the island. Patricia couldn't attend the dinner so you stepped in for her. As the event coordinator, you share all the planned festivities the journalist can observe during Founder's Week. Overall though, it's Tom that does most of the talking.

It's a surprise to you to Tom speak so passionately about the town, especially since he grew up with negative views towards (and still kind of does). Regardless, it was very arousing to you. To see and hear the passion in his voice, stirs something in you. You place your free hand on his thigh and he glances at you for a moment, before relaying some of the things he's worked on since becoming mayor.

Eventually, the dinner ends and Tom is in high spirits. Your arm hooked around his as you leave The Salty Whale. You two watch the journalist hop into her rental car and drive away. You take the opportunity to lean in, pecking Tom's lips, "You did so well, honey."

He beams at you, "Thank you. Yeah, I think that went very well. I just hope she enjoys the rest of her week here."

"I'm sure she will," you run your hands down the lapels of his jacket, "Let's head home. I wanna show you how proud I am of you," you purr into his ear and he can't help but shiver.

He clears his throat, "Yep. Got it," he places a hand on your lower back and gestures to his Jeep, "Let's go!"

You giggle as he guides you to the car.

______________________

When you two arrive at Tom's home, Tom calls out for his son, "Evan! Evan, you home?" You and Tom remain still, listening for any sound to indicate his son was home.

Hearing nothing, you and Tom bound up the stairs, giggling like teens. Tom makes it a point to immediately lock his door as soon as you shut it. You pull off your shirt and shimmy out of your jeans. You help Tom with his pants as he throws off his jacket and begins to unbutton his shirt.

You press your lips to his in a fervent kiss and then pull away. Tom is fumbling with his belt and you slap his hands away, undoing the belt and his pants with ease. He pushes down his boxers, length already getting hard.

You nod towards the bed, "Lay down."

He gulps, "Yup. Got it."

He crawls onto the bed, settling on the pillows. He watches as you slide your underwear down your legs, kicking to the side. Your bra following it shortly after.

You make a slow approach to him, on your hands and knees, inching closer and closer to him. His eyes watching your every move.

You giggle as you wrap your hand around his length, hearing Tom murmur, "Oh fuck," under his breath as you give his shaft a little squeeze.

You hum, "You don't know how hot it was to see you talk up the town like that," you lick a stripe up the underside of his length.

Tom runs his hands down his face, stopping at his cheeks, "Holy fuck."

You can't help but chuckle, "Don't lose yourself so soon, Tommy Boy," you give him a wink and take his tip into your lips.

His body physically shudders as you suck on him. Your eyes never leaving his as your tongue swirls around the tip, pausing to suck him a little.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he grumbles, gripping the comforter underneath him as you take him further into your mouth, head slowly bobbing up and down his length. You hear Tom take a deep inhale and loud exhale.

You pull him from your mouth, "You okay there, honey?"

He groans and nods, "Yup. Good. So...good," he clears his throat, "Gotta be honest here, sweetheart. Don't think I'm gonna last long tonight."

You grin at him, "That's fine. Tonight's all about you anyway," you give him a wink, taking him into your mouth again.

You can't help but find it endearing how much Tom is trying to fight his own orgasm. He brings his fist to his mouth, biting down at his knuckles as you take him all the way to your throat and pull him out again.

You sit back, hand now moving up and down his length, your saliva coating him up, "It's okay, Tom. You can cum."

He shakes his head, "Nope. I can-I can go longer."

"Ooohh don't challenge me, baby. You know I love a challenge," you crawl further up him, your pussy grinding down on him.

"Cheater," Tom moans as his dick slides against your pussy.

"You shouldn't have challenged me," your hand goes in-between you two and you guide him into you. You've been wet since the restaurant, so he enters you with ease.

Tom lets out a sharp breath and tries steady breathing, as you press your hands right on his torso and begin to fuck yourself on him. He places his hands on your hips.

"Come on, Tommy Boy. Just give in already," you smirk down at him, his face red, a sheen of sweat forming over his chest and head.

He shakes his head, "Nope. No, I can-I can do this."

Your hands run up his chest and then as you drag them back down, your nails dig into his skin, "But you don't have to hold back. Not for me. Never for me."

He grips your hips tighter and then rolls you over. You yelp in surprise but laughter follows, "Tommy!"

He grins at you, "Sorry. Just...wanna hold you," he murmurs, forehead resting against yours as he starts thrusting into you this time.

"That's it, baby. Take what you want. Lemme feel it," you gasp, as he hooks your leg over his hip, hitting you deeper, "Fuck, yes!"

You bring your hands to cup his face, "So good, Tom. You're so good. And such a good mayor. Oh fuck! Right there!"

"Close," he breaths out, a sharp intake, "Shit. Shit! Fuck! Oh fuck!" he's moving his hips hard and fast as his orgasm washes over him. The bed shaking with his erratic thrusts. Your hands still cupping his cheeks, you watch as he face scrunches up as he cums.

He groans, hips making sharp thrusts after another, "Fucking...shit."

You chuckle, "There we go, honey," you wipe away the beads of sweat on his brow as his body stills and he slowly pulls out and away from you.

He rolls onto his back, staring up at the ceiling, panting like crazy, "God I love you."

You arch a brow at him as you prop your head up with your hand, "You do?"

He looks at you with wide eyes and begins to fumble over his words, "I-I-I mean, yes. But if you-you, you know, don't feel the same way, then you can just ignore what I said. It's-It's been a while since I was with anyone and you know, we've been together for months, but it's fine. It's fine," he tries to get up and leave, but you pull him back down.

You weigh him down with your upper body resting on his, "Tom, hey, it's okay. I love you too."

He looks at you in surprise, "You do?"

You can't help but laugh at his surprise, "Of course, I do. You're so incredibly endearing and you care about the town, even if you say you don't. I know you do and I love how much you love your son, even if he's being a rebellious teenager. I love how you make me feel seen and heard. I love how you are willing to deal with Kathy just so you can bring me lunch. I love you so much, Tom Loftis."

You want to keep the look on Tom's face right now locked inside your brain forever. His eyes full of love, a soft smile on his lips, "I love you," he says again, much softer and meaningful this time.

"I love you too," you lean in and peck his lips, "I love you," you kiss his nose, "I love you," his cheek, "I love you," his head, "I love you," his other cheek, "I love you." and his lips again.

The man is beaming so wide, it makes your heart want to burst.

He wraps his arms around you, head on his chest and you listen to his heartbeat begin to steady itself.

"I'm so lucky to have you," he whispers, his hold tighens.

"Ditto," you whisper back, causing him to chuckle, your own following it.

[ofstarsandvibranium]

Three Little Words

Fandom: Widow's Bay

Pairing: Tom Loftis x F!Reader

Summary: You and Tom have been dating for four months. You two love each other, but haven't exchanged those words just yet...until Tom let's them slip out during an intimate time.

Warning: smut - oral (male receiving), p in v, praise, and some subby!Tom

Tom Loftis Masterlist

Your elbow is propped up on the table, your cheek resting against your hand as you listen to Tom speak another journalist visiting the island. Patricia couldn't attend the dinner so you stepped in for her. As the event coordinator, you share all the planned festivities the journalist can observe during Founder's Week. Overall though, it's Tom that does most of the talking.

It's a surprise to you to Tom speak so passionately about the town, especially since he grew up with negative views towards (and still kind of does). Regardless, it was very arousing to you. To see and hear the passion in his voice, stirs something in you. You place your free hand on his thigh and he glances at you for a moment, before relaying some of the things he's worked on since becoming mayor.

Eventually, the dinner ends and Tom is in high spirits. Your arm hooked around his as you leave The Salty Whale. You two watch the journalist hop into her rental car and drive away. You take the opportunity to lean in, pecking Tom's lips, "You did so well, honey."

He beams at you, "Thank you. Yeah, I think that went very well. I just hope she enjoys the rest of her week here."

"I'm sure she will," you run your hands down the lapels of his jacket, "Let's head home. I wanna show you how proud I am of you," you purr into his ear and he can't help but shiver.

He clears his throat, "Yep. Got it," he places a hand on your lower back and gestures to his Jeep, "Let's go!"

You giggle as he guides you to the car.

______________________

When you two arrive at Tom's home, Tom calls out for his son, "Evan! Evan, you home?" You and Tom remain still, listening for any sound to indicate his son was home.

Hearing nothing, you and Tom bound up the stairs, giggling like teens. Tom makes it a point to immediately lock his door as soon as you shut it. You pull off your shirt and shimmy out of your jeans. You help Tom with his pants as he throws off his jacket and begins to unbutton his shirt.

You press your lips to his in a fervent kiss and then pull away. Tom is fumbling with his belt and you slap his hands away, undoing the belt and his pants with ease. He pushes down his boxers, length already getting hard.

You nod towards the bed, "Lay down."

He gulps, "Yup. Got it."

He crawls onto the bed, settling on the pillows. He watches as you slide your underwear down your legs, kicking to the side. Your bra following it shortly after.

You make a slow approach to him, on your hands and knees, inching closer and closer to him. His eyes watching your every move.

You giggle as you wrap your hand around his length, hearing Tom murmur, "Oh fuck," under his breath as you give his shaft a little squeeze.

You hum, "You don't know how hot it was to see you talk up the town like that," you lick a stripe up the underside of his length.

Tom runs his hands down his face, stopping at his cheeks, "Holy fuck."

You can't help but chuckle, "Don't lose yourself so soon, Tommy Boy," you give him a wink and take his tip into your lips.

His body physically shudders as you suck on him. Your eyes never leaving his as your tongue swirls around the tip, pausing to suck him a little.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he grumbles, gripping the comforter underneath him as you take him further into your mouth, head slowly bobbing up and down his length. You hear Tom take a deep inhale and loud exhale.

You pull him from your mouth, "You okay there, honey?"

He groans and nods, "Yup. Good. So...good," he clears his throat, "Gotta be honest here, sweetheart. Don't think I'm gonna last long tonight."

You grin at him, "That's fine. Tonight's all about you anyway," you give him a wink, taking him into your mouth again.

You can't help but find it endearing how much Tom is trying to fight his own orgasm. He brings his fist to his mouth, biting down at his knuckles as you take him all the way to your throat and pull him out again.

You sit back, hand now moving up and down his length, your saliva coating him up, "It's okay, Tom. You can cum."

He shakes his head, "Nope. I can-I can go longer."

"Ooohh don't challenge me, baby. You know I love a challenge," you crawl further up him, your pussy grinding down on him.

"Cheater," Tom moans as his dick slides against your pussy.

"You shouldn't have challenged me," your hand goes in-between you two and you guide him into you. You've been wet since the restaurant, so he enters you with ease.

Tom lets out a sharp breath and tries steady breathing, as you press your hands right on his torso and begin to fuck yourself on him. He places his hands on your hips.

"Come on, Tommy Boy. Just give in already," you smirk down at him, his face red, a sheen of sweat forming over his chest and head.

He shakes his head, "Nope. No, I can-I can do this."

Your hands run up his chest and then as you drag them back down, your nails dig into his skin, "But you don't have to hold back. Not for me. Never for me."

He grips your hips tighter and then rolls you over. You yelp in surprise but laughter follows, "Tommy!"

He grins at you, "Sorry. Just...wanna hold you," he murmurs, forehead resting against yours as he starts thrusting into you this time.

"That's it, baby. Take what you want. Lemme feel it," you gasp, as he hooks your leg over his hip, hitting you deeper, "Fuck, yes!"

You bring your hands to cup his face, "So good, Tom. You're so good. And such a good mayor. Oh fuck! Right there!"

"Close," he breaths out, a sharp intake, "Shit. Shit! Fuck! Oh fuck!" he's moving his hips hard and fast as his orgasm washes over him. The bed shaking with his erratic thrusts. Your hands still cupping his cheeks, you watch as he face scrunches up as he cums.

He groans, hips making sharp thrusts after another, "Fucking...shit."

You chuckle, "There we go, honey," you wipe away the beads of sweat on his brow as his body stills and he slowly pulls out and away from you.

He rolls onto his back, staring up at the ceiling, panting like crazy, "God I love you."

You arch a brow at him as you prop your head up with your hand, "You do?"

He looks at you with wide eyes and begins to fumble over his words, "I-I-I mean, yes. But if you-you, you know, don't feel the same way, then you can just ignore what I said. It's-It's been a while since I was with anyone and you know, we've been together for months, but it's fine. It's fine," he tries to get up and leave, but you pull him back down.

You weigh him down with your upper body resting on his, "Tom, hey, it's okay. I love you too."

He looks at you in surprise, "You do?"

You can't help but laugh at his surprise, "Of course, I do. You're so incredibly endearing and you care about the town, even if you say you don't. I know you do and I love how much you love your son, even if he's being a rebellious teenager. I love how you make me feel seen and heard. I love how you are willing to deal with Kathy just so you can bring me lunch. I love you so much, Tom Loftis."

You want to keep the look on Tom's face right now locked inside your brain forever. His eyes full of love, a soft smile on his lips, "I love you," he says again, much softer and meaningful this time.

"I love you too," you lean in and peck his lips, "I love you," you kiss his nose, "I love you," his cheek, "I love you," his head, "I love you," his other cheek, "I love you." and his lips again.

The man is beaming so wide, it makes your heart want to burst.

He wraps his arms around you, head on his chest and you listen to his heartbeat begin to steady itself.

"I'm so lucky to have you," he whispers, his hold tighens.

"Ditto," you whisper back, causing him to chuckle, your own following it.

[ofstarsandvibranium]

A Week Without You

Fandom: Ted Lasso

Pairing: Jamie Tartt x F!Reader

Summary: You're going on a retreat where you will have no contact with Jamie. He doesn't take it very well.

Ted Lasso Masterlist

Jamie pouts at you through the FaceTime call, “What do ya mean you can’t call me for a week?”

You sigh, taking pause in your packing. You run your hand down your face, “Lovey, I told you the retreat was happening at a secluded cabin! Phones are allowed only for emergencies. So only if it’s dire-”

“It is dire! I need to talk to every day or I’ll blow me brains out!” His Mancunian accent sounds a little heavier in his desperation.

You can’t help but snort. You put your hands on your jutted out hips, staring down at your phone propped up on your bedside, “Lovey, be serious.”

He pouts at you again, “I am serious, loves. You’re like me life line. Me chest feels empty and shit when I can’t see or hear from you.”

You can’t help but melt at his words, walking over to your phone and cradling it in your hand, “God, you’re such a fucking softie. I love you so much.”

Jamie scoffs at you, “Clearly not enough ‘cause you’re desertin’ me!”

You give him another sigh, “It’ll go by fast. I promise you. I’m going to have my phone off but still feel free to text me so I can see how you spent your days without me.”

“I’m gonna be so fuckin’ lonely.”

“You’ll be fine! I promise. Just hang out with Roy or Isaac or Keeley. Just hang out with a bunch of people and you won’t feel lonely!”

“Well I can’t kiss and cuddle with any of them now can I?”

You smirk at him, "Well you can certaintly try."

He rolls his eyes at you and you can't help but giggle.

_______________________

Day 1 Without You

It's technically half a day without you. He spends the night at your place, trying to get as much time with you as possible before you leave. He wakes up early with you, has breakfast with you, takes a shower with you, drives you to the airport, and tries really hard not to cry as you moved towards TSA.

You send him a selfie of you blowing a kiss before you put your phone on airplane mode. Throughout the rest of his day, he keeps looking at that selfie.

It's clear to the team that Jamie's a little out of it. During practice, he's fumbling over himself, missing passes, kicking like shit. It drives Roy insane to the point that he ends practice early.

Once all the lads are in the locker room, Roy marches up to Jamie and growls, "Boot room. Now."

Jamie sighs, shuffling after his friend, mentor, and coach. When he enters, Will scurries out with a pile of boots in his arms. Jamie plops onto a bench and Roy stares down at him, his bushy brows more furrowed than usual.

"Now what the fuck is going on with you?"

Jamie buries his hands in his hoodie and shrugs, "Nothin'," he murmurs.

Roy scoffs, "Well it's clearly fucking something. You were being absolute shit out there." Jamie gives another shrug and it makes Roy run a hand down his face.

"She left me," Jamie murmurs.

"Who?"

"Me lovey."

"She broke up with you?"

"No! Worse, Roy! She left me to go on some retreat where she has no phone, no WiFi. So I can't speak to her for a whole week!"

Roy narrows his eyes at the young striker, "...are you fucking shitting me? That's what's got you all fucked up? Your girlfriend went on a secluded retreat?!''

Jamie groans and stands to his defense, "You don't get it, do ya? It's one thing to go on a retreat for a week if you can have your phone or have wifi. It's another if I can't speak to her at all! It's only been half a day and I hate not hearin' from her!"

"Fucking hell," Roy grumbles to himself, shaking his head.

Jamie pulls out his phone and shows Roy, "She told me I could text her throughout the day, even if she can't reply," he scrolls down and shows Roy the long lines of text to you, a few selfies of him scattered in there.

"Jesus, Tartt. Get a fucking grip!"

"I can't! Me grip left me and went on a retreat to Sweden!"

Roy shakes his head again, leaving the boot room because he absolutely can't handle Jamie right now.

___________________________

Day 2 Without You

Jamie: Went out with the lads last night cause the saw how sad I was.

Jamie sent an image: [a pic of him pouting while holding a beer]

Jamie: the club was having a 1D night. you would've loved it.

Jamie sent an image: [a pic of him in a corner crying]

Jamie: Sam took this pic of me crying bc they played your favorite song and it made me think of you.

Second day without you is slightly better. He does his usual 4am training with Roy, coming back at sunrise. Jamie still sends you a "good morning" text paired with a selfie of him with the sunrise behind him.

Jamie: thank you for meal prepping breakfast for me. i can taste ur love in it.

Throughout the day, he continues to send you pictures.

Jamie sent an image: [a pic of Roy mid-yell]

Jamie sent an image: [a pic of Keeley blowing a kiss]

Jamie: hi babes! roy told me to take jamie's phone bc hes getting distracted. hope you're enjoying your retreat! lets get brunch when you get back!

Jamie: it's jamie again. grandad and keeley kept me phone away from me the whole fucking day. fucking annoying.

Jamie: you're not goint to brunch with keeley when you get back bc im keeping you all to myself

Jamie: ...unless you really do want to get brunch with her. then yeah thats fine.

Jamie: not like you need me permission for that or anything

____________________

Day 3 Without You

Jamie: GOOD MORNING LOVEY!

Jamie sent an image: [a selfie of Jamie running with Roy frowning in the background]

Jamie: Got our game against West Ham today. Keeping you on me since you're not cheering for me in the stands.

Jamie sent an image: [a pic of a polaroid of you in his sock]

Jamie: WE FUCKING WON!

Jamie: Wish you were here so we can do our celebration ritual together

Jamie sent a video: [a video of jamie at home, face mask, drinking wine, while FRIENDS plays on the tv]

Jamie: all the lads are out at the club. didn't feel like going.

______________________

Day 4 Without You

"Good morning, loveeeey!" The video starts with Jamie greeting you, he's seemingly naked, only a towel wrapped around his waist, "Just got done with me trainin'. Took a shower and now eating the meal prep you made," he shows the camera the tupperware of eggs and turkey sausages.

"I get what you mean about having your alone time. That shit was great. Was just loungin', watchin' Friends, did me skincare. Look," he picks up the phone and shows his face, "Fuckin' smooth like a sexy, lil' baby's bum, yeah?" he smiles at the camera and sets his phone back down onto the phone stand he has.

He sighs, "Been four days. Four. Days. Been trying to keep meself distracted, but it's hard, ya know? Everything reminds me of ya. It's fucking annoying!" he winces and stands more in frame of the camera, "Not that I'm calling you annoying. You're not. You're the love of me life. Just the idea of ya is distracting." He nods, confident that there's no way that what he said could be misinterpreted, "After you come back, you gotta promise me you're not goin' on any retreat like this ever again. Okay?" he looks right into the camera, "I'm serious. This is fucking shit without ya."

He stops the video, sending it to you and he tosses his phone onto the counter. He finishes up his breakfast so he can get ready and head for practice.

___________________

Day 5 Without You

Jamie is no longer pouty or sad. He's actually quite excited and it's freaking Roy the fuck out. Four in the morning and the prick is chipper as ever.

"The fuck is wrong with you?" Roy rasps, lightly jogging beside Jamie.

Jamie beams at his coach, "Me lovey's comin' back in just two days."

That gets Roy rolling his eyes, "Fucking hell."

"I think I did pretty okay with her gone."

"You absolutely did not. You were fucking moping and shit like a little twat for the first three days!"

Jamie scoffs, "Was not."

"Was to."

"You're gettin' dementia now, grandad," Jamie smirks and speeds up the pace, causing Roy to grunt in disdain.

Later in practice, the guys immediately clock Jamie's upped attitude. The way he's got a smile on his face, he's practically skipping all throughout practice.

"Everything okay there, Jamie?" Colin asks during a water break.

"Me girl's coming back home in two days. Just excited for her to be back." He responds, still bouncing on his feet.

"Not gonna let her leave the bed at all, eh?" Richard wiggles his brows at Jamie and his face hardens.

"Don't you go imagin' her in bed, Richard! Or I'll kick your dick in!" Richard immediately puts his hands up and walks away. Other guys snort and shake their heads.

Sam softly smiles at Jamie, "I think it's very nice to see you so excited for her to be back. Shows you really love and miss her."

"Yeah, I fuckin' do. She's an angel."

"Think about proposing to her soon?" Colin asks as he slips he reties his boots.

Jamie nervously scratches the back of his neck, "Um, yeah, actually." That gets the guys to crowd him, badgering him with questions. He has them back up, a beaming smile on his face, "Alright, alright, lads. Ease up. I dunno when or how, but, I wanna do it sometime this year. Got the ring already and everythin'."

"You need to show us a picture." Sam insists and Jamie nods, "Yeah, I will."

"Whistle! Whistle!" Roy yells from the side of the pitch and the guys start heading towards his way.

__________________________

Day 6 Without You

"One more fucking day!" Jamie exclaims into his empty home, your pillow smushed against his chest. He clearly missed holding you in his sleep.

He proceeds with his usual routine. His morning training, breakfast, shower, and then head to practice.

Roy and Coach Beard are waiting for the guys on the pitch when the entire team arrives. They're standing shoulder to shoulder. The guys stand before their coaches, Jamie more upfront than the rest.

"Okay, before we get started, there's something I wanted to say," Roy starts off. He looks at Jamie, "Tartt, you've been a sad and mopey prick all week."

"Have not."

"Have to!" Everyone around him responds in unison, making Jamie's brows raise and eyes widen.

"You fucking have. And, thankfully, that changes....today," Roy and Beard separate to reveal you.

"Hi, Jamie!"

"LOVEY!" he exclaims, running over to you and picking you up in his arms. You laugh and he spins you around and sets you back down.

"Surprise!"

He hugs you tight in his arms, "Fuck, I missed you."

You laugh more, "I could tell from all of those texts you sent me. I really didn't expect to be bombarded with hundreds of messages from you as soon as I turned my phone on."

"Told you I was gonna be lonely."

"Well I'm back now," you look at him with a big smile.

He immediately pulls you into a kiss and it gets the guys hootin' and hollerin' behind you. Jamie, whilst still lip locked with you, raises his middle finger to the group. You immediately pull his hand back down, giggling against his lips.

You pull away with a sigh, "Okay, I'll just be off to the side watching. Go practice," you peck his lips again, "Love you."

"Love you too," his eyes follow you as you separate from him and head to the bench where Will is sitting at. You converse with the kitman and Roy yells, "Whistle!" to officially start training off.

[ofstarsandvibranium]

Fandom: Ted Lasso (Regency AU)

Pairing: Roy Kent x F!Reader

Summary: Lord Roy Kent still has yet to marry. He hates the notion that marriage is a way to ensure your status in society. You have delayed your debut to society for years because of the same idea. So what happens when two people who hate the idea of marriage are constantly drawn to each other?

A/N: inspired by my post here. 

Part 1

Part 2  

Part 3 

Part 4 

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Part 11

Part 12

Part 13

Part 14

[ofstarsandvibranium]

Not me forgetting a wrote this series...

[ofstarsandvibranium]

A Week Without You

Fandom: Ted Lasso

Pairing: Jamie Tartt x F!Reader

Summary: You're going on a retreat where you will have no contact with Jamie. He doesn't take it very well.

Ted Lasso Masterlist

Jamie pouts at you through the FaceTime call, “What do ya mean you can’t call me for a week?”

You sigh, taking pause in your packing. You run your hand down your face, “Lovey, I told you the retreat was happening at a secluded cabin! Phones are allowed only for emergencies. So only if it’s dire-”

“It is dire! I need to talk to every day or I’ll blow me brains out!” His Mancunian accent sounds a little heavier in his desperation.

You can’t help but snort. You put your hands on your jutted out hips, staring down at your phone propped up on your bedside, “Lovey, be serious.”

He pouts at you again, “I am serious, loves. You’re like me life line. Me chest feels empty and shit when I can’t see or hear from you.”

You can’t help but melt at his words, walking over to your phone and cradling it in your hand, “God, you’re such a fucking softie. I love you so much.”

Jamie scoffs at you, “Clearly not enough ‘cause you’re desertin’ me!”

You give him another sigh, “It’ll go by fast. I promise you. I’m going to have my phone off but still feel free to text me so I can see how you spent your days without me.”

“I’m gonna be so fuckin’ lonely.”

“You’ll be fine! I promise. Just hang out with Roy or Isaac or Keeley. Just hang out with a bunch of people and you won’t feel lonely!”

“Well I can’t kiss and cuddle with any of them now can I?”

You smirk at him, "Well you can certaintly try."

He rolls his eyes at you and you can't help but giggle.

_______________________

Day 1 Without You

It's technically half a day without you. He spends the night at your place, trying to get as much time with you as possible before you leave. He wakes up early with you, has breakfast with you, takes a shower with you, drives you to the airport, and tries really hard not to cry as you moved towards TSA.

You send him a selfie of you blowing a kiss before you put your phone on airplane mode. Throughout the rest of his day, he keeps looking at that selfie.

It's clear to the team that Jamie's a little out of it. During practice, he's fumbling over himself, missing passes, kicking like shit. It drives Roy insane to the point that he ends practice early.

Once all the lads are in the locker room, Roy marches up to Jamie and growls, "Boot room. Now."

Jamie sighs, shuffling after his friend, mentor, and coach. When he enters, Will scurries out with a pile of boots in his arms. Jamie plops onto a bench and Roy stares down at him, his bushy brows more furrowed than usual.

"Now what the fuck is going on with you?"

Jamie buries his hands in his hoodie and shrugs, "Nothin'," he murmurs.

Roy scoffs, "Well it's clearly fucking something. You were being absolute shit out there." Jamie gives another shrug and it makes Roy run a hand down his face.

"She left me," Jamie murmurs.

"Who?"

"Me lovey."

"She broke up with you?"

"No! Worse, Roy! She left me to go on some retreat where she has no phone, no WiFi. So I can't speak to her for a whole week!"

Roy narrows his eyes at the young striker, "...are you fucking shitting me? That's what's got you all fucked up? Your girlfriend went on a secluded retreat?!''

Jamie groans and stands to his defense, "You don't get it, do ya? It's one thing to go on a retreat for a week if you can have your phone or have wifi. It's another if I can't speak to her at all! It's only been half a day and I hate not hearin' from her!"

"Fucking hell," Roy grumbles to himself, shaking his head.

Jamie pulls out his phone and shows Roy, "She told me I could text her throughout the day, even if she can't reply," he scrolls down and shows Roy the long lines of text to you, a few selfies of him scattered in there.

"Jesus, Tartt. Get a fucking grip!"

"I can't! Me grip left me and went on a retreat to Sweden!"

Roy shakes his head again, leaving the boot room because he absolutely can't handle Jamie right now.

___________________________

Day 2 Without You

Jamie: Went out with the lads last night cause the saw how sad I was.

Jamie sent an image: [a pic of him pouting while holding a beer]

Jamie: the club was having a 1D night. you would've loved it.

Jamie sent an image: [a pic of him in a corner crying]

Jamie: Sam took this pic of me crying bc they played your favorite song and it made me think of you.

Second day without you is slightly better. He does his usual 4am training with Roy, coming back at sunrise. Jamie still sends you a "good morning" text paired with a selfie of him with the sunrise behind him.

Jamie: thank you for meal prepping breakfast for me. i can taste ur love in it.

Throughout the day, he continues to send you pictures.

Jamie sent an image: [a pic of Roy mid-yell]

Jamie sent an image: [a pic of Keeley blowing a kiss]

Jamie: hi babes! roy told me to take jamie's phone bc hes getting distracted. hope you're enjoying your retreat! lets get brunch when you get back!

Jamie: it's jamie again. grandad and keeley kept me phone away from me the whole fucking day. fucking annoying.

Jamie: you're not goint to brunch with keeley when you get back bc im keeping you all to myself

Jamie: ...unless you really do want to get brunch with her. then yeah thats fine.

Jamie: not like you need me permission for that or anything

____________________

Day 3 Without You

Jamie: GOOD MORNING LOVEY!

Jamie sent an image: [a selfie of Jamie running with Roy frowning in the background]

Jamie: Got our game against West Ham today. Keeping you on me since you're not cheering for me in the stands.

Jamie sent an image: [a pic of a polaroid of you in his sock]

Jamie: WE FUCKING WON!

Jamie: Wish you were here so we can do our celebration ritual together

Jamie sent a video: [a video of jamie at home, face mask, drinking wine, while FRIENDS plays on the tv]

Jamie: all the lads are out at the club. didn't feel like going.

______________________

Day 4 Without You

"Good morning, loveeeey!" The video starts with Jamie greeting you, he's seemingly naked, only a towel wrapped around his waist, "Just got done with me trainin'. Took a shower and now eating the meal prep you made," he shows the camera the tupperware of eggs and turkey sausages.

"I get what you mean about having your alone time. That shit was great. Was just loungin', watchin' Friends, did me skincare. Look," he picks up the phone and shows his face, "Fuckin' smooth like a sexy, lil' baby's bum, yeah?" he smiles at the camera and sets his phone back down onto the phone stand he has.

He sighs, "Been four days. Four. Days. Been trying to keep meself distracted, but it's hard, ya know? Everything reminds me of ya. It's fucking annoying!" he winces and stands more in frame of the camera, "Not that I'm calling you annoying. You're not. You're the love of me life. Just the idea of ya is distracting." He nods, confident that there's no way that what he said could be misinterpreted, "After you come back, you gotta promise me you're not goin' on any retreat like this ever again. Okay?" he looks right into the camera, "I'm serious. This is fucking shit without ya."

He stops the video, sending it to you and he tosses his phone onto the counter. He finishes up his breakfast so he can get ready and head for practice.

___________________

Day 5 Without You

Jamie is no longer pouty or sad. He's actually quite excited and it's freaking Roy the fuck out. Four in the morning and the prick is chipper as ever.

"The fuck is wrong with you?" Roy rasps, lightly jogging beside Jamie.

Jamie beams at his coach, "Me lovey's comin' back in just two days."

That gets Roy rolling his eyes, "Fucking hell."

"I think I did pretty okay with her gone."

"You absolutely did not. You were fucking moping and shit like a little twat for the first three days!"

Jamie scoffs, "Was not."

"Was to."

"You're gettin' dementia now, grandad," Jamie smirks and speeds up the pace, causing Roy to grunt in disdain.

Later in practice, the guys immediately clock Jamie's upped attitude. The way he's got a smile on his face, he's practically skipping all throughout practice.

"Everything okay there, Jamie?" Colin asks during a water break.

"Me girl's coming back home in two days. Just excited for her to be back." He responds, still bouncing on his feet.

"Not gonna let her leave the bed at all, eh?" Richard wiggles his brows at Jamie and his face hardens.

"Don't you go imagin' her in bed, Richard! Or I'll kick your dick in!" Richard immediately puts his hands up and walks away. Other guys snort and shake their heads.

Sam softly smiles at Jamie, "I think it's very nice to see you so excited for her to be back. Shows you really love and miss her."

"Yeah, I fuckin' do. She's an angel."

"Think about proposing to her soon?" Colin asks as he slips he reties his boots.

Jamie nervously scratches the back of his neck, "Um, yeah, actually." That gets the guys to crowd him, badgering him with questions. He has them back up, a beaming smile on his face, "Alright, alright, lads. Ease up. I dunno when or how, but, I wanna do it sometime this year. Got the ring already and everythin'."

"You need to show us a picture." Sam insists and Jamie nods, "Yeah, I will."

"Whistle! Whistle!" Roy yells from the side of the pitch and the guys start heading towards his way.

__________________________

Day 6 Without You

"One more fucking day!" Jamie exclaims into his empty home, your pillow smushed against his chest. He clearly missed holding you in his sleep.

He proceeds with his usual routine. His morning training, breakfast, shower, and then head to practice.

Roy and Coach Beard are waiting for the guys on the pitch when the entire team arrives. They're standing shoulder to shoulder. The guys stand before their coaches, Jamie more upfront than the rest.

"Okay, before we get started, there's something I wanted to say," Roy starts off. He looks at Jamie, "Tartt, you've been a sad and mopey prick all week."

"Have not."

"Have to!" Everyone around him responds in unison, making Jamie's brows raise and eyes widen.

"You fucking have. And, thankfully, that changes....today," Roy and Beard separate to reveal you.

"Hi, Jamie!"

"LOVEY!" he exclaims, running over to you and picking you up in his arms. You laugh and he spins you around and sets you back down.

"Surprise!"

He hugs you tight in his arms, "Fuck, I missed you."

You laugh more, "I could tell from all of those texts you sent me. I really didn't expect to be bombarded with hundreds of messages from you as soon as I turned my phone on."

"Told you I was gonna be lonely."

"Well I'm back now," you look at him with a big smile.

He immediately pulls you into a kiss and it gets the guys hootin' and hollerin' behind you. Jamie, whilst still lip locked with you, raises his middle finger to the group. You immediately pull his hand back down, giggling against his lips.

You pull away with a sigh, "Okay, I'll just be off to the side watching. Go practice," you peck his lips again, "Love you."

"Love you too," his eyes follow you as you separate from him and head to the bench where Will is sitting at. You converse with the kitman and Roy yells, "Whistle!" to officially start training off.

[ofstarsandvibranium]

“There’s so many errors in your writing”

GOOD! That’s how you know I’m not relying on AI to write my stuff! Because humans make mistaaakes!

[ofstarsandvibranium]

Decompress

Fandom: Shawn Hatosy - Animal Kingdom

Pairing: Andrew "Pope" Cody x GN!Reader

Summary: Loud gatherings aren't really your thing so Pope likes to keep an eye on you whenever you attend one at the Cody House.

Shawn Hatosy Masterlist

Pope doesn’t want to go up to you. Not yet anyway. He sees you having a conversation with someone, an interesting one from the looks of it. He can tell from the way you’re nodding and your face scrunches up in interest. He softly smiles to himself as your face lights up and you start speaking further with the person with you.

The party his brothers are holding isn’t as wild as usual, but it’s still a good amount of people. Baz is off messing around with some chick. Deran and Craig are smoking and drinking by the pool. Smurf is lounging on one of the chairs.

And then there’s you, standing by the sliding door chatting with someone he doesn’t even know. Pope’s just watching you, keeping an eye on you because he knows these things can be overwhelming for you at times.

“Pope, baby, can you help put more sunscreen on me?” Smurf calls for him and he glances over his shoulder.

“Hold on,” he rasps to his mother and then looks back at you. You’re walking away from the person you were talking to, heading out the side gate and towards the front of the house.

You’re leaving? And not even say “goodbye” to him? That’s not like you, so he decides to follow you, ignoring Smurf’s calls for him.

When he reaches the driveway, he finds you sitting on the pavement with Lena, drawing with sidewalk chalk.

He silently approaches the two of you, Lena the first to greet him, “Hi, Uncle Pope.”

He crouches down to you and Lena, “Whatcha guys up to?”

“Drawing. Y/N is gonna help me color in my rainbow.”

Pope nods and looks at you, “You good?”

You softly smile at him, “Yeah, just wanted to get away from all of that for a little bit. Decompress here with Lena.”

“Can I join you?”

You look to his niece, “I dunno. Lena, you think your Uncle Pope is cool enough to hang out with us?”

The young girl giggles, looking to her uncle, “I guess so.”

Pope chuckles and sits beside you, crisscross applesauce. You hand him a green chalk and he proceeds to help you and Lena fill out the rainbow.

The three of you work in a comfortable silence while the pool party rages on behind the house.