|Ghost Masterlist| |Price Masterlist| |Call of Duty Masterlist|
(Word Count 6271)
!You and Ghost are a loving couple. One day, he decides for you that you can do better- something that should be your decision. What happens when someone else takes notice of you?
You don’t realize how loud a room can be until Simon goes quiet in it.
Not silent—he’s never silent—but different. More present than usual. More aware. You notice it first when you’re both in the kitchen and he doesn’t correct you for standing in the wrong spot. Normally he’d nudge you aside with a muttered “Careful”, take over without thinking. Tonight, he lets you stay where you are, lets you fumble with the drawer until you find what you need.
It shouldn’t mean anything.
But you clock it anyway.
“You’re hovering,” you say, glancing over your shoulder.
He shrugs one shoulder. “Just watchin’.”
You snort softly. “Menacing.”
That earns you a huff of a laugh, brief but real. He steps back after that, gives you space. You finish what you’re doing, plate the food, set it down. It feels almost ceremonial, the way he sits across from you instead of beside you.
He eats slower than usual. Like he’s not hungry, like he’s thinking too hard to notice.
You talk about nothing important. A half-remembered story. Something someone said earlier. He listens, really listens, eyes fixed on your face in that unnerving way that makes you forget your own point halfway through.
“What?” you ask.
“Nothin’,” he says. Then, after a beat, “You’re easy to listen to.”
That’s new.
Later, when you’re pulling on a hoodie and reaching for your boots, he pauses in the doorway, blocking it without meaning to. You look up at him, confused.
“You don’t have to walk me,” you say.
“I know.”
He does it anyway.
Outside, the air is sharp enough to wake you up fully. He keeps close—not touching, just near. When you trip on the uneven pavement, his hand catches your elbow instantly, grip firm, reflexive. You laugh it off, but his fingers stay there a second longer than necessary.
“You good?” he asks.
“Yeah. Always am with you.”
The words come easily. Naturally.
Something tightens in his jaw.
He nods, like he agrees. Like he believes you. But his eyes slide away, scanning the street, the corners, anywhere but your face.
When you stop and turn toward him, he doesn’t lean down right away like he usually does. Just looks at you, expression stripped bare in a way that feels almost intrusive—like you’ve walked in on a thought you weren’t meant to see.
“You know,” he says slowly, “you could have… more than this.”
You blink. “What’s wrong with this?”
“Nothing,” he says immediately. Too fast. “Didn’t mean it like that.”
You step closer, searching him. “Simon.”
He exhales through his nose, then cups the back of your neck and presses his forehead to yours. No kiss. Just contact. Solid, grounding. Familiar enough that you let the moment pass.
“I’m just sayin’,” he murmurs, voice rough. “You’re… you.”
You don’t notice that part yet.
You go home thinking nothing is wrong. Thinking this is just one of his quieter moods.
At first, you tell yourself you’re imagining it.
Simon still answers your messages. Still checks in. Still kisses your temple when he passes behind you. On the surface, nothing has changed—no slammed doors, no cold words, no obvious fracture you can point to and say there. That’s where it broke.
It’s just… quieter.
He stops asking you to stay.
When you mention having the evening free, he nods instead of looking pleased. When you linger in doorways, waiting for him to pull you back in, he doesn’t notice—or pretends not to.
“You should go out,” he says one night, like it’s an offhand thought. “Clear your head.”
You pause, halfway through pulling on your jacket. “I thought we were gonna—”
He shakes his head gently, already turning away. “Another time.”
Another time never seems to come.
He starts talking about you like you’re something delicate that needs room to grow. Compliments, technically—but they land wrong.
“You’re capable,” he tells you.
“You don’t need to revolve around me.”
“You’re stronger than you think.”
Each one feels like a hand pushing at your chest, polite but firm.
You try to talk to him about it once—carefully, because you’ve learned how easily his walls go up when he feels cornered.
“Did I do something?” you ask.
He looks genuinely confused. Almost offended by the question. “No.”
“You’ve been distant.”
He exhales, tired, rubbing a hand over his face. “I haven’t.”
You swallow. “You don’t touch me anymore.”
“That’s not true,” he says, too quickly again. “I’m right here, aren’t I?”
And he is. Technically.
But when you lean into him, his arm doesn’t tighten. When you search his face, his eyes slide away. When you ask for reassurance, he answers like it’s a problem to be solved instead of a feeling to be soothed.
“You’re overthinking,” he tells you softly. “We’re fine.”
Fine starts to feel like a word he uses to end conversations.
You notice he’s stopped planning around you. No more we’ll do this, no more next time. Just neutral statements. Open-ended days. Space where certainty used to live.
One evening, you mention someone from the team—nothing serious, just an observation, a joke—and he hums thoughtfully.
“Good bloke,” he says. “Reliable.”
The word sits between you, heavy.
You look at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It doesn’t mean anything,” he says calmly. Too calmly. “Just sayin’.”
Later that night, when you reach for him in the dark, he stills your hand—not pushing it away, not pulling it closer.
“Not tonight,” he murmurs.
You lie awake beside him, staring at the ceiling, heart pounding too loud in the quiet. He turns away from you at some point, back broad and unyielding.
You start to wonder if you’re asking for too much. If needing him like this makes you weak. If loving him means learning how to take up less space.
The worst part isn’t the distance.
It’s that he makes it sound like progress
You start noticing it in the small moments first.
The pause before you text him.
The way your chest tightens instead of lifting when you see his name.
How you rehearse conversations you never actually have.
You tell yourself it’s temporary. That he’s just working through something. That if you’re patient enough, quiet enough, easy enough, he’ll come back to you the way he was.
But deep down, in the part of you that doesn’t lie to survive, you already know.
You are slowly being taught how to live without him.
And worse—you’re cooperating.
You tell yourself you shouldn’t need this much reassurance. That needing him so badly is something you should’ve outgrown by now. That love shouldn’t feel like begging for scraps of attention you used to get freely.
Every time you consider ending it, your mind rushes in to defend him.
He’s trying to protect you.
He doesn’t mean to hurt you.
This is just how he loves.
But love shouldn’t make you feel like you’re shrinking.
You lie awake at night, staring at the ceiling, imagining the words you’d say if you were brave enough to say them.
I can’t keep doing this.
I feel alone even when you’re right beside me.
I need more than what you’re giving me.
The words sound right in your head. They fall apart in your mouth.
Because you still remember the way he used to look at you—like you were something solid. Something chosen. And walking away from that feels like admitting it was never real.
Breaking things off would mean accepting that this version of him—the distant, careful one—isn’t temporary. That it’s the choice he’s made. And choosing yourself would mean losing him for good.
You’re not ready for that.
So you stay.
You smile when you’re supposed to. You nod when he talks about space and growth and strength like they’re gifts instead of losses. You swallow the ache and tell yourself you can endure a little longer.
He prefers aftermaths. Debriefs. The clean edges of what’s already been decided.
Johnny clocks it immediately.
“You look like hell,” he says, dropping into the chair beside him, voice low enough not to carry. “And before you say you’re fine—I don’t believe you.”
Simon exhales, slow and controlled, staring down at his hands. His gloves are off. Bare fingers flex, restless.
“I’m doin’ the right thing,” he says finally.
Johnny doesn’t answer right away. Just waits. He’s always been good at that.
“For her,” Simon adds, jaw tightening. “She deserves more than… this. More than me.”
Johnny leans back, crossing his arms. “And she knows you’re makin’ this call for her?”
Simon’s silence is answer enough.
He scrubs a hand over his face, rough. “I hate it,” he admits, quieter now. “Hate seein’ her put that smile on like it doesn’t cost her anything. Hate watchin’ her try so damn hard to be okay.”
His voice catches—not enough for anyone else to notice. Enough for Johnny to hear.
“But if I stay,” Simon continues, forcing the words out, “I’ll ruin her. I’ll make her smaller. She’ll start bending around me, around this life, until there’s nothin’ left that’s hers.”
Johnny frowns. “Or,” he says carefully, “you’re takin’ her choice away because it hurts less than lettin’ her decide.”
Simon’s head snaps up. “I’m not doin’ this because it’s easier.”
Johnny holds his gaze. “Never said you were.”
Simon looks away first.
“She’s good,” he mutters. “Too good. She shouldn’t have to carry my shit. Not when she could have somethin’ clean. Steady.”
Across the room, Price pauses mid-conversation. Gaz follows his line of sight without turning his head.
Gaz murmurs under his breath, almost to himself, “She’s a good girl.”
Not naïve.
Not weak.
Just good.
Price gives a single, almost imperceptible nod. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “She is.”
Simon doesn’t hear them.
He’s still staring at the floor, convincing himself that pain now is better than devastation later. That teaching her how to live without him is a kindness. That love sometimes looks like restraint instead of honesty.
Johnny watches him for a long moment.
“You ever think,” he says finally, “that seein’ her hurt and still smilin’ is worse than whatever future you’re scared of?”
Simon swallows.
Because he does think about it. Every day. Every time she looks at him like she’s bracing for something he won’t say.
“I won’t break,” he says hoarsely. “I can take it.”
Johnny sighs. “You sure she can?”
Simon doesn’t answer.
And across the room, Price turns away—not to interfere, not to judge—but because some things, once overheard, can’t be unlearned.
A week passes.
Not in any dramatic way. No arguments. No ultimatums. Just a slow, quiet shedding of expectation. You stop waiting for his messages. Stop rearranging your evenings around him. Stop flinching every time he sighs like it might mean something.
You move through the days on autopilot.
People tell you that you look fine. You smile when they do. It’s an easy smile—practiced, light, convincing. It costs less than it used to.
When Simon finally asks if you can talk, you already know what he’s going to say.
You’re tired enough that the knowledge doesn’t hurt.
He chooses a neutral place. Somewhere public, but quiet. He stands across from you like he’s bracing for impact, shoulders tight, jaw locked. He looks worse than he did a week ago. Like he hasn’t been sleeping. Like he’s been rehearsing this in his head until the words lost their edge.
You wait.
He opens his mouth. Closes it. Tries again.
“I think—” His voice roughens. He clears his throat. “I think we should stop.”
You nod.
Just once.
It surprises him. You see it in the way his brows knit together, the way his hands curl at his sides like he was expecting resistance. Tears. Anger. Something he could respond to.
“You… agree?” he asks quietly.
You search yourself for something—anything—that might rise up. A sob. A protest. That sharp, animal panic people talk about when love is pulled away.
There’s nothing there.
“I think we already did,” you say.
The words don’t come out sharp. They don’t come out broken. They come out flat. Honest. Like stating the weather.
Simon inhales sharply, like you’ve hit him somewhere tender. “I never wanted to hurt you.”
You almost laugh. Not because it’s funny—because it’s exhausting.
“I know,” you say. “That’s kind of the problem.”
Silence stretches between you. He looks like he’s waiting for something else. A crack. Permission to keep talking. To justify. To explain.
You don’t give it to him.
A week ago, you would’ve begged him to stay. To try. To tell you what you did wrong so you could fix it.
Now, all you feel is tired.
“I don’t even know if I can cry,” you admit quietly. “I think I used it all up already.”
Something in his face breaks then. Just a little. His mouth parts like he wants to reach for you, like he wants to take it back.
Too late.
You stand before he can decide.
“I hope,” you add, voice steady, “that whatever you were trying to protect me from was worth this.”
You don’t wait for an answer.
When you walk away, you expect the hurt to chase you. To crash into your chest once his presence fades.
It doesn’t.
What follows is worse.
Relief—thin and guilty—threads through the ache. Because at least now, the uncertainty is over. At least now, you don’t have to keep pretending you’re okay while slowly disappearing beside someone who’s already let you go.
Later, when you’re alone, you sit on the edge of your bed and press your palms into your thighs, waiting for the grief to arrive.
It never does.
Just a dull, echoing tiredness.
And the unsettling realization that the breakup didn’t break you.
It just confirmed what you already knew.
A few days later, Gaz texts you.
Nothing heavy.
We’re grabbing a drink. You should come.
You almost say no. Habit more than desire. But the apartment feels too quiet, and the walls have started echoing in ways that make your chest tight. So you change your mind halfway through typing and tell him you’ll meet them.
The place is familiar. Low lights. Worn wood. Music loud enough to fill the gaps without demanding attention. Soap grins when he sees you, already half a pint in, and pulls you into a loose side hug like nothing’s changed.
“Thought you’d vanished,” he says.
“Not quite,” you reply.
It’s easy with them. Easier than you expected. You don’t have to explain anything. No one asks how you’re doing in that careful way that means tell me everything. They just make space. Slide a drink toward you. Let you exist among them.
Price is already there.
He doesn’t stand when you arrive. Doesn’t angle toward you or away. Just looks up, gives a small nod of acknowledgment, and goes back to his drink. It’s not dismissal. Not avoidance.
It’s respect.
You take the seat a couple stools down from him without really thinking about it. The distance feels intentional without being pointed. Close enough to feel his presence. Far enough that nothing is expected.
Conversation flows around you—missions you weren’t on, jokes you half-follow, Soap arguing with Gaz about something unimportant. You laugh when it feels right. Sip when you don’t know what to say. No one pressures you to be brighter than you are.
At some point, your glass empties without you noticing.
Price notices.
He doesn’t comment. Just signals the bartender and nudges a fresh drink in your direction when it arrives, sliding it across the counter with two fingers. He doesn’t look at you when he does it.
“Thanks,” you say anyway.
“Mm,” he hums. Not dismissive. Just quiet.
There’s comfort in that.
You watch the condensation trail down the glass. Feel the buzz settle low and warm in your stomach. The ache you’ve been carrying doesn’t disappear—but it loosens. Just enough that you can breathe without bracing.
At one point, Soap says something sharp and you laugh—really laugh—and the sound surprises you. You feel it register around the table. Not in a way that makes you self-conscious.
More like relief.
Price glances over then. Just a flicker. His expression doesn’t change, but something softens at the edges, like he’s filed the moment away instead of reacting to it.
Later, when the night thins out and people start drifting, you realize you’ve stayed longer than you meant to.
You don’t feel guilty about it.
When you stand, Price rises too—not to stop you. Just because it’s time. He steps aside to let you pass, giving you space without stepping back entirely.
“Get home alright,” he says, low.
“I will.”
He nods once. Doesn’t add anything else.
As you walk away, you don’t feel watched. You don’t feel chased.
You just feel… accompanied. In a way that doesn’t ask anything of you.
A few days later, Gaz messages again.
We’re bored out of our minds. You wanna come sit around and complain with us?
You stare at the text longer than you should. There’s nothing pulling you out of the apartment, but there’s nothing keeping you there either. So you grab your keys and tell him you’ll stop by.
The base is quieter than usual when you arrive. That dull, late-afternoon lull where everyone looks like they’re waiting for something to happen. Gaz greets you like he always does—easy, familiar—and Soap tosses you a drink before you even sit down.
“You look alive,” Soap says, squinting at you. “That’s new.”
You shrug. “Don’t get used to it.”
Price is there too. Leaning against the counter, sleeves rolled, watching the room without really watching it. He glances your way when you enter, nods once, and goes back to whatever he was doing.
No tension. No awkwardness.
You fall into the rhythm of it easily—leaning on a table, listening to half-finished conversations, laughing at things that aren’t that funny. Time slips by without you noticing. No one asks how you’re doing. No one asks why you came.
An hour passes like it’s nothing.
At some point, Gaz stretches and groans. “If I sit here any longer, I’m gonna lose what’s left of my sanity.”
Soap perks up. “Cards?”
Gaz snorts. “Only if we’re not playing here.”
There’s a brief pause. Then Price speaks, casual.
“Could go to mine,” he says. Not looking at you when he does. “Quieter.”
The offer hangs in the air—not pointed at anyone in particular.
Gaz looks at you. “You in?”
You hesitate for half a second. Not because of Price—because you’re checking in with yourself. Making sure this isn’t something you’re doing out of loneliness.
You realize it isn’t.
“Yeah,” you say. “Why not.”
Price doesn’t react. Doesn’t smile. Doesn’t tense. Just grabs his jacket and heads for the door like this was always the plan.
His place is exactly what you expect—clean without being sterile, lived-in without being messy. Cards end up spread across the table. Bottles appear. Someone puts music on low, the kind that fills space without demanding attention.
You sit where there’s room. It happens to be across from Price.
You play a few rounds. Lose more than you win. Drink slow. Watch the way Price handles the deck—methodical, precise, hands steady like everything else about him. He doesn’t hover. Doesn’t crowd. When your glass empties, another one appears within reach, untouched by his hands by the time you notice it.
At one point, your knee brushes his under the table.
It’s brief. Accidental.
Neither of you moves right away.
Then he shifts back, just enough to give you space, like he’s done a hundred times already.
The night winds down without ceremony. Gaz ,Soap, and Simon eventually peel off, leaving the room quieter than before. You linger by the door, slipping on your shoes, suddenly aware that you’re alone with him.
Price stays where he is.
“Need a ride?” he asks, neutral.
“I’m good.”
He nods. Walks you to the door anyway.
“Thanks for… tonight,” you say, not entirely sure what you’re thanking him for.
“Anytime,” he replies.
Not call me.
Not we should do this again.
Just certainty, without pressure.
You step out into the night feeling steadier than you have in weeks.
And somewhere between the base and his quiet living room, without any grand moment or declaration, something shifts.
You don’t feel like you’re filling a space anymore.
You feel like you’re allowed to take up one.
After that night, you start showing up more.
Not with intention. Not with expectation. Just… because you’re bored. Because Gaz texts. Because Soap complains about the silence. Because the base feels easier than the apartment.
Simon is there.
He’s always there.
He doesn’t avoid you—not really. He nods when you pass. Exchanges the occasional word when required. Exists in the same space like a shadow that learned how to stand still.
You tell yourself it’s fine. That this is what being adults looks like. That you’re being mature.
You don’t notice how carefully you angle your body away from him.
You gravitate toward the others instead. Toward noise. Toward warmth.
Soap talks a lot, and you listen. You tease him back. It’s easy, uncomplicated. You laugh without thinking first. The sound surprises you sometimes—sharp and real, like it belongs to someone else.
Price is quieter.
You don’t seek him out on purpose. You just… end up near him.
Leaning against the same table. Standing close enough that you can hear him without raising your voice. Laughing when he mutters something dry under his breath that no one else catches.
“That was a joke,” he says once, deadpan.
You grin at him. “I know.”
He huffs, shaking his head, but there’s a glint of amusement there he doesn’t bother hiding.
It becomes a habit—without you realizing it.
You hand him things without asking. He steps aside to make room for you before you even notice you’re moving. When something funny happens, your eyes flick to him automatically, checking if he saw it too.
You don’t think anything of it.
You think you’re just being friendly.
Simon notices.
He notices the way your shoulders relax when Price is nearby. The way your laugh comes easier now—lighter, unguarded. The way you stand closer to Price than you ever stood to anyone else without thinking about it.
He tells himself it doesn’t matter.
That this is what he wanted.
Price notices too.
Not all at once. In fragments.
The way you look to him when something catches you off guard. The way you drift closer when the room gets loud. The way your hand brushes his forearm when you laugh, absentminded, like touch no longer feels dangerous around him.
He never encourages it.
Never leans in. Never lets his hand linger. When you step too close without realizing it, he shifts just enough to give you space—always space.
Sometimes, he catches Simon watching.
Not with anger.
With something heavier.
Price doesn’t look away. Doesn’t challenge it. Just gives a small, unreadable glance back—as if to say I see it too.
You don’t notice any of this.
You’re too busy relearning how to exist without bracing. Too busy enjoying the way conversation doesn’t feel like work. Too busy laughing at something Price says under his breath and thinking, vaguely, he’s funny, without examining why that thought feels new.
By the time you realize you’re standing closer to Price than anyone else in the room, it already feels normal.
It’s later. Quieter. Most of the noise has thinned out.
You’re flipping through something on your phone when Simon finally speaks—too casual, too sudden.
“You don’t have to stand so close to him.”
The words aren’t sharp. That’s what makes them dangerous.
You look up, genuinely confused. “What?”
Price isn’t even near you now. He stepped away minutes ago.
Simon’s jaw tightens. “Just sayin’.”
There it is. That tone. Like he’s already decided this is reasonable.
You straighten, folding your arms—not defensive, just tired. “Since when do you get to say that?”
His mouth opens. Closes.
“I’m not telling you what to do,” he says, too quickly. “Just… looks a bit familiar, that’s all.”
The silence stretches.
“Oh,” you say quietly. “So now you’re watching.”
“That’s not—” He stops himself, dragging a hand over his face. His voice drops. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
You study him for a moment, something dull and heavy settling in your chest.
“You spent weeks teaching me not to lean on you,” you say. Not angry. Just stating it.
“And now you’re upset that I’m not.”
That lands.
Hard.
Simon swallows. His shoulders tense like he’s bracing for impact that already happened.
“I never wanted you hurt,” he mutters.
You nod. “I know.”
You don’t soften it. You don’t argue.
That’s what scares him.
Because for the first time, you don’t sound like someone asking to be chosen.
You sound like someone who already stopped waiting.
Simon doesn’t leave right away.
He should. He knows that. Instead, he stands there longer than necessary, watching the room like he’s waiting for it to explain itself. You’ve already turned back to whatever you were doing, conversation flowing around you again without him.
That’s what hits hardest.
Not that you spoke back.
Not that you were close to someone else.
It’s that the moment ended—and you didn’t carry it with you.
Simon steps away eventually, boots echoing too loud against the floor. He finds a quiet corner, leans his forearms against the wall, and stares down at his hands like they might tell him something he missed.
You moved on fast, a voice whispers.
He hates that thought.
Because it isn’t true—not really. You didn’t wake up one day and replace him. You didn’t chase anything. You didn’t lash out.
You just… stopped reaching.
And he taught you how.
He thinks back to the way you used to look at him when he walked into a room. The way your attention found him without effort. The way you’d wait—patient, hopeful—for him to meet you halfway.
He told himself distance was kindness. That restraint was love. That pushing you away would keep you safe.
He never considered how quickly someone else might step into the space he insisted you didn’t need filled.
Soap finds him a few minutes later.
Doesn’t say anything at first. Just leans against the opposite wall, arms crossed, gaze forward.
“You alright?” Soap asks eventually. Not casual. Not probing. Just… honest.
Simon exhales through his nose. “She’s fine.”
Soap glances sideways. “Didn’t ask about her.”
That stings more than it should.
Simon swallows. “I didn’t think it’d be like this.”
Soap hums, thoughtful. “Like what?”
He hesitates. The words feel ugly in his mouth. Petty. Unfair.
“Like she’d look so…” He trails off, jaw tightening. “Okay.”
Soap doesn’t answer right away.
“You didn’t want her stuck waitin’ on you,” Soap says finally. “Looks like she listened.”
Simon closes his eyes.
“I didn’t mean—” He stops, breath hitching. “I didn’t mean for her to stop looking at me like that.”
Soap shifts his weight. “You don’t get to decide which parts she keeps.”
Silence stretches between them.
Simon nods once, slow. Accepting.
He thinks of the way you laughed earlier. How easy it sounded. How he didn’t recognize it at first.
Maybe that’s what hurts the most.
Not that you moved on.
But that when you stopped choosing him, you didn’t fall apart.
And now he’s left wondering—too late—whether he mistook your patience for permanence.
The base has that hollow, end-of-day quiet to it—lights dimmed, footsteps gone, the hum of machinery filling the gaps where voices used to be. You’re halfway through packing your things when you notice Price hasn’t left yet.
He’s leaning against the counter, sleeves rolled up, posture relaxed in that way that only looks casual because it’s deliberate.
“You don’t have to stay,” you say, shouldering your bag.
“I know,” he replies easily.
He still doesn’t move.
You hesitate, then set the bag down again. Sit instead. The chair scrapes softly across the floor. He glances at you—not startled, not guarded. Just attentive.
Price has a way of waiting without making it feel like pressure.
Neither of you speaks for a moment. The silence doesn’t feel awkward. It feels… allowed. Like neither of you is rushing to define it.
“You holding up?” he asks finally.
It’s not the careful question Simon used to ask. There’s no weight behind it. No expectation. Just a check-in, offered and left open.
“Yeah,” you say. Then, after a second, “Better than I thought I would.”
That earns you a small nod, thoughtful. He considers that like it matters.
“You’ve been doing alright,” Price says. “From where I’m standing.”
You let out a soft breath that might be a laugh. “That’s generous.”
He tilts his head slightly. “Wasn’t meant to be.”
You look at him then—really look.
Price is tired, in the quiet, earned way. The kind that comes from carrying responsibility without complaining about it. But there’s steadiness there too. A groundedness that doesn’t ask anything of you.
You don’t realize you’ve leaned closer until he straightens just a fraction—not pulling away, just resetting the distance.
Always mindful. Always controlled.
“You don’t have to prove anything to anyone here,” he says quietly.
The words land deeper than you expect.
“I know,” you answer. And this time, it’s true.
Price studies you for a moment longer than necessary. His jaw tightens, then relaxes—like he’s choosing something.
His mouth opens—
Then he exhales and shakes his head once, almost to himself.
“You ready to head out?” he asks instead.
The boundary is clean. Intentional.
You nod, standing. “Yeah.”
He walks you to the door, not ahead of you, not behind. Just alongside. No commentary. No claims.
Before you step out, you glance back. “Thanks. For… not making things weird.”
A corner of his mouth lifts. “Anytime.”
Not you can lean on me.
Not I’ll take care of you.
Just presence. Solid. Uncomplicated.
You leave with the strange sense that something important was deliberately left unsaid—and that, somehow, makes it safer.
A Few Months Later
The hangouts don’t stop. They just thin out.
Missions. Schedules. Time slipping sideways the way it always does. Still, every now and then, all of you end up in the same place—cards spread across the table, half-empty bottles, familiar arguments over rules no one remembers correctly.
Tonight, it’s Price’s place again.
Nothing feels different. That’s what stands out.
Soap’s loud, Gaz is distracted, someone wins a hand they shouldn’t have. You laugh when it’s funny. Lose when it’s not. Price sits across from you, sleeves rolled, watching the game more than anyone else.
It’s comfortable. Settled.
When the night winds down, Soap checks the time and groans. “Alright, taxi service is closing.”
Gaz jingles his keys. “You riding with us?”
You hesitate—not because you’re unsure. Because you’re choosing.
“I might stay a minute,” you say lightly. “Need to finish this drink.”
They don’t question it. Soap only raises a brow like he knows something you don’t, claps Price on the shoulder, and heads for the door.
“Don’t do anything we wouldn’t,” he adds.
“Low bar,” Price mutters.
The door closes. The house settles.
It’s quieter than before, but not awkward. You lean back in your chair, swirling what’s left in your glass. Price starts gathering the cards, methodical, giving you time without making it obvious that he’s doing it.
“You okay?” he asks, eventually.
You nod. “Yeah. Just didn’t feel like rushing out.”
He hums. “Fair.”
You watch him for a moment. The way time has softened him around the edges. The way he doesn’t guard himself with silence the way Simon used to. The way being here doesn’t feel like borrowing comfort—it feels mutual.
“I used to think,” you say suddenly, “that being alone meant something was wrong.”
Price glances up, attentive. “And now?”
“Now it just means I’m… quiet.”
He considers that. “Quiet’s not a bad thing.”
“No,” you agree. “It’s not.”
The space between you feels different then. Not charged. Just close.
You stand to leave, slipping your jacket on. He steps aside to give you room, like always. But this time, neither of you moves right away.
You look at him.
He’s already looking at you.
There’s no rush in it. No surprise. Just a moment where neither of you pretends not to feel what’s been there all along.
“If you don’t want to—” he starts.
You don’t let him finish.
You step forward. Just enough.
He still waits. Still gives you the chance to pull back.
So you tilt your head and close the distance yourself.
The kiss is gentle. Brief. Careful.
His hand comes up—not to pull you closer, just to steady you. When you pull back, he doesn’t chase it. Doesn’t deepen it.
Just rests his forehead against yours for half a second, breathing you in like he’s memorizing the moment without claiming it.
“Okay?” he murmurs.
You smile. “Yeah.”
He nods once, satisfied. No grin. No victory.
Just certainty.
When you leave a few minutes later, nothing feels rushed. Nothing feels undone.
It doesn’t feel like something beginning.
It feels like something that finally stopped waiting.
Several days later- Price texts you mid-afternoon.
You busy?
Need a hand setting something up for Gaz. Trying to keep it quiet.
You stare at the message longer than necessary, then type back that you’ll swing by.
His place looks different this time—half-finished, chairs shifted, decorations still in bags by the wall. The kind of organized chaos that means he actually cares.
“Didn’t want to rope Soap into it,” Price says, setting a box down. “He’s got the subtlety of a sledgehammer.”
You smile. “True.”
You help where you can. It doesn’t take long. A banner taped a little crooked. Drinks lined up. Everything simple. Comfortable.
When it’s done, neither of you rushes to fill the silence.
You end up on the couch without really deciding to sit. Close enough that your knees brush. The TV hums quietly, forgotten. Price leans back, one arm along the back of the couch—not around you. Never crowding.
“Thanks for comin’,” he says. “Didn’t want to do it alone.”
“I didn’t mind,” you reply. And you mean it.
You glance at him. He’s already looking at you.
There’s no surprise in it this time. No hesitation. Just recognition—of the space that’s been shrinking between you for months.
He shifts first. Not away.
“You alright?” he asks, low.
You nod. “Yeah.”
That’s all it takes.
This kiss is different from the last one—slower to start, but deeper. His hand comes to your jaw, steady, sure. Yours fist lightly in the fabric of his shirt. It’s still careful, still respectful—but there’s intention there now. Want, finally acknowledged.
You don’t hear the door open.
You do hear Soap’s voice.
“Well—this is awkwardly wholesome.”
You freeze. Pull back just as Ghost steps in behind him, silent as ever. The room feels suddenly too small.
Soap takes in the scene in half a second—your flushed face, Price’s hand still hovering like he doesn’t know where to put it yet.
He grins. “Right. Surprise party prep. Didn’t realize the surprise was for us.”
Price clears his throat, straightening. You sit up, heart pounding, heat crawling up your neck.
Soap claps his hands together. “Good news is—Gaz is gonna be thrilled. Bad news is—I’m gonna pretend I didn’t see that so I can keep sleeping at night.”
Ghost doesn’t say anything.
He just looks at you once.
Then at Price.
Then away.
Soap slaps Price on the shoulder. “I’ll grab the rest of the stuff. You two… uh. Carry on not doing whatever that was.”
He exits quickly, deliberately loud.
The silence that follows is heavier—but not regretful.
Price exhales slowly. “You okay?”
You nod again. This time, you don’t hesitate. “Yeah.”
He gives a small, genuine smile. “Good.”
Neither of you moves closer again. Neither of you pulls away further.
Some things don’t need to be fixed immediately.
They just need to be seen.
Simon doesn’t say anything when he steps inside.
He registers details the way he always does—positions, posture, distance. Price standing too still. You sitting too close. The air carrying something that wasn’t there before.
A kiss, interrupted.
Soap fills the silence easily, mercifully. Jokes. Movement. Noise. Simon lets it happen. Lets Soap shepherd the moment away like it’s something fragile that shouldn’t be handled roughly.
Simon watches you.
You don’t look guilty.
You look… steady.
Later—after Soap has vanished into another room,—Simon finds himself alone in the quiet.
He leans his forearms against the counter and stares at nothing.
He thinks of all the times he told himself he was doing the right thing. All the nights he watched you smile through hurt he pretended not to see because acknowledging it would mean admitting he was wrong.
He thought pain now would save you from worse pain later.
He didn’t account for Price. Not because Price took something from him—but because Price waited. Because Price never rushed you. Because Price never asked you to be smaller to fit beside him.
Simon exhales slowly.
You didn’t move on too fast.
You just stopped bleeding where he kept cutting distance and calling it mercy.
contents (nsfw): Ser Duncan The Tall x fem!mer!reader, inspired by HCA’s The Little Mermaid, switching POVs (indicated with dividers), medieval rom-com, love at first sight, mutual pining, yearning, caretaking, wound tending, awkwardness, angst that resolves, fluff, first kiss, lots of kissing actually, love confessions, body dysmorphia, body worship (feet and legs), cunnilingus, mild biting and marking, hair pulling, size difference, size kink, explicit consent, loss of virginity, pain during sex, riding, breast play, nipple play, coming inside, aftercare, protective!Dunk, virgin!Dunk, soft!Dunk, bittersweet ending.
<- part one
synopsis: A mermaid falls in love with a knight praying on her riverbank. A witch gives her legs and three days to make him love her back.
word count: 21,2K (I don't even know guys)
a/n: Banner is by me, dividers by @strangergraphics and @honeyluvsw! Thank you lovely humans for giving it a read before publishing (@lateknightbites, @hextoken and @siliceousooze)!
When you wake the sword rests exactly where it was put in the evening, as if its weight disregards night-time shuffling. You study it from your side of the bedroll, baffled by the patience of it. Perhaps it is only a symbol, one of those man-made rules given shape in iron. Perhaps Duncan would have struck you with it had you rolled too far in your sleep and crossed into whatever danger he believes lives on the other side. The thought has no sense to it. The sword does nothing to quell you. In the night he is warm through cotton and blanket, broad back turned to you. His hair is curled soft at the nape where sleep has dampened it. You fell into slumber looking at that small dark place beneath his skull. You wake to his side empty and sunken into the ground.
So he has kissed before. Says he enjoyed it, or supposes he has. You are thoroughly torn on the matter. On one hand, it is good that at least one of you might know what to do with hands and tongues and teeth. On the other, it ires you greatly that someone you have already marked as your man has rested his mouth on another—and more than one, you presume, from the way he speaks of it—and found pleasure there. You wonder if the women he kissed bore any likeness to you. If he would find it agreeable to kiss you. If all that blushing and hiding of his face comes from the abashment of wanting, or if he is plainly too polite to tell you to stop. If two remaining days are enough to charm him, or if the witch tricked you to get her fill of a soul.
Trying to rise finds you stiff all over. Sleep in water gives the body constant motion. It hones you into fluid, graceful softness, even in dreams. Sleep on land is a meaner thing. The ground holds you in one shape and punishes you for keeping it. Your wretched legs have forgotten everything they learned the day before and returned to being useless logs, long and dumb beneath you. The cut across your foot pulses with a dull little heart of its own.
You push yourself up on your arms. Try to bend one knee. Then the other. Nothing comes kindly. Your joints pull, thighs ache, feet sit at the end of you, inert and limp.
Duncan comes back from the stream with the waterskin filled and dark at the seams. The moment he sees you struggling, he hastens over, nearly sloshing water down his leg.
“Hallo, m’lady,” he says, breath touched with worry. He bends, and his hands hover a moment, large and useless in the air. You make the choice for him, seizing his forearms and grunting angrily as you haul yourself toward him.
“Are you in pain?” he asks.
“No, it is only—” You huff, because the lie is poor and the truth is stupid. “I have gone stiff in the night.”
His grip steadies. “Aye. It happens so to folk unused to sleeping on the ground.” He bows his head a little with plain and honest regret, as though the hardness of the earth were some failing of his hospitality. “Forgive me for not giving you better rest.”
“I enjoy the arrangement,” you say, and mean it more than he can know. “Just my legs seem to disagree.”
He helps you out of the bedroll and onto the grass. At once, your knees show their feeble loyalty. One gives, then the other threatens. Duncan catches each stumble before it can become a fall, swift and careful. His hands close round yours until you are held between him like something being taught to stand by force of kindness.
“Easy,” he says. His eyes are lowered to the ground between you, watching your feet as if they are creatures likely to calm under his gaze. “Hold to me.”
So you hold. He steps back. You step forward, or try. He faces you all the while, walking backwards with a patience that ought to shame the road. His palms stay firm around yours, drawing you neither too fast nor too far. “Put your weight here," he says. Corrects, "No, not so much," when you get that wrong too. "Heel first. Then let the rest follow. Aye, that’s better.”
“It feels worse,” you say.
“Aye, well. Better things often do,” Duncan replies, which sounds to you like another of those human miseries dressed up as wisdom.
After a few steps, his brow furrows. “Were you hurt, then? Is that why it comes so hard?”
You nod quickly, because it is easier than explaining the truth and close enough to keep from being a lie. You hope he will not prod at it, and he does not. He only adjusts his hold and lets you try again.
“I’d wager you are used to softer beds,” he says, likely meaning to ease whatever discomfort has grown between you.
You think of weed-beds and wet sand. Of tree roots stretching their long limbs down into the water, making cradles in the dark. Of sleeping where the current runs over your back and little fish nose curiously at your hair. None of it is soft in the way he means. All of it is gone from you.
“Not exactly,” you say.
Duncan looks at you for half a breath. Then, he mumbles, “Right.” He keeps safeguarding you across the grass, step after strenuous little step. After a while, he clears his throat. “So. Are you seeking to reunite with kin in Riverrun, or—?”
Your brows rise. For a moment you cannot tell what he is asking. Whether he has found some crack in you. Whether he is trying to pry loose the fib you have not quite told. Whether he only wishes to make talk because your hands are in his and silence has begun to notice.
Your folk come to mind with no gentleness at all. There is no coddling among them. No teaching of the young beyond what hunger teaches. You are spat into the world, and if the bodies that made you survive their coupling, they become only two more mouths in the same water. Two more foes over food, territory, warmth, the shadowed places where a creature might sleep without teeth finding her. “I am seeking a fuller life,” you say.
The sadness in your own voice surprises you.
Duncan’s hold changes. Softens at the edges. His thumbs brush over your sleeves, and one finds the bare skin at your wrist by accident. Instead of pulling away, he stays. For a heartbeat, he only stands with you held between his hands, looking down as though some answer might be written in the grass.
You are unaware that it indeed is. When your foot skids back a little, Duncan gasps quietly. “Oh, heavens,” he mutters. His whole frame dips, and he sets your palms on his shoulders so you do not stumble. You cling there, confused, while he lowers himself before you and looks at the grass.
“You’re bleeding,” he says, and there is a soft tsk in it. “M’lady, you’re bleeding still.”
“Oh?” You look down as if the foot belongs to someone else. “I thought—”
“Hold to me.” Then, he takes you by the ankle before you can ask why. Warm fingers, broad enough to meet round the bone. The touch startles more than the pain. He lifts your foot with such care that the rest of you must lean harder into his shoulders, then sets his palm flat to the sole. When he draws it back, red has smeared bright across the heel of it.
Duncan frowns up at you. “Why did you not tell me you were wounded?”
You stare at the blood on his skin. “I thought it would close.”
It should have. Your old body sealed itself quickly. Slashes, bites, the ragged marks left by shell or tooth—by morning they would be shut, tender at the seams perhaps, but no longer asking anything of you. Certainly not for a knight crouched in the grass with your ankle in his hand and alarm in his face. The witch has given you legs and human weakness with them. Flesh that opens and stays open. Flesh that must be begged back together.
“I thought it would just—”
“It needs tending,” Duncan says. His voice gentles, as if he has heard some of what you cannot say. “We’ll see to it. Aye?” He lets go of your ankle and rises with your hands still on his shoulders. “May I carry you?”
You nod and put your arms round his neck, ready for the old manner of being lifted. Instead, his hands come to your waist. The blush returns to him fierce and pink, but he endures it. He simply braces you there, lifts, and carries you back over the grass with your feet held clear of the ground.
His face is close. Too close for the shape of him to stay sensible. He looks you in the eye, searching for protest or hurt, but the looking itself becomes unbearable. You draw a larger breath into your lungs, and your chest expands against his. Duncan closes his eyes for a brief moment. His breath smells of crushed mint.
“There we are,” he mutters when he reaches the bedroll.
He sets you down as if the earth might bruise you further, then reaches for waterskin and turns to his sack. Begins pulling things from it: a strip of cloth and a little packet of something dried and green.
“I’ll clean it first,” he says. “Then bind it. It may smart.”
You give him your foot when he reaches for it. His thumb brushes your toes by accident, and the whole limb twitches under the tickle. There's a tiny squeal, and Duncan's face cracks into a smile that seems impossible to withhold. He looks dear with it.
He wets a clean cloth and wipes away the blood that has started seeping again under the pressure of walking. You watch him in silence. His head is bent, hair falling forward, mouth set in focus. “Thought it would close,” he murmurs once, almost to himself, and huffs through his nose as if the notion offends him.
When he presses harder, you hiss and jerk your leg. His grip holds firm enough that you only thrash a little. “Beg pardon,” he says. “Forgive me. I did not mean to hurt you. I’ll be gentler.”
You bite the inside of your lip. He is so lovely to you that it empties your head. There is no answer fit for it, so you close your eyes and let the touch happen. Cloth over sole. Fingers at ankle. Palm holding your calf when he forgets himself in the work. He handles pain as if it is something that can be negotiated with, made smaller by tender perseverance.
When he binds the foot, he sets your heel against his thigh to check the tightness. “Too hard?”
You shake your head.
He tears the remaining tongue of bandage with his teeth, then secures it with a bow. The bow only makes things worse in your heart. A man knowing how to tie one. That fact that his hands can hold sword and rein and still make this small, neat kindness at the end of your body.
“You’ll be glad,” he says, sitting back. “No shoe for this one.”
“How will I walk?”
“You won’t.” He gives the bandage one last look, then lifts his eyes to yours. “Let it seal. I’ll carry you to Chestnut and off her again, if you’ll let me.”
"I'll allow it," you tell him, and Duncan snorts through his nose.
“That is kind of you,” he says with his mouth pulled shyly at one corner.
He packs the camp with the care of someone used to owning very few things and losing none of them. Oilcloth rolled, wool shaken out, bowls wiped with grass, and fire killed under his boot until smoke gives up in sullen threads. He loads the horses, checks straps, checks them again, then comes back to you as if lifting a girl on and off beasts has become one more road-task his hands are meant to know.
When he sets you on Chestnut, your arms go round his neck and he bears it with the same amount of colour proximity always seems to paint him. “There ye are,” he says, and steps back once you are sat properly.
The day grows warmer than the one before. At first you think the heat is only the sun choosing to dislike you more openly. Then your new body begins casting out its own water. It gathers at your neck, under your arms, between your breasts, slicking you in a thin unpleasant film. Sweat, you remember. Humans leak themselves when the air grows heavy. Understandable why they are so fond of cloth. It gives the body somewhere to be ashamed.
Ahead, Duncan rides with his shoulders set beneath his shirt, and soon the linen darkens down the column of his spine. It clings there, marking the long line of him. His back is broad enough to resemble one of those softer beds he keeps apologising for failing to provide. You think it would be a better one than the ground, and likely kinder.
Chestnut begins blowing through her nose, impatient with the heat. Duncan turns in the saddle. “Aye,” he tells her. “We ought to cool off somewhere.” Then his eyes come to you, expectant now in a way that pleases you. “Any water near?”
You look around. Wait. Listen past the horse-breath and tack-creak and road dust. There. “A little further ahead,” you say, pointing. “There should be a stream.”
Duncan nods this time without that careful pity from yesterday. Soon enough the road bends and forks into a smaller path toward the trees you chose. Beneath the leaves, water susurrates over stone, plain as speech.
He stops in a green hollow where the stream runs slow and bright. First he helps you down from Chestnut, hands steady, then settles you in the shade on a soft bed of grass.
“Would you mind if I tend to the beasts first?” he asks.
It endears you that he calls them what you call them, and you nod with great solemnity. Duncan leads the horses into the water, murmuring to them as they drink.
You sit where he has placed you and watch him, only a little. He steps in barefoot, water up to his knees, breeches darkening where they drink the river. When he bends to wash his face the sound he makes is so relieved it nearly has shape. Then, his body shifts as if he might turn, so you lie back quickly and pretend great interest in the sun glittering through the crown of leaves overhead.
For a second, or maybe two, you are interested. Light breaks itself on leaf-edge and comes down green-gold and restless. But in the corner of your eye Duncan pulls the shirt over his head and tosses it onto the bank, inadvertently impoverishing your attention.
It shrinks to his back, shining with sweat and riverlight. Large shoulders become larger bare. The hard-working breadth of him slopes down into a waist that seems almost shy for belonging to such a man. Water skids from the back of his neck and runs between the moving shelves of muscle. His arms gleam where the hair on them catches sun, each strand lit briefly as mosquitoes are lit in evening air. Lower, the ridges at the base of his spine look softer than they ought to, plush little marks above the band of his breeches, a place made by the gods for the pressing of a mouth and then hidden from decent folk by linen.
Duncan forgets himself for one blessed moment. He lowers into the stream with a groan, then lies back where the water is deep enough to take some of his weight. His chest comes into view. No wonder it is so broad if it must hold the sort of heart he has.
His ribs expand slowly and crown the upper swell of his stomach. The whole front of him looks safe. Pliable. Opulent with flesh, with strength, with the dark scatter of hair that begins across him and gathers itself into a neater line below his navel, leading somewhere your thoughts visit, and you don't even care to leash them. The little cup of his belly looks tender enough for a cheek. For a kiss, perhaps. For asking forgiveness of whatever part of him you have offended by wanting so much.
You watch him through leaf-shadow and sun-break, hunger loosening warm in your mouth. It is the looks, yes. You are young enough and living enough for beauty to matter. But the beauty wounds because it is his. His shoulders that carried you. His hands that tied the bandage. His mouth that stammered around kindness. His generous body laid briefly open in the water, while the heart inside it has been nothing but careful with you.
Then you notice the dark brand of mortality spoiling what is dear and fair and supple. A wound at his side, ugly with bruise-bloom and old blood, the flesh round it gone a deep wine-dark colour that makes your teeth meet. That is what has made him wince and grunt whenever he has pretended effort is a stranger to him. Someone put that there. Someone opened your knight and left him to ride on with pain hidden under cloth and courtesy.
Whoever hurt your beloved becomes at once your beloathed.
You want to tend him. Cure him. Put your mouth to the slash and draw the pain from it. Lick it clean. Pack it with moss and bitter green things. Seal him with leaf and mud and charm and the old patience of riverbeds. Hide him somewhere cold and safe where no sword can find him and no lord can send him back out to be struck again. Then you remember that whatever powers lived in your old body have been taken from you with your gills and your tail. All that remains is knowledge. Root, herb, current, and small useful things land and water will still confess if you ask properly.
Heat climbs through you, anger and want together, so fierce the stream begins calling harder. To you, it is communal. Water is company, cleansing, and peace. A place where bodies are honest and the world knows how to hold them. You begin undressing before sense catches up, fingers already at the borrowed linen. Then Duncan’s red ears return to you. His stricken crouch over firewood. The way he begged you to spare him from some bare skin as if you had raised a blade.
Whether that was true misliking or liking too much, you still have no clear answer. Men have a great many words for lying softly.
So the shift stays on. This, you think, is decorum.
You rise with care and make your wobbly way to the bank, each step placed as though the earth may change its mind beneath you. Duncan lies with his ears under the stream, face turned to the sky, and does not stir. The first touch of water over your bandaged foot is bright enough to steal your breath. Cool. Familiar. Wrong only because your body receives it poorly now, through skin instead of gill, through ache instead of ease. Still, it welcomes you better than road and saddle ever did.
You step knee-deep. Then further. The stream dips there into a dark little hollow beneath the willow roots, and the water climbs your thighs, your hips, your waist. Your shift billows round you and then clings. Duncan floats an arm-length away, chest moving slow, the gash ugly at his side like an insult left unanswered.
“You are hurt,” you say.
He jerks so hard his head goes under. For one sharp instant his limbs thrash and water breaks. Then Duncan surges upright, coughing badly, droplets streaming from his hair into his eyes. Water reaches his waist. His mouth opens on a half-strangled oath.
“Seven bloody hells!” he bellows, making the horses lift their heads from drinking. Drags a hand down his face and finds you standing there in your soaked shift. The cloth has gone thin and faithful to every line beneath it. His gaze strikes you once, panics, and bolts upward to the trees. “M-m’lady,” he rasps, still coughing. “Gods. You near frightened the soul out of me.”
“Let me tend to you,” you say, reaching. Your fingers brush his ribs and—oh, gods. He flinches. Flinches as if you have burnt him, near stumbling back on the pebbles.
“N-no,” he stammers. “No, there’s—” Another step back. “There’s no need. I, uh—I’ll let you bathe. Forgive me, I—”
“Ser Duncan?” You only blink at him, stunned. He stays where he is, eyes down. “Ser Duncan, you mustn’t be so foolish," you say. "It is only tending.”
“Please,” he says, and the word comes out almost a whine.
You come closer despite it. Set your fingers to his side again, gentler this time, and find the flesh above the cut warmer than the rest of him. “You’re in pain.”
“It looks worse than it feels,” he says. “Hah—” His breath hitches when your thumb brushes the soft of his belly. “Please,” he says, lower now. “Don’t… don't touch me.”
The hurt of it lands before you can reason with it. Your hand retreats. Your jaw sets tight. “As you wish,” you say, and dip wholly underwater and let the current take you a little way from him.
Duncan starts the day perturbed and only grows more and more mortified during the course of it.
First, sleeping next to you proves shallow and restless, for you keep making soft sounds in the night and moving under the blanket. Your body seems to disregard the steel barrier entirely and every now and then one of your limbs brushes him. Fingers on the hem of his shift. Foot nudging his low on the bedroll. Duncan sleeps terribly.
Then he is shamed for the hurt on you, and rightly. He had been so fixed on keeping his eyes clean and his hands honourable, so addled by the bareness of you, that he had given your bad walking some name out of fear and pity and left the simplest answer underfoot.
A cut. A cruel slash across the sole. Even close, even with your hands in his, it takes the red smear on the grass to make him see it, and the sight puts a shudder of anger through him so sharp he nearly speaks too harshly. After that comes worse: your ankle warm in his hand, your heel on his thigh, the soft give of your calf under his palm while he cleans what he can. You trust him through it. Squeal when it stings, then bite yourself quiet and try to be brave for no reason he deserves. Your skin imperils him by seeming new-made, tender in a way ordinary skin is not, without the leathering of road or work or weather. Dunk binds the foot as gently as he knows how and keeps himself from lifting it to his mouth and kissing it better only because that would mean bringing your leg higher, opening you by accident or design, and he is certain as sunrise that he would not survive the sight.
He contemplates this predicament of knightly challenge while floating on his back, body idle where his mind is restless, and gets startled by your voice. Then haunted by the same fingers that brushed him in the night and the shape of you, plain and vulgar and hallowed all the same under the shift clinging to you. He mumbles his futile excuses, manages to offend you by trying to maintain his honour, and stumbles out of the stream burnt up to his ears and heavy between the legs. Gods have mercy on him, Duncan has a few more nights with you ahead of him and faith in himself near shredded to scraps.
For another hour or so, he is quiet as a dead man. Sets you onto Chestnut with his eyes barely open, and rides in suffocating silence. At camp his heart inevitably melts back to warmness, because you try to feed Sweetfoot an apple you have chewed yourself first, and for it the horse adores you so much that Duncan almost chars the bread he is trying to make less stone-like. You squat too close to the fire and near singe the hem, making him certain you are not road-wise at all, then gut a fish he has caught in tremendous efforts with such unnerving competence Dunk has to revise his whole sense of your shelteredness.
Once he loosens enough to laugh and make talk with you again, the questions return. Seven hells, they never end, and Duncan scowls at each and every one of them. Do 'married things' feel better once people are married? Is it always a man and a woman who do 'married things'? Do folk kiss only on the mouth? Where else can one kiss? At which point Dunk contemplates pouring boiling water from the pot over his palm just so he is spared.
You seem oblivious. Charmingly so, because every inquiry leaves your face adorned with child-like curiosity, and the things you speak of having nothing child-like about them makes you only that much purer and more disarming in his eyes.
“How do I know a man would like to kiss me?” you ask, blinking at him wide-eyed and hopeful.
He is thankful the bite he took has already gone down his throat before that one lands. Duncan considers it gravely, though not without a fresh wave of shame, because while he means to answer you truthfully and as best he can, he need not bare himself doing it.
“It depends on the man,” he says, vague as a coward, and is met with another blink. “He might, uh—” Duncan tries. “Some men would gape at you outright, mayhaps. Some would try to steal looks and turn away when you caught them at it. Some might go nervous round you. Blush some. Look at your mouth and then wish they hadn’t, because—” He exhales hard through his nose. “Gods. I don’t know. Forgive me, m’lady, I've no proper answer for that one.”
You sit across from him with your face set carefully, taking each word in as if it has been given for study. Only then does it dawn on Duncan that he may have given himself away after all.
At nightfall, he prepares the bedroll again and sets the sword down, doubting its use. What he named protection that first evening serves tonight as the restraint he needs so dearly, and there is something wholly unknightly in that.
As if for punishment, he wakes hot and clammy, half-rolled off the wool, his side aching badly. When he opens his eyes, you are perched on one elbow with your hand hovering over his forehead. “Ser Duncan,” you say. “You’re burning up. Let me clean your wound, or you’ll go stiff as a dead fish.”
His mouth is parched. He fights himself a moment, tries to move, and when he finds it painful beyond keeping his face straight, Duncan nods, wincing. “A-aye,” he rasps. “Aye, all right then.”
You get to work at once. Even through the blear in his eyes he sees that you limp less than yesterday. Slow, still, and careful with the foot he bound, but less at war with the earth. You move from the bedroll to the fringe of grass near the stream, bending over plants, touching leaves, bringing them to your nose. Some you take. Some you let fall again with a little dismissive flick of your fingers. Moss from the wet bank. Green things he cannot name. A strip of bark peeled from a low branch after you press your face close to it and seem to listen. You come back with all of it gathered in your skirt, along with clean water from the stream and the bandages pulled from his sack.
Then, you sit on your heels beside him and roll his shirt up. Duncan hisses. “Ah—”
“Ser Duncan, we should not travel today,” you say.
“I’m bound for… for Riverrun soon, ah—” His breath catches when you peel the linen from his side. The cloth gives with a mean little tug. “There is business there.”
“You’ll be more useful to them sound than fevered, Duncan.”
You say it while looking where he cannot see. He looks where he should not. The furrow between your brows, the fall of your hair, and your pretty mouth tightened in focus, and oh—your lips part round a twist of bark and bitter leaves, and thought leaves him in one shameful rush. You chew them all together with grave purpose.
Duncan watches, transfixed enough that the first spill of stream-cool water over his ribs catches him unprepared. His stomach jumps. You take the sound for pain and murmur something under your breath, sweet and wordless, as you pat the wound dry. He is grateful for the mistake. Grateful too that your eyes keep going to his face and the blanket lies over him from the waist down, because your hand is braced low on his stomach and his body has begun turning traitor in ways fever cannot excuse.
“Is this too much?” you ask.
He shakes his head for the lump in his throat makes speech a poor wager.
You pack the wound with moss and the green pulp you have made, careful as any septa laying cloth over the dead. Sphagnum, he knows dimly, from old hedge lessons and worse roads. The rest is beyond him. He must be looking at it strangely, because you pause with your fingers at his side.
“I vow to you, this is safe,” you say. “It is what my people know of healing. I would not harm you.”
“I… I know that,” Duncan says. The answer comes quickly, because it is true before he has time to dress it better. He covers the hand you have set on his stomach. Your skin is cooler than his, cool enough to make him ache toward it.
“I beg your pardon for my weakness, m’lady.”
“I’ll grant you no pardon for that, ser,” you say. “For it needs none.” Your mouth curves a little, thoughtful rather than cruel. “The foolishness, well. That one I might grant pardon for.”
Despite the pain, something near a laugh moves in his chest.
You reach for the clean bandage and begin to bind his waist. He has to raise himself for it. The doing hurts badly enough to sour his breath, but he does it all the same, one arm locked beneath him while you pass the cloth under his back and round again. Your hands move with surprising certainty. All the awkwardness with laces and shoes gone from you the moment flesh is the thing in need.
When it is done, you tie the bandage firm and check the edge with two fingers. “Too tight?”
“No.”
It is, a little. But he would sooner bite his tongue than make you fuss over him again.
You seem to know that somehow, or else you have learned his face too well already, because you loosen it by the smallest measure before he can protest. Then you lean in, set a wet cloth over his forehead, and smooth it once over his brow. The touch quiets him worse than sleep could.
“Rest, Ser Duncan,” you say. “Riverrun may wait a day.”
It is as though you have put a spell on the world, because Duncan’s eyes grow heavy and everything seems set on peeling the fever off him. The air cools during his sleep and billows with loud howling through the trees, making breath come easier into his lungs. By the time he wakes, the mean bite in his side has dulled to a steady ache, and the heat in him has lessened into something nearer the natural state of a body than the foul blaze of sickness.
For a moment he does nothing but lie there, listening. You are humming beside him. The sound is low and strange and threaded so gently through the wind that he almost thinks he has dreamt it. When he opens his eyes, he finds you curled near the fire in a small, careful shape, arms tucked round yourself as if trying to keep what warmth you have from fleeing. Your hair moves across your cheek. Your face has gone solemn in sleep or thought; he cannot tell which.
He clears his throat and pushes himself up. The movement hurts, but only in the way of a wound that means to remind him it exists, rather than one trying to split him open. “Are you cold, m’lady?” he asks.
You turn your head toward him. Duncan looks round before you can answer and sees at once that a great part of the day has been stolen from him. The shadows have shifted long across the ground. The light has taken on the thinned, slanting look of late afternoon.
“How long was I out?”
“A few hours,” you say. “Do you feel better?”
“Aye.” He presses one hand carefully near the bandage and finds it firm. “Aye, I do. You’ve got my thanks.” He makes himself stand, slower than he likes. “I’ll start the fire proper, so you can warm up.”
You only nod. That troubles him a little.
He works at the kindling with hands that feel almost his own again and urges the fire into steadier life. When it takes, he motions you closer to it. You come, but even with amber light painting your face and the flame catching in your eyes, you keep your arms around yourself. Duncan watches that a moment, then rises and goes to his things. He finds a spare shift that does not shame him too badly for smell, shakes it once, and brings it back to you.
You look up at him. “Do I need more layers for your comfort?” you ask, mild.
“N-no,” he blurts, and then wishes he had managed it better. “No. This is for you. To get warmer.”
You take it after a pause. “Thank you.” Then you pull it over your head.
It unmakes him some, seeing you in something that came from his back. The cloth sits loose on you, too large in the shoulder, the sleeves falling past your wrists, and for some reason that is worse than all your wet linen had been. Worse in a different way. Quieter. It puts a claim in his mind he has no right to make and no courage to name.
He passes you water. Food. What little there is. You take both, but without the bright delight of the nights before. The silence in you discontents him. It sits between the pair of you heavier than his sword does at nights.
You both wait through the sinking of the sun with no moon rising after it. The sky grows dark by degrees and stays that way, blind and deep.
Duncan’s mind, made foolish by fever and wanting, begins to search for crimes. Mayhaps he snored like a pig. Mayhaps he spoke in his sleep. Mayhaps some foulness of the body escaped him while he lay senseless, and you are too gentle or too strange to name it. Then worse thoughts come. Mayhaps you have remembered some home you do not wish to speak of. Mayhaps the road has frightened you. Mayhaps he has touched too much, or withheld too much, or made some fresh error in the long ledger of not knowing how to be with you.
At last he cannot stand it. “Is something wrong?” he asks. “Have I frightened you somehow?”
What he means is, Were you frightened for me? Did my sickness put fear in you? Did you sit here humming me back from fever while I slept like a lump and gave you no thanks worth the doing? He does not ask that, of course.
You look at him across the fire. “Is your fever gone?”
“Aye. I think so.”
Then, you reach out and set your hand to his forehead. Duncan decides to let you. After all his defending himself from your touch, the yielding feels almost humiliating. Your palm is cold. Cool enough that he leans a fraction into it. “It is a wonder, what you did,” he says. “Truly.”
You stay there a moment longer. Then slip, not away, but to the side of his face.
“Are you cold still?” he asks.
You nod.
There is something changed in you now. He cannot say what. You are quieter, but the quiet has gone sharp and watchful. Closed in a way your face has never much managed before. It leaves him with the queer sense that he has done wrong and is only waiting to learn the charge.
“We’ve another blanket,” he says. “You may have it.”
You shake your head. Your hand moves from his cheek to his neck. His breath forgets itself.
“Would you hold me?” you ask and the question leaves him with no ground beneath him.
He wants to. Gods, he wants to. Wants it with such simple force that for one foolish instant his arms open before honour can set a guard over them. To hold you and warm you and give back a little of what you gave him. To fit you against him and learn the shape of your weight with nothing between but cloth and breath. To stop being careful long enough to stop aching.
You come into him as if you had only been waiting for the smallest leave.
Your body moulds tight to his chest. One hand slides behind his neck and into the hair at his nape; the other settles carefully near his side, avoiding the wound with a tenderness that cuts him deeper than a careless touch would have. Your face turns against his throat. Scent comes up with the heat of you—river-cold still, and green, with a foreign worry underneath it that seems made to ruin him.
He sits rigid at first, then lowers his arms around you. He circles your back with great care, as though the wrong pressure might break whatever spell has allowed this. His palm moves once between your shoulders. Then again. A slow, broad pass, the way he soothed you by the bank, only now there is no panic in your breathing. Only the nearness of you. The trust of you. The soft press of your shirt against his chest.
He says nothing. He does not trust his voice. Instead, he closes his eyes.
“Ser Duncan?” you ask.
“Mm?”
“When people kiss—” you start, lancing him with relief so strangely he almost laughs outright. Another question. Another weird, killing little question, but a question all the same. Something with words on it. Something safer than the warm mouth of you near his throat and the hand at the back of his neck making a weak man of him.
“Where does the nose go?”
A huffed chuckle leaves him. He has never once thought on it, which seems impossible now that you have asked. His chin lowers by a little. The dark gives him no help at all. “Wherever it can go,” he answers.
You shift against him, and crane your head back to look at him. “Would you show me?” you ask. Duncan near stops breathing altogether.
If time were a pocket full of stones to be thrown into water, yours would be light now. Between startling him in the stream on the second day and the morning of the third, you are nearly out of pebbles, and nowhere near certainty that what sits so swollen in you has found its likeness in him.
You tend him because pain on Duncan seems an offence against the order of things. Your hands know more than the rest of your borrowed body does, because the old small wisdoms of healing remain when all your better gifts are gone.
Then he sleeps. If you had all the time in the world, it would be a blessed thing. To sit with him through the day and look your fill without having to steal it. To learn his face by light rather than glances: the slope of his nose, the soft fall of his mouth, the worried place between his brows that seems carved by use. But every hour that passes comes down with a weight in it. Doom pressing thumb by thumb upon the tender back of your neck. You have hardly thought of the other choice. You do not know yet if your heart has turned vicious. You do not know what would prove easier in the end: longing or death. You do not even know whom you love more—him, or yourself.
So you hum, for it comes from somewhere old in you. Habit before speech. A small line thrown back to the creature you were so eager to cast off the moment a knight knelt bloodied at your riverbank and broke your life in two by praying. The song is low and almost without shape, but Duncan’s face softens beneath it in unspeakable measure. Sleep takes the worry from him first. Then pain. Then the lines around his mouth ease as if the song has set careful fingers there and smoothed them flat.
When he wakes, your nerves stir again. You have spent hours with him, but he has not spent them with you. He returns from slumber healthier, clearer, less fever-taken, and a bitter thought slips through unbidden: you ought not to have helped so eagerly. A fevered man is easier. Easier to seduce. Easier to kill.
Both notions sadden you in equal measure. If you were willing to win a weak version of him, you may as well have lured him with song the first day and let the river take the rest. As for killing—well. You came hoping for something to begin. Not end.
You cannot decide whether the air has chosen to be ally or enemy. Yesterday, heat helped very little. Duncan took great offence at you bathing near him, though your shift had stayed on like a banner of hard-won virtue, and afterwards he rode ahead in his breeches still dripping, neck blazing red. You still have no clue whether the sun kissed him so passionately there or whether his own blood had run faster from mortification. If the latter, you might almost take comfort. It would mean skin alone does not imperil him, but the shape of what it is stretched over does too.
Now the day has turned cold. All the small ends of you stiffen with it: toes, fingers, nose, the delicate rims of ears you have only just begun to understand. When Duncan gives you his shift, it helps little and wounds much. You eat the food, and it is still good, but doom dulls even salt and fat. You sit by the fire, which burns hot and warms everything except the parts that matter.
The only improvement is his scent. It gathers in the cloth he gives you, in the space around him, in the place where days have drawn the truth of his body closer to the skin. Earth after rain, almost. Warm ground turned by a hand. The deep, honest rot of flesh worked hard and loved too little. It is inviting in the way banks are inviting after too long in flood-water. Safe. Pure in a manner nothing you have known as pure before, because it belongs to a creature who has had every chance to harm you and kept choosing not to.
It makes you want to try harder. So you ask to be held, plainly and bravely, because every subtler method has failed you.
And somehow, blessedly, that works. Duncan opens his arms as if forgetting himself for one breath, and you go into him before he remembers any reason to stop. He is warm. Broad and rigid at first, all restraint and alarm, then his arms lower around you with a care that makes your throat ache. One hand moves over your back. Slow. Heavy and kind. The other stays mindful of his wounded side, and you press yourself where you may without hurting him, cheek near his throat, hand at the back of his neck where his hair curls soft against your fingers.
His scent is stronger here. His breath too. His ribs lift against you once, held too long, and you feel the panic in him before he makes any sound of it.
Emboldened, foolish with nearness, you crane your head up to look at him. “Would you show me?” you ask.
At once, Duncan locks himself in his stringent state of lungs filled with fright. For one breath he only looks at you. Mouth parted, eyes dark and wide and wretched with wanting he seems determined to suffer through rather than obey. His hand moves from your back to your shoulder, then stills there, made smaller and shaking in some deep part of him.
“M’lady,” he says, and the title sounds scraped from him. “You do not know what you ask.”
“I ask for a kiss.”
“Aye,” he says, almost pained. “That is the trouble of it.”
Your fingers tighten in his hair. He swallows. You feel it against your wrist, that small motion of life going down through him, and it draws you closer without thought. Your mouth is near enough now that his breath moves over it. Warm. Uneven. Human.
“Please,” you say, because pride has begun to feel like a thing for creatures with more time.
Duncan shuts his eyes. When they open, there is something terrible in them. Kindness, of all things. “I mustn’t,” he says. “Not like this.” Then he peels you from him.
Gently. Carefully. As if your arms are brambles he means to free himself from without breaking a leaf. That gentleness finishes what the refusal began. His hands leave you with honour in every finger, and you hate the honour so sharply you feel it in your teeth.
“We should rest,” he says, voice low. “You’ve had a hard day. Both of us have.”
You sit back on your heels and look at him. “I will be right there,” you say.
Duncan nods once. He looks as though he wants to say more and knows better than to trust his mouth. Then he lets you go.
The dark receives you with no comfort. No moon has risen. The sky hangs black over the trees, and every small night-sound seems to have sharpened itself for your hearing. The fire cracks behind you. Water calls ahead. You walk toward it with your arms wrapped around yourself, feet wet already from the grass, the bandage gone cold and weighty against your sole.
Stream takes your ankles first. You stand there a while, letting it worry the hurt in your foot, and sing softly because there is nothing else in you large enough to hold the ache. The song comes out thin. Sadder than you mean it to. A thing for deep places and lost skins, for girls foolish enough to think love would explain itself before the third night came hunting.
He has no love for you. That is what the witch’s voice says inside the dark.
He is kind. He is tender. He looks at you as if looking pains him. He has warmed you, carried you, fed you, let you touch his fevered body. He has given you his shirt and his fire and his poor sleeping place. Everything in him leans toward you.
Still, he will not give the proof.
The contradiction scrapes through you until you could scream. He has chosen fear. Virtue. Whatever cold, shining thing men put between their bodies and the bodies that want them. He has chosen the sword.
Something knocks softly against your bad foot, so you look down.
The dagger lies in the shallows, dark blade nosing against the stone as if the river has carried it back in its mouth. Returned from the mud where you left it to rot.
You stare at it first, then bend and take it. The hilt fits your palm with malicious ease.
When you return, the camp is nearly spent. The fire has sunk to a red eye. Duncan sleeps on his back with his face turned toward the dark and the sword laid down between you, steel dull and matted in the thin light. It looks and feels, to you, like an insult.
You kneel beside him with the dagger in your fist and learn again how human bodies rid themselves of water. Your eyes cloud. Your throat swells shut around breath. Tears fall hot down your cheeks and onto his forearm, though he does not wake.
He is very large in sleep. Very warm. His side lies beneath the blanket, bandaged where your hands have worked mercy into him. You know where he is weakest. Where to put the blade. How to turn the hand so it goes under the rib and up. The thought of all that warmth spilling out of him sickens you so badly you nearly retch.
“Forgive me,” you choke, and turn the dagger toward yourself.
Your hand shakes. The blade catches clumsily in the cloth, then slips, and in your blind effort to right it you snag his forearm. Duncan's eyes open.
It must be raining, he thinks at first. Droplets hit his wrist, then his cheek. But when something stings his skin with its sharp tooth, Duncan is alert through knightly instinct, or the instinct that let him survive Flea Bottom as a lame boy, or it is merely the Warrior watching over him. Which one, he does not know.
He knows only enough to move fast when a blade is being turned near where he is weak. His body acts before his mind can give the order. He is battle-trained and large. To seize the perfidious wrist, to roll over a deceitful body and pin it, to bash the weapon from the hand that nursed him away from fever only to break faith with him now—it is all nothing. It is but a blink.
To look into your wet, frightened eyes is everything. Everything that destroys him.
Duncan wants to scream, yet what leaves him is a foolish little thing, near too small to live inside him without getting lost.
“Tell me why,” he breathes over you. The sorrow in it he despises. “Speak, girl!” he says, louder, trying not to sound so heartbroken.
Since now he is sinew and bone first and everything else later, he notices things in scraps. Wretchedly, your spread legs below him. Woefully, your fast-beating heart under his, distraught in the same measure. Lustfully, your mouth, for he is only a man who has yearned for a woman for three days that felt like three lifetimes. Then, dreadfully, the way the mouth cuts itself into a lopsided sickle and begins to wobble. He finds your eyes again, and they are overpouring.
“Why?” he cries. “I’ve nothing for you to rob me of, and I’ve tried to do right by you. To keep my promise, to keep you safe, to—”
His grip tightens as he drags through the miserable list of his own reasons, your wrists caught in both his hands. He feels the small bones under his fingers and catches himself in anger. Loosens. His face cannot decide what shape to take, anguish or ire, so it hangs between them in some ugly misery.
“Why would you betray me?” he whispers.
“It’s—” Your voice breaks before it begins. “It was not meant for you. The w-witch… the witch said a soul, she did not say whose—”
Duncan stares.
“She—she gave me three days,” you sob, words tumbling over themselves, half-choked and damp. “And it has been three days, and I—I would not— I would never, not you—”
Your chest hitches under him. You try to pull one hand free, fail, and only curl your fingers in the air as if reaching for words that keep slipping from you. “It was for me. I was going to—”
He understands naught of it. “Girl, what is this nonsense that you speak of?” he asks, desperate. “What witch? What soul?”
You blink at him through the tears. For a long moment you only gape, and the fear in your face goes strange, as if some part of you had expected him to know the tale already.
“You’ve no love for me,” you say, so quietly he almost misses it. Your fingers flex above the wrists. Duncan lets go.
The instant he does, you take his hands and set them at your throat. Your own close over his, pressing them there, begging with them. He feels how feeble that column is beneath his palms. The hard swallow of it. The frantic life inside. How easily his thumbs could end you. How surely it would end him too.
“You’ve no love for me,” you say, “and it means I cannot go back. I cannot go home, and I cannot take your life, so it has to be mine. Please, please—”
Duncan sees part of it plain, and another part not at all. Your palms squeeze round his, eyes leaking plea after plea. He is certain that if you could reach it, you would hand him the dagger and point its tip to your own neck. How this would ensure his sparing, he does not comprehend. What he recognises is the devotion of putting oneself at the edge of the blade if that means your beloved lives.
“M’lady—” he mouths, stunned by the discovery.
All of the teasing, all of the questions—none of it was malevolent. None of it was oblivious either, or meant to make him stray off his path, use him, seduce him for sport. It was you speaking I want you to him in a language he used to know and misplaced when he found folk scarcely so openly honest.
“Calm yourself. Calm yourself now,” he says, terrified at being the cause of your sorrow. “Oh, girl. Hush now, hush.” He removes his hands from your throat and brings them to your swollen cheeks. “Tell me plain,” he says. “Slowly. Don’t be afraid.”
Your sobbing eases. “I saw you on the bank lancing a man through and praying for him a minute later. You—” Your fingers come up to his cheeks, damp and trembling, and the touch strikes him so softly he can hardly bear it. “You bewitched me.”
Duncan sucks in a breath.
“So I went to a crone and struck a deal. To get legs. So you—” You swallow. “So you could love me.”
“Legs?” Duncan huffs. “Girl—”
His mind begins to move, slow and fearful, through every half-remembered tale old women or some Flea Bottom drunk or hedge septon ever muttered near a fire. Water-wives. River maids. Green-haired things who drowned men by kissing them. Old gods in stones and streams. Stories, he had thought. Ways for folk to dress up queer happenings so the world seemed less wide and hungry than it was.
Yet he thinks of you in the willow-shadow, floating as if the stream had been made to hold you. Of your strange wisdom with water and wound and herb. Of your dread of shoes. Your open face. Your body new to its own legs.
“Where’s your home?” he asks.
You look at him, and he holds his breath without meaning to. Then, you say, “The river.”
The way you looked hugged by water suddenly makes sense. “River-folk,” he mutters. “I was right, then. You’re no human girl.” Your face changes at that, guilt passing plain over it, and the sight only settles the truth harder in him.
“Gods,” he says, hushed. “You’re a river maid. Some old god’s daughter, mayhaps. Holy thing of the water.” It's all muttered half to himself, as if wagering with his own mind whether such a thing can be possible, but awe gets into him anyway. Awe and fear. Awe and the brutal knowledge that he has had a holy thing weeping under him with his hand at her throat.
Your eyes widen. Confused, mayhaps. Hopeful too, in some small wounded way. “What say you to me, knight?”
Duncan shifts. Sets himself firmer on one elbow, then bends one knee and hooks it carefully against your leg to keep you open beneath him. Closer now. More intimate than the pinning had been when his body only knew defence. His hands slide to the back of your head, thumbs settling where your jaw hinges, close beside your ears. He presses there gently.
“What did the witch tell you to do?” he asks.
Wariness moves over your face, but you answer. “She said to bring her a soul if you did not fall for me within three days.” Your eyes drop. “Otherwise I am cast out and trapped in this ugly body.”
The shape of it becomes clearer. Witch-craft with its fangs hidden until the mouth shuts. A sworn sword and a maid from the water. A bargain made to rot between them. How easy to mislead you. How easy to make failure look like virtue and restraint look like scorn.
His body understands some ruinous part of it before his mind is finished. The angle has him feeling you everywhere that matters: your breath hot over his face, the soft give of you under his weight, your fingers brushing shakily beneath his eyes and near his mouth as if you want to touch and are afraid. His groin fills out against sense, against decency, against every terrified plea he has made to the Seven in three days. Reprehensible, mayhaps. True all the same.
For desperate want of proof, he manages to ask, “And how were you to know if I had fallen or no?”
You move a little beneath him. It pains him terribly. “When you want between my legs,” you say. “That is why I needed them in the first place.”
Duncan laughs then. Breathless. Broken by it.
You frown. “What?”
“Wee thing,” he says. “Oh, Gods—” His eyes close.
“Duncan?”
He rubs at the base of your skull. “Hush, sweet thing. Only tell me if I wrong you.” Then he lowers his face slowly to yours.
“There ain’t nowhere for the nose to go,” he says.
First, he fits himself beneath you, clumsy with care. The tip of his nose fills the warm curve above your upper lip, where your mouth rises into that soft little bow. When he speaks, his mouth frames your lower lip so closely that the words seem to move against it. “It just goes here,” he murmurs.
Then he shifts higher, until your mouths face one another and his nose wedges beside yours, dipping into the slope where cheek begins. Nearer now. Close enough that, if your lips were not stunned and motionless beneath his, it would already be a kiss. “Or here.”
He presses in by the smallest measure. “Or flattens some,” he breathes, “when it’s more ardent.”
Duncan wants to kiss you ardently. He also wants to tell you this is not how love works, but he catches himself knowing naught of it. He's been charmed by women, by their voices and breasts and the napes of their necks, thought of them for days upon days, and inevitably, forgotten most of the maids for the sake of his pliant heart remaining whole. You, he's certain, he'd never forget. Despite his body being crude and primal around you, he thinks, innocently, that it is the heart that animates his blood to go where it goes. He presses down on you with ingenuity between the shoulders and lust between the hips, and the lust is pure too, for it comes from affection.
Your leg hitches higher on him and fingers find some valour in their groping. You take a clean hold of his face and trap him there, in the in-between kiss state, and look at him with the sort of plain youthful hope that keeps unearthing him.
"What are you saying?" you ask.
Duncan’s hands come up to answer first. Where you keep him, he cradles you back, careful thumbs, fingers spreading into your hair. There. There is the shape of it. Want met with want, fear met with shaking, your breath touching his and making no wound of it.
“I am saying,” he murmurs, moving the words against your mouth, “that the witch has been proven wrong already. You had my heart before you had legs steady under you.” Your eyes search his so closely he feels near flayed by the looking. “But if you need proof in the flesh,” he says, rougher, shame and hunger dragging at the same rope inside him, “I would be honoured to give it. Gods help me, I would. Only you should know I may be poor at it.” His breath hitches. “You would be my first.”
You consider him calmly. “I don’t need it,” you say, making his whole chest suck in on itself. Then, Duncan breathes again, when you add, “But I want it.”
Finally, the holding concludes. You kiss as if the thing has angered you by staying unknown so long. Your mouth opens wide and catches his lower lip between yours, soft first, then with teeth. Duncan makes a sound into you. He cannot tell whether the bite is artless or bold already, whether you have stumbled into hunger or known the road to it all along. This, at least, he can teach. When the cloth comes off, when bodies are bare and honest and frightening in the dark, both of you will be green as spring branches. But kissing—kissing he knows enough to begin.
So he shows you. Shows you how the nose can fit beneath yours, how it can slide along cheek and breathe there, hot and loud. Shows you how a mouth may press and soften and press again, how teeth need not wound to be felt, how the lips can ask twice before taking. Then his tongue finds the seam of you, and when you open, he slips inside.
He discovers that you must be finding that pleasurable because you moan softly and bend beneath him and fit yourself firmer to his cock, making him ache more. Your fingers climb to his hair and tug, and some helpless part of him near thanks you for it.
You learn fast, too—answer his tongue with yours, and they press each other and taste each other, and to Duncan you taste like blessed water and flesh made open. He kisses you deeper for it, ardent at last, enough that his nose flattens against your cheek, and the nonsense of it is so small and heartbreaking the clothes start itching him unbearably.
“I wanted you,” he whispers. “Gods, I wanted you.”
For a moment you stop kissing in favour of laughing sweetly, so he, in his ardour, pulls the shirt off his back, bearing himself to the night and your eyes. You stop laughing then and fix your pupils somewhere below his chin, and Duncan sees a glimpse of what he presumes lesser creatures see before you seize their throats and snap their spines. Lowering lids and lashes gone droopy over them, you breathe out, set your forefinger to the hollow of his throat, collect the dampness there, and bring it back to your mouth.
“And I wanted you,” you say.
Duncan leans in to kiss you some more. The dagger lies abandoned in the grass.
Your knight loves you. He is kissing you, and for a man who only supposes he likes it, he is incredibly fervent about it. Obedient too: he rises when you all but press your fingers to his bicep and lets you climb him a little. He sits on his heels and lowers his head for you to reach. His mouth tastes clean and cold of crushed mint. His hands on you are warm, warming up with every pass. They hold your neck first, then slide down your shoulders, pause briefly at your elbows, and continue lower. You are lost in it, learning how to do this thing called kissing and where the poking parts of the body go during, when desire emboldens him enough to stray beneath your skirt.
You catch his wrist unconsciously, mouth curbing. Before, his touch was medicinal. And rightfully so, since there was nothing else you'd rather have done to your legs than fix them. Heavy, graceless logs beneath you with one foot mangled, the mending of which, despite being mildly titillating for his gentleness, heralded no perfervid development and remained purely sanative. Now, there is intent in it. Now he's looking at your thighs, and regardless of him being a different kind of folk, a kind of folk who likely enjoys thighs, you wish, terribly, for your tail to be back in its rightful place. For the thing of poise and cordiality you could show him. For the thing that makes you beautiful in the water and in sunlight, smooth and shiny and worth seeing, instead of bruised knees and prodding ankles and dirty shins and the sole gone plump with its cut and blood dried round the cut's edges.
When your eyes meet he looks very concerned. His touch stalls. "Have I… have I wronged you?" Duncan asks. He lifts his hands a hairsbreadth off you and murmurs, "Do you want me to stop?"
"N-no, no," you tell him. "No, I don't, just—" Your eyes drop to where he's hovering. You cringe. "Just do not look at me so."
"How did I look?" His fingers curl, then retreat completely to rest on his knees. "Have I looked wrong?" Dunk asks.
"No, I just… don't like them."
Duncan sags a little. When you look up, he's blinking at you, baffled. His mouth moves while he's chewing his own tongue, and finally, he stammers, "Y-your legs?"
You nod. Sit back, pull the skirt over the knees for the lack of a better shield, and hug the whole bundle to hide it from being perceived. "They're ugly," you tell him.
At that, his face breaks open with fondness and ache. Duncan breathes around something that looks like exasperation, though gentler than any you have known. Plainly, he seems to not know what is meant to be said to a girl who tells him she hates a part of herself. So he says nothing at first. Only comes to you, slow on his knees, until he is close enough for the heat of him to reach through the miserable pile you have made of your limbs.
His hand finds your cheek. He turns you toward him by a little, thumb rubbing along your jaw as if coaxing the bone to unclench. “They brought you to me,” he mutters at your ear. The words go through you strangely.
“They bled and still carried you.” His fingers nose, tender and frightened, beneath the edge of your skirt, finding the place where your hip creases under cloth and the guard of your folded arm. He brushes there and goes no farther than you allow. “You’ve had them three days, and they’ve already learned the road so well.”
At that, something in you loosens. Your arms slacken by a measure. Enough for him to slide down to your knee, where the fabric bunches under his broad palm.
“I adore them,” Duncan says, simply enough to make mockery impossible. His eyes lift to yours, serious and shy both. “Would you let me show you?”
You are apprehensive still, but you look at him properly then, and his face is so genuine it gives you no clever place to hide. So trustworthy. So pure in its truth-telling. For a moment you think that perhaps love can be graceless. Perhaps here, with him, it may be youthful and ebullient and still be love. Perhaps the grace you were robbed of has no bearing on your worthiness of it. His hands are clumsy too, trembling and bashful, but eager in the way they touch you, forthright in their care. He seems to pay no mind to his own awkwardness. Only to you. To the careful unpeeling of you in a way that does not leave the parts beneath raw and aching.
“How?” you ask.
Duncan smiles as if something has just been answered for him. “Tell me no at any moment,” he says.
He goes to the lacing at your waistband and pulls at it slowly, eyes fixed on yours. Then his fingers hook between fabric and skin and he begins guiding the skirt down. You prop yourself on his shoulders and lift for him. The cloth passes your hips and drags down your thighs, and you close your eyes briefly so you do not have to see the hated shape of yourself being bared.
Chill kisses your ankles and calves, then deserts them once Duncan’s hands find you. He goes to sit farther away, facing you, and places your feet with their soles to his stomach. Your shift falls loose between your thighs and gathers there, covering you only to the middle of them. You lean back on your elbows and finally open your eyes.
He sits on his heels again, thighs flattened and filling his breeches until the side seams seem fit to complain, so abundant there his knees knock apart naturally. Between his legs he is curiously swollen. You want to touch there. To see him. To learn what it is that makes a man breathe faster and blush the way he does. He is pink up to the temples and sweating round there. Beneath your soles, his stomach ripples now and then. His fingers curl round either of your ankles, eyes fixed on the dorsums of your feet, thumbs brushing where your toes ladder into five thin, twig-like bones.
He unwraps the bandage gently. Checks you for wincing, and when he sees you only staring with your lids nearly disappearing into their sockets, the colour on him deepens.
Then, he lifts your foot to his face, and you learn where else people can be kissed.
He slots his mouth to the hollow where the cut had been. It is barely a brush of lips. A small thing. Soft enough that it should hardly matter. Yet he does it with such care that the warmth of it travels up your throat from the inside, humiliating and near hallowed. Duncan swallows as if bracing himself, then sets his tongue to the sealed line of it and licks across.
The wound has closed. Tender still, and puffed at the edges, but closed. It receives his affection with a strange little pulse that runs the whole length of you and lands low in your belly like kindling catching.
You go very still when he kisses it again. Then the arch, then the heel, then the place below your toes where the skin is softer than you expected it to be. His hand holds the whole weight of your leg as if it weighs nothing at all. You let it rest there, pliant and cradled, and he seems to like the trust of it. Seems to grow gentler and more intent for having it.
When his mouth reaches your toes, he hesitates. His eyes lift to yours. Deadly honest. Pinked still, mouth damp from you, breathing with the rough care of a man at the edge of his own courage.
Then he closes his lips around you, and the sound you make is pulled clean out of you.
He smiles. You feel the shape of it more than see it. The small wickedness of it startles you worse than the mouth does, because he has spent three days shy as a colt and now there is this on him too, some pleased knowledge that he has made you louder. His tongue moves over your toes in a slow pass. His lips draw, soft and firm together. The pressure is nothing like kissing. You cannot answer it except by breathing harder and letting your head tip back, by spreading your fingers on the wool and trying to understand why a useless little toe should have any road at all to where pleasure lives.
The angle opens you by a little, making you learn, once again, how human bodies lose moisture. This one is known to you and strange all the same. You have felt your slit weep at the sight of folk tumbling in the tall grass by your bank, but this is warmer. Thicker. It pearls at the centre of you and pulses there, as if bidding him to come closer.
Duncan releases your foot and turns to the other. “Should I stop?” he asks, voice low.
You shake your head.
He nods as if you have given him some important charge, then bends again. Kisses the second foot with equal devotion. Along the ankle, over the knob of bone, up the calf where his nose stirs the soft hair covering your skin. His breath follows after, hot in places the night had cooled. His lips travel slowly, learning you with more patience than skill, though the patience is its own skill, perhaps. You cannot decide. You only know that each place his mouth has been feels newly awake when he leaves it.
At your knee, he lowers himself. The breadth of his shoulders knocks your legs further apart without hurry and without force. As though both of you were made for this particular placement. He settles on his stomach between them, enormous and careful, and begins again above the knee. Mouth open now. Breath heavier. The kissing grows less neat. At the inner soft of your thigh his eyes cover themselves with the thick row of lashes, and for one moment he seems to forget the mild kind of gentleness in favour of a hungrier one. His jaw opens, then closes with teeth.
Your head lolls back with the force of the moan breaking out of you, and Duncan freezes.
The absence of him is immediate and cruel. You lift your head and find him staring up at you, stricken, his mouth still near the mark he made.
“Did I hurt you?”
“Do it again,” you breathe.
His face does a strange, blissed out thing. He nods, snakes one arm under your leg and sets his palm to your hip. Mouth returns to the same place. Teeth first, as asked. Then lips. Then a slow draw of suction that makes your spine change its mind about what shape it wants. His nose dents the skin beside the bite. Each puff of air from him lays heat there. You watch, fascinated and stunned, because this feels good and the witch never spoke of it. She spoke of being opened. Of men putting themselves where they wished to go. She spoke as though the act were a blade and a body only the place it entered.
She said nothing of this. Nothing of mouths on knees and thighs. Nothing of being marked with blunt, crooked fangs and of brands they leave being so pretty you wish for them to be permanent. Nothing of a large knight lying between your legs with zeal shaking through him and of pleasure arriving before proof.
Your hands move without your leave, rolling the shift up for the cloth to gather over your belly. The apex of your thighs is bared to the night. Duncan groans so loudly it startles you.
“Have I done wrong?” you ask.
He shakes his head at once, almost violently. His hand tightens at your hip, fingers pressing in. “N-no,” he says. “No, sweet thing. Gods, no. Only—”
His free hand comes up slowly. It stops at the curls there, hovers, then dips with two fingers as though he expects you to vanish if touched too boldly. “May I kiss you?” he asks. His voice has gone rough enough to catch. “Here?”
You look down and realise he is nervous. For some reason that steadies you. “Have you kissed there before?”
The colour deepens on him. “No.”
“Is that where folk kiss too?”
“Some,” Duncan says. He swallows. “If they are let.”
His fingers rest in you lightly, barely a touch at all, but your body answers with a soft wetness that reaches him anyway. You see when he feels it. The way his mouth parts. The way his brow draws tight, as if want has put its hand round the back of his neck.
He looks up at you. “Talk to me,” he says. “If I do wrong, tell me. If you want me stopped, tell me. If it is good—” His thumb moves, shy and uncertain, and you draw breath through your teeth. “Tell me that too.”
Then down he goes, and with it something in you drops so low it near shackles you to the ground. It is unimportant at first whether he lands aptly or not, for just the idea of being kissed like this, right there, has already begun to derange you. Another mouth-place, another gate and a room this body contains that can, and deserves to be treated with the same fervour he's given your lips. It makes you forget you own legs whatsoever.
It is but a blunder consecrated by pure intentions. He intends, purely, to show you how pieces of you that you've disregarded and treated as means to an end are also part of the beloved. A little over-eager when his mouth finds you too high and drifts as if listening with tongue instead of ears, but at least honest about his greenness. His nose presses into curls on your mound, and you watch him there, the low-hanging lashes, the blood-filled cheeks, and hair falling loose over his brow and this whole great body brought down to its knees by the smallest knot of nerves you possess. Something absurd lives within it, and something magnificent too, making you want to laugh, or seize him, or ask him if he understands he is doing something to you no one explained. Something outside the cruel little law you've been given, one that doesn't mention being searched by a mouth so loving the searching becomes more devastating than force.
Before he licks you, he hums. The sound buries itself in the flesh of his throat, and then his tongue follows, making the strangest disorder happen. Too much earnestness, broad and hard enough to make white light snap through you with benevolence, so you yelp and drag at his hair.
He stops. Lifts his face, and there he is with his mouth shining and eyes stricken, mumbling, "No?"
"Softer," you tell him, feeling weird for demanding around something that's been gifted.
Duncan only nods, swallowing. Grateful for the doctrine, he gets back to learning you with the same studiousness he's given to the walking lessons, all of it made dangerous by how badly he wishes to do it well.
You bend your knees to make the spread of his shoulders more agreeable, but it only makes you open wider like you're an awkward, frog-like thing with human joints. He takes the leave of it and slides his hands under your thighs as though this is too dear. Makes a cradle of his arms and lifts you into it, saving you from the labour of your own legs. The hated things go light. Your calves rest against his shoulders, heels find his back. The position splits you and steadies you both, and a hot, startled pride moves through you when his breath hitches at the sight.
“Here,” you say, gathering his hair into your fist. You guide him lower by little pressures. “Like you kissed my mouth.”
Obedient still, he tries again. Lets his breath soften you first. Then, a brush. A press and retreat of lips. Underneath it your body is trying to make sense of a feeling that has no mate in memory. It is a kiss, yes, but one that cannot be returned by the same road. You can only suffer the pleasure and be enlarged by it. The passivity maddens you. It makes a queen and a fool of you together. You lie there growing wetter, thinking, wildly, that this must be what land does to rivers when it forces them into beds and banks and makes them learn a new shape by pressure.
“There?” he asks against you. The word itself touches.
“There,” you say. "Please, again."
His tongue returns, gentler, and your mind begins to come apart in layers. First, the ordinary mind that knows cold air and sharp grass, then the clever one counting for proof, and the old water-mind too, with remembrance of lost fins and sealed gills and split tail. Beneath all of them lies this new thing, this land-flesh, this warm, weeping, treacherous little mouth of the body opening under another mouth.
Duncan hums once, and the vibration enters you. Your head falls back. The sky above has no moon, no witness, only a depth of blackness so complete it feels like the world has closed its eyes. You begin to grasp that he is teaching himself by the breaking of breath, the little disloyalties of your spine, and the way your thighs tremble when he loses the right place, and part when he comes near it. Warmth opens there. Thickens. Pearls for him and makes him groan as if the taste of you has struck some hidden bell in his chest. You give more and more of it until there is too much. Until it slicks and drips on your skin, and threatens to waste itself on wool, and Duncan, oh—
He slips his tongue inside. Ladles it cleverly to drink from you, and suddenly your body feels more yours. Alive and awake. "Oh—" you say, and he lifts his eyes without parting you. Tries to fit himself deeper, and in the trying his nose brushes the place that seems to have been waiting for him to discover it. You'd laugh at the sweet lesson of it. At the versatility of destinations bodies hold for noses, if only your muscles wouldn't tense like that, if only teeth weren't busy mauling your lower lip and your eyes weren't rolling back from the euphoria of this little accident.
And Duncan is no master of anything except attention, it would seem. He does it again, slower. Meaner, you'd think, if he were someone else. The arms under your thighs tighten while his tongue slips in with a firmer, deeper thrust. This time his nose finds you on purpose. Rubs you small and blunt, and all of you answers in a vicious little flood. Your hips buck into his face and he groans as though he has been granted something by it.
Again—more, bolder, stronger. Mouth open and breath loud, he makes the double sensation catch you so oddly you cannot tell whether you are being entered or kissed or spoken to. No matter the direction your body chooses, he loves it into splendour by the inch. A living thing throws itself against the inside of your skin, and when you look down you fingers make a mess of his hair and he's there, stubborn and panting, poor sweet creature driven half out of himself by the need to bring you fully past this threshold. You realise then, with a kind of rage, that this body has kept secrets from you.
The witch gave you legs and pain and a wound in the foot. She gave you shame, knees, ankles, the absurdity of toes. She gave you the fear of being split by love or killed by its absence. Yet here is a secret she either did not know or refused to tell: that the body can be opened without being invaded, that a man may go down rather than in, that wanting may have humility in it, that Duncan’s mouth can make a sanctuary of the very place she named as doom.
The thought breaks something, or something he does breaks it. "Yes," you breathe. "Oh, Duncan, yes—"
The pleasure keeps almost arriving. Almost, almost, until the almost becomes its own country and you are trapped there, flooded and furious, hearing yourself make sounds no trout, no eel, no seal-slick thing in the water ever taught you. Human sounds. Girl sounds. The foolish, broken music of having flesh that can beg without words.
He stops at no point, and somehow it works. Or perhaps works is too clean a word for it, for no grace is returned to you in triumph. The body simply takes command with the crude authority of something older than self, and you go with it because there is nowhere else to go. A bright, prickling tug gathers low in your groin, sharp as a hook caught in something living, and then it pulls. You choke on the first sound of it. Bend up so hard your belly creases and your mouth opens wide to the dark, all the while Duncan stays there, caught under you, grunting into the convulsion—pleased, most likely proud, very likely simply surprised that his mouth has become such a mighty tool. Your thighs try to close round his head and cannot, because he is too broad and too fixed and too willing to be crushed there. The bliss grows fangs, pointed and sharp, and when he keeps at it with the same obedience, you pull him off with actual force.
He comes away on the strength of your fist in his hair. For a moment you forget the feeling in yourself because of what has been done to him. He looks changed by it too. Made a man fully, if he had been hovering on the edge of it before, glassy-eyed and glossy-mouthed, lips plumped by labour. His lashes are damp. The skin of his cheeks has risen with blood so deeply it seems lit from underneath. Still large. Still tremendous. Shoulders filling the space between your knees, body hot and weighty against the earth. Yet he lets himself hang from your clenched fist as if he is a head severed clean and kept alive only by the mercy of your grip.
“Too much?” he rasps.
“Enough,” you say, though the word comes out wrecked and fond.
Duncan nods.
His hair slips from between your fingers, and he drops forward as if the cut strings of him have remembered gravity. Down onto your belly, where he turns his face into the soft, creased place below your ribs and lies there breathing hard with arms thrown around you. You listen to him dragging air in and out as if he has been the one carried to some violent height and dropped from it.
Then he asks, muffled, “Did I please you?”
The tenderness of it nearly undoes what the pleasure left standing. “Gods, yes,” you say.
He breathes again, deeper this time, and his cheek shifts against you. You feel the absurd bashfulness returning to him now that his mouth has finished its brave work. His hand moves on your thigh. “Do you still hate them?” he asks.
You look down. There is he, and there are your legs, still strange. Still graceless. Still jointed wrong for a creature born to move as one sleek muscle through water. But his hands have held them. His mouth has blessed them. His shoulders have borne their weight. Shame, you discover, cannot keep its shape where Duncan has put his devotion.
Your fingers slide back into his hair. “I don't think I can hate anything you’ve touched,” you say. His mouth quirks, boyish again.
Duncan thinks, dimly, that he has been allowed too much. He lies on the soft bed of your stomach with his cheeks full of your sweet sap and his scalp scratched by your fingernails, wondering when the gods mean to smite him for a fool like himself daring to touch a holy creature like you.
To think you forsook your home for him. To think you almost passed from the world because he was too much of an imbecile to swallow down the price, the inadequacy, the fear of being too much and too little and simply unworthy.
He looks at your thighs and loves them dearly. One bears the brand of his uneven teeth, a ring like the rings of boulders set into loose soil by men who believed in old gods. It is a place only for him. If anyone else strayed there and saw it, he would have to make them a head lighter.
That is the sort of thought he should turn away from, and quickly. Carnal things have been running him ragged for three days, and now his mind seems determined to drag him through every mire it can find. Nothing about where he is helps. Nothing below him helps. His cock had been hard before his mouth ever reached you, and only turned harder, meaner, more convinced of itself as you softened and opened and shook above him. The ground hides the worst of it well enough, but it pacifies poorly. Each small shift is deadly, especially for a man who has known mostly the mean kind of friction. Solid surfaces and his own hand now and then, when loneliness or some insistent memory of breasts, throats, legs—legs, precisely—made an animal of him in the dark.
And there he is back at the legs.
Yours, with what lies between them still fresh on him, warm and slick and living, a taste so strange and cleanly foul it seems to have made a new chamber in him. He relives the feel of you under his tongue. Of what your body did when he licked properly, when he hummed deep enough, and your fingers turned cruel in his hair. That pulling ought to have hurt more than it did, or shamed him into sense at least. Instead it had near humbled him completely. There seems, to his great peril, to be some direct and wicked road between the roots of his hair and his loins, for when you yanked him up from you with that fistful of him, Duncan had come so close to spending that his whole being narrowed to the crude effort of refusing it. He does not know if that is a thing in him entire, the general affinity for receiving some manhandling, or only another power you have over him. Girlhandling, perhaps, but performed by you.
All of it helps very little. The belly under his cheek and your scent smeared across his face and the hand in his hair, they all help naught. Duncan smacks his lips once, then stirs.
It takes a mean little grunt to rise. His side has drunk some cold from the earth, bandage stiffened where it wraps him, and when he pushes himself up onto his hands the wound pulls as though remembering it has been slighted by all this pleasure around it. Duncan sits back on his heels slowly. Has to set his knees wide as he does, for there is no seemly arrangement left in his breeches. His cock is stranded there, neglected, thick with complaint, as if some part of him expected reward for honest labour and cannot be made to understand that love is no tally of services. He looks at you instead. “Are you well?” he asks, voice rough.
You prop yourself on your elbows, knees knocking together after all that boldness, and nod. You look changed. A little hollowed, though sweetly, in the manner of a body given just enough nourishment to keep wanting and nowhere near enough to be sated by it. Your mouth is damp. Your eyes keep their dark, inward shine. “Yes,” you tell him.
Then, to his utter horror, you scramble up too. Your thighs twitch with the movement, and Duncan has to close one hand on his own knee to stop himself from reaching out and putting you back into decency. His gaze drops, shamelessly, shamefully, to where he has made you glossy. He drags his eyes higher in penance and finds no mercy there either, for you cross your arms, seize the hem of the shift, and pull it upward.
The cloth lifts first over the lower belly he has just lain upon, skin giving way to the shadow below your ribs. Then sternum, then the underside of your breasts, and his cock kicks so hard it seems to have taken a separate oath against him. Your face disappears behind linen for one blind second. All he sees is your torso stretched in the act of undressing, your breasts prickling against the cold, the lifted arms, the night making an open country of you. His mouth goes dry enough for prayer.
By the time the shift drops beside you, words have gone useless in him. Which leaves him wholly defenceless when you take his hands.
You guide them to your chest with solemn purpose, as if returning some misplaced thing to its rightful shrine. His palms meet warmth and weight. He sits petrified while your thighs part again, while you climb him with no more grace than you have had all along and no less power for the lack of it. You settle across him, bare, pressing your cunt to the length of him through wool, and Duncan has great trouble finding the road by which he arrived here. From a girl on the skirts of battle, a crying maid in his cloak to a water-spirit. A sacred thing. Now this same impossible creature sits naked on him, offering him her tits and seeking his mouth as if all of it follows plainly from the first mercy he ever thought to show you.
You kiss him slower this time. Deeper. With the new patience of someone who has discovered there are pleasures that improve by circling.
Duncan lets it happen for a beat because he is weak, because his hands are pleasantly full, because the weight of you has turned his thoughts into warm mud. You draw back by a little, tongue touching your own lip.
“You taste different,” you say.
“Mm.” It is a poor answer. It is the best one he has. Still, your brow furrows. “It’s yourself you taste,” he says then.
You blink at that, and grow delighted in a way so sudden and frank it frightens him. “Do you like it?”
“Mm,” he tries, or means to. Aye, of course. Aye, I like everything. His body answers instead with a hard, hungry throb under you and an involuntary squeeze of both hands round the fullness of your chest.
Your lashes lower. “You do like it.”
“M-m’lady,” Duncan strains.
You kiss him again before he can gather honour into a shield. He manages half a breath against you, then turns his head with some grim effort. “I—I—we needn’t,” he says. “We do not have to. I only wanted—”
You cradle his whole head in your arms and draw him in, mouth close to his ear. “I want to make you feel as you made me feel,” you whisper. “To see you in it too.”
That stills him. For three days he has been thinking in terms of rescue and ruin, sin and restraint, oath and breach. He has been trying to place his body somewhere outside the matter. But your heart is hammering and your hands are in his hair and your cunt is hot for him, and there is no bargain in the looking.
You want. He wants too. At last, even Dunk the Lunk can read a thing so plainly written.
He starts fumbling at the front of his breeches since this is likely what you want, then stops himself halfway through, red to the scalp, and checks anyway. “You wish to see?” he asks. Against his ear there is a breathy yes, so Duncan sets his mouth tight and pulls the waistband away from himself.
His cock comes out, barely half of it, with a weeping eye at the top and blood vessels girdling down the flesh like roots bulging out of the earth. He closes his eyes and seeks asylum in your neck, so the next thing that happens Duncan only feels.
A finger, curious and subtle, teases the meeting of nerves below the crown, then goes up towards the slit. Much like with his throat, you gather and take, and when his eyes open you've got that finger in your mouth and your tongue around it. You seem spellbound. Enchanted, if Duncan believed such thing could be felt about him. "Show me more," you tell him, and he only realises that what you mean is for him to stand and present himself when you slide off him and sit on the bedroll cross-legged. Shameless.
He's battling the opposite. Shame-full, he nods. Even manages to mutter a miserable, "Aye," and stands with one hand braced at his bandaged side, the other just holding the breeches up, uselessly so, for of all things his thighs need no shielding. He lets the linen drop and, with a sombre kind of horror, waits for judgement. Looks down only to not see your face, and that turns against him too.
Between the legs he sways heavy, standing up from himself with more confidence than his mind owns. He has disliked his size before because it made him clumsy, conspicuous and wrong for rooms, so he's made it useful in labour and steel. When he finally harbours the courage to find your eyes, you're wearing the most bizarre expression. All soft-edged and melting with wonder, you are looking as though excess is the blessing.
Your teeth reveal themselves in a sweet, beaming smile, and your hands come out to wrap round his wrists. You pull him back down, and he barely gets his knees under him before you are on him again, kissing, touching, arranging by instinct and no wisdom. So he has to become useful in a new kind of way.
Where friction lived there is now a slide of skin on skin, and Duncan nearly loses the whole of himself to the difference. Your belly moves against him, your breasts flatten to his chest and drag there. Between you, his cock is trapped upright in the soft of both your stomachs, rubbed by every wriggle you make by accident and purpose in turns, and every rub comes barbed. You are kissing him eagerly, messily, trying to find some road forward by moving, by grinding. He can feel how quickly this will become end. You will pant and twist and grow no nearer to what you asked for, while he spends himself like a green fool against your belly and leaves you with his shame cooling on you.
“Sweet thing, please—” he grits, catching your hips. “Slow. Let me be of use to you. I’m… I’m big, and—”
You still for him, though your breath keeps coming hard. Those aspectabund eyes fasten on his face, obvious enough to make hiding useless. “Will you hurt me?” you ask.
“No,” Duncan says, hurt by the very shape of the question. “No, never. I only mean—we go slow. Aye? Slow.”
Your face calms as if he has laid a hand over troubled water, and the trust of it harms him in some deep place. To have someone look at him and believe him so easily. To be taken as a safe thing by a creature who had teeth enough to open throats and the foolish courage to turn a dagger on herself rather than on him. He presses his forehead to yours and breathes there, rough through the nose. “Lift for me?” he asks. “Only a little.”
You brace your hands on his arms and rise. Duncan looks down to guide himself and is bludgeoned by what he finds there. Slick has slipped down your inner thigh in a shining track, catching the dark like some private river. He groans and closes a fist round the base of himself with more force than required and steadies there, feeling the whole of him jump in his hand.
“Do you want me?” he asks into your mouth, legible with the need to hear it. You nod, but that is not enough when his heart has become a greedy thing too. "Tell me," Duncan says. “Please, tell me.”
“Yes,” you say. Your mouth goes wandering over him. “Yes, I do. I want you in me.” Your hips sink once, eager but aimless. “Take me.”
A fierce, impossible belonging spreads through him. He aligns himself and slips twice for the jerking blood in him. You make a small impatient sound and he near smiles despite the terror. Then he gets it right enough for the first touch.
Only the head of him drags through you. A kiss of a different kind. His cock has known linen, callus, mean hurried pressure, and now this unbelievably soft, hot, living mouth of the body. He rubs through it, barely, and his hips lock with the effort of keeping still. Again, slower, collecting what both of you have made, spreading it over himself until the slide turns slick. The intimacy of it is nearly worse than being taken inside would be. This staying at the gate. This being allowed to touch the edge of you and feel you open by a fraction under him. This kiss below kissing, where neither mouth speaks and both bodies answer anyway.
Then it is you who grows greedy. Your weight comes down, and Duncan recognises the change before he can speak to it. He becomes held where he has only been sliding, then feels the first giving inch. Your face breaks into a wince, then a gasp, so he reaches round you hard enough to stop both of you where you are.
"Easy," he says. "Sweetheart, easy."
The tightness has him by the root. All the soft has turned gripping and small on him, shocking his spine so quickly he has to shut his eyes for a moment. Yours are wide and scared in front of him, and the pleasure becomes a rotten thing with guilt in it.
"Why does it hurt?" you ask, voice thin. "You said—"
"I know," Duncan says. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." He presses one hand flat between your shoulders and holds you while his cock throbs like a wound. "Shh. Breathe with me. Breathe—"
You stare at him, doubtful and pained, but try. He draws breath in through his nose, slow enough to make an example of it, then lets it out against your cheek. You follow poorly at first, catching on the inhale, shuddering on the release. He keeps you still with both arms, though the stillness near murders him.
There is some mercy in it too. The worst of the first push hangs there between your bodies, neither taking nor retreating, and Duncan’s mind runs through every filthy scrap of knowledge folk have ever thrown into the air near him. It should ease. It should get good. Use spit. Women like this or that. Noise from those who made knowing sound like conquest and left him with nothing useful but the fear of damaging you.
“We can stop,” he says. “We can stop here, m’lady. I’ll not—”
Before he can make a noble mess of rising you away from himself, your breath changes.
Only a little. The next exhale leaves lower in your chest. Your hips soften by a measure, and the flesh around him gives its small, unwilling quarrel with his size. You notice it too. He sees the fright shift in your eyes and your body listening under the hurt, finding some other report beneath it. You breathe again, this time because you want the breath, and your fingers come to his shoulders.
“There,” he says, relieved. “Good, gods. Just so.”
Your brow stays pinched, but your mouth parts around a sound that has less grievance in it. Duncan does not move. He only holds you, forehead set to yours, the whole of him turned toward patience. Another breath. Another. Under him, inside you, the grip changes by degrees. Less like refusal. More like a fist slowly learning how to open without letting go.
“Oh,” you say, very quietly. It makes him put his teeth together.
“Aye?” he asks, and hates how much hope gets into it.
You nod once. Small. Fierce.
So he keeps holding. He has never been so deep in anything. He is barely in you at all, and already there is that terrible gladness in his sack, akin to one that comes when his cock starts threatening a scrape too raw. He does his best to throttle it, for despite you saying you wish to see him, he's convinced he wishes to see you harder.
You sink on him, stubborn-faced and quiet. Duncan feels each small victory in his muscles, while his mind remains oblivious to the thaumaturgy allowing it. Your brow is set hard at first, then anger at the pain cuts across it because ache has got between you and the thing you want. After, comes the stern listening. You go still around him, eyes lowered, as if this new flesh has answered in some difficult tongue and you mean to learn it properly. He lets you use him as you need, though the need itself is killing work. More of him goes into you. Inch by inch, all of them so alive and close his own breath begins to come wrong.
“Gods,” you say, and then, with a sort of insulted wonder, “You are large.”
Duncan goes hot to the roots of his hair. “I know,” he says, because there is no use pretending otherwise. Worried, he asks, “Does it trouble you?”
You huff through your nose and consider him, sitting there skewered on the question and on him both. “No.” Your hand comes up to his neck, fingers digging briefly as you deepen another little way. “I like that you are an effort.”
A sound gets out of him, small and strangled. He sets one palm to your cheek because he needs somewhere decent to put it and because your face has become dearer to him than life.
“It feels full,” you say. His cock gives a hard throb. “I can feel you—" You take his hand and guide it low to your underbelly.
There he is. Invasive and indeed, large enough to make himself known from the outside. It is foully private. Wonderful. So much so that Duncan whines, “Seven save me,” and hides in your throat.
You are on him, completely, and he stays frozen, stunned stupid by it. Your voice finds him, hushed. "What do I do?"
He near laughs. An odd sense of camaraderie spreads in him because, gods, he knows naught. He never thought getting this far possible at all. "I—" He swallows. Looks at you. "I dunno." Then, helplessly honest, “Whatever feels right.”
Your mouth curves. He knows then that he is in peril.
Flesh squeezes around him fiercely, and as if it is not humbling enough you tease, “This?"
The groan comes out of him as though struck from the gut. “Hah—oh, Seven, this—this feels right, aye.” He pants, staring at you as if you have found a latch in him and pulled it open. “Do that again.”
You do, smaller this time, watching his face as you learn him. Dunk puts his hands to your ribs and awaits another ripple when he remembers he's needed here too. “What… what do I do?” he asks lamely.
The pain has gone from your eyes. For a moment you merely observe him, sat, and he's struck by your beauty in it. Oh gods, he's managed this. Brought you through unease into this quiet wanting. Somehow, by some mercy, he is the man under you.
Then, you tell him: “Whatever you want.”
And for once, Duncan finds some selfish wickedness in himself.
He bows his head to your chest. Breathes out quietly, "This?" and before you can answer, his mouth closes over your nipple.
“Oh—” you moan. Loud. Arch some too, seven fucks. Gods, you arch for him, spine bending as you offer more of your tits. Your arms go behind you, hands brace on his knees. He takes the weight gladly, the shift round his cock graciously, because when your hips roll by accident or discovery the movement carries all the way down and wrings him near inside-out.
Duncan groans into your breast and sets his tongue to work. You grind on him in short, close strokes, hardly lifting, making a mill of your hips and his cock. Whole of him sits inside rubbed alive, worked into small cruel space until his thoughts blunt at the edges. He keeps his mouth on you, because he wants it, and because it gives him a task. In a useful order of things he sucks, breathes, then sucks again. Your nipple hardens under his tongue and he takes it in deeper, hollows his cheeks into a jaw that starts aching sweetly. His hands ride up your back to where spine bends for him. Skin wrinkles there under his fingers and he holds that kink, trying to retain exactly the places where pleasure seems to fold you.
This, he thinks, dazedly, must be being fucked. Men call it fucking. Men call everything fucking when there is ale in them and a chance of dying soon. They talk as if women are tavern benches with cunts, as if the doing is a matter of putting a thing where it goes and rutting till pride spills out. He has heard enough to last a lifetime. Women taking a cock to the root without a sound, as though maids are all built like sheaths and men all swords worth taking. Some girl against a stable door. Some widow with her skirts up in a ditch. Some camp follower who took three men and begged the fourth. A thousand lies told by mouths with grease in the beards.
This bears no kin to those stories. You are whispering his name as if it is helping you take him, and it rolls lovely off your tongue. You are trying to make yourself come on him, and Duncan has his mouth full of your tit, working at it with fixed devotion of someone given one good thing to do and determined to do it well. That, to him, seems closer to the truth. This awkward holy labour. This sweating. This being used sweetly and trusted through it. This is lovemaking, right here, with wanting you vivid under his hands more than he wants his own ending.
Your rhythm finds itself crookedly. Then loses itself. Then finds another way. Duncan follows what he can. Pants though his nose. Groans when you bear down. Grows bold enough once to nip you with his teeth, and you seem to adore it down to your tightening cunt. So he does it again, softer, and your body grows snugger, wetter, meaner around his cock. When he licks over it, you exhale the strangest little oh.
“Gods,” he mutters into you. “Gods, girl.”
The change starts plain. It's less orderly. Your body has its mind elsewhere now, and that mind has no use for manners. The strokes go crooked, breath starts jumping. The hands on his knees dig in until he feels the half-moons of your nails and hopes they stay. Pain would be proof come morning. A mark of where he was when you needed somewhere to put your strength.
Then you push off his legs and catch his head between your arms.
Duncan leaves your breast with a wet sound and lifts as far as you allow. Your forearms yoke him close. His nose fits beside yours almost by habit now. Your eyes are dark and open and half-wild.
“Tell me,” you whisper. “Tell me you love me. Tell me you love me—”
“I love you,” Duncan bursts, with no search needed for the answer. “Gods, I love you. I love you. I love you—”
Your mouth trembles near his. “I love you,” you say. “You’re mine and I love you. I was right about you, oh gods, I was right—”
In all your mumbling, you ride him hard enough that he feels the signal in it. More. Deeper. More room, more of him given up to you. His hands go to your arse and grip there, sudden and rude enough to make his ears burn, but you give a sharp glad sound and bear down again. That decides him. He braces, lifts you with him a little, and unfolds his knees from under himself. The shift wrenches both of you. He falls back flat with a grunt, side burning, cock dragged deeper by your weight.
The sky opens above him, black and moonless. And you.
That is all there is for a breath. You astride him, hair loose, thighs going badly and beautifully, hands on his chest as if he is ground and beast and lover together. Duncan catches your hips, then lets them go because you seem to know more when he does less. You lean down to kiss him and your face breaks in the middle of it. He feels it seize you.
Your hands find his cheeks. Nose knocks beside him. Your muscles grip him so hard his vision blanches, and then you are coming with his name caught in your teeth and love spilling out in pieces. I love you Duncan, I love you, and he just grips your shoulders and holds on, holds on and on, because if he moves wrong he will lose everything at once. The luck of being the thing inside you when it happens is unbearable.
“My girl,” he gets out. “My girl, my—”
Then, he's ripped in half. It starts low and pulls everything with it: thighs, sack, belly, chest, throat. It frightens him how good it is. How deep it seems to go from him. He has spilled before with his face hot from shame and hand slick round himself, but this is nothing like those past miseries. He's being drawn out and kept. He fills you in hard pulses and lets his body believe it has come home, foolish as that is, dangerous as that is, true as anything he has ever known. Lucky, he thinks, with what little mind remains. Lucky, lucky, lucky. To be wanted. To be held there. To spend in a creature who loves him and says so.
He keeps saying, "My girl, gods, my girl," because there is nothing else in him.
You take each spill with a gasp, and then a smile begins to sprout on your face. You're smiling while he's being torn asunder.
After, the world grows smaller. Deafer, as if great hands have closed over its ears. Duncan hears himself muttering things into the little space between you, broken stammers and poor scraps of prayer and slur. Gods, and Seven, and yes, still, still, as if he is trying to tell you you have done well and make certain he has done well too. You sag on him. Your arms wedge themselves beneath his neck, baring his throat, and your mouth comes there. It is hardly a kiss. More the arrival of a mouth too tired and too fond to do more than rest.
He turns to the side with you wrapped round him. You squeal some, as though you have forgotten his strength, or forgotten that he has been pliant beneath you because you asked him to be.
Something enormous has been done to him. Duncan comes out the other side of it a full man, and thinks, dimly, that full men do not brag about this sort of thing.
Then he notices you are trembling differently. When his cock shifts inside you, bathed in himself, he feels the scrape of soreness against it. It sobers him at once.
“Easy,” he murmurs. “Let me—”
He holds you close and draws back with as much care as he has left. Your body resists round him, tight and displeased, then gives him up with a low, unhappy sound that makes his stomach pull. “Did I hurt you?” he asks.
He looks down and sees the oddest medley of the body’s humours. Milk tainted red, gone pink where it oozes out of you. His cock smeared along the length with blood and spent. It all sobers him tenderly.
“Let me see,” Duncan says, and dips between your legs as if there is something his hands may yet fix.
He knows it is virgin blood. Something old and primal flickers in him, a brief possessive pride at being the proof of your first, and then it dies under the weight of your hands finding his cheeks. You guide him back up to your face, and he goes.
On the way, he thinks how unjust it is that women must bleed so boys can grow into men.
Then he sees your worry. At first he's certain it is pain troubling you, but your eyes move from his face to his groin and back again. “Have I damaged you?” you ask, with honest dread.
It hits him then that you understand as little as he does. Mayhaps less. You have done some violent inland magic with a body you barely know and come away afraid you have broken him by it.
“No, m’lady,” he breathes. “I ain’t so easily damaged.” Then he winces, because his side pulls when his arms try to hold you, and he ruins his case entirely.
You laugh, damp and small, and begin to fuss over him. “Oh, my sweet,” you murmur, touching his face, his shoulder, the binding. “Oh, my love.”
Duncan fusses back, trying to look you over while you try to look him over, until it becomes a strange little quarrel of hands and fret, each of you meaning to tend the other first.
When it's over, when wet cloth has been found and put to swollen parts, when hair has been brushed off slick foreheads and knuckles have been kissed, Duncan pulls you to him, cages you in him, and breathes so deep it feels like a first honest breath of his life. "I love you," he says to your temple. "Thank you. Thank you, my love."
You say it back. I love you into his throat. I love you against his jaw, and then I love you put to his cheek and preserved there. He keeps kissing you until his mouth goes tired and then his eyes grow heavy and then Duncan falls asleep with his beloved safe next to his heart and blades thrown away to lie useless in the grass.
Cold moves down your skin correctly. Your lungs feel heavy and full and familiar. When you open your eyes, the vision comes warped and magnified, and at once you understand you're floating in water.
It is hard at first to assess anything. You remember him under you. You remember his mouth, his hands, his flesh, warm and abundant, splitting you and filling you until body has torn itself to pleasure and blood.
But when you look at yourself, there are no legs he's ventured between. You're made whole again, with your old grace returned which feels like theft, somehow. Your tail glimmers in morning sunlight. Hands, panicked, come to your sides to find skin sliced back into gills and the palms themselves are scaled and fingers connected with thin, translucent webbing.
She tricked you. She gave you a quest and a man and told you all about what would happen if you failed, and naught of what comes of success. Now, you've regained yourself right after making peace with feeble knees, so it feels more like a loss. When you break the surface another loss lies still where you've left him, large and sleeping and oblivious.
Duncan looks peaceful. He's on his side on the bedroll, breathing calmly and his arms are thrown around a space where a body is missing. It seems that some lessons of humanity remain, for tears push themselves violent and hot into your eyes. They add to the river, salt into sweet water, and you're crying audibly, sobbing and hiccuping, because it all comes down on you, unkind and sad and miserable. He's right there and you cannot touch him. He's right there and you cannot hold him, because once again you've been made to belong somewhere where he doesn't.
"Duncan!" you call. It comes less as a call for him than a wail after something already lost.
He wakes badly. Jerks in the bedroll, one hand to the empty place under his arm. He looks there first, sleep-stupid and stricken, at the flattened hollow where your body ought to be.
Only then does his head turn. You see the first thing his face does: smile.
That wounds worse than anything. He cannot see you properly yet. He is still thick with slumber, hair mussed and mouth soft, looking at you as if this is only another of your oddities. Bathing at dawn. Calling for him from water. Waiting for him to come.
He rises slowly, muttering something you cannot hear. Finds his breeches. Pulls them on with one hand braced to his side, half awake and half fond, and comes barefoot over the bank with grass stuck to his soles.
The waiting lacerates. You are submerged to the waist, though waist is no honest word for you now. Beneath the surface the tail hangs in one long weight, scales catching and throwing the sun in broken pieces. You keep as still as you can, as if stillness might delay his seeing. It does not, of course.
His steps slow. Then stop. The colour drains from his face.
“M’lady—” he says, and the word fails. A breath goes into him sharply. He comes down to crouch at the bank, staring as if the world has put a second world inside it while he slept. “What has happened?”
“She tricked me,” you say, and once you begin the words come in scraps. “Wicked thing, wicked old thing, may she choke on peat and fishbones, may her teeth fall out, may the bog take her house and all her foul eggs—she tricked me, Duncan, she tricked me—”
You curse until the anger frays and leaves fear showing through, all the while he is staring.
It dawns on you then. He must be frightened. Repulsed. Cheated. A night ago he had a girl with legs, a girl who could sit astride him and bleed and laugh and walk badly into his hands. Now there is this creature before him, river-made and scaled, and made of different cloth from him.
You break into sobbing. Hide your face in your hands. “Forgive me,” you say. “Forgive me, I did not know. I did not know— I would never have, if I—”
“Gods be good,” Duncan breathes. His voice makes you freeze.
You lower your hands by a little. His eyes are wet. His mouth is parted. There is no disgust in him that you can find, only shock, and awe so plain it seems almost childish.
“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve seen,” he says.
A sob gets trapped in your throat. Mistrustful. “You said the same of the other body.”
“Aye,” he says.
“You needn’t make mercy of it.”
Realisation moves over his face. That you think this is the loss of him. That you think your shape has become a problem to solve or pardon. He softens entirely. “My sweet girl,” he says. “It is all true.”
Your tail twitches. His eyes go to it and you hate yourself for that too, for still wanting him to see and still wanting to hide from the seeing.
“Wilful girl,” he says under his breath. “Oh, sweetheart. Believe me. Please, believe me.”
Then, he steps into the water without bargaining or careful testing of whether the magic might stain him. Only comes, with his legs wide for balance, slipping once on the shallow stones, hissing when the cold gets him, and still coming. Water darkens his breeches and climbs his thighs. The bandage at his side drinks at once and is ruined, but he pays it no mind. His eyes stay fixed on you. Awed, devoted, and so full of purpose there is no spare room in his face for doubt.
His arms come for you. At first the holding is awkward. Your body is heavy in a different way now, long and slick with no knees to bend around him. His hand finds where your waist remains and the other comes to your cheek. He adjusts when you move toward him. Learns the weight of you without complaint, frowning only with the effort of keeping you close.
“It matters naught,” he tells you. “It matters not at all, my sweetheart.”
“How will we be?” you ask, disbelieving.
Duncan looks at you as if the question is large but the answer is simple. “I’m a hedge knight,” he says. “It is no great hardship to sleep under the stars. Rivers, then. Streams and lakes and ditches, if I must. I’ll find you.”
“Will you?”
“Aye,” he says. “Always.”
It strikes you that he offers no solution because he needs none. He does not speak of witches or bargains, of throttling the crone into giving the legs back, of fixing what has been returned to you. You cannot tell if he is so kind or simply stupid. Mayhaps both.
“I have no legs,” you insist.
Duncan laughs softly. “Aye, I see that.” You glare at him through tears, so his face comes close to yours. “You’ve a heart I adore, though,” he says. Softer, with the shyest wickedness tucked beneath it, “And you still have a mouth.”
He kisses you once. Small and careful. Then murmurs against you, “No matter the rest, this is where the nose goes. Always.”
And he shows you: his nose finds the side of yours. His mouth follows. The kiss is shy first, then surer when you clutch at him and kiss back. Around you, the river carries morning light over the lovers.
It is an old tale. A girl loves a boy, and a boy loves a girl. Big things, ancient things come between them, but youth pays no mind to the impossibility of worlds colliding. It regards naught the steel of propriety or the dull blades of daggers hungry for souls. With fear dressed as arrogance, youth traverses bridges invisible to the faithless, and so the mermaid falls for a hedge knight, and the hedge knight falls for her back.
♡ — 𝐒𝐘𝐏𝐍𝐎𝐒𝐈𝐒: The wife of Ryomen Sukuna, the richest man in town, has gone missing, and Detective Gojo is on the case. Detective Gojo also doesn’t particularly like your husband.
♡ — 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓: Entrepreneur! Sukuna x reader x Detective! Gojo || fem reader, mentions of death/murder, kidnapping, violence against reader, corrupt justice system, suggestive, everyone has a secret, and everyone just loves you, honestly…
♡ — 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓: 9k :)
“What did you want to talk to me about?”
Sukuna laughed without humor. With his drink in hand, he gestured in Kento’s direction, and Satoru noticed the scraped-up skin along his knuckles. “Satoru, I called you here because I’m about to kill this fucking man, and you should know why.”
While Satoru’s face might have been as blank as a fresh canvas in the possession of an uninspired artist, his insides were screaming. His stomach churned, and not because he ate greasy egg rolls at an ungodly morning hour, but because he couldn’t tell if Sukuna was joking or not.
He waited before speaking, for Sukuna to follow up his own words — his own threat — with a laugh, a slap of the knee to hint that it was all one big joke, followed by a little, aha, gotcha! or why’d you eat the last of my buffalo dip? I could kill you, Kento!
But no one said a word.
It was so quiet, he could only hear the muffled footsteps belonging to the maid on an entirely different side of Sukuna’s mansion, nearest the kitchen and one of the guest bathrooms.
“Why do you want to kill him, Ryomen?” Satoru asked softly, his voice non-threatening, tone casual; the way they taught law enforcement to speak to people who were on the brink of confessing their sins, or committing one.
Everyone, from the adults who worked at the spas, clubs, bars, resorts, and every business Ryomen Sukuna owned and operated, to their children who swam in the pools belonging to said resorts their parents worked at, knew good and well that Ryomen Sukuna was a murderer.
It was common knowledge: The sky is blue. Red light means stop. Bees make honey. Sukuna kills people.
“Why don’t you tell ‘em?” Sukuna glared at Kento — oh, if looks could kill, he wouldn’t ever have to step foot in his at-home armory — and he continued, “Get a head start on your last words.”
“Let me explain, Ryomen-”
“Explain what?” Satoru interrupted Kento, scooting towards the edge of his seat, turning his head back and forth between the scared man and the pissed off one like a dog following a dangling treat. He wasn’t supposed to rush the conversation according to the joke-but-not-really-a-joke book he read upon getting hired years ago, Detective Basics: How To Question Citizens Like a Pro 101, but he couldn’t help it.
Kento’s breath hitched. He faced Satoru with a look the other man hadn’t ever seen before: Kento Nanami, coming undone.
Oh, was he a mess.
His eyes were filled with sorrow. Red, lightning strike-like streaks contrasted against the white of his eyes, surrounding each hazel iris. The strands of his blonde hair were messy from the aftermath of him running his fingers through it. Even the buttons of his shirt were misaligned.
He got here in a hurry, that’s why he looks like a mess, Satoru thought. What the hell’s going on?
Satoru gazed at Sukuna again, watching his movements. The halfway-drunk man leaned forward to place his glass of golden alcohol on the coffee table. But he didn’t stop there. That scraped-up hand of his went underneath the table, and when Satoru saw those bruised knuckles again as he pulled his hand back out, they were nearly white from how hard he gripped his gun.
Satoru pulled out his own weapon quickly, removing the gun that was strapped to the holster on his belt with both ease and speed that came with having been in similar frightening scenarios over and over again. Still, his blue eyes widened as he rose to his feet unsteadily, almost as if he were a newbie who had never come face to face with the possibility of dying or witnessing death.
The sweat droplets that started to form on his forehead existed because Sukuna pointed his gun at Kento, and never before had Satoru been tasked with trying to save a cherished coworker at the bare minimum, and a friend at best.
He gulped nervously, and yet, without hope. If Sukuna wanted Kento dead, he’d kill him.
And if, following that, Sukuna turned his gun on Satoru and Satoru had to shoot him before he’d too end up a dead body on Ryomen Sukuna’s floor, then no one would ever get any answers.
“Ryomen, just calm down,” Satoru said with as much gentleness as he could muster. He pointed his gun at Sukuna, who had his gun pointed at Kento, who was undoubtedly hating the fact that he showed up here unarmed.
“You invited me here for a reason, right?” Satoru continued. “You said you wanted to tell me what was going on, so why don’t we all just take a deep breath and talk it through? No one has to die today.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Ryomen said calmly. “He’s gonna die today, and you too if you keep talking.”
Satoru gritted his teeth.
Sukuna propped his elbow up on the couch and rested the hand that was without a murder weapon against his cheek.
“What’s going on is that I’m not stupid. I knew this guy wanted my wife all to himself, always saw the way he looked at her, that sorta thing. Only reason I let it slide was because they were friends. If I did something to him, she never would’ve forgiven me. But ever since she’s been missing, I started to tear this goddamn town apart myself.” Ryomen paused, turning his gun to the side as he eyed the destroyed skin on his knuckles like it was a piece of beautiful art. “My hands look like this because I did what I could to get answers out of people. But, at some point, I realized that I should check out the quiet bastard who eyefucks my wife whenever he can, who knows a thing or two about missing people, hiding bodies, everything in between. I had someone search his house while he was gone, and you know what we found?”
Ryomen smiled miserably.
“Her jacket, hanging right in his closet like they’re a goddamn couple, like he owns it. I bet he has her in a basement somewhere, thinking he owns her.”
So, she did make it to Kento's house after fighting with Ryomen, Satoru thought. And Kento didn’t say a word. Why? Don’t tell me there’s some truth to what Ryomen’s accusing him of. Don’t tell me.
“There could be many explanations for that, Ryomen. But in order to figure them out, you can’t kill him. You wanted me here so I could hear this and move the investigation in the right direction, and I’m telling you right now that I can’t get to the bottom of it all if you kill the last person we know she might’ve seen that night.”
“I plan to kill ‘em after I force some answers out of him.”
“Then he’d be lying just to save his own skin.” The gun in Satoru’s hand started to become slick with sweat. “People don’t tell the truth when they have a gun to their face, they just say whatever they think will save their life, and it’s usually a lie. You’ve tortured enough people to know that, Ryomen. Don’t kill him. You said your wife wouldn’t want you to hurt him-”
“You dumbass, I think she’d be fine with it if he fucking hurt her.” Ryomen suddenly rose to his feet, now speaking to the man at the other end of his gun rather than to Satoru. “Did you? Did you fucking hurt her?”
“No.”
“Then where the hell is she?” Ryomen clenched his jaw and walked over. His gun was now pressed against Kento’s chest, against his rapidly beating heart. “You know, don’t you? You know everything, you sick piece of shit?”
Kento didn’t respond.
“Let me bring him in for questioning, Ryomen. I’ll get answers out of him. Real ones. I promise.” Satoru took a cautious step closer. “If you want to find your wife, we need him alive.”
It seemed as if an eternity, plus an extra day, had passed before Ryomen lowered his gun.
Satoru released a shaky breath of relief, and as he eyed Kento, he noticed the composed man didn’t do the same.
I was more afraid than he was, and he was the one with a gun aimed at him, Satoru thought.
“Smart decision, Ryomen,” Satoru said.
“Shut up.”
Satoru didn’t respond. He, instead, approached Kento, mumbled a little let’s go, and took the man to his car, their footsteps silently clacking against the polished marble floors.
Ryomen watched from his doorstep as the two of them got into the vehicle and drove off, his eyes following Kento the entire time. And that look told Kento that, for as long as he lived, he would never feel safe again.
Satoru and Kento rode in silence for a moment, nothing to be heard except for the occasional soft sigh and the gentle rumble of the engine.
Once Satoru approached his first red light, he spoke up.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t even try to go back for your car. Ryomen’s probably placed a bomb in it by now.”
No response.
Satoru darted his eyes over at the man and saw that he was glancing out of the passenger seat window.
With somewhat of a whisper, Satoru added on, “And, if he did do that, would he be entirely in the wrong to have do so?”
That made Kento turn his head and stare at him. His eyes were glossy, and in truth, Satoru couldn’t tell if it was the look of guilt, or the look of hurt.
“I thought you were seemingly taking his side to spare my life,” Kento gave a small, bitter laugh. “To realize that you truly think I did something horrid to her is . . .”
“I didn’t want Ryomen to know this, but we found her diary. She wrote about wanting to see you that night. We just didn’t know if she made it there, but now we do.” Satoru gripped the steering wheel even though he had nowhere to go. “I gotta be honest. It looks bad, Kento. You’re a detective, you know this. So, you know you'd better start talking if you wanna clear your name.”
“There’s nothing I could say that would make me seem more innocent. So, why bother talking at all?” Kento stared down at his hands.
“I believe you’re innocent. A jacket doesn’t mean anything,” Satoru smiled in an attempt to lighten the mood. “I have plenty of things at my house that belong to my friends. Every time I grab a shirt, I gotta wonder if it belongs to Suguru, and I’m pretty sure half of the coffee mugs in my cabinet originally belonged to Shoko. If one of them went missing, I’d look just as guilty as you do right now. I just . . . you gotta talk, Kento. This is bigger than the law, this is your life right now. Ryomen Sukuna wants to kill you, and unless I can put his wife in his arms and prove you had nothing to do with it, and soon . . . I mean, I still wanna believe Ryomen’s guilty. God, I really fucking do. I wanna tell myself that he’s trying to frame you, that he’s upset that you’re close to his wife, and is trying to pretend it’s because he thinks you did something to her, trying his hardest to seem innocent by blaming you, anything. He’s just hiding too much to be completely innocent. We know they fought that night and he didn’t tell us about it, plus the weird coincidences like the security cameras being down, no guards around, and in general, his wife was seeking comfort from another man-”
“It’s not like that. We’re just friends.”
“I know, but still.”
“What are you playing at, Satoru?” Kento stared at the man with unforgiving eyes.
“Huh?”
“Just in the span of a few minutes, Ryomen committed and admitted to three crimes minimum, and yet, there aren’t any cops on the way to his house right now.”
“I . . .” Satoru sighed. Finally, the red light turned green. “If you wanna send cops to his house, that’s your right-”
“No, that’s my job. Our job.”
“I know, I know, but you gotta understand. What happened just now made me realize that I need to be on Ryomen’s good side.”
“Because you don’t want him to kill you?”
“Because he trusts me enough to tell me things. It’s not like you would’ve told me anything, clearly.” Satoru paused as he drove past a semi-crowded McDonald's. “You know what worries the shit outta me, Kento?”
“What?”
“The fact that, if you are innocent, you never said a word about her coming to see you before she went missing. You do realize that we’ve spent days operating with the belief that Ryomen’s first house was her last known location, right? You let us go about this all wrong just to save your own skin, and meanwhile, who knows what could be happening to her? You knew . . . you knew we were miles away from where she was last seen, chasing false leads, and you kept quiet . . . you kept quiet, knowing she could be somewhere, locked up, tortured, scared. What if she’s dead? What if we find her dead body, all because we were too late to save her, because you delayed us to save your own ass? What if we find her alive and so goddamn traumatized, a lifetime of therapy won’t be enough to make her smile again, all because she had to endure whatever the hell she could be going through even longer, all because of you?”Satoru’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. “Whether you did something to her or not, in my eyes, you’re just as guilty either way, detective.”
Without missing a beat, Kento spoke with great ease, and if Satoru’s words meant nothing to him. “Tell me, Detective Gojo, when you read her diary and realized she might have gone to my house, were you planning on issuing a search warrant? Questioning me, before now? I bet not. I bet you were too focused on the fact that you caught Ryomen in another lie. I bet you were going to question him until he confessed to a crime he didn’t commit just to get you to shut your mouth. All the while, she could, as you said, be somewhere locked up, tortured, scared, or dead, because you delayed the investigation by being fixated on one man. You care more about locking Ryomen up than you do about finding his wife. Is it jealousy? Because she picked someone like him, who you categorize as a bad man, over you? A brave, brilliant detective who makes less money but has a better heart?”
“Oh, please. I don’t even know her. Sounds like you’re projecting your feelings onto me.”
“Or, perhaps, we’re both cut from the same cloth. We’re both guilty in some way.”
—
Within the detached buildings of the police station that served as the specialized unit for detectives and investigators, the coffee-sipping peers and paperwork-filing coworkers all greeted Kento Nanami with smiles of admiration, questions about his day, and compliments to his work. Some went as far as to express their condolences: I heard you’re friends with Mrs. Sukuna, I’m sorry for what you’re going through, they would say. It must be hard to not be able to help out with the case.
Satoru couldn’t help but scoff as he trailed behind the well-respected man. Far fewer people greeted him. It was Detective Nanami they smiled at. Detective Nanami they worshipped. Nanami, Nanami, Nanami.
Satoru led him to a private office rather than an interrogation room. Kento sat down in the chair behind the desk — even now, he was acting like a boss he oh so desired to be in a few short years — and Satoru stood in the doorway, hand on the doorknob as he mumbled, “Wait here. I’ll be right back. Don’t even think about leaving.”
With a soft thud, he shut the door, then made his way down the hallway until he located a small room.
He knocked three times before entering.
“Anything?” Satoru questioned, eyeing his dark-haired partner, or, rather, the diary in his hands. Stepping inside and shutting the door behind him, he heard Suguru sigh.
He closed the diary he picked apart like a worshipper might read a bible. “Nothing useful to this investigation, no.”
“What kinda stuff does she write about?” Taking a seat in the brown chair across from the table Suguru sat at, Satoru darted his blue eyes back and forth between the diary and the exhausted man.
“Everything. Quite literally everything. Recipes, her sex life, friends, family-”
“Anything on Kento?”
“Aside from her final entry? Not much. It’s clear she truly doesn’t have feelings for him.” Suguru scratched the side of his head. “The most concerning things she wrote about would be the handful of rude or perverted people she’s encountered, and, of course, Ryomen taking care of those situations immediately after.”
“Oh,” Satoru darted his eyes to the side. “After we left Ryomen’s house, he called me, told me to come to his second house, and guess who was there? Kento. Ryomen was about to blow his brains out. I had to talk him out of it. Apparently, he isn’t a fan of Kento and his wife being buddies, wanted to check him out himself, had someone snoop through his house, and found her jacket.”
“So she made it to his house after all.”
“Yep,” running a hand down his face out of pure exhaustion, thinking, I need more coffee, Satoru continued, “Now Kento’s acting all weird. I got on to him about delaying our investigation by not being honest, ya know? That’s a shitty thing to do if he’s innocent and just doesn’t wanna be questioned, so I’m thinking he’s not so innocent after all. I keep going back and forth. I just don’t wanna believe someone like him could do something like this. Whatever this is. Anyway, I got ‘em sitting in the office, waiting to be questioned, and, um, I need you to work on getting a search warrant for his place. Honestly, I’m thinking of arresting him for obstruction of justice just because he pissed me off. Not only did he withhold information, delay us, all that, but that asshole had the nerve to say we’re cut from the same cloth, all because I assumed Ryomen, a murderer, would be entirely capable of murdering his own wife. And I’m the bad guy? Gimme a break.”
“Hm.”
Satoru blinked, then shook his head, white strands tickling his forehead. “No . . . no, I know what that hm means. You agree with him.”
With yet another soft sigh, Suguru said, “Well, I haven’t been exactly quiet about voicing my concern over you clearly targeting Ryomen, have I?” He peered down at the diary, flipping through a couple of pages as if something would stand out. “But, as I said, I’m going to help you no matter whether or not I think the direction you’re going in is the best course of action.”
“You don’t have to let me take the lead all the time, Suguru. C’mon, we’re not just partners, we’re friends. If you think we should . . . we should go with plan C instead of A, I wanna know. You’re one of the best detectives here, and probably the only one who doesn’t have any personal involvement.”
“Are you admitting to being personally involved?”
“Huh?” Satoru’s white brows shot up to his hairline.
“You just said I’m the only one who doesn’t have any personal involvement. I’m assuming you said that because Kento is clearly involved, and other detectives may know either her or her husband, but what about you? Why didn’t you group yourself in with me when you mentioned people who aren’t personally involved?” Suguru’s dark eyes met Satoru’s bright ones, and for the first time throughout his career, Satoru understood what it was like to be a nervous suspect, questioned in an interrogation room, every word picked apart into pieces. “I asked you this earlier, but you didn’t respond. Do you know this woman?”
Satoru’s leg started to bounce out of pure nerves. “No, I don’t. I just meant that I’m the lead detective, so I feel like I know her personally, ya know? You’re handling everything from a distance, but I’m the one who was going through her social media, things like that.”
“I just went through her belongings with you and read her diary.”
“Suguru,” Satoru tossed his head back with a little whine. “You gotta stop this habit of thinking everyone you meet has skeletons in their closet. You’re making me feel like shit right now. I’ve known you for god knows how long, and you still don’t trust me as a person? Think about what you’re accusing me of right now.”
Suguru’s intense gaze broke away from Satoru. With guilt, with shame, he glanced down at the diary like a scolded child. “Sorry. I do trust you, Satoru. I always have. This entire case just has me feeling a little tired, and being capable of good judgment doesn’t seem possible right now. I even started glaring at Shoko a little, because she seemed too eager for us to find her body. It’s always the excited ones.”
“It’s alright. Honestly, the way you question everyone and everything gives me a little hope that we’ll find her.”
Satoru rose from his seat, the chair squeaking a bit as he scooted back.
“Where are you off to?” Suguru asked.
“I’m gonna see if I can find out who Ryomen got to search Kento’s house. Then, as soon as you get me that search warrant, I’m gonna search it myself.”
“What about Kento? Are you going to arrest him?”
“Yeah. He’ll hate me, his reputation will be ruined, but it’s his own goddamn fault.”
“Arresting him could also be a way of saving his life.” Suguru paused. “If Ryomen wants him dead, a jail cell is the safest place for him.”
—
Satoru stepped into a restaurant that smelt of onion rings and wood. It screamed of wood, in fact, every wall, chair, and table was brown, with some holding guests, while most were empty and in need of a good wipe down.
Therefore, his blue eyes only had to give the place one quick scan before he caught sight of a dark-haired man sipping on a beer bottle.
“So, you’re the guy Ryomen hired,” Satoru took a seat across from Toji Fushiguro, who set his beer down on the table, smirking slightly with mild amusement.
“Yeah.”
“Order whatever you want. It’s on me.”
“Damn right it is if you want something outta me,” he eyed the detective suspiciously, but such distrust didn’t last long.
After all, he knew well that if Ryomen told him what he had him up to, then this was a detective who didn’t mind disrespecting the law he swore to uphold.
Satoru leaned forward a bit, not exactly whispering — there was no need, as there were only a small handful of other diners, and they were focused on the boring sports game showcased on the television propped up on the wall — and he said, “Why did Ryomen ask you specifically to search Kento’s house? Have you done investigative work before?”
“Pft, no. Hell no. I’m just good at breakin’ and enterin’, and I’m not a total dumbass. I wasn’t lookin’ for hairs or anything, but I found that jacket.”
“How’d you know it was hers and not someone else's?"
“I sent a pic of it to Ryo just to be sure. A woman's jacket in a single man’s house seemed suspicious to me, especially ‘cause that detective guy isn’t known to sleep around, far as I know.”
Satoru’s leg started to bounce with great impatience. “And that’s the only thing you saw?”
“That,” Toji looked off to the side, thinking. “And a framed photo of him and her. If I were a fool, I would’ve thought he was her husband. But aside from that, I didn’t see nothin’, sorry. Why are you talkin’ to me about it anyway? Go see for yourself.”
“I am, but considering you went there touching and moving things around, I’m sure any and all evidence is gone for good.”
“Are you stupid or somethin’? The guy’s a detective. If there was any evidence there in the first place, I’m sure he would’ve gotten rid of it. Doubt there was in the first place, though. Guy’s innocent.”
A few shouts and cheers broke out from nearby gamewatchers reacting to a touchdown.
“What makes you so sure?” Satoru asked casually and without true care for what he had to say.
“Why would he keep her goddamn jacket if he killed her? That’s the one and only thing tyin’ him to all this. If he tossed it out, that would’ve been suspicious, like he was hidin’ evidence, but he kept it and didn’t think nothin’ of it, and that’s ‘cause he didn’t do anything wrong. He’s innocent, trust me.”
A waiter approached with a basket of wings, placing them in front of Toji.
Once he left, Satoru smirked, “You watch too many thrillers. Everyday people aren’t as smart as you think. More often than not, guilty people still leave around the things that’ll nail ‘em.”
“He’s not an everyday person. He’s a detective.”
Satoru rose from the table.
“Right, well, enjoy your twenty-count wings, Mr. Fushiguro. Please let me know beforehand if and when Ryomen asks you to stick your head in this mess again.”
—
It was well into the night before Satoru was able to move forward with the case.
Kento Nanami’s house felt like uncharted territory. He wasn’t the sort of man to invite people over for drinks after work — certainly didn’t have Chinese food in the living room at five or six in the morning like Satoru and his friends did, that was for certain.
His house could barely be considered a home. It was too clean. Too cold. Smelled faintly of lemon-scented cleaning products. No signs of life beyond a coat hanging on a coat rack. That, and one of two framed photos he found on a coffee table.
He picked one up. It was you and him. Kento’s hair was a tad bit shorter, dating the photo to have been taken at least three years ago, Satoru figured.
Jeez, he didn’t smile this bright even when our boss told us we were getting high raises, Satoru thought. He’s in love with her.
Satoru put the photo down. He made his way towards a hallway closet and twisted the knob, opening the door slowly as if he expected something to jump out at him.
What the hell am I doing? He’s a better detective than I am. I won’t find anything here. He grabbed a box on the highest shelf and pulled it down. Shit, do I think he’s guilty or not? I gotta make up my mind. Does it matter what I believe, honestly? I just need to figure it out. Innocent or guilty, his life’s in danger. Well, I mean, if he’s guilty, Ryomen can do whatever he wants to him and I won’t give a damn, but-
Within the box, there was a binder. Satoru figured it was one he held on to from his old high school days, perhaps considering that Kento was the nostalgic sort, but he was wrong.
The binder was filled with you. You in every way.
Photographs — some with Kento and some with you and you alone — long, neatly written letters confessing his love that he never, ever intended on giving you. There were movie tickets that he assumed belonged to films you both saw together. Concert tickets, festival tickets, letters, notes, more letters, more pictures, more tickets, more notes . . .
“Holy shit,” Satoru mumbled, flipping through the pages. “He’s fucking obsessed.”
Pulling out his phone, Satoru dialed Suguru.
“Suguru, I’m at Kento’s house. I just found a big binder filled with all sorta things. Photos, love confessions, tickets to movies I guess they saw together, it’s . . . he’s obsessed. This doesn’t look good for him.” Satoru rose to his feet, putting the box back, but keeping the binder tucked underneath his arm. “Yeah, I’m bringing it in. Alright. Bye.”
Satoru searched the rest of the house, but only left with the binder at the end of it all. And the binder, as interesting as it was, wasn’t enough. One could argue that Kento followed the logic of if I can’t have you, no one can. It wouldn’t be the first time Satoru had to deal with such cases that disgusted him to his core. But, just as he did with those cases, he needed concrete evidence, and that binder was only proof that he was obsessed with you, not that he tossed your body into a river.
Satoru threw the binder in the back seat of his car — it flipped open to a random page filled with your selfies, but he didn’t care — and slammed the door as if the binder personally offended him.
His jaw was clenched. As he leaned against his car and stared up at the starry night sky, deep within himself, he wished he could say he hated the binder because it was rather creepy.
But that wasn’t the truth.
He felt it, it, being the twisted, bitter, rotten feeling of his heart skipping a beat, a lump forming in his throat, his stomach churning unpleasantly. It was the same feeling that occurred when he was going through your social media profile and came across your photos.
And he wasn’t an idiot. He knew exactly what it was. But he refused to admit to himself that he could feel such things over a person he didn’t know, and shook the thought away before making his way into his car.
His car rumbled and dinged as it came to life with the crank of his key. He eyed the needle pointed in the unfavorable direction, towards the E.
Damn it, I need gas, he thought.
And with that realization, he drove and made it less than half a mile before something started to dart across the road and land on the ground before him.
He swerved his car to avoid hitting what he assumed was a deer.
The vehicle came to a hard jerk as he slammed on the brakes, heart pounding.
With his nerves on edge enough already, his car door squeaked as he opened it, peering to see if he had hurt an innocent animal, but he had not.
The head of hair that the sides of his glowing headlights shone upon told him that he was staring at a human being.
A trembling, weak, human being.
He exited his car completely then.
“Hey, are you alright? Do you need help? Sorry I almost hit you,” Satoru crouched down on the side of the road. Mentally, he started to go over every bit of first aid he knew just in case this person thudded against his car and he didn’t realize it, but upon looking at the frightened face, a face he was all too familiar with from missing posters, social media profiles, and the binder in the back seat of his car, Satoru’s mind went blank.
“Oh my god,” he whispered. “It’s you.”
“Pl-please . . .” you looked up at him, eyes glistening with hope and distrust as a cough escaped your throat.
Satoru placed a hand on your shoulder. “My name’s Detective Gojo. We’ve been looking for you. What happened? Where have you been? Who did this to you?”
His questions were met with silence and a gentle shake of your head.
“You don’t know?” Satoru spoke gently, tilting his head down and to the side a bit to get a better look at your battered face. “Did the person let you go?”
“I. . . ran . . . away. H-He’s been . . . gone.” More coughing. “Water, please?”
“I’ll get you some water. I’m gonna take you to the hospital immediately. You’re safe now, I promise.”
Satoru opened the passenger side door.
He gently scooped you up bridal style. You were a few pounds lighter than the accurate weight description Ryomen gave the police made you out to be, and that confirmed to Satoru that one of the things your kidnapper did to you was deprive you of food.
Starved her, he thought.
Within his grip, despite how gentle it was, you flinched, a gasp of pain escaping between your split lip. “That hurts? I’m sorry,” he said softly. Beat her too.
He placed you in the car seat. Your head whipped around wildly as you saw him vanish behind his car and pop open his trunk, but luckily, he didn’t return with rope or handcuffs, but with a blanket he often wrapped around victims he was lucky enough to find alive.
“Here’s a blanket,” he said, draping it across your shaking body.
He was kind enough to turn on the heater once he made it into the driver’s seat as well.
“I have to stop for gas. It’ll only take a second,” he said, reaching over to tug your blanket up a bit higher. Even though I gotta stop at a gas station, she’ll still get help quicker if I drive her versus waiting for an ambulance. Those guys are always slacking off.
Satoru gave you one final look before he started to drive. The look was one of pure disbelief. To find you so randomly, alive and somewhat well . . . and while you didn’t know who might have done this to you, Satoru couldn’t help but recognize that, as he drove out to the main road, you seemed to have emerged from somewhere within Kento’s neighborhood.
—
The gas station was rather isolated. There was nothing except bright light against the darkness of the night, the little store with a gum-popping cashier sitting behind a counter with a look of pure boredom upon their face, and unused pumps that hadn’t felt the hand of a customer in need of gas in hours. That wasn’t unusual, though, as Ryomen Sukuna had many citizens terrified of leaving their homes due to his latest rampage throughout the town in response to his wife going missing.
Satoru rolled his car in front of one of them, and when he came to a stop, he noticed your body tense up as your breath hitched.
“It’s okay, I’m going to be right there. Since I’m here, I’ll go ahead and buy you some water now. How about a couple of snacks to go with it?” Satoru pointed forward. “You’ll be able to see me through the windows, and I’ll be able to see you. I’ll keep the doors locked and everything. It’ll only take a second.”
You looked at him with frightened eyes.
“It’s alright. We can forget about the snacks, okay? I’ll just pump gas. There’ll be water at the-”
“No, I want them,” you coughed. “Can you call my . . .”
Your coughing interrupted you yet again.
You were sick. Perhaps kept somewhere damp, unclean, and clearly without proper clothing, as your feet and legs were bare. No shoes. No socks. No pants.
“You want me to call your husband?” Satoru finished your question for you.
You nodded.
There it was again. That feeling, creeping up within him.
“I can’t. I’m sorry. I have to confirm that he wasn’t the one who did this to you.”
You spoke with a tone that, perhaps, would have been a shout if your voice wasn’t so frail from illness and dehydration. “He didn’t. Wasn’t h-his voice. And the man. . . he talked about Ryomen. It wasn’t him. His hands . . .”
You looked down at your body, and Satoru filled in the blanks.
“His hands felt different?”
You nodded.
Satoru ran his eyes across the bruises that decorated your skin like ink upon a tattoo addict. Yet another wave of conflicting emotions washed over him as he gazed at what little of your natural skin tone he could still see.
Well, of course his hands would feel different, Satoru thought, as he figured that Ryomen Sukuna’s hands would feel like a stranger’s to you now, as before, you had only ever known his touch to be soft, caring, and loving. How would you recognize how the strike of his palm would feel if, before, you had only known gentle strokes from his fingertips?
But then, another thought presented itself to Satoru: considering how she’s covered in bruises, there’s no way she wouldn’t be able to recognize the hand that hit her this many times. She’d be able to recognize it even if it belonged to a stranger she shook hands with only once.
Suddenly, though expectedly, you started to cry, though you wiped at your tears and tried to muffle your own noises, as if embarrassed.
“You can cry, it’s okay,” Satoru said softly.
He didn’t mean to.
He wasn’t thinking.
He was being unprofessional.
But Satoru reached over, thumb landing on your scratched cheek, and he wiped away one of the tears, letting his thumb linger against your skin for a bit before pulling away. “I’ll be right back.”
As Satoru made his way through the shop as quickly as he could, grabbing a bag of chips he knew you were a fan of based on one of your Instagram highlights from eight weeks ago, his mind raced with a variety of different thoughts.
He’d let you talk to Ryomen. He had no reason not to anymore. After all, Kento was the main suspect now, and even more so after finding you in such close proximity to his house.
He tried to shake away the twisted feeling threatening to overwhelm him again at the idea of reuniting you with your husband.
Satoru left the store and started to pump gas, pulling out his phone to give his partner an update. Right now, he needed Suguru to keep an eye on Kento, to prevent him from leaving the building.
“I found her,” Satoru said once the other man answered. “I was leaving Kento’s house, saw her on the street. Isn’t that crazy? She escaped. She said whoever did this to her had been gone for a while, and Kento’s been with us pretty much all day. That, his little scrapbook, and the fact that she was near his house just . . . it’s sick, Suguru. She looks awful . . . No, you don’t gotta call an ambulance. I’m at the gas station not too far from the hospital, so I’m just gonna take her there myself. Well, you know the routine. Tell everyone who needs to know that I found her, but don’t let Kento know something’s up until I get there, and don’t let him leave the building. We need more evidence on this guy. I’m thinking we’ll get her to look at a map and see if she can circle the general direction she ran in, or lead us and buncha other cops there herself once she feels better. I’m still thinking on it, I don’t know. But I’ll see you soon.”
The blanket was wrapped around you snuggly, and there was a gentle crunching noise and the hum of satisfaction as you ate the snacks Satoru bought you. Not only did the warmth created by the blanket and heater make you stop trembling, but Satoru noticed your eyes starting to grow heavy.
The sight of it warmed his heart, knowing you felt safe enough with him to close your eyes and nearly drift off to sleep with a belly full of a snack so divine, it brought more tears to your eyes.
A little sigh of relief escaped you. Safe.
Satoru drove for around three minutes before he remembered your request to talk to Sukuna, one you were feeling much too shy to bring up again.
“I’m sorry about your car.”
“Huh?” He pinched his eyebrows in confusion.
“The seats. I got them dirty. I’m sorry.”
Satoru gulped thickly. “Well, I hope dirty seats will be our biggest worry, our greatest problem now, yeah?” He smiled for a moment, then continued, “I’m gonna call Ryomen for you.”
You visibly perked up, eyes filling with tears yet again at the thought of hearing his voice. Oh, did you miss him.
But, just before Satoru could reach into his pocket, headlights came into view.
He slammed on the brakes. His body jerked forward, and he slung his arm protectively across your chest.
“What the hell?” He frowned, eyeing the front of the vehicle that was clearly on the wrong side of the road.
There was nothing he could see amidst the darkness. Nothing except the bright headlights shining through his windshield. Even the trees and the starry night sky were a mystery.
“What’s going on?” You asked with great worry.
“It’s okay. Stay right here.” Satoru started to unbuckle his seatbelt.
“No, don’t leave, please, don’t leave,” you grabbed his arm.
Satoru placed his hand over yours, stroking your skin, which was finally starting to warm up. “It’ll be alright. I’m sure it’s just some drunk idiot. Just stay right here.”
He approached the car with caution. His hand touched the gun strapped to his waist as he made his way to the driver’s side, but when the driver opened the car door and he saw a familiar, trustworthy face, he released a breath of relief, then frowned in utter confusion, taking his hand off his gun.
“Suguru? What the hell? You scared the hell outta me. What are you doing here? Why are you driving on this side of the road?”
He didn’t answer. He only smiled at him.
It was a smile Satoru once adored, but right now, it frightened him to his core when he saw that Suguru’s grin was paired with a handgun he aimed right at his stomach.
His grin widened enough to make the corners of his mouth ache, his eyes closing. “Seeing you take your hand off of your gun when you realized it was me was really touching, Satoru, and yet, a very big mistake.” Suguru waited for Satoru to respond, but the white-haired man said nothing. He only stared at him.
“You don’t seem shocked, just disappointed,” Suguru said.
“Why?” Satoru’s question came out softer than he intended. Bitter.
“I’m not in the mood to chat with you about it. This isn’t a busy road, but someone could drive by at any moment and ruin our fun. My woman’s in the car, correct?”
My, my, my. That poisonous, possessive word made Satoru feel sicker than he already felt. As if this sudden, surprising betrayal didn’t have him already trying to hold back the stale croissant he forced down hours earlier.
“Make one wrong move, and I’ll gladly shoot you and subject his wife to a suffering worse than death.”
Suguru got out of his car and shut the door, gesturing his gun at Satoru. “Walk.”
He forced him to walk in front of him and approach the passenger side of his own car, the side where you sat, snuggled up, your face changing into one of mild worry but overall relaxation into one of true terror as Satoru and another man with a gun came into view.
Satoru tried not to let his words reflect the true, utter fear he felt within his core, and he spoke calmly.
“Leave her alone, I’m begging you. You don’t gotta do this. We’re friends, right? You know I don’t give a shit about the law, I’ll keep your secret if you just let her go now, and she will too. And you and me? We can keep working side by side, everything can go back to the way it was-”
“Do you ever stop talking?” Suguru said with great annoyance, but not once did he stop smiling. “Open the car door.”
“No.”
Satoru felt the cold end of his gun press against his back.
Closing his eyes for a moment with great disbelief at what the fuck was happening to him, at what the hell he was having to do, Satoru slowly opened the door.
You started to tremble, legs moving as if you wanted to scramble away, but while your body wanted you to run, run, run, your mind knew you’d end up with a bullet in your head if you did so.
But, as tears rolled down your cheeks and the recent memories of everything you had been forced to endure over the last couple of days replayed in your mind, you figured — you knew — that death was, perhaps, a better fate.
“She’s a gorgeous one, isn’t she?” Suguru whispered, mesmerized by your beauty even in your current state. He suddenly reached around and grabbed Satoru’s gun, and handed it to him. “Now, Satoru, if you would be so kind as to shoot her in the leg for me.”
Satoru’s eyes widened. His knees grew weak. “What? What the hell?”
You began to cry harder. It was a mix of pleas and sobs.
“Well, she needs a punishment for running away,” Suguru stated casually, as if it were logic as simple as understanding that Tuesday followed Monday. “Do it.”
“You’re going to kill me anyway. There’s no way you plan on letting me go after learning you’re behind all this.”
“There is. Now do it. Unless you want me to kill her here and now.”
Satoru’s jaw clenched. He felt his cheek become wet with his own tears at the sound of your cries. His hands started to tremble, but they gripped the gun.
“I’m sorry,” Satoru whispered, aiming the gun at your leg. “I’m so sorry. Don’t look, okay? Don’t-”
“Do it!”
The sound of the firing bullet rang loud and clear, but it was your screams and cries that were deafening. The sight of your blood would forever haunt Satoru every single time he’d blink. That, he knew. His entire body was frozen, so much so that he didn’t realize Suguru had snatched the gun out of his hand before it could be used against him.
“Thank you, Satoru, you’re an amazing friend. Put her in the trunk of my car.”
Satoru carried you bridal-style yet again for the second time tonight.
He placed you in the back of Suguru’s car. Your bloody hand gripped his shirt, and though you were in too much pain to speak, he knew what you were trying to say: don’t leave me. Please, save me.
But he did nothing.
Nothing except give you back to your kidnapper.
When all was said and done, Suguru stepped into Satoru’s line of sight.
He was still smiling.
“You’re crying? Hm,” Suguru tilted his head a bit.
“Why are you doing this?” Satoru’s voice was hoarse.
“I already told you I don’t want to talk about it-”
“I don’t really give a damn what you want. Tell me why. I gotta know why. I gotta know how and why the hell my friend could turn out to be such a-a sick piece of shit.”
Suguru nodded in the direction of Satoru’s car. “Go back to work, Satoru.”
“You can’t be fucking serious. Ryomen’s tearing this town apart. It doesn’t matter what happens to me now. He’ll find her.” Satoru trembled. “Do you think I’m just gonna let you get away with this?”
Suguru opened the car door of his own vehicle, and he said, “Yes.”
As he started to drive away with you, Suguru never stopped smiling, not once.
It felt, in a lot of ways, as if Satoru Gojo left his heart, mind, and soul behind on that isolated road, because as he drove back to work, it felt as if it wasn’t a conscious decision he was making. His body moved on its own, it seemed, and he gripped the steering wheel with hands soaked in your blood, unblinking, and drove. Stopped at a few red lights, made a couple of turns, and drove, like a stringed puppet in Suguru’s show.
He tried to follow Suguru in his car at first.
He tried to run him off the road.
But Suguru’s car came to a sudden stop, red brake lights blaring through Satoru’s windshield.
Satoru watched the other vehicle in front of him for a split second, not long enough for him to think like a detective and make a decision that could save you, because an ear-piercing scream broke through the silent night.
It was you. Your scream was loud enough for him to hear it in his car, for him to hear it in his dreams for the rest of his life, for him to forever wonder what Suguru did to you in that moment to cause it, and yet, for him to be grateful that he didn’t know.
The scream was a clear message. Follow us, and I’ll kill her.
And that was how Satoru found himself dragging his feet through his workplace instead of ramming the front of his car through Suguru’s.
When he walked through the open office space, people didn’t greet him with sympathetic sorrow nor praise as they did with Detective Nanami. Instead, they greeted him with glares, daggers in their eyes that he didn’t have the mental capacity to question until his boss stepped in front of him, blocking his path.
“Satoru, we need to talk.”
She’s dead already somehow, Satoru thought. He killed her, she’s dead, he showed everyone, everyone blames me for not finding her in time, little do they know I did find her. I found her and I lost her and now she’s fucking dead and it’s my fault. I’m gonna get fired, no, worse, Sukuna’s gonna kill me, but do I really give a shit? That sweet woman’s dead and I let it happen. I gave her back to her fucking torturer, her kidnapper. It’s my fault, it’s my fault, it’s-
“Satoru, stop mumbling,” Masamichi Yaga gave him a stern, depressed look — there was something else there too, something that made his heart want to plummet into his stomach, but he didn’t know what it was — and only then did Satoru realize that his thoughts were being vocalized.
Not that he gave a shit.
“What’s the matter?” Satoru questioned. Never before had his voice sounded so weak.
His boss opened his mouth to speak, started to say, Sukuna, when someone suddenly shouted, “What the fuck?”
The entire office filled with detectives turned their heads to the source of the sound, which belonged to Shoko. The woman was standing. She was staring up at the big screen at the front of the office. It would often display details of a case, or when not in true use, the news.
That is what graced the big screen now.
Satoru moved past his boss and fellow coworkers who all walked towards it, as if summoned.
The live news station started to play what seemed to be a video. A video filmed by Suguru.
“Good evening, I am Detective Geto.” He stared into the camera he held in front of his face with teary eyes. “I work alongside Detective Gojo, who many of you will know to be the lead investigator in the case surrounding Mrs. Sukuna, a sweet, beautiful woman who has been missing. I’m putting myself and my job in jeopardy by leaking this information to the public, but Satoru Gojo is a powerful man who is more than capable of going above the law to cover his own tracks, and tonight, I witnessed something horrible, and I wanted to give this evidence to the general public first, so law enforcement has no choice but to give Mrs. Sukuna the justice she deserves.”
What appeared next was a photo of Satoru standing outside of his car, you in his passenger seat, frightened eyes seemingly gazing at him, because the man behind him, the one you were actually staring at, was cropped out.
The next photo was of him aiming a gun at your leg.
Shooting you.
Scooping up your body.
Every photo was seemingly taken from a distance, from a hidden camera propped up on the side of Suguru’s car, and he cropped himself out of every single one.
Suguru’s face returned to the screen, but the faces of his viewers who crowded the office didn’t know, because they had all turned their bodies to stare at Satoru.
“Tonight, Satoru made me watch him do this to an innocent woman. I took those photos without his knowledge, and I tried to stop him. I did everything I could, but he got away with her. I promise you all that I will do everything I can to find Mrs. Sukuna, if she’s still alive. In the meantime, please, be aware of Detective Satoru Gojo. He is a sick man.”
Satoru couldn't feel anything, not even his own heart beating inside his chest, though it was pounding so rapidly, he was certain it would burst.
“Satoru,” his boss called out softly.
Satoru took a step back.
His boss took a step forward.
“Satoru, why don’t you sit down? Let’s talk about this.”
Oh, he knew that voice.
He used it plenty of times.
It was the voice he used on Ryomen earlier today, when the man was about to kill Kento.
Satoru shook his head, though he did it as a response to the insane fucking situation that he couldn’t wrap his mind around and not necessarily as a way of saying no to the request for him to sit down, but his boss still approached him cautiously.
“It’s okay, Satoru, I just need you to have a seat.”
He took another step backwards.
No one’s going to believe me, Satoru thought. No one.
“Satoru,” his boss, who stared at him with eyes of pure disgust, tried yet again.
He dashed out of the exit doors then, not that he assumed he’d make it very far. Soon, he’d feel the unpleasant sting of a taser against his back, or one of his coworkers tackle him to the ground, but no part of him expected his own footsteps to come to a halt all on their own.
And that was because, right below the steps outside of the exit doors, Satoru’s eyes were met with the yellow crime tape he was in too much of a daze to notice when he first arrived.
Oh, but he noticed it now.
It squared off a portion of the concrete sidewalk outside of the building. Forensic workers crouched and moved around something, and their movements told Satoru that he was staring right at a dead body.
He didn’t know who it was until one of them moved their right leg and that familiar blonde hair came into his line of sight.
Satoru’s wide eyes widened even more.
This is what Yaga was trying to tell me, Satoru thought. Sukuna killed . . .
He couldn’t even think the name of the man whose face, every feature familiar except for the bullet-sized hole in the center of his forehead, came into clear view, eyes wide open though they no longer shone with life.
Satoru didn’t mean to, but he laughed. He laughed because it was too fucking much.
He laughed because Ryomen Sukuna killed Kento Nanami, whom he thought kidnapped his wife.
He laughed because Ryomen Sukuna killed Kento Nanami, when Suguru Geto was the one who kidnapped his wife.
He laughed because Ryomen Sukuna killed Kento Nanami, and he knew he’d be the next innocent man to die, because now, Ryomen Sukuna would think he was the one who kidnapped his wife.
His laughter only stopped when the stinging, searing pain of being tased shot through every limb of his body, making him fall to the ground, making his phone fly out of his pocket, making him all too aware of the recent text message that lit up his screen — a text message from Ryomen Sukuna that read: YOU’RE FUCKING DEAD.
Pairing: TFATWS!Bucky x Reader!Steve's Granddaughter
Summary: Her grandfather’s last request was for her to deliver a bundle of letters written to friends he’d never forgotten. She expected a journey into her family history. She didn’t expect to meet Bucky Barnes—or to lose her heart to the man behind the legend of her grandfather's past.
Word Count: 20k
Warnings: best friend's granddaughter; angst; yearning; friends to lovers; angst-heavy relationship conflict; mentions of past death; grief; slow-burnish; cursing; mentions of PTSD; introspection; age gap; definitely not canon but a girl can dream
Author’s Note: I KNOW in canon something like this would never happen and Steve went back to a different timeline but c'mon, Bucky falling in love with his best friend's granddaughter? Does it get any better than that?
My biggest gripe with Endgame was how easily Steve went back to be with Peggy, leaving Bucky behind, so I wrote him as accepting of the choice Steve made, but with a bit of residual resentment.
She was used to the mugginess of D.C., the heavy summer air and the sudden storms that rolled through without warning, but the South was a different beast entirely. She was sure she stuck out like a sore thumb here.
That much seemed obvious. Even in jeans and a tank top, people gave her curious glances as she passed through town. Or maybe they sensed it, the thing she’d been forced to hide her entire life. That her very existence was a secret.
Sam Wilson’s address hadn’t been hard to find, not with his name and reputation. She was surprised his family home — a charming, Southern-style house in a small fishing community — wasn’t swarmed with fans looking for selfies or signatures. But ever since the Blip, the public had learned to be more respectful of heroes. Maybe even a little afraid of them. And she couldn’t blame them. Fear was a natural response to the unknown.
But to her, the unknown had always just been… life. Part of being human.
She took a steadying breath and knocked on the Wilsons’ front door, nerves tight in her chest. She hadn’t really planned this beyond stumbling across Sam’s address in one of her grandfather’s letters — one of many he’d written but never sent. She hadn’t had the heart to open them. It hadn’t felt like her place.
She raised a fist, counted to three, and knocked again — firm, deliberate.
The bundle of letters crinkled at her side.
From inside came the sound of shuffling and a child’s voice, high and animated. Her guess was confirmed when the door creaked open and a young boy with glasses squinted up at her, a suspicious frown tugging at his mouth.
She waited, awkwardly, hoping he’d say something first. When he didn’t, she shifted her weight and offered a small, uncertain smile.
“Hi… um, is your mom or uncle home?”
His frown deepened. “You wanna see Uncle Sam?”
“Yes, I actually would—”
“We don’t know you.”
She blinked at the interruption, caught off guard. The kid raised his brows like he was waiting for her to make a case for herself, arms folded firmly across his chest. He couldn’t have been more than ten, but he stood there like he ran the whole household.
She cleared her throat uncertainly. “Well, I don’t know you either.”
“I live here.”
“Okay, fair.”
A beat.
“What’s your name?” he demanded.
She hesitated, then only gave her first name.
The boy wasn’t fooled, however. “No last name?”
“Look,” she signed, starting to get frustrated. “I really just want to give your uncle something. If he’s not here, could I just leave it with your mom?”
He narrowed his eyes. “What do you really want with Uncle Sam?”
“To talk.”
“About what?”
“Classified stuff.”
The boy’s mouth opened in mild offense. “I’m ten, not stupid.”
She leaned in slightly. “You sure about that?”
His eyebrows shot up like she’d challenged him to a duel. Before he could fire back, a voice called from inside, warm but exasperated.
“Cass, stop interrogating people on the porch!”
Cass rolled his eyes but didn’t move. “She says she has classified stuff.”
“I did not say that,” she muttered.
A woman appeared behind him — Sarah, if she remembered correctly from her research — wiping her hands on a dish towel as she approached the door. Her eyes landed on her instantly, softening with polite curiosity.
“Can I help you?”
Cass muttered something under his breath and stomped off.
She offered a small smile, nerves creeping back in like a tide. “Hi. I’m sorry to just… show up. I was hoping to talk to Sam?”
Sarah eyed her with the same guarded skepticism her son had, gaze flicking briefly to the bundle of letters in her hand. “Are those for him?”
She nodded, her throat tightening. The papers felt hot in her grip. “They’re not from me. I found them a few weeks ago. Thought… he’d want to have them.”
Sarah’s lips pressed into a thoughtful line, her expression unreadable. “Who are they from?”
She hesitated, knowing the next words would shift everything. Up until now, she’d been nothing but a shadow, a secret tethered to a story no one else knew — watching history play out exactly the way her grandfather had said it would.
“They’re from my grandfather,” she said softly. “Steve.”
Sunlight caught the edge of the first envelope in the stack, illuminating the name written in her grandfather’s careful, steady hand, ink faded, but still unmistakable.
.
.
.
It only took one hushed phone call, words muffled through the living room wall. An hour later, Sam Wilson was walking through the front door, boots still dark and slick from the damp autumn evening.
His gaze found hers the moment the door clicked shut behind him.
She'd seen the Falcon countless times over the years. On the news, in grainy online clips, splashed across social media feeds. Usually standing beside a younger version of her grandfather, the man she'd never known in that era. The one who still belonged to the world instead of to her.
In person, Sam Wilson was exactly what she expected and somehow more. Tall, broad-shouldered, steady in a way that seemed effortless. There was confidence in the way he carried himself, yes, but warmth in the set of his mouth, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. He had that same quiet geniality her grandfather had always carried, the kind that made you feel like you could trust him before he ever said a word.
Still, his eyes were skeptical as they swept over her. Not rudely, but carefully, deliberately searching. She knew exactly what he was looking for. Did she resemble Steve? Could she really be his last living blood relative? Or was this some elaborate trick, another ghost from the past come back to haunt him?
She already knew the answer. Her mother's side had left her with enough differences that the resemblance wasn't immediate, wasn't obvious. So she waited, still and patient, hands folded loosely in her lap, letting him decide for himself.
The silence stretched. Sarah watched from the kitchen doorway, her hands folded in front of her as if bracing for bad news, or maybe just holding herself together. Finally, Sam's shoulders eased. The tension slipped from him in one long, deliberate exhale. He dropped his duffel bag by the door and gave her a smile. Genuine, but tinged with something bittersweet.
"You have his eyes," he said quietly, voice rougher than she expected. "It's… good to see them again."
She returned the smile, tentative, unsure if her face reminded him too much of a best friend long gone. "He always said he was glad that was the only thing I got from him."
Sam chuckled, a low sound that seemed to ease something in the room. He let out another long breath before dragging a chair over and dropping into it directly in front of her. Elbows braced on his knees, hands clasped loosely between them. His gaze kept drifting back to her eyes, lingering there like he was trying to memorize them all over again. If it weren't for the faint twist of his mouth, the subtle tightness at the corners, she wouldn't have guessed he was lost in memory.
"No super soldier genes, then?" His tone was light, almost teasing, but there was real curiosity underneath.
She shook her head, biting the inside of her cheek. "None that I know of. My mom and her brother never had anything out of the ordinary. The serum didn't change his genetics. Couldn't be passed down. I think… he was grateful for that. Relieved, even."
Sam nodded slowly, absorbing that, quiet for a long beat. He was still studying her, not intrusively, but like he was piecing together a puzzle he'd thought was long finished. He hadn't even asked about the letters yet, though she could feel the questions simmering just behind his eyes, patient and waiting.
"When Steve went back…" he said finally, voice low and careful, "I guess I never thought we'd meet his grandkids one day. Didn't even cross my mind." He paused, something distant flickering across his face. "Makes sense, though. A few months for us…was decades for him."
"He told me everything," she said softly, hoping pieces of her grandfather's voice, his stories, might bridge the impossible gap between them. "World War II. The serum. Waking up in a world that had moved on without him. The Avengers. Meeting you. Fighting Ultron, Thanos… all of it. We watched every news story together, read every article we could find." She smiled faintly. "Well, I did. He said there was no point. He already knew exactly how it would all play out."
Sam let out a short, surprised snort, shaking his head with something like fond exasperation. "Sounds about right. Classic Steve. No point in reliving the headlines when you lived the whole damn thing."
His gaze finally dropped to the bundle of letters resting on the small table beside her, tied carefully with faded string. "Those for me?"
She nodded and lifted them, handing them over like they were something sacred. Some of them were decades old, the edges yellowed and brittle, the paper thin enough to see shadows of ink through the backs.
"He wrote them from the day he went back to my grandma," she said quietly, "all the way until his last. They were in his will… along with this address, and a request to find you." She swallowed. "I never opened them. Didn't feel like it was my right."
Sam turned the packet over in his hands slowly, reverently, his thumb brushing over the worn edges like he could feel the weight of decades pressed into the paper. His mouth tightened, jaw working for a moment before he spoke, voice steady but softer now.
"Thank you," he said. "For bringing these. For respecting them." He looked up, meeting her eyes again. "That means more than you know."
She nodded, throat tight, unsure what to say. Unsure of what to do next, really. She hadn't planned this far ahead in her mind when she first read her grandfather's wish for her to deliver the letters. All she'd really thought about was hoping she'd be able to find the recipients. And praying they'd want what she had been asked to give.
He glanced up after a moment. "I didn't catch your name."
She told him her first name, then added, "Carter. Last name's Carter. Steve took Peggy's name when they married. Said it made life easier to… stay out of sight. Start over."
Something in Sam's expression shifted. Recognition flickered, maybe even understanding — or sorrow for what that choice must have meant. "Your mom and… you said there was an uncle?"
Her gaze dropped to her hands, fingers twisting together. "My mother died a few years ago. Cancer." The word still tasted bitter. She swallowed hard. "My uncle… he was killed in Vietnam. Never made it home. So, yeah. I'm the last one left."
Sam was silent for a long moment, watching her with an expression that wasn't pity. He’d seen too much to know that pity wasn’t the accurate response to years of loss. Empathy, maybe. Shared understanding of what it meant to carry ghosts. Then he said, with a faint, sad smile, "You've got Peggy's face. The shape of it, anyway. But the eyes… those are all Steve."
Her own smile wavered, threatening to break. "That means a lot." She cleared her throat, steadying herself. "And… thank you. For taking up his shield. I know it wasn't easy."
Sam looked down briefly, a shade of something unspoken crossing his face. Pride, maybe, or the weight of what she knew was both a gift and a burden. "It's… an honor. Always will be. Even on the hard days."
She hesitated, then reached into her bag and pulled out another bundle, smaller than the first, bound in worn twine that had frayed at the edges. "I have one more packet," she said, her voice quieter now, almost hesitant. "These aren't for you. They're from my grandfather… to Bucky."
Sam's head lifted sharply, his brows drawing together. Not surprised, exactly. More like he'd been expecting this, dreading it maybe. Knowingly.
"I need help finding him," she continued, words coming faster now. "I know he's… hard to track down. Doesn't want to be found. But Grandpa wanted him to have these." She met Sam's eyes, steady and sure. "And I think… he needs to. Maybe more than anyone."
Sam stared at her for a long beat, jaw tight, weighing something heavy in his mind. Then he gave a single, slow nod, decision made.
"I might know where to start."
.
.
.
Her grandfather had spent most of his life talking about Bucky. Her grandma used to joke—half-teasing, half-serious—that Bucky was secretly his long-lost love rather than her. He'd just laugh and wave it off with that familiar boyish grin, but she knew better. She'd seen the way his eyes would go distant sometimes, especially in his last years. He carried a tremendous weight of guilt for leaving Bucky behind in the present, an anchor that never quite loosened its hold. He always said Bucky had given him his blessing, had practically shoved him toward the quantum tunnel himself, but the endless war stories about his best friend — told and retold until she could recite them by heart—were his way of coping with the sense of wrongdoing he carried until the day he died.
She knew the broad strokes of Bucky's life. The torture and brainwashing, his years spent as HYDRA's weapon. The time he spent as nothing more than a ghost story whispered in intelligence briefings. The bloody reunion with her grandfather that had made international headlines. His slow, painful return to himself. But it was in her grandfather's final years, after Grandma Peggy passed and the house felt too empty, that she got the clearest picture. Sitting by his bed while illness slowly claimed him, machines beeping softly in the background, she listened as he spoke of Bucky in a way that was more than just facts, more than hero worship or survivor's guilt.
Steve had described him as stubborn to a fault, fiercely loyal, and braver than anyone had a right to be. The kind of bravery that didn't come from fearlessness but from choosing to stand anyway. A man with a sharp wit and a dry sense of humor that could cut through the tension of any battlefield, make men laugh even when they were knee-deep in mud and blood. He said Bucky could fight like hell but would still give away his last meal if someone else needed it more, would carry a wounded soldier on his back for miles without complaint. And no matter how much the world had taken from him, no matter how much blood was on his hands or how many memories had been stripped away, there was still a piece of that kid from Brooklyn who'd do anything to protect the people he loved.
She had to admit, she'd spent the last few years wondering more about Bucky than about Sam. A man out of time, just like her grandfather, but worse somehow. Recovering from losing not just his era but his memories, his autonomy…himself. Utterly alone except for Sam, really, and whatever tenuous thread still connected him to a world that had moved on without him. It was a tragic story, Shakespearean in its cruelty, and she felt quite a bit of sympathy for a man she had only seen in grainy pictures and heavily redacted news reports.
Sam had given her Bucky's Brooklyn address himself, though not without a significant disclaimer.
"He's a bit standoffish," Sam had said, leaning back in his chair like he was bracing her for turbulence. "Still healing in ways that matter. Good guy underneath it all—great guy, actually—but he's got walls. Thick ones." He'd paused, choosing his words carefully. "He's still got a lot of guilt about his past. Still processing Steve being gone. It's… complicated."
He'd let the words sit there, watching her reaction with those perceptive eyes.
The unspoken truth was loud enough to hear: He's still dealing with his trauma and isn't the Bucky your grandfather told you about. Maybe he never will be.
Sam had smirked then, softening what he just delivered with humor. "And hey, fair warning…you might remind him a little too much of Steve. So, y'know… if he slams the door in your face, don't take it personal. That's just his love language."
She'd raised an eyebrow, couldn't help the small smile. "Door slamming as a love language?"
"In Bucky's case? Yeah. Right up there with glaring and intense brooding. Olympic level, really. He could medal."
So, with Sam's warning ringing in her ears and a knot of anxiety in her stomach, she booked the next flight to New York and now stood on the cracked sidewalk outside James Buchanan Barnes' apartment building, clutching his letters like they might vanish if she loosened her grip.
The place was exactly the kind of building you'd expect a man avoiding the world to live in. Weathered brick darkened by decades of soot and rain, yellowed with age and neglect. A rust-flecked fire escape zigzagged up the facade like a skeletal ladder, bolts loose enough that she could hear it rattling faintly when a breeze blew by. The windows were made of that old, wavy glass that distorted the reflection of the afternoon sun into something dreamlike and wrong, and the front door bore the scuffs and dents of a thousand careless kicks.
Inside, the air was thick and close, smelling faintly of old radiator heat and stale cigarette smoke. She wrinkled her nose at the smell upon entering and wondered why he chose to live here, when he could probably have the pick of the litter of any place in the city given his notoriety with the Avengers. Familiarity, maybe?
She glanced at the mailboxes in the narrow entryway. Half had peeling name labels curled at the edges, the rest just bore tarnished numbers. His was one of the bare ones. Of course it was.
Her boots echoed faintly against the chipped tile as she climbed the narrow staircase, the railing cool and slightly sticky under her palm with years of grime. The higher she went, the quieter it got, the sounds of the street fading until all she could hear was the steady drumbeat of her own pulse and the distant hum of someone's television.
Her stomach was in knots. She wasn't sure if Sam had warned him she was coming, or if she was about to knock on the door of a man who might slam it in her face without a word.
A hermit, Sam had called him. She didn't blame him. She'd spent her whole life doing the same, hiding in plain sight, deflecting questions about her family tree with practiced ease.
At the third floor, she stopped in front of his door. The brass number was slightly crooked, loose on one screw, and the wood around the peephole was scuffed and faded. She knocked before she could talk herself out of it, three sharp raps that sounded too loud in the quiet hallway, heart drumming an unsteady rhythm against her ribs.
The door opened a moment later, and for a long, disorienting moment, she was utterly floored.
Because he was far more handsome in person than she had expected. Devastatingly so.
She had seen the photos. Black and white images of a young sergeant with a cocky grin, had heard how much of a ladies' man he'd been back in the day from her grandfather's fond, exasperated stories—but none of that did justice to the real thing.
He was taller than she'd expected, broad-shouldered and solid in a way that seemed effortless, wearing a dark henley that clung to lean muscle and did absolutely nothing to hide his build underneath. His hair was short now, dark and slightly mussed like he'd been running his hands through it, framing a sharp jawline shadowed with stubble and rough, intensely masculine features. The blue of his eyes was startling vivid even as they glared at her from under a furrowed brow, assessing and cold.
She forgot, for just a second, why she was there.
He looked her over quickly, efficiently, his expression darkening immediately. "If you're here to sell me something—"
"I'm not—" she began, but he was already starting to shut the door, movement smooth and dismissive.
Her hand shot out on instinct, catching the edge of the door before it could slam shut, palm stinging from the impact. "Wait, didn't Sam tell you I was coming?" she asked, forcing her voice to stay even, reasonable.
Bucky's jaw twitched, a muscle jumping beneath the stubble. His scowl deepened, carving harsh lines around his mouth. "Sam? No. And whatever you're selling, I'm not interested. Have a good day, kid."
"I'm not selling anything." She snapped, leaning her weight into the door, refusing to let it close. Stubbornness flared hot in her chest. "And maybe if you actually answered your phone once in a while instead of ghosting everyone, you'd know why I'm here."
His jaw flexed again, teeth grinding. Annoyance flashed in those steely eyes. "You've got about three seconds to explain before I make you leave."
She huffed, already feeling her patience fray at the edges like old rope. "Wow. You're exactly as charming as Sam said you'd be."
His eyes narrowed dangerously, but there was something else there too. Surprise, maybe, at her directness. He blinked at her, clearly not expecting the attitude. "What…did he send you here?"
"I mean… in a way, but — listen, can you let me explain, dude?"
His expression shifted to something between incredulity and exhaustion, like the thirty seconds he'd spent talking to her had already shaved years off his life and he deeply resented it. "How old are you?"
She blinked at the abruptness, thrown. "Uh… twenty-four? Why is that relevant?"
Bucky nodded slowly, deliberately, like he'd just confirmed a working theory he'd had. Then he reached into his back pocket with his right hand. She frowned, confused, until he pulled out a worn leather wallet. Her eyes widened when he opened it and produced a massive wad of cash, crisp bills folded thick.
"Sounds about right," he said casually, tone flat and matter-of-fact. "If I pay you extra, will you leave and tell Sam you did whatever he paid you for? I'll throw in a tip."
She gawked at the money, speechless. Then at him. Then back at the money, trying to process what was happening. Heat rushed into her cheeks, flooding her face, but not from embarrassment. From pure, uncut, incandescent rage. "Do you think I'm a hooker?"
He looked her up and down slowly, taking in her jeans and jacket, then shrugged like it was the most natural, logical conclusion in the world. He held the bills out again, expression unchanged. "No judgment here, kid. Consenting adults and all that. He does it as a practical joke sometimes, sends someone over, watches me squirm. Don't get too upset about it. You're still a fine-looking dame. Now — have a good day."
Without a flicker of irony or shame, he grabbed her hand, pressed the cash into her palm, folded her fingers over it, and shut the door. Hard. The sound echoed in the hallway like a gunshot.
She stood there frozen, fist full of bills, mind blank with shock, trying to process what the hell had just happened. Her grandfather's best friend, the man he'd spent two decades praising to her, had just mistaken her for a prostitute Sam had sent as a prank and slammed the door in her face without a second thought.
Go. Fucking. Figure.
Shaking her head sharply to break the trance, she muttered a vicious string of curses that would've made her mother roll in her grave. Then, with slow, deliberate care, she crouched down, slid the packet of letters under his door where he couldn't miss them, and tossed the wad of cash down onto the floor where his feet had been ten seconds ago. Let him choke on it.
"Fuck that guy," she hissed under her breath, turning on her heel and stalking toward the stairs. Her grandfather had been dead wrong about James Buchanan Barnes. Absolutely, utterly, infuriatingly wrong. What an asshole.
She left the apartment seething, jaw clenched, already wondering bitterly what anyone—anyone—could have ever seen in the so-called "notorious" Bucky Barnes.
.
.
.
She had been born in D.C., spent nearly her whole life there in the shadow of monuments and power, but when it came time to graduate high school and pick a college, she really only applied to schools in New York. Her mother had passed by the time she was a junior—cancer, brutal and quick—leaving her under the care of her grandparents in a house that suddenly felt too big and too quiet.
Her father was someone she had never met, never bothered to find out about, and never wanted to. Her mother's pregnancy with her had been an accident, a foolish fling with a soldier who had promised her the world and given her nothing but abandonment and a daughter to raise alone. So she had spent a lot of her teenage years hearing about New York instead, learning about her grandfather's early history in painstaking detail. Learning about how he became a hero, how he'd met her grandmother, how Brooklyn had shaped him into something more than just a scrawny kid with too much heart.
She graduated from Cornell top of her class with honors and a thesis that made her professors take notice, landing a position straight out of college with a Veterans' Outreach Nonprofit in New York. So, she had stayed, putting down roots, residing near where her grandfather used to live—close to where Bucky now lived, though she hadn't known it at the time. And when her grandfather had died, slipping away peacefully in his sleep after months of decline, he left all of his considerable inheritance to her as his last living relative. She used none of the money for herself, not a dime. Instead, she opened her own Veterans' Outreach center, pouring everything into it, something she desperately hoped would have made him proud. Something that felt like honoring him without living in his shadow.
Given that her name was plastered all over the nonprofit's website, listed as founder and director, it wasn't a surprise that Bucky Barnes was able to easily track her down. What was a surprise was his quickness in doing so.
The day after visiting his apartment, she had woken up, poured her normal morning coffee with heavy eyes, and drove over to the center to get some work done before opening hours. She had strolled up to the front doors just after dawn, keys in hand, the sun barely peeking over the horizon of the city in soft pinks and golds, when she noticed a familiar figure standing outside, leaning against the doorway like he'd been there awhile.
Dressed in dark jeans and a worn leather jacket that had seen better days, gloved hands shoved deep into his pockets, Bucky Barnes watched her approach with tired, intent eyes that tracked her every movement. In daylight, she noticed things she'd missed yesterday in the dim hallway. The shadows beneath his cerulean gaze were darker, heavier, bruise-like. Insomnia, most likely. Most of the veterans she worked with carried the same weight under their eyes, the same bone-deep fatigue that no amount of sleep could fix.
Still, even exhausted and haunted, for a man who barely looked past his early thirties, he was beautiful in that tragic, carved-from-marble way. The same handsome young man from her grandfather's faded photos, just more haunted now, sharper at the edges.
She stopped five feet from him, fingers curling protectively around the keys in her pocket, metal biting into her palm. She didn’t look at him directly, instead keeping her tone dry to hide the flare of anger in her chest at the sight of him. "I wasn't too hard to track down, then, huh? Did Sam give you my information?"
Bucky didn't answer right away. His expression stayed carefully impassive, neutral, but she could feel him measuring her, taking her apart piece by piece. Sam had done the same, just less subtly, with more obvious emotion.
His gaze drifted over her features slowly, deliberately, lingering on her eyes like he was searching for something specific. She saw the shift in him when he found it—the faint bite of the inside of his cheek, the muscle in his jaw flexing hard as if bracing for impact.
Where Sam's look had been sad, grieving and warm, Bucky's was… resigned. Haunted. Like he didn't want to see her, didn't want this confirmation, but couldn't avoid it now that she was here. She swallowed against the bitter weight of it, turning to unlock the door just as he glanced away, jaw tight.
"I… found the letters you left," he said at last, his voice low, distant, carefully controlled. "From Steve. Called Sam after I read them. If it makes you feel any better, he gave me a good beating for thinking you were a—"
"Doesn't matter," she cut in quickly, the metal of the key scraping against the lock a little too hard, hands unsteady. She doubted he noticed her edge, the sharpness creeping into her tone. "My purpose was to give you both the letters. You got 'em—no harm, no foul. Mission accomplished."
She pushed the door open, but before she could shut it behind her and put a barrier between them, Bucky stepped in smoothly, blocking it with his body. "For what it's worth, I am sorry. I didn't mean to offend you…it's just something Sam's pulled before, and I thought—"
"Really, Mr. Barnes, it's fine," she interrupted again, sharper this time, forcing a polite smile that didn't quite reach her eyes and felt wrong on her face. "If you came all the way here just to apologize, you don't need to. You don't owe me anything. We're square."
He didn't move closer, didn't push, but when she turned fully to face him, his eyes locked on hers like they were reading a page he'd thought long burned to ash. Fascination flickered across his face—raw and unguarded for just a moment—then faded into something harder to read, more carefully controlled.
"I don't," he admitted quietly, "but I am sorry. Shit…if Steve knew I called his —" He stopped abruptly, dragging a gloved hand over his face in frustration. His gaze stayed locked on hers, unwavering. "I don't know how I missed it yesterday. You look just like Peggy. The resemblance is… uncanny. But you have his eyes. Steve's eyes."
"He was always happy I took after her," she swallowed, voice softer now despite herself, giving a shaky smile she couldn't quite control. She couldn't imagine what it must be like for him—to stand in front of the granddaughter of his best friend, wearing two faces he'd loved and lost, ghosts made flesh. "I'm sure he would've gotten a kick out of last night. Laughed himself sick."
A ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of Bucky's mouth, fleeting and sad. It didn't last. His stare lingered, unflinching and intense, and she fought the urge to shift under the weight of it, to look away. She knew so much of his life from her grandfather's stories, had heard his name more times than she could count…yet here he was. A complete stranger standing in front of her looking at her like she was haunting him.
"Found you online," he said finally, breaking the silence. "Didn't realize you'd been living a few blocks away for years. Small world. You own this place?"
"Yeah," she said, glancing around at the dimly lit hallway leading to offices not yet occupied for the day, the rooms where they held group therapy sessions for vets who needed a safe space to talk. "After Grandpa… Steve… passed, I opened it up myself with his inheritance. It's been doing well so far. Better than I hoped, actually. Figured he'd want it in the city he grew up in, where it all started for him. I hope he would have liked it."
Bucky's face didn't change dramatically, but she watched his eyes soften at the edges, something warm and genuine breaking through the careful walls. Again, she noticed that he hadn't torn his eyes away from her this whole time, like he was memorizing her. "He would have loved it. Same with Peggy. It's exactly what they would have wanted you to do with his legacy. Exactly right."
The words were genuine, sincere in a way that hit her square in the chest. The warmth of his praise coursed through her like something physical, and she returned it with a small smile, truer this time, less guarded. "I appreciate that, Mr. Barnes—"
"Bucky," he cut her off gently, his voice softer now, almost careful. The corner of his mouth curved in the barest, almost apologetic smile. "Call me Bucky. Please."
She pulled in a deep breath, hoping it would ground her, steady the sudden flutter in her chest. It didn't. Her pulse still thudded high and fast in her throat, and her fingers itched with nervous energy she couldn't explain or control. Why was she so jittery? This was just a man. A man she'd heard about her whole life, sure, but still just a man. Flesh and blood.
"Okay… I guess we are practically family," she said, forcing lightness into her tone, trying for casual. She didn't miss the faint twitch in his expression at that word. Probably just now realizing how surreal this all was, finally meeting her. Knowing she existed. That Steve's life had continued, had meant something beyond the fight. "But really, I have to get to work. Thank you again for coming by—"
"What time do you get off?"
The question stopped her cold. Her feet, her thoughts, her breath — everything stilled. She blinked at him, searching his face for context she couldn't find, couldn't parse. He just stood there watching her, expression neutral but not quite, and she noticed the restless twitch of his hands inside his pockets, like he wasn't sure if he should keep them there or reach for something else.
"I'm sorry?"
He chuckled quietly, but there was a strain in it. Nerves, maybe, or uncertainty. One gloved hand came up to rake through his hair before settling at the back of his neck, a gesture that seemed unconscious. "I know we got off on the wrong foot and all—worst possible first impression—but… you're Steve's granddaughter. And I'm just finding out he had a life, a whole family, after everything. I'd like to hear about it. About him. About you. If… if that's okay."
Of course he did. And she understood. She even felt the faint tug of wanting to say yes, to sit down over coffee and talk about her grandfather, to share stories and memories. But this…this was exactly why she kept the Carter last name even after Steve died, even when lawyers suggested changing it might open doors. Why she never plastered his shield on the nonprofit's letterhead or renamed it in his honor, despite pressure from the board. Because the moment people knew who she was, everything she'd built—her work, her identity, her worth—would be filtered through his legacy. Through the man who had been Captain America.
And as much as she wanted to believe Bucky and Sam were good men, and she genuinely did, there was always the risk that they'd never see her. Only him. Only Steve's ghost wearing her face.
And she couldn't stomach the idea of failing them. Of not living up to an impossible ghost, of being a disappointment.
So she put on the polite, neutral smile she reserved for boardroom strangers and pushy donors. The one that looked friendly but left no doors open, no room for negotiation. "I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Barnes, but I won't have any free time tonight. But again, thank you for the apology and for dropping by. I hope the letters were… I hope they gave you and Sam some peace. Some closure."
The change in his expression was immediate and striking. Confusion pulled his brows together sharply, his eyes narrowing slightly, jaw tensing like her smile had shifted something fundamental in him he didn't understand. But she didn't give him a chance to speak, to question, to push.
She pivoted sharply, retreating down the hallway toward her office with more speed than dignity, heels clicking too loud on the tile, refusing to glance over her shoulder even though she could feel his eyes on her back. It felt cowardly, running instead of staying, but if she lingered even a moment longer, she knew she might say something she couldn't take back. Might crack open and spill everything she'd kept carefully locked away.
.
.
.
She figured that was the end of it. She had fulfilled her grandfather's final request, Sam and Bucky had his letters, and now she could quietly slip back into the life she'd built before. The life where she was just herself, not a legacy, not a symbol. Just her.
Except Bucky Barnes apparently didn't know how to take no for an answer.
The next morning, when she arrived at work at her usual ten-past-seven, the sun barely cresting the buildings nearby, she spotted him instantly. He was parked in the exact same spot outside the entrance as yesterday, leaning casually against the weathered brick wall with a carrier tray of coffee in one leather-gloved hand. His eyes found her the moment she stepped onto the sidewalk, tracking her approach with quiet intensity.
A wave of awkwardness hit her so hard she nearly stopped mid-step, her stride faltering. Questions tumbled over each other in her mind like dominoes. What was he doing here? Did he need something else? Was she about to be pulled into some bizarre follow-up errand she hadn't signed up for? She straightened her shoulders, drew in a steadying breath that did nothing to calm her pulse, and approached with as much confidence as she could fake.
"Mr. Barnes," she greeted, nodding politely, ignoring the subtle flicker across his expression at the formality. Something like frustration mixed with resignation. "You're back."
His answering smile was small and tentative, almost nervous in a way that didn't fit the intimidating frame. It caught her completely off guard. Her grandfather had told her countless stories about Bucky Barnes as the smooth-talking charmer who could coax a dance out of any woman with a single grin. The man in front of her, though, seemed nothing like that legend. He was a little fidgety, shifting his weight slightly, a little unsure, like he was carefully considering every word before he spoke.
"I figured you might want some coffee before your day started," he said, gesturing with the tray, voice low and careful. His eyes dropped to it, as if suddenly unsure of the choice, second-guessing himself. "Didn't know what you liked, so… I brought a few different kinds. Covered my bases."
She glanced down at the cups, each neatly labeled in blocky handwriting: latte, mocha, cappuccino, drip coffee. Something warm and unexpected tugged at her chest, unfurling slowly. It was such a simple thing, almost embarrassingly simple, but thoughtful in a way she hadn't expected from a man she'd all but brushed off the day before. From a man who could probably snap her in half without breaking a sweat.
And you were such a jackass to him yesterday, her conscience hissed viciously. He came to apologize and you practically ran away.
She exhaled slowly through her nose, fingers tightening on her purse strap until the leather bit into her palm. Her conscience was right. She'd been defensive, guarded, unfair.
"That's… really kind of you. Really sweet, actually." Her gaze lingered on the cups, then lifted to his—storm-blue and full of quiet sincerity that made her chest ache. "You didn't have to do all that. Go through all that trouble."
A half-smile curved his mouth, uncertain and hopeful at once. His eyes searched her face like he was bracing for her to shut him out again, preparing for rejection he'd clearly decided was worth risking anyway.
"Told you I owed you, didn't I?"
Something in his voice, in the gentle way he said it without expectation or pressure, softened the last bit of hesitation she'd been clinging to like armor. She let her eyes linger on him a beat longer, taking in the tired lines around his eyes, before her lips curved in the faintest, most genuine smile she'd given him yet.
"Well… if you went through all this trouble, it'd be rude not to try them," she said, tilting her head toward the building's entrance. "Come on, we'll sample them together. See which one's the winner. Scientific method and all that."
He blinked, clearly surprised, like he hadn't expected the invitation. He gave a small nod, and the corners of his mouth twitched up again in that almost-smile of his that made him look younger somehow, less terse. More like the photos from before everything went wrong.
Inside, the quiet hum of the early office filled the space, fluorescent lights still warming to full brightness and casting everything in slightly sterile white. She led him down the narrow hall to her small office, tucked away near the back corner. It wasn't much—just a desk perpetually stacked with papers and grant applications, a worn leather chair that had seen better days, and a window that let in the pale morning light and gave her a view of the brick building across the alley—but it felt good enough for her.
She set the carrier of coffees on her cluttered desk and shrugged out of her coat, draping it over her chair. "Alright," she said, reaching for the first cup with both hands, warming her fingers against the heat. "Latte first?"
But before she could hand it to him, his voice cut through the comfortable quiet, low but direct, cutting straight to bone.
"Do you not like me?"
She froze, fingers tightening reflexively on the cup, the warmth suddenly too hot. Her gaze flicked up to his, catching the intensity there. Not harsh or accusatory, but searching. Vulnerable in a way that made her stomach twist.
When she didn't answer right away, couldn't find the words, he went on, voice steady but quieter, more careful. "Or are you afraid of me?"
Her breath caught sharply in her throat, trapped there. Of all the questions she'd expected from him—about Steve, about the letters—that wasn't even on the list. Not even close.
"What?" she said softly, startled more by the raw honesty, the unguarded hurt in the question, than the words themselves.
"You avoided me. Yesterday," he said, eyes holding hers with an intensity that made it impossible to look away. "You seemed like you wanted nothing to do with me. Like I was… I don't know. A problem you needed to solve and move on from."
She blinked, throat tight, then shook her head slowly, deliberately. "No. That's not it. That's not it at all." Setting the latte down carefully, she folded her arms loosely and leaned back against the desk, needing the support. "My grandfather spent half his life telling me stories about you. About the two of you getting into trouble in Brooklyn, getting out of trouble, saving his ass more times than he could count. How you always had his back, even when no one else did." She exhaled, a small, rueful smile tugging at her lips despite the weight in her chest. "I… I grew up hearing your name like it was part of the family. I'd never met you, but somehow knew everything about you. I'm not afraid of you, Bucky. I promise you that."
His gaze stayed fixed on her, steady and unreadable, jaw tight as if he was weighing whether to believe her, whether this was truth or apathetic kindness. She let the silence hang for a moment, gathering her courage, before she spoke again, her voice a touch quieter, more vulnerable than she'd intended.
"It's not that I don't like you," she said, fingers unconsciously tracing the seam of her sleeve, a nervous habit she'd never managed to break. "It's just… this is a lot. Meeting you. Meeting Sam. You've both been these… larger-than-life figures in my head for years, because of Steve. These legends. Heroes. And now here you are, standing in my office, and you're real, and I don't…"
She let out a breath, shaking her head slightly, frustration bleeding into her tone. "I don't want to be treated like some figurehead of Steve's legacy. Like I'm only here, only worth knowing, because I'm connected to him. Like I'm just… an echo of something you lost. That's not fair to either of us."
His brow furrowed slightly, something shifting behind his eyes, but he didn't interrupt. He just listened, patient and still.
"I guess part of me is worried," she admitted, the words spilling out now that she'd started, unable to stop them. "That I'll disappoint you. Or Sam. Or both of you. That you'll realize I'm just… me. Not whatever version of Steve you think I might be, or what pieces of him you hope I inherited." She gave a faint, self-deprecating smile that felt brittle. "And honestly? That's a little terrifying. Knowing I can't possibly live up to him. Knowing I'll always fall short."
Bucky's expression softened in a way she hadn't expected. Something sharp flickered across his features and settled there.
"For the record," he said quietly, voice rough with sincerity, "I'm not looking for a version of Steve in you. Trust me, I've already got enough memories of him rattling around in my head to last three lifetimes." One corner of his mouth twitched upward, sad and fond at once. "I just… want to get to know you. Get to know his granddaughter. The woman who built all this from nothing. That's all I want. Nothing more, nothing less."
The tension in her chest eased a fraction, enough for her shoulders to drop, enough for her to breathe properly. Her throat tightened with unexpected emotion, and she had to blink hard against the sudden sting in her eyes.
"Alright," she murmured, voice barely above a whisper, glancing down at the carrier of coffee to avoid his gaze. "Then let's start with this."
She slid the first cup toward him, the latte, and kept the mocha for herself, wrapping both hands around it like a lifeline. "First impression counts, so be honest."
He took a sip, and his face immediately twisted into a thin line of poorly disguised disgust. "To be honest with you," he deadpanned, setting it down with exaggerated care, "I don't drink anything but black coffee. I have no idea why I just tried that. That was a mistake."
She snorted, nearly choking on her mocha, laughter bubbling up unbidden. "Okay, so that's a hard no for the latte. Take the drip. Back to basics."
She passed him the paper cup, and her fingers brushed his glove as he took it from her—just the briefest contact, fleeting and accidental. Even through the leather material, he felt warm. Like a contained heat source, like stepping barefoot outside in the early afternoon.
His eyes didn't drop from hers, didn't waver, even when he lifted the cup to his lips for a careful sip.
She felt like she was holding her breath until Bucky set down his cup and leaned back slightly against the edge of her desk, studying her with that same steady gaze from before, but now without the guarded edge, the defensive walls. "You own all this? At twenty-four, with no help? Built it from the ground up?"
She let out a short laugh, shaking her head. "I own it, yeah—but I've got people who help me keep it running. A small staff, volunteers, a board that mostly stays out of my way. I might've inherited Steve's stubborn streak and his inability to quit, but this place… it's worth every headache, every late night. It does a lot of good. Or at least, I try to make sure it does. That's the goal, anyway."
His brow furrowed, like he was trying to reconcile the picture in his head. Whatever vague image of Steve's granddaughter he had with the reality of what she'd just said, what she'd actually accomplished. "So you built this on your own? Really? No partners, no investors?"
"Yeah. After my grandfather—" her voice hitched unexpectedly, cracking on the word, and she bit her lip hard, forcing the wave of grief back down, past the too-vivid image of fresh dirt over a grave beside her grandmother's. Beside her mother's. Three headstones in a row. "After Steve died, he left me everything. Every penny. I'm the last one left…the last Carter. So I took just a portion of it and put it to good use. Did something I know he would have wanted, something that felt right.
"He lived as Steve Carter most of his life. Just a normal, everyday American who paid his taxes and mowed his lawn and complained about traffic. But at his heart, he was always a soldier. That never left him. So I figured… I'd give back to other soldiers like him. The ones who came home but didn't really come home."
Bucky stared at her, eyes wide, blinking once, twice, like he was seeing her clearly for the first time. Then, after a slow swallow, visible in the movement of his throat, he gave her a small, genuine smile. His gloved fingers traced the seam of the coffee cup absently. "That's… yeah. He would've loved that. Been so damn proud of you, too. What you've done here…most people your age wouldn't even think about doing something like this. They'd take the money and run. Buy a house, travel the world, live easy."
She arched a brow, a playful glint in her eye. "Kid, huh? I'm wounded, Mr. Barnes. Truly."
"Stop with the 'Mr. Barnes' nonsense," he groaned, a faint scoff escaping him, exasperation clear in his tone. "It's Bucky. Just Bucky. And you're almost ten years younger than me. Actually younger, not technically. You're a kid to me."
She smiled, but something in her chest twisted unexpectedly, sharp and unwelcome. Disappointment? She brushed it off quickly with a wry remark, deflecting. "Add another seventy decades or so to that ten-year gap."
He shot her a withering look, unimpressed and mildly offended, and she couldn’t help but laugh. An unguarded sound escaped her lips, genuinity that surprised even her.
His eyes lit up at it immediately, actually lit up, his whole posture shifting like he was unconsciously leaning closer, drawn in.
"You live in Brooklyn now? Sam mentioned that," he said, voice casual but curious.
So he'd asked Sam about her. That thought landed somewhere she didn't want to examine too closely, didn't want to unpack. "Ten blocks away. Down by—"
"Ten blocks?" he cut in sharply, his brows pulling together in immediate concern. "You… walk here? Alone? Every morning?"
"Yeah, it's not far. Especially in the morning when the streets are—"
"And you walk home alone too? At what time?" His voice had an edge now, protective and frustrated.
Her frown deepened, defensiveness rising. "Depends on the day. Sometimes six… sometimes ten at the latest. Depends on what needs to get done."
Bucky's expression hardened into a full-on frown, jaw tight. "No. No way. Absolutely not. It's not safe for you to be doing that alone in the city, especially not at night."
She stared at him, caught somewhere between surprise and rising annoyance, heat creeping up her neck. "Bucky, I've been fine—"
"What time are you leaving tonight?" he pressed, ignoring her protest entirely.
She hesitated, sensing a trap. "Probably around seven. It depends on—"
"Okay," he said firmly, leaning forward, voice brooking no argument. "Take down my number. When you're done for the day, call me. I'll come pick you up and walk you home. Non-negotiable."
She blinked at him, his words hanging between them like some kind of decree she'd never agreed to, never asked for. "Uh… no. Absolutely not. Not happening."
His brow ticked upward, genuinely confused. "Why not?"
"Because I don't need a babysitter," she said, setting her coffee down with a little more force than necessary, the sound sharp in the quiet office. "No offense to you personally. But I've been walking that route for years, Bucky. I know every corner, every streetlight, every bodega owner, every guy selling knockoff handbags on the corner. I'm fine. I've always been fine."
He leaned back carefully, not in surrender but in that patient, infuriating way people do when they're about to dig their heels in and refuse to budge. "Doesn't matter how well you know the streets. Bad things don't send you a warning text before they happen. They don't check to see if you care."
She crossed her arms defensively. "What, you're suddenly my bodyguard now? My personal security detail?"
"No, you're a defenseless, attractive, young woman walking alone in one of the most dangerous cities in the country at night," he said bluntly, unapologetically, meeting her glare head-on. She forced herself not to linger on the fact that he called her attractive. "No offense meant by that, but it's a fact. And before you argue, because I can see you gearing up for it, I'm not doing this because I think you're helpless or incapable. I'm doing it because Steve would haunt me for the rest of my life if I let something happen to you when I could've prevented it.."
Her lips parted, but nothing came out right away. He said it so simply, so matter-of-factly, like it was just… objective truth. No drama, no condescension, no macho posturing. And that made it so much harder to push back, to argue.
And as much as she hated admitting it, even silently to herself, he was right. Her grandfather would be biting her head off if he knew she walked alone at night. If he knew she was entirely alone in general, no family, no real support system. He would probably be thanking Bucky profusely for this act of service, buying him drinks, clapping him on the back.
"I'm not calling you," she said finally, though the words lacked the bite she'd intended, coming out more resigned than defiant.
Bucky just smirked faintly, infuriatingly confident, like she'd already lost and they both knew it. "We'll see about that."
.
.
.
She didn't call him. Or text, though she wasn't even sure if he knew how to text on the archaic-looking flip phone he'd pulled out earlier like it was perfectly normal in 2025. She'd survived twenty-four years without a man coddling her, hovering over her like she was made of glass; she definitely didn't need her grandfather's century-old friend shadowing her every move like some overprotective watchdog.
And yet, somehow, it didn't surprise her in the slightest that when she flipped off the office lights at five minutes past eight and went to lock the front doors, key in hand and exhaustion settling into her bones, Bucky Barnes was right there. Leaning casually against the brick wall like he'd been part of the architecture all along, like he'd grown roots.
He gave her a look straight out of a disapproving parent's playbook, the kind reserved for a teenager who'd ignored curfew. She couldn’t help it — she bristled and shot her own challenging glare back at him.
"You didn't call," he said plainly, voice flat, one brow arched over a face that belonged on a Greek sculpture. Not that she'd ever tell him that. His ego didn't need the help.
She didn't bother hiding her sigh, shooting him a deadpan stare. "Told you I wasn't going to. How long have you been out here?"
"Three hours," he replied without a hint of shame or exaggeration, as if he'd been waiting three minutes instead of sitting in the cold Brooklyn evening for half her shift. "You need help with your bags?"
"Three… hours?" She gaped at him, her irritation temporarily short-circuited by sheer disbelief. "Why didn't you just come inside? We have chairs. Heat. Coffee that's only moderately terrible."
He shrugged, his expression flat but his tone casual, as though camping outside her workplace was nothing out of the ordinary, just a normal Thursday activity. "You were busy. Didn't want to bother you or get in the way. Now, hand me one of your bags, kid."
"I'm not going to give you my—"
With inhuman smoothness, faster than she could track, he plucked the heavier bag off her shoulder the instant she turned, holding it in his left hand, his metal hand, like it weighed absolutely nothing. Less than nothing. She froze, staring at him in disbelief and growing frustration.
"HYDRA serum," he said dryly, raising his brows with mock innocence. "In case you forgot. Super strength and all that fun stuff."
"I know about the—" She exhaled sharply through her nose, muttering a creative curse under her breath that would've made a sailor blush. "Fine. Whatever. Let's just go. We can keep bickering on the way; maybe it'll save me some of my night. I have laundry to do."
She took off at a brisk pace, determined to make the walk home as short as humanly possible, but his strides were longer, effortlessly longer. Within seconds, he was half a step ahead, matching her pace without even trying.
"Wanna tell me why you didn't call?" he asked, his tone threaded with quiet amusement, like this was entertaining to him.
She kept her eyes forward, jaw set. "We went over this already. I told you I wasn't going to. I don't need a bodyguard. I'm a grown woman."
"And I told you I didn't care what you thought you needed," he shot back easily, unbothered. She could feel his gaze flick toward her, deliberate and assessing. "Steve would've—"
"I swear to God," she cut in, glaring at him from the corner of her eye, heat rising in her cheeks, "if you mention doing something for me because of my grandfather one more time, I'm going to start running. Full sprint. See how you like chasing me down the street."
Bucky went silent, his boots slowing just a fraction on the pavement. She didn't look at him, stubbornness winning out, but she could almost feel him processing her threat.
"I'd catch you in maybe four seconds flat," he said after a beat, voice low and matter-of-fact. "Five, if you wanted a head start. Your call."
"Oh my God," she drawled, finally stopping in her tracks, spinning to face him. He halted too, looming over her, his chin dipping as he looked down. She realized, belatedly and with growing awareness, how close they were. Less than a foot of space separated them and she was close enough to feel the heat radiating off him. He was absurdly tall compared to her. Even in heels, the top of her head barely reached his sternum. The sheer size of him, the solid presence, was… obvious. Undeniable. Dangerous in ways that had nothing to do with violence.
She forced herself to blink those treacherous thoughts away and shook her head. "I don't need you doing things for me out of obligation to your best friend's memory. I lived every single day up until two days ago without knowing you existed outside of stories, and you did the same. So, please, stop doing things because you feel guilty. Because you feel bad for me. Or for my grandfather. I'm not a charity case."
For a long moment, he just studied her, his expression unreadable in the dim orange glow of the streetlight above them. Then his jaw shifted slightly, tension releasing.
"I know," Bucky cut in, calm but firm. He leaned forward slightly, closing the already-small distance, his eyes boring into hers with an intensity that stole her breath. "That's not why I'm offering."
She tilted her head, uncertain, searching his expression for the catch, the angle she was missing.
"I know what it's like to build something from nothing," he said after a moment, voice low and even, weighted with experience. "To be underestimated constantly, to have people look at you and think they've already figured you out, already decided what you're worth. And sometimes… having someone in your corner, someone who sees you, can make the difference between working out and burning out. Between making it and breaking."
His eyes held hers, steady and without pity, without condescension. Just truth. "Steve was that for me, more than once. In more ways than I can count. Guess I'm just trying to return the favor in my own way, pay it forward. And yeah, selfishly, you're his blood and flesh. His legacy walking around. He was my brother. That makes you a priority to me whether you like it or not."
The tightness in her chest eased, though she wasn't sure what to do with the warmth settling in its place, spreading through her ribs.
"Okay. I get it," she breathed, letting her gaze trace over his face—the shadows smudged under his eyes like bruises, the stubble along his jaw from a day or two without shaving, the small scar cutting through his eyebrow. This close, she caught the faint bite of mint toothpaste on his breath, the lingering trace of cologne in his clothes. Something sharp and musky, masculine, expensive.
She could see why women had flocked to him almost a century ago, why they still would now if he let them; he was all rugged charm and effortless masculinity wrapped in danger. But beneath it, in the depths of his eyes, in the measured, careful way he spoke…there was still that edge of darkness. The shadow of too many lifetimes carried alone, too much blood, too many ghosts.
She wondered, not for the first time, what it would have been like to meet him before the fall from the train. Before HYDRA. Before the Winter Soldier. When he'd been her age, still untouched by the weight of what was coming. The man her grandfather had grown up with.
And then it clicked. An idea forming fully-realized in her mind.
"I have a deal for you… Sergeant Barnes." She tested the title on her tongue deliberately, catching the way something flickered in his eyes at the sound. "I'll let you walk me home every day from work… if you come to some of the group sessions we do with veterans."
His expression shifted immediately, surprise flashing across his face, eyes widening slightly. He blinked down at her, mouth slightly open. "Group… sessions? Like group therapy? You want me to talk about my feelings?"
"No, not like that. Not therapy." She shook her head quickly. "In the evenings, a few times a week, we host a group where military veterans can come in and just… talk. Share experiences if they want. Listen if they don't. It's more helpful than you'd think. No pressure, no judgment. I think you might actually like it. Or at least not hate it."
Bucky dragged a hand down his face, his eyes still fixed on her, looking torn. He sighed heavily. "I don't need any friends, kid—"
"It's not about making friends," she cut in, her confidence building as she warmed to the idea. "Though, from what Sam said about your social life, or complete lack thereof, you could probably use some human interaction that doesn't involve punching things. It's about connecting with people who understand. Just talking. Seeing you're not—"
"Anyone in there brainwashed by Nazis, fitted with a vibranium arm, and trained to kill mindlessly for seventy years?" he interrupted, dry sarcasm dripping from his voice. His eyes were dark despite the humor laced into his words.
She leveled him with an unimpressed look. He smirked despite himself.
"Don't be a smartass," she said, shaking her head but fighting a smile. "You know what I mean. Just try one session. One. If you hate it, you never have to go back. I'll never ask again."
He studied her in silence, his gaze unreadable, intense. She waited, heart thudding, resisting the urge to fidget under his scrutiny or backpedal.
Finally, he let out a slow breath and shook his head, but a small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Reluctant, fond. "You really are Steve's blood, aren't you, sweetheart?"
The heat rushed to her cheeks at the nickname before she could stop it, unbidden and obvious. She wanted to kick herself. "So… deal?"
"You gonna let me walk you in the mornings too?"
She bit her lip in thought, considering. "Two group sessions a week then."
He rolled his eyes, muttering something under his breath that sounded like a curse. "One to start."
"And next week, you move to two."
He narrowed his eyes, still unreadable, weighing it. "Fine. But you have to actually use that phone I'm going to give you my number for and call me when you're done. Every time."
She grinned in victory, genuine and bright, offering him an outstretched hand. "You have yourself a deal there, Sergeant."
Bucky shook his head in exaggerated annoyance, but the light in his eyes spoke volumes. Warmth, amusement, something softer she couldn't quite name. He took her hand, his grip firm and warm even through the glove, and shook once. "Just make sure you actually use the damn phone. I mean it."
.
.
.
She used the phone.
The next morning, he was outside her building at 6:30 A.M. sharp, two coffees in hand—one black, one a mocha. She called him thirty minutes before she planned on leaving work that night, and there he was again, waiting outside the center patiently as she locked the doors.
And surprisingly, miraculously, it was never awkward. He didn't talk much, content with silence in a way most people weren't, but she had enough to say for the both of them. Conversation came easier than she expected, flowing naturally. Beneath his gruff edges—socially awkward, a little withdrawn, occasionally grumpy in that old-man way—she caught glimpses of the man her grandfather had described in those late-night stories. Sarcastic with a bite that made her laugh. Charming in unexpected moments. Blunt to the point of brutal honesty. Unlike any of the boys her age she'd met through dating apps or fleeting college flings that never went anywhere.
And, albeit begrudgingly at first, she started noticing him at some of the group sessions. She never intruded, respected his privacy too much for that, but she'd steal a glance or two from the hallway window when she passed by. Without fail, he was there every Tuesday and Thursday at 5 P.M., sitting in the circle with the other veterans, listening more than talking. When she finally worked up the courage to ask him about them, he'd just shrug and mutter, "Went well today," like he didn't want to make a big deal of it.
Curiosity got the better of her eventually. She asked Shaun, an Army veteran in his forties who ran the sessions with practiced ease, how Bucky was doing. If he seemed like he hated being there, if he was just going through the motions to keep his end of their deal. Though she kept that last part to herself.
"He's quiet, kinda standoffish at first," Shaun said, leaning against his desk with his arms crossed. "But he participates every single time now. Doesn't give much detail on his past…not that anyone here doesn't know who he is, but he's trying. Really trying, in the best way he knows how. Seems like he's improving, opening up more. I think it's helping him."
She took it as a small victory, a private one. Maybe it was helping him process things, work through decades of trauma in small, manageable pieces. She hoped it was. Her grandfather would have wanted that for him more than anything.
And over time, the calls to him stopped feeling like a responsibility or an obligation, and started feeling like a reward. Something she looked forward to.
She began counting down to Mondays, to seeing him after the weekend stretched too long. To the walks between her apartment and the bookstore on the corner, where she'd tell him stories about Steve and her childhood—the embarrassing ones, the sweet ones, the ones that made her voice crack. She'd listen to him laugh over old Howling Commandos memories that sounded impossible and watch his expression shift into something more serious when she asked careful questions about his own past.
It worked, somehow. Their friendship. That's what she decided to call it, for lack of a better term. The unknown granddaughter of Captain America and the century-old, vibranium-armed former assassin who'd killed more people than almost anyone in modern history. She could only imagine the headlines if the public ever found out about her, the think pieces and hot takes.
Two weeks after their first walk, Sam called her to ask if he could join the sessions too. Said Bucky had brought it up over beers, asked him to come along. She was stunned, not just that the new Captain America wanted anything to do with her little nonprofit, but that Bucky, who rolled his eyes dramatically every time Sam's name came up despite their obvious friendship, had actually invited him. Asked for him. Of course, she said yes immediately.
And just like that, two very famous Avengers were suddenly fixtures at the evening group sessions. It took less than twelve hours after the first social media post of them walking into the building together, Sam with his arm slung around Bucky's shoulders despite his scowl, for the media to swarm her doors the next morning, demanding interviews, quotes, photo ops. Then came the flood of donations, overwhelming the nonprofit’s ancient website. The waitlist for sessions that now stretched months long. The scramble to hire more staff, find more space, expand faster than she'd ever planned. All within weeks.
She wasn't an idiot, she knew exactly what the two of them were doing. So after poring over the numbers on a Saturday night, scrolling through thousands of tags on social media until her eyes burned, and seeing her name splashed across local news headlines for "making a difference in the military community", she picked up the phone and called Bucky for the first time without it being a thirty-second "I'm leaving now" or "I'm at work" update.
The line rang just once before he picked up, like he'd been holding the phone.
"What's wrong?" he asked immediately, voice low and gruff through the speaker, threaded with concern. No hello, no small talk. Just that deep, even voice of his cutting straight to what mattered.
"Nothing's wrong," she said, tucking her legs up under her on the couch, pulling a blanket over her lap. "But I think we need to talk."
There was a pause, deliberate and weighted. She could almost hear him leaning back in whatever chair he was sitting in, crossing his arms in that skeptical way he did when he knew he'd been caught at something and was deciding whether to admit it.
"Must be important if you're calling me on the weekend, kid. What about?"
She hesitated, suddenly aware of how small her apartment felt, how the silence pressed in around her. How quiet the night was. "About… whatever game you and Sam are playing. Bringing him to the sessions, showing up together, making sure every camera in Brooklyn catches you walking through my doors."
"We didn't make a scene," Bucky said flatly, defensive.
"You knew what would happen," she pressed, her voice sharper now, frustration bleeding through. "Two superheroes walking into a group session for veterans? It's a media circus, and now I'm being turned into this—" She cut herself off abruptly, the word sticking uncomfortably in her throat.
"This what?"
She exhaled hard through her nose. "This symbol. This figurehead for the community. Steve's legacy personified. And I don't want that, Bucky. I don't want to be put on a pedestal I didn't ask for. I don't want to disappoint you, or Sam, when I inevitably fall short. And honestly? The whole thing is… it's terrifying."
Silence hummed between them for a long moment, heavy but not hostile. She could hear him breathing, thinking.
When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter, gentler. "That's not why I did it."
She waited, heart thudding.
"I didn't do it for Steve," he went on, words careful and measured. "Or for Sam. Or for some press stunt to boost my image or whatever the hell people think I care about. I did it for you."
Her pulse skipped, stumbled. "For me?"
"You're out here busting your ass every day for people who need it," he said, voice rough with conviction. "No cameras when you started, no paycheck worth the hours you put in, no orders from someone higher up telling you to care. Just you, doing good because you actually give a damn. Because you want to make a difference."
He let that hang in the air for a moment, let it settle. "You deserve someone in your corner. And if I can make sure you get a little more support—funding, visibility, resources, whatever you need—then I'm gonna do it. Not because Steve would've wanted it. Not because Sam thinks it's a good idea. Because I want to."
She swallowed hard, suddenly unsure where to look in her own empty apartment, throat tight with emotion she didn't know how to name. "You… want to help me."
"Yeah," he said simply, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I want to help you. Because you deserve it. You're one of the good ones, and that's rare these days. People doing good just for the sake of it, without expecting anything back. And if anyone's gonna be the one backing you up, supporting what you're building, I want it to be me."
Her heart clenched painfully. Something washed over her, a feeling she only used to get when her grandparents smiled at her with pure pride, when her mom ran her hands through her hair and told her she was loved. Her mouth went dry, words failing her completely.
I want it to be me.
"You still there?"
Bucky's voice brought her back, anchored her. She cleared her throat, biting down on her thumb. "Yeah… sorry. I—"
She stopped. How could she even thank him properly? What words could possibly match his actions, his belief in her?
"Do you want to come over?"
The line went silent for what felt like the longest five seconds of her life. She heard nothing from his end. Not even an inhale or exhale, no rustle of movement.
So she waited, perched on the edge of her seat, wondering why the hell she'd spoken without thinking, why she couldn't just leave well enough alone.
Then, finally, he spoke. His voice was soft.
"I'll be there in ten minutes."
Exactly ten minutes later, her heart hammering wildly in her chest like it was trying to escape, there was a knock on her door. Three precise raps.
She opened it to find Bucky standing in her hallway, still in his jacket and jeans from wherever he'd been. Probably home, probably alone.
His hair was slightly mussed, like he'd run his hands through it repeatedly on the way over, and there was something in his eyes she couldn't quite read. For a moment, they just looked at each other — her in her oversized sweater and leggings, bare feet on cold tile, him with his hands shoved deep in his pockets like he didn't know what else to do with them.
"Hey," she said softly, voice barely above a whisper.
"Hey," he replied, staring at her intently, the corners of his mouth turning upwards in that almost-smile she'd come to recognize.
She stepped back to let him in, and he moved past her into the small space, his presence somehow making her already-tiny apartment feel even smaller, more intimate.
He stepped inside, leather gloves covering his hands like armor. She realized, not for the first time, that she'd yet to see his metal arm uncovered. Wondered if he ever took the gloves off, even alone.
Bucky's gaze swept the room with quiet precision, taking everything in with the practiced eye of someone trained to assess threats and exits. Her apartment was simple, almost sparse—not much in the way of trendy décor or expensive furniture, but filled with personal touches that made it hers: framed photographs on every surface, a worn bookshelf stuffed with dog-eared paperbacks, little pieces of a life she was trying to piece together.
He stopped in front of a picture hanging beside the bedroom door—her younger self, maybe eight or nine, standing between her grandparents in front of a lake—and a faint, almost wistful smile ghosted across his face when his eyes landed on the older man beside her. Steve, silver-haired and content, his arm around Peggy's waist.
"He looked happy," Bucky said quietly.
"I think he was." She stepped closer, her own eyes settling on the familiar image, memorized down to every crease. "Always had a smile on his face, even at the end. But… he missed you. Talked about you all his life. Wondered how you were, if you were okay."
Something shifted in Bucky's expression. A flicker of sadness edged with something darker, more complicated. Guilt, maybe. Resentment.
She knew he'd told Steve to go back, to live his life, but she could imagine the bitterness that might still linger beneath the acceptance. Being left behind wasn't something you just… got over. Not really.
And then, like he'd physically closed a door on the thought, it was gone. His gaze returned to her, steady and searching, intense.
"You ok?"
"Yeah." Her mouth went dry, tongue thick. It hit her, abruptly and uncomfortably, that she had no idea what she'd meant to say once he got here. She hadn't even put any thought into what would happen next, what came after "come over." All she knew was that she had wanted to see him. Needed to, maybe.
Her mind scrambled desperately for something—anything—and before she could stop herself, before common sense could intervene, she blurted out, "Do you… want to grab dinner?"
The moment the words were out, she winced inwardly. It was nearly ten at night, and she sounded like she'd just asked him out on a real date. Like a teenager with a crush.
Bucky didn't seem to mind. In fact, a small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, genuine and warm, one that made him look younger for just a moment. Like the boy in her grandfather's stories again. "Yeah," he said easily, without hesitation. "I know a place."
By half past ten, they were standing in the warm, fluorescent glow of a corner bodega a few blocks away. The place smelled faintly of fresh bread and oregano, the quiet hum of the refrigerator cases filling the comfortable space.
The man behind the counter, a kindly older gentleman with a heavy Italian accent and hooded eyes, smiled warmly as he wrapped their sandwiches in white paper. His eyes crinkled as he glanced between them. "You make a lovely couple."
She froze mid-reach for her wallet, heat crawling instantly up her neck and flooding her cheeks. "Oh— we…we aren't dating," she stammered, her voice higher than usual, too quick. She kept her gaze firmly on the floor tiles, the scuffed linoleum, refusing to risk looking at Bucky's face and seeing his reaction.
"Nonsense," the man tutted with the absolute certainty of someone who thought they knew better. He tapped a finger knowingly on the register as he rang them up. "He looks at you like you have hung the moon, my dear. Like you are light."
Her heart did an uncomfortable flip, lurching sideways in her chest, and she swallowed hard, still not daring a glance in Bucky's direction. The silence that followed was heavy.
She finally risked a sideways look. Bucky's mouth was twitching, not quite a smile or a smirk, his gaze fixed on her with that same unreadable intensity that made it impossible to tell if he was amused or annoyed. He didn't respond to the man’s comment, didn't deny it or laugh it off. Instead, his hand closed over the wallet in her grasp, warm and firm even through the glove, pushing it gently but decisively back down toward her purse.
"I'm buying," he said, voice low and final, brooking no argument.
She opened her mouth to protest—she'd invited him, after all—but he cut the attempt short with a single look. Sharp, steady, and impossible to argue with. Without breaking eye contact, he pulled a couple of bills from his own wallet and handed them to the man behind the counter.
She bit the inside of her cheek hard and didn't speak again until they were outside, seated at a plastic table far too small for a man Bucky's size, his knees bumping the underside. The night air was cool against her flushed cheeks, and she busied herself with unwrapping her sandwich with more concentration than necessary before finally breaking the silence.
"If that guy knew you were over a century old," she said, her tone attempting casual but leaning a little too much on the sarcastic edge, deflecting, "I doubt he'd stand by his statement."
Bucky's brow furrowed slightly beneath the shadow of his cap as he looked at her, genuinely confused. "Which statement?"
She gave him a look of disbelief, surprised he was making her say it. "That we're dating, Buck."
His eyes lingered on her for a beat too long, something flickering in their depths, before he turned his attention back to peeling the wrapper from his sandwich. "Some people might be into that sort of thing in this era. Age gaps aren't as scandalous as they used to be."
She rolled her eyes, taking a bite to avoid responding immediately. "Feel like that was more of a thing in your era, grandpa. Wasn't it normal to marry sixteen-year-olds back then?"
"I was born in the 1910’s, not the Dark Ages, sweetheart," he said dryly, a hint of offense in his tone.
God, she hated when he called her that. Mostly because she couldn't stop the blush that crept up her neck every single time and the way her stomach flipped traitorously.
And now she was flustered. Because here he was, without question the most gorgeous man she had ever seen in her life —- sitting across from her at a plastic table outside a bodega, those startling blue eyes fixed on her like she was the only person in the world, like she mattered. Her. A girl a decade younger than him physically, whose only real claim to fame if she had one was her famous grandfather. And him—one of the world's most celebrated heroes despite a bloody, chaotic past that would haunt anyone else forever—a man with a vibranium arm who had endured more than anyone should, who'd been unmade and remade, and who had seen far too little of life's beauty and far too much of its cruelty.
So naturally, because she was apparently a glutton for punishment and had no sense of self-preservation, she decided to poke the bear.
"Have you been…you know, dating?"
Bucky stopped chewing instantly. His gaze snapped to her like she'd just asked him to commit a felony.
"Have I been… dating?" he repeated slowly, carefully, tasting each word like he wasn't sure if they belonged together in that order.
She felt like an idiot now. But there was no going back, no taking it back. Tapping her leg nervously under the table, she kept her voice as casual as she could manage. "Like, going on dates with women. Dinner, maybe a movie…or, you know, 'courting' or whatever—"
"Sweetheart, I know what dating is," Bucky said flatly, cutting her off. "And no. Not really. Went on one date a bit back, before the whole Flag Smashers mess with Sam. Didn't go very well. My fault, mostly."
"Oh," she mumbled, tearing at a piece of lettuce in her sandwich, suddenly finding it fascinating. "Well… maybe you should reach out again? Give her another shot. Second chances and all that."
Bucky's gaze stayed locked on her for a long, heavy moment that stretched unbearably. "I don't need to do that. I've met you."
It was like her brain short-circuited, all coherent thought evaporating. If there was a term for feeling like you were both on fire and drowning at the same time, suspended in impossible contradiction, she would have used it.
She nearly choked on her bite of sandwich but forced a small laugh, trying desperately to look relaxed instead of completely undone. "We aren't dating, Buck. I don't see how I factor into your love life."
Bucky tilted his head, studying her like she was the most interesting puzzle he had ever encountered, like he was trying to figure her out. "We aren't dating," he agreed, voice low, "but I'd rather focus my time on you."
She didn't trust herself to answer that directly, didn't dare ask him what he meant by that, so she went with the conversational equivalent of stepping sideways to avoid a collision. "So… how are you sleeping lately?"
Something flickered in his eyes at the abrupt transition—amusement, maybe—but he didn't comment on it, didn't call her out.
His shoulders shifted in the kind of shrug that said don't expect too much honesty, but his eyes gave him away. "Still hard to get through the night most nights," he admitted quietly. "Wake up more than I stay asleep. But… I like the group sessions. They help. More than I thought they would. More than I wanted them to."
"That's good," she said softly, leaning forward on her elbows, genuinely pleased. "Really good. I'm glad."
For a moment, they just sat there, the hum of the city filling in the silence between them. Distant sirens, someone's laughter, the rattle of a passing subway. Then she ventured, carefully, "What about the letters? Did you… read all of them?"
Bucky's mouth twitched. This time, a faint, genuine smile reached his eyes. "Yeah. I read 'em all. Every single one, multiple times. They helped a lot, more than I can explain. Gave me something I didn't think I'd ever get back."
"What's that?"
"Peace."
Her chest tightened painfully, and before she could stop herself, before she could think better of it, the words slipped out. "I still feel terrible he left you behind."
But Bucky just shook his head, calm and sure, no hesitation. "I don't. Not anymore." His gaze met hers, steady and warm in a way that made her stomach flip dangerously. "If he hadn't gone back, if he'd stayed, I would've never met you."
Something warm and overwhelming flared in her chest at his words.
Something she couldn't quite name through the haze of nerves and want and confusion.
She smiled at him, sweet and unguarded. Because she wanted to, because she couldn't help it. The rest of her sandwich sat forgotten on the wrapper, growing cold.
She didn't even have to ask him to walk her home. He did it like it was instinct, like there was never any question. When the night air made her shiver, goosebumps rising on her arms, he shrugged off his jacket without a word and draped it over her shoulders before she could protest.
She caught the faint trace of his cologne as she pulled it closer, wrapping herself in it. The same earthy musk and something sharper, the kind of scent that was undeniably, uniquely him. The sleeves hung loose and long, like she was a kid drowning in her father's coat.
Even in just his thermal shirt, the bulk of his arms was obvious. Corded muscle shifted beneath the fabric with every movement, powerful and controlled. Her gaze drifted to his gloves as they neared her building, the unsaid thought forming and reforming in her mind.
She toyed with it, weighing the right words, the right approach.
It wasn't until they reached her floor, standing in the too-bright hallway outside her door, that she finally blurted it out.
"You don't need to wear the gloves around me, you know."
Bucky froze mid-step, his whole body going still. He glanced at her sharply, surprise clear on his face. She met his eyes head-on, determined to read whatever emotion flickered across his usually carefully impassive face.
First came surprise, raw and unfiltered. Then the tight pull of anxiety. The flicker of fear. She watched his shoulders tense, his breathing pick up noticeably.
He didn't speak right away. Just blinked at her, clearly at a loss for words, for what to do with what she'd said. So she filled the silence herself, pushed through the tension.
"I know you wear them in public in general," she said softly, keeping her voice gentle. "And I know it's not about me specifically. But you don't need to hide yourself from the world. They don't get to decide who you are, or what you've been through, or what you're worth. And if that's too big of a step, if that feels impossible… maybe you could just start by taking them off when you're with me."
Still, he said nothing. Just looked at her with those piercing eyes, a quiet storm raging behind the blue. Like he was bracing for her to laugh, or take it back, or reveal it was some kind of cruel test. And in that moment, she saw what her grandfather must have seen all those years ago when the Winter Soldier's mask was first ripped away.
Fear of himself. The shame, the certainty that he was something monstrous.
She did what she would have wanted someone to do for her. What felt right. She reached for his hand.
She heard his sharp inhale, felt it in the air between them, before she felt the tension in his body when her fingers wrapped gently around his left hand. The vibranium one. A faint tremor ran through him, and she wasn't sure if her own hands looked steadier than they felt, betraying her nerves. But he didn't pull away. He just stood there, breathing slow and heavy, measured, as she held on.
Carefully—watching him closely, waiting for any sign of retreat or panic—she began to peel the glove from his hand.
He didn't stop her.
The glove slipped free and fell between them, forgotten the moment it hit the floor. She took in the arm she had only seen in news footage and grainy photographs, but up close it was something else entirely. Sleek and intricate, Wakandan black threaded with veins of gold that caught the light, like molten sunlight trapped in metal. The faint hum of hidden mechanics vibrated against her palm, each twitch of his fingers carrying an understated strength that felt both dangerous and impossibly, yet carefully gentle.
"It's beautiful," she murmured, tracing the lines with her eyes before looking up, wanting to see him in this moment.
His jaw was tight, clenched hard, like he didn't know what to do with her words, how to process them. He didn't look away — just kept his gaze locked on hers, as if he was afraid to blink and she would disappear.
When her fingers slid between his, lacing together, he let out a slow, almost imperceptible breath that sounded like relief. The plates under her touch shifted minutely as his grip tightened, careful but sure, like he was testing just how much pressure she could take, how much of himself he could give.
"Can you feel things with it?" she asked quietly, curiosity genuine.
He hesitated, his brow knitting before he answered. "I can tell when something's hard or soft. Textures. I can sense pressure when something's there. But it's… not the same as my actual hand. Not even close. It's muted."
She gave his fingers a deliberate squeeze, firm and real. "Different doesn't mean worse. And I'm not afraid of it, Bucky. I'm not afraid of you."
His eyes softened, the faintest flicker of something—gratitude, relief—crossing his face. The way he was looking at her sent shivers cascading down her spine, made her breath catch.
And for a moment, maybe longer than a moment, she forgot who he was. His connection to her grandfather, his age, his past, the bodies, the blood. For now, he was just a man standing outside her door, holding her hand like it was something precious and fragile.
He stepped closer, blue eyes darkening until they were nearly black in the dim hallway light. She could taste his breath, mint and coffee, feel the faint heat radiating from him like a furnace. His gaze traced over her face with aching slowness, lingering—her hand in his, her lips, the curve of her jaw—before returning to her eyes.
Her pulse thundered in her neck, loud and insistent in her ears. If he just tilted his head, just leaned one more inch forward, his mouth would be on hers.
And she realized, his metal hand like fire against her skin, that she wanted that. She wanted him to kiss her.
Down the hall, a door opened suddenly. The sharp sound sliced through the silence like a knife.
And the moment shattered.
Bucky blinked, like he'd been jarred from a trance, pulled back from somewhere far away. He cleared his throat roughly, stepping back, putting distance between them. The magnetic pull between them snapped.
Much to her abrupt disappointment, he let go of her hand. Slowly. As if he hadn't even realized he'd been holding it.
"I… should go. It's late," he said, his voice pitched rough. It sounded like he was talking more to himself than to her. "I had a good night. With you. A really good time."
The words were warm, sincere, but they didn't stop the disappointment from settling heavy and cold in her chest. She dropped her gaze to her feet, not trusting her expression, not wanting him to see. She didn't want him to see the truth written plainly in her eyes.
That she hadn't wanted the night to end there. That she wanted more.
He stepped back another pace, boots scuffing the worn hallway floor, but didn't turn right away. Instead, his eyes flicked over her face like he was memorizing it, committing every detail to memory. Then he moved toward the stairwell door, his movements reluctant.
His hand was already on the knob when he stopped. He didn't look at her at first, just let out a slow breath that she felt more than heard.
"I don’t… wear the gloves because of what people think," he said finally, voice quiet but steady.
His gaze found hers again, and there was something raw there. Vulnerable. "I wore them around you because I didn't want to scare you."
Her chest tightened, ached.
"You wouldn't," she murmured, the words instinctive and true.
For a moment, neither of them moved. Then he gave a small nod, like he'd been hoping to hear that.
"Goodnight, sweetheart," he said softly, and this time he left without looking back.
Her mind was a mess the whole night. She turned over every moment of their interaction, every word said and unsaid, every look, every touch. Sleep was impossible.
He looks at you like you have hung the moon, my dear.
I doubt he'd stand by his statement.
Which statement?
.
.
.
When Sam called her the week after, inviting her for a night out with the group, she initially wanted to politely decline. Because she knew Bucky was part of "the group," and while everything had been perfectly normal between them since that night together—surface-level normal, anyway—she still couldn't shake the nerves she'd developed around him, the hyperawareness that made her pulse jump whenever he was near.
He'd picked her up for work on Monday glove-free, and while she'd noticed it immediately—it was impossible not to—she didn't mention it. And he didn't mention anything about the moment they'd shared outside her door, the hand-holding, the almost-kiss that still played on repeat in her mind at night. Just resumed business as usual. He continued to walk her to and from work with easy silence, picked up coffee without being asked, and sat in on the group sessions.
So she didn't bring it up either. As much as she wanted to. As much as the words sat heavy on her tongue every time they were alone.
But was there even anything to bring up? All they'd done was hold hands for a moment, really. Something she'd done in middle school during lunch period with her first boyfriend. And here she was, a grown adult, holding hands again and thinking it meant something. Obsessing over it like a teenager.
She couldn't say no to Sam, though, despite her reservations and the anxiety coiling in her stomach at the implications. So she confirmed that she would be there, at the dive bar he'd named with infectious excitement.
The place was tucked into the corner of a block that hadn't seen a fresh coat of paint in years, maybe decades. The wooden sign out front hung crooked on its rusted chain, its neon beer logo flickering in and out like it was barely clinging to life. Inside, the air smelled faintly of old wood, spilled whiskey, and decades of cigarette smoke that had seeped into every surface. A jukebox in the corner warbled a classic rock song, something by Springsteen, over the low hum of conversation and clinking glasses.
She could see why Sam and Bucky would like the place. Typical guy bar.
She spotted them right away. Sam leaning back in a worn leather booth near the wall, next to a young man about her age she didn't recognize, grinning broadly as soon as he saw her. Bucky sat opposite him, shoulders relaxed but posture alert. His head turned when Sam's gaze shifted toward her, and a small smile tugged at his lips. It was so subtle most people would miss it, but she'd learned to read the minute movement in his cheeks, the softening around his eyes.
"Hey, you made it!" Sam called over the noise, waving her over.
Bucky's reaction was quieter, more contained. His eyes tracked her as she wove through the crowd, his expression neutral despite the whisper of a smile on his lips in that way she was starting to recognize as deliberate control. When she reached the booth, Sam gestured enthusiastically at the spot next to Bucky.
The space next to him was open, waiting. Her heart beat a hair faster as she slid in, hyper-conscious of every movement.
"Long time no see, kiddo," Sam teased, nudging her shoulder once she settled.
She sighed dramatically, shaking her head in mock displeasure. "What is it with everyone calling me 'kid'? I'm a functioning adult with a nonprofit."
Bucky said nothing, but she could feel the awareness of him beside her. The heat of his body, the way you feel fire without looking at it, the magnetic pull. She deliberately kept her thigh from brushing his, maintaining a careful inch of space.
"That's 'cause you are one," Sam noted with a knowing grin, eyes twinkling with mischief. "Both of you, actually."
He gestured at the young man sitting across from them—Hispanic, military-sharp haircut, fit build, and grinning like a kid meeting his heroes for the first time. "This is Joaquin Torres. Joaquin, meet—"
"Oh, c'mon man! I know who she is," Joaquin beamed, practically vibrating with excitement as he leaned across to shake her hand enthusiastically. "Pleasure to meet you, ma'am. Sam and Bucky have talked a lot about you."
Bucky grumbled something under his breath that she couldn't quite catch, but it sounded distinctly like a warning.
"Nice to meet you, Joaquin. Are you… the new Falcon?" she asked, genuinely curious.
Joaquin's chest puffed up like he'd just been knighted. Sam groaned dramatically.
"Don't get him started," Sam huffed, but there was affection in his exasperation. "Coming from a pretty girl like you? He's never gonna shut up. Ever."
"C'mon, dude, give me some credit," Joaquin chuckled, but his grin said otherwise. "But seriously…did you hear that from Sam or did you see a cool news clip? Maybe a TikTok edit? Please tell me it was a TikTok edit."
Bucky's voice cut through the table like a blade, quiet but stern. "Leave her alone, Torres. She's not here to feed your ego."
She laughed, a warm counter to Bucky's gruffness, trying to lighten the sudden tension. "It's fine, Buck. Really. If I were the new Falcon, I'd be just as excited. It's a big deal." She leaned toward Joaquin conspiratorially. "Saw you and Sam take down that cartel on the news the other week. You guys did great, really impressive work."
Joaquin looked like he might actually faint, stars in his eyes. Sam shook his head with a smirk. "Oh, he's gonna marry you now. Especially if he finds out who your grandfather is."
Bucky's head snapped toward Sam with frightening speed, his voice sharper than before, cutting. "Don't."
Her brows lifted slightly at his tone, at the edge of real warning there. "It's okay," she said gently, turning to him, catching his eyes. "I don't mind if he knows. It's not a secret if he’s an Avenger."
Bucky stared at her for a long moment, his jaw ticking visibly before he finally looked away, tension radiating from his shoulders.
With Torres looking between all of them in growing confusion, Sam didn't waste the opportunity. "Torres, buddy, turns out our girl here's the granddaughter of a certain Captain America. The original."
Joaquin froze completely, then looked at her like he'd just been handed the keys to a vintage Ferrari and told it was his. "No way. Nope. That's it. I'm in love. When's the wedding?"
She laughed along with Sam as Joaquin clasped his chest in exaggerated mock devotion, playing it up. Beside her, Bucky stayed quiet. His jaw was set hard, his arm resting on the back of the booth behind her, close but not touching, the faintest shadow in his eyes even as the others joked and laughed.
Bucky's shift was subtle, but she caught it, and had been watching for it. The faint smirk he'd been wearing earlier flattened completely, his shoulders going rigid like someone had just flipped a switch inside him, shutting down something warm. He didn't even glance at Sam this time—his eyes stayed on Joaquin, mouth set in a hard scowl.
Sam caught her eye across the table and raised his brows in that way friends would do when silently trying to communicate something important. She didn't know if it was a warning, a tease, or both. She frowned at him in confusion.
"What?" she murmured under her breath, leaning slightly toward Sam.
Sam just gave her a faint, knowing smirk before looking away, taking a deliberate sip of his drink.
When she turned back to Bucky, she saw the faint tick in his jaw again, the clear tension in his neck. "You could try being less of a storm cloud," she said quietly, half-joking but half-serious too.
"I'm not a storm cloud," Bucky muttered without looking at her, eyes still fixed on Torres.
She arched her brow. "You kinda are right now. Very brooding and thunderous."
That earned her a sideways glance. Brief, but loaded.
"Maybe I just don't like watching Torres audition for a rom-com," he grunted, voice low.
She huffed, shaking her head, fighting a smile. "He's harmless, Buck. Excited. You don't have to act like he's trying to steal nuclear codes or kidnap me."
That got the smallest twitch of his mouth, the ghost of amusement, but it vanished almost immediately. She rolled her eyes and decided to let him stew if he wanted to be stubborn.
"I'm getting a drink," she announced, pushing up from the booth with purpose.
Sam's gaze followed her with that same faint, loaded expression before he turned back to Bucky, clearly ready to poke the bear the absolute second she was out of earshot. She would happily stay out of that one.
The bar top was dimly lit, scarred wood that had seen decades of use. The walls were even lined with faded neon beer signs advertising brands she wasn’t even sure existed anymore. She ordered something simple—vodka soda—the ice clinking pleasantly in the glass as the bartender slid it her way.
She took a slow sip, trying to ignore the nagging question looping relentlessly in her head: What was Bucky's deal tonight?
He was usually grumpy in public, sure—standoffish with strangers, slow to warm up—but tonight, he was different. Off. Especially around Joaquin, his mood souring faster than she had ever seen before. Did it have anything to do with their night out? That quiet, hand-holding moment they'd both were carefully avoiding mentioning?
She was so deep in her own thoughts that she didn’t register a man sliding up beside her at the bar until he leaned in too close, making sure he was in eyeshot. "Haven't seen you here before," he said. She fought the urge to close her eyes in distaste. His tone already carried a presumption that she owed him attention and she had the feeling he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
"I'm just here with friends," she replied evenly, not unkind but not inviting more, keeping her eyes forward.
He didn't take the hint. She watched his eyes run down her frame slowly out of her peripheral, something lighting in his expression that made her stomach churn with instinctive disgust. "Well, your friends can wait. Pretty girl like you shouldn't be standing here alone at the bar."
"I'm fine, thanks buddy." She shifted her stance and gripped her glass tighter, shoulders squaring. Tried to scream with her body language that the conversation was over. At least, she hoped that was what he gathered from her complete lack of interest.
His voice dipped sharper, ugly. "Don't have to be a bitch about it."
His hand suddenly clamped around her arm without warning, fingers digging in just enough to hurt, to send a flash of alarm up her spine. She barely had time to react or even process what was happening, before she heard rapid movement behind her and the sound of heavy boots closing in fast.
In less than a second, Bucky was there.
He slammed the man chest-first against the bar top with brutal efficiency, his metal hand wrapped around the guy's throat, pressing hard enough to cut off air, making the man gasp and choke instantly. The entire room seemed to freeze at the sight, conversations dying mid-sentence.
Bucky's expression was nothing short of murderous. His eyes were like shards of ice, cold and deadly. Every line of him radiated lethal intent barely contained. It would have been a stunning sight if she wasn’t the cause of it.
"Don't touch her, you son of a bitch," Bucky hissed, digging his vibranium hand further into the man's neck. The plates in his palm whirred softly as their mechanics moved, the only sound apart from the man's desperate gasping and the creak of wood beneath him as he struggled.
She heard Sam and Joaquin stand quickly. Sam moved closer but didn’t intervene, posture deliberately relaxed with his hands idle in his pockets.
She sucked in a sharp breath, grabbing Sam's arm when he stopped beside her. "You're not going to stop him?"
Sam's face was serious, but there was an unmistakable spark of amusement dancing in his eyes. "Nah. He's not gonna kill him. I've seen Buck actually trying to kill someone…this ain't it. Besides, I'm not the kind of guy to step in on another man protecting his girl."
Her head whipped toward him, eyes wide with shock. Something churned in her gut at his words. "Sam, we aren't—"
"Oh, but you will be," Sam cut in knowingly, leaning down so only she could hear over the noise. "Thought I didn't notice? Both of you? White Panther over there is head over heels for you. Has been since day one. It's honestly painful to watch at this point, all this pining."
She stared at him, her pulse skipping. Her brain was barely processing the words, struggling to catch up with the reality of it all. She had no words for once — all she could muster up was something that sounded like a mix of a scoff and a wheeze.
Sam's grin widened, clearly enjoying himself. "Tell me, does he do the staring thing with you too? That intense, unblinking thing where he looks at you like he’s X-raying your insides?"
She opened her mouth, but again, nothing came out. Sam just looked far too pleased at the response, like he'd been waiting weeks to say this.
The sound of the man's choking dragged her attention back to reality. He was still struggling desperately against Bucky's iron grip, voice raspy and terrified when he finally managed to croak out, "C'mon… man… I'm sorry. Didn't… know she was with—"
"Shut up," Bucky snarled, low and venomous, voice like gravel. His jaw was locked tight, his entire body coiled like a spring. She had never seen him like this, terrifying in a way that made the air feel heavier, dangerous enough that every person nearby had gone completely silent.
"Apologize to her," he ordered, pressing harder against the man's throat. His eyes were like blue fire, burning.
The man instantly wheezed out a hoarse, pathetic, "Sorry—"
"Louder."
The man's eyes went wide with panic, real fear. He coughed out a second, much louder apology, voice shaking with terror. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
Only then did Bucky release him, letting him crumple forward against the bar. The man stumbled back immediately, clutching his throat, gasping for air before scrambling toward the door without looking back, nearly tripping over his own feet.
Bucky let out a heavy breath, flexing his metal hand slowly as the plates shifted, before he turned to her. His chest rose and fell fast, fury still smoldering visibly in his expression, but his gaze swept over her like a careful scan—checking for injury, for fear, for any sign she was hurt.
She just stared at him, probably still looking dumbstruck. She had no idea what to think, what to do, how to process what just happened. All she could hear was Sam's words ringing in her ears on repeat.
Head over heels for you. Has been since day one.
Bucky's blue eyes locked onto her own. The fire faded gradually, burning down, turning into something softer. Something warmer. Purer.
She recognized it. She had seen it in his eyes before, she realized with startling clarity. She had seen it so many times before—when her grandfather looked at her grandmother in old photographs, in her memories of them together. And now, it clicked.
Which statement?
She was an idiot. It had been in front of her this whole time, so obvious she had been blind to it.
The air around them was electric, thick with the echo of what just happened, with Bucky's ragged breathing settling back into stillness. He was still riding the wave of his own fury, but as the tension dissipated, his gaze relaxed just enough to break into concern.
"You okay?" His voice was gravel, edged with barely contained anger still simmering beneath the surface.
She didn't answer. Couldn't. The mix of adrenaline, shock, and something far more dangerous was coursing through her too fast for coherent words.
"Damn, Barnes," Sam drawled from behind them, the smirk unmistakable in his voice. "Didn't know you had it in you to make public service announcements like that. Very dramatic."
She barely heard him. Her pulse was pounding in her ears, deafening. Without thinking, she stepped forward, grabbed Bucky's wrist, the metal one, and muttered, "Come with me."
He frowned, taken off guard, surprised. "What—"
But he didn't resist as she tugged him past the crowd, past Sam's knowing look and raised eyebrows, past Torres's confused expression, toward the back hallway.
They reached the single-person bathroom, and she shoved the door open, pulling him inside before locking it firmly behind them with shaking hands.
Bucky blinked, still catching up, still processing. "What are you—"
She didn't give him a chance to finish. In one sharp movement, fueled by adrenaline and clarity, she pushed him back against the wall, her hands curling tight into the fabric of his shirt.
His eyes widened in genuine surprise, just for a moment, before her mouth crashed against his.
The kiss was messy, heated, reckless—a clash of lips and tongue. He froze for a beat, stunned, but then his hands found her waist immediately, one warm and one cold, pulling her closer until there was no space left between them, until she could feel every hard line of him against her.
Pleasure flared within her immediately, hot and demanding. He tasted like the beer he'd been drinking and something sharper, more distinctively him. The taste of him was intoxicating, something so undeniably sweet it made her dizzy.
Her breath hitched sharply when his metal fingers flexed against her hip, careful and controlled, his other hand sliding up her back like he couldn't decide whether to anchor her there or drag her impossibly closer. Like he was fighting the want to consume her.
Her back hit the cold tile as he reversed them without warning, caging her in with one arm braced above her head, the other still gripping her hip like he was afraid she'd disappear if he loosened his hold. His mouth left hers just long enough for a ragged inhale, his forehead finding a pillow against her own.
"What are you doing?" he asked, voice hoarse and rough, shaking slightly. But he didn't move back, didn't put distance between them.
She swallowed hard, her pulse rattling violently in her throat. "Testing a theory."
That was the truth. She didn't know why she'd dragged him in here, didn't know why her body had made the decision for her before her brain could catch up—but she knew the feeling of him holding her like this was making her dizzy in a way that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with want.
He searched her face like he was trying to find the answer for himself, his breath hot against her cheek, pupils blown wide.
"Testing a—" His voice broke slightly, rough and strained, his grip on her hip tightening unconsciously. "You shouldn't. Not with me. I'm… not… enough for you. You're too good, too sweet, too—"
"Bucky…" She meant it to be a warning, maybe even a plea to stop talking, but it came out softer, breathier, almost like an invitation.
Something in his expression cracked, the last thread of restraint snapping audibly. His mouth was on hers again, deeper this time. Almost desperate, devouring her with a passion that felt unbridled. She clutched the front of his shirt, dragging him closer until his body was pressed flush against hers, until she could feel his heart hammering against her own chest.
Every inhale was shared, every sound they made swallowed into the charged space between them. Her head tipped back against the wall, and he followed the motion immediately, his lips brushing down her jaw to the rapid thrum of her pulse at her throat.
The heat between them was overwhelming, an intoxicating mix of want that she couldn’t put into words if she tried. Her senses were overrun by pleasure, his touch alone short-circuiting any tangible thought she could muster.
He caught himself then, just barely. She watched him pull back enough to look at her again, chest heaving, as if needing to confirm she still wanted this. That this was real and not some sort of fever dream.
He studied her intently, like he was trying to memorize every detail of her face. "You shouldn't… we shouldn't," his voice frayed at the edges, his grip tightening. "You don't know what you're asking for."
Her lips parted, her voice barely above a whisper. "I think I do."
Something in his eyes broke then, the restraint giving way to something darker, more primal. His mouth crashed back to hers, almost desperate, the kind of kiss that burned straight through bone, through reason.
She gasped into him, and he took the sound like he'd been starving for it, pressing her harder into the wall. His hands traced her waist, her back, her ribs, as if he was trying to brand the shape of her into memory. Learn every curve, every divot. She was doing the same to him, running her hands along any part of his body she could reach. The corded muscles in his forearms, the strain underneath his biceps as he gripped her. He felt heavenly, like he’d been carved out of marble and chiseled to perfection.
When they finally broke apart, both gasping for air, she kept her gaze locked on his. His eyes were dark, nearly black with want, and the sight made her shiver.
"Sam told me you've been… attracted to me. Wanted me, liked me—whatever word you want to use." Her voice trembled, not from fear but from the way his breath brushed her lips, the way he was looking at her. "I wanted to… find out for myself if it was true."
Bucky's expression didn't waver. The hunger in his eyes didn't fade even slightly. If anything, his grip tightened, pulling her even closer, eliminating the last molecule of space between them. "Sam's got a big mouth."
She almost laughed, but the sound caught in her throat when his thumb brushed along her jaw with devastating gentleness. The gesture was so gentle, so reverent, so at odds with the intensity of moments before. "Is Sam's big mouth telling the truth?"
His eyes flickered. Desire tangled with something heavier, more complicated. "I fell for you the second I came to your office," he admitted, voice rough and raw. "And when you walked away from me that first time, brushed me off, I knew it. Knew I was in trouble. Knew I wanted you in a way I had no right to. And the more I got to know you, the worse it got. Every conversation, every walk, every smile."
He paused, jaw flexing. "At first, I tried to kill it. Bury it. You're Steve's blood. His legacy. You're… young. Too young for someone like me, someone with my past." His throat bobbed. "I felt guilty as hell. Still do, if I'm being honest."
Her chest ached at the emotion in his voice, at the way he looked at her like he'd already memorized every inch of her but was still afraid he'd somehow ruin her.
She leaned in, close enough that her words brushed his lips. "I'm not too young for you. And I'm not Steve. Whatever rules you think apply, they don't here. Not with me."
Bucky sighed heavily, reaching up to cup her cheek in his hand—the flesh one, warm and calloused. She understood the hesitation. His dead best friend's granddaughter, almost a decade younger than him physically, a lifetime younger in experience. So she continued, needing him to understand. "You don't need to feel guilty. And neither should I. We're both adults. We both want this."
Bucky exhaled sharply, his metal fingers flexing against her hip like he was trying to let her go but couldn't quite bring himself to, couldn't quite make himself step back. She saw the battle play out clearly in his eyes. Duty versus want, guilt versus satisfaction.
"You don't know what you're asking for," he said, voice low and strained, almost pleading. "Steve… he was my best friend. My brother. And you're his granddaughter. Hell, I shouldn't have even looked twice at you. Shouldn't have let myself get close."
His jaw tightened visibly, but then his eyes softened almost painfully. "But the truth is…I didn't stand a chance. The second I saw you, I was done for. And every damn day since has just made it worse. Your laugh, your smile, the way you look at me…you're perfect in ways I can't even put into words. And it kills me how much I want you when I know I shouldn't."
She pressed closer, sliding her hands up the hard planes of his chest until they hooked behind his neck, fingers threading through his short locks. "Then stop killing yourself over it. I'm not some fragile little thing you need to protect from yourself, Barnes. And I'm certainly not going to go tattling to my grandfather’s ghost about this."
That earned the smallest smirk from him, a flash of humor. "Pretty sure he'd still find a way to punch me. Come back from the dead just for that."
"Then he can get in line," she shot back, her voice dipping into a whisper that sent heat rushing between them like wildfire. "Because you've kept me waiting long enough."
Something in him broke then. Snapped like a cable under too much tension. His hand slid up her back, pressing her flush against the wall as his mouth finally crashed against hers again. The kiss was hungry, yet revenant, all of his careful restraint burning away in a single instant.
Her fingers gripped his hair, pulling him closer, swallowing the groan that rumbled deep in his chest. When they finally broke for air, both breathing hard, his lips still brushed against hers as he murmured, "You have no idea what you've started."
She grinned against his mouth, breathless and reckless. "Guess you'll have to show me."
And then his mouth was on hers again, rougher this time, more demanding. And she knew he had every intention of making good on his promise.
Summary: Ryland Grace is your both your professor and your doctoral academic advisor. You are his student. Which meant that being anything more than that was soooo off limits. …Right?
Word Count: 7k
Warnings: 18+! SMUT! MDNI! P in V sex; inappropriate use of a microscope; also inappropriate use of biology terms (i definitely got something wrong); shameless use of the professor x student trope through reader is a grad student and very much of consenting age; the glasses stay ON during sex!!
GIF from owenhcrper
“Come on, guys. The final exam is next week and I really don’t want to have to fail anyone this time around…again. So let’s show a little more initiative! Yay, cellular anatomy!”
He lightly pumped his fists in the air in an almost convincing cheer. You think it was meant to be encouraging but, looking around at your classmates, they didn’t seem to get the hint. They returned your dorky professor’s enthusiasm with glazed over expressions and the occasional monotonous click of laptop keys signifying they were likely working on another task all together instead of paying attention.
You couldn’t exactly blame them. Dr. Ryland Grace’s courses were among the hardest in the university’s advanced molecular biology track. Rumor has it that his exams have made students literally drop out of the program before. It wasn’t exactly his fault, the subject was enough to melt anyone’s brain on its own, but Dr. Grace made up for it by being an amazing professor.
He was always incredibly engaged, exceptionally witty, and, overall, just seemed to genuinely care for the material. You couldn’t deny that you definitely felt the insurmountable pressure of the high expectations he placed on his students, but something about his passion just…spoke to you. It was like he breathed life back into the subject that you chose to make your career all those years ago.
Admittedly, you had been a fan of Dr. Grace’s work since you were in undergrad, opting to enroll in this university’s program for even the mere, microscopic chance, that you could study under him. As luck would have it, he was accepting new doctorate students the year you were admitted.
Pursuing a PhD in molecular biology was daunting enough, but you learned fast under Dr. Grace’s caring hand. He made it seem like you were the only student he had ever taught, with the way his eyes lit up at your ideas, doing everything his lab’s budget could afford to make them a reality.
Over the past three years of your thesis study, you were shyly keen to admit you and Dr. Grace had grown fairly close to one another. After all, he strangely decided to stop taking students after he signed on to mentor your study, which meant that you always had his undivided attention He was by far the best teacher you had ever had, which is why it made you feel all the more guilty that you also…had not been paying attention to his question.
“Okay.” Dr. Grace let his shoulders slump in a sigh. He looked as exasperated as his students. He ran his fingers through his messy blond strands and readjusted his glasses. “Tell you what. If someone can answer this last question correctly, I’ll let you all out early. I know it’s almost finals and my exam isn’t the only one you all have to worry about, so you guys just do me this one last favor and we can call it a day”.
Your ears, along with the rest of your classmates, perked up instantly. You heard the faint sounds of students adjusting themselves in their seats as they leaned in, eager to earn this rare reprieve from classes. Dr. Grace smirked and clapped his hands together. “Alright, signs of life! So, tell me, what are the three major types of lipids that make up cellular membranes?”
This time, when you looked around, your classmates were deep in thought. Some of them looked like the act of searching for the information needed to answer the question physically pained them to work through. Not you though. This was something that you had already gone over with Dr. Grace for your research proposal write up. He had coached you through cellular membrane structure semesters ago. You raised your hand, albeit, hesitantly.
Dr. Grace had bitten his lip in anticipation looking around at his students in expectation. When his eyes met yours, his gaze softened. He nodded, waiting for your answer patiently.
“Uh, I believe they are phospholipids, glycolipids, and sterols?” You knew it was the correct answer but you still held your breath, and Dr. Grace’s stare for that matter, waiting on his confirmation. Something about the intense blue of his eyes just seemed to make coherent thoughts impossible, even when it came to material that you knew inside and out.
Dr. Grace nodded emphatically and threw up his hands. “We have a winner! Excellent work! That’s exactly right,” he exclaimed. You heard a few small cheers from your classmates in the back, who had already started backing their bags. Dr Grace retreated behind the lecturer’s stand and started to pack up his things as well. “Okay you all, a promise is a promise, you’re free to go.” The few students who had yet to pack up started doing so feverishly, as if they were afraid Dr. Grace would take back his seemingly merciful act of kindness.
Dr. Grace shouted to the back of the room as students shuffled out the door. “I will see you all bright and early next week for the final. Remember that you will need to know ALL of the protein pathways of the cell membrane to be able to answer the extra credit question! Don’t try to name only one and expect me to give you full points…” He smiled and cast his gaze down to his laptop, turning off its connection to the projector that had his meticulously detailed cell diagram thrown up on the lecture hall’s ginormous screen.
You finished shoving your books into your bag and signaled to your classmates that you would catch up to them later. You had to ask your advisor a question about finalizing a date for your dissertation. It was a little over two weeks away and not knowing all the details was driving you insane. Or maybe it was just the thought of having to present all of your research findings to the very man that basically invented the topic you were researching.
You had chosen to take an experimental approach to Dr. Grace’s hypothesis that life didn’t require water to survive. You had found some pretty compelling evidence in his favor among local bacterial life, but the thought of explaining his own research findings to the man himself had your stomach in knots. Or maybe it was just that Dr. Grace seemed to have your stomach in knots all on his own the last couple of months.
You hated to admit it, but you had developed something of a schoolgirl level crush on your professor. Sure it was somewhat embarrassing, but could anybody blame you? He was unbelievably charming, so ridiculously intelligent it was almost intimidating, funny, passionate, sincere, and…yeah.
He was pretty fucking hot too.
Everytime you walked into his lab, with him in one of those stupid science pun t-shirts that seemed to always be unfairly tight on him, leaving none of his muscular build to the imagination, you felt like your knees were going to give out from under you. Plus, he always seemed to stand right on top of you as he examined your findings through the microscope with you, which was not helpful at all. His forearms would often brush your side as he adjusted the lens settings, sending almost painful shockwaves through your body. Although, it was probably the glasses that sent you over the edge. He always seemed to look straight through your collected exterior you worked so hard to put forth when he peered at you over the rims that delicately balanced on the sharp bridge of his nose.
Who are you kidding? It was definitely the glasses that sealed your fate.
But that was inappropriate! Dr. Grace is your professor, your advisor for fuck’s sake. Nothing more!
……Right?
Yes, oh my god! Jesus, yes, of course he was just your professor. What were you even thinking?
You snapped out of your thoughts and realized that you were soon to be the last student standing awkwardly in the lecture hall. With a grunt, you gathered up your bag full of textbooks and lab equipment and shakily headed up to Dr. Grace, who was still inspecting his laptop up at the lecture podium.
He looked up from whatever he was poring over at the sound of your footsteps. He grinned at you and crossed his arms, leaning his hip onto the podium.
“Hey! There’s my favorite future doctor of microbiology. Got a nice ring to it, huh? Excellent job on that question, by the way.” He stared at you expectantly, though you know this was just another clever ruse to relieve the stress he knows he’s been putting you under. You laughed softly and cast your gaze to the floor at his praise, heat moving impossibly fast up your neck and onto your cheeks.
“You ready for the big day?” Dr. Grace asked, inquisitively, referring to your thesis presentation. His question quickly put out the flame that was building in your core and reminded you of the anxiety-inducing task you had ahead of you.
You met his eyes again. “Yeah! Totally…” you cringed, not even believing your own words. “Well, almost. I was just hoping we could talk about the dissertation date? I know you’re super busy and you’re going to have a lot of exams to grade and probably a lot of undergraduate papers too…and that I’ve technically already finished my research, really just need to finish writing the presentation slides, but I just really was..” the words seemed to spill out of you faster and faster by the second. Somewhere, in the back of your brain you willed yourself to stop babbling like an idiot but that thought never seemed to bring itself out of your subconscious and make itself useful. Dr. Grace looked at you back and forth hurriedly, trying his best to follow your words, before putting his hands on your shoulders and chuckling.
“Woah, woah, easy tiger. Slow down.” His grip on your shoulders tightened, causing you to freeze at the sudden contact. God, his hands were firm. You eased up a bit under his touch.
“Don’t get yourself so worked up. You are going to do fantastic. I know you are. That committee won’t even know what hit them,” Dr. Grace said. As he spoke, his thumbs worked their way up and down on your shoulders, almost as if they were trying to etch his words onto your skin so you would believe them. It did the trick though, you exhaled a bit before Dr. Grace continued.
“I know we have a couple of things to wrap up. Tell you what, I have to run to a faculty meeting in a bit but later tonight, how about you meet me in the lab and we can go over your data one last time, okay? Would that make you feel better?” Dr. Grace had sunk down on his knees a bit to be at eye level with you. His words warmly rushed over you, soothing your worried mind. With your thoughts a bit clearer, you hadn’t even noticed how close the two of you were. He was basically holding your body in place with his hands and his face was so close to yours that you could feel his breath as it fanned over your cheeks. He seemed to notice your close proximity as well as he dropped his hands from your shoulders suddenly and cleared his throat.
You almost sighed at the loss of contact but caught yourself at the last second. Instead you said, “That would be amazing Dr. Grace, thank you.” He lightened a bit at your agreement. “Great! I’ll probably be in there at around 8:00? Feel free to drop by then.” You nodded and waved him off as he exited the hall.
You were definitely in for a long night.
--
You found yourself pacing outside of Dr. Grace’s lab at 8 o’clock on the dot, mentally coaching yourself to go in. Why were you so nervous, even? Dr. Grace was your advisor, you had been working with him for months, this is just an ordinary lab meeting like you’ve done with him countless times before. Before you could lose your courage, you swung open the door and immediately stopped in your tracks.
Dr. Grace was positioned at the centermost lab table, carefully holding up a glass beaker to the glow of the moonlight that was being cast in through the lab’s window blinds. His brow was furrowed in concentration as he transferred a clear liquid into the beaker with a pipette dropper. He was in another one of his classic science t-shirts, his arm positioned almost at a perfect 90 degree angle holding up the beaker, which exposed every curve and vein of his bicep for your hungry eyes to devour. Bright, blue, latex gloves were pulled tight over hands that were a stark contrast to his firm arms, instead, skillfully holding the beaker in place to not spill any liquid. His glasses were knocked slightly askew on his face as he wore protective goggles over his eyes, but to you, that just made him all the more endearing.
Your eyes roved over his form, rigid and unwavering with the confidence of a man precisely in his element. Even though there was nobody else in the room except for you two, his presence seemed to demand attention. His fellow faculty members may have never paid much attention to his work outside of mindlessly recommending his lectures to their students, but, god, would you never get tired of marveling at this genius of a man. Both because he was a leading mind in your field and also because he was insanely attractive while he worked.
Dr. Grace looked up from whatever he was studying as he heard the door close softly behind you. He greeted you with a smile. “There you are, right on time as always. I would’ve expected nothing less. I’m just about wrapped up with this. Why don’t you grab your slides from the back and get set up while I put this away and then we can get started. Okay, sweetheart?”
Your heart felt like it dropped into your shoes. Dr. Grace had turned his back to you as he busied himself with something near the sink which gave you some time to process what you had just heard.
Sweetheart? That was definitely a first. I mean sure, you’ve had teachers call you that before, usually just in an endearing, almost parental way when you were younger. But something about the way he said it left you reeling. It felt…charged. Almost like he was dangling the term of endearment over both of your heads, knowing that there was nothing either of you could do to act on it. You replayed his voice saying it over and over again in your head to convince yourself you didn’t imagine it, when Dr. Grace spoke again.
“You alright over there?” He had now taken the goggles off and was wiping his regular glasses on the bottom of his t-shirt. He placed them back on carefully and put his hands on his hips, his t-shirt tightly coating his broad chest like a second skin. He raised his eyebrows at you pointedly, waiting on your answer. It was then that you finally noticed you hadn’t moved an inch.
You choked out a laugh. “Yeah! Yeah, of course.” His eyebrows drew together in questioning. You smiled weakly and hurried to grab your slides.
--
The next two hours were full of calculations and write-ups that made your brain feel like it was leaking out of your ears. You and Dr. Grace worked silently and diligently, double and triple checking your work to make sure you were prepared for your dissertation. It was honestly impressive, the way the two of you moved in tandem, re-examining slides under the microscope and writing up the conclusions on the large whiteboard at the center of the room. You two seemed to glide in and out of your respective areas with ease, Dr. Grace stopping every so often to check in and make sure that you didn’t need help with anything. Busying yourself with your work did seem to help quiet the distracting thoughts you kept having about your professor. Instead of Dr. Grace making you dizzy, it was the goddamn microscope whose viewfinder just didn’t seem to want to work with you that had your vision spinning.
You groaned in frustration and threw your arms up onto the lab counter, dramatically flopping your head onto them with a huff. Dr. Grace spun around from his designated place at the whiteboard. Your eyes were so weak with exhaustion you could barely keep them open anymore but you were able to make out that he somehow had three different dry erase markers in his possession, one tucked into the top of his ear, one in his hand that he was currently writing with, and one clenched between his teeth. He looked downright sinful as he plucked the marker from his mouth, a few drops of saliva following his fingers from where the marker met his lips. Between the microscope, your report writing, and Dr. Grace’s incessant need to unknowingly drive you crazy with want, you were certain you wouldn’t even make it to your presentation day in one piece.
“Aw, what’s wrong?” He chuckled softly. “Lens settings giving you trouble again?”
“I don’t even know why they make the knobs this sensitive. It’s like the big science companies actually want to cause me anguish and despair every waking moment of my academic career,” you whined sarcastically. Dr. Grace walked over to you, tilting his head with a small smile at your frustrated state. “Do you want me to show you a trick I learned in grad school? It saved my life a couple of times when I was back in your shoes.”
You bobbed your head up and down excitedly. Anything to make your life easier right now was welcomed with open arms. Speaking of arms, your excitement almost died in your throat as you felt Dr. Grace’s hand on the small of your back, guiding you up and back to the microscope ever so gently. He positioned you in front of the microscope with his body directly behind you. There seemed to be only an inch of space between the two of you. One wrong move and your back would be flush with his chest as he caged you in.
You felt like all of the air just got punched out of your lungs.This was too much. It was one thing for you to admire Dr. Grace from afar, knowing that there wasn’t a chance in hell of anything happening between the two of you. It was another when he had you literally locked in place, his rock solid figure giving you no chance of escape.
This was real. This was painstakingly, agonizingly, undeniably real.
It felt like your world was crashing down, your thoughts empty except for your goddamn professor's frustratingly lean body behind you that almost had you wiping your salivating mouth with your shirt sleeve. I mean seriously. A microbiology professor has no business being that toned. Your breath hitched in your throat and you cast your view down to the microscope, trying desperately to focus on the task at hand.
Except, Dr. Grace wasn’t letting you off that easily.
Dr. Grace delicately grabbed your right wrist and placed your hand on the fine adjustment knob. Except he didn’t stop there. His hand remained on yours, his fingers were ghosting your own, guiding them into exactly the right position. You felt a slight pressure in the pads of your fingers as he pressed down, swiveling the knob ever so slightly. He nudged your shoulder with his own, prompting you to take a look into the microscope.
You moved your face down into the viewfinder, placing the bridge of your nose underneath the ocular lens. Dr. Grace followed suit, leaning his head down closer to you so that it was just next to yours. This caused the very top of his chest to connect with your shoulderblades and you tensed. This could not be happening right now.
His words, a deep whisper that was very unlike his typical teacher voice, almost startled you as they were uttered so close to your ear.
“You see, the key is to take two fingers,” Dr. Grace said intensely, “and slowly–”
He lifted your pointer and middle finger along with his own, placing your middle finger on the coarse adjustment knob in addition, and slid his fingers over yours so the knob rolled heavily under the both of you.
“--work both the knobs at the same time,” Dr. Grace finished. He leaned his head back and watched you carefully, making sure you understood his instructions.
You could feel his gaze, hard and unrelenting, so you refused to look up from your slide and meet his eyes. You were almost panting with need now. The lab was usually sterile and cold, but from where you were standing it felt like you were in an inferno. You had never been this physically close to Dr. Grace before and it was setting your insides on fire. Part of you wanted to snap out of his grasp and run into the hall before you did anything you’d seriously regret. The other half of you was dying to find out what would happen if you didn’t. Pushed the boundaries a little bit. Fought fire with fire.
You couldn’t.
Could you?
You scolded your mind for wandering so far away from the task at hand and returned your thoughts to the microscope.Oh, would you look at that, Dr. Grace got the image of your slide looking pristine through the viewfinder on his very first try.
You internally scowled. It also wasn’t helpful that his academic prowess was a major turn on.
You clenched your legs together to relieve some of the pressure that had settled there, all the while, Dr. Grace still kept you in between his arms. His hands were now flat against the table, no longer guiding you. By all intents and purposes, he had absolutely no reason to still be standing so close to you but there he was, trapping you against him.
“See it now?” Dr. Grace questioned. He was referring to the absolutely gorgeous cell that was now blown up in scale through the viewfinder thanks to his help. You had to admit, you never got tired of that feeling. The feeling of staring at actual life, smaller than the tip of your pinky finger, teeming with blues and pinks and purples of the various organelles inside of it.
“I do. It’s beautiful, Dr. Grace,” you admitted. You turned your head around on your shoulder and met his eyes. He really was close to you. Truly, you could step a quarter of a foot forward and your foreheads would be pressed together in a forbidden meeting. Something to never be seen by another’s eyes. Yet, standing here, almost fully enveloped by Dr. Grace, it didn’t feel as wrong as you thought it would.
His gaze dropped down to your lips briefly. It was quick, but you noticed. He met your eyes again and you could have sworn you saw his pupils dilate in real time. The moonlight coming in through the windows earlier was now mixed with the soft glow of the campus lamplights that lined the walkways below the lab floor. The yellow lights mixed with Dr. Grace’s blue eyes, swirled a supernova of color around in his irises.
And him? He looked transfixed on you, as if you had hung the stars in the sky.
Could you do this? No. You were sleep-deprived and not thinking straight. Except your body had other ideas.You leaned in slowly, your eyes trained on Dr. Grace’s soft lips. Your hands had a mind of their own, coming up to almost cup his cheeks, like they knew you wanted this, knew you wanted to cross this boundary from which there was no coming back from.
They were never able to reach their destination.
Dr. Grace jerked back from you suddenly and retreated into the corner of the lab, pacing, his hands thrown up in defeat, folded together to support the back of his neck as he let out a wavering breath.
“Oh my god I-,” He started to spiral. “I wasn’t, I didn’t-”
He caught your eyes and immediately looked away, as if the simple act of looking at you was a punishable offense. You retreated into yourself, horrified that you would even think to act on your feelings. It was a dumb move, so ridiculously stupid, that you were afraid you just cost yourself your advisor, hell, your entire academic career.
But Dr. Grace wasn’t looking at you anymore. He was running his hands through his hair feverishly. “I’m so sorry, god, I don’t know what I was doing I-”
He whispered to himself in a tone barely audible enough for you to hear. “She’s your student, Ryland, what are you thinking?”
You realized this wasn’t about you. This was about him. He was trying to keep himself in check. Not do something he would regret. The thought that he might be having the same ideas you were having, filled you with a confidence you had no business having.
You slowly walked over to him and he flinched when he realized how close you had gotten.
“Dr. Grace?” you whispered.
Dr. Grace stilled as if your voice snapped some invisible thread that was holding him together.
“Your hands are shaking–here let me help you,” you picked up his hands with your own, interlocking your fingers, half expecting him to recoil from your touch, but he didn’t. “I, I don’t know what to say,” Dr. Grace strained. “I’m so sorry, you’re my best student, I have no idea what came over me.” He sounded wrecked. Like you had stolen all of the air from his lungs. It was in that moment that you made a decision. One that was going to seal your fate either for better or for the worst. You took a deep inhale.
In one deadly move, you surged forward and captured his lips into your own. You felt Dr. Grace tense up immediately but melt into your touch as you tangled your hands into his blond strands. His hands fell onto your hips like they were always made to be there. It was a searing kiss, with both of you putting your entire body weight into the other, as if this was the last chance that you were going to get to make this mistake. He pulled you closer to him, pressing his hands into you so hard you were sure he was going to leave a mark.
You broke apart, breathless. Dr. Grace squeezed his eyes shut and dropped his forehead onto yours. He shook his head. “I am your professor,” Dr. Grace choked out. “I’m responsible for you, I could lose my job, my title, my reputation,” It sounded like he was trying to make a list of all of the reasons this was a bad idea but you didn’t care. The only person he was trying to convince at this point was himself. He cupped your face in his hands and scanned your expression.
“I need you to tell me to stop.”
Silence.
“God, I am in so much trouble.”
He drew you into another kiss and you happily reciprocated. It felt like fireworks were being lit off in your chest. Whatever you had imagined, this was a million times better. He was somehow both gentle and rough at the same time, trying to devour you like you were his last meal. He ducked his head down into your neck and took your skin between his teeth, nipping at the soft flesh.
“You have no idea what you’ve been doing to me” he breathed out. He was working his way up your neck, kissing the exposed flesh as he went.
“Every time,” Kiss. “You talk,” Kiss. “All I can think about,” Kiss. “Is your mouth on mine.”
He walked you backwards, his mouth never leaving yours. Eventually your back hit the lab counter. It stung a bit but you didn’t care. All you could focus on was getting that t-shirt off of his frame and onto the floor. You were dying to see what was under those stupid science pun prints.
You moaned into his mouth and tugged at the bottom of his shirt, signalling to him what you wanted. He leaned back a bit, arms still encircling your waist, and smirked. “Yeah? You want this off?” he questioned knowingly. You nodded.
“Come on, use your words. You want my shirt off?” he asked.
Oh, he was going to kill you. “Yes, Dr. Grace,” you answered, obediently. Dr. Grace’s eyes almost rolled into the back of his head. He groaned. “Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?” you asked. “That thing with your voice,” Dr. Grace said. “Calling me doctor all sweet like you do, you know you can call me Ryland.” You tugged on the hem of his shirt once more. “Okay, Ryland. Shirt. Off. Now,” you demanded.
“Yes, ma’am,” he snickered. He made quick work of grabbing the bottom of his shirt and ripping it over his head. He made to pull you back into another kiss but you stopped him just short of contact. You pushed him back slightly, leaning back and drinking him in. You couldn’t even believe what you were seeing. Ryland was fucking ripped.
The evening light highlighted his abs just right, where you could take in every curve and detail, as his muscles seemed to strain against absolutely nothing. You ran your hands down his stomach and he shivered. His stomach intricately curved down into a sharp V that was so defined, you had to do a double take to convince yourself it was real. “Who knew microbiology was such a grueling subject?” you joked.
Dr. Grace laughed. “Hey, I personally think that understanding cellular adaptation and atrophy is more difficult than any workout.” You shook your head and smiled. Even when he was hot and heavy, he still took every opportunity to make a science joke. You wouldn’t have it any other way.
This time it was you who pulled him back into a kiss. He stole your move and tugged on the bottom of your blouse. You untangled your hands from his hair and began to undo the top buttons. Ryland followed your hands with his mouth as you worked your way down the shirt. With each inch of skin that was exposed to him, Ryland placed an open-mouth kiss there, leaving wet patches along your chest. As you reached the last button, Ryland’s mouth stayed on your navel but his arms snaked up to help you abandon the offending fabric..
He looked up at you from where he was perched on his knees, his chin on your stomach, those sweet blue eyes still in awe of you. That this was happening. That you weren’t something out of his wildest dreams. His right index finger toyed with the button on your pants. “Can I take these off, sweetheart?” Your eyes widened. Ryland grinned. “I’m going to take that as a yes with your eyes, now I just need your mouth to tell me the same.”
“Yes”, you rasped. He wasted no time pulling both your pants and your underwear down in one fell swoop, nearly knocking you off balance, but, of course, Ryland was there to catch you as you fell. He steadied you by digging both his palms into the back of your thighs, palming your flesh. He stood up, hands not leaving you for a second, meeting your lips again.
“Jump,” he stated simply. Without a second thought you hoisted yourself up by digging your hands into his shoulders and felt his strong hands grab the underside of your thighs, lifting you onto the lab table. The coldness of the counter was a stark contrast to the heat that was coursing through your body; it almost made you wince. You made to return Ryland’s favor and undo his jeans, but he caught your hands in his.
“Not yet, I want to make you feel good first,” he said, lips now working their way up the side of your face and under your earlobe.. “Is that alright?” he asked. You shuddered as the breath of his words met your skin. His hands had left their spots on your thighs and fluttered over your torso, tracing the outline of your ribs on your skin.
“O-okay,” you stuttered. It felt like your entire body was numb, but also so sensitive to every touch that Ryland gave you, all at once. Ryland leaned back and took your naked form in again. “Thatta girl,” the words seemed to drip off his tongue. He tapped your knees in encouragement and dropped to his knees again, parting your legs gently. He met your eyes quickly, a silent ask for permission which you readily granted.
With that, he kissed the insides of your thighs, working his way inwards from the inside of your knees. As he got closer to the spot where you needed him most, you felt the sharp edges of his glasses rims knock into your inner thighs. Ryland leaned back on his calves. “Sorry, sweetheart. Let me get these out of our way,” he plucked his glasses off of his face and made to place them on the counter before you interjected.
“No!” you startled yourself by how quickly you responded. Ryland looked up at you, puzzled. However, he paused where he was at, glasses still in hand. You sheepishly smiled. “Keep them on. Please.” You internally grimaced, embarrassed by your begging. However, after three years of pining after your professor, you were not passing up the thought of looking down to his glasses-framed face as he fucking ate you out.
Ryland smiled smugly. “Got a thing for the glasses, huh?” He placed them delicately back on his face. “Tell me,” he said, “Is it the daring Clark Kent vibe that gets you going or the wizened academic look that you like more?” He gestured to his face, mostly jokingly, but you could sense there was a genuine question somewhere in there. You leaned down and pushed the glasses further up his nose. “What can I say, I’ve got a thing for hot, nerdy, men,” you replied.
He laughed. “I’ll take it.”
It felt natural, the progression. His kisses felt earned, given with adoration, and he made sure that not an inch of you went untouched. After what felt like a million light years of him paying attention to everywhere except where you wanted, he licked a long, wet, downright disrespectful stripe up your folds. You moaned instantly and threw your head back. You didn’t even have any time to recover before he dove in again, his tongue swirling around your clit and sucking gently.
He didn’t know all of the spots to make you squirm right off the bat, but god was he a quick study. Whenever his tongue brushed a spot that tore a sound out of you, he made sure to hit that spot again. Over and over again. He seemed determined to get as many sounds out of you as he could, and you happily obliged. Not like you had much of a choice in the matter.
Fuck, he was good, you thought.
“Yeah?” Ryland asked from between your thighs. “You think so?”
You hadn’t realized you said that part outloud. You were too overwhelmed with bliss to even care. “Fuck yes, Ryland. You feel so fucking good, oh my-”
A finger being pushed into your folds cuts you off instantly. After that, there truly was no hope for you. He set a punishing pace, pumping his fingers in and out while using his tongue to get to all of the spots that his fingers couldn’t reach while preoccupied. You clenched around his fingers and you felt him tense as he jut his hips forward involuntarily. “Ryland,” you gasped. “I’m gonna-” You couldn’t even finish your sentence before Ryland picked up his pace further, if that was even possible.
“Come on, sweetheart. You can do it, let go,” you heard Ryland say, even though his voice sounded muffled and far away. His mouth returned to your clit, sucking hard, and the coil in your lower stomach finally broke. A loud moan tore out of you and you bit the back of your hand to silence yourself. You were still in the campus lab after all. Euphoria washed over you, from head to toe, and your legs shook with the impact. Ryland’s hand came up to steady you as he slowed slightly and worked you through it.
“There you go, just like that. I got you,” he coaxed gently. You moved the palm that you were biting down your face as the waves subsided. You couldn’t help it, you collapsed back on the table. Ryland resumed his ritual of kissing up your navel, to the center of your sternum, in between your collarbones, and finally, standing up, to your lips. You returned his kiss, although rather weakly.
“You okay?” he asked. You nodded. He paused for a moment, seemingly pondering if he should speak again. He decided on another question.
“You want more?” he asked, his voice deeper this time, lower.
“Fuck yes,” you cursed.
His words invigorated you with a second wind. You sat up quickly, hands rushing to undo the button and zipper on his jeans as he leaned into your hair and placed kisses to your head. As you fumbled with his belt loops, you could feel his arousal underneath your palm. Just to test the waters, you palmed him slightly, earning a whimper from Ryland into your hair. You hopped down from the counter as you finished unzipping his jeans. Ryland took over from there, sliding his jeans and underwear down in one go. Your eyes immediately cast downward and you bit your lip.
His cock sprang forward, rock hard and already leaking pre-cum. You would have never guessed in your wildest dreams that he would be this big. It made your mouth water. You slowly began to sink to your knees to show him as good of a time as he just gave you, but he stopped you with a hand to your chest.
“Please I- I can’t wait any longer,” Ryland searched your eyes. “I need to be inside you.”
Oh.
His words almost made you falter. As if you hadn’t had enough life-altering experiences tonight, here was Dr. Ryland Grace, published scientist, respected research and professor, begging to fuck you.
Ryland seemed to take your silence as a yes, as he grabbed your hips and gave you one last kiss before spinning you to face the lab counter. From your perspective, you could see out the lab’s large windows. The lab was on the second floor of the science building, so all you could see out the window was the tops of the trees on the grounds. Still, all that was running through your mind at this moment was the fact that students could be walking down below, without a clue about all of the filthy things you and your professor were doing in his lab.
Ryland places a hand on the small of your back and pushed you forward, effectively bending you over the lab counter. Your palms hit the counter, leaving an imprint on the black tops. Ryland kissed your back and you felt words muttered onto your skin. “Is this okay?”
“Yes, Ryland, please just-” He didn’t even let you finish. As soon as the word ‘yes’ left your mouth, he was pushing inside you. His cock stretching you out slow and depraved, making you gasp. Ryland cursed behind you, his hands flying to your hips and digging his short nails into your sides. He pushed slowly inside, inch by glorious inch until he was buried completely inside you. You turned your head slightly to see Ryland’s perfect face. He had his head thrown back, eyes closed, as if the act of being inside you was something that deserved a moment of silent reverence.
“Ryland?”
“Hm?” he hummed without opening his eyes.
“Move,” you demanded.
Well, you did ask for it. He pumped in and out of you like a piston, building up a rhythm that had you sobbing. Ryland’s hands never left your hips, you think he needed to hold on to them for his own sanity at this point. “Fuck you feel, you’re-” you sputtered. “You’re so fucking tight.”
His pace quickened as tears squeaked their way out of your eyes and onto the lab counter. You were sure that you had never felt this good in your entire life. You could feel that low simmer in your stomach that you felt earlier. You were close. “Just like that Ryland, I’m gonna cum again”, you croaked. Your voice was gone, all of the air absent from your lungs.
Ryland seemed to sense it too as his once steady rhythm faltered and failed at points. He was losing steam, and fast. “Oh my, oh my fucking god,” he growled. “Come on, cum with me, that’s my girl.”
The praise sent you over the edge. As your second wave rocked your body, you felt Ryland following suit. His hips stuttered as he spilled inside of you with a broken moan. His head fell forward onto your back as you felt his last few strokes, slow and intimate, pushing everything he gave you back inside, not letting a drop of the evidence of both of your choices drip onto the lab floor.
You could barely breathe. It was the best feeling in the world. Ryland stroked your hair and slowly pulled out from you, with you whining at the loss of contact. You rolled slightly on to your side, looking at your professor, a sheen of sweat gracing his gorgeous body, glasses askew on his nose. Ryland leaned back onto the lab table and brushed his fingers through his hair, a deep sigh leaving his cheeks. He turned over to you.
“So professor,” you teased in a sultry tone. You batted your eyelashes innocently. “Does this mean I get extra credit?”
Summary: The entire school knew how close you and Ryland Grace had become since you'd joined Grover Cleveland Middle's staff a year prior. That knowledge only fueled the rumor mill, that one that ran between the staff and students alike, on just how close the two of you were. It didn't help that you were definitely head over heels for the slightly awkward and endearing science teacher.
Warnings: pre-Project Hail Mary and should not include spoilers but caution anyways just in case, pre-movie storyline, tooth-rotting fluff, idiots in love, workplace romance, friends to lovers, slightly suggestive-ish comments but no smut, female reader but no characteristics described, definitely some incorrect science information but I am not a scientist so apologies, I am also not a teacher so I am sorry for any inaccuracies there lol, lightly edited so apologies for any mistakes
“Can anyone tell me why it was that Penelope asked her suitors to string Odysseus’s bow?”
The silence that followed was deafening. Your eyes shut for half a second, a tiny sigh escaping through your lips. Reopening your eyes, not a single one of your students had dared to raise their hands. No one except for Olivia, your star student, who waved her hand repeatedly in the air from the back of the classroom. A single glance to the clock told you all you needed to know.
11:55. These kids were already in lunch mode, and there was zero way you were getting them to listen to you.
With a sigh and a wave of your hand, you gave Olivia the okay to answer the question. She happily took your permission and ran with it, always the first to answer any questions you posed in class. If only the rest of these damn middle schoolers were as eager as she was.
“Penelope didn’t want to marry anyone else, so she gave them an impossible task,”
“Why does she always know everything?”
Marcus thought his comment was whispered just low enough that you wouldn’t hear him in the first row, but he was never quite that lucky. He quickly shut his mouth and looked anywhere but in your direction the second he caught sight of the disapproving look you were casting directly at him.
“You are exactly right, Olivia. Thank you for answering my question,” there were a few chuckles in the room at the obvious sarcasm laced through your words, as you hopped up onto your desk to relax and get a better look around the room full of kids. “Penelope knew the only person that could string her husband’s bow, was her husband himself. She needed to buy time, especially when these suitors only really wanted to be the ones to inherit Ithaca-”
There was a loud knocking on the door to your classroom that had been left open for the last 20 minutes of class, interrupting your words. You weren’t surprised in the slightest to meet the eyes of none other than Ryland Grace, the science teacher.
“Uh- sorry! Didn’t mean to interrupt important book talk stuff. Super important, you uh-you never know when Shakespeare will come up at your future desk job,” the cringe that Ryland physically did at his own comment was easy to see, even from across the room. He gave you a sheepish smile, his glasses barely hanging onto his face from their unconventional spot hanging off of one of his ears. The blonde held up the brown bag in his hand, and you could practically smell the food that rested inside. “I’m early, I’m sorry. Didn’t think you’d want to have a cold burger for lunch.”
“I told you!” Marcus still didn’t understand the concept of a whisper, leaning over to his best friend Jason at the desk beside him, slapping him on the arm. “They’re totally dating!”
“As if Mr. Grace could pull her,”
There was a chorus of snickers and laughter through the class, any semblance of order you might’ve had descending into chaos as every single one of your loveable, little shits just kept casting looks between you and Ryland, who still stood awkwardly in your classroom doorway with reddened cheeks.
Your face was surely no better, you were sure you could feel the heat that was emanating off of your skin, as you ran a hand down the burning skin of your face and wondered why you chose to teach these little menaces for the rest of your life. The world decided to be kind to the pair of you though, for once, letting the lunch bell save you from any further embarrassment from a group of 13 year olds.
“Please come to class prepared to actually answer questions tomorrow!” you called out over the hustle and bustle of the class as they grabbed their things, eager to scurry off to their lunch hour and finally eat. “Your unit test is at the end of next week, and I would prefer not to fail all of you.”
They weren’t listening, but by this point in the day you were hungry and didn’t have the energy to try and argue with them.
Any of that tiredness they brought to your bones? It disappeared the second you watched the way they all interacted with Ryland on their way out the door.
Big smiles, every single one of them excited to see the school’s favorite science teacher lingering in the doorway to their English class. You could just barely hear the tail end of one of Ryland’s terrible science puns, something about a hungry planet needing a ‘light snack’ that got a groan out of Marcus. All it did was bring a soft smile to your face, though, one that somehow softened even more at the quick, secret handshake Olivia shared with him before she was out the door.
Then, it was just the two of you, smiling like idiots as you locked eyes across the room again. And god, did you want that fluttering group of butterflies in your stomach to calm down for just a moment.
Having a crush on Dr. Ryland Grace, the former molecular biologist turned San Francisco middle school science teacher, was inevitable from the moment you turned up at the school for your first day over a year ago. Incredibly smart, amazing with kids, and so incredibly handsome you thought your heart stopped beating the first time you saw him–hell, Mrs. Doyle, the math teacher for over 5 years, said there were at least 4 other young teachers that absolutely had crushes on this man. You were far from the first.
He broke that perfect vision of himself you were building in your head within 5 minutes of meeting, tripping over his own two feet and knocking the stack of papers a mile high from the Principal’s hands, but you had only found it even more endearing.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he apologized again, long legs striding across the room and reaching your desk in a matter of seconds. “I had a free period before this, a-and you mentioned this morning you forgot lunch so I grabbed some for both of us-”
“Sal’s?” you questioned, pointing to the bag of foot now sitting on your desk with the familiar logo. “They’re, like, 10 blocks away. Why’d you go that far?”
“Because I know they’re your favorite,”
The flare of heat in your cheeks was instant. Ryland Grace, who rode a damn bike to the school every day, used his free period to ride 10 blocks away and pick you up lunch from your favorite spot, all because you mentioned offhandedly at 7 a.m. about forgetting your lunch for the day.
Well, he certainly didn’t do that for the four fresh out of college teachers that had crushes on him. You’d mentally consider that a hefty win in your book.
“How sweet of you to remember,” Ryland simply waved you off, head turned away as he passed your wrapped burger into your hands, taking up space on your desk chair while you stayed comfortable on top of your desk. “You even remembered tomatoes this time!”
“I forgot them one time and I never hear the end of it,” laughter was shared between you both for a moment as Grace took a bite of his own burger. “I caught the tail end of that discussion. Olivia answering all your questions like a champ?”
“Isn’t she always,” you shot back with another laugh, turning slightly on your desk to better face him. “I swear she’s the only one that I can ever get to answer any of my questions. She might be the only one that does any of my assigned readings.”
“To be fair, can you blame her?” Ryland’s words were muffled slightly by the food in his mouth. You couldn’t even contain the slight smile that grew as he managed to just barely catch the ketchup dripping off his burger before it could smear itself on the stack of papers that needed graded at your desk. “Shakespeare was just…so interesting. Couldn’t get enough of his stuff. Don’t know why your kids don’t want to read it.”
There was silence for a moment, your eyebrow quirked in his direction. The blonde stopped mid bite of his burger, looking back at you quizzically, trying to figure out what he had said wrong.
“You know we’re currently learning The Odyssey, right?”
“Yes?”
“I’ll let you think about that for a second,”
He did, just slowly blinking in your direction. He glanced at the chalkboard behind you, covering in little notes you’d made throughout the class discussion, before they flickered to the copy of the book that sat on your desk. That was finally when you saw the light bulb flicker on above his head, Ryland’s eyes shutting as he let out a loud sigh.
“...that wasn’t written by Shakespeare, was it?”
The laughter that bubbled out of you practically had you throwing your head backward.
“No, but I’m sure Homer won’t be too offended,” feet landing on the ground as you hopped off your desk, you gave Ryland’s shoulder a quick squeeze as you moved past him. “The attempt was cute, though, it was a good try.”
Cute. Why in the world did you let that one slip? You were practically cursing yourself in your head for that one, taking another bite of your burger as you worked to erase the whiteboard to prepare it for your next class. You didn’t dare steal a glance over at Ryland, in fear that your little slip-up was going to ruin everything.
There was only quiet for a moment before the single moment of awkwardness was gone.
“I promise you I know Homer wrote that. I swear!”
The desperation to believe him drew another laugh out of you. Sparing a glance in his direction, Ryland was giving you his best, exaggerated puppy dog eyes, begging you to believe him, as a smile just barely squeaked its way onto his lips.
“Right, of course you did. My mistake. Whatever you say, Ryland-”
“I mean it!” It was his turn to laugh this time, a sound that had those butterflies rattling around once more. “I was just…distracted.”
“Uh-huh, distracted,” as if you were preparing to scold one of your students, you turned to face him fully with a hand on your hip, eyebrow raised expectantly. “By what, exactly?”
If a human being could buffer, Ryland Grace always seemed to be constantly buffering. Your eyebrow remained raised, waiting for him to piece together his response. All he could do was open and close his mouth like a fish, before looking away and taking another bite of his food.
“Nevermind that, just finish your food before it gets cold. I did bike, like, three miles to get that thing,”
With a roll of your eyes that held zero malice what-so-ever, you made sure the blonde could see your next bite of your food, a satisfied smile on his face.
“Back to the previous topic,” you steered the conversation in another direction, wiping off the last bits of chalk on the board and writing down your next period at the top so that you could start the discussion on the reading over again. “I don’t understand why it’s so hard to get some of these kids to just read the content. They all pay attention in your class!”
“I heard Jason make a comment yesterday during class that Marcus has a crush on Olivia. Maybe they’re too distracted to read,”
You shot him a skeptical look.
“Marcus, crushing on Olivia? He was just making fun of her before you came in the room,”
Ryland averted his eyes, suddenly very interested in his ID badge hanging around his neck from his school issues lanyard.
“W-well, maybe he just doesn’t…know how to express his feelings,” he spared a glance up at you, seeing you were still watching, as he tripped over his words again. “It can be hard for boys–and men–of all ages, to…tell someone how they feel.”
“Well, I don’t know where he’s learning from, but making fun of the girl you like isn’t the right way to go about things,” you shot back.
“Then teach them!” Ryland sounded absolutely ecstatic, that light bulb over his head going off again as he looked like he’d come up with the world’s greatest idea. “Classic literature, there’s plenty of great love stories in there. Get his interest by teaching them about that, so he can learn from them.”
“Alright, give me an example then, Mr. Suddenly an Expert in Classic Literature,”
“Romeo and Juliet,” he said like it was the easiest thing in the world, balling up the remnants of his finished food and tossing it in the bag it came in. “Greatest love story ever told, so great Taylor Swift wrote a song about them.”
“Except they don’t run off and get married and live happily ever after, Ryland. Romeo thinks she is dead and kills himself with poison, and when Juliet realizes he’s dead she stabs herself,”
Ryland’s excitement fell slightly, his mouth forming a little ‘o’ shape.
“...oh,”
“Don’t think that’s what I want to teach young, impressionable pre-teens about love-”
“Daisy and Gatsby, then! He loved her so much he stood on that dock staring at the-the bright yellow light of a stoplight for her,”
“It was a green light and it was the dock light, first of all. I’m not even sure how you could be that off. Secondly, Gatsby is murdered at the end of the book and Daisy doesn’t even attend the funeral, she and Tom move away and pretend it never happened,”
Ryland’s eyes are shut at this point, his fingers massaging his temples and those glasses just barely hanging on from their place around his neck.
“...does anyone not die in these old books?”
The sound of your laughter permeates the room and you sweep over, collecting his trash and combining it with yours. You never even spared him a glance, though you could feel his eyes on you, as you swept the trash away with you to the other side of the room, his voice echoing across to you.
“I’m going to get lucky on one of these guesses!”
What Ryland Grace was really lucky about was how adorable you found him, and how head over heels you were for him, because his lack of literary knowledge was astounding.
❤︎
“I’m sorry, you’re trying to tell me that aren’t currently fucking the eye candy that is the science teacher in room 305?”
“Evelyn!”
Evelyn Doyle was in her late thirties, married since she was 18, and already had three kids with her high school sweetheart. Since you had transferred into Grover Cleveland Middle, you’d become fast friends and she had become a great mentor.
She had, sadly, caught onto your pathetic crush on Ryland Grace before you had even fully realized it, and was now ‘vicariously living through you’ as she always said.
“There’s not a single child left in this entire school right now,” she shot back, gesturing around her empty classroom, as she finished cleaning up anything her students had left around at the end of the day. You rolled your eyes at her excuse, perched on the edge of her desk. “Please, I’m tenured, what are they going to do?”
“I’m more so yelling at you for butting into my love life, once again,” was your reply through laughter. “Ryland and I are good friends, that’s it.”
It was her turn to laugh, finishing up her cleanup around the room before she joined you at her desk, packing her things away into her shoulder bag.
“Oh please, you keep denying that little crush of yours-”
“I never said I was denying that,” you cut her off. “Lord, you realized I liked him before I even did. But he and I aren’t anything besides friends. I’m not lying.”
Your pleas fell on deaf ears, like they typically did when you were around Evelyn. She simply waved your statement off, tossing her bag over her shoulder as you followed her out of her room and down through the quiet of the school hallway. The quietest the hallway ever was, in the hours right after students were sent home for the day. You’d rather be anywhere else, preferably at home, but these mandatory once-a-month staff meetings were unavoidable.
“Whether you’re telling me the truth or not, you have to understand why everyone thinks so–teachers AND students. I think even some parents think so!” The only response she got was an eyeroll, her shoulder bumping into your’s playfully. “He brings you lunch at least once a week, meaning he rides that dingy bike to get whatever you’re craving that day.”
“It’s usually just something random-”
“Constantly in your classroom, or vice versa,” she cut you off, and you quickly realized you weren’t getting a single word into this conversation. “I’m pretty sure Principal Marshall has considered, somehow, moving your classroom closer to his just so he’ll stop being late to classes because he’s busy talking to you.”
Okay…yeah, you didn’t have a retort for that one. Your classroom was on the opposite end of the school building from Ryland’s own, and yet every time he had even a split second he was somehow always leaning in your doorway. Even if it only resulted in a conversation that lasted all of a minute.
Many times those ended with your students having to remind him that the bell rang and he definitely had students in his own class unattended, waiting on their teacher. More than once he’d slipped as he tried to sprint back to his classroom from yours. It didn’t matter how short those little conversations were, though, because every second around him was precious to you.
“Awe, look at you blushing about it-”
You slapped Evelyn’s hand away, throwing her a look of disdain that didn’t really hold any true malice to it.
“Look, all I’m saying is the ball is in his court,” was the response you finally settled on as Evelyn propped the door of the small auditorium open for you to enter. “Ryland is nothing but friendly to me, so if he’s interested then he’s got to show me.”
“You’re acting as if you’ve made your own feelings clear, honey,”
“No, but I clearly don’t do a good enough job of hiding them,”
Speak of the devil: there he was. Ryland’s head shot up the moment the pair of you walked into the auditorium. Those damn glasses hanging down from one side of his face, framing his stubbled jawline perfectly. A smile lighting up his face the second those blue eyes found yours, gesturing to the empty seat beside him.
A packed auditorium, as you and Evelyn were the last ones there. Every seat up practically filled, and yet Ryland Grace sat among a crowd of people, eyes trained on you and a single seat saved for you amidst it all.
All you could feel was the heat in your cheeks, and the touch of Evelyn patting your back as she laughed, voice low but loud enough to hear as she shifted past you to find a seat of her own.
“Doesn’t have interest in you my ass,”
Her words swam through your head with every apology you muttered to the other teachers as you snuck past them in the cramped rows, happily taking the empty seat beside Ryland.
“You didn’t have to save me a seat, you know,” your voice held a hint of teasing to it, but it was soft. Filled with an adoration that you knew you were terrible at hiding. Luckily, Ryland was terrible at picking up on it.
“Wanted to sit next to you,” he whispered back as Principal Marshall began to drone on about updates neither of you particularly cared about. He leaned in close, a hint of his breath wafting over the shell of your ear as he spoke. “You make these slightly less boring.”
Close proximity to this man was your worst nightmare, and the cramped auditorium wasn’t helping. That single touch of his breath against your skin was enough to send a simultaneous shiver down your spine and another round of heat to your cheeks. His suit jacket covered arm rested on the shared armrest between your seats, the edge of his bicep ghosting against the bare skin of your arm with every little shift he made, tapping incessantly against the armrest.
The slight action made you smile. He never could sit still in these meetings, always hated them.
“Did anything fun happen in class today?” you kept your voice low, eyes trained on the principal, as your head tilted slightly over to Ryland so he could better hear you.
“Uh, if you count Madison telling me that she thinks the sun orbits the earth, then sure,” you had to stifle your laugh at that, casting Ryland a side glance as he grinned at you, doing a terrible job of whispering back at you as usual.
“How could she possibly think that?”
“You’d be surprised,” Ryland leaned just a tad bit closer, the side of his arm pushed up fully against your own. You could almost hear the smile in his voice without even having to look over at him. “The National Science Foundation estimates that 26% of Americans still think the sun orbits the earth.”
“Jesus, that many?”
“Well, 100% of them are stupid, so,”
Nasty looks from other faculty were shot your way that second you choked on your own breath, slapping a hand over your mouth in an attempt to stop yourself from breaking out into uncontrollable laughter. You gave them the most sympathetic look you possibly could, learning how to breathe normally again before mouthing sorry at them all.
Ryland didn’t care in the slightest for the warning look you shot him, a bright smile on his face as his eyes seemed to trail over every inch of your face.
“If you keep doing this in every faculty meeting, they’re going to separate us, Ry,”
“I met Madison’s parents for the first time last month for parent-teacher conferences,” he continued, ignoring your plea. Instead, he leaned in even closer, eyes locked on yours, and god it was impossible to look away. “They are, 100%, undeniably, part of the Flat Earth Truthers Club.”
You shook your head, a smile creeping back up on your lips. Ryland’s gaze could still be felt on the side of your face as you turned back to face the front, eyes focused back on the principal again in an attempt to pay attention to the meeting.
“Flat earthers are ridiculous. They’re just scared of science,”
“Well, you know what they say…the only thing they have to fear is sphere itself,”
There simply wasn’t enough time to clap your hand over your mouth and conceal your laughter, a split second of it breaking through the quiet of the auditorium. And Ryland? His smile was somehow even brighter than it was before, still locked onto your face, never having strayed once.
“Dr. Grace, is there something you feel needs to be shared with the rest of your fellow faculty?”
Principal Marshall’s voice was enough to knock Ryland out of whatever trance he seemed to have put himself in. Eyes wide as if he’d just seen a ghost, hands barely able to catch his glasses as they almost fell right off of his ear where they dangled, a burst of red spread through his cheeks instantly as his deer-like eyes locked onto the unamused principal.
“I-I uh, no. No, nothing, Principal Marshall,” he scratched at the back of his head, ruffling up his already messy hair, a nervous tick you’d picked up since the moment you’d met him. You simply buried your head in your head, eyes trained on your shoes and Ryland out of the corner of your gaze, terrified to look up at your fellow faculty that you’d already apologized to once. “Just getting super jazzed about faculty updates. Hard to keep it in here. I’m like a mushroom, getting all…hyphae…”
A collective groan sounded through the auditorium at the terrible biology pun that rolled off of him with ease. All you could do was smile into the palm of your hand.
“Please just…pay attention to the meeting, Dr. Grace, before I separate you and your other half,”
Other half. That’s not how she meant it, but it was impossible not to let your mind wander to the idea.
Early mornings. Coffee, the smell of eggs and toast burning in the kitchen. Ryland and his hair that was surely even more unkempt that early in the day. The guarantee that he definitely had about 120 science puns ready to go at any moment.
Late nights. Curled up on a couch. A movie, a shared blanket, warm in the embrace of his arms. The quiet of just being with someone that made you happy in ways you’d never felt before. The promise of another day with them on the horizon.
It was becoming increasingly harder not to think about Ryland Grace like that every day, of what a life with the awkward, endearing science teacher could be.
And as Principal Marshall continued her meeting, and your eyes met the blue ones that were already looking at you: soft, kind, a hint of something you couldn’t understand in them, you could only dream he thought the same thoughts when he looked at you.
❤︎
“Alright, who can tell me the day of the first human space flight?”
Not a single middle schooler, packed into the building’s planetarium, raised their hands at first. Many of them started whispering to each other, confused looks on their faces, but Ryland just waited with a smile on his face. A brave soldier from Mr. Harkin’s class, Damien, finally raised his hand.
“Uh, Mr. Grace? Wouldn’t that…be today?”
“Excatly!” Grace’s clap echoed through the room as he pointed toward the young kid sitting in the front row of seats. “International Day of Human Space Flight, commemorating the first human space flight by Yuri Gagarin. It was a trick question, and you passed my tiny friend.”
Were you excited about losing a chunk of your day to escorting your class to the planetarium, along with other classes in the building, for a special science presentation? Absolutely not, especially not with how terribly your class did on their last The Odyssey assignment.
When you found out that Ryland was giving the presentation during your allotted time? Suddenly, The Odyssey meant nothing to you. Not when you could watch Ryland teach, something he did so effortlessly.
The way he captured every single child’s attention with ease. That glowing smile on his face every time they answered a question right, and simply the way he seemed to love what he taught. You were captivated every time you got the chance to see him teaching the thing he loved so much.
“Yuri Gagarin was a Soviet cosmonaut who became the first person in space in 1961 aboard the Vostok 1,” the planetarium was lit up with the night sky, little stars reflecting down. You could almost see them in the students eyes, in their bright smiles as they looked up into the vastness of space. Your eyes trailed to Ryland, already looking at you with a soft smile of his own, before he cleared his throat and moved throughout the room, focusing back on the kids. “Over the course of 89 minutes, his ship traveled to a maximum altitude of 187 miles, as it orbited the Earth.”
“Wait, so we weren’t the first people in space?” one of your students, Lydia, called out. Ryland laughed, pointing over at her.
“No, we kind of sucked,” you rolled your eyes with a grin at Ryland’s statement, though it drew a laugh from all of the kids. “No, America had actually scheduled its first space flight for May 1961, so this was a huge blow to us. It really heated up the space race.”
“He really is good with them, isn’t he?”
Glancing over, Mr. Harkin had saddled up beside you on the edge of the room, head tilted toward you and voice low so as to not disrupt the lesson the kids were being taught. Your gaze drifted back to Ryland as he continued his lesson, eliciting more laughter from the kids. It only brought another soft smile to rest on your lips.
“He is, in a way that I just don’t understand,”
Those blue eyes you’d become so fond of met yours for a moment across the room, face illuminated by the light projecting onto the planetarium’s dome walls. The little grin he wore seemed to drop just slightly, gaze still locked on you but flickering every moment over to Mr. Harkin as he spoke to the students. Harkin’s elbow dug lightly into your side.
“Careful, you’re giving him major ‘heart eyes’ across the room right now,”
You did your best to conceal your laughter, shooting Harkin a look, Ryland’s gaze still felt on the side of your face even as you looked away.
“Why do I feel like I’m about to find out that every teacher in this school has a secret betting ring going on when it comes to Ryland and I?”
“I mean, it’s not a secret. Principal Marshall runs the damn thing,”
“Mr. Grace?” one of the youngest girls in the grade, Aurora, called out, raising her hand up to get Ryland’s attention. “My mom told me the other day that there’s 8 planets in our solar system. What happened to Pluto?”
Ryland went to answer when Mr. Harkin beside you laughed, capturing the attention of everyone in the room, as he shook his head at his young student.
“No, honey, scientists a couple years ago decided that Pluto wasn’t a planet anymore,”
Your eyes flickered to Ryland, who was already staring at Harkin from across the room as he tossed his little crochet earth back and forth in his hand. His response was a bit of a forced laugh.
“Well, your teacher isn’t wrong. Scientists classified Pluto as a dwarf planet a couple years ago,” he explained to the kids, eyes trained on the little crochet sphere in his hands. “But there’s 8 other very important, even closer planets that we should focus on. I mean, who really cares about a tiny, slow planet that takes 248 years to orbit the sun–honestly, he should just accept that he’s slowly falling into obscurity and stop trying to steal the spotlight.”
The room got quiet. Your eyebrow raised slightly, head tilted, as everyone just seemed to stare at Ryland, who had yet to look up.
“Uh, Mr. Grace?” some student in the back called out. “Why did you call Pluto ‘he’? Are the planets boys and girls like us, too?”
Ryland’s head shot up, as if he suddenly remembered he was in a room full of students. His eyes shot to you, his mouth opening, then closing, before he quickly looked away.
“I–well…planets don’t really…I’m not trying to misgender the planets, you know? That’s not for me to decide, that’s for them to–you know what, does anyone else have any other questions that aren’t related to Pluto?”
You really didn’t want to laugh at Ryland, but only he would be able to accidentally turn a lesson about space and planets into almost a lesson on bodily autonomy. He caught your eye, his widening just slightly and you could almost see his cry for help written across his face, but it only made your laughter worse.
It was little Madison that raised her hand next, speaking before she’d even been called upon.
“Are you sure the Earth isn’t the center of the universe?”
Ryland hung his head in shame, the shaking of his head evident from across the room as a few of the kids around laughed at the young girl’s comment. You were quick to shoot them a warning look, not keen to hand out any detentions today.
By the time your gaze turned back to Ryland, he was already looking at you. His gaze flickered to Harkin, then back to you, and it was like a light bulb had just flickered on the way his eyes lit up.
“Yes, Madison, I’m sure the Earth isn’t the center of the universe. And I can show you,” his long legs crossed the room in seconds, his body sliding between you and Mr. Harkin as his hands landed on your shoulders with a tiny little squeeze that sent your heart leaping through your chest. “But to do that, I’m going to need this volunteer that I’m not quite giving a choice.”
“It’s not volunteering if you didn’t ask, Ry!”
You exasperatedly tried to whisper to Ryland as he steered you across the room to stand before all the kids. He only shook his head as a bunch of your own students started cheering for you around the room, only worsening the red that coated your cheeks the second his hands had landed on your body.
“I need you for this,” he shot back hastily, positioning you in the middle of the room, standing in front of you. His body blocked the students from your vision, blue eyes boring down into yours, hands gently squeezing at your upper arms as you begged the blush in your skin to not be too obvious. “You trust me?”
A ridiculous question, because the only answer was yes. You gave him a nod, and Ryland’s smile only widened as he turned back to the kids in the room.
“Alright, kids. Your gorgeous teacher here is the Sun,”
Little oohs and awes sounded from the kids around the room at Ryland’s little slip in of the word ‘gorgeous.’ There was a sting in your bottom lip as you bit into it with your teeth, trying to contain your own smile. Marcus spoke up from across the room without raising his hand, as usual.
“Then what’s Mr. Harkin?”
“Oh, he’s Pluto,” Ryland shot back immediately, nodding his head. “Suits him.”
Laughter rang through the room, the young boys as rambunctious as ever. Ryland met your astonished look with a tiny wink of his own, one that forced a small laugh to tumble from your lips. Then, he began to slowly spin, walking around you in a circle.
“And I am the Earth,” he called out to the kids, and you could only hope he didn’t trip over his own two shoelaces. “The Sun holds 99.8% of the mass in our solar system, which means it’s packing some massive gravity.”
Ryland stopped spinning himself, still moving around you in a circle. He held his hand out toward you, and you slipped yours into it without hesitation, spinning in that circle slowly with him.
“Because the Sun holds such intense gravity, it’s actually pulling Earth into it. But, Earth has such high forward velocity that it actually keeps us moving sideways. Put these two together, and it keeps Earth moving in an almost perfect circle around the sun. Can anyone tell me another fun fact about our movement around the sun?”
The words went in one of your ears and straight out the other. There was no paying attention, not when Ryland’s hand held your own. Soft skin, just slightly rough around the edges, and those blue eyes were so soft, locked onto you as if there was nowhere else he wanted to look.
“Our speed changes!” Olivia called out from somewhere in the back, but you didn’t even try to look and find her. “When we’re closer to the sun in our orbit we move faster, and the further away we are, the slower we move.”
“Very good, Olivia!” Ryland called out, sparing just a quick glance over to the kids in the room as his hand held yours tighter, still spinning slowly together. “Madison, we also know this works because there’s other sun-like stars out there that are also orbited by planets. Like Tau Ceti, which has four Earth-like planets orbiting it.”
“Is the sun important for other things, besides just being the center?”
Ryland’s eyes flickered to you, and you watched as he paused. The slight hesitation on his face, the bobbing of his Adam’s apple for a moment, before those blue eyes locked onto yours and refused to look away.
“I-It is…for a lot of reasons. The Sun is the Earth’s entire reason for existing. The Sun gives the Earth life. The Sun is the reason the world is beautiful,”
Your breath hitched, eyes still trained on Ryland. There was something in his words, something in that earnest, raw look that he had written across his features as he looked at you that added a weight to his words. A weight that sent a tiny chill across your skin, raising the hair on your arms.
“Without the Sun…the Earth would be nothing,”
There was quiet across the room. Then, a couple snickers, followed by Olivia’s smug little voice.
“The Sun sounds beautiful the way you talk about it,”
“She is,” his voice was lower, softer than it was before. Until, he seemed to realize what he said, the red on both of your faces spreading further than before as his eyes shot wide. “THE SUN I mean! I-I’m talking about the sun, obviously, b-because this is a science presentation!”
Laughter rang through the room, little chants of your names mashed together coming from some of the kids as the bell rang and saved either of you from further embarrassment.
Ryland, being Ryland, chose that moment to finally trip over his own two feet. You pulled on his hand as hard as you could, saving him from plummeting to the ground as he instead just landed on his one knee.
“Make good choices,” Ryland commented lowly as some of the kids walked past the two of you, still snickering and giggling to themselves. You let go of his hands finally, simply resting it on his shoulder with a gentle squeeze. “Don’t uh, I don’t know, blow up the world during lunch or anything. Or pop those chip bags and give kids heart attacks, whatever you kids do these days.”
You laughed, stepping around Ryland as your kids lined up outside of the room, waiting for you. He shot you a sheepish smile from the floor, and your skin still burned with heat at the memory of his words as you looked at him.
“Every time I think you’re doing well with those kids, they manage to knock you down a peg,”
“Yeah, well, what’s new?”
When you met your class outside, you didn’t let them get a word in before you warned them not to say anything. You could still hear little comments talking about ‘shipping’ their English and Science teachers the entire way back to your classroom.
❤︎
Ryland Grace didn’t understand how he had ended up here.
Well, he did. Calling the leading scholar in his field a “staggering waste of carbon” at a UNESCO conference in Denmark was an easy way to get blacklisted from the field he’d studied in for many years in college. It was an easy explanation for how he ended up teaching middle school science at Grover Cleveland Middle in San Francisco.
Not that he had a problem with teaching! He actually loved it. Loved his kids, loved talking about science. He loved teaching the future little scientists of the world about why every facet of science was awesome. The pay wasn’t great, though.
Especially when it was the reason he rode a bike to school daily.
And there was currently the equivalent of a monsoon raining down from the sky onto the pavement, the reason he’d been standing at the front doors for the last 20 minutes hoping that the rain would simply let up. The heavens didn’t take pity on him, though, and it only rained harder and harder. His rain coat and bike were not meant to withstand heavy rain and damaging winds to this extent.
Best cast scenario? It takes him a little longer to get home on his usual 20 minute bike ride than normal. Worst case? He crashes and dies, dead in a ditch covered in mud.
“Ryland, please tell me you aren’t thinking of riding your bike home in this?”
Then there was you. You were probably the single greatest reason why he loved teaching at Grover Cleveland Middle. If he ever had the unfortunate chance to meet that scientist from the conference again, he’d thank him this time for being a staggering waste of carbon, because it led him down a path to you.
“I can’t be that bad,” he tried to joke, waving you off as a crack of thunder seemed to shake the entire building, and his fake confidence faltered for a second. He glanced back at you, coat wrapped around your bag instead of yourself in order to keep its contents dry. “Just, you know…the slight threat of bodily harm.”
He really wished the path that led to you was less bumpy and full of himself looking like an idiot, but at this rate he’d take what he could get from the universe.
“Yeah, absolutely not,” was your immediate reply, head shaking as she fished your car keys out of the bag still covered with your coat. “I’m giving you a ride home, can’t risk the best science teacher’s life over a dumb storm.”
Ryland immediately shook his head, turning to face you beside him. He was not letting you risk your own life in the storm for him. If it really came down to it, he’d sleep at his desk. There was a change of clothes he kept in the bottom drawer, it wasn’t the first time he’d had to do it.
“I can’t let you-”
“This isn’t up for discussion,” Ryland snapped his mouth shut as you cut in once again, dangling your car keys up in front of him with a little shake. “I…care about you, okay? I want to know you are home safe.”
There was no stopping the immediate heat that filled Ryland’s cheeks, and he knew it. There was red blooming across your own, but Ryland shook all wishful thinking from his mind. The AC unit in this school was unreliable, you were definitely just flushed from the heat. No other reason.
Ryland decided he wasn’t going to put up a fight at this point, but he wasn’t going to let you do this without anything in return. He shrugged the yellow raincoat hanging over his own shoulders off as he kicked the glass door in front of him open, the muffle sounds of the torrential downpour now louder as droplets of water splashed into the front door. He held the jacket out, hanging it above your head to protect you from the rain.
“At least let me save you from getting drenched,”
“You’re going to look like a dog that just had a bath by the time we reach my car,” Ryland only smiled at your joke, and the little giggle that fell through your lips. The close proximity didn’t help as he held the jacket up around you.
“Actually, it’s not windy today,” he shot back with a grin, nodding out the propped open door into the rain. “That means if we run, I’ll be drier than if we walked, because the rain that’s hitting us from above is proportional to time. Though, the rain hitting us from the front is proportional to distance, and when running-”
“Ryland Grace, you are adorable when you get all science-nerd, but if we’re going to run…we should run,”
Ryland was thankful that you couldn’t see the renewed heat flooding his cheeks, as you were both too busy sprinting through the torrential downpour to the staff parking lot.
Being a gentleman (who was head over heels in love with you and too terrified to say a damn thing) was thrown out the window with how fast you were booking it to your car, the idea of shielding you from the rain with his jacket abandoned after just a moment booking it across the lot. He could feel the coolness of the water settling against his skin as it soaked through every layer of clothing he had, every few seconds having to furiously wipe at his glasses in hopes of seeing through them.
None of it really mattered in the end, not when he heard your laugh. The little shrieks of laughter as a particularly big drop happened to fall right in your eyes. Or the laughter as Ryland managed–in his signature fashion–to slip on the final step into the parking lot, and you had to double back in laughter to help haul him to his feet.
He’s spring clumsily through the rain a thousand more times if he got to see you smile like that. And that is why his kids always told him that he was definitely ‘whipped’ for you. Whatever that meant.
The second you had both jumped into your respective seats of your vehicle, doors slamming shut, there was only a moment of silence between the both of you. Ryland felt like his chest was going to explode, remembering why he always hated gym class, his heavy breathing mixed with yours as you both caught your breath, before you locked eyes over the center console.
Then the laughter resumed.
He held his hand to his stomach, feeling an ache settling in as he couldn’t stop his own laughter. Your’s grew slightly louder in his ear as you leaned over, trying to help him wipe at his glasses that were still covered.
“I was right, you look like a wet dog,”
Ryland’s only response was to shake his soaking wet hair like one, a simple reaction that earned yet another shriek of laughter from you and a light slap to his shoulder. You muttered something unintelligible under your breath, but Ryland found himself unable to tear his gaze away from your lips as you started the car and began to pull out of the staff lot. How soft they looked, the way the little beads of water running down your cheeks fell over them.
Whipped. He still didn’t get it, but he agreed wholeheartedly with his kids at this point.
There was no driving fast in this rain, especially when the windshield wipers were moving at their highest programmed speed and it still wasn’t enough. It was quiet in the car for just a moment as you pulled out of the parking lot, but Ryland broke it the second your phone had connected to the car’s bluetooth, music filling the space between him and you.
Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars. Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars.
“Frank Sinatra,” Ryland couldn’t help the growing smile on his lips as the familiar song flooded through the car speakers. He kept his eyes trained on the side of your face, watching the little smile grow on your own lips, eyes focused on the road conditions in front of you. “Old books and old music. Didn’t know you had such an old soul.”
“You calling me old, Ryland?”
“N-no!” Ryland immediately back track, hands flying up and shaking back and forth as his eyes went wide. “I might say some stupid stuff some–okay, most of the time–but I know better than to comment on a woman’s age.”
“I’m just teasing you,” he could thankfully hear the sincerity mixed in with the teasing lit to your voice. “But yes, I do enjoy some old music. Always been a big fan of Sinatra, especially this one.”
“It’s a nice song…just not scientifically accurate,” he caught the side eye that you threw his way for just a moment, another crack of thunder banging across the sky and almost shaking the car. Ryland couldn’t help but jump slightly. “Jupiter only has a 3.13° tilt to its axis, so it doesn’t experience seasons like we do. Mar’s would, though, because its axis is tilted at 25°, only 1.5° more than our own tilt…”
Ryland trailed off as the car rolled to a stop at a red light, and he caught you fully facing him this time with a bemused expression written across your face. His smile dropped just slightly as he let out a sheepish laugh, adjusting his glasses as they slid back down the wet bridge of his nose.
“...I went full science-nerd again, didn’t I?”
Your laughter drowned out the rain beating against the roof of the car as your attention returned to the road once more.
“You always do, but I happen to enjoy it very much,”
If only teaching paid more, because the commute to Ryland’s apartment was a lot shorter than his bike ride home every day from work.
Parked in an open space across the road from the dimly lit apartment building, Ryland Grace hesitated with his hand on the handle of the door. His eyes swept out over the area around the vehicle, still being hounded with rain. The top of his road looked like the beginning of a river, the way the water was rushing down the small incline to pool at the bottom.
“Thanks…for this,” he gestured toward the weather right outside the card.
You moved to respond to him, when the weather alert on your phone propped up on your dashboard sounded out. Ryland could just barely make out the headline: FLASH FLOOD WARNING.
The roads were far too dangerous, and Ryland already knew from various conversations that you lived on the opposite end of town from him.
He…could ask you to stay for the night. Just for safety reasons, obviously! He was quickly trying to work through the pros and cons list in his head.
Pros: his only friend that just so happened to be the woman he’s been head over heels in love with for the last year would be safe and not driving in this storm.
Cons: his only friend that just so happened to be the woman he’s been head over heels in love with for the last year would be inside his tiny little apartment that looked like it had been hit by a separate hurricane than the one it felt like they were currently suffering through.
“I should probably get home-”
“Stay,” Ryland cut in, quickly continuing his words after his vague statement. “I-It’s just, the roads are bad, and you live on the other side of town. This storm is just going to get worse, and I-I’d hate to know something happened to you.”
You hesitated, he could tell, shaking your head.
“Ryland, I couldn’t ask you to let me stay,”
He hesitated himself for a moment, every feeling he’d kept bottled up for a year now threatening to escape past his lips. Instead, he settled on echoing your own words.
“I…I care about you. I want to know you’re safe,”
Moments later, he had his rain coat draped over your head as he rushed you inside his apartment to shelter from the storm.
Ryland’s hands shook the entire time as he put his key into his front door’s lock. The last time he had guests over…was never. His apartment was built and designed for him and his brain, scattered with notes and books and piles of arts and crafts that he worked on in order to decorate his classroom. It was not meant for visitors, especially not ones as pretty as you.
“Don’t, uh, mind the mess,” he mumbled, holding the door open and motioning after you, allowing you to take a step inside his apartment as he let out the small breath he didn’t realize he was holding.
Chucking off his sneakers, little puddles of water forming below them on the ground, his jacket found its way into a pile with them. Ryland wiped his hands nervously against the thighs of his jeans, the action doing nothing against the soaking went material, as he watched you take in his apartment.
The apartment that looked like it had been ransacked, at least partially. Stacks of books relating to a thousand different topics were stacked on the ground by the tv stand, on top of the coffee table along with the coffee cup he’d abandoned there early in the morning in a haste to get to the school, and and by his desk that had a stack of papers scattered around it after her strewn them about in order to find one specific slip of paper at 11 p.m.
It was a mess, and Ryland regretted everything.
“It’s not messy, it’s homey,” your reply sent a burst of heat through his skin as you turned to him with a bright smile, leaving your own bag and coat by his pile of wet items before gesturing to your own soaking wet clothing. “Do you maybe have something a little less…wet?”
He scurried away into his bedroom, trying to ignore that little section of his brain that took your comment in a MUCH different way.
His bedroom was worse. Ryland wasn’t letting you sleep on the couch, but he surely wasn’t letting you see his room in a state like this.
Clothing was thrown across the room and Ryland quickly ran about, shoving piles of clothing away into corners where he was certain you wouldn’t be able to see any of it. Throwing it into his closet and slamming the door before it could fall out, pushing it down in his laundry basket, kicking it under his bed so it was out of sight and out of mind, whatever he could think of.
“Great idea, Ryland,” he muttered to himself, pulling on a dry pair of sweatpants and a tshirt for himself, trying to shake the remaining water out of his hair as he rummaged for something you could wear. “Almost get the woman you’re in love with killed by letting her drive you home in a monsoon. Invite her to stay the night in your apartment that makes you look like an even bigger loser than you are. Amazing idea. A doctorate in molecular biology and this is the best you can do.”
You were waiting by the couch in his living room, just glancing around at everything with a smile, when he reappeared. Sheepishly, he handed the folded clothing over to you, hand running through his soaking wet hair as he pointed down the hall.
“You can take my bed for the night. Uh, just leave your clothes in the bathroom, I can throw them in the dryer in a bit. I can scrounge up something to eat in the meantime,”
“Thanks, Ry,” your hand reached out, squeezing his upper arm lightly, and he felt the heat in his skin instantly bloom under your touch. “For all of this.”
If it wasn’t for the giant crack of thunder that flickered the lights of the building for a moment and made Ryland jump out of his skin, he would’ve forgotten how to breathe again.
He rummaged through every part of his kitchen, desperately trying to find something that he could make the two of you to eat that also wouldn’t make him seem pathetic. All he could come up with…was a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and a jar of jelly.
Yesterday. He’d stayed late after the end of the day to help in tutoring. He forgot to go grocery shopping. Ryland let out a sigh at his realization, back to his fridge door and head banging back against the stainless steel, hand running down his face and dragging against his skin as his glasses were knocked off, hanging off of one ear.
“Great,” he muttered into his palm. “Just absolutely freaking great, Ryland.”
Ryland Grace desperately wished he had the guts, the bravery, to just simply tell you how he felt.
From the moment he met you, when you had arrived for your first day at Grover Cleveland Middle, he was a goner. It had been a long time since he’d had a partner, his last one certain that he was too busy with his head in the clouds to pay attention to her, and she wasn’t wrong. But from the moment he looked at you, waving and smiling as you introduced yourself to all of the teachers that had gathered to welcome you, you were suddenly the only thing his brain wanted to focus on.
He had been so focused on you, too busy admiring every inch of you in silence, that in his typical clumsy fashion he tripped over his own two feet and knocked Principal Marshall’s papers out of her hand, spreading them five feet across the floor. But you’d joined him on the ground, laughing lightly to yourself, as you helped him clean up the papers, and Ryland knew he was a goner for you.
It only continued every single day, getting worse, and you somehow became his friend. His only friend, if he was being quite frank. So he tried to hide the way he really felt, too scared to mess anything up. He’d rather have you in his life in any way he could, then mess this up and lose you forever.
Keeping those feelings in was getting increasingly harder in the last few months. Which explained why he’d traveled cross town just to get lunch from your favorite place, or compare you to the sun and basically called you his entire reasoning for living in front of a bunch of children-
Either Ryland was going to blurt it out at some point, or he was taking these feelings to the grave with him.
“Peanut butter and jelly? Sounds like we’re eating like royalty tonight,”
He shouldn’t have looked over at you. He really, really shouldn’t have. Leaning against the opposite wall of the kitchen, hair still damp and dripping onto the cheesy “I had potential” shirt he’d been gifted by one of his students the following year. Sweatpants that were bunched up around your ankles so that you didn’t trip over the length, waist tied in as tightly as possible so they didn’t just slide right off your hips.
Ryland Grace had never thought it possible that you could look more gorgeous than you did every day, but he stood corrected. He felt more in love than he ever had just looking at you right in this moment.
“Sorry, I don’t exactly…live a life of luxury,” Ryland awkwardly laughed as he spoke, pulling out two sad paper plates from the cabinet next to him and flashing them in your direction, shaking them lightly in the air. “Hope this doesn’t ruin my perfectly curated image.”
His eyes followed you as you brushed past him, humming to yourself with a little grin. You fumbled through every drawer in the kitchen, looking for something, when Ryland quickly popped open the one right next to him, showcasing his small selection of utensils. You flashed another heart-stopping grin at him before digging out two knives from the drawer.
“That image cracked a long time ago, Ry. Like that time you let Marcus perform some chemical reaction and got the fire department called to the school,”
The tall blonde groaned to himself, rubbing at his temple as you pushed past him to throw some of the bread down onto the plates and crack open the jars of peanut butter and jelly set out.
“That was one time!” he tried to defend himself, saddling up beside you as you passed him one of the knives. He almost completely missed the opening of the peanut butter jar, eyes too transfixed on the sight of you in his clothing. It was still up in the air if his heart was actually working correctly yet. “I learned my lesson very quickly not to let him handle any more chemicals.”
“Don’t worry. I made the mistake of doing popcorn reading when we were working on The Outsiders. Marcus seemed to end up with every single instance of profanity in the book, which he would yell at the top of his lungs,”
Ryland snapped his fingers, glancing down at you at his side with a teasing smile.
“You know what? That explains that really loud ‘HELL’ I heard across the school a couple months ago. I was so sure that it was going to shatter the windows of my classroom,”
“Oh, shut up! It wasn’t that bad!”
Your laughter permeated the air, elbow digging into his side as you spoke. And when your eyes locked with his, and Ryland got the perfect look at every square inch of your face, he could see it so clearly in his head.
Mornings just like this, where you’d both struggle to get out of the warmth of the blankets. The way he would surely annoy you with his very disorganized morning routine, but he’d make up for it with coffee already set out for you, just as you liked it. The lingering moments by the door, too wrapped up in each other because you didn’t want to leave the peace of this space, even though you were going to the same place.
Late nights, curled together on the couch with some movie playing on TV that neither of you were particularly paying attention to. Whispered words, laughter shared. Kisses that lingered, hands that trailed-
Thunder broke Ryland from his spell, thoughts gone in a flash. He was back in his dingy kitchen, with you just inches away, staring up at him as the picture of true beauty.
“T-This is nice,” he cleared his throat, turning back to his sandwich as he spread his toppings along the bread, heat blooming across his cheeks again. It always did around you. “Making dinner with someone…no matter how sad the dinner is. I haven’t done this in awhile.”
“Right,” your voice responded after a momentary pause. “Sarah, wasn’t it? You were dating her when we first met. What, uh…what ever happened to her?”
“Oh, we broke up a long time ago,” Ryland waved the comment off, shaking his head. “She just, uh, thought my head was too far in the clouds. Didn’t think I wanted to be down here on Earth. She wasn’t wrong. It was for the best, though. She hated…all of this. The rundown apartment, the lack of a car, my love of science. She just never understood it. I was just…too much for her. But she’s with Mark now, so I’m sure she’s happy.”
Ryland chose not to mention that his last relationship had been dead long before it officially ended, the pair not having seen each other in well over a month by that point. If his math was right, which it usually was, Sarah had started dating Mark before she’d even broken it off with him.
He also failed to mention the relief he felt inside when she had called it off, knowing his heart had belonged to you the moment your eyes had locked with his.
Fingertips just barely ghosted over Ryland’s cheek, and he froze in place. Eyes trained on the plate in front of him, he could feel the way your hand curled around his cheek. The way your thumb glossed over his skin, back and forth, and the way your other fingers barely grazed over the shell of his ear. He couldn’t help the way he instantly leaned into the touch, a touch he hadn’t felt in so long.
Ryland turned his head, still resting in the palm of your own, to look you in the eyes. You gave him the softest smile, hand trailing across his cheek and ghosting over his jawline. His eyes watched it move, the way your fingers gently curled around the frame of his glasses dangling precariously from his face, and placed them gingerly back where they belonged, resting on the bridge of his nose.
His breath caught, your body so close to his, as your hand trailed back down and rested on his chest for just a moment, your own gaze flickering to its resting spot while his gaze stayed on your face.
“You are never, and will never be, too much, Ryland. Not for the right person. They’ll love every part of you. The clumsy parts, the nerdy parts, every part that makes you…you,”
The Sun. That’s what you were to Ryland Grace. He meant every word he had said in that planetarium that day, driven by the rare jealousy of seeing Harkin that close to you.
The Sun was the reason Earth had life. Without the Sun…the Earth would be nothing.
Without you…well, Ryland Grace had accepted long ago that he didn’t understand what it was like to truly live until he’d met you.
Your eyes flickered for just a second, and Ryland took in an audible breath, swearing they settled on his lips for just a second. The apartment was quiet, except for the hum of the fridge and the pattering of the rain against the living room windows.
The moment shattered with yet another terribly timed clap of thunder, your body jolting away from his, focus turned back to the counter in front of you, face hidden from his wide eyes.
“Y-you know…I can’t tell you the last time I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich,”
Ryland shook his head, smiling slightly to himself at the little stutter in your own words, turning back to finishing his own food as well. But the moment still lingered in his head, the heat that bloomed from where your skin touched him still lingering.
“Since peanut butter is banned in school for allergies, probably awhile,”
“I almost forgot that rule a couple weeks ago and almost packed peanut butter crackers,” you joked back, before Ryland heard you snap your fingers. “Oh! Speaking of work, did you put yourself down to volunteer for the school dance next week?”
Sandwiches finished off, Ryland packed the ingredients away and stashed them back in their appropriate spots, laughing awkwardly to himself.
“Hah, uh, no I didn’t. I chaperoned last year and kind of left covered in punch, became the kids’ favorite ‘meme’ for a week afterward since one of them got a picture of it,”
He turned back to you. Leaning against the island counter, holding your sad little sandwich in your hands, face still lit up red as you smiled toward him.
“I think so far it's me, Doyle, and Harki, plus Principal Marshal and I think Katie and Dawson from the front office. We could really use another teacher,” he swore the fluttering of your lashes was on purpose just to kill him and his resolve. “Sign-up? For me?”
Well, there was no universe in existence where Ryland said no to a request like that.
Rejoining you at the counter, he held his own sandwich in his hand, reaching out and tapping it against yours as if you were sharing a toast.
“For you? Totally,”
Even as you both took a bite of your sandwiches, eyes still locked together, Ryland felt as if something had shifted in the air. Your eyes were still as kind, your smile still bright, but it felt like there was a new weight to your gaze as you looked at him.
And he swore–and hoped–for just a split second, that your eyes had just flickered down to his lips again.
❤︎
The student council had outdone themselves with this end of the year dance.
As you stepped through the main doors of Grover Cleveland Middle’s building, the smile on your face grew immediately at the sight before you. The walls were lined with little fairy lights, little styrofoam planets hanging down from the ceiling at various lengths, glow in the dark stars right around them and glowing. Silver streamers hung around the fairy lights, with the check in desk decorated with tons and foam and lights behind them to look like twinkling lights in the clouds.
“A space theme?” you called out as the two kids in front of you ducked away from the registration desk. Evelyn Doyle finally looked up from the sign-in sheet, grin growing as she took in the sight of you and rounded the desk. “I hadn’t heard anything from the student council on the theme, but they did well.”
“Nevermind the theme, you’re finally here!” you laughed as you threw her arms around you, reciprocating the hug, before her hands landed on your shoulders in order to get a good look at you, eyes trailing you up and down. “And look at this dress, oh my god!”
The deep yellow dress fell right around your knees, the fabric light and airy as it swooshed through the air with every move you made. Buttons lined the front down to the tie around your waist, leaving just enough room for the little gold necklace resting against your collarbone. You thanked yourself for choosing a short sleeve option, already feeling the heat in the building from how many kids were all packed in and dancing together.
“Thank you,” was the sheepish reply you gave your friend as she let you go. “I’m sorry I’m late, I caught one of my student’s parents in the parking lot and they turned it into a mini parent-teacher conference, sadly.”
“Not a problem,” she waved the comment off, gesturing toward the doors of the gym just off to the left of you both. “Just get on in there, have some fun, and keep those slow dancers at least 12 inches apart at all times.”
If the hallways were gorgeous, the inside of the gym shone even brighter. Bathed in blue and purple, even more little lights twinkled around the room, hung off the walls, the ceilings, and on every surface they could possibly find. Moon and star decals, made by the art students, hung off the walls and from the ceiling, almost glowing under the lights.
Your eyes trailed over all of your children, scattered throughout the room, already having been dancing for at least thirty minutes. The smile on your face grew as you watched each one of them, gathered with their friends as they danced together in groups, or even stood off to the sides and just observed from beyond the dimly lit dance floor.
Mr. Harkin had been stationed at the punch table, and you could hear him from across the room warning these middle schoolers not to try and spike the punch. You could only giggle to yourself, shaking your head at his antics, before your eyes swept over the crowd once more-
The music seemed to stop in your ears, breath hitching, the second you laid eyes on him across the room. Ryland Grace.
He wasn’t in anything fancy. A nice pair of jeans, the worn pair of black dress shoes you’d seen by his apartment door that night. A dark green shirt was tucked into his jeans, adorned with a worn, navy blue suit jacket overtop, and those same glasses almost falling off the bridge of his nose as he spoke animatedly to Olivia.
Ryland looked good. Too good, in your eyes.
For just a second, he looked up, and his eyes happened to meet yours across the room. You thought for sure you’d forgotten how to breathe.
Whatever had happened that night, in the silence of his apartment with only the beating of the rain against the windows and the roof as a witness, had shifted something. From the moment your fingertips had ghosted along his skin, your hand had rested against his chest, and you’d been close enough to see the specs that danced in those ocean blue eyes of his up close, nothing had been the same.
Like the little bubble you had been existing in with your harbored crushed had finally popped. Like a toe had dipped just slightly over a line, and there was no going back from then on.
You always blushed around your friend, every time he’d manage to fumble his way through a comment that borderlined on a kind-of-not-just-friendly compliment. But since that day just a week or so ago, every time he has been within a few feet of you, your face lit up like a hot summer’s day.
Moments where he’d find a second to linger in your classroom door, held a new weight to them. Sharing lunch together, fingers just barely brushing for a second as you both reached for your food, to moments when you’d simply be walking together down hallways, back of hands brushing along each other’s but no one making any moves to stop it from happening.
Something was different, and you weren’t sure you wanted to go back to how things were before. Not after touching his skin, or existing in his orbit like that. Not when you’d seen the side of him beyond these school walls.
You were in love with Ryland Grace. You had been for a long time. And, finally, you were done trying to pretend that there wasn’t at least a small chance that he felt the same.
“I need your help,”
The heated staring contest between you two was broken by the sound to your right. You turned, just to see Marcus standing directly beside you and reaching up to pull on the sleeve of your dress. His hands wrung together, foot tapping incessantly on the ground, and you immediately knelt down in front of him to get a better look at his face that he was trying to hide from you.
“Marcus? Honey, what’s wrong?” you asked gently, hands coming to rest on his arms as you tried to get him to look at you.
“I…I like Olivia,”
Oh. It was one of those problems. The anxiety you felt in that moment finally washed away, an easy smile falling to your lips as you took a quick glance over in Ryland and Olivia’s direction, the former’s eyes still locked onto you from across the room.
“I did hear a rumor about that. Olivia is a great girl,”
“She is,” he said quickly, finally looking at you. His nerves were basically written across his face. “I-I’ve been really mean to her. I didn’t mean to be.”
“I know, honey. Sometimes feelings can be confusing,” you stood up, hands on your hips as you looked down at him with a smile. “Do you want to dance with her?”
“I do,”
You held your hand out toward him with a smile.
“Then why don’t we start by going and apologizing to her?”
With Marcus’s hand in yours, you confidently led him across the room, eyes locked back onto Ryland’s as you approached. He stood with Olivia at his side, who was talking his ear off, a dopey looking grin on his face as he nodded to whatever she said as he continued to watch as you approached him.
“Dr. Grace, I’m sorry to interrupt you and Olivia,” you announced yourself to the pair with a grin of your own, hands on Marcus’s shoulders and you lightly pushed him forward. “But Olivia, there’s something that Marcus here wants to say to you.”
The young boy shuffled awkwardly forward, hands wringing together again as he stood in front of his crush.
“I, uh, I wanted to say I was sorry. For being really mean to you. I didn’t mean it,”
Olivia’s eyes went wide, as she too shuffled uncomfortably for a second. Ryland saddled up to your side, the pair of you sharing a glance as you watched the interaction happen right before your eyes. His hand graced over yours lightly, and it took everything in you not to reach out and lock your fingers with his.
“Oh! It’s, um, it’s okay. Thank you,”
“Say, Marcus?” Ryland called out to them both, catching the boy’s eye and gesturing toward Olivia with a wink. “What do you think of Olivia’s dress?”
“I…I think she looks really beautiful,”
That comment finally seemed to catch Olivia off guard, her eyes wide in shock as she giggled nervously.
“Oh! I…thank you, Marcus. You look really nice too,”
“Thank you,” his posture seemed to straighten out at Olivia’s reaction, like seeing her accept his compliment gave him the confidence he needed. “Do you want to dance with me?”
Olivia shot you and Ryland a look, and you both immediately gave her a thumbs up. Then, your happy eyes could only watch the two pre-teens awkwardly shuffle away together to the dance floor, not daring to meet the eyes of the other.
“Look at us, playing matchmaker for middle schoolers,”
“I think they did that for themselves, we just helped,” you laughed, turning your head. The laughter died on your lips the second your eyes met with Ryland’s, voice low and breathy as you whispered to him through your smile. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he whispered back just as breathily. His hand came up to the back of his head, running through his hair for a moment, and you could see the red and pink hues that lit up his cheeks. “I got worried when I didn’t see you. I was ready to call you.”
“You could’ve,”
“I’ll remember for next time,” he shot back, hands finding their way to rest in the front pockets of his jeans. His eyes moved back over the crowd, finding your two young students once more. “I’m proud of him for that. That…must have taken a lot of guts to do.”
You followed his gaze, landing on the pair as they danced together, laughing and talking like old friends.
“Like you said before, it can be hard for boys to express their feelings. All he needed was to pull up his big boy pants and ask her,”
Ryland laughed beside you.
“Yeah…I should probably follow in his footsteps,”
You glanced back to him, seeing him already watching you. A single eyebrow raised toward him quizzically, even though your heart felt like it was ready to beat directly out of your chest.
Ryland’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again, as if he were trying to force out words that he couldn’t quite seem to get right. You didn’t even realize you were holding your breath, hoping inside that whatever he wanted to say would address the weight that seemed to be hanging between your gazes.
“Stay here,”
There wasn’t even time for you to respond before the tall blonde rushed away, almost tripping as he dashed over to the DJ booth across the way from the makeshift dance floor. He whispered something to the DJ, and you could see the thumbs up he got in return, before he rushed back over to you, panting slightly.
“Ryland?” you questioned softly, the man who held your entire heart without knowing it standing just a foot in front of you with a nervous grin on his face. “What did you just do?”
As if on cue, the song changed, and familiar lyrics floated through the room, bouncing off the walls.
Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars. Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars
“I’m pulling up my big boy pants,” he responded with a nervous laugh, his hand outstretched toward you. “And asking you to dance with me.”
Nothing else existed the second that you slid your hand into Ryland Grace’s without hesitation, letting him pull you in. You weren’t in the school, not in a room decorated for a middle school dance, and certainly not surrounded by middle schoolers and a bunch of faculty that had placed bets on you both.
It was just you and Ryland Grace. That’s all you wanted it to be.
Your arms found a place to rest around his shoulders, fingertips just barely brushing past the strands of hair that tickled the back of his neck. There was a fluttering in your chest the second that his hands made their way to your waist, curling around the divet just above your hip bone, pulling you into him just by another inch.
In other words, hold my hand. In other words, darling, kiss me. Fill my life with song, and let me sing for ever more.
"I didn't tell you yet…,” his voice was soft, words whispered just between the two of you in a crowded room. “But you look beautiful,"
"You don't have to flatter me, Ryland,"
"No, really, you look-"
"Like a banana in this yellow dress?"
He paused. His tongue poked out, running along his bottom lip, and you could see the nervous bob of his Adam’s apple before he spoke again.
"...like the sun,"
You are all I long for, all I worship and adore.
Oh. That fluttering in your chest was back, and suddenly, you weren’t at a middle school dance anymore. You were back in that planetarium, spinning in circles. And this time, there were no doubts in your mind. You were the Sun, and he was the Earth. And what was the Earth, without its Sun?
"Ryland-"
"I wasn't lying,"
You cocked your head.
"...about what?"
"That I knew Homer wrote The Odyssey,"
That drew a short laugh from you, but you could still see the nerves that were laced through Ryland’s smile.
"Right, you were just distracted,"
"I was. By you. I'm always distracted by you,"
In other words, please be true. In other words, I love you.
You took a deep breath. He’d crossed the line for you, thrown himself onto the other side, and was waiting for you with open arms. It was just a leap of faith.
“I’m always distracted by you, too. Since the day we met,”
The song faded away, melting into the next. There could’ve been eyes on you both, either from students or from faculty, but nothing would break either of your gazes away from the other.
Ryland took a quick look around the room, before his hands took hold of your own, bringing them down between you both. He gave you a grin, one filled with more happiness than you had ever seen–and you knew your own matched his perfectly–before he tugged you toward the doors of the gym.
“Come with me,”
“Ry, we’re supposed to be chaperoning!”
“I don’t see Principal Marshall anywhere. What’s the worst she could do, fire us?”
“Quite literally, yes!” you shot back with a laugh.
Ryland only shrugged his shoulders, tugging you again, and you didn’t even try to fight back. Your feet simply moved with him.
“Worth it,”
Hands clasped together, fingers intertwined, your laughter echoed off the walls of the empty hallways as Ryland Grace ran you down them, a destination clear in his mind. Every few seconds he’d look back, just smiling at you as his eyes trailed over every single inch of you, before you’d yell at him to look at his own feet before you’d both be sprawled across the linoleum floors.
The door to his classroom was open as you flew inside, hand slipping from his as you caught yourself on the projector cart sitting in the middle of the room. Spinning on your heel, you caught his eye just as he shut the classroom door behind him, and the silence enveloped you both once more. Finally alone, no prying eyes to watch.
The momentarily confidence that seemed to seize hold of Ryland dissipated in that moment. He wiped his hands against the front of his jeans, chuckling awkwardly as he took a few steps toward you.
“What was your plan here, Dr. Grace?” you teased, taking a couple steps toward him as well, too high on the feeling of everything you’d just finally realized. High on the feeling of finally not denying what your heart knew long ago: you and Ryland Grace were never just friends.
“I’m not going to lie,” he shot back, coming to a stop just in front of you, barely an inch or two separating you. “I hadn’t thought this far ahead.”
“Then stop thinking,”
No one had leaned in first. It had been both of you, as if drawn together like two magnets, as your lips finally found one another's.
Goosebumps rose across your skin as Ryland Grace’s mouth moved against yours with an ease that shouldn’t exist between two people that have never kissed before. It was like a perfect dance between two partners that knew each other better than anything.
Your lips never left his, moving against his as if you couldn’t believe you had deprived yourself of this for so long, as your hands wound around his shoulders. Fingers curled into his hair, finally carding themselves through the blonde strands that felt so soft between your fingers.
The slightest little moan, enough to send heat coursing through your body the second you heard it, slipping from Ryland’s mouth into your own. His hands grasped at your hips, winding around your back to press into your lower back and tug you as close as humanly possible, as if he was a starved man that craved to touch you in any way that he could.
His lips were soft, a feeling that you knew you were going to crave for the rest of your life now that you’d had a single taste of them. You pressed further into him, a small mewl tumbling from your own lips and swallowed by his mouth as you pressed every inch of yourself into him, desperate to hang onto the moment in case the world would be cruel and wake you from this dream moments later.
The need to breathe was what finally separated you, but not far. Ryland’s forehead pressed to yours, his breath fanning out across your skin. His hands still gripped at your hips, holding him to you, as yours stayed carded through his hair, nails gently scraping at his scalp as you chest heaved as it tried to level your breathing back to normal.
“If I haven’t made it clear already, you’re my best friend,” his words were breathy, accented by the way he was still trying to catch his breath. But his smile was bright, his eyes almost shining, as he looked down at you. “And I’m completely in love with you. Literally, since the moment we met.”
You laughed, trapped in this little bubble with him, as your hands slid from his hair to instead cup his cheeks. The tip of your nose just barely brushed against his, and he bumped his right back against yours without hesitation.
“I’m completely in love with you too, Ryland Grace. Since the moment you tripped over your own two feet,”
The sound of your laughter filled the empty, dark science classroom again as Ryland’s hands came to scoop you up around your thighs, spinning you in relentless circles. All you could do was hang onto his broad shoulders and smile, his lips peppering a thousand kisses to every inch of skin he could possibly reach.
The Earth needed the Sun, like how Ryland said he needed you. The person that makes it all worth it, that makes the days brighter, that makes this short little life worth it.
cause love’s such an old-fashioned word 𖦹ׂ ₊˚⊹⋆｡𖦹°‧
pre-phm!ryland grace x whimsical + theatre teacher!reader
summary: ryland realizes that he harbors a crush on the theatre teacher at his school… too bad her favorite student came to this conclusion as well
warnings: intended lowercase, kind of proofread but very lazily, reader is described wearing a very feminine outfit (skirt mainly + jewelry) and having long hair (they/them pronouns are used), possibly ooc ryland cuz i haven’t read the book, ryland is awkward lolz, fluffy fluffy fluffy
a/n: i saw project hail mary this past monday night and i HAD to write about ryland. also if anyone knows me then they may know that i have a fat crush on ryan gosling… seeing him play a nerd was very fun. btw i wrote this on my phone so it might be weird idk
word count: 2972
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ryland grace hates theatre kids.
maybe that was a tad dramatic. sure, he had always held a love for science. the discoveries, the experiments, the thrill… he adores it all. he never truly saw the pleasure of the stage.
that was until he met you.
you, the sweet theatre teacher that his school had seemingly randomly brought along to make it seem like they actually cared about the arts.
you who, despite knowing this unfortunate fact about your hire, stay bright and interested in giving your students the best of your knowledge about theatre.
so maybe ryland didn’t hate theatre kids. hate is such a strong word afterall, especially to use against middle schoolers who, being completely honest, could only at worst be a little mean. besides, all of ryland’s students love him.
so when did ryland’s problem arise? actually, he can pinpoint the exact moment when his little flame of distaste for theatre kids arose.
it was a slow monday morning, just as every other monday morning is. rain trickles down from the sky, an unfortunate happening in ryland’s case.
he walks into the school with drips of water trailing onto the tile behind him. his bright yellow rain jacket did nothing other than protect his sweater from being completely soaked through. at least it’s better than feeling damp the entire school day. so, after sufficiently making the floor all the way to his classroom a hazard, he walks in and immediately strips himself of his jacket and bag.
the rest of ryland’s morning carried on like usual. he sat at his desk doing whatever busy work had been assigned to the teachers this time, because apparently the school board doesn’t actually want their teachers planning out good lessons. he grumbles mindlessly about how ‘this stupid crap is never gonna improve the school’, among other words he would never say to anyone but himself.
“morning ryland,” a voice sounds, which pulls him away from his computer. once he notices who the voice belongs to, he becomes hyper aware of the fact that he was talking to himself and hunched over like a shrimp.
you lean against the doorframe haphazardly, your arms crossed over your chest, and your lips curled into a little smile. your demeanor is not at all inherently smug, but ryland can sense some amusement bubbling under the surface.
you are wearing your hair up, a pen stuffed in between the loops of the hair tie that holds the strands together. a washed-out dark pink, long-sleeve blouse with a brown cardigan over your shoulders leads down to a patchwork, colorful maxi skirt, which adorns your lower half. the outfit is tied all together by a pair of brown flats and the chunky jewelry that manages to make an impression every time someone first sees you.
ryland is always blown away by your beauty, but it especially flusters him this morning when you are just standing there at his classroom’s entrance, only to greet him. he clears his throat, regaining his composure as best as he can.
“good morning…” he mutters bashfully, putting a hopefully warm smile on his tired face.
“doing the unimportant required work again?” you hum somewhat teasingly as you stroll into his classroom. you prop yourself against one of the student desks in front of ryland’s.
you are infamous for thinking that all of the busy work that the school gives is, for lack of better words, stupid. you are also infamous for trying to actually speak up and make a change in that system. some teachers hate you for it, mostly due to the fact that a new teacher is just waltzing in and doing what they should have done years ago. but it has also done well to establish you in the school and gain respect from the colleagues that matter. like ryland. you don’t exactly know when you started to care about his opinion on you. you just know that you do care, probably more than you should.
“rather get it done and out of the way,” he points out. he stretches back from his computer, resting his limbs on the arms of his chair. his tenseness, that you were unsure if he even knew he was carrying, appears to dissipate. not only does his body relax, but his eyes also soften under your gaze. this causes your heart to leap in your chest.
“well… you could take my personal favorite route and just not do it,” you quip as you cock your head, a downturned smirk taking place on your face.
“oh, but where’s the fun in rebelling if you get nothing out of it other than a mouthful from the principal?” he retorts, his own lazy smirk gracing his face. his glasses hang low on his nose and his limbs remain sprawled out, a sign of comfort in their banter.
“hey now, my rebellions are going to work someday soon. and they would work even better if someone in this dull school joined me,” you say, pointing an accusing finger in his direction to emphasize your last point.
you shove your body weight off the desk and take a step towards ryland’s desk. your eyes scan over the surface, almost as if you are surveilling his belongings.
“uh huh. well, maybe i’ll join when something actually happens,” he voices in an unimpressed tone. he watches over you now, curious about what the expression on your face is.
“that is not how any successful rebellion starts, and you know it,” you huff, giving him a pointed look. you pluck a knitted plushie of earth off his desk and begin tossing it mindlessly.
“that’s lava,”
“what?”
“nevermind…”
you let out a breath of laughter at ryland’s words, and his evident regret in letting those words tumble out of his mouth. you catch the earth and hold it in your hand. you glance down at it for a moment before focusing back on the blond in front of you.
“the way i see it, you only have one life to live, so you gotta do what you believe in, no matter what anyone says. i would think that you, of all people, would understand,” you conclude, tossing the plush earth at ryland. the weight of your words is carried with that little craft.
you know that ryland has big ideas and thoughts, some that can even be consuming at times. but you also know that doubt comes with being the person to stand up and shout your true thoughts to the world. and ryland has personal experiences with those backlashes.
he catches the earth and now holds it in his own hands.
“you’d be a good social studies teacher,” he says, moving his head to look out the doorway and avoiding your gaze. he hides his evasion by halfheartedly laughing at his own joke.
“and you,” you take a few steps towards where his eyes are flickering to be in his view again, “should stay in science,”
before ryland can even get the chance to retort, not that he would have anyway, you were already reversed and walking out. he can hear the shuffle of your footsteps in the now deafening silence of his classroom.
ryland’s head is spinning.
okay fine. the day that ryland gained his dislike for theatre kids may have been the same day he realized that he might have a small crush on the same whimsical theatre teacher who loves those kids with their whole heart.
ryland looks at the clock that rests over where you had just departed. the morning bell rings in five minutes. he throws his hands up exasperatedly, thinking only one thought.
how do they make his pulse quicken and cheeks burn?
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“carbon dioxide…?”
“wow! you are somehow just so, so wrong,”
ryland, or mr. grace at this time, puts a hand over his heart, as if his student getting the answer wrong physically pained him.
his class erupts in giggles at his dramatics and playful poking fun at their classmate.
“i’m just kidding, it was a good effort. now pass it! pass it! go!” he urges, shooing the student to pass the burden of the ‘lava’ onto someone else.
the boy’s eyes dart around before locking onto his victim. he swiftly tosses the orb to one of his friends, clearly preying on said friend’s downfall.
“uhm… oh! nitrogen!” the other boy answers, the adrenaline of the game getting to the kids.
“correct!” mr. grace exclaims, snatching the plushie from his student and pumping his fist in the air in victory.
“everyone give it up for michael,” he hollers, clapping his hands along with the rest of his class.
“you know, i think you would really excel in theatre, mr. grace,” a voice chirps from behind him. ryland whips his head around to see you standing by his desk.
the class evolves into a loud silence, each student watching their teachers interact very carefully. suddenly, ryland thinks they may be more engaged in this than they ever have been in his class.
“ah, what are you doing in here…?” he asks after clearing his throat, attempting to remind himself that all of his students remain present.
“i just came to drop off some papers that were left in the copy machine,” you offer, holding out a stack of papers that somehow just became evident to ryland.
he brings his hand up to grab the papers, noticing that his hand is trembling. why is his hand trembling? he really needs to get a grip.
“thank you,” he nods, his body standing there stiff. it contrasts his previous state this morning in this same room with the same person standing in front of him.
“anytime,” you add, “and i meant what i said about theatre… you have the pizzaz,”
you wag your fingers in the air in a wave, and just like that, you are gone again. it seems you have a habit of coming and going. it is almost as if you can sense how much it messes with ryland’s head.
mr. grace spins back around on his heel with a sigh. he is met by the expectant stares of a bunch of twelve-year-olds. the sight makes him flinch back, only for a moment out of shock.
“okay,” he begins, smacking his hands together, which effectively slices through the tension in the room.
he resolves the class in a few minutes, the bell ringing just as he wraps everything up for the day. he gives goodbyes to some students as they rush out the door.
he assumes that he was able to slip free without questioning from any of his students. well, you know what happens when people assume.
“do you have a crush on my director?” a little voice asks bluntly.
this time, his reaction is not a mere flinch. he fully jumps, his shoulders breaching their usual threshold and his eyebrows skyrocketing up in surprise. he exhales once he turns and realizes that the voice belongs to kara.
“you shouldn’t sneak up on people like that,” he tsks. he places his hands on his hips like he is lecturing her. in reality, he is just trying to get the girl’s mind off of his love life.
kara is one of the kindest sixth graders out there. and ryland has become acquainted with the fact that you adore her. before you had made an arrival at the school, kara was the typical shy kid. every teacher tried to get her to come out of her shell, and not a single one succeeded. however, when you came around, this flipped for the child.
many believe it is still a mystery how you got kara to come out of her shell. ryland believes that no one had tried hard enough before. kara quickly became a staple in your program. you helped her come to know herself on the stage, and along the way, you both found out that she has a natural knack for the atmosphere, too.
ryland loves and hates kara’s newfound outspokenness. on one hand, there are all of the positives of this. the obvious ones, and on the other, more cruel hand, there is the sole negative of where he finds himself currently.
“if you do, then you should marry her so that when someone asks who my favorite teachers are, i can say mr. grace and mrs. grace.” she continues rambling, completely discarding her teacher’s voice.
“kara, you- you can’t just ask me if i have a crush on another teacher…” ryland hushes her sheepishly, embarrassed enough solely by her words but also by the fact that a twelve-year-old is currently flustering him.
“why not?”
“because it’s invasive,”
“what does that mean?”
“it means that you can’t just ask me that, okay?” he sighs, shifting his glasses out of his face and rubbing his eyes.
“mr. grace is blushing!” the girl shrieks and scitters off just like that.
ryland just sits there in defeat, because what is he even supposed to do in this situation? he knows that kara is going to your class right now too, due to her excitedly announcing it almost every day. so that’s something to deal with now.
and as predicted, that child races to the auditorium like her life depends on it. when she arrives, she even finds herself to be a tad out of breath. but no focusing on that! she needs the word to be spread.
“mr. grace has a crush on them!”
you almost gasp before realizing that you must keep your composure because you are in the middle of teaching. but that also begs the question, who is interrupting your class to announce that ryland supposedly likes you?
well that question is answered very quickly when you turn around and see kara’s little finger pointed accusingly at you.
the whole class oohs at her exclamation, and snickers can be heard all around. it has become very apparent today that sixth graders are very nosy people.
“kara, please have a seat,” you sigh. you are not quite in the mood to have it out with a particularly endearingly, you must say, frustrating student.
she is a good kid. but that does not mean she is any less dramatic than any other pre-teen. she huffs and practically stomps over to her assigned seat. she plops down with a very dramatic grumble. if you weren’t trying to be mad at her right now, you would have laughed at her performance. no wonder she is your star.
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you walk into the teacher’s lounge slumped over and tired. it is always how you walk in for your lunch. the room smells of cheap coffee, freshly printed paper, and a mix of different food from teachers’ lunches.
you immediately make a beeline for the coffee machine that is miraculously unoccupied at the time. you cross your arms while your coffee brews at an annoyingly slow pace. you tap your bicep with your opposing hand, your mouth pressed in a thin line.
ryland walks in and instantly notices your figure at the coffee machine. well he was going to get coffee anyway. he approaches the little station that you are very impatiently staring holes into.
“a watched pot never boils,”
“this is a coffee machine.”
ryland laughs at such a quick-witted retort. this causes you to hide a smile.
“you know… i had a little disruption in class today,” you hum nonchalantly, snatching your cup from under the machine the second it finishes brewing. you blow on the steaming liquid and your eyes lift up to meet ryland’s.
“oh kara…” he croaks, scrunching his face and shaking his head. he cringes at the thought of your star student announcing his feelings for you in front of the rest of the class, which are mostly his students as well.
“oh, so you are aware of her efforts? was this a planned thing or…?” you continue to tease. it may seem a bit unfair to poke fun at ryland for such a thing, but you can’t help it when the charismatic teacher flushes at your words.
“no!” he chokes, “no… i had no part in that.”
“oh? so then what could have possibly given her the idea that you might have a crush on me, as she put it?” you question, feigning innocence with a small shrug of the shoulders.
“maybe i’m not as secretive as i always thought i was…” he says, just loud enough for his voice to be audible. now it’s time for his own words to take you aback.
“hm, then why did it take kara telling me for me to get the memo?” you continue to question. you are now both fully facing each other, you leaning back on the coffee station and he standing just inches in front of you. luckily the teachers’ lounge is full of middle-aged, tired workers. otherwise they would have seen the less-than-professional behavior happening in the corner of the dimly lit room.
“i guess its better late than never,” he murmurs, seemingly to himself. before you even have the time to question his statement, another one slips from his lips.
“if i had to choose between dna and rna, i would choose rna because it has u in it,”
a snort slips past your lips. then a genuine, real laugh. it was just so… ryland. the way he is so shy and flustered at times, but can then force himself into telling you a cheesy chemistry pickup line. you shake your head at the man in front of you. because yeah, this is the one you want.
“you are unbelievable,”
“unbelievably awesome?”
“yeah, that too…”
looking back on it, maybe theatre kids aren’t so bad. and maybe your habit of coming and going is nearing a close. just staying this once feels like the right choice.
this is lowk corny and not well-written but idc <3
warnings : dangerous amounts of awkward, nerdy ryland? terrible writing, not edited
summary : ryland has a crush on the kindergarten teacher that his class visits once a month
w/c : 4.3k
a/n : the chokehold this man has on me is INSANE
It was the last Friday of the month, Ryland’s favorite day of the month. Once a month, he got to walk his homeroom class ten minutes down the street to the local elementary school. Once a month, his students got to hang out with their kindergarten buddies. Once a month, he got paid to sit around and be with her.
Y/n was the kindergarten teacher he was partnered up with. Last year he had been stuck with Mrs. Wilson. Her classroom always smelled of microwaved fish and sweaty fourth graders. She also had a bad habit of leaving the classroom without telling him, leaving him alone with nearly sixty children. Y/n was very different. Her classroom always smelled of lavender and citrus, and the only time he had ever been alone in her classroom was when she dropped the students off at lunch and went to the restroom.
Ryland was very grateful that he was visiting her classroom and that she wasn’t visiting his. Her room was a stark contrast to his. He had planets hanging from the ceiling, his desk was cluttered and trashed, and things fell down regularly. Here, there were paper lanterns hanging down, but that was all. They were evenly spaced and gave the room a cozy feel, not a trapped in low budget space feel. Everything had a place. Her desk was cleared, at least the top was. He had no clue if the drawers were in the same condition. The classroom was organized from the row of backpacks hanging on the wall to the cabinet filled with toys. It was structured, warm.
However, nice as the classroom was, that was not the best part of this arrangement the two schools set up. Working with Y/n was the highlight of his school year. There was just something about her. Maybe it was the fact that she always had a tupperware filled with baked goods for him when he brought his class to visit. Maybe it was the fact that she always smelled like vanilla and jasmine. And maybe, just maybe, it was the way she taught her students. The way that she could help one student understand a concept using props and hand motions and then turn around and help another by turning it into a game. She had a passion for helping them get from where they were, to where they were going. It was written all over her face.
This was what Ryland thought about as he walked his eighth grade homeroom over to the elementary school. The morning fog was still thick and a slight breeze sent a chill down his spine. The buzzing chatter of his students was making the grey sky seem a little lighter. He loved that they were just as excited as the kindergarteners were.
They made it inside the elementary building and the warmth immediately seeped into his bones, welcoming him like the embrace of an old friend. He navigated his class through the now familiar hallways and stopped outside a door that had been decorated with small laminated ducks, each one bearing the name of a kindergartener in the classroom. He turned to his gaggle of students.
“Remember, go in quietly and sit on the floor near your kid.” He said, making eye contact with the students who loved to go in squealing and hug their kindergarten partner.
“Yes, Mr. Grace,” the class echoed.
Ryland knocked on the door. He suddenly felt nervous. This had become the new normal since the first time Y/n opened the door. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat to no avail. He wiped one sweaty palm on his jeans and ran the other one, shakily, through his tousled hair. His stomach knotted, he felt like an idiot.
The door opened, and there was Y/n. She was wearing dress pants and an oversized sweater. Her hair was falling naturally. The smell of her perfume was wrapping him up like he just stepped inside after being out in the cold too long, which technically he did. His breath hitched quietly and he hoped she didn’t hear it. He felt the small smile creeping onto his face and there was no point in trying to fight it.
He didn’t get to bask in the feeling as long as he wished to, the overly excited five year olds started babbling behind her. She smiled at him. What kindergarteners?
“Hey,” she said, her voice low, like she was whispering a secret for his ears only.
The small smile broke into a full blown grin. “Hey,” he whispered back. Y/n opened the door fully so Ryland and his class could enter. The two teachers stepped aside while the students entered the space and situated themselves. As he entered the room, his eyes settled on her desk, finding a tupperware sitting on it, a pink sticky note on top with his name on it. He could feel the tips of his ears match the color of the sticky note.
“My kids have been excited all week. We had to make a countdown paper chain on Monday,” She said, beaming up at him.
Ryland let out a small chuckle. “Mine too. They try to play it off and act cool, but they’ve asked me once a week when we’re coming back.” Y/n laughed and both teachers got back to what they were actually supposed to be doing.
The schedule was simple enough. First was penmanship. The eighth graders had to help the kinders write a three sentence story. Y/n stood in front of the whiteboard, pink marker in hand.
“So if Mr. Grace is my partner,” She said, looking at the group of fifty or so kids crammed into the room. “Then he and I are going to come up with the story together! It can be about anything!” She looked over at him. “For example, I might write, ‘Mr. Grace is a good teacher.’” She wrote the sentence on the board. Her lettering was smooth and elegant, only in the way that teachers can have. She glanced over at Ryland expectantly.
“And I might want her to write, ‘Miss Y/n is a great teacher.’” He hoped that it wasn’t obvious that he was trying to elevate her. The smile and roll of her eyes told him he was unsuccessful. She wrote it anyway. He moved to stand next to her.
“After that, we might say, ‘They make a great team.’” She said, and the smile she gave him went right to his stomach. He had to snap his eyes anywhere else or he feared he would forget himself and make a really dumb move in front of the students. He felt his neck heat up and he was sure he was beet red. Y/n noticed. Her gaze drifted back to the students. “Are there any questions?” She asked.
A hand shot up instantly. Y/n nodded for the student to ask his question. “But, Miss Y/n! Our papers have a big square on top of our writing lines!” Y/n smiled at the urgency of the question.
“They do! Good job, Jeffrey, I almost forgot! At the top of your paper you have a blank space. You and your buddy are going to color a picture that goes with your story.”
Another hand went up. “Miss Y/n, you didn’t draw a picture.”
The middle schoolers chuckled, noticing the way their teacher was avoiding looking at Miss Y/n. One of them raised their hand. “Yeah, Mr. Grace, you have to help Miss Y/n color a picture of the two of you!”
He wanted to die. He hated how bad he was at being subtle. He was rescued when Y/n let out a laugh. “You guys are right. Tell you what, while you guys write, Mr. Grace and I will draw a picture on the board.”
The students got to work as Ryland uncapped a black marker. He started drawing a stick figure. It was lopsided, and the eyes weren’t evenly spaced out, but Y/n assumed it was his best efforts based on the way his brows knit together and his tongue poked out slightly from between his lips.
He looked over to where Y/n was finishing her drawing. It was very obviously him. From the glasses to the cardigan he was wearing, the dry erase drawing was very evidently Ryland. He was even giving a thumbs up. He glanced back at his drawing. Not terrible. Not great. He picked up the pink marker she had been using earlier. He drew a flower in the stick woman’s hand. He took a step back and admired his work. Y/n did the same.
“We really do make a great team,” she said, turning to look up at him.
His brain short circuited. She didn’t even compliment him. Why was his brain offline? Think of something! Say something! Say anything! She’s looking right at you! Say something! Say something now!
“Like ribosomes and protein synthesis.” Not that! Idiot.
But the panic subsided as Y/n let out a huff of laughter and her body involuntarily leaned into his. It was brief, a slight graze of her shoulder against his. Yet it was all he could focus on. He stilled as it happened, trying to memorize the feeling instantly. He spent the next ten minutes trying to figure out if his arm tingled from the force of impact or if his brain was experiencing a minor chemical imbalance. His internal debate subsided as Y/n instructed the students to turn in their work.
The rest of the morning passed by in a flurry of raised hands and tiny confused sighs as math worksheets were handed out and completed. There was a breath of relief when Y/n announced it was time for recess. He shrugged his cardigan off and onto the chair as he pulled his blazer back on. Y/n led the group down the hall and outside as Ryland manned the end of the line, ensuring no wandering or straggling.
This time, the fresh air felt less inviting, like it was stripping the atmosphere of all the warmth and depth that Y/n’s classroom supplied. It smelled Earthy and sharp. Normally it would be one of his favorite things in the world. In this moment, he wanted nothing more than to be inhaling her scent. Her classroom scent, that is, or so he told himself. His inner lament was silenced when a soccer ball went flying into his left foot.
“Mr. Grace!” A chorus of students yelled his name and ran over to him. A tiny boy with a mop of dark curly hair peered up at him through thick eyelashes. His hands were clasped near his chest as he started to speak. “Mr. Grace, will you play with us?”
Ryland felt something profound tug at his heart strings as the boy looked up at him expectantly.
“Sure, but only if we beat these middle schoolers, deal?” He stuck out his hand, the soccer ball now pinned under his foot.
The boy, Miles, shook his hand and giggled out, ‘deal’.
“Kinder versus middle school!” was all Ryland shouted before kicking the ball towards a five year old and running towards the goal, guarded by one of his own students.
Y/n watched from the sidelines as Ryland weaved, not so elegantly, between the students. He was constantly stumbling over his own feet, and his glasses kept sliding down his face. However, Y/n also saw the way he passed the ball to her students every time. The way he would steal the ball from an eighth grader, pass it to a little kid, only to have the ball stolen by a middle schooler again. She noticed the way he fell backwards and landed on his back in order to avoid lightly bumping one of her students. She watched him pause the game to help a girl tie her shoe. He had never looked so attractive. He was squatting down, her yellow shoe resting atop his knee. His glasses hung around his chin and his hair was tousled and sweaty from running. The way he smiled, watching as the girl ran back to the game once her shoe was properly tied again. She noticed the way that the water ran down his hair to his cheek to his neck, disappearing under the collar of his shirt. Wait, water?
Y/n’s train of thought was cut off by a splash of rain hitting her forehead. Oh great. Before she knew it, five year olds all around her were losing their minds. She pulled her sweater tighter around herself as the rain picked up. Ryland was by her side in an instant, shrugging his blazer off and, awkwardly, draping it over Y/n’s head, an attempt to shield her from the rain. Y/n smiled despite herself as she watched him concentrate. A whistle blew and all the kids quickly got in line as Y/n led them towards the classroom. Ryland, soaked to the bone, stood at the end of the line, waiting for one kindergartener to catch up after he ran back into the playground for his water bottle.
The group was buzzing as they re-entered the classroom. Y/n gave instructions for the kids to hang up their coats and find a seat on the rug. Ryland stood next to Y/n, who was finally pulling the blazer from her head. “You didn’t have to do that,” She whispered, a faint smile tugging at her lips.
“Yes I did,” he breathed out. Y/n tried to hand him the blazer, but it was quickly draped around her again, this time, over her shoulders. She smiled as he rubbed the fabric up and down her arms. There was a faint smell of clean linen and stale coffee. It was uniquely Ryland, like the scent only existed for him. She had been mostly protected from the rain, and she didn’t really need dried off, but she let him do it.
His glasses had little drops of water on them, sliding down the lens and onto the floor. His hair was completely soaked, dripping down his face steadily onto his clothes, which had been thoroughly drenched. Yet here he was, drying her off. The whole world seemed to narrow down to just the two of them as Ryland pulled the blazer off of her and wrapped his knit sweater around her. The sleeves were too long for her, but she pushed them back slightly, freeing her hands. The soft fabric brushed his arm as he tucked a stray hair behind her ear. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, Y/n waited with baited breath.
“Miss Y/n?” A tiny hand pulled on the sweater and Y/n reluctantly pulled her eyes away from Ryland’s.
Ryland felt his mouth shut quickly, suddenly very aware of where he was. He looked over at his students, who were smirking and looking away. Because that's what he needed, a class of middle schoolers noticing his awkward crush on the nicest woman in the world.
He tried looking anywhere else. The pattern of the floors was suddenly riveting. His gaze snapped back to Y/n as she turned on a movie and told the class to watch quietly and eat their lunches. He turned the lights off and made his way to the back of the classroom, sitting on a tiny table. Y/n sat next to him, tupperware in hand, pink sticky note still on top. She handed it to him wordlessly, the air around them full and comforting. He opened the container as Y/n started eating her lunch next to him.
“Banana bread?” He whispered excitedly. “You didn’t!”
Y/n smiled, and she was overjoyed that the lights were off and he wouldn’t be able to see the way that her cheeks flushed. “Of course I did. You said it was your favorite.” Ryland leaned back in the chair slightly and started eating quietly, eyes trained on the students in front of him.
He let his hand settle on the table beneath him, slowly letting it drift closer to Y/n’s until his hand was ghosting hers. Y/n didn’t look away from the kids as she carefully shifted so her hand was pressed against his, trying to get him to just take a hint already.
He let his fingers delicately trace over her knuckles before hooking his pinky under her hand and flipping it gently so it rested in his. It was slow, and a little clumsy, but it was also warm. Solid.
Ryland could feel the quickening thump of his heart against his chest. His throat was dry and he was suddenly very nervous that his hand was going to start sweating.
The thoughts were subdued when Y/n brushed her thumb over his knuckles, trying to memorize every ridge, every valley. He looked down where they were joined together. A small smile graced his features and he went back to watching the kids.
Lunch was over too soon in his humble opinion. In reality, they had actually gone fifteen minutes over because Y/n didn’t want to let go of Ryland’s hand. Only two more hours before he had to leave, and he tried to push the thought away, like not thinking about it delayed the inevitable. He took his place at the front of the room as Y/n settled her students into their seats.
“Alright you guys! Who’s excited to learn about space?” Every little hand shot into the air.
He uncapped an expo marker and started asking questions. “Who knows what is in the middle of the solar system?” A middle schooler started whispering into her kindergartener’s ear. The five year old jumped up frantically, waving her hand in the air.
“I know! I know!”
“Tell me, Amaya!”
“The sun!”
“Good job! Yes! The Sun is in the middle of our solar system! Everything goes in circles around it.” He drew a sun on the whiteboard. “Alright, Amaya, I need your help now.”
Amaya looked over at Y/n for reassurance. After receiving a nod of approval, Amaya walked to the tall teacher.
“Okay. Amaya, you are the sun. You’re gonna stand right here.” He gave her a high five as she stood where she was told to.
“Who knows what planet is closest to the Sun?”
There was more whispering. Then more voices shouting out ‘I know’ and ‘Me! Me!’.
“What is it, Jack?”
“Mercury!”
“Good job! Come on up!” Ryland added another circle to the board. “Okay, Jack. You're gonna go in a circle around Amaya, and you’re the fastest planet in the solar system! So go! Faster! Faster!” The class erupted into giggles.
“What comes after Mercury?” He didn’t have to wait this time. “Which planet is it, Claire?”
“Uh, Venus?”
“Venus is right!” Claire didn’t wait for permission before walking to the front. “Okay Claire, you have to walk in a circle too, but you’re very slow,” He said, dragging out the last part of the sentence. Claire started marching in slow motion around Jack. Laughter again.
He continued on until he had an entire solar system of kindergarteners running around the space. Y/n watched as he laughed with the kids and inevitably started to ramble about how technically Max, the Earth stand-in, was moving slightly too fast for this example to be realistic. She didn’t realize she was smiling until Ryland glanced over and shot her a grin.
He finally settles them down and returns everyone to their seats. Y/n watched him for a moment longer before remembering the coloring sheets in her hand.
They sat together at her desk once the kids started coloring together. “I don’t think they’ve ever had that much fun during science,” Y/n said, her voice sincere, with a hint of something more. God, Ryland hoped he wasn’t imagining it.
“I don’t know about that,” He said, his gaze flicking quickly to her lips and back up to her eyes. Y/n noticed. Her cheeks heated up and her eyes shifted to the ground, remembering quickly that they were still working.
Ryland wanted to die. He looked up at the ceiling and wished that it would fall on him. He was saved from the awkwardness when a voice called his name.
“Mr. Grace,” A teary eyed Amaya approached him with her coloring page in her grasp. He was moving before he realized it, crouching down so he was eye level with her.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” He held his palm out and let her grab it with her small hand. She sniffled and Y/n felt her breath get caught in her throat at the interaction. The way his eyes scanned Amaya for something wrong. The way he subconsciously made her feel seen. The way he knew to hold out his calloused hand. It all caused something to bubble under the surface.
“I messed up my drawing,” she mumbled, showing him the paper. Ryland looked at the page and then back at the small girl.
“Messed up? I don’t see anything wrong!” He said, embellishing his confusion slightly.
“Saturn isn’t supposed to be pink,” She sniffled again and let out a small, sad sigh that made Ryland want to tear up a little.
“Well you know what?” He asked, looking at the girl holding his hand.
“What?”
“I think pink is the best color anyway. I think that Saturn looks better in pink than any other color.”
Amaya cracked a small smile. “Pink is your favorite color?”
Ryland beamed back. “Well, I don’t know, orange is pretty cool, but pink is too.”
Amaya giggled and let go of Ryland’s hand, bouncing back to her seat. He stayed crouched on the ground, watching her go back to her seat for a while longer.
It was at this moment that Y/n subconsciously noticed how strong his shoulders looked through his still damp shirt, which clung to his muscles in all the right places. She shook her head as he stood up, like it would remove the thought from her brain.
“You’re really good with them, you know.” Her voice was quieter. It sent a warm tingle down Ryland’s spine. He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it quickly.
Y/n giggled and looked back at the students. He opened his mouth to try again.
“Well, statistically speaking, it’s easier to induce dopamine at that developmental stage.” He noticed the way her lips curved into a smirk and her eyes slightly narrowed in confusion. “Their baseline for excitement is much lower than in adults, so small achievements tend to produce disproportionally strong reactions. So like,” He took a breath, realizing he was still staring at her lips, and moved his eyes to meet hers. “High return on minimal input situation.”
Y/n rolled her eyes and laughed, lightly shoving his shoulder. “That was a lot of words to say that I was right.” He smiled and pressed his shoulder into hers.
They sat together until Y/n went up to give the next instructions. Her eyes kept wandering over to his frame, sitting in a tiny, blue chair meant for a five year old. The older kids helped their kindergarten partners put their things away and start their reading work.
Y/n started picking up markers that had fallen on the floor. Ryland followed suit. He stopped at Amaya’s seat, noticing how Saturn was bright pink with orange rings around it. He smiled softly and went to pick up the orange marker at the same time that Y/n did. Their fingers brushed, and at first Ryland pulled back, startled by her presence, letting out a quiet gasp.
Y/n let out a small giggle, and quickly clapped her hand over her mouth to muffle the sound. He rolled his eyes at her laughter, but smiled despite himself. They cleaned up quietly, enjoying the last moments together.
“Alright, kinders! Let’s say bye to our middle schoolers!” Y/n said as the eighth graders lines up with their bags.
“Bye!” The class shouted. The middle schoolers waved and filed out of the room, Ryland hesitated outside the door. Y/n stood in the doorway, wanting to see him as long as she could before closing the door.
He turned from Y/n to his class. “Start walking to the bus, I’ll meet you there. Gotta ask Miss Y/n what grade you guys should get.” The class groaned but started walking anyway.
He turned back to Y/n. “I uh,” what was he doing? This was a terrible idea. “I, well, you,”
Y/n smiled and he completely forgot whatever it was he was trying to spit out. In a moment of foolish bravery, his mouth moved faster than his brain.
“Would you want to go out with me?” He breathed out.
Y/n smiled, looking at the ground, tugging her bottom lip between her teeth. She looked back up at him, cheeks flushed. “I’d love to.”
He let out a sigh of relief. There was something about the way she looked at him. The way her eyes flitted down to his lips and then back to his eyes. He forgot himself for a moment. His lips went crashing into hers. It was a little clumsy, and a little rushed, but his lips were soft, and molded nicely with hers.
He pulled away, breathless, eyes a little wild. Y/n leaned against the door, not registering the students behind her talking and coloring.
“I‘ll see you later,” he mumbled as he walked backwards, eyes still trained on Y/n. He stumbled only twice before he turned around and walked towards the school bus waiting for him in the rain.
He was startled as he climbed on board and was greeted with applause.
“Yeah! Get it Mr. Grace!”
“Finally did it!”
“You wanted her so bad!”
“It was like an awkward nerdy soap opera!”
He rolled his eyes but smiled as soon as he sat down. Now he just had to survive the date.
New Discoveries ‧₊˚ੈ Ryland Grace x Fem!Scientist!Reader. proximity crushes / ryland and reader are lowk avoidant but it works / not proofread / yes there will be a part 2 being within the next few days. (nsfw..)
word count: 4.8k
Sixteen days.
It had been sixteen days since a woman named Eva Stratt approached you after one of your astrophysics classes and whisked you away to work for her and use your knowledge to study the Petrova Line halfway across the world. - On a boat. In the middle of the ocean. Called Stratt’s Vat.
Three men dressed in black suits drove you back to your house the moment a small agreement left your mouth. They gave you twenty minutes to gather your things into a suitcase and get back into the car.
They didn’t make conversation either. “So do you guys wear the same outfit everyday? Like a cartoon character?” You asked after an hour of silence. A black divider between the front and back seats rolled up, and the man sat next to you pushed his glasses up further on his nose and looked out the window. “Great. Great. Good to know.”
At least you didn’t have to talk once in the jet. The strange pills wiped you out straight away - which you were grateful for after finding out how long the flight took.
It was windy outside the jet, given you were on an extremely large research vessel in the ocean. You looked around, there was a lot of people and machines and vehicles on the boat. There was a lot of machines on the boat.
A sigh of relief left your lips once you recognised a face, Eva Stratt, walking right towards you.
“Hi.” Your voice waivers a bit, but she brushed off your nerves and gestured for you to follow her.
She’s drinking coffee, you note that immediately. You want some. “How was your flight.” She asks, making eye contact as you walk. “It was fine. Never been on a plane that fast, so can’t complain.” She nods, leading you down a strip of walkway as you approach the building part of the boat.
“You didn’t get sick.”
“I didn’t.” You nod.
“That’s a good sign.”
“A good sign? A good sign of what?”
She opens a door for you, bringing you down a narrow hallway that looks like something from a movie where everyone is going to die, but that’s not far off from what’s happening.
“Integrity. Strength. Determination. You are a good sign in general. Or perhaps you just have a strong stomach.” Your thoughts mute in your head for a moment, you glance at her and she’s already looking at you. She’s enjoying your confusion. “Wha-”
“Afternoon.” She interrupts you as you round a corner, where two men stand guarding a door, which they open. Stratt stands behind you, you glance back. “Your room.” The two men stand to the side, allowing you space to walk through. Your steps are slow, brows furrowed while you stare at one of the men. He doesn’t look away. Interesting.
The room has a lot of people. Too many people. This is not your room. You back up, and Stratt’s behind you again, shaking her head to match yours. “No. No. What’re you do-” “Yes. You are doing this. Come.” You turn back around and it seems like there’s people more this time.
There’s a U-shaped table in the centre of the room, and every seat is filled with people looking at you, there’s more people standing behind them too - also looking at you.
Your heart plummets in your chest at the sight of it. Teaching college students everyday is an easy thing to do when everyone is younger than you and they technically pay for you to talk to them. Standing here in front of adults who are either the same age or older than you is a very different experience.
“This is Doctor Y/n L/n. She is a Professor in astrophysics, and will aid us in our research.” Stratt stands a slight bit in front of you, giving you a chance to look around the room better.
The table has an extremely diverse group of people sat at it, men and women varying in ages with different country flags sat on the desk before them. All with the same type of aura as Stratt about them. They each have a thick book, something similar you’d seen Stratt carry before.
“Dr. Y/n L/n, I hereby grant you top-secret clearance to all information pertaining to Project Hail Mary.”
You pause, and an abrupt silence fills the room. Your mouth opens as if to say something, you close it again to swallow sharply. “I’m sorry, Project what?”
-
The smell of coffee filled your senses - your second cup today after eating breakfast and having a quick briefing with some French government officials. They were quick learners, something you were grateful for after the meeting came to an end earlier than expected. Leaving you a spare twenty minutes to have another trip to the canteen and grab the drink in hand.
You were excited today, an uncommon feeling now that you were aware you and three other people would be sent on a suicide mission to space in order to save the world.
Ryland Grace - a name that filled your ears more and more as each day passed, would finally be brought to the ship and you would get to meet the man face to face. He was intriguing, as you’d been told. A man who was confident in his beliefs and somehow managed to breed astrophage. A top secret piece of information you could not tell anyone until he arrived.
Yes, you were excited to meet him.
The meeting room was filled the same way it was when you were first brought to the mission, the U-shaped table, the serious faces of each representative, however this time it was a small bit busier after some of the younger engineers and scientists arrived. Like you.
You stood near the back against the wall, talking to one of the Australian scientists who filled you in on how Grace had once written a paper about the existence of life without water that cost him his job. It seemed some of the other representatives were just an unaware as you were in this fact, and turned around to talk to you both about it.
Everyone fell silent quickly, and a blond man walked in cluelessly, before realising just how many people were waiting for him and turned back around like you had. He seemed to be talking exasperatedly to Stratt, and looked quite disheveled.
He was gorgeous though.
No. You could not think of him like that. No matter how friendly the other colleagues had gotten with each other.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is Dr. Ryland Grace from the United States. He figured out how to breed astrophage.” Stratt announced and the representatives did not sound happy. A German man got to his feet harshly. “Are you serious? Stratt was haben sie-?” “Englisch.” She cut him off sharply. A small smile graced your face.
Ryland still seemed very perplexed, and looked around the room bewildered by the situation.
“Doctor, have a seat and lay it out for us.” Stratt asked softly, pulling a chair out for him. He paused, holding his hand up to brace himself. “Hold on.” He began. “Who are these people? Why am I on a Chinese aircraft carrier? And have you ever heard of Skype?”
A huffed laugh left your lips in the noiseless environment. His gaze met yours for a moment, and he seemed almost relieved to see your face. He smiled softly at you, before Stratt interrupted again.
Okay, maybe you could think of him like that.
-
“Did you know the stegosaurus had a brain the size of a walnut despite being as big as a bus?”
“I’m not sure that’s a biology fact.”
“Still a fun one though. And it technically is a biology fact if you think about it.”
Ryland places a spoon on your tray, smiling at you while you look at him with furrowed brows. You reach slowly for a bottle of orange juice, handing it to him while he chuckles at you. A small part of a routine the two of you have been building over the past few weeks.
“Didn’t know I was getting a history lesson too. I must be lucky.” You follow behind him to a table in a hidden corner, a spot you sit in everyday.
“Oh yes, you’re very lucky actually. It’s not everyday I use my knowledge for other people’s benefit.”
“Wow, I wasn’t aware I was so special to you.”
“Very special. There’s a reason it’s you and not Yao I sit with every morning.”
You place a hand to your chest, looking away with a sarcastic bashful expression on your face. “That is not a compliment.” Yao appears from behind Ryland, making you burst out laughing at his timing.
“Ruining my flow here but I’ll allow it.” Ryland mutters and Yao ruffles his hair, a large grin playing his face. Yao smiles fondly at you both, watching as you try and suppress your laughter and Grace drag a hand tirelessly down his face. "Ah, young love."
His words were quiet and mumbled as he walked away, but Ryland heard. Of course he heard, and of course you didn't. You were still laughing away as he tried to stop the heat rising to his face, the tips of his ears were red, but the sheepish smile he had on his mouth distracted you. "What did he say?" You finally asked, taking the first bite of your oatmeal with the spoon Ryland had given you.
He shakes his head and makes use of opening his bottle of orange juice to give him something to do with his hands. "Oh I don't know. Didn't hear." He lied, and he felt his heart stop when you shot him a questioning look at his response.
It took a second before you spoke, swallowing slowly as you watch him look down at his plate feebly. A small habit he had when nervous. A cute habit.
"Are you coming to tonights party?"
Your question was much more easier to answer than he anticipated, even though he still couldn't find the right words for that one. "Jeez I'm not really sure... you know how I get around those guys. I- I mean, it's just not my thing." He trails a hand to the back of his neck, looking at your narrowed eyes.
"Come on. You seriously can't get a drink with me for one night?"
"No, it’s just..." He sighs, making eye contact with you for what felt like the hundredth time that morning. Gosh you really were pretty. "Please? Just this once?" You drag out, almost halfway through your meal whereas Ryland has barely had two mouthfuls.
"Fine."
He gives in, and he starts to think maybe he should've said yes sooner with the size of the smile that erupted on your face.
Your eyes shoot up to meet his, and your face practically lights up at his response. DuBois and Ilyukhina have been edging him on each day they see him to join in on the fun, and they won't be surprised it was you who finally got him to crack.
"Really? Oh you won't be disappointed. First drink on me!"
"Well good, I'd certainly hope so after all that begging." He snorts, laughing as you roll your eyes. Shovelling the last mouthful of your breakfast in your mouth, you push your chair out to stand.
"I better get going. Don't want Stratt finding me on the opposite side of the ship as to where I should be again." Ryland nods, holding out an apple he took from his tray.
"Eat more. It's gonna be like four hours before she lets you have a break."
"I’ll be fine, you watched me have one of those on the way here."
"Still."
A shy smile grows on your face once you take the piece of fruit from him and stand up. "Thank you. I'll see you later Ryland."
He waves when you turn your head to him once last time before leaving, and you wave back after he mouthes a silent "Bye." He watches you go through the lenses of his glasses, and he huffs at the now stagnant air around him compared to before when you were still sat with him.
He was hopeless.
On the way to your first meeting of the morning, you trailed mindlessly behind two women from the engineering team. You’d talked to one of them before, Jesse you think her name was, and you couldn’t place the other one. They were talking about tonight’s mixer. You tried not to listen in - but they were like eight feet away from you. How could you not?
You heard some names being mentioned here and there, like “Leclerc” and “Ilyukhina” followed by “Vodka.” Nothing uncommon to hear alongside their names. But then another name caught your attention, an you found yourself picking up your pace slightly to hear better.
“I am so gonna try my luck with Grace tonight. I think he’d have a good head game.” Jesse stated, and your mouth actually opened in shock at her words. The other girl laughed, nudging her slightly. “That’s even if he’s there and you can get him away from that scientist he’s always with.”
You. They’re talking about you. Fantastic.
“Well I’ll just have to snag him away and show him a good time.” She answered, and the two of them started giggling loudly. They suddenly turned a corner, the opposite way you were heading.
Your steps lulled a tad, and your gaze stuck to the floor incase they glanced back at the last second. They didn’t. But you didn’t bother lifting your head.
It’s not like it’s a big deal or anything. Ryland was more than welcome to go around and have all the fun he wants with other women. But how could you be so naive? You wouldn’t always have Ryland to yourself, and you hadn’t even realised you thought of him like… that. until now.
That’s a lie. You have thought of him like that once or twice. Jesse wasn’t the only to think Grace has good head game.
A door opened infront of you. The door to the room you were meant to be in actually, and you were ripped from your thoughts. Stratt’s face stood before you, a polite smile on her face.
Gross. Gross. Ew. Don’t ever do that again.
-
The communal area was busier that normal tonight, and people were already pretty rowdy. You sat with Ilyukhina and some of her engineering crew, who were drinking a bottle of something strong that you couldn't name while you awaited your little scientist friends arrival.
Ryland said he would be there for 20:00, and it was 19:58 right now. Ryland wasn't the type to flake out - in fact he had never done it before, but christ were your nerves on fire.
You peeled your eyes away from the doorway, and instead watched as Chekhov downed an entire bottle of Smirnoff under his twenty second timer. He was impressive, and you all cheered when he completed it with three seconds to spare. He wrapped his arm around your head and swayed you back and forth as the others chanted his name, the two of you cackling loudly.
Ilyukhina placed her hand around her neck, pulling your body into her side instead of Chekhov’s. All of you cheering as one of the others got up to get a round of shots. Standing in the middle of the doorway, your eyes find a familiar head of unruly hair. Ryland had arrived, right on time too. His eyes skimmed the room before his framed gaze landed on you, and his face lit up as you waved and beckoned for him to come over.
He was barely three steps into the room when a hand caught his arm, and he turned to find a woman he had never seen before. She greeted him with a very loud “Hi.” He grimaced at the sound in his ear, but he sent her a polite smile and greeted her with a quiet “Hello” nonetheless.
Your smile faltered a bit and you turned around immediately, fighting the urge to bite your fist and roll your eyes at her voice halfway across the room.
You tilt your head to Ilyukhina. She was a good talker. She could distract you. If Ryland wasn’t going to come over and stay, then you needed someone else to humour you for the rest of the night. Someone good too.
“You’re Dr. Grace right?”
“Yeah, that’s me.” He nodded, noticing the way her grip hasn’t loosened on his bicep since he said hello. She watched his eyes flick down to her hand on his arm, and a cheeky smile grew on her lips.
“Are you nervous?” She asked lowly, and Ryland furrowed his brows with utmost confusion on his face. “Nervous? No? What? Why - What’s your name again? I don’t think I heard it.”
She grins, and her hand finally lets go of his arm before it’s stuck out infront of him. “Jesse Wallace. Part of the engineering team.” He takes her hand curtly, shaking it quickly before shoving his hands in his pockets. “Must be why I haven’t seen you then.” His tone is dismissive, and he’s looking around the room in an awkward manner, wondering why the hell you haven't come and swept him away yet.
“Maybe you haven’t looked hard enough.” Her voice is sultry, and not in a good way as he raises his brows and avoids eye contact. “Maybe.” He mutters, looking over to the crowd you’re sat in, staring straight at the back of your head.
Jesse follow his gaze, eyes zeroing in on you as she realises what he keeps looking at. “You two aren’t hooking up? Are you?” Grace’s wide eyes gape open to look at her, choking on his words and scoffing at the same time. “No! No… we’re not.” He stutters out, voice muffled as he looks down to his feet, shifting back and forth on them uncomfortably. “I wish.”
He mumbled the last bit too quickly, but his eyes flick over to you, then to Jesse, then to you again, and then back to her as if you had heard them from across the loud room.
"She seems like one of the only people you talk to. Her and Stratt."
Ryland nearly sneers at her words. "I talk to people. I talk to a lot of people actually, like Yao and Dimitri and Carl and Steve- I doubt you even know Carl and Steve." She giggles at that, a bit too loudly for his liking. "You don't talk to me?" Her question makes him glance at her for a moment, and he purses his lips at the sight of her fake hurt expression.
"This is the first time I've met you." He responds blatantly.
"Well then we should get to know each other better. Maybe we could head to my room?”
He inhales sharply, his hands balled into fists in his pockets begin to grow sweaty. He could’ve screamed at the thought of it. “Well uh I actually told Y/n I’d buy her a drink tonight. So… no. Sorry.”
She looks agitated at his reaction, yet Grace couldn’t bring himself to care at the moment. Not when you hadn’t turned around once during their conversation. “I’ll just - um. I’ll see you later.” He winces at the awkwardness, but breathes a breath of relief he hadn’t even realised he’d been holding once he walks away, and internally smiles at the sight of your group coming closer.
“Hey.” He beams, placing a hand on your shoulder, standing behind you and Ilyukhina. “Hi.” You grin up at him.
You can’t tell if you’re feeling butterflies inside your stomach at the fact he chose to come over to you and not Jesse, or if your screaming inside at the fact he took so long to come over in the first place. But he looks really good in that shirt and those enticing little teacher glasses.
“I believe I owe you a drink.” You say in a teasing tone, standing to lead him over to the bar. He follows behind happily, trying not to look at your ass in those jeans, he averts his gaze to the duo doing karaoke - another thing he hasn’t seen until now.
The two of you lean against the bar table, waiting to be served. He gets to look at your face now, a better view than the back of your hair. You have a slight bit more makeup on, a teeny change only he would’ve noticed for how much he stares at you.
“How’s Jesse?”
“Who?”
“Jesse. The woman you were talking to.”
“Oh um. Strange.” He tuts, chuckling at the not so distant memory of her asking to go back to her room.
“Strange? What on earth did she say to freak you out?” A light laugh leaves your mouth as you speak, and he smiles at the sound of it.
Ryland shakes his head dismissively, jutting his lip out while pondering whether to say. “She just -” He sighs, rubbing the back of his neck unsure of how to go about it. “She asked me to go back to her room with her and I said no. Then she got all weird and stuff so I walked away.”
Your heart lurches in your chest, feeling your blood rush to your head at the idea of it. “Why didn’t you go to her room? I’m sure she would’ve had a lot of fun with you.” You say in a joking voice, nudging him slightly. Even if the humour was fake.
“Because… I- I like somebody else.”
Your stomach jumps into your throat, and you have to act like you were expecting that. You look around for a bartender, someone to give you both a distraction so your knees don’t buckle on you.
“Oh really? Like who?” You still don’t turn back to him, only gripping the wood of the bar harder.
“Phsh. I don’t know. Maybe someone who actually bothers to talk to me. Someone who eats breakfast and lunch with me everyday.”
You nearly break your neck at how fast you turn to look at him. He looks back at you, then swallows thickly to disguise his burst of boldness. “Someone who makes me go for drinks when I don’t want to. Someone who’s standing right in front of me and hopefully maybe feels the same way.”
The two of you are awfully close now, yet neither of you seem to move. You take a deep breath in through your nose, parting your lips slightly to whisper to him.
Summary: You and Ryland are both given the amnesia serum so the primary crew has scientists on the Hail Mary. When you wake up 12 light years from Earth, neither of you remembers anything except for an unsettling dislike for the other person. An interaction with alien life has Ryland infected with a disease neither of you have seen before. What are you going to do?
Word Count: 11.8K
Warnings: NSFW content (18+ ONLY PLEASE), a little bit of male masturbation, p in v, unprotected sex (DON'T DO THIS. WRAP IT BEFORE YOU TAP IT.), sex pollen/fuck or die, swearing, primal urges/slight predator prey vibes, breeding kink, praise kink, a little overstimulation, slight voyeurism(I mean they're on a ship with an alien so...), virgin!Reader, amnesia, enemies to lovers, mutual pining, forced proximity, SPOILERS FOR THE BOOK(this covers a wide span of time, so I would say if you haven't read to basically the end, be cautious!), let me know if I missed anything!
A/N: Please only interact if you are 18+! Blank/empty blogs and blogs with no ages will be blocked! Just because I wrote this does not mean I will write more smut, this is just an itch my brain needed to write!
A/N: Hello again my darlings! Here is the FINAL fic for the [mini] Big Bang event with my bestie @bluebellhairpin! This one has been sitting in my drafts for MONTHS and this was the perfect time to bring it out of hiding... Uh, so please enjoy? I have never written anything like this and probably won't again LOL - Birch<3
Love Confessions Event Masterlist
Please proceed with caution!!! NSFW AND SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT!!!
You had never wanted to be a part of the crew.
You were a scientist. That was it. A scientist with a strong foundation in molecular biology and genetic engineering. That was your contribution to Project Hail Mary.
Ryland had never wanted to be a part of the crew.
He was a teacher. That was it. A teacher, formerly a scientist, with a strong foundation in molecular biology and astrophysics. That was his contribution to Project Hail Mary.
Neither of you had wanted to be a part of the crew. But you were.
You both had woken up 12 light years from Earth with no recollection of who you were, where you were, or what you were supposed to be doing. Ryland had woken up first - a mere 20 minutes before you.
Immediately, you had disliked him. Something about his presence just... didn't sit right with you. Maybe it was because he had the same realizations you did. An overlap in interests when it was pretty obvious the crew was specifically picked for everyone's greatest strengths.
And for some reason, you shared strengths with Ryland. Were you not good enough to send alone? They had to send a second scientist with? Who, by the way, got his memories back a lot fast than you did.
He was always one step ahead. One game level above you. All the time. It was really freaking annoying.
So as time slips by and the two of you gain back the essential memories for the mission, gain an alien friend, and set out for the planet Adrian, you are left with a strong dislike for the blonde-haired scientist.
- - -
And rightfully so. Adrian went to shit.
Rocky almost died.
Ryland almost died.
You almost died.
Yes, the three of you got the sampler back up and into the ship - but at what cost?
"I don't think you should be the one to open the sampler," you argue as you follow as closely as you can on Ryland's heels. In the accident, you had gotten slightly crushed by loose material in the dormitory and had suffered a leg injury. Nothing that the robot arms couldn't wrap up.
To you, Ryland's arm injury was the worse of the two wounds, and, because it was on his arm, he shouldn't be the one lifting and opening the sample from Adrian's atmosphere.
Ryland ignores you as he shuffles across the lab. "I told you, I will open it," he says a little gruffly as he sets the sampler down. A moment later, he gathers the contraption Rocky had made so that either of you could get a sample onto a microscope slide.
Rocky is still recovering, and he hovers above the two of you in one of his tunnels. His carapace is lowered, and his legs are folded underneath him to support his weight. The ship is only at 0.5Gs. It's less strenuous on everyone that way.
Tension fills the air. All three of you know it.
Not only is there the spat between you and the other scientist - the savior for both Earth and Erid could lie in Ryland's hands.
Everyone wants to know if there is a predator for Astrophage in that sample. Everyone is scared that there might not be. Then what? Then what happens?
No one wants to think about it, no one wants to say anything about it. So tensions rise, and the air of the ship seems to grow warmer as you and Ryland bicker back and forth over it.
"I've got it," he snaps back, setting the sampler down on the lab table in front of the two of you. You go to open your mouth to retort, but Rocky's voice chimes in quietly, unsure. "Why fight, question? Open sampler. Save Earth, save Erid. No need fight. Work together."
Your (colored) gaze snaps up to look at Rocky's tense form. Ryland stares down at the sampler on the lab table. Neither of you says anything. Rocky was right. There was no need to fight. Now, more than ever, you needed to be on the same team.
Swallowing your pride, you take a wobbly step back and spin on your heel. There's a round stool mounted to the floor a few paces away, and you quietly make your way over there with slightly jolted movements.
You sit and watch Ryland work. It's silent in the lab, other than the noises of the tools and gases releasing in the contraptions Ryland works with. After a few quiet minutes, you look away and over to another part of the lab, lost in thought.
It's when you unknowingly look away that Ryland messes up. It's not on purpose or anything drastic. His hands are decorated with blue latex gloves, like always. But, as he reaches to get the sample slide, his bare wrist accidentally touches part of the sampler.
Unknowingly, his skin comes into contact with the life forms from Adrian. Nothing immediately happens, there's no burn, or anything like that. It happens and the moment passes. He's waiting for you to say something about his technique being off, but it doesn't come.
Because when Ryland glances over at you, you aren't even paying attention to him anymore. You're lost deep in thought, and Ryland doesn't feel like engaging in conversation when he's got important things to look at.
Like seeing if there's life on this slide.
Ryland moves over to one of the several microscopes fastened to the lab's tables. With a deep breath, he mumbles, "Here we go," and looks down through the optics. He's quiet for a while as he focuses the scope, using the fine adjustment wheels to find the correct depth of field.
It's then his heart stops and his breathing stills.
Rocky senses the change and asks, "Grace, question?" Your attention is immediately grabbed, then, and your eyes snap over to look at Ryland's frozen form.
"There's life!"
That single exclamation leads to a wild next couple of hours.
You and Ryland both start designing experiments to figure out how best to isolate the Taumoeba. For once, the two of you work together quite well making and brainstorming protocols and equipment needed. Rocky, of course, is a huge help.
But you're starting to slow down, and Rocky knows it. "L/n, how long since last sleep, question?" He asks with a tilt of his carapace. Ryland is full steam ahead like he's gotten a second wind. You can't blame him. The prospect of actually saving billions of life forms both back on Earth and on Erid makes you want to push through, too.
Your injury has slowed you down, though. Walking on a wounded leg has made you expend more energy than you'd like to admit, and exhaustion weighs on you now. You want to stay up and help. You tell Rocky as such.
"I'm good, Rocky," you say quietly, wiping at your face and pushing some hair out of your eyes. "I can go for a little while longer." The Eridian isn't sure, and he lifts a leg to tap his claw on the xenonite wall. Ryland's gaze snaps up at the sound, and Rocky points over at you.
"How long since L/n last sleep, question?" He asks Ryland. The blonde-haired scientist bites back a smirk. An alien induced bed time. He glances over at you, who gives him a serious, I'm fine kind of a look. Ryland's gaze flashes back up to Rocky and he replies, "31 hours."
Rocky raises and lowers his carapace in what you've come to learn is mild frustration. "You need sleep. Human brain stupid with no sleep." You raise an eyebrow and huff, "Yeah, maybe Grace is. I'm fine, Rocky. Let's work on this next breeder set up."
The blonde-haired scientist's jaw clenches a little at the barb. Yeah, he kind of set himself up for that one. Still, he knows Rocky is right. You did need to rest. You needed to sleep so that by the time he was exhausted, you could take over. There was no time to slack off, but you both needed to be firing on all cylinders. And that means sleeping when needed.
"Rocky's right, Y/n," Ryland says a little softer than normal, and he uses your first name. "You need to sleep. You're more useful when your brain is working. You've slowed down tenfold over the last 30 minutes." He juts his chin toward the dormitory as his hands fiddle with another breeder tank. "Go, me or Rocky will wake you up for the shift change."
You can hear an unusual amount of sincerity in Ryland's voice, and as you glance between him and Rocky, you realize you've been out numbered. Your head lolls down a little toward your chest in defeat and you sigh reluctantly.
You point at both at both of them and grumble, "6 hours. No more than that, okay?" Rocky just releases a quiet trill and Ryland glances over you before giving a silent nod. His fingers twitch over the breeder box he's working on, and he tightens his grip on it to keep them still.
A moment later and you're crawling down the hatch to the dormitory, the motions slow and clumsy due to your leg. The blonde-haired scientist has to force his attention back to work, his leg bouncing slightly on the chair below him.
It's quiet for a few minutes as both Rocky and Ryland work. But Rocky can just tell something is different. Something is bothering Ryland. So he quietly asks, "What is wrong, question? You shake. Everything is fine, question?"
Ryland doesn't lift his gaze from the tank he's working on, but he answers a little quickly, "Yeah, yeah, buddy, I'm fine. I'm just a little anxious to get these tests started. Our savior is right in front of us, you know?"
The Eridian can't argue with that.
Ryland doesn't stop fidgeting, though. He can't. He clears his throat and wipes at his face, pushing his glasses up into his hair for a moment. "You know, what? I- I think I need a moment alone to think about this. I'm going to go up to the cockpit and brainstorm a little more, buddy. You keep working."
Rocky tilts his carapace in slight confusion but he doesn't question Ryland. Human thing, he muses. Instead, the Eridian thrums, "I will work at my bench. Faster. More done down there." Ryland is already pushing off the lab chair when Rocky speaks, and he gives him a thumbs up to acknowledge him.
As Rocky disappears down one of his tunnels and into the dormitory to join you, Ryland makes his way up the ladder and into the cockpit.
He's not really sure what's going on. He feels hot. Way too warm to be considered normal. Maybe it was from all of the effort of running around and making the breeder tanks, but that just doesn't sit right in his brain.
Plus, his jumpsuit feels too tight. It's not even one of Yao's or Ilyukhina's, or even yours. It's his, but it's fitting a little too snug. He feels hot and his cheeks burn with a heat he's not used to. Is he sick? How could he be sick?
On top of that, there's... an ache. An ache that he tries to will away. It wasn't the first time he'd gotten a random hard-on before. Seriously, he was once a teenage boy. He figured it was one of those weird times where the body is so ramped up on emotions - likely the high from finding Earth's and Erid's saviors - that his touch-starved body got a little excited. It's really only a natural reaction and he knows that.
So, he tries to implement his normal methods of making them go away. How he knows they are normal methods? Well... he just knows he had to use them on Earth for some reason. He's not sure why, who, or what would cause his cock to grow hard, but come on. He's a man.
His mind starts on the science experiments he needs to conduct. The engineering of the breeder tanks, controlling the gases going in and out, how to save the different strains he'll breed up.
Before he can stop it, he sees you helping him in his mind. A pain in his ass, sure, but also his only human company. He pictures the few times he's gotten you to smile. Even Rocky had managed to get you to laugh, even if you just rolled your eyes at Ryland's dumb jokes.
His mind drifts from the curve of your smile. He thinks about the lines of your collarbones. He'd seen them once when he accidentally floated in on you changing in 0G. That, naturally, leads him down to the swell of your breasts. The perfect curve and size. He can only imagine how soft and pliable they would be to touch...
Ryland! Dude, what the hell?! His brain screams at him, Knock it off, man! As he lifts a hand from his lap in the pilot's seat to brush some golden curls out of his eyes, it brushes his crotch. It's then he realizes his hard-on has pitched into a full on tent.
A soft whine curls up his throat as he tries to push you out of his mind. But it's odd. It's almost as if a mental block has formed in his brain. The more he tries to not think about you, the more he does. It's like all of his deep, primal instincts and desires written in his DNA latch onto you.
Ryland tries to fight off the thoughts about you with everything he's got. You hate him. He doesn't like you. The two of you are in this awful Adam and Eve situation 12 light years from Earth. He knows he's touch-starved. He knows he hasn't had a good lay in who knows how long.
But the more he fights his brain, the harder it gets to push his imagined image of your bare form out of his head.
Then, Ryland guiltily gives in. Just this once to get this... problem dealt with. It'll be once and done, and I'll just go straight down to the bathroom and clean up after. Y/n should be asleep, so I can handle it. I can do this. He lets his mind fully settle on his fantasy of your naked body.
He pictures your skin sliding against his. How soft you would be underneath him. He wonders what your skin tastes like, how you might sound when he nudges his cock between your thighs. More shyly, he pictures folding you in half underneath him, pulling your legs over his shoulders and putting you into a deep mating press.
That makes him snap out of the haze of his mind for a moment. Hold on, he seems to think. That's not me. I- I would never do that. That's pretty darn involved, and that's not really my style.
Thinking about you underneath him like that only makes his hard-on throb, and it becomes too much to bear. Bashfully, Ryland palms at the tent of his jumpsuit. He groans at the first touch of the material against his sensitive tip, but he quickly clamps his mouth closed.
Rocky can probably see you! And hear you! And come up any moment!
Ryland bites down on his tongue and leans back into the pilot's seat. Then, he works the zipper of his jump suit down with pink cheeks and shame in his movements. His cock is standing at attention and springs free once the zipper is low enough. He chokes down a whimper and gently palms at his length.
He works his hand from base to tip in long, fluid pumps. Pleasure spikes at him in sharp, prickly explosions. It almost hurts. He's never experienced anything like this before, but he doesn't think he likes it. But he knows he wants the ache to go away, so he keeps at it.
Maybe I'm just super sensitive, he thinks as he tries rolling his hips into his hand in search of some kind of release. But no matter what he does, nothing changes.
The blonde-haired scientist's pleasure remains stagnant. It doesn't grow. It doesn't shrink. It remains as a constant, burning ache.
It's then, Ryland realizes. This isn't a normal boner. This isn't a normal reaction to being touch-starved or anything like that. If anything, he should have unraveled faster than he'd care to admit.
No, his brain whispers in defeat. There's only one way to fix this. And you're not going to like it.
You.
He hates it.
There's no way he can look you in the eye right now, let alone form a half-coherent sentence. It feels as if every nerve in his body is tingling, burning with desire. It's not unbearable yet - but it's not going away.
Plus, you're supposed to be sleeping. The last thing Ryland wants to do is wake you up because his boner won't go away. Especially when you don't like him... at all!
But... Ryland's resolve crumbles faster than he wants to admit. All it takes is thinking about you, your smile when he sees it, that darn sparkle in your eyes when things are going right and the science is working.
It makes his cock twitch in his lap. The thick length throbs with want as it threatens to slap up against his abdomen. He grunts and knows that in that moment, something is not right with him.
Something is wrong.
As gently as he can, Ryland grabs his cock in his hand again, an untamed whimper falling from his mouth as he tucks it back into his jumpsuit. The simple touch has his hips rutting up without his control, a small bead of precum leaking from his cock's flushed tip.
Another wave of shame runs through his body as the want to cry wells up in the blonde-haired scientist's throat. Fuck, this is bad. He had once been a horny teenager. That was nothing in comparison to how he feels right now.
Ryland does his best to get his head together with the facts of what he knows despite the haze of desire looming over him. He needs to present you and Rocky with the facts of what was likely going to happen.
So, he carefully wipes his right hand on one of the pant legs of his jumpsuit, the sweat and precum mixing together to stain the material. It makes him cringe internally, and he hopes you don't notice it before he has a chance to explain.
Then, Ryland takes a deep breath and climbs out of the pilot's seat. Immediately, the fabric of the jumpsuit rubs against his sensitive cock, and his hips roll forward to try to relieve the tension in his body. He moans softly but then clamps his jaw shut in frustration.
With an aggravated exhale, Ryland forces himself upright and grits his teeth together. He can do this. It's not going to be pretty, but he will tell it to you and Rocky straight.
He's pretty sure it was his carelessness that got him into this position. It's now his responsibility to try to find a way out of this.
With his goal at the front of his mind, Ryland begins making his way down the rungs of the ladder to the laboratory. It's slow moving at first. Each movement from his legs has the jumpsuit pulling taught and slack against his still-hard cock.
He's still holding it together - just barely.
When Ryland's feet land firmly on the floor of the lab, he takes a shaky, deep breath. His heart is racing faster than before. He's sweating, everywhere. His face, neck, hands, arms, chest, armpits, leg crevices, hell, he could be sweating from his crotch. Everywhere is sweaty.
Ryland knows he's burning up - he doesn't need a mercury thermometer to tell him he's got a fever. He can just tell. On top of that, the skin he can see is flushed pink, verging red in some areas.
Not a good sign.
If that's not enough, his vision is growing a little blurry. His glasses are still on, but his actual eyes are losing the ability to focus properly. Somewhere in him gauging his surroundings, the blonde-haired scientist sees movement.
It's Rocky in one of his tunnels, on the way up from the dormitory. "Grace, question?" Rocky asks tentatively, the musical notes blending together as Ryland tries to quickly decipher them.
"Y-yeah, b-buddy," he stutters out as he almost limps across the laboratory. He has to catch himself on one of the tables as he gets a little lightheaded. A sudden burning sensation crawls up his spine, licking at the back of his neck and threatening to flood his head.
"You are not well," Rocky states - it's not a question this time. "You are leaking, but not from your head. What is wrong, question?" The simple question brings a half-hearted smile to Ryland's face as he manages to croak out, "Y-yeah, I am, buddy. I- I need you to get Y/n. Then I will explain."
Rocky doesn't say anything. He's confused, but he knows he can't help. So, he lowers his carapace slightly and scuttles back down to the dormitory to retrieve you. The moment alone gives Ryland the chance to focus his attention on his breathing, trying to will a deep breath of air into his lungs and out of his mouth to calm his reactive body down.
He shuffles so that both of his palms lie flush against the lab bench, and he leans over it, bracing himself. The cool metal is pleasant to the touch, and a sigh of content floods from his lips. Unfortunately, it's only momentary relief, but it seems better than nothing.
As quickly as the cooling relief came, the burning hot desire in his core increases. A needy whine tears its way out of Ryland's throat, his head lolling forward as tears threaten to burn at the edge of his vision. He snaps his eyes shut in an attempt to help his focus, forcing his brain to think about the cool metal beneath his hands.
Then, he can hear you clambering up the ladder quickly - Rocky must have made it sound pretty important. Shit, shit, shit. Ryland takes a quick breath, trying to slow his racing heart, but it's no use. Especially when he hears your voice just a moment later.
"Grace? What's the deal? I was trying to sleep like you guys told me to but Rocky was saying you aren't doing well- Oh," you cut your grumpy rant off when you set your gaze on your flushed, sweaty crewmate. Immediately, despite your best judgment and slightly disgruntled disposition, you take a few rapid, worried steps toward him.
"Stop!" Ryland cries out when he hears you coming closer. The sound of your voice awakens something deep inside of him. Before he can tell his brain No!, his hips snap forward uncontrollably, and his fingers try to dig into the hard metal under his touch.
You halt at his command, your sleepy, grumpy expression molding into more of a puzzled look as you watch him struggle to still his body. With sleep picking at your brain, it takes you a moment before an embarrassed realization settles over you. The movement.
You bite your tongue as you wait for Ryland to speak again, because you're about to duck away with flushed cheeks of your own.
A ragged gasp escapes Ryland's throat, and his face and neck have flushed red. Sweat dots his skin and mats his blonde curls hanging over his forehead. The sound of his gasp makes your ears perk up instantly, the rough noise unconsciously replaying in the back of your mind.
"S- so," he stutters out to start, keeping his eyes closed as he shuffles to stand more upright. Ryland remains facing the lab bench in an attempt to hide his hard-on. It works for the moment and so he focuses on trying to get his next words out. "The- the Taumoeba or other s-species from the s- sampler have had this effect on me."
Rocky scuttles around one of his tunnels above Ryland as you cock your head to the side in confusion. Ryland continues when neither of you says anything. "I- I was the only, only one who was in direct contact with them or- or the sampler."
"But you had gloves on," you say softly, as if to not make things worse. "I watched you work, you didn't mess anything up." The low timbre of your words instantly makes Ryland whine, the noise out of his control. One of his hands clenches down into a fist and he smacks as gently as he can at the lab table in frustration.
"I did," he manages to growl out, the noise rough and unusual coming from the usually soft-spoken blonde. The admission would have sucked to say either way, and Ryland knows it. Shame hits him. He fucked up and now he's uncontrollably horny because of his mistake.
However, his response just makes your eyes widen. That's not good. I didn't see him mess anything up. It was all textbook technique. Ryland pants, grunts, and then mumbles before all of his control seeps away, "I think, I think I got hit with an aromatic compound or I- I accidentally brushed the sampler on my arm. It's caused... this, this condition."
Before you can stop yourself, your eyes flit over his whole body to analyze his condition.
You can see the sweat dampening his skin and the jumpsuit, the bright yellow color deepening all over his frame in odd patches. The usually comfortable but loose fit is roughly the same, except for one area.
Ryland's hunched-over form makes it harder to tell, but it's undeniable when your gaze lands on it. His cock is hard and standing at attention underneath his jumpsuit. The now obvious tent brings an even fiercer heat to your cheeks. You can't help it. You hadn't been with anyone... you'd been too busy focused on your career and then saving the world.
"It, it won't go away," he sobs out, his head falling forward a few more degrees so his forehead rests against the cool metal of the lab table. His whole form is tense and on edge, and seeing him like this tugs on your heartstrings. But something about this just doesn't make sense.
Confusion draws your brows taut together, and you carefully step closer to Ryland as you mull over his words. Rocky, who has been silent this whole time, is beyond confused, begins scuttling back and forth in his tunnel, trying to make sense of two alien species biology. Humans and whatever species caused this reaction in Ryland.
"Your... condition won't go away?" you ask slowly, your presence now much closer to the blonde-haired scientist. He bites down hard on his tongue as he squeezes his eyes shut. Your body was closer, your voice was closer. He could almost reach out, grab your hips- No! He quickly stops himself.
He needs to finish explaining.
The next sentence he grunts out is hard to understand, but you eventually piece it together. "No, it won't. I- tried. It won't go away. It's... it's not normal. It won't stop unless one of two things happens." You silently look up at Rocky, who has stopped above the two of you, his legs slowly raising and lowering his carapace in thought. The Eridian doesn't say anything.
"One," he hisses through gritted teeth, "It'll end when I cum, but not by my hand." The dirty words falling from Ryland's mouth has your heart fluttering in your chest, your mouth running dry at seeing him so... untamed. He swallows thickly and then grunts out, "Or two, it'll end when the chemicals are fully metabolized by my bloodstream."
Ryland lifts his head and then quickly brings it down on the lab table in a quick smack, a snarl of sexual frustration falling from his lips. A fresh bead of sweat curls down his neck, and you watch it disappear into the crevice of his jumpsuit.
"H-how long until it'll be fully processed?" you ask a little nervously, shuffling on your feet to give your injured leg some reprieve. It takes every ounce of control Ryland has not to open his eyes and look at you - he knows it'll only make it worse. He coughs once and then mumbles darkly, "I- I think its metabolism will take longer than I want it to. I'll die from overheating because of this fever before my body can process it all."
His tone sends warning bells off in your mind, and suddenly the severity of the situation sets in. Rocky finally speaks up, chiming in with an urgent and thoughtful question. "Can we cool Grace, question?" Ryland shakes his head left and right as he groans out, "No, buddy. It's not like your radiator organ. The cooler things are I touch, the more I burn up inside. This isn't a normal fever."
Ryland's words are finalized with a whimper when he flattens his fisted palm against the cool lab table. You rush toward him at the sound of what you think is pain, but you stop a few feet away as you try to assess where to help.
"Ryland," you breathe out his first name as you look at him. Panic threatens to flood over you while you take in his overly turned-on state. What do you do? Another sob pulls from his throat at the sound of your voice being even closer, and you watch his body tense up yet again.
"I- I'm afraid of hurting you," he whimpers out brokenly, "I can barely control myself, Y/n." His voice breaks at the end of his sentence, but then he's heaving in a deep breath. "I've thought of two options," he rushes out, the words slurring together. "Either you lock me in the airlock until this all ends, or-"
Ryland cuts himself off as the other thought swirls in his brain. It makes his aching cock throb - the sensation now painful. The other option sends images of you into his head. He pictures the way your cunt would stretch around his cock as he sinks into you. He can see the way your back would arch in pleasure, your hands reaching for him. He can see the way your breasts would bounce with every thrust from his hips slamming into yours.
Those thoughts prompt more precum to leak from his tip, making the wet patch on the front of his jumpsuit grow bigger. You've grown quiet at his words. The implication of his silence not lost on you.
Either he dies in the airlock of his organs being cooked, or you let him fuck you to give his brain the endorphin release to combat the chemicals being metabolized in his blood.
Your logical mind comes to an obvious conclusion: you're both going to die out here anyway. Be that a microscopic alien induced sex craze, starving to death, Ilyukhina's heroin stash, Yao's gun, or the Nitrogen tanks left by DuBois. It was inevitable.
Your rapidly beating heart comes to another. Help him.
Your train of thought is broken by his needy voice cutting through the quiet air of the ship. "I- I can't force you to do anything," he manages to croak out. "I- I get it if you'd rather put me in the air lock. I- I'd never want to f-force myself onto y-" "It's... okay," you soothe, your tone gentle and sweet as you watch his body almost writhe in pain.
"N-no," he cries, "I c-can't coerce you into, into this. I still could hurt you. I don't - I don't know if I'll be able to control myself if we-" Ryland stops himself as his hips try to roll again. Tears run down his cheeks now, splashing onto the lab table under his head.
"I trust you," is the only thing you can think of to say. Your heart is beating the fastest it ever has, adrenaline shooting through your veins and making your fingers shake with anticipation. You quickly tuck a piece of hair behind your ear and mumble, "I- I've never done this before but..."
As your voice trails off, Ryland swears his grip on reality slides. You'd never had sex? And this would be your first if you let him? Fuck! He lifts his head from the table, his cheeks still wet with tears but with his eyes still clamped closed. "I can't- I can't ask you to do that."
"You don't have to ask," you reply, your left hand reaching out to rest on his right shoulder. At the touch, Ryland lurches closer to you, his body swinging around to face you, his eyes ripping themselves open to stare down at you.
His body works against his brain, making him lean into your personal space. He sets his gaze deep into yours and swallows thickly. He feels like a predator, stalking his prey right before they lunge for the kill. It takes him a second to lean back, a scowl of pain etched on his features as he seethes through gritted teeth, "S-sorry."
He means it for more than just closing the distance - he means it for everything that was potentially about to happen.
"Once I start," he whispers lowly, his blue eyes boring into yours, "I don't think I'll be able to stop. You may-" his voice catches and then he finishes, "Yao's gun-" "It's okay, Ry," you match his soft tone. The tears make his blue eyes glitter, and you can see all sorts of inner turmoil burning in his gaze.
You tilt your head to find Rocky's figure cowering in his tunnel directly above you and Ryland. "What is happening, question?" Rocky asks, the notes an octave lower than normal. He's scared. You offer him a smile and state nervously, "Rocky? We will explain all of this later. For now, try to avoid me and Ryland. Stay up here in the lab or go up to the cockpit. Things may get scary, things... could break, we could both yell or make a lot of noise. No matter what - just stay on your side of the xenonite, okay?"
Rocky dips his carapace in understanding and then asks, "Where will you be, question?" You glance back at Ryland, whose skin is only a few inches from you, the heat pulsing off him in waves. You swallow thickly as you catch his gaze, the intensity of it making a shiver crawl up your spine.
"We'll be in the dormitory," you reply slowly, holding Ryland's gaze level. His hands clench by his sides, and he warns in a low huff, "The second you move away, I- my body is going to chase you. I-I don't think I can stop it."
You offer him an encouraging smile and reply, "I'll just have to run faster than you, then." It makes the darkness in his eyes lighten ever so slightly, and it gives you faith that the Ryland you know is in there.
Then, you move. You retract your arm from his shoulder as you launch backwards as best as you can on your leg, away from the lab table and from Ryland. Just as you move, you see Ryland's eyes grow cold and narrow, and then he lunges. The crystal clear feeling of fear shoots through your nervous system as you wobbly dart toward the ladder, and using it like a fireman's pole, you slide down it to give yourself a small lead.
Ryland is only a few seconds behind you as you make your way toward the mattress on the floor of the ship that you had been sleeping on mere minutes ago. It was detached from the wall so that Rocky would have more room for his workshop. Now, it serves as a soft landing pad as Ryland's hands grab onto your waist from behind you.
His fingers dig into your waist kind of roughly, finding your last rib on each side and pulling you flush against his chest. "I'm so sorry," he croaks out as his hips start rutting against your backside, the wetness on the front of his jumpsuit smearing against the back of yours.
"I said it already," you pant out as the air leaves your lungs, "It's o-kay." Your last word comes out with a hitch as one of Ryland's hands quickly slides from your waist up the front of your abdomen to grab at your left breast. He palms at it, his fingers digging into and toying with the soft flesh as his hips roll against yours, shoving you forward a small step.
A small gasp tears from your throat at the feeling of his cock nestling against your ass and his hand so openly playing with your chest. You mind is spinning. It's trying to process, trying not to blush and shy, trying to plan for what to do next.
Unsure of what to do and to think because he's touching you like this, your hands carefully navigate around his groping at you. Your fingers reach for the top of your jumpsuit, hastily tugging down the zipper with uncalculated yanks as you maneuver around his arm. In doing so, you're trying to give him more access to your skin and body.
You also have to admit, despite being quite nervous and anxious for whatever was about to happen... it was kind of hot seeing your usually reserved and quiet crewmate indulge in his body's desires.
The second you free the front of your torso from the material of your jumpsuit, Ryland's hand dips under the zipper to slide over your skin. The warmth and softness of your body elicits a guttural moan from his lips. At the same time, it brings a an odd heat to your core, swirling in a way you hadn't experienced.
That sound? Was hot. His fingers gravitate to finding your right breast now, wanting to give it the same attention as the other. A pleased whimper escapes him as he praises, "So soft for me." You can't help but softly gasp in response to his touch and his praise. His feverish warm hand sends electricity crackling through your veins and anticipation brewing in your stomach.
He does his best to slow his movements down - his control is dwindling as more and more of your skin is revealed. He needs to prep you. He'll hurt you otherwise. He can't do that. If anything, he at least needs you turned on a little bit.
"I k-know you don't like me," Ryland grunts as he swirls his pointer and middle fingers over your right nipple, both consciously and unconsciously loving the feeling of it rising and pebbling under his ministrations. His touch has your back arching slightly, and you can't deny his touch feels nice. It makes it a bit hard to focus on his words, but you do listen.
"B-but I need to- I need you wet." Ryland groans out the dirty words as his cock catches on the curve of your ass and his hips try to snap. "I need to minimize my chances of hurting y-" "Just keep going," you cut him off with a soft mewl, working slowly to shake your arms out of the sleeves of your jumpsuit.
Ryland doesn't say anymore, but he does force himself to let go of you when he realizes what you're trying to do. The gap between your bodies is just big enough that he can help you peel your arms out of the sleeves, but then he's on you again.
Now, his hands land on the exposed skin of your waist. Seeing and touching your bare skin drives this desire in his mind absolutely wild. The fire coursing through his body has his vision edging with red, with one goal at the front of his mind: breed.
It was never anything he thought he was into before, but he just... wants to now. His subconscious notes the gentle slope of your spine, a mole on your right shoulder blade, and the way your hair rests around your neck. Seeing you like this only heightens that desire.
In an instant, his hands twist you around to face him, and he takes a step forward, one of his thighs parting your legs.
In two swift strides, your feet hit the base of the mattress on the floor. With the pressure of Ryland pushing on you, you gently flop backwards onto it, Ryland tumbling down on top of you. Now free from the confines of the jumpsuit, your bare chest bounces at the force of your back hitting the bed.
And, for the first time, Ryland gets an eyeful of your breasts.
"You're so beautiful," he moans appreciatively as he leans forward, his hips slowing their constant but fruitless thrusting as his mouth latches onto one of your mounds without warning.
His warm lips suckling at your breast and the blonde scruff from his jaw tickling your sensitive skin has you arching up into him, the foreign but pleasant feeling eliciting a sharp gasp from you. Beautiful? Must be the microbe's biochemicals talking. Unsure of what to do with your hands, they eventually find purchase threading through his fluffy blonde locks.
Ryland switches from suckling on the mound to place hot, wet kisses there instead. Slowly, as slow as he can manage with the desire coursing through him, he works his way from one breast through your valley of cleavage to the other. There, he gives your second breast the same treatment as the first. He quickly transitions to swirling his tongue and flicking it over your nipple until it grows under his touch and he can suck on it again with renewed vigor.
Unconsciously, your clothed hips roll up to meet his, and Ryland moans appreciatively against your skin as he grinds his hips downwards. With him on top of you like this, you finally can feel how his body is feverishly warm. It's then you know he needs to be stripped out of his jumpsuit.
"R-Ryland," you manage to pant out, one of your hands moving from the back of his head to softly cup his cheek. He doesn't move for a moment, lost in tasting your skin and soaking up the feeling of your softness underneath him. You don't relent, though, and it takes some effort to pull him up to see look him in the eyes. His blue gaze is almost black with the way his pupils have dilated. It's a wild, frenzied look in his eye, and it makes something deep inside you quiver.
"Your jumpsuit," you probe gently, releasing his face to pointedly tug at the material clinging to the front of his chest. The zipper was already part way down his chest to begin with, but the blonde-haired scientist quickly releases one hand from your waist to tug the soft material down even further.
Then, before you can even process it, he's reaching into the bottom part of his jumpsuit with a broken, rich moan. Your eyes are wide and nervous as you watch him hurriedly pull out his hard, throbbing cock. It slaps up to his abdomen, tall and standing at attention. A wave of panic shoots through you. It's... big.
His cock is swollen to the limit of what his body can handle. The first thing you notice about his cock is that it's long. You don't even want to guess how many inches. A lot. The next thing you notice is the girth of it. The shaft is thick down at the base but gets slightly narrower as it approaches the tip.
There's even an angry vein curling up the right side, and you're sure you could feel his pulse if you touched it. His whole cock curves to the right slightly, the tip a pretty, rosy red that matches the flush on Ryland's cheeks. The tip leaks precum since Ryland had been turned on for so long without a release. Being trapped in his jumpsuit has smeared that precum all over the tip of his cock, casting it in a milky white shadow.
You... can't deny it. His cock is pretty. And it turns you on.
Your throat goes dry as you stare at it while Ryland sighs in relief when it's free from the confines of his jumpsuit. "Ry-Ryland," you stutter out, his eyes snapping open at the sound of your voice. You swallow thickly and cough once as his hips continue their efforts to roll against you, his now exposed cock spreading his precum over the expanse of your bare stomach.
Once you've got his attention, you quietly ask, "Sh-should we fully strip?" The question is laced with an understandable sheepishness, but Ryland doesn't seem to pick up on it. If he was in his right mind, he certainly would, but instead, he just nods and leans forward, his mouth returning to pressing wet kisses along your skin. This time, his lips work higher up, nipping and leaving marks over your collarbones and toward the crevice of your neck.
You can smell his sweat now, and the combination of his mouth teasing your sensitive body and his natural scent flooding your nose has got you turned on. You hardly notice the way his fingers work your jumpsuit down over your hips - you're too busy figuring out how to roll them in time with his.
But then Ryland is grunting an order against your skin. "Kick it off." Before he gives you time to think about it, he sinks his teeth into the soft flesh of your shoulder. He bites down fairly hard, and it makes your back arch off the mattress and your legs shiver with a moan falling from your lips. That little bit of delicious pain is just enough motivation to finish kicking the jumpsuit off, the material landing somewhere on the ground to the side of the mattress.
Now, for the first time in your life, you are stripped bare before a man. Ryland covers you with his larger frame and the skin-on-skin contact of your chests pressed together keeps him from fully viewing your body.
The blonde-haired scientist growls in frustration as his cock catches on the zipper to his jumpsuit, and he sits back from rolling his hips against you. There, you can see almost all of him, and he can see all of you.
As Ryland tugs his arms out of his sleeves, a whine curls up his throat when he sees his precum spread across your bare stomach. Not only that, he sees you.
Your (colored) hair fanned out under your head, bruises and dark marks now lining your neck and chest. Your breasts shift as your chest rises and falls rapidly, your (colored) gaze set on him in nervous anticipation. Then, your stomach is covered in him, leading right down to the mound of hair that hides your cunt.
And Ryland groans at the sight of you spread bare underneath him. His cock seems to agree, twitching against his bare abdomen as he finishes freeing himself from his jumpsuit. He kicks his off just as you did to yours, and then he's hovering over top of you again.
Suddenly, you realize your crewmate is a lot leaner than you gave him credit. His biceps bulge on either side of your head, his pecs are sharply defined, and his torso is laced with some of the finest abdominal muscles you have ever seen.
It makes your cunt clench.
"So, so good for me," he grunts as he slips one thigh between yours, parting your legs. The action has his hips rolling forward as his brain realizes it's about to get the hit of dopamine it wants.
Ryland angles his hips down and catches his cock on your slit. He absolutely growls over the feeling of your arousal gathering in your folds, and he pumps his cocks a few times through them to gather what wetness he can. He's starting to lose control of his movements, though. His body has one goal in mind and it's taking everything in him to fight it off to make sure he doesn't hurt you.
Satisfied that his cock is lubricated, Ryland nudges the tip of it right to the entrance of your cunt. Your hands reach up from where they have been clutching at the sheets underneath you to slide around his neck. You cling to him and find his gaze with a shaky exhale and butterflies brewing in your stomach.
He's already watching you, and you can see remorse and something else dancing in his eyes. Then, as slowly as he can manage, he begins to sink his cock into you an inch at a time. He does it with shallow, manageable thrusts until he's fully seated himself inside of your cunt.
Whimpers and whines and gasps of all sorts fall from your mouth as your body reacts to being stretched out in a way you've never experienced. Your eyes snap closed and your jaw drops wide open in a breathy, soft moan. There's only a slight burn and pinch, which you're distracted from by the sound of Ryland's voice.
"I'm sorry," Ryland whimpers as he tucks his head into the crook in your shoulder, hiding his face from you. He's taking that look on your face to mean you're in pain. He doesn't like that.
You return his whimper with a shake of your head, and as you try to find your ability to speak, you pause. Ryland is shaking above you, and for a moment, you think he's crying again. A moment passes but then you realize - he's trying to hold himself back.
And failing.
His left hand slips from next to your head to hold onto your hip, and once there, his grip is tight. You somehow manage to know it's not as tight as it could be because of his wrapped up injury, but it's still a firm hold. A moment later, you hear him hiss into your shoulder, "Breathe, please."
You do as he says, relaxing your body and easing the burn in your lungs you didn't realize was there. Your thighs simply part wide for him. It's like your brain just knows what to do. Thousands of years of evolution written into your DNA at work. Thankfully, your injured leg rests off to the side and neither of you touches or moves it.
Ryland's cock reminds his brain of its one goal: breed.
As you regain your air after processing the feeling of being stuffed full of Ryland's cock, you manage to gasp out, "I- I thought you'd fuck me like you hate me." You force a deep breath into your lungs and tear your eyes open to look at Ryland in an attempt to gauge his reaction. It's then Ryland's hips start to slide in and out of your cunt on their own accord.
Soft, pleasured noises begin to disperse from your lips as your brain tries to catch up with all of the new feelings it's experiencing. Somehow, in all of the bliss and pleasure and nervousness and excitement, it deciphers what Ryland says next.
"But, but I don't," Ryland grunts into your ear as his cock slides into your cunt with a slow roll of his hips. At that, he effectively loses control of his mind and body.
You don't get the chance to respond to what he says. His hips begin really rolling, slowly gaining speed and accuracy as he thrusts into your cunt.
This feeling is foreign and new and somehow amidst the anxiety, nice? The feeling of Ryland's hand on your hip keeps you still as his hips snap to meet yours. There's a firmness to it that tells you that you won't be released until he's done with you. Right now? You aren't really upset about your position.
It's unexpected, sure, but not... entirely unwelcome.
With each thrust from Ryland, he brings a new spark of pleasure to your body. Noises like you've never made are produced due to his movements and the sounds he's making. Ryland can't even try to hold them back. Grunts, groans, growls. They are deep, untamed, primal sounds that tell you his body is happy with this course of action.
"Ry- oh, Ryland," you breathe out as he picks up speed in your cunt. The sound of skin slapping on skin begins to fill the air, combining with the sounds pulled from deep in both you and Ryland's chests. He groans lowly into the skin of your shoulder. He doesn't dare pick his head up, fearful that looking at you will only make him come more unrestrained.
In holding himself hostage like this, his glasses are fogging up, but it's not like he can tell. His eyes are screwed shut as tightly as he can manage. Your cunt feels incredible to his sensitive, throbbing cock. The soft, velvety feeling of your walls, the welcoming warmth of your core, and the way your cunt seems to take him so perfectly with each thrust.
It's driving him wild.
Ryland's hips only grow rougher and faster as he finds and settles into a hard, brutal pace. This is not what he would want to do for your first time, but he can't stop his body. It wants him to fuck you with everything he's got, and he is helpless to stop it.
Meanwhile, all you can do is slip one hand up and into his blonde curls and hold on with that grip. Your other hand removes itself from his neck to wrap around his back, raking down his skin in time with his thrusts and the moans filling the air.
At some point, your eyes force themselves closed despite wanting to watch what you can. Your jaw has fallen slack, lost in this immense pleasure and the jolts spreading throughout your body. It's furthered when Ryland grunts into your shoulder, "That's it, that's it." The small bit of praise makes your cunt clamp down and a moan of, "Ryyyyyy," slip past your lips.
That noise alone makes Ryland snarl, and his hips slam up harder into yours. "So warm, so wet," he grunts, "You're so tight on my cock, Y/n. You feel so good, gosh, I'm- not gonna-"
You think you might know what he means.
His movements have caused your pleasure to condense deep in your core. It's built with every thrust and every noise Ryland has made. Now, that pleasure is forming into a coil that's steadily growing with each passing second.
"M-me, t-too," you manage to whimper out, your back arching up off the mattress and shoving your chest flush against Ryland's. His hand on your hip slides under your back to hold you against him as his hips continue to work.
There's a slight angle change, and in that, the tip of his cock finds that one spongey spot in your walls that has you seeing stars. "Ryland!" you moan louder yet, your whole body quivering from the strength of his thrusts. The force of his hips makes your breasts bounce, but in being held against him like this, you're left with the delicious friction of your pebbled nipples rubbing against the soft, smooth skin of his chest.
"Fuck," he groans out. "You... You feel so good. So good for me. Sh-shit, Y/n!" You're right there with him, whimpering and mewling out the pleasure he's bringing you. The coil deep in your core builds and builds and builds until you cry out, "'m- 'm- Ryland!"
You cum hard and fast on his cock, writhing underneath him as pleasure explodes throughout your body. Your eyes, snapped closed with bliss, see shooting stars behind your eyelids and you stop breathing.
Your cunt clamps down hard on his cock, and Ryland's hips stutter at the shoot of pleasure that travels up the length of his cock. He forces himself to resume the pace, fucking you through your orgasm both to prolong it for your sake, but also because his isn't that far behind.
Ryland speeds up his hips one more time, pistoning in and out of your sensitive cunt. This new speed sends him barreling toward his own orgasm as he grunts out hoarsely, "Cummin', cummin'!"
Ryland releases a long, strangled groan as he cums deep in your cunt. His cock twitches out thick ropes of seed that paint the walls of your cunt white. It takes no effort for his body to rock you both through his orgasm. His brain is completely gone and his body is running on autopilot determined by the biochemicals floating through his blood.
There's a major sense of relief that floods the blonde-haired scientist. The release he gets from climaxing is not just physical. There's a weight lifted off of him, like in a weird way, it feels like he gets a breath of fresh, spring time air after being stuck in space for 12 light years.
That barrier in his mind that focused on breeding has been satiated.
Rapid, fast pants fall from Ryland's mouth as he sucks in air like he's coming up out of water. His arm holding his body over yours gives in and he crashes down into your chest. It knocks the wind out of you, but at the same time, only adds to the pleasure radiating throughout your body as his hips come to a stop deep in your cunt.
Yet in the haze of Ryland's blissed out mind, he is upset.
He's distraught. He feels like an asshole. His brain is telling him that you only did this to save his life when you should have put him in the airlock. He feels like he disrespected you and went against his core beliefs of treating women right.
On top of that, as he feels his cock twitch and that painful ache in his body dissipate, he realizes he didn't use a condom.
Yeah. He's cursing himself up and down on the inside.
Meanwhile, you're in complete and utter bliss. Ryland's cock is still buried deep inside of you, and honestly? You'd be content if he stayed right there as you come down from your high.
Your brain is working overtime to try to process and understand everything that just happened within the last... however long. That's when something Ryland said in the middle of all of this floats to the front of your mind.
Tentatively, with your voice quiet and unsure, you break the silence. "What... what did you mean by... you don't, uhm, hate me?" You loosen your grip on Ryland's hair, instead gently smoothing over the mussed up golden curls as you wait for his response.
Ryland doesn't even know what to say. How does he explain what's going on in his mind right now? He's getting hit with a wave of exhaustion now, likely an effect from the chemicals emitted from the alien life form, and he's beyond embarrassed and flushed. He simultaneously really wants to stay right where he is, connected to you in this way, but also... he really wants to put clothes on and try to hide himself from you.
Because what if...
He feels your hand smooth over his head and he releases a small puff of air from his lungs. Your second hand slowly slides up Ryland's back, over his shoulder, and to his jaw. Your own heart is picking up speed again with your sudden braveness, but you want to know.
As kindly as you can, you draw Ryland up from your shoulder so that he comes face to face with you. He's expecting to see a look of judgment, a look of anger, a look of disgust.
He finds none of that.
Instead, he only sees an open, willing expression. Maybe even... hopeful?
Ryland's throat grows dry at that look. His heart is beating faster and his breathing grows even more unsteady. He swallows and wets his lips, his eyes darting back and forth between your own.
His mouth opens and closes a few times as he tries to backpedal, to cover it up, to say something to hide his mistake. But he can't. And that look from you has his splintered mind giving in and admitting slowly, "I... don't."
Surprise slowly spreads across your face like a can of molasses spilled on a table during winter. Ryland glances down from your eyes and stares straight at your collarbones. He sucks in a breath, shuts his eyes, and sighs, "I... I don't hate you, Y/n. I never have."
You are frozen underneath him. You don't dare speak. You don't dare move. All you can do is listen.
When you don't do anything, Ryland takes it as a sign to keep talking, even though that's literally the last thing he wants to do. "When I woke up from the coma," he murmurs, "All I knew was that I didn't like you. Something about you... just..."
He tears his eyes open and glances around, trying to find the right words. You swipe your thumb over his cheek and that draws his attention back to your face. His brows furrow and he whispers, "You just aggravated me."
You smile a little at that and softly chime in with a huff of, "You aggravated me, too." Ryland mirrors your small smile for a moment before his expression grows serious again. "I didn't... I didn't understand why. There was no reason for me to dislike you like that," he eventually says.
He shuffles onto one of his forearms so he can hold himself above you with less strain on his injury. Ryland's eyes dance over your face as he continues, "You were smart, witty, and a damn good scientist. But you just annoyed me." Somehow the words he says come across in a positive light, and you find them warming your chest and your cheeks.
Ryland settles his gaze on your mouth for a moment as his brows draw together. "After a while," he says, pauses, and then tilts his head and raises a brow, "A long while, after Rocky came on board, I... had a memory come back."
Your eyes grow wider at that. A memory? The two of you had this unspoken agreement where if one of you had a memory, you shared it. Neither of you knew what was happening when you woke up, and one by one, you each got memories. Those memories were missing puzzle pieces to solve and defeat Astrophage. Sharing those memories you individually gained back was a part of that.
Ryland sighs a little sheepishly and nods his head once in your hand. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I know I should I have told you. But... I didn't think you would believe me or... uhm... like? the memory?"
If he didn't have your interest piqued before, he certainly does now. You raise a brow in question, but again, you don't say anything. Ryland takes another deep breath and admits, "It was... you and me. Back on Earth. Stratt's vat, the original lab she set up for when we first got Astrophage, all of it."
"But," he mumbles, "It wasn't... just you and me. We... weren't like how we are here on the Hail Mary. We... joked...and laughed. You, uhm," he chuckles once and shrugs a shoulder, "You'd punch me in the shoulder if I made a really bad joke or if I quoted The Beatles too many times."
Your mouth curls up into a small, one sided smile as your mind begins to race. You part your lips to interrupt, but Ryland keeps going.
His expression is shy and open, and you can tell he's laying it all out for you. "When we were at Baikonur, your trailer was next to mine, and we'd walk to the lab together every morning," he says softly, "There were mornings where I wanted to reach over and grab your hand. I wanted to know what your skin felt like when it was always hidden under a latex glove."
Ryland's eyes flash up to yours. "I wanted to eat dinner with you in my trailer, or in my quarters on the ship when we were out at sea. I wanted to make you laugh every chance I could get just so I could see you smile when everything in the world was falling apart."
If you thought your heart was beating fast before, it's practically fluttering in your throat now. Your breathing is growing faster and shallower too, and you swallow to try to get your voice to work.
Ryland gives you an unsure smile as he confesses, "I... really, really liked you back on Earth. I mean, I had the world's biggest crush on you. I never did anything about it because we were trying to work on this project and I wasn't ever sure if you liked me back. And, oh, I don't know what the coma did to my brain, but it somehow twisted all of those unrequited feelings into a dislike that I've taken out on you for the last however many months."
"I mean, you had and have every reason to dislike me," he mumbles, his smile dissipating. "Both then and now with what I just put you through." Ryland bashfully shrugs one shoulder and admits, "Even now... I... I still like you."
Your eyes are wide with shock and disbelief at Ryland's confession. You don't even know what to say. All of that? On Earth? Now?
You are speechless.
There's only one thing you can think of to do to clearly communicate what you're feeling.
Using both hands to cup Ryland's face, you lean up off the mattress and capture his mouth in a soft, slow kiss. At first, he tries to pull back and panic over it, but then you slip a hand to the back of his head to keep him close, and Ryland sighs, melting into the kiss.
A soft, pleased hum resonates from Ryland, and he brings his hand not holding him up to cradle the back of your head. Once you feel him soften into the kiss, you allow yourself to enjoy it. The feeling of his lips slotting gently against yours, the tickle of his scruff on your face. Even the taste of his mouth is addicting and you find yourself wanting more.
But your lungs are still trying to get back to equilibrium, and you both pull away from the kiss slowly and at the same time. Ryland is the speechless one now, and you hold his face gently and glance over his features in the same way he had for you.
He's all sorts of confused. His hair is sticking up and out in a million different directions, his brows are taut, and you can practically see the questions forming on his mouth.
"It was never unrequited, Ryland," you whisper softly, "I never hated you. I think whatever happened to you in the coma also happened to me, because I also had the world's biggest crush on you."
Your cheeks burn with a shy warmth as you try to come up with your own words to say. Ryland is a step ahead of you, though, as he always is, and he asks, "But... how? When did you...? You've acted like you've hated me since you woke up!"
Now it's your turn to shrug. "Well, I... had a memory a few nights ago when I was getting ready to sleep and I guess it all made sense to me then."
The two of you stare at each other in disbelief for a few moments in silence. Then, at the same time, you both snort and burst into giggles. The tension in the room releases and you can't help but snicker as you come to terms with what information Ryland's provided you.
He sighs and shakes his head with a dumb, amazed grin. "Wow. To think this whole time we've been at each other throats all because the trip here messed with our brains. Unbelievable." You nod along and chuckle, "Well, I mean, at least we got it figured out? Even if under these conditions?"
Ryland winces a little and remorse fills his face. "I'm really sorry," he rushes, "I was so rough on you but I couldn't stop myself and I didn't want to hurt you-" "Ryland, Ryland," you soothe, again slipping your fingers over the scruff on his cheeks. "It's okay. I don't hurt anywhere. I'm okay."
"Actually," you giggle a little sheepishly, "I, uhm... kind of liked it rough like that?" That makes Ryland's cheeks flush a pretty rosy color. His mouth rapidly opens and closes as he tries to come up with something to say, but he doesn't. You end up giggling again, leaning up to rest your forehead against his.
His fingers gently slip into your (colored) locks and he sighs in happy, embarrassed defeat. He holds you close as you mumble, "And maybe, sometime in the future? We can try this all again when we're both healed up and 100%."
Ryland's brows shoot up in surprise as he echoes, "Try this again?" You blink in surprise but then grow bashful as you try to back track, "Well, well- we're the only two humans for 12 light years, and you know, we just did the deed. And well, if we both like each other, then I thought it wasn't a bad idea? Unless I'm totally reading this wrong-" "No!" He yelps out, tightening his grip on your hair slightly.
"No, no, no, that's not what I meant, I'm sorry," Ryland rushes out. "I just... can't believe all of this. This was never how our first time was supposed to go but here we are, and I... I just want to take care of you the way you deserve."
Your expression softens and you lean into his touch. You nuzzle your nose against his and nod faintly. "No, I know what you mean, Ry. I can't believe it either, and you just blew my mind," you say quietly. "You're... something, Dr. Grace."
Ryland smiles and softens into you again. It takes him a moment to get the courage, but then he whispers against your lips, "I love you, Y/n." Hearing those words makes you smile brighter than the stars surrounding the ship and you whisper back, "I love you, Ryland."
Without hesitating this time, Ryland closes the distance between the two of you and captures your lips for himself.
summary: after rocky reveals he has/had a mate on his home planet, grace realizes he, too, might've had someone to call his.
warnings: ANGST!!!! some fluff too... BUT MOSTLY ANGST
a/n: i do not know much of anything science-y/space-y but i tried my best! this also a bit of a mash between the movie and the book. please enjoy my first fic on this account (i've written others but that blog is being used for something else rn so i decided to keep one for all my fics and then the other for that specific project). also yes ive included laika because i cry just thinking about her okay enjoy pls
w/c: 11350
SPOILERS FOR PROJECT HAIL MARY BELOW
Grace smiled as he leaned forward, chin on his wrist. “Earth-culture rule. If you’re at a place first, you get to name everything you discover there.”
Rocky thought for a good two Eridian minutes before shifting his weight from one handhold to another.
“Okay,” he finally spoke. “Name is..” followed by a frequency of notes that hadn’t been charted into Grace’s translator.
He cocked his head to the side, trying to recognize each sound.
“What does it mean?”
“It is name of my mate.”
“You have a mate?”
“Unknown,” Rocky said. “Mate possibly has new mate. I gone a long time.”
“Sad.” Grace hummed, typing something into the same computer he had been using to analyze Rocky’s frequencies.
Rocky nodded his carapace forward. “Yes. Agree.”
Grace had already explained the concept of “mates” on earth—how two humans come together and create a life. Rocky did the same. It was a strange thing—laying two eggs, one consuming the other to create one viable egg that would hatch in one Eridian year (approximately forty-two earth days). Two Eridians laying eggs together was the Eridian equivalent of having sex.
“Grace have mate, question?”
Grace pursed his lips thinking for a moment. He could remember having a female presence in his life—Stratt and Ilyukhina and any other women he had worked with during the building of the Hail Mary. But not a single romantic partner.
He held his chin between his thumb and his index finger.
“No. I… I don’t think so.”
But saying it out loud made his chest hurt.
A tear rolled down his cheek.
Rocky’s question ricocheted in Grace’s amnesia-riddled brain.
Did he have a mate?
Grace stirred a pan of eggs, trying to get the perfect consistency of scrambled that you loved.
Laika sat next to him, hoping some scraps would fall to the floor for her to snack on.
He heard you walk into the kitchen, listening as you reached into one of the high cabinets to grab one of his many nerdy science mugs.
“Morning, hun.” You murmured, sliding over to him, slipping one hand between his shoulder blades, pressing a kiss to his cheek before taking a sip of your coffee.
“Morning, Neby,” Grace chuckled (Neby was a nickname Grace had bestowed upon you after your first date when you had tried to sound like a nerdy science chick and completely unraveled yourself by calling a nebula a “nebby… neb… thing.” It made him laugh pretty hard though). “All American breakfast to start your day sound good?”
“Yes,” you smiled. “You’re the best.”
You sat at the dining table, welcomed by a plate full of bacon, and then a plate of eggs delivered by Grace. Laika walked right next to him and then assumed a spot next to you waiting for more food with her usual pleading eyes.
“One plate of scrambled butt nuggets coming right up,” he smiled, placing the plate in front of you and kissing the crown of your head.
“Thanks,” you murmured, rubbing an eye before grabbing some bacon and plopping it next to your eggs.
Laika eyed you as you took a bite.
“Don’t tell Grace,” you whispered as you tore off a piece of bacon and slipped it to her.
Grace walked over with his plate, peering at you over his glasses. He chose not to say anything this time.
You took an inconspicuous sip of your coffee like you hadn’t slipped Laika some food before devouring the eggs and bacon together.
Grace watched you the whole time as he ate his own breakfast, just admiring the way you looked right now. Disheveled and sleepy and yet always the most beautiful woman he’d ever met.
By the time Grace finished eating, you’d already eaten your breakfast and downed your coffee. You felt more alert than before.
You softly rubbed your stomach. “You always make the best breakfast, Grace.”
“Well, it’s all thanks to this cool little apron you got me.” He smiled, pointing at his apron that read “May the Forks be with you”—something you’d gifted him on his birthday years ago.
You chuckled and stood, taking your dirty dishes to store in the dishwasher, before leaving to your shared bedroom to get ready for work.
It was already 7:00 A.M. You had roughly forty-five minutes to get ready.
Yikes…
You rushed to shower and settle your hair into a reasonable braid—just to keep it out of your way—no makeup because you were bound to get dirty somehow, and then your work uniform which was grimy with yesterday's grease stains.
You walked back into the bedroom to grab your walkman, finding Grace pulling his shoes on.
He looked up at you, just to catch a glimpse. He noticed you were wearing your unclean work overalls.
“Crap-sticks,” he muttered, frowning. “I forgot to wash your uniform last night.”
“Don’t worry about it hun. I’ll do it when I get home.”
“Are you sure?” He pouted, finishing his laces before walking over and cradling your shoulder, softly rubbing it.
“Promise.” You replied quietly, kissing his cheek.
He let you go with a smile and a sigh.
“I may or may not be a little late today,” he started, walking across the room to grab his bag. “It’s quiz day.”
“That means I’m in charge of dinner.” You replied, walking to the front of the house to grab your work bag, which lay by the door from last night.
Grace followed behind you, snatching two tumblers of coffee in his hand that he had filled while you got ready.
He extended one to you and you took it with a grateful sigh.
“Alright, I’ll see you later, okay? Love you.”
“Yep. I love you, too.”
The two of you exchanged a hug and a kiss before making your way into your separate vehicle and bike, taking your routes to work.
Your work day was like any other: doing maintenance on commercial planes and the occasional private aircraft at the international airport in your city. It didn’t pay much, but it was enough for you and Grace to live together comfortably.
Grace’s day hadn’t gone as it usually did.
It should have ended when the bell rang.
The final minutes of class had dissolved into noise—hands in the air, overlapping questions, students talking over each other about the newly-discovered Petrova line like it was another cool science topic instead of… whatever it actually was
He tried to answer them all, but the bell cut him off mid-sentence.
Chairs scraped, backpacks zipped. The room emptied in a rush of voices and footsteps until all that was left was the echoing chatter of the students passing down the hall.
Grace exhaled slowly.
“Alright,” he muttered to himself, stacking the quizzes into one uneven pile. “Peace and quiet. Finally.”
He sat at his desk, red pen in hand, already bracing himself for the grades.
He didn’t even make it through the first page.
“Ryland Grace?”
A voice he didn’t recognize.
Grace looked up over the rim of his glasses.
A woman in a sharp business suit stood in the doorway, too composed for a parent, too serious to be a district staff member.
“Yeah, that’s me,” he said cautiously. “Can I help you?”
She stepped inside without waiting for permission.
There was an accent in her voice, European, maybe. “I believe so.”
“My name is Eva Stratt. I’m here on behalf of the Petrova Taskforce.”
Grace blinked. “...That sounds fake.”
“It is not.”
“Okay,” he said, setting his pen down slowly. “That doesn’t make it sound less fake.”
She didn’t smile.
“We are dealing with a global anomaly. I’m sure you’ve heard of the Petrova Line,” she continued. “It’s now becoming imminent that this line requires immediate scientific attention. Your name came up.”
“My name comes up when kids forget to put their names on tests,” Grace said. “That’s about it.”
Stratt opened her briefcase and pulled out a thick, organized binder.
She flipped it open and turned it toward him.
Grace leaned forward despite himself, reading an all too familiar title cover.
An Analysis of Water-Based Assumptions and Recalibration of Expectations for Evolutionary Models.
“Oh,” he muttered. “...you’ve gotta be kidding me.”
“You recognize it,” she said.
“Yeah, unfortunately.”
Your voice flickered through his mind for just a second. “You should be proud of it, you know.”
He’d rolled his eyes when you said that.
“That was a long time ago,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “I don’t do that anymore.”
“You challenged foundational assumptions about life,” Stratt replied. “Most people do not ‘just stop’ doing that.”
“Well, I did,” he said flatly.
She studied him for a moment, trying to decide if he was lying or just disappointing.
“You argued that life does not require water,” she said.
“I argued that we assume too much about conditions we’ve only ever seen once,” Grace corrected. “Big difference.”
“Most scientists disagree.”
“Most scientists are comfortable,” he shot back. “Comfortable people don’t ask better questions.”
He could feel the stab in his words.
Grace sighed, sliding his glasses up to drag a hand down his face.
“Look,” he added, softer. “I’m not that guy anymore. I teach kids. I go home. I eat dinner with my wife. That’s… enough for me.”
There was a brief pause. Stratt closed the binder.
“I believe you,” she said.
Grace blinked. “...you do?”
“Yes.”
“...Huh.” That threw him off more than anything else she’d said.
“But that does not change the situation,” she continued.
“Which is?” he asked.
“Something has been detected near the sun and it is absorbing energy at an exponential rate.”
Grace frowned. “Like… a solar phenomenon?”
“No.”
“...A satellite?”
“No.”
Grace stared at Stratt.
“...You’re about to say something I’m not gonna like, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” Stratt sighed, settling her briefcase down to cross her arms. “We believe whatever is in the Petrova line may be alive.”
Grace let out a short, incredulous laugh.
“Okay—no. No, that’s—no.”
“Whatever it is, it’s far too close to the sun to need water. It aligns with your prior work.”
“Yea, well, my prior work also got me kicked out of academia, so—”
“We need someone willing to consider possibilities others dismiss.”
He grabbed his stack of quizzes and shoved them into his bag.
“My wife is expecting me home,” he said. “So unless this ‘global anomaly’ can wait until tomorrow, I’m gonna have to pass.”
“It cannot wait.”
“Then you should probably find someone else.”
He slung his bag over his shoulder and walked past her.
She didn’t stop him.
“Dr. Grace,” she said instead, calm as ever. “This is not optional.”
He waved his hand behind him without turning around. “Seems optional to me!”
It really wasn’t optional.
When he made his way outside, four men in suits were waiting for him, hands clasped in front of them. They flashed him their FBI badges.
“Dr. Grace,” one of them said, stepping forward. “We need you to come with us.”
“Do I?” Grace asked.
“Yes.”
“Hard pass, sorry.” He shrugged, slipping his bike helmet on.
They didn’t argue. Two of the agents grabbed him by the arms.
“Hey—okay—nope—this is kidnapping, right? This is definitely kidnapping—”
The car door opened.
He twisted and turned, awkwardly trying to wiggle his way out of their abnormally strong grip.
“Hey, can I at least call my wife?!” he snapped.
Nobody gave him an answer.
They shoved him into the back of a black SUV.
Grace banged his fist against the little clear partition between the front and back seats.
Both men in the front of the car stayed silent, ignoring his knocking.
He tried to ask questions, he joked, he complained. Eventually he stopped when he realized the agents were never going to reply to him.
His knee bounced, and the thought of you hit him harder than ever.
He swallowed, pressing his temple against the cool window of the car, muttering, “...She’s gonna freak out.”
By the time they pulled into a parking lot, the sun was beginning to lower in the sky.
They led him into what looked like an unused business building.
His feet barely touched the ground as they led him down an empty hallway with unmarked doors every thirty feet or so. Finally, they opened a set of double doors at the end of the hall and gently nudged him inside.
Unlike the rest of the abandoned building, this room was full of furniture and shiny, high-tech devices. It was the most well-stocked biology lab he’d ever seen. And right in the middle of it all was Stratt.
“Welcome, Dr. Grace,” she said. “This is your new lab.”
The agents closed the door behind Grace, leaving him and Stratt alone in the lab.
Grace rubbed his shoulder where they had manhandled him a little too hard. He glanced at the door behind him.
“Some welcome this is,” he grumbled. “I like what you did with the kidnapping.”
“You are here because you are needed.”
“I have a life, you know.” He snapped.
Stratt ignored him and gestured to the lab. “We believe this organism is consuming stellar energy,” she said. “If that is true—”
“It could affect the sun,” Grace finished.
“Yes.”
Silence settled between them.
“Okay,” he said slowly. “That’s… bad.”
“Yes.”
Grace looked at the makeshift lab that looked minuscule in the middle of the uncomfortably big warehouse.
“Can I call my wife?”
—
That day you got home from work, it was almost 6:30 P.M.
Grace wasn’t home yet.
You didn’t mind it, remembering he had papers to grade.
Dinner was ready at 7:15
You check the clock again.
7:30.
The chicken you baked had gone dry. The rice was sticking together. Laika sat by the door, ears perking at any passing sound she heard.
“He’s just late,” you murmured, though you weren’t sure if you were talking to her or yourself.
7:56.
You picked up your phone. Put it down. Picked it up again.
You knew he was gonna be late, but not this late. Grace was never this late—at least not without letting you know.
Laika let out a soft whine.
“I know,” you whispered. “I know.”
After enough waiting, you reached for your phone and dialed one of his coworkers.
“John?”
“Yea, what's up?”
“Did you see Grace today?”
“Yea,” his coworker yawned. “We talked just before his last class started. I saw him leave with these four scary-looking men.”
He had been kidnapped. Oh fuck.
“Oh my god,” you muttered, softly sliding your hand up to your forehead. “Okay, thanks.”
You immediately hung up and called 911.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“My husband was kidnapped.”
“Okay, ma’am, what’s your husband’s name?”
“Grace. Ryland Grace. I saw him this morning when we left for work,” Your voice started trembling. “He- His coworker said he saw him leave with some guys in black suits outside of his school.”
“Okay,” you heard her typing on the other end of the line. “If you can, please come to the station so one of our officers can take your statement.”
You nodded like she could see you before giving her a verbal okay, and hung up.
You left dinner on the table and rushed out the door to the closest police station.
There, you were met with a detective named Erin, who helped you into a private office.
Three hours later, you left.
You got home and picked up dinner. Laika followed you around.
As you laid in bed, the gravity of his absence hit you. You weren’t used to sleeping in an empty bed.
You kept drifting toward his side in your sleep, only to wake up clutching a pillow that didn’t breath or quietly snore when he thought you were already asleep.
You didn’t remember falling asleep.
But you did remember waking up to the sound of your clock blaring its snooze alarm.
You were late.
You had to rush to work and, at work, you were hit with probably one of the worst maintenance issues in the history of your time working with airplanes.
On top of the shitty hours you worked, traffic on the way home was even worse.
You’d ended up getting home two hours later than usual.
At this point, the stress of Grace’s disappearance and work had you so tired you fell onto the bed and knocked out, only to be woken up by your phone ringing.
As you blinked the sleepiness away, you sat up. You reeked of grease and oil and metal from yesterday.
Probably work calling.
It was.
You called in sick without any other hesitation and trudged to the kitchen for a much needed mug of coffee.
Just as you had clicked brew on the tiny machine, a knock sounded at your door.
You pondered answering it, until whoever they were, struck again with a harsher force.
You made your way to the front, Laika next you barking quietly.
You shushed her as you opened the door.
You were met with two men in black suits, one holding a tablet.
“Is this the house of Ryland Grace?” One asked.
Oh my god it's the guys who kidnapped Grace.
You hesitantly answered.
“...Yea.”
“Your husband would like to speak to you.” The second one answered immediately.
“What?-”
“May we come in?”
You rubbed your face with both hands before sighing. What other option did you have?
“Yea, sure.” You muttered, exasperated.
You let them in, and guided the two men into your living room as you spoke.
“Listen, if this is you guys asking for ransom then I-”
“Neby?” You heard a familiar voice speak, along with the grain of some kind of background noise.
You turned around to see Grace’s face on a screen with that worried, tired look you recognized.
“Grace!” You cried, running over, hands snatching that tablet from one of the men’s hands. “Are you okay? Where are you? Were you kidnapped?-”
“No- sweetheart, I’m fine, I’m just in this really weird lab experimenting on this-”
One of the men took the tablet just as Grace began leaking sensitive government information.
“What- Hey! I was talking to him!” You scoffed.
“Dr. Grace, we must remind you to keep your work private.”
“Oh.”
You frowned, crossing your arms. “What do you mean ‘private?’ What’s going on? Grace-”
“I… I can’t explain that,” Grace sighed. You grabbed the tablet as the man handed it back. “But I can assure you that I am fine. I might be gone for a little while, but I’m not kidnapped or running away from you, okay?”
You sighed shakily, rubbing the T-area of your forehead. “I don’t—” you stopped, swallowing hard. “...I don’t believe you. But I… I trust you.”
You watched Grace. The feedback on his end was buggy. He adjusted his glasses and his hand froze before returning back to its original spot on what you presumed was a table. Normally you would have laughed at this.
“Hey,” he whispered, leaning closer like that would do something to create a barrier of privacy between you and what you assumed were some kind of special agents. “I love you, okay?”
“I love you, too.” You replied quietly.
“Dr. Grace?” You heard a female voice in the background.
“Oh, I’m- I’m talking to my wife-”
“You need to get back to the lab.”
“Who is that?” You called, not out of jealousy, but fear. Maybe he was being held hostage and he was just trying to pretend to not worry you.
“Would you like to talk–” Grace started, before the tablet was taken from his hands. “Okay.”
A woman filled the frame now. She looked older, red hair, and a turtleneck.
“Mrs. Grace, my name is Eva Stratt. I work for the ESA-”
“The European Space Agency? What?-”
Stratt continued her sentence, ignoring your interjection. “Your husband has been selected to take part in a scientific trial and will be gone for a brief moment of time.”
“Can I go with him?” You huffed.
“No,” she responded simply. “Thank you for your time.”
The screen turned black.
“What? No, no, no,” You whined, trying to figure out a way to turn it back on and redial his line.
Stupid government technology.
One of the men took the tablet.
“We will contact you if there are any changes.”
“Seriously? I want to see my husband!”
“That’s currently not possible, ma’am.”
“Then make it possible!” You yelled.
This was maybe the first time in your whole life you had raised your voice at another person.
“We will see what we can do.” One of the men offered, before they both turned and left without another word, stepping into their ominous black SUVs.
You listened as the door closed, and simply fell onto the couch, Laika running over to lay next to you.
“What are we going to do?” You whispered, glancing at her.
Laika cocked her head to the side and slowly settled herself on your lap.
Meanwhile…
Grace followed Stratt down the large dome, a frown on his lips.
“Ms. Stratt,” he called out, catching up to her pace. “I have a question.”
“Go ahead.”
“Can I bring my wife?-”
“No,” She answered immediately. “She is irrelevant to your work.”
“Please,” he huffed. “She- she’s a mechanical engineer! She can help me–build… things!”
Stratt did not continue further. She kept walking.
Grace frowned and crossed his arms, but continued following her to the lab nonetheless.
An idea popped into his mind.
He stopped walking.
Stratt noticed his stillness and stopped as well, turning around to look at him.
“If you don’t let me bring my wife, then I don’t want to work on this anymore.”
Stratt stared at him for a moment.
“That’s fine then. You can collect your things and leave.”
“What? Wait-” Grace groaned loudly, ruffling his own hair, his glasses sliding down his nose just lightly. “Fine. She doesn’t come. But I get to call her whenever.”
Stratt thought it over for a bit.
“Okay. But you will have to sign an NDA. You are not allowed to tell her anything of what you are working on here, do you understand?”
“One hundred percent.”
“I need a yes.”
Grace frowned. Such formalities for no reason.
“Yes, I understand.”
“Good,” Stratt turned around and kept walking. Grace followed her again. “I’ll have an NDA form and a tablet for you tomorrow.”
Grace smiled now. It wasn’t the best possible outcome, but it was better than nothing.
The next day, there was a knock on your door again.
Only one of the men from yesterday was here this time.
“Mrs. Grace. A compromise was reached.” He extended his hand, and in it was a tablet. “Ms. Stratt has supplied you with a modified tablet to contact your husband via video call.
You frowned. Seriously? A tablet to chat over a connection that was probably tapped and being monitored.
You took it and inspected it all around
“Thanks.” You muttered, closing the door as the man stepped off your porch.
You walked to the living room and stared at the TV.
It was on, flashing some news about the president giving a very important speech.
You didn’t care.
Just as you began to mess with the tablet, trying to figure out how it would work, it began to vibrate with a call.
You answered immediately, smiling and giggling a little when you saw Grace’s face so close to the screen.
“Heyyyy.” You sat back on the couch, Laika running over to sit with you, like she could also sense the call.
“Oh, it's on.” He muttered, leaning back. “Hey, sweetheart!”
“How are you–” A man stepped into view behind him, dressed in a suit. “Who is that?”
“Oh, he’s just—” Grace peered at him quickly. “He’s just accompanying me.”
“For what?”
“That doesn’t matter right now,” Grace smiled, trying to pan the camera away from him. “How have you been?”
“I’ve been… not okay, honestly. Work has been weirdly rough lately. The president said there's this new thing called… what is it?”
You racked your head for the answer.
“Astrophage.” Grace blurted.
He could feel the agent’s eyes burning into his back.
“Astrophage, yea!” You paused. “How’d you know?”
“Oh, I- uhmm… I heard it on the news today, too.”
“Oh, cool.” You responded, unaware that he was the one who had named Astrophage, who had been running all the tests and discovering new things about the said cellular organism.
There was a silence that settled.
“Well, I have to get back to work,” Grace sighed, looking at something over the tablet.
“Okay,” you frowned slightly. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
That was the first and last time he picked up a call.
You had tried to videocall him the next day and he didn’t respond.
You tried to tell yourself. Maybe he’s just busy. Yea, that was it.
You tried again the next day.
No such luck.
And you tried again and again, until you got so frustrated you almost threw the tablet on the floor.
You tried to ground yourself, saying he was probably working on something that required all of his time and attention.
And that was kind of the case.
That is, if the case was saving the human race.
One random day, you went to check the mail.
Not for anything important. You knew it’d probably be bills, ads, magazines. The usual.
But there was still a stubborn part of you that hoped maybe something would be there to alleviate your worries.
You opened your mailbox.
A stack of envelopes greeted you—insurance, flyers, a couple of space magazines that had Grace’s name on a sticker.
Just as you closed the little mailbox door, you saw it at the very bottom, barely visibly beneath the pile of junk mail.
A large, thick yellow envelope covered in stamps. Your name was written in handwriting you would’ve recognized anywhere.
Your breath caught, and for a second, you just stared at it.
You quickly locked the box and carried your mail home.
Once inside your house, you threw the rest of the letters on the table and ripped the letter open.
my dearest neby,
hello! i know i havent been able to call you for a while, and im sorry. i will make it up to you, i promise. things are just… weird right now.
im really far away. like, really far. further than before. there’s satellite connection out here but its being used a lot, so my call never go through. ive tried though. a lot.
You blinked.
“What?!” You whispered.
How far was he? Why was he so far? What the hell was going on?.
Your grip tightened on the paper. Your mind started running ahead of you.
You forced yourself to keep reading.
-i still cant tell you about what im doing here (sorry). but i can tell you some thing.
i got taken really far out into the ocean.
i have met a lot of people here. i dont think any of them like me (shocking i know)
ive been doing a lot of experiments. like actually cool ones. stuff i couldnt do with my students at school
how are you?
its been rough without you. a lot rougher than i expected.
i miss you and my students and laika
is she still bring you her leash? you know how she gets if she doesnt get her walk.
Your vision blurred for a second, but you swallowed it down.
this whole letter thing kinda sucks but its what we’ve got right now
you remember how to write back, right?
love, your husband☆
You lowered the paper slowly.
You smiled, although you could feel a little ache in your chest.
You didn’t waste any more time, though.
You grabbed a paper, pen, and sat down right there at the table like if you waited a second longer, his letter might disappear.
You wrote fast and messy.
By the time you finished, your hand ached.
You folded the paper carefully and slid it into the envelope.
You hummed to yourself.
“...No.” you muttered.
You ran into your bedroom.
The drawer of the nightstand slid open with a soft click.
You dug past tangled cords and other such random items, until your fingers brushed against a familiar box.
You pulled it out, along with a handful of cassettes. Your cassettes.
A few in particular made you hesitate. Each had a label handwritten in red sharpie, slightly crooked.
the greatest hits! (in my opinion)
8/04/21
the beatles
queen
frankie s.
You huffed a quiet laugh. Hours of recording. Re-recording. Getting the time right and making sure every song started clean.
And then you gently placed all of them in the same package.
“I…” Grace’s hands trembled slightly as he took his glasses off, hanging them in the neck of his shirt. He dragged his hands over his eyes, trying to wipe his tears before they could fall. “I think I did have a mate. But… it’s been a while. I don’t remember her very well, and I also don’t think she’s waiting for me.”
“Grace and Rocky mate not so different.”
“Yea.” Grace huffed.
He slowly stood up. Maybe, just maybe, it was possible that they had been hidden some personal items for him.
“I want to check something.” Grace walked out of the little lab towards the dormitories, where he reached into the storage compartment with all the crew’s bags, which he hadn’t bothered to thoroughly comb through save for changing his clothes.
He pulled everything out.
Shirts, socks, a hacky sack colored like earth.
In between it all, he found a walkman, cassettes, small black box, a little USB drive, and a blanket made with different patches.
“What all this, question?” Rocky leaned his carapace forward.
“Well…”
There was a knock on the outside of the makeshift lab’s window.
Grace looked up.
Stratt was standing outside with a yellow package. It was covered in more stamps and tape.
Grace flashed her a smile and gently settled whatever experiment he was working on. It was probably your response to his mail! It took longer than he had hoped, but all he cared about was your reply.
He stepped out and pulled off his protective gear.
It was loud inside the carrier. A jumble of chattering, sounds of jets coming and leaving, saws and drills and other such tools that were being used to build specialized parts.
“For me?” Grace extended his hand, and Stratt placed it in his palm.
“Yes. From your wife.”
“Amaze-balls.”
He inspected it quickly, feeling it around. “I’m taking a super quick lunch break.”
“Alright,” Stratt turned around. “Dr. Garza, please step in while Dr. Grace is gone.”
Grace kept walking, already pulling the glued flap open to rummage through the package.
He walked down a narrow hall within the interior part of the carrier, reading through your message.
to my awesome and nerdy husband,
it has also been rough without you, but reading that you get to do all these new things makes me happy for you! laika misses you too. sometimes she’ll drag her leash to the door and sit and whine. i walk her, but i’m sure it's not the same as when you do it. and i’ll see what i can do about visiting your students
as for me, i’m doing fine-ish. I’m surviving, to put it better. i miss you at night. like a lot. it seems i didnt appreciate having you right next to me enough.
work has been rough. we’ve been getting a lot of planes turned to shit (excuse my language), and i always end up with grease everywhere (i’m pretty sure i’ve used up all of my current bottle of Fast Orange).
since you don’t have a connection, i’m sending you a little keepsake from me. i know you might freak out since i consider this my ‘prized possession,’ but i think this occasion warrants such a gift. consider it an early anniversary present
love,
your amazing wife :)
p.s. i left a list of the songs on the back, just in case
If someone had passed by, they would have thought he was a little insane overhearing him making little happy sounds and muttering comments to himself.
And just as he walked into the little breakroom, he reached back into the package and pulled out your cassette player.
Holy cow.
Grace sat on the edge of the breakroom’s countertop, admiring the cassette player and switching between the tapes you had left for him, inspecting each one and going back and forth between the tapes and the paper to see the songs.
And then he plugged in the earbuds you threw in for him, and hit the play button.
Quiet static.
The sound of music filled his ears, something he hadn’t heard in too long of a time.
It was familiar and warm and so you.
Grace let out a shaky laugh, pressing the earbuds closer.
For a second, just a second, it felt like he was in the kitchen again. Like you were over the stove, cooking and humming like you always did when it was your turn to make dinner.
His day dreaming was interrupted by the door of the break room opening.
Stratt stepped in.
“Are you finished?” She asked.
“Uhm—no. I was just about to start on my lunch.”
“You have five minutes.”
“What—”
She left before Grace could refute her command.
He sighed and kept listening to your tapes as he scarfed his food down, imagining you were by his side, eating lunch with him too.
And for the rest of his time working on Project Hail Mary, this was how you communicated.
Letters, and packages. Static-filled calls when you were lucky.
As a year slowly approached, the Hail Mary neared completion.
Grace had met the brave trio of astronauts who were going to be on the Hail Mary.
Yao, a stern and traditional Chinese man, Ilyukhina, a boisterous and outgoing Russian woman, and DuBois, an almost robotic man who was not afraid to share much of his personal life.
They were ready to die. Each of them had chosen their own form of suicide like it was an item on a bucketlist—opioid overdose, bullet to the head, suffocation by nitrogen. Grace was almost scared by their willingness to give up their lives.
Nonetheless, he worked with them. Taught them the science they needed to know. It was almost like he was back in his classroom.
Things were going well. They had made incredible progress with the Hail Mary. All the final touches were being made—the coma induction, tweaks in programming, last minute fixes and additions to the Hail Mary itself.
Grace vividly remembers standing on land for the first time in months.
It was almost one in the morning when you felt something making a sound in your room.
You blinked awake, feeling around the bed as you sat up.
“Fuck. What the fuck?” You muttered, voice raspy.
You pushed your hair out of your face and stood, looking around until you spotted a flash of light that seemed to be the source of the vibrating
The tablet?
You walked as quickly as you could and grasped the screen, clicking it on.
“Neby?” He spoke, smiling, although his screen was a little buggy.
“Grace!” You whispered for no particular reason. “You called me?”
“Yep,” he smiled. “Things are moving along quickly here. I might be able to come home soon.”
“Seriously?” You laughed, almost wanting to jump up and down in your room. “Oh my god—okay, I have to clean, I have to—Grace, the house is a mess—”
He laughed softly.
“I don’t care about the house,” he paused. “...I just want to see you.”
“Laika misses you a lot.”
You called her name and you heard her pad over, claws making a quiet clicking sound in the dark house.
She made her way onto the bed and laid next to you.
“Say hi to Grace,” you murmured, softly patting her head.
“Hey, my little cosmonaut!” Grace smiled, waving like the dog could understand him.
Laika blinked at the screen. Seems she too was tired to process Grace.
You chuckled, shaking your head. “She doesn’t get it.”
“Yea,” Grace sighed, looking behind him now. “That makes two of us.”
“How have you been?” He asked, voice glitching slightly.
“Uhm… decent. These past months have felt so long without you.”
“I could say the same.”
You rubbed your eyes a few times, trying to rub the sleepiness out of your system even if it was past midnight now.
“Well, I gotta go.” He muttered, scratching his brow.
“So soon?” You yawned, smacking your lips a couple of times.
“Yeah.”
You nodded anyway. “Okay.”
“Don’t miss me too much,” he added.
“No promises.”
He looked back over his shoulder again. Stratt was approaching him.
He spoke softly after another beat of silence.
“I love you.”
“I love you too,” you murmured with a grin.
The call ended.
Stratt stood next to Grace, looking out at a building in the distance.
“Nine days to launch,” she said.
Grace nodded.
“Nine days…” He smiled. “This feels like a dream.”
“More like a nightmare.” Stratt huffed, shaking her head, hands stuffing into her coat pocket, body shivering just slightly from a breeze that had picked up.
There was silence, the two enjoying each other’s presence for once in their lives.
“Was that your wife?” Stratt spoke, turning her head slightly to look at Grace.
“Yea,” he smiled, looking at the ground. “My wife and our dog. I miss her, but I’m glad I’ll be getting back to her soon.”
Stratt nodded, looking back out.
“What about you?” Grace asked. “You have anyone? Family? Friends? Partner?”
“Nope,” Stratt sighed, tucking a loose strand of hair into her cap. “I’ll probably go to jail after this is over. A lot of world leaders aren’t happy with the way I operated Project Hail Mary.”
“Oh.” Grace frowned now.
He had opened his mouth to speak again.
BOOM.
The ground disappeared from under him. Sound ripped through the air.
Grace hit the ground hard, the breath knocked from his lungs.
He couldn’t hear anything. His ears were ringing. What happened? Something exploded. But where?
Grace forced himself to sit up.
Even after being knocked down, Stratt was already moving. Of course she was.
Grace followed, stumbling after her.
There was a fire in the distance.
Grace and Stratt stood next to each other in the middle of the field, watching as the bases’ emergency cars pulled onto the scene.
Stratt reached into her coat pocket, pulling out a walkie talkie.
She spoke in Russian, quickly.
“The research center blew up,” she said.
“Oh god,” Grace looked at her. “Who was there? Who was there?!”
Stratt reached into her pocket, “Hang on—,” and pulled out a folded and almost crumpled wad of papers.
Grace knew exactly what they were. The schedule logs, showing where everyone was and what they were doing at all times.
Stratt flipped through them all, stopping shortly when she reached the page she was looking for. She gasped.
“DuBois and Shapiro. They were scheduled to be there doing some Astrophage experiments.”
Grace wanted to fall to his knees. He almost did.
He felt like throwing up.
“Primary crew, I need you locations. Call them in.”
“Yao here,” he came on first. “In my bunk.”
“Ilyukhina, at the officer’s bar. What was that explosion?”
Stratt and Grace waited for the next reply.
“DuBois,” she said. “DuBois! Check in!”
Radio silence.
“Shapiro. Dr. Annie Shapiro, check in!”
More radio silence.
Stratt took a deep breath, massaging her temples like it would help with the stress.
The explosion hadn’t been revealed to the public.
All of Baikonur had been put in an effective media blackout. Both of the remaining main and secondary crew were kept in their own respective bunkers. Even Grace had been moved from his trailer and put in a bunker with his colleagues. The Russians weren’t taking any chances, even if it hadn’t been a terrorist attack.
There was nothing Grace could do.
He sat in a bunker with Stratt and Dimitri.
Stratt was going over pictures of the explosion, even if there was just a gaping crater left where the lab had been.
She set her phone down.
“We’ve lost our primary and secondary crew.”
“This is a nightmare.” Dimitri huffed.
“Dr. Grace. I want a short list of possible replacements.”
Grace stared at her, mouth agape. “They just died! And you’re already replacing them!”
“And so will the rest of us if we don’t make this mission happen. We need replacements.”
Grace welled up, shaking his head. “DuBois… Shapiro…” he wiped his eyes. “They’re dead. They’re dead…”
Stratt slapped him, knocking his glasses askew. “Snap out of it!”
Grace was taken aback by her outburst.
“Cry later! Mission first! We need a new science specialist, and we need them now!”
He prayed this wouldn’t set the Hail Mary back.
Some days later, Grace was called into a meeting.
“Afternoon,” he spoke; it would have been “Good afternoon,” if not for the death of the only two science specialists on the main and secondary crew, as well as other vital workers.
“Have a seat.” Stratt gestured at any chair.
Grace sat, a file settled in front of him.
There were two guards in the room, as well as Yao and Ilyukhina.
“So, we need at least one new science specialist on that ship, as you know, Dr. Grace,” Stratt began, crossing her fingers in front of her. “Have you found anyone?”
“A woman in Paraguay,” Grace sighed, pushing his beanie off his head. “She’s got a minor in cellular biology.”
“Great, when can she get here?”
Stratt went quiet, Yao and Ilyukhina glancing at her and then back at Grace.
“We don’t have time to train someone. You will take his place.”
Grace blinked.
“...what?”
”You will replace DuBois.”
“Welcome to crew!” Ilyukhina smiled.
“No,” he said. “No, I’m not— I can’t—”
“As I’m sure you know, your test was positive for the coma-resistant gene.”
He did have it. Grace remembered Stratt having his blood tested during the clinical trials for the coma-induction, and then later having DuBois spontaneously inform him that Grace also had the gene.
“No– No!” Grace slid his glasses off, letting them sit jankily below his chin. “I’m a husband. I’m an eighth grade science teacher. But I’m not an astronaut. I’m not an astronaut! I– I put the “not” in astronaut!”
“This isn’t an option, Dr. Grace.”
“I’m not an astronaut!” He echoed. “I don’t have the training!”
“You’ve had years of direct training. You know this mission inside and out.”
“But—” Grace looked down at the table, at the yellow manilla folder in front of him. “I don’t want to die.”
“Nobody does.”
Grace put his head in his hands, trembling with his tears. “Can I think about it?”
“You have until five P.M.” Stratt replied in her same, monotone voice.
Grace dragged his hands up and down his face before leaving the room, door closing behind him in a frustrated slam.
It was a moment like this that made him appreciate Earth for what it was. It made his appreciate his life.
You. His students. Laika. You.
All he could think about was you.
He had been walking around the main area of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, feeling the cold air of the evening, when he decided to run all the way back to his mobile home to call you.
BZZT… BZZT… BZZT…
The tablet vibrated on your bed.
But no one was home.
It was a weekday, and with the ten hour time difference between Russia and the United States, you were barely getting into work.
Grace ran his hands through his hair, trying to figure out what to do next. How could he get a hold of you right now?
He ran back to Stratt’s office, breathless as he knocked.
A man opened the door for him.
Grace ran in looking like a mad man, making his way to her desk and gripping the edge.
“I need to call my wife but she’s at work.”
Stratt glanced at him for a second.
“Where does she work?”
“Philidelphia International Airport.”
Stratt did a quick Google search and grabbed the number to call the airport.
“My name is Eva Stratt. I need to speak to your airplane maintenance supervisor immediately.”
Grace could hear a faint Yes, ma’am. No hesitance. Seems they recognized her name.
She was on hold for an approximate second.
“Hello?” A gruff voice spoke.
“I need to speak to one of your employees. A missus Grace.”
“May I ask what this is about?-”
“Do it now or I will call your boss and have you fired for obstructing my operation.”
“Y-Yes, ma’am.”
Grace could hear a quiet yelling behind the phone.
“Hey, (nickname)! You got a call!”
You looked over the wing of the plane you were working on. “A call for me?”
“Yes, get your behind over here!”
A look of confusion formed on your face, but you listened anyway, letting your tools clatter on top of the wing as you climbed down the ladder to run over to your supervisor.
You grabbed the phone as he handed it to you.
“Hello?”
The line was silent for a moment, but you could hear some movement.
“Hello??” You muttered again.
“Neby?” Grace said.
“Grace!” You smiled, holding the phone closer now. “Wait, Grace? Why are you calling me at work?”
“I just— I needed to talk to you.”
Stratt stood up and left the room. At least she had the courtesy to give Grace some privacy.
“About what?”
“A– About anything. I just needed to hear your voice.”
“That’s… surprisingly cheesy, coming from you,” You replied, chuckling, although you could recognize some worry in his voice. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” he replied, almost a little too quickly.
“Last time you said that, you were shipped off to god knows where.”
Grace chuckled.
“How have you been?” He muttered, staring at the wood table in Stratt’s office.
“I’ve been good.” Grace could hear the smile in your voice. “I can’t wait for you to get back!”
There it was. The crack in the camel’s back.
“I… I might be here a little longer.”
“What?” You groaned, your entire demeanor changing as you leaned against the wall of your boss’ office. “Why? What’s going on?”
He was silent for a second.
“Unforeseen circumstances.”
“You’re being vague,” You scoffed. “What happened?”
Your hands tensed around the phone. He was lying.
“I…” Grace looked out of the window of Stratt’s office. She wasn’t watching him, but he could feel the burden of her demand.
His hand clenched around the phone, his other hand rubbing his forehead with his index finger and thumb. There had to be something he could do.
“Sweetheart, I have to call you back, okay?”
“No— No! You can’t keep doing this! Do you know how many times our calls have been cut short? I’m tired, Grace. Sick and tired!”
“I know, I know,” he replied, holding the edge of Stratt’s desk. “I swear, this’ll be the last time, okay? I might be able to try and get out of here.”
You sniffled quietly, dirty hand rubbing a tear away and replacing it with a grease stain.
“...promise?”
“I promise,” he whispered. “I love you, so much more than anything in this entire universe.”
“I love you, too.” You replied, wiping the tears from your eyes with the back of your hands now.
You could hear his breathing stop as the line disconnected one more time.
Grace slipped his glasses off and wiped the salty liquid away from his eyes. It hurt. But Stratt couldn’t force him to do anything without his consent. He knew that.
The door to Stratt’s office opened.
She walked to her desk without a word, save for a sigh as she sat at her chair and poured herself a glass of gin.
Grace sat on the chair in front of her desk, beanie and glasses askew.
“Listen—” he started.
“I’ll go first.” Stratt interrupted, sipping her gin and settling it back on her desk before crossing her arms.
“I know you are afraid. You believe you don’t have the training, that you’re not even cut out for this. But if you don’t do this, you and the rest of this planet are going to die. Your students are going to live with the insecurity of their lives.”
“I—” Grace rubbed his face a few times. “I can’t. I can’t do it. My wife misses me—do you know how long it's been since I felt her touch? Since I last heard her voice without glitching or lagging? It's almost been a year. I miss my wife. I miss my class. I miss my life. You have a very long list of strong candidates who are willing, but I am not. I am open to working on this from the comfort of Earth. My final answer is no. I’m not going.”
Stratt looked back at the window, and with a nod,the door opened. A man in a white doctor’s coat stepped in with a red bag.
Grace laughed incredulously. “What is this?”
She sat up straight, lacing her fingers together. “Mission plan will state that we induced your coma early due to nerves from the initial launch to the Hail Mary. You will be remembered as a hero.”
It was clear that Stratt didn’t want it to be this way, either. But this was how it had to be.
She wasn’t tearing up, but there was a gleam of despondency. Stratt had seemingly grown to care for Grace in their time working together. He was practically her right-hand man.
“Come on,” he huffed a laugh, tearing up. Grace wasn’t ready to die.
“You were our tertiary science specialist. You are our last resort, Grace.”
Grace stood as he felt the doctor approaching, the chair behind him nearly falling to the ground.
“Don’t make this harder than it already is.”
Grace backed away from the man, his back hitting the wall, following the length of it until he hit a corner.
Two agents stepped into the room, ready to grab him and hold him down.
This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t real. Was she really going to force him?
Grace managed to evade their arms.
His feet were moving faster than he could think. He ran down the hall, trying to find the nearest exit in the building. It would’ve been easier if the building hadn't been a labyrinth.
Grace pushed against a door and he was greeted by cold, humid air. He winced at the feeling of wind.
He turned and they were already gaining on him.
His legs were burning at this point, not used to such physical exertion, but he had to keep going. He wasn’t an astronaut, and he sure as hell wasn’t a hero.
Stratt stood up, watching as Grace ran past outside her window.
She downed the rest of her drink in one gulp and went back to typing on her computer. There was no time to feel bad.
Grace ran past multiple guards.
At this point, he had a horde of agents trailing behind him, slowly catching up.
Even Carl, who had been with Grace since he experimented on Astrophage, was with the group.
He’d managed to make it to the edge of the base, his hand extended to reach for the chain fence.
An agent tackled him to the ground.
He groaned as he fell, head roughly hitting the earth, body desperately trying to escape like a deer caught in a bear trap.
More of the agents came to press down on him—one for each limb.
“I don’t want to do this!”
The doctor rushed over, the needle already prepped, and he quickly stuck it into Grace’s neck, pushing the milky, white liquid into his veins.
Grace could only watch as his world slowly faded to black, his final thought before darkness: you.
You and Grace sat outside of a restaurant, enjoying the humid summer breeze as it came and went. The two of you had just wrapped up a little celebratory date.
Grace turned to look at you. He seemed to have some kind of seriousness to him.
You looked back at him.
“Listen…” Grace muttered, rubbing his neck. “I know we are both very broke college graduates right now, but—”
He reached into his pocket.
“What better time than now?”
Grace pulled out a small velvet box.
You gasped, shaking your head. “Grace—”
“I know, just, let me go first.”
He plopped off the bench, got on one knee, one of them popping in the process—you weren’t sure which one—and opened the box.
The ring was a rudimentary but beautiful piece of jewelry.
“Grace—!” You huffed as he pulled it out of the small, plush holding.
“I met you on the way to my philosophy class, when I accidentally tripped on your foot and broke my glasses on the concrete. It was certainly an expensive first date, but you managed to knock me off my feet.”
You chuckled, hands reaching up to cover your eyes sheepishly.
Grace continued. “We were both worse off then than now. I remember eating in the cafe on two free lunch vouchers. I also remember how funny you were. And then I remember, after you left, I thought—you were incredible. Funnily enough, we also had that same philosophy class together, and even if I don’t necessarily believe in this, it felt like the universe was giving me a sign,” he paused. “So, now I ask: will you marry me?”
“Yes!” You answered immediately, not a single fiber of hesitation in your body.
He quickly slipped the ring onto your left hand.
You pulled him up towards you, arms wrapping around him in a hug so tight you could feel your atoms hugging, too.
Grace chuckled as he pulled away slightly, pressing a soft kiss to your lips.
You reciprocated, now holding his face in your hands.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Grace was right when he said that was the last time he was going to randomly cut the call short.
After that, he never called again.
He didn’t come home either.
You didn’t know why.
You wanted to know why.
You tried so many times. Way too many times.
You lost count after the first five attempts.
Laika sat next to you the whole time, watching you click and click and click, but to no avail.
A day later, agents showed up at your home.
They asked to come in.
You said yes.
This had gotten old by the third time they had appeared on your porch.
They sat on your couch, adjacent to you.
“Mrs. Grace, we have some news about your husband that he was unable to tell you until now.”
Your original slouch had now become a straight spine. The mention of your husband was the only thing you cared about.
“Yes? What is it? Is he okay? Is he-”
“Ma’am.” One spoke.
“Your husband was selected to be a part of Project Hail Mary.”
“Project Hail Mary? What is that?-” Oh. The Hail Mary. The ship that had been all over the news, that was going to space in approximately eight days. That Hail Mary. “So he’s working on the Hail Mary?”
One of the men slid his sunglasses down, tucking them into his sharp and neat button-up. There truly was no easy way to tell you this, especially when you hadn’t physically seen him in person in almost a year.
“Your husband was selected to join the crew boarding the Hail Mary.”
His words made you feel nauseous.
Your hands felt numb and cold. The room was spinning.
Was this a dream? Were you about to wake up in bed right next to Grace—this whole thing having been a part of your overly-creative imagination?
No it was not.
You blinked a few times.
You were trying to cycle through your emotions. Sadness, anger, fear, all of them hitting you at the same time.
“He’s on the crew,” you murmured, unsure what more to do. “When will he come back?”
“Ma’am–”
One agent tapped the other’s shoulder.
“She’s in shock.” He whispered.
“When is he coming home?” You asked again.
“Not… for a long time.” He replied with a somber exhale.
You stared forward at your coffee table, a shaky hand reaching for your mouth as you held back shrieks and tears.
“Can I send him something?”
“Yes.”
“Give me one hour.” You muttered, trudging out of the living room to the bedroom.
You grabbed Grace’s computer from his old school backpack, opened it and put the password—the date he married you.
The two agents stared at each other, wanting to question it, but realizing it was better to just let you be.
You reached into your nightstand and found a USB drive.
“Sorry, Grace.” You whispered to him, and began to rifle through the image saved on his computer.
It was all old research he had done during his grad school days, pictures of his students, Laika, and you, of course.
You smiled, tears streaming down your cheeks.
You grabbed as many relevant photos and crammed them all into one file on the USB stick.
Then came the more difficult part.
You dragged your cursor down to the little hotbar at the bottom of the screen, clicked it, and entered Camera.
It opened the computer's built-in camera system. It could capture and record. Convenient.
You sat for a moment, racking your thoughts through tears and snot, trying to figure out what to say to your husband who probably will never come back.
Nothing. There is nothing easy to say about this.
You clicked the record button, letting the video run in silence for a few seconds as you tried to find the words.
“What is it, question?” Rocky asked as they entered the “Don’t Go Crazy Room” (holodeck), where they sat on the ledge of the metal bridge.
“This is called a USB drive. It stands for Universal Serial Bus. These are very common on Earth.”
“Amaze.” Rocky replied.
“You put it into the computer—” Grace inserted the USB into his computer that also had the frequency analyzer attached to it. “—and it’ll upload whatever is in this little stick onto the computer.”
“Interesting earth technology.”
The two sat, waiting anxiously.
“Normally take this long, question?”
“Yea. This is kind of old earth technology.”
Rocky made a sound like a sigh, lowering his carapace slightly.
It took over a minute for the USB upload reached one hundred percent, and Grace’s screen flashed a window with two different files.
memories
not-so-good-bye
His cursor hovered over the file labeled memories. Maybe this would clear the rest of the brain fog from his coma-amnesia issue.
Grace double clicked it.
The file contained a little over three hundred images.
He clicked the first one.
It was an image of him and a strikingly beautiful woman he found strangely familiar.
He squinted, his eyes beginning to burn with his own tears.
Rocky looked between Grace and the screen.
“Grace okay, question?”
“I- I’m fine.” Grace muttered, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand as he used his arrow keys to scroll between the images.
Five pictures later, it was one of you and Grace on the day of your wedding officiation, leaving the courthouse.
You looked so beautiful in your white dress. You smiled so hard you could’ve felt your face grow stiff with a permanent grin. And the whole time, Grace looked at you.
Now he recognized the woman.
You.
Grace let out a shaky breath, pointing to his screen.
“This was my mate,” he mumbled.
“Wow. Mate.” Rocky replied. His voice-over sounded monotone, but Grace had come to figure out Rocky’s tone indicators. He was surprised.
Grace wanted to cry. He already was. But it wanted to hit him harder and uglier and fast. Something he didn’t want Rocky to see.
“What is leak from Grace face, question?”
“Could you just give me a few minutes alone, Rocky?” Grace slid his glasses up, letting them hang haphazardly on the crown of his head.
Grace could tell Rocky wanted to ask something else, to stay there, but Eridians had manners.
“Okay.”
He rolled his little xenonite ball out of the holodeck down the hall and made a right to go back to the lab.
Grace set the computer down next to him and bent forward, leaning his elbows onto his knees.
He rested his palm above his mouth, eyes gliding to the side to view the pile he’d found in his bag.
The small black box caught his attention.
Grace reached for it, inspecting it for a second before pulling the top open.
He swallowed the urge to cry harder.
It was his wedding band, held between a plush encasing.
Grace put the box down and stared at the ring, inspecting it closely as he turned it in all kinds of angles.
“My wife.”
All too familiar words.
Grace’s body began to tremble with every deep inhale and exhale. His lungs fought for air as they tried to keep up with his quiet sobs. Tears streamed down his face in an endless waterfall.
He let himself slowly tilt to rest on his side, before laying completely on his back.
His head hurt. His mind was racing.
His eyes felt heavy.
“Grace.”
He heard your voice.
“Grace.”
Your voice again.
Had it all been a dream?
“Grace.”
Your voice seemed to turn slightly robotic.
“Grace!”
There was more urgency in your voice. You bumped his leg softly.
“Grace!”
Grace blinked slowly, looking at his surrounding, trying to figure out where he was.
“Grace!” A more robotic voice spoke.
“Neby?” He rasped, pushing himself up.
Rocky leaned forward, his body going up and down, trying to inspect Grace.
Guess it was just in his head.
“Rocky thought Grace dead! Bad bad bad!” Rocky rocked his little ball back and forth.
“Yes, bad. Sorry, Rocky,” Grace sighed, rubbing his puffy eyes. “How long was I asleep?”
“One hour and two minutes.”
“Oh.”
“Grace very sad about mate, question?”
“Yes,” Grace frowned, crossing his legs as he reached for the computer. “She was… my everything.”
“Like Adrian.”
“Yes.”
Grace tilted the computer, even if he knew Rocky could already see it using his echolocation.
“This was my class,” he pointed at the picture before scrolling to the next. “And this was my mate. On earth, when two people come together, its called marriage. The male is called husband, and the female is called wife.”
He pointed at a picture of you and Laika sitting together in your backyard, enjoying a box of takeout food. His voice wavered as he spoke. “This is my wife.”
“Wooow.” Rocky’s voice glitched.
Grace and Rocky kept going through the rest of the pictures, Grace having to power through the bittersweetness of his nostalgia.
“Rocky learn much about Earth. Want to know more!” He lifted his little carapace up, his arms shifting in his ball slightly.
“Maybe later, I wanna keep exploring this.”
“Yes yes yes.” Rocky nodded.
Grace closed the file and opened the one labeled not-so-good-bye.
The only item filed underneath it was a video labeled newmovie1.mov.
He double clicked it and it opened a video file that opened in a new window.
As he waited for the small loading graphic to disappear, the inside of the holodeck changed from a beach to a starry sky.
The video loaded up completely, and the cover image he was greeted with was your face, although you did not look well.
Grace braced himself, cursor hovering over the play button. He was probably going to ugly cry again.
He finally clicked the mousepad, and sound began to play—not you speaking, but grainy background noise.
You sniffled quietly, wiping your eyes. Your hair was slightly messy.
Grace smiled, already feeling the tears pricking his eyes.
“Hi, Grace.—”
“Hello, other Earth human!” Rocky interjected, rolling his ball closer.
Grace paused the video with a faint chuckle. “No– Rocky, she can’t hear you. This isn't a real-time thing."
“Oh. Continue."
He clicked play again.
“—where do I even begin?” You huffed a sad laugh, shaking your head. “I had this whole plan. I told myself I was gonna sit down, be normal, say something supportive and not cry five seconds in.”
You sniffled, quickly wiping your eyes. “Clearly… that didn’t happen.”
You glanced off-camera, then back.
“Okay. Um.” You took a breath. “So… if you’re watching this, then you’re already up there.”
You pressed your lips together for a second. “I can’t believe you’re actually going. I don’t think I ever pictured you being the one to go to space. You’re just… you. You— you’re the guy who couldn’t even handle flights on an airplane, and now you’re going on a spaceship!”
Your expression softened.
“But I am proud of you.” You nodded slightly, trying to convince yourself as much as him. “Seriously. I know you probably didn’t make this decision lightly. But I know you did because this matters.”
He didn’t make this decision at all.
Your voice quieted a little. “And that’s because that’s the kind of person you are. You’re a good guy. A hero.”
You briefly looked down, another salty tear dripping from your eye.
“I just wish it didn’t mean you had to leave.”
You swallowed as you paused.
“I keep thinking about all the normal stuff. Like… you not being here in the mornings, or Laika waiting by the door for you, or me making way too much food out of habit.”
A small, sad smile spread onto your lips.
“The house is quieter without you.”
You covered your eyes like it would stop the faucet behind your eyes from overflowing.
“But… I don’t want you worrying about me, okay? I’m gonna be fine. I’ll take care of things here. I’ll make sure everything’s still here when you get back. And you are coming back. I’ve decided that for you.”
Summary: When Nuala is summoned back to the Fae realm, she calls you, and you have some choice words for Queen Titania.
Tags: angst, explicit sexual content (18+, MDNI)
Series Masterlist
A/N: There’s a bit of a time jump and we skip through a few episodes in this chapter. Since we’ve circumvented the Spilling Family Blood storyline via Orpheus, after finding Destruction, we’re going straight to the Titania storyline, where Nuala gets called back to Fairie.
I decided to make the Titania part of this chapter it's own mini-chapter to get something posted for all of you. Hope you enjoy!
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“You say you’re gonna take him, oh but I don’t think you can.
‘Cause you ain’t woman enough to take my man …
For you to get to him, I’d have to move over and I’m gonna stand right here.
It’ll be over my dead body so get out while you can,
‘Cause you ain’t woman enough to take my man.”
- Loretta Lynn’s “You Ain’t Woman Enough”
c. 15th century
She knocked on the door of your cottage, waiting patiently for you to answer.
“Lucienne!” You smiled, opening the door and welcoming her inside. “Would you like some tea? Beryl’s making a pot now,” you offered, leading her to your study.
“That’s alright, my lady,” she declined politely, as you sat behind your desk. “Lord Morpheus would like to discuss the recent proposals with you,” she explained, as she sat down.
“For the Temporal Coastline?” You asked, with a furrowed brow. “He already approved those.”
“I’m afraid he has new revisions regarding it,” she smiled, apologetically.
“Of course he does,” you scoffed. “Fine, have him send the revisions and I’ll consider them.”
“Actually, he’d like to discuss them in person.”
Your body stilled. You never met in person these days. All of your correspondence was done through letters or proxies like Lucienne and Beryl. In fact, the last time you saw him was at a formal event in the Fae Realm some months ago.
“Why?”
She seemed to hesitate at your question. “I believe it’s best if he explain it, my lady.”
“Fine,” you agreed, quietly. You were to meet him in his study in an hour, and with that, she took her leave of you. As soon as you closed the door of your cottage behind her, she let out a shiver of disgust.
“Ugh,” she groaned, as her form changed, she grew taller, her skin lightened, her hair grew into dark curls, and her eyes filled with devious malice. “I can’t believe I had to call her ‘my lady,’” Titania gagged, as she made her way from the Western Plains back to the palace.
You took the long way to your meeting; instead of simply appearing within his study, you decided to walk through the corridors and halls that used to be your home. You traced your fingers along the grand palace doors, admiring the intricate carvings. You passed through the throne room, resting on the steps of the winding stone staircase to marvel at the cosmic ceiling above you, as you had when you first arrived in the realm. You smiled fondly at the memory of time before all the heartache and loneliness.
You swallowed thickly before gathering your skirts and moving finally to Morpheus’ study. With a steadying breath, your hand went to the door knob, but the door opened without your touch. You stepped inside with your eyes focused on the pages in your hand. Ever since that night over a thousand years ago, you struggled to look at him. Standing at his side for events was easy, since you never had to make eye contact from such a position. But meeting like this? If you kept your eyes trained on the pages, on the revisions, you wouldn’t have to look into the eyes of the man who used you and threw you away.
“Oh, Morpheus!” Titania moaned, and your eyes instinctively shot upwards. She was on his desk with him standing between her legs, and his shirt was torn open to showcase the possessive marks she had left across his neck. With his hands on her hips, he held her in place as he thrust back into her with his head thrown back. And all you could think was how he looked exactly the way he did when he took you that night. At a particularly obscene moan from the Fairie Queen, his eyes opened and passed over her shoulder to connect with you at the other end of his study.
“Elpis,” he whispered with wide eyes, stunned for a moment, as he quickly pulled out of Titania, who furrowed her brow at his actions.
“I—I’m terribly sorry,” you rushed, averting your gaze up and off to the side, while he collected himself. “Lu-Lucienne said there was a meeting and I—I’m sorry,” you rambled, before turning and quickly leaving his study, closing the door behind you.
“Elpis, wait!” He called after you, opening the door to follow you down the corridor. He watched from behind you as your hand rose from your side to wipe at your face. “Elpis!” He called out after you, but you bent the Dreaming to your will, eager to return to the solitude of your cottage.
“Oh, let her go,” Titania sighed, as she joined him outside of his study, but he was too busy watching you disappear before him. “Come along, Lord Shaper,” she teased, pulling on his hand.
“You did this,” he realized, looking back at her. “Lucienne wouldn’t have called her here, and she wouldn’t have come unless she was summoned,” he explained, pausing to narrow his eyes at her. “Perhaps by someone who can change their form,” he accused.
She tried to play innocent, but eventually she rolled her eyes under his continued gaze. “Fine,” she sighed, crossing her arms. “I did it. But don’t you want your queen to know what she’s missing out on?” She teased, lowly, letting her hand rake down his chest as a sly smile spread across her face.
He grabbed her wrist, before speaking in a low, formidable tone. “You should return to Fairie.”
“What?” She exhaled, looking in the direction you had gone before looking back at him.
“I shall not call upon you again,” he added, before she could say something about you.
“Consider the realm of Faerie closed to you, Lord Morpheus,” she seethed, pulling her hand out from his grip and vanishing without another word.
He glanced back at the corridor you had disappeared from before heading to the library.
“Lucienne!” He called out. The librarian peeked her head out from a bookshelf before walking over to greet him.
“May I help you, my lord?” She asked, placing the volumes in her hands on the table beside her.
“I,” he paused, just now considering his request may be too vulnerable or telling. But he recalled the wounded expression on your face and the way you ran out of his study, and forced himself to continue. “I would like you to check on Lady Elpis.”
“Is everything alright?” She asked, but she really wanted to ask, “Why now?”
“It seems Queen Titania assumed your form to speak to her. I simply wanted to ensure that she was alright,” he explained, softly, his gaze dipping low.
“Of course, my lord,” she agreed with a soft smile. With a short nod, he turned, leaving the library for the privacy of his chambers. He moved to the bedroom, walking beside the bed, and letting his fingers trace over the sheets where you had lain over a millennia ago. He sat down on the side he had been on that night, undoing his pants and taking himself into his hand as he lay back against the headboard. His argument with Titania and the way you ran out of his study had softened him considerably, but at the thought of that night, with you under him, his erection quickly returned. He recalled the sight of your bare body after he stripped you of your gown and the feel of your skin as he traced his fingers down the soft expanse of your breasts.
His fingers wrapped around his length, but it was nothing like the warmth your body provided him that night. He pumped himself languidly, at first, remembering how gently you had pulled him down to your lips as your other hand raked down his chest. His hand began to squeeze tighter as he remembered teasing along your wetting slit and then entering you with two of his fingers. His eyes closed and he pumped faster as the pitchy gasp that sounded from you at his actions rang through his ears once again. His hand tightened around his length as the image of you then filled his vision: eyes shot wide open, mouth agape, body arching off the bed at the unexpected intrusion. He groaned lowly as his ears rung with the needy whine that fell from your lips as he pulled his fingers from your sopping cunt. His breathing grew ragged as he recalled how the sight of his cock left you nervous and unsure as to whether you could take him.
He leaned his head back against the headboard, a low groan leaving his lips, as remembered how tight and warm you were, how your walls tightened around him like a vice. He gripped himself tighter at the thought, but he knew he could never replicate tight fit your warmth provided him that night. He picked up his pace, his hand moving faster upon his length as he remembered the obscene moan that fell from your lips when he rubbed harshly at your clit before hitching your leg over his shoulder. The way you seemed to pull him in at that deeper angle had his thighs tensing now.
“Elpis,” he whispered, as his hand moved even quicker up and down his cock, recalling the way his name fell from your lips as you struggled to hold on to him when he began to fuck you even faster. A smile graced his features as he recalled the way you had begun to roll your hips in time with him, your rhythm unsteady as your climax caught up with you. He pumped even faster, even tighter as he remembered how you tried nonsensically to describe the pleasure he had made you feel. The way you had screamed his name in blinding pleasure as your walls clenched around him had him shooting onto his hand and over his lap, when really, he wished it could be your walls he was coating. His breathing began to even, and the smile on his face deepened when he recalled the needy whine that sounded from you when pulled out of you.
His eyes opened slowly and he glanced over at the sheets where you had lain in his arms. His smile turned soft when he remembered how serene you looked, your bare body wrapped safely in his arms.
“You used me?”
His smile faltered as your next words to him from that night invaded his mind, along with the sight of you with tears streaking your face, your lip trembling from a sob he knew you were holding back.
“How could you do that to me?”
He swallowed thickly at the way your voice cracked with pain and desperation. He cleaned himself up with a thought, redressing himself and rising from the bed, as though the act could erase the shame he felt. For that night and this, when he was here, pleasuring himself to the thought of you, the thought of a memory that had so unforgivably devastated you.
“I actually thought you cared about me. That maybe you even loved me.”
***
When the sand cleared, Nuala rushed over to you.
“Lady Hope,” she greeted, with a smile. “Is it alright that I called you?” She asked, her common accent returning to her at the sight of you.
“Of course,” you chuckled. “That’s why I gave it to you,” you added, glancing down at her pendant. “Did Titania let you return to Fairie?” You wondered, glancing around what you assumed were Nuala’s chambers in the realm.
“‘Let me?’” She asked. “No, more like recalled me,” she scoffed, lightly.
“If you don’t wish to remain in Faerie, would you like to return to the Dreaming?” You asked gently, taking her hand in yours.
“Of course, I would,” she smiled, sadly. “But I don’t think Queen Titania would allow it.”
You considered Titania forcing Nuala to stay in the Dreaming only to demand her return, and you wondered what you would have done had Zeus demanded you return back to Olympus. You looked back at her with a heightened resolve.
“Let me worry about Titania,” you decided. “May I have that?” You asked, gesturing to the pendant you had given her.
“Oh, of course,” she complied, slipping from her neck and placing it in your hand. You absorbed the power from within with a deep breath.
“I promise I’ll get you another one,” you smiled. “Now, let’s go talk to your queen.”
***
“Queen Titania of Fairie,” you greeted, as you approached her court with your hands clasped before you. “I have come to ask that the Lady Nuala return with me to the Dreaming.”
A hush fell over the audience as they looked to their queen for her response. She remained seated, looking at you with lidded eyes filled with apathy.
“Lady Nuala is part of my court. She is to stay with me, here in Faerie,” she maintained, with a steady voice.
“Was she not part of your court when you ordered her to remain in the Dreaming?” You asked, with a tilted head.
“Of course. And as such, she was bound to go where I sent her and return when ordered.” she smiled. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand Lady Elpis, seeing as you hold no court of your own,” she added, with a thin smile. Members of her court laughed lightly at her dig, unaware that you had a few of your own.
“Perhaps that’s because I require no sycophantic reassurance of my position as you do.”
She leaned forward as he smile dropped. “I asked that she be delivered to the Lord Shaper as a gift, which he did not seem satisfied with,” she narrowed her eyes at Nuala, who stood behind you. “So I asked that she be sent back.”
“It’s just like you, I suppose, to offer a gift and then demand its return,” you sighed. “But if you asked that she be sent back, Lord Shaper would have refused. Because that is not the Lady Nuala’s wish. And unlike you, he not selfish enough a ruler to trade away his subjects because of a petty feud.”
“You dare insult me in my own realm?” She asked, now approaching you.
“If you had simply allowed Lady Nuala to return to the Dreaming, I wouldn’t have to,” you replied with a smile, your hands still clasped before you, the very picture of confidence as you finally delivered the remarks you had always hoped to.
“Then perhaps I shall not allow either of you to leave,” she wondered. “Perhaps I shall hold you as a traitor to her own kind,” she glared at Nuala before turning to you. “And you as a foreign dignitary who refuses to bend the knee to a ruler in her own realm.”
“Why, Queen Titania, I’ve come before you with a reasonable request, addressed you with all the proper titles and respects, and if you ask that I bow before you,” you paused to bow reverently to her, “I will do that, as well,” you explained, as you straightened up. “But I will not be leaving Faerie without the Lady Nuala, whom you have already gifted to the Dreaming,” you added, setting your shoulders back in a regal, but formidable posture.
“As a gift to the Lord Shaper, I’ll need to hear that from him,” she smirked as she stood before you.
Now, she was really testing your patience. “You really will do anything to get his attention, won’t you?” You exhaled in frustration before continuing. “When are you going to get over this, Titania? He chose me. He doesn’t want you. Didn’t he make that clear to you when he ended things with you centuries ago? Get over it.”
“Why would I seek the attentions of your husband when I’ve already had my fun with him?” She laughed down at you. “And if I had sought the attentions of the King of Dreams, I assure you, I would have them. And it wouldn’t take me two thousand years as it did you,” she smirked, but she wasn’t fooling you.
“Perhaps not,” you smiled. “It wouldn’t take you two thousand years. Or three,” you added, as you stepped towards her. “I could give you all of eternity, Titania, and you’d still never be able to take him away from me.”
“Is that a challenge, Lady Hope?” She smirked, with a raised brow.
“It’s a fact, Titania, but take it as you wish,” you offered, shaking your head derisively at her before continuing. “You’re not even woman enough to come after him yourself! You had to send someone far sweeter and more beautiful to attract him,” you gestured to Nuala, “because you know he’ll have nothing to do with you when he has me,” you returned, with a smile. Once you had started, you couldn’t help but get everything off your chest. Including that day she tricked you into walking in on her and Dream in his study. “And, as I recall,” you began with a tilted head, as you stepped closer to her. “He ended things with you as soon as he found out you had played one of your petty tricks on me. Couldn’t you tell then that he loves me far more than you?” You scoffed, with a smile. “If he ever loved you at all, that is.”
Her court watched in silent anticipation as their queen seemed to be out of cutting remarks. Her lips twitched to a scowl as she spoke. “I should have you imprisoned for your insolence!” She sneered, but you simply furrowed your brow at her.
“And threaten a foreign dignitary in your realm who has only come requesting that you return a gift you have already bestowed upon our realm?” You asked. “I believe that spells war, Queen Titania. Do you truly wish to be at war with the Dreaming? Do your people?” You asked, glancing at the court behind you. “Over a petty dispute that stems from your affections for king who is not your own?”
Her sneer only deepened as her fists clenched tighter before turning on her heel. “Take the girl,” she muttered as she left. Her court followed after her, and Nuala watched them leave, remaining behind you until you were finally alone. She turned to you then with a relieved smile and bright eyes.
“Thank you, Lady Hope, truly,” she breathed. “I really only meant to let you know that I had left the Dreaming and to thank you and Lord Morpheus for your hospitality.”
“Why did he let you leave?” You asked. “If you told him you didn’t want to go, he would have told Titania this himself.”
“I didn’t really have a chance to tell him,” she admitted. “He was in the Waking World when Lucienne received the order recalling me to Fairie,” she explained, and while you nodded your understanding, she continued. “And even if he was in the Dreaming, I don’t think he would’ve been in the state of mind to deal with Queen Titania.”
“What do you mean?” You asked quickly. “Is he alright?” Your eyes filled with worry.
“Well, I may be new to realm,” she began. “But it seems like he misses you. At least, that’s what Matthew and Meryvn tell me. Lucienne’s a bit more tight-lipped,” she laughed, lightly.
“He misses me?” You wondered softly, and you couldn’t help the butterflies that seemed to fill your stomach at the thought. But you pushed your Good Hope down, unwilling to let it convince you of a possibility you knew was unlikely. “Well, what about Nada? Or,” you couldn’t seem to finish your thought. “Maybe he just needs more time to find the person who’ll make him as happy as she did,” you reminded yourself with a downward gaze.
“I don’t know about that, Lady Hope,” she offered, eying you carefully. “But I don’t think Queen Nada’s been in the realm since you’ve gone. And while Lucienne hasn’t said much to me on the matter, I did hear her telling Matthew that he’s kept everything of yours exactly the way you’ve left it. Like he’s waiting for you to return.”
You pulled your lip between your teeth at the thought of him in the palace, maintaining your things and awaiting your return. “You should head back to the Dreaming,” you deflected, forcing a smile.
“Are you not coming with me?” She asked.
“I think not,” you responded, with a sad smile. “Please send my love to everyone,” you added, before using the part of the power you had absorbed from the pendant to send her back. With a deep breath and the remaining energy, you returned to the mortal realm.
***
“But it seems like he misses you.” Nuala’s words ran through your mind over and over as you stood outside Johanna’s apartment convincing yourself to go inside. By now, and if Nuala was right, Dream would have contacted her for help in finding you and given her a method for contacting him. If that was the case, she could contact him for you and you could speak in the Waking World, on neutral ground.
You didn’t know how he would react, especially if you appeared in the Dreaming, where he was all-powerful. Instead, you would meet here, on neutral ground, and you would convince him to take you back. You thought you could do it; you thought you would be strong enough to let him go and let him find the happiness he never could with you in his way, but you found yourself missing him far too much. Your confrontation with Titania only reminded you of how much you had gone through to earn his affections and how much you missed them. So you were willing to take whatever affections he was willing to give you if it meant you could come home to him. Even if it meant having to share him with someone else, as you had in the past. And maybe, if you were lucky and if Nuala was right, and he did miss you, perhaps he would be willing to settle for you, even if you couldn’t bring him the kind of happiness Nada or someone else could.
There was, of course, the other possibility that your Good Hope had desperately been trying to convince you of: that he did love you. That he loved you, completely, deeply, utterly, solely. Your Good Hope was what had fueled your conversation with Titania, especially when you resolved that she would never be able to tear his affections from you. Nuala’s words flashed through your mind once again, and you couldn’t help the way your breath hitched and your Good Hope sparked within you.
“Like he’s waiting for you to return.”
“Erm, yeah, c’mon up,” Johanna responded through the intercom. You blinked as the buzzing sound brought you back to reality. You hadn’t even remembered walking up to her building, let alone pressing the intercom button. You chuckled lightly in surprise as you realized your Good Hope had made the decision for you.
Others asked for Aerion and Daeron too, so here we go again...
Dunk:
here (Dunk is happy to keep his woman close and let her hold onto him as he fills her up nice and full)
here (Dunk's using the tips Red gave him to please his woman)
here (his cocks so big that he hits every spot inside of her, making her legs shake around him)
bonus (Red's going to teach him how to please his wife properly – it's not just about sticking your cock in, no matter how big it is)
Aerion:
here (Aerion’s noisy when he fucks his wife, and when he manhandles her into whatever position he wants, and when he chokes her, and when he pushes her hips into the bed so he can pound into her)
here (Aerion's not going to give his wife any chance to run away from him)
here (this is so onlyfans!Aerion omg)
here (Aerion and his blackfyre!wife)
Daeron:
here (on rare occasions, Daeron’s quite enthusiastic and more than willing to spread his wife out)
here (Daeron’s hungry for his wife after a night of drinking, even when she's so sleepy)
contents (nsfw): Ser Duncan The Tall x fem!mer!reader (Reader has long hair because of it), wounded knight saved by a mermaid trope, switching POVs (indicated with dividers), descriptions of pain and wounds, wound tending, mild blood and gore, some fluff, virgin!Dunk, soft!Dunk, mutual pining, size kink, Dunk has a big dick (I don't make the rules), slit fingering, very slight choking, unsafe sex, monsterfucking.
synopsis: Wounded in battle he doesn't know if he won or lost, Duncan stumbles into what he thinks is his final resting place. There, a siren finds him, and she decides to spare him and keep him.
word count: 12,6K
a/n: Banner is by me, dividers by @honeyluvsw! Some dialogue is in Gaeilge, but it's translated within the text. Fathach Caoin means 'gentle giant'.
He’s seeing red. Everything around him comes muffled, as if the world has been packed with wool, but inside his own body there is no hush at all. His heart booms in his ears. He hears blood leaving him in slow, thick spills with every step. Then, the wet pull of torn flesh at his side each time he lurches forward, the wound widening, skin stretching, opening. Bruises come up under his harness like something boiling. His body has turned loud as a battlefield, though the forest itself has gone strange and far away. All the noise erupts from within him, while Ser Duncan The Tall stumbles forth through the strange land, seeing red.
The trees begin to thin by such small degrees he does not mark it at first. Trunks stand farther and farther apart, the undergrowth giving way under his boots to softer ground. Above, the sun has gone to a pale smear behind steel-coloured cloud, drained of all warmth and shape. He keeps on a little farther by stubbornness alone, one step and then another, until the wood opens sudden and wide before him. His knees fold. His sword slips from his hand. He goes down full-length upon a patch of yielding grass, too spent to break the fall, cheek turned into the damp. Somewhere close by, the world gathers itself into a single sound: the low hum of water. A bank, then. A shore of sorts. His last crossing, he thinks dimly. When he shuts his eyes, the red at last gives way to black.
He had wanted knighthood so long it seemed, once, the whole shape of a life. In younger years, trailing after his old master, watching and learning, he had thought of knights as men made for roads and vows and hard duty borne plain. He had not thought on how they died. Or rather, he had thought it would be as his master died: after long service, after years spent in defence of those weaker, with witnesses near at hand to mark the passing of a good man. Age upon him, and peace of a sort. Duncan had carried that picture without knowing it, as boys carry many foolish certainties. Never had he reckoned with ending this way—alone in a red wood, blood soaking into strange ground, unable even to say whether the last fight had been won or lost.
His fingers have gone cold. So have his feet, his arms, the long hefty span of him. The chill is working inward, creeping from the edges, and the rest of his body feels heavy in some queer and dreadful way, as if the earth has begun to claim him piece by piece. It is a weight alien to him. Duncan has known weariness, hunger, what it is to ache clean through after a day in the saddle or a hard bout in the yard, but this is different. This is heaviness without labour and cause. One that drags a man down and means to keep him.
Suddenly, warmth spills over the back of his neck.
He comes to in a jerk of breath, half-lucid. A face hangs over him, close enough that he sees the beads of water trembling on skin, the startled wideness of her eyes. Her mouth is parted. It is full of teeth, small and shining and far too many, and she watches him with the still intent look of something wondering whether he will go peaceably.
Duncan swallows. Even that hurts.
“Have you come to carry me over?” he asks, and his voice shakes like an old man’s.
She says nothing. Only cocks her head, studying him.
He tries to wet his lips and cannot. “Beg pardon,” he murmurs, for courtesy’s sake if nothing else. “I never thought death would have so fair a face.”
Her gaze shifts at that, though whether in surprise or hunger he cannot tell. Then, the dark takes him again.
A noise comes from within the trees. At first it reaches you through the water as blunt disturbance only—stamping passed down through mud and root, a dull knocking felt more than heard. Then come the sounds above it: groans and wails like some wounded thing, and the shrill scrape of metal grinding on metal. When your head breaks the skin of the pond and your ears clear the water, the truth of it comes plain: no beast; a man. His shape flickers between the trunks, hunched and monstrous in the dim.
You keep low beneath the spread of frogbit and white water-lily. The pond has taught you patience. Through the torn green of it, you watch him blunder nearer.
He is vast. Not merely tall, but made on a scale that puts him wrong against the wood. The trees themselves seem to crowd back from him. Iron drags at every step he takes. What serves him for a second skin has gone red in places where the blood has soaked through and dried and soaked through again. He has no helm. His head hangs bare. Whatever face he was born with is all but lost under blood, mud, and the blackening swell of bruises. He comes on bent at the middle, one hand clamped to his side, the other still wrapped stubborn round a sword that appears to grow heavier with each stagger.
Men do this. They go out under bits of cloth and beasts sewn on shields, under one lord’s temper and another lord’s hunger, and tear one another to ruin over slights, borders, pride, inheritance, the old dead grievances of old dead men. They fight their fickle battles over fickle things and pay the dear price with their fickle lives. You do not know what quarrel has opened this one from rib to hip. You do not know whether he earned such an end entire. Yet if he is witless enough to wear steel and bleed for some lord’s cause, then it is grace enough from any god that he should die in a place as fair as yours.
It makes your work easier. There is no need to sing for him. No need to show him a glimmering shoulder through the reeds, no need to sweeten your mouth and set a trap in your voice. Someone else has done all the hard part already. They have wearied him, broken him open, driven him half-blind right here. All he must do now is come near enough.
And the fool does. You see the moment the trees begin to fail him. The ground changes first. Leaf mould gives way to blacker, softer earth. Moss fattens green around the roots. Sphagnum swells at the water’s edge in thick, wet hummocks, bright as something lit from within. He stumbles into the clearing as if he has reached the last place appointed him and knows it.
One more step. Another. Then his knees give way.
The sword drops from his hand and vanishes into the moss with hardly a sound. He falls face-first onto the bank, onto soft bright spread of grass, all that huge bloodied length of him striking the earth. He does not even throw out a hand to save himself. For a breath he lies still.
Then the pond gathers itself around him and gives him one last sound: its low hum against the shore.
Near enough.
You draw yourself from the water slow as a reptile, hands first, then shoulders, then the long drag of the rest of you through weed and black silk mud. Pondweed clings between your fingers. Duckweed pearls green along your wrists. The smell of his blood hangs so thick in the damp that it touches the back edges of your tongue. Fresh. Salt-rich. Strong. Flesh like that would feed you well. Might make you stronger too.
Without the trees to diminish him, and laid flat upon the bank, he looks no smaller. He is still an enormity. A felled thing, all sprawled in a ruinous heap. Breath yet labours out of him in thin, rattling bursts. So he lives. Barely.
You sink nearer, careful with your hands, with your weight, your mouth already parting over the place where neck meets shoulder, where the flesh would be hottest and the taking quickest, when—
He jerks. You go still at once and wait.
His lids drag open.
Blue. A strange clear hue infants keep before the world has time to weather it into something harder. His have stayed. Though pain has driven the sense from his face and left his gaze loose with it, the colour remains clean. A row of copper lashes rims it. Tells you what the blood and mud had hidden: that the hair under all that filth must run copper too.
He swallows. Winces for it. Looks at you straight on, with no flinching, no scramble to crawl back, no fumbling for the sword gulped by the moss.
He asks his question, and for a beat you only stare. Then it comes plain: he thinks you are the thing at the edge of life come to fetch him. A ferrier. A final guide. Death with a wet face and a patient mouth. The more he speaks, the less appetite you retain.
I never thought death would have so fair a face.
And there it is. It is not the praise that stays your teeth. Men have wanted beautiful things before. Men have called you fair with their hands already reaching. Men have named your mouth sweet and your body finer than any liquor, and meant only hunger by it. This is another thing. Stripped of wits by blood-loss, emptied near to death, believing you his last companion, this knight speaks to you as though you are owed gentleness. He thinks he has met the end of his life and chooses, in that meeting, to be kind.
You have never seen the like.
For a moment longer you remain above him, bent close enough to feel the heat leaking from his body into the chill air, your own hunger held open and waiting. Then his eyes slip shut again. The weight of him settles back into the earth. The bank goes quiet save for that poor, thin rattle in his chest.
Your mouth closes.
In your world, the choices are plain: eat or spare, whether it is your own kind or any other. Each is a way of keeping, in the strictest sense of the word. Who is kept in the belly and who in the groin depends on the keeper’s strength, or mercy. Just now, both are at war within you. You are stronger than the dying knight, for the moment. Yet you can see exactly how much the ugly world of men would lose if he were gone. And how much you might gain if you chose to keep him, the way a maiden keeps a man.
“Stócach amaideach,” you groan. A foolish lad indeed.
Both hands go to him first at the shoulder, to test the matter. Give him a shove—nothing. A second, harder. His body shifts no more than the grass does under him. The iron makes a carcass of him. Nearly seven feet of man, all breadth and bone, dressed up in rings and plates enough to drown an even bigger creature outright. You bare your teeth at him though he does not see it.
There is no hauling him anywhere like this. Not up the bank, not into the reeds, not to the shelf of drier ground beneath the alders. You might drag a stag. You might drag two men grown soft on bread and ale. This one is another matter. The blood has not emptied him of his size.
With a sound low in your throat, you drop flat upon your belly beside him, tail lashing once against the water and sending a fan of duckweed spinning. Mud cools your ribs, slickens the gills there. Annoyance goes hot through you all the same. For a little while you lie there glaring at the side of his ruined head, as though the knight has done this on purpose purely to spite you.
Then your eyes go to the armour. That, at least, can be mended.
You push yourself up and set to work. His belt first, stiff with wet and caked dark. The buckle fights you, so you wrench it free. Then the straps at his shoulders. His surcoat clings where the fabric has dried to him. Under it the mail hangs heavy as river chain. You plant one hand in the moss, coil your tail hard beneath you for leverage, and tug until the weight of it gives with a dull wet drag. Piece by piece, you unmake him from what men have put on him. A pauldron slick with mud. A vambrace. The quilted jack beneath, sodden through. Rings of mail whisper and clink against one another as you peel them back from his chest.
He grunts once when you shift him. Still alive enough to object. “Be still,” you mutter, though he has no say in it now—more of him comes free.
The body under all that iron is much as the rest promised: broad, hard, made thick with labour rather than vanity. His chest is furred copper-gold where it is not slicked flat with sweat. Old scars lie pale across his skin, each one laid down by some earlier foolishness survived. New hurts crowd among them. One brow is split deep enough to mat blood right through his lashes and into his hair. Purple has risen ugly under one eye and along the hinge of his jaw. His shoulder is swelling wrong beneath your hand, whether wrenched or bruised hard enough to half-dislocate. The worst lies at his side: a long slash below the ribs where flesh has opened and opened again with every step he took through the wood. Blood still wells there in slow thick gleams.
You draw back and look at it. A man should have dropped sooner from such a wound. This one had walked. Again you click your tongue at him, softer this time.
The bog gives you what you need, as it always has. You know where the thick green pillows of sphagnum swell brightest above the black water, where soft rush grows in clumps fit for binding, where yarrow lifts its ragged leaves higher up the bank, spared the deepest wet. You move quick, gathering with both hands. Sphagnum in great dripping handfuls. Yarrow torn bitter at the stem. A strip of bark from the willow bent low over the far edge of the pool. When you return, you rinse the moss in clear seep-water where it runs cold from the stones, then squeeze it once between your palms.
He does not wake when you clean the cut. His body only flinches under yours. Blood loosens and runs anew beneath the water. Mud comes with it. You work your fingers carefully through the parted flesh, clearing grit, clearing leaf-rot, clearing whatever would fester if left in. When the wound is clean enough to judge, you bend close and press your mouth to the torn edge of him.
Your saliva floods warm.
It tastes of iron and rain and man. Under your tongue the flesh stirs, not closing whole and clean—that would be a greater gift than he has earned—but quickening. The bleeding slows. The raw edges draw tighter. Heat gathers where your mouth has been, the body taking instruction from yours. You do it again, lower, then once more along the deepest part of the gash until your jaw aches and the blood comes less freely.
Curiosity keeps your hands on him after the bleeding eases. You set them at his hips, thumbs fitting into the hollows where hard muscle sheathes over bone, and wonder how such a frame would feel beside yours, under yours, pinned between your tail and the bank. For a moment you lower your cheek to the warm plane of his belly, where coarse hairs narrow and point the way down. Then, before sense can catch up, you slip a finger under the damp edge of his braies and lift. There the weight of him rests, soft with unconsciousness and still imposing.
“My, my,” you murmur, mouth wetting at the sight. No smaller than the males of your own kind, only stranger made—smooth where they are barbed, blunt where they are built for tearing. Pretty. To unwrap him and coax him up in your hand would not be difficult. But you want him back at full strength. Better to let the blood replenish before it is asked to labour elsewhere.
After, you pack the cut with sphagnum, dense and cool, pressing the moss into the cut place until it drinks what still seeps out. You bind him round with rush and the torn strips of his own undershirt, winding them firm beneath his back and over the waist. For the brow, more moss. For the swelling shoulder, willow bark chewed soft between your teeth and laid in a mash against the worst of it. You wipe your wrists across your mouth and sit back to inspect your work.
He looks only a little less like carrion, but it will have to do.
For a while you remain beside him as dusk thickens in the reeds, one hand spread on the broad plane of his chest to feel the rise and fall. It still rattles. It still rises. Great fool that he is, he keeps choosing life even senseless.
With the worst of the grime rinsed from him, the other kind of pretty emerges from under the wreck. His hair, where it dries in the last of the light, indeed burns a dark copper, made richer still by the sinking sun. Fair skin lies under it, though hard-used, and across the breadth of his cheeks there runs a scattering of freckles so pale they only show when the blood is gone from them. Strange, that a face built on such a scale should keep anything of boyhood about it. Stranger still that it does not make him look foolish. Only unguarded.
A giant sleeps at your shore, broken open, and he is gentle.
“Fathach caoin,” you murmur, as though naming him might make the task lighter. Then, with a weary glance at the bank and the darkening pond beyond: “You had best prove worth the trouble.”
He’s seeing orange. Warmth bakes him into the ground and paints the inside of his lids. Dunk feels significantly alive for someone who’s welcomed death with tranquil acceptance. Something binds his ribs quite tightly and the morning chill lakes his chest with gooseflesh.
He frowns before his eyes are even open. The hurt is there, yes, but dulled to something he knows how to bear. Instead of the white-red tearing he remembers and the feeling of his side coming apart each time he drew breath comes soreness. Pull. Throb. The pain a living man may yet complain of.
Slowly, as if he half expects the effort to prove too much for him, he pries his lids apart.
Sunlight drives in, bright and merciless. Duncan winces and shuts them again, turning his face away. For a little while he lies still with his teeth gritted, waiting for the hot dazzle behind them to settle. Then he tries anew, more careful, peering through his lashes first.
Sky. Reeds. The hard gold of morning laid over black water. No seven hells. No pale halls. No ferryman either.
He pushes himself up on one elbow. At once the world tells him several impossible things. His chest is bare to the air. Something coarse and damp is wound round his middle and under one arm, binding him up with more ingenuity than neatness. Looking down, he finds his side packed thick with green-brown moss where blood should have been. Another clot of it has been pressed to his brow. When he touches the binding with cautious fingers, he feels the pull of torn skin made tighter, cleaner, less ruinous than he remembers.
Dunk stares. “Well,” he mutters hoarsely to no one. “That is queer.”
A pile lies beside him on the bank, close enough that he might have reached it in the night had he been able. His surcoat, his mail, his sword belt, the quilted jack beneath—everything dark and stiff with dried blood. His sword has been laid atop the heap as if set there by a hand that understood what it was. The sight of it turns his stomach strangely. So he had not dreamt the fight, nor the wound, nor the red wood or the black water at the edge of it.
He looks again at the moss stuffed into his side. His hand goes once to his chest, as if to make certain the heart is still there and working—it is. A touch too fast, perhaps, but stout enough. He draws a deeper breath to test himself and finds the pain sharp but bearable.
Someone has saved him. The notion is so unlikely that it holds him for another moment, blinking in the sun, bare as a babe from the waist up and swaddled in reeds like some marsh-born fool. He is still trying to make sense of it when the pond beside him breaks with a sudden heavy splash. Something larger than a fish. Considerably larger.
He turns toward the sound and finds you already looking at him.
You lie stretched along a flat rock at the water’s edge, belly to the stone, chin propped in your hands as though you have been there some while, waiting for him to wake. There is nothing shy in the stare you give him. It is the stare of a creature keeping watch over what it has caught. Your claws rest plain against your cheek, curved and dark at the tips. Behind you, the long reach of your tail trails down into the pond and moves through it in an idle sweep that sends rings over the black water.
It is a tail fit to shame his legs. Longer by far than any fish’s ought to be, thick where it begins, made with a strength that shows even in stillness, it narrows and lengthens until the water takes it from him. Where it passes below the surface, it almost disappears. The pond seems to claim it for its own. Under the water it turns rich moss-green, flickering pale now and then like the quick side of a fish. Above the water, the scales catch the morning sun and answer it back in shifting colours—green first, then blue, then a coppery rose, then something gold at the very edge of each movement, bright and hard as the back of a rose chafer.
Dunk’s gaze follows the whole splendid length of it before he has the wit to stop. By the time he reaches the place where human’s buttocks should be, heat is already climbing his neck. He jerks his eyes aside and only worsens the matter for himself. Your body broadens there in a way that leaves him shamefully aware of himself, aware too that he is gaping and that you have likely caught him at it. He goes higher in haste, seeking some safer sight, and finds none waiting.
The scales climb and thin along your shape, framing the inward draw of your waist and the line of your spine before scattering into singular bright points that glitter in the sun like freckles thrown there by a careless hand. Along your ribs, slits open and close in a steady rhythm. Your forearms are drawn carefully over your chest, though what catches him hardest is your face.
He had seen it once before through blood-loss and darkness, and thought it the face of death. Morning does nothing to disprove him.
Your mouth is wet and soft-looking despite the sharpness of your teeth. Your lashes cast faint shadows. Your brows pull together in what seems meant for sternness, though something in the set of them goes sweeter than severe. You watch him with an intensity that strips him bare quicker than the lack of shirt ever could. Duncan swallows and feels the movement all down his bruised throat. Intimidated hardly begins to cover it.
He wets his lips once, then reaches blindly for the nearest bit of cloth from the heap beside him and drags it awkwardly across his chest, as though that might restore some part of his dignity. It does very little. Still, he gathers what remains and bows his head as best he can from where he sits.
“M-m’lady,” he says.
The word leaves him before he can better it. He has no notion whether you are a lady, some water-spirit, or a peril he ought to fear a deal more than he does. Courtesy is what he has, so courtesy is what he gives you.
His eyes lift again, wary and earnest both. “I would thank you,” he says, a touch hoarse, “if thanks is what’s due. Though I confess, I do not rightly know to whom I owe my life.”
“Dúisithe faoi dheireadh.”
Awake at long last.
You roll from the rock with scarcely a sound but for the slick slap of your body leaving stone. A moment later your tail hauls a great sheet of water in his direction. It strikes his shoulder and chest and darkens the shirt bunched there in his fists.
“You must wash,” you tell him. “You may no longer be dying, but other people’s death still clings to you. It disturbs me.”
“Beg pardon, I—” he stammers, blinking water from his lashes. “I’ve bled on your shore.”
That wins from you a laugh, full-chested and bright. You drift onto your back with the ease of something born to water, and the movement sends your hair sliding from your front. The glimpse of side-breast that follows is enough to set Duncan’s head swimming worse than the blood loss did.
“That you have,” you say. “Nothing cold water will not clean. Come—” You pause, eyeing him. “What kind of knight are you?”
“A hedge knight. Ser Duncan the Tall,” he says, eyes down.
At that, Dunk climbs to his feet, clutching the shirt. Then, as if seized all at once by the knowledge that standing half-naked before a water spirit may call for some greater decency, he drags it hastily over his head and very nearly tangles himself in it besides. When he straightens, he finds the cloth has shrunk by half a war. The hem catches well above where it ought to, leaving a broad strip of his stomach bare. Duncan could swear your mouth parts a little at the sight.
“Ser Duncan the Tall,” you repeat. Your hand spreads over the skin of the pond, fingers trailing. “Come. I’ll show you where the water runs clear.”
He goes as bid, though each step he takes toward the pond has a measure of caution in it, as if the water might change its mind and bite. The bank gives under his weight. Mud takes his feet to the ankle and holds them there a moment before letting go with a soft obscenity. He comes on anyway, the chill already rising from the water before he has set so much as a toe into it.
When he does, it is cold enough to strike a sound from him. He sucks breath through his teeth. The next step brings it to his shins, the next to his thighs. By the time it has him to the waist, the whole of him has gone tight with it. His wounds wake afresh under the shock. Cloth blooms and tugs round him under the surface, braies and shirt both dragging with the pull of the current. You move ahead with idle ease, and he follows as far as his long legs will allow. Half because you bade him, half because there is little else to do now but trust the creature who has already had him helpless and left him living.
The pond proves stranger the farther in he goes. The black stillness near the bank gives way to movement. Water threads colder and quicker round his knees, then his thighs, shouldering itself through narrow places between stone and reed. Ahead, it clears to glass over a bed of rock and pale sand. A basin, he thinks dimly. A widening in the course of some hidden run, where stream feeds pond and pond feeds stream in turn. He has just enough time to marvel at it before his next step finds nothing.
The ground drops clean away.
He pitches forward with all his size behind him and vanishes in a single great plunge. Water slams into his ears, nose, his open mouth. Something hard clips him on the face as he goes down—stone, sharp-edged enough to split the lower lip—and the taste of blood bursts quick over his tongue. For a flurried instant all he feels is cold. He flings out an arm and finds no purchase. Then, hands seize him under the pits.
Even now, with his clothes heavy, the water takes enough of his weight that you can haul him. He comes up hard, breaking the surface with a ragged gasp that tears at his side. Blood slips bright from his mouth and strings briefly from his chin before the current steals it.
“Forgive me,” he coughs, wiping at his lip with the back of his wrist.
Your eyes go to heaven, or whatever part of the sky may serve in its place.
By the time you guide him to firmer footing, the bottom has steadied under his soles, though the river still holds him high—up beneath the arms, cold at the ribs, tugging at his clothes. He stands there dripping and raw-lipped while you watch him as one might watch an ox brought in mud-caked from the field.
“You must undress.”
The words strike him near as sharply as the stone did.
Dunk blinks. “That would not be decent.”
“It would be fouler still to put those rags back over clean wounds.” Your gaze flicks once to his side, to the bindings gone dark in patches where the water has touched them. “You would ruin my work.”
That shuts him up more thoroughly than any modest protest might have done. “Aye,” he says after a moment, head bowing of its own accord.
His fingers fumble at the hem of the shirt. He peels it away in stages, the cloth reluctant to leave him. Across from him you have sunk almost wholly beneath the surface, all save the upper plane of your face and the shine of your hair fanned around it. The water holds your shoulders, your belly, the long hidden strength of your tail. Only your eyes remain fully above water, fixed upon him without so much as a blink, and something about that unwavering regard makes his hands clumsier still. He feels all at once too large for his own body, too visible in it, as though every inch he uncovered made his size, his awkwardness, his youth plain.
He gets the shirt off at last and stands with it bunched stupidly in one hand. You come nearer.
There is scarcely a sound to mark it. One moment you are several feet away, the next the water has shut and opened round you again at his side. You dip below the surface to inspect the wound, and Dunk, who has faced armed men before with steadier nerves than this, goes rigid all through. Cool fingers find the knot at his ribs. They work it loose with an efficiency that leaves no room for fantasy, yet fantasy arrives all the same, unbidden and hot. The reeds slacken. The binding eases. He lifts his arms because it seems prudent to put them somewhere, and winds up standing with them out from his sides in a posture so awkward he would laugh at it himself were he not busy dying of shame.
The moss comes free in blood-dark clumps. They spin away upon the water and catch in eddies near his hip. Your hands return. This is the first time he truly feels them: not the fact of being tended, but the touch itself. Your fingers are cool, though warmer than the current. Slender and firm. Certain in what they mean to do. They pass over the torn place at his side, then farther across him as you steady him with a palm spread low on his belly.
Every part of Dunk seems to wake.
Heat pours through him so fast it is near alarming. It starts where you touch him and goes everywhere else with indecent speed—up his throat, across his chest, down into the water where he would rather remain altogether unreadable. He fixes his eyes on the far bank. On a stand of reeds. On anything. The hand on his stomach holds him with easy confidence, keeping him from swaying while you clear the wound, and he throws all his strength into stillness. He holds himself rigid. Even the smallest movement seems perilous to him now. His breath goes thin and careful. His body, treacherous great thing, feels poised to answer even that much.
Water laps softly at his waist. Your hair moves against his skin once, a drifting brush, and he nearly groans from so little. He swallows and keeps his gaze pinned ahead.
The effort of seeming untroubled occupies him so completely he is half convinced he manages it. Then he hears himself breathe—thin, careful, wholly unlike a man at ease—and knows the game is lost.
When Duncan stands, you realise he has not borne the name The Tall in vain. He rises and rises, broad as a gate, sun-struck and awkward and shamefully magnificent. Your mouth parts, caught between awe and a hunger that sits perilously close to longing.
You lead him through the water towards the clearer part of the basin, and your fingers itch to lay hands on him again. The fool manages to stumble, worsen his hurts, and apologise for it besides, which makes your heart swell in a way that sits badly in your chest. His reddened lip distracts you so thoroughly that you duck beneath the surface to wash him.
While you work, it becomes noticeable.
Above the waist, Duncan holds himself as if discipline alone might carry him through it. He stands in the basin like some half-ruined statue planted there by an older people, chin up, mouth set hard when you peer at him through the wavering skin of the water, eyes fixed stubbornly on the trees beyond your head. His hands stay spread from his sides, fingers splayed, as though touching you by accident would be the greater impropriety.
Silly man.
Below the waist, his body keeps no such vows. It knows you and answers. Your hair drifts with the current and combs across the taut plane of his belly. At that, his pelvis gives the smallest, betraying hitch. Lower still, the thick shape under his braies stirs and knocks against the damp cloth, a blunt, eager motion that sends a small heat through you sharper than any craving. He goes all the stiller for it, as though he might shame the flesh back into obedience by refusing to move another inch.
When the work is done, you decide to be cruel enough to enjoy it.
You rise slowly, fingers following the plane of his stomach, and break the surface so close to him that he starts. Water spills from your lashes and straight across your open eyes, and still you do not blink. “It heals well,” you tell him.
“H-how?”
“All the tricks the hedge-witches know too. Plants, mostly. And then some wound-licking, like all beasts do.”
You watch the meaning strike. First confusion, then comprehension, then a flush that begins high on his cheeks and runs everywhere: down his throat, up to the tips of his ears, even into the split and swollen shape of his mouth. His gaze jerks away and comes back again, poorer for somewhere to rest. It is a lovely thing to do to him.
His hands drop beneath the water, too late to hide what has already announced itself. When he looks at you again, the blue of his eyes has gone grave enough to pin. “You’re no beast to me,” he says, and says it like an oath.
The words catch you wrong-footed. Before you can think better of it, you lunge and wind your arms round his neck, bringing your mouth near enough his bruised lip that he must feel your breath there. “I am a beast,” you hiss. “You live because I chose not to feed. Because I chose to keep you.”
His answer is stranger still. Instead of putting you off, he catches you. His hands come to your waist on instinct, spanning so broad they nearly cover the gills laid along your ribs, steadying you where the water shifts under your weight. “Keep me?” he asks, and the words come rough, thinned by the effort it costs him not to notice how your breasts have pressed to his chest.
You nod. “Even if you run from me, it is no great loss. The world has too few men who can look death in the face and mind their manners. Too few who, once made prey, speak kindly to what means to devour them.”
“Are you,” Dunk asks, voice gone low and uneven, “meaning to devour me?”
You smile at that, slow and mean. Your tail coils round one of his legs, the fin dragging light along the inner seam of his thigh. “Would you have me?”
He jerks at the touch and clutches you tighter before sense returns and he tries, clumsily, to loose his hold. You do not let him. “I—” he begins, and fails. His throat works. “I oughtn’t—I mean—”
“Do you fear me?” you ask. “I gave you the force your body needs to mend itself. If I had wanted you dead, I had better chances of it when the bank was drinking your blood.”
“No,” he says, and then, because truth seems to drive him even where he would rather hedge, “No, only—I swore vows. To defend the innocent. To do no dishonour where I can help it. I’d serve you gladly for what you’ve done, but—”
Understanding comes over you whole. It is there in the way he cannot meet your eyes for long, in the care with which he holds even the body he wants, in the shame that seizes him over wanting at all. This vast creature of iron, oath, and sinew; this man all through in his shoulders, his scars, the weight between his legs, the old-fashioned decency that dogs him like a second shadow—and here, hidden in plain sight, the untouched part of him. The boy still tucked inside the knight.
“You’ve never had a woman,” you say softly.
Dunk shakes his head once. Abashment settles red along his skin again, deeper this time, and something like fear goes with it.
It makes you ease. Your grip slackens, though you do not yet slip from where you hang at his neck. “Does it pain you?” you ask, and bring a hand to his mouth. Your thumb passes over the split in his lip, smearing what blood has dried there. He flinches hard enough for the water to stir round you both, then gives a small, unwilling nod.
“Would you like me to mend that too?”
“Please,” Duncan says, and his lids lower as if in surrender.
You lean in and lick the cut clean. His eyes shut fully; yours stare. Your mouth closes over his lip and draws at it, then worries it with the gentlest edge of your teeth, careful of the torn place. His arms gather you closer. Strong. Enormous. Built for hauling men from saddles, for splitting shields, for holding fast—and now holding you with such caution that the thought of what else those arms might do goes through you like fire.
His mouth parts under yours. The sound he makes is so slight you nearly miss it, a breath more than a voice, and you take it in greedily. He breathes through his nose, hard and unsteady, one broad palm spread between your shoulder blades as though to keep himself from crushing you nearer.
So you deepen it. Your tongue goes into his mouth with all the boldness he lacks, while his answers with a care that undoes you more thoroughly than hunger ever has. He tastes of river water, blood, and the plain, clean want. A hand leaves your back and comes up to your face, awkward in its tenderness, pushing the wet fall of your hair behind your shoulder. From a single kiss you know enough: he would be fervent and quiet both, and all the fiercer for how he tries to govern himself. But the fear in him stays your hand. He is not yours for the taking.
You draw back by degrees. “There,” you murmur, close enough that your mouths nearly brush again. “It should trouble you less by morning.”
Then, you force yourself to loosen from him altogether and turn half away, though it does nothing to cool the ache low in your body. “You may remain here until you are mended. A day or two, I think. I’ll bring fish. You may make a fire on my bank if you like. And after that, you may go—if going is what you want.”
When you look back, he is standing just as you left him: dazed, eyes gone bright as wet glass, his bruised mouth drawn into a frown as though he does not trust the ground under him. He swallows once. “I thank you for your kindness, m’lady,” is all he says.
He is grateful. For the food. For the fire you let him light. For the mercy of being allowed to remain what he is at heart, though Dunk has the growing sense that it is you who preserve his virtue, not he yours. That first night he sleeps with his belly full, his side held in a band of warmth, his body laid in the soft cradle of the grass. The fire cracks and settles beside him. Beyond that comes the lazy wash of water and the faint shifting drag of your tail through it.
He dreams.
Of your mouth first, cool and clever on his split lip. Then of it lower. Of his own full of your breast, drinking at you like a starving babe made monstrous. Of his hands running up the long strength of your tail until they find your hips and hold them down. Scales scatter over your back in his dream like coins on a saint’s cloth, and he counts them with his tongue. Your hair winds round his throat like a ribbon and pulls when you want him closer. Your hands go to his backside and drag him hard against you, and the force of it jars through his whole body until he wakes with a gasp, hot through, his cock throbbing so fiercely under his braies it near doubles him.
For one sick instant he thinks you must have seen it. Then shame takes him by the nape and he turns hard onto his belly, as though the earth might swallow what his body has done. By the time the dawn has thinned the mist, the linen between his legs is damp and cooling and he can scarcely bear to think of himself at all.
You spare him the privacy of not noticing, or else you are kind enough to pretend. Dunk does not know which. He only knows he would split his lip anew for the chance to taste your tongue again, and the knowledge sits in him like a brand.
Until now he has always known his body in one fashion only. As weight, reach, hunger, ache. As a thing for fighting in and sleeping hard upon. As something too large for most benches, most doorways, most rooms, most companies of men. It serves him well enough with a sword in hand and badly enough when there is no sword to hide behind. His business has always been to master it, to make it useful, to keep it from frightening decent folk more than can be helped.
Around you another kind of knowing steals over him. He feels your eyes on him and they do not hold the flinch he is used to. Sometimes there is curiosity in them. Sometimes amusement. Once or twice a look that smoulders so plain it puts heat into his face and lower. At moments there is even fondness, which disarms him worst of all. He is certain he looks at you much the same and wonders if you know it. Wonders if a creature such as you can smell want on a man the way a hound scents blood.
Decency remains dear to him. Dear as his vows, dear as any lesson Ser Arlan ever gave him. Yet for the first time in his life the thought of something softer and stranger than his own calloused fist closing round him keeps him restless at night and tight-strung through the day.
That day passes in your company. He tells you of his old master, and you listen with your head tilted and your hair afloat round you in the shallows like weed in a current. In return you show him the marsh as though it were a keep under your charge. You tell him of your kind in scraps, never enough to satisfy him. You show him where the yarrow grows white at the edges of the reeds, how to gather sphagnum from the wetter ground without taking rot with it, how willow bark must be chewed soft before it will give up its bitterness proper. He watches your mouth while you work and has to look away when the thought comes of what else he might lay between those teeth for gentle use.
He mends quickly. Quicker than he ought, perhaps. By the second evening he can stand without feeling the world slide off its hinges beneath him, and that ought to please him. Instead it leaves him sore in some place no salve will reach. For you have not only spared him and kept him, but released him besides, and Dunk has seen so little mercy in the world of late that he scarcely knows what to do with this kind. It does not feel like mercy at all. It feels like a hole opening in his chest as the light goes out, broad and clean and incurable.
He lies wakeful by the bank while the last of the fire gnaws itself into red. After a time he rolls to his side and watches you drift in the water, half-lost in reeds and moon-glimmer. You hum into the night, low and strange, the tune turning back on itself like current in a narrow place. It puts him in mind of no song he knows. A marsh spirit’s song, perhaps. Or a prayer said by something older than men.
He thinks, not for the first time, how beautiful you are. Not in the dainty fashion of courtly tales, all ribbons and rose-leaf mouths, but in some harsher, truer way. Beautiful as deep water, as polished stone, as the flash of a fish’s belly before it is gone. He thinks too how lucky he is that it was you who found him and not some greediest thing the bog had hidden. Any fiercer creature might have taken the copper from his purse, the sword from his hand, the flesh from his bones. You took only the blood he could spare and then gave him back the rest. It feels almost as if some god bent close to him in the dark and chose, for reasons of its own, to be gentle.
The thought leaves him raw. Absently, he says into the reeds, “I shall be in your debt all my days.”
You start as though struck. Your head comes up sharp from the water. The humming breaks. For an instant he thinks it was the words alone, but then you turn too quickly and the long of your hair snags in the split crotch of a root thrust out over the bank. At once you jerk the wrong way. The strands draw tighter. Water slaps. You hiss—a quick, furious sound more like an otter’s than any lady’s.
Dunk is on his feet before his side has time to object.
“M’lady—hold still.” He stumbles the last step and drops to one knee at the bank. You bare your teeth at him, half in pain, half in temper, one hand tangled in the caught mass while the other braces on the root. The more you pull, the worse it winds.
“Do not tell me to hold still.”
“I only meant—” He stops himself, for this is plainly no hour to explain. “Only let me help.”
You glare at him through the dark shine of your wet hair. Then, with a muttered Mo chreach in a tongue he does not know, you cease fighting it. It sounds like it means Curse it.
The caught strands are wrapped tight round a knob of bark and threaded through a split in the wood where floodwater must have worried it open. Dunk sets both hands to it with more care than he has ever given a blade-edge. Your hair is slick as river weed and finer than any silk he has touched, and every time his knuckles brush the side of your neck your breath goes short. That does not help him any.
“There,” he murmurs, though there is not yet any there to it. “I have it. Near enough.”
“You do not.”
“Ah,” he admits. “Not yet.”
A laugh catches you by surprise then, small and unwilling. It startles him worse than your teeth did. He glances up. You are watching him with your mouth parted a little, all that fierce, uncanny beauty drawn close and strange in the moonlight.
So he bends back to the work, patient as any septa with a snarl of thread, prising one lock free after another while the bank smells of mud and willow and the water keeps kissing softly at your ribs. By the time the worst of it loosens, he is breathing hard, and not only from the ache in his side.
What comes over him then Dunk could not have said, not for all the gold in Casterly Rock. Perhaps it is the sight of you bent fierce and helpless over your own caught hair. Perhaps the feel of it still sliding over his hands. Perhaps only the thought of leaving at dawn and going from this place with nothing of you but the memory of your mouth. Whatever it is, it has him speaking before sense can catch up.
“Would you like me to braid it?”
You stare at him. In the moonlight your eyes look blacker than the bog. “Can you?” you ask at last. Then, with that sharpness that never quite leaves you: “And will my bare chest not shame you?”
A breath of laughter from him. “It surely will,” he says, honest as ever. Then some small, stubborn courage rises in him from parts lower than his vows and lodges square in the chest. “But I’d count it an honour besides.”
“Yes,” you say, quick and certain, as though you had only been waiting for him to prove worthy of the task. “Braid my hair.”
So you turn your back to him and come nearer the bank, sitting, while Dunk settles awkwardly behind you. He is no great hand at it. Once, long ago in Flea Bottom, he watched women plait one another’s hair on stoops in the evening light, fingers flying while they gossiped and laughed and cuffed any boy who stared too long. He remembers only the principle: divide, cross, gather, keep even. His hands are built for reins and sword-hilts, not this. Still, he tries.
The first pull earns him a flick of your tail and a hiss through your teeth.
“Beg pardon,” he mutters.
“Do not beg. Learn.”
So he learns. A little. Enough to draw the mass together and work it down into something serviceable, if not handsome. It lies thick as a rope by the time he reaches the end, damp and heavy in his hands. All the while you sit strangely still for a creature of current and appetite, save for the occasional impatient twitch when he tugs too hard. Dunk does his best not to notice the whole smooth span of your back before him, bare where moonlight finds it, narrowing to the wet dark of your waist. He notices it all the same. By the end of it his mouth has gone dry.
“Done,” he says, and hears how weak it comes out.
Then, gods above and all the stranger gods below, you turn.
Moonlight has you whole this time. No reeds in the way. No water to break you into pieces. You come between his spread knees with the slow certainty of something that has already decided the matter, and settle there close enough that the cool of your skin reaches through his clothes. “Thank you, ser,” you say, and sweetness in your mouth is a far more dangerous thing than any hiss.
His heart turns over so hard it near stuns him. Before he can think what he is about, he takes your hand and bows his head to it, pressing his mouth to the back of it in a gentlemanly way, as though you were some great lady and he a proper knight with a proper title to his name.
Your fingers curl against his. Still holding, Dunk takes your palm and turns it over in both of his. He brings one claw to the split in his lip and presses until the cut opens fresh. Pain bites, quick and clean. He keeps your finger there while the blood wells dark along his mouth and watches what comes over your face when you see it.
“Would you mend it once more?” he asks.
Your answer is to catch the end of the braid in one hand, wind it once round the back of his neck, and draw him in.
This time there is nothing medicinal in it. You drink from the torn place with open greed, tongue hot and searching where before it had been careful. Dunk makes a rough sound into your mouth and grips at your waist, all thought burning off him in a rush. The blood is hardly there before you have taken it. What remains is the kiss itself, deep and wet and ruinous, until his head swims worse than it did from the blow that felled him.
“I thought,” you breathe, the words broken by another hungry press, “you meant to leave me without letting me have you.”
His eyes roll back with the force of wanting. He gathers you closer without meaning to, one arm under you, the other firm at your back, and rises in a single clumsy surge to his feet. The movement tears at his side and he barely feels it.
“Have me,” Dunk says, and there is only naked truth to it. “Gladly. I do not know what you see in me, m’lady, nor why a wonder such as you should want aught of mine—but if you do, I’d be the world’s greatest fool to deny you.”
You look at him then as if he has said something finer than he knows how to say, and for once you do not mock him for it.
So he carries you.
He carries you as though he was built for nothing else, down from the bank and over the water to the flat stone where first he saw you rise, pale now under the moon and waiting like an altar. Your arms stay looped round his neck. Your braid drips cold against his shoulder. His pulse beats wild where your breast is pressed to him, and by the time he sets you down, his hands are shaking with the effort of holding back all the things he means to give you if only you will show him how.
For one wavering instant he only looks at you, chest labouring. You give him but a moment to stand there in it.
One of your hands goes to him, greedy and unashamed, and the touch of it through the cloth strikes through him so hard he bows like a man hit low with a poleaxe. Breath leaves him. His fingers claw at the air beside him before finding the rock. Heat tears through his middle, bright and ruinous, and with it a helpless sound he has not the dignity to swallow back.
“Mercy,” he says, though there is no true wish for it in him. “Slow—pray, slow a little.”
Your eyes flash up at him, bright with appetite and amusement both. He feels warm to the throat, near trembling, and still he tries for courtesy, for order, for some scrap of knightly manner in a place that has stripped him of all armour worth the name.
“I’ll do as you tell me,” he says, voice roughened nearly past bearing. “Only—show me. I would not wrong you for want of knowing.”
That stills you. The greed stays in your face, but it settles into something more intent. You ease back against the stone and let your body lengthen there, all bold invitation and perverse ease, your hands opening toward him as though calling a beast from the dark. Moonlight gathers along the line of you. Your tail glimmers where it falls away into shadow. Your breast spills softly with the movement, and Dunk, poor soul, is half-struck through by the sight of it.
He comes when beckoned. With obedience and without confidence. With awe, almost. He lowers himself to his knees over you, great and awkward and trying so hard to be careful that you give him a charmed look. The rock receives his weight with a dull scrape. His breath comes hard through his nose. He does not know where to put his hands until you take one of them and place it high, against the soft warm weight of your tit. The other you guide lower.
He shudders. Squeezes your chest and takes note of how neatly the heft of your breast fits his palm. The rest he lets you guide, because the threat of shattering from the sight alone is far too great.
You draw his fingers over the scales until skin finds a hidden place where they part. There lies a slit, smooth and silky and made to unman him. Duncan breathes, “Oh, by the gods.”
“This is where you fill me,” you tell him, eyes rapt. “This is where I want you.” Then, your lips find his once more. He tastes the same tongue that healed him, the same teeth that could end him and did not. Never in his life had Duncan thought he would find anything to swell so sweetly in his mouth as food or ale, yet here it is. How he came all this way with no more than grateful pecks to the cheek and otherwise wholly unkissed feels, all at once, beyond belief.
All the while, you keep guiding his hand until your body answers him open. And Duncan is made painfully aware that up until now, the body has only ever seemed to him a thing for work. Whenever he had been troubled by primal urges, he tried to throttle the feeling by haste and harshness, or else by the sheer force of his will. Now, as he slides one finger inside you, he’s being shown plainly that bodies exist not only for work. Gods have given them the ability to feel pleasure and it is evident on your face and in the way your shape flutters and arches and pushes itself onto him.
“You’re the softest thing I’ve ever touched,” he whispers, bewildered by himself. By the way his blood shifts places and fills him below the loins until he’s hard. By the way he answers your wetness with his own—pearling at the tip, soaking through the cloth and making the crown of his cock feel cold when he shifts on his knees.
“More,” you rasp, wriggling. “Give me one more.” At that, your hand finds the braid. You draw it over your shoulder and wind it twice round his neck, slow as a tether being laid. Not hard enough to hurt. Hardly hard enough to hold at all. Just enough that he feels the claim of it. Just enough that he understands.
He brings his forehead to yours and the second finger inside, feeling you stretch and swallow him down to the last knuckle. Mere thought of the same sensation enveloping his cock sends Duncan’s head spinning.
When he thrusts gently, the loveliest purr spills out of your mouth. Your face rises and rubs itself on his, lips pulling on his chin and cheek rasping on cheek. “Is liomsa thú,” you murmur.
“What’s that mean?”
“You’re mine,” you tell him. “No soul will know but you and I. But you are.”
“Aye,” he breathes. “That I am.”
“Then give me the rest of you,” you say. “Fill me properly.”
The words slice through him like strong drink on an empty stomach. For half a beat Duncan can only stare, as if he has misheard you and the night will kindly correct itself if he waits.
It does not. You mean it. Worse—better—you mean it without shame, as though wanting him were the simplest thing in the world. No woman has ever spoken to him so. No woman has ever looked at him as though his body were something desired for its own sake and not borne because it must be. Heat surges through him so hard it leaves his thoughts in disarray. He has dreamed, in the clumsy miserable way of lonely men, but dreams had never prepared him for the sound of such words in a living voice, said with your mouth still swollen from his kisses.
When he pulls his hands out of you, they come covered in clear brine. He fumbles at the ties of his braies with fingers that no longer seem wholly his own, and your palm comes over his—cool, assured, impatient with trembling. Your fingers tangle with his and for a moment he can do nothing but hang his head down and watch the two of you joined there. The way you help him find his girth and stroke it. The way your slick coats him. His hand, obeying, as though it has always belonged under your instruction.
“Gods help me,” Duncan mutters. “If you keep on so, I shall shame myself.”
By the time you draw him nearer, he is beyond any rescue. Your hands go elsewhere then—up under the hem of his shirt, stripping the last hindrance from him, then down again with fresh purpose. They travel the width of his sides and settle hard at his buttocks, claiming, directing. Duncan bows over you on a shuddering breath, feeling himself handled like something wanted, something chosen, and scarcely knows how to bear it.
“Have no fear,” you say. “I want you.”
He nods, more to himself than you. “If I hurt you—”
“You won’t.” Your fingers stroke his cheek. “I know your size and I will take it. Courage, my Fathach Caoin. My gentle giant.”
His eyes mist up. He’s there, on the precipice, with your warmth calling him on. Gaze steadfast on yours, Duncan lets himself breach you. And you welcome him like the bravest thing he’s ever seen. Crown already swallowed by your body, yet your face is still clear. There’s an eager stretch around him and a twitch of a tail below him. It coils round his thigh, his knee and ankle, while one of your fists finds the braid once more and pulls, collaring his neck tighter. It’s all the signals he needs to persevere.
The more of him you take, the greedier your answer grows. Claws in his arse, muscles working on his cock in vicious spasms, he manages to fill you with everything some trickster god has given him, and he finds it accepted.
Your mouth is agape. Breath comes through it loud and ragged. “Yes,” you grit, eyes rolling and all of you twitching. “Gods, fuck me. Make me yours.”
“Sweet mercy,” Duncan says, voice gone rough. “You ask it as though I could deny you aught.” His brow drops to yours, air shaking out of him on its leave. “If I am yours, then have all of me.”
At first, he scarcely thrusts. Ruts, more like. Feels the shape of you inside, plastered snugly to him. When he discovers he’s being received fully and without reluctance, his movement boldens. His hips rise and fall, and instinct guides him. Pleasure guides him too, for beyond being permitted, Duncan is being answered as well. With tightness. With the press of your belly into his. With your neck baring and gills there quivering around air whenever he sheathes himself up to the brim.
That is the miracle he never thought possible. With a lifetime of too much ringing around him, awkward and large, he was convinced romance was not written for him. Yet here you are, with hunger gathered on your features and no shadow of hurt visible. It shakes him, that. Here, in your hold, that old wrongness turns. Here what he is suits and is welcome.
“You were made for this as much as for war,” you say, as if reading through his thoughts. “More. I like what you do to me.”
It makes him release his own little stuttered moan. “M’lady—”
Your arms circle his shoulders and hold. “You sound so pretty. All of you is so beautiful, Duncan.”
He searches your face for foulery and finds none. Only bliss and appetite. Only round, wet mouth and dark eyes. Duncan has been commended for strength before, for endurance, for taking a blow and giving one back. None of that has prepared him for the shock of finding that his hands, his mouth, his earnest body can bring a creature like you to such clear delight. With each look, his courage grows.
That growth proves dangerous soon enough. Wonder gives way to urgency. Urgency mounts toward something steeper. Duncan feels it gathering in him with an inevitability that borders on terror. He has been admitted to a marvel and already fears the speed with which he may be cast out of it. The thought makes him cling harder to what steadiness he can muster. He tries to linger, tries to learn the pace of your pleasure and keep himself to it, but his body has begun to outrun obedience.
“Look at me,” you say. “Keep on, you needn’t worry. You please me—ah—” There’s a twitch inside you that nearly ends him. “You fit me. Gods, you please me—”
What happens after, he cannot rightly say. First, your neck wrenches, then delivers your face close so that you can kiss him. Little mumbles of yes and oh and ones that call on various gods in various tongues flood his mouth. His throat gets cinched by your hair and your arms, and tail wraps round him so fiercely it makes his leg go numb and cold at the toes. Chest flattened against his you moan out his name into the night and then—
He’s seeing white. It overtakes his vision entirely when your body does an unimaginable thing. Traps him in that narrow edge of flesh and milks him for seed. Ferocious and wild, it takes and takes, and Duncan’s understanding of himself alters. He is not taking. He is giving and being wanted in the giving.
“My sweet Lass,” he rasps, manners abandoned. “I never knew—Gods, I never knew.”
Dunk never knew something could feel like this. He’s never been shown that things could live where brutality and tenderness meet. That bodies can do all this: bleed, bruise, fill and empty, hurt and please, all while remaining gentle. His gentleness drives him to a point where he feels sensations folding in on themselves. His toes curl against the stone so much that his foot almost cramps. Thighs harden. Lungs burn, yet he feels the most alive he’s ever felt. His belly tugs so violently it is as though someone has delivered a blow with an iron fist. Amidst all this ruthless undoing, Duncan senses his soul coursing through his blood vessels, pushing through his pores in its rise to meet you.
Warmth becomes warmer. Wetness grows wetter. All of his joins all of yours. The pull empties him of everything he carries right into the snug nook of your body. “Yes,” he mutters. “Yes, gods help me.”
With that, he forgets the weight of himself and falls on top of you off his trembling arms. His face lands right into the curve of your neck and the breath that comes through slits there cools the slickened skin of his forehead.
For a little while you do nothing but hold him through the ruin of it.
Your hand moves slow between his shoulders, then lower, smoothing the hard jump of muscle as if gentling some great spent beast after battle. Praise comes from you under your breath in scraps and murmurs, half words, half wonder, and Duncan, who had thought himself beyond surprise for one night, finds that too much for him as well.
A laugh bursts out of him sudden and helpless, honest as the rest has been. It shakes once through his chest against you. He lifts himself just enough to look down, dazed and shining with it still, then bends and presses his mouth to your forehead with a care that seems almost too tender for the body that has just spent itself so violently.
“There are no words for it,” he says. “None I know, leastways. For making me feel—” He stops there, smiling crooked at his own uselessness. “For this.”
You look at him as if his gratitude is a stranger thing than all that passed between you on the stone. Your fingers stroke through the damp at the nape of his neck, over the braid still looped there like some token of your claim.
“You deserve it more than any man I’ve met.”
The laughter leaves his face by slow degrees. In its place comes something quieter, heavier. He studies you and the dread arrives plain enough then, settling under his ribs where pleasure had just torn through him. Because a man cannot be given such a thing and fail to understand that it may yet be taken away.
“How am I to part from you now?” he asks.
You answer him honestly, as you have answered him in all things. “You are strong for it.”
Then you kiss him and gather him down again, one arm curved round the breadth of his shoulders, the other tracing idle paths along his back until the last fierce throbs ease out of him. Great body that he is, he grows heavier by the moment. Sleep comes on him without dreams. His head finds its rest upon your chest. The braid bejewels his throat and there he lies pillowed on you like something claimed and cherished both.
By morning the chill has found him first.
It wakes in his body and deeper than the body too, in the place where certainty ought to sit and does not. The stone has cooled under him. Mist lies low over the black water. Reeds stand pale with dawn.
Duncan opens his eyes and knows at once what the day requires of him. Whatever quarrel spilled him into your bog has not vanished. Roads still run outward from this place. Men still wait at the end of them with their needs, their vows, their battles. He knows he must rise. Knows too that seeing you again would be another miracle, and that miracles are not things a sensible man counts upon.
When at last he stands on the bank, iron on his body and sword at his hip, you drift below in the water and watch him. “Will you be here,” he asks, “if I come again?”
“I don’t know,” you tell him. “Come and see.”
The words might have been cruel in another mouth. In yours they fall as simple truth.
“But—” You lift a hand and beckon. “Give me your sword.”
He does not hesitate. That, perhaps, startles him more than anything. Dunk reaches for the blade and lays it across his palms before offering it over. You take it with both hands, testing the weight of it, your mouth tightening faintly at the smell of old blood still left in the metal. Then your other hand goes to the end of your braid. For a heartbeat he only watches, uncomprehending, until the edge comes up bright in the morning and he realizes what you mean to do.
“Wait,” he says, too late, and only because the thought of any part of you severed from the rest hits him oddly in the chest.
You cut through it clean. The shorn length lies across your palm, heavy as wet rope. You hand the sword back hilt-first. Then, with more care than men give holy relics, you place the braid in his hand.
“You have earned it,” you say. “Keep it, and remember me.”
Duncan looks down at what you have given him as though it were a king’s ransom or a saint’s finger-bone wrapped in silk. The braid spills over his callused palm and nearly to his knees, gleaming and impossible. He closes his hand round it slowly.
“I should remember you without help.”
“Yes,” you say. “But take it all the same.” Your gaze lifts to his, clear as cold water. “Remain gentle. Do not let the world temper you into something you are not. It has enough hard men already. I will not forget you, Ser Duncan The Tall.”
He comes to the shore in all his bulky magnitude, iron making a burden of him once more. Yet the burden sits differently now. He drops to one knee at the water’s edge, heedless of mud. His free hand comes to your face. Cups it. The skin beneath his thumb is cool and smooth and utterly dear to him. Then he kisses you with all the force left in him, with gratitude and hunger and the grief of leaving all tangled together.
“I’ve a love for you I’ll carry always,” he says against your mouth when at last he parts from it. “You made me a man, Lass.”
Something shifts in your face at that—fondness, perhaps, or pity, or the knowledge that men will always name themselves too small.
“You are more than merely a man, Duncan,” you tell him. “You are a giant. And wherever you go, I will keep you.”
He stays there one heartbeat longer, kneeling in the mud like a man before a shrine, looking at you as if he would learn the whole of your face by force and carry it clear to the grave. Then he rises, slow under the weight of steel and parting, and turns at last toward the trees.
you have never argued with your knight until now, and your bond is about to be tested when danger befalls you
genre/warnings:
hurt/comfort, arguments, tw. manhandling and harassment (not by dunk), fluff, targaryen!reader (reader is egg's sister)
notes:
ser duncan is simply a gentle giant and i just have to put him through slight angst <3
“Oh, brave ser! Hope you have a good day!”
The first time you saw how she fluttered around Ser Duncan, you didn’t really notice it. An innkeeper’s wife was meant to be hospitable. It was her trade.
She was young too. Not much older than yourself, if older at all. Her smile was bright and easy, the sort that invited trust without effort.
But then, came the sudden knocks at night.
“Is everything all right, ser?” she would ask sweetly through the door. “I heard a sound.”
You had been in the very same room, were standing right there beside him all the time. There had never been any sound.
And—
“Ser, your sword seems to need polishing… I can help you with that!”
“You must be tired from your travels. Leave your clothes by the hearth, I’ll have them washed before supper!”
After the nth time, the pattern was impossible to ignore and you knew you weren’t imagining it. This woman wasn’t just trying to be hospitable— she keeps finding excuses to talk to Dunk.
But the more surreal thing was the way she stared down at you—quick, assessing, almost amused, and sometimes, her eyes focused on your drawstring bag too.
“I’m telling you, she is— of suspicious origins!”
You stood near the narrow window of your shared room, arms folded tightly across your chest. Below, the courtyard bustled in the late night light. You replayed the scene of the dinner in your mind, how the innkeeper lady leaned far too close as she handed Dunk a mug of ale.
Dunk, meanwhile, was unlacing his boots with slow patience.
“She is just kind,” he said, as if that settled the matter. “It’s her inn. She’s meant to be kind.”
“She doesn’t act like that with the other guests—” you shot back, before stopping yourself. Your frown deepened. “Wait. This place hardly has any other guests at all. Doesn’t that strike you as odd? I know something is wrong with this place.”
He sighed at that, rubbing a hand through his hair. “You’re imagining things where there are none, Princess.”
“And you,” you snapped, “see nothing even when it’s waving a flag in front of your face!”
It was this behavior that irked you really. You knew Dunk always looked for the good in people—it was one of the things that made him who he was. He believed in kindness because he carried so much of it himself. But this time, you were convinced that he just refused to see the bad parts because that woman had blinded him.
Egg gulped at how you didn’t seem like you would back down soon, and quickly slipped out of the room so he wouldn’t get caught in the crossfire.
Dunk looked up at your fiery response, brow furrowing, and you went on with your tirade.
“She takes her chances with you and you just stand there smiling like you haven’t the faintest idea. Always coming to our room. Always offering to wash your things, polish your swords—Seven save me, she might as well offer to sharpen them with her teeth!”
Dunk blinked, totally not getting where your animosity was from. “M’lady, that’s not nice. There is nothing to have an idea about—”
“That’s exactly the problem. You never notice these things. You never see when someone’s plotting under your nose. You just assume everyone means well!”
“And that’s a fault?” His voice was still soft, but something in it had changed. “I appreciate the thought, but you can’t make all women look bad just because they’re being nice to me.”
Something tightened in your chest. So that was what he thought of you?
Your fingers curled at your sides. “You’re so painfully oblivious it’s embarrassing.”
Your words flew before you could stop it, and it seemed to struck him a great deal. You saw it in the way his shoulders stilled and how his gaze, usually so open and earnest, hardened. He didn't speak for awhile, until he got up.
“If I’m that embarrassing, then you shouldn’t be with the likes of me, Your Grace.”
Your anger drained at once, replaced by a cold twist of regret, but you didn’t chase after him even as he went out of the room and refused to look at you.
And somehow, that hurt worst of all.
Dunk didn’t return.
At first, you told yourself he only needed air, but then three hours passed. As the lantern burner lower and the sounds of the inn quieted into uneasy stillness, dread began to coil in your stomach.
“He’s never gone this long,” Egg muttered. In the aftermath of your argument, he stayed quiet all the while, knowing how you most likely didn’t mean what you said at all.
For a second, you entertained the thought that he might have abandoned you and Egg. He wouldn’t do that, would he?
Your reverie was interrupted by a sudden loud chime of the bell from outside, and you snapped your head at it.
“Egg, listen to me. Something isn’t right here,” you said quietly to your brother, wary of your surroundings, “I think she’s no innkeeper’s wife at all.”
This was what you had been trying to tell Dunk too. For almost five days of your stay here, you had noticed how deserted the hallways were. This inn set price lower than the ones in its class, but you had a terrible feeling in your gut whenever the innkeeper lady looked at you.
It was as though she were weighing the worth of your cloak, the stitching of your boots, the quality of your speech.
Egg frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I think she’s a robber,” you said, lowering your voice further. “Or worse. This place feels staged—”
As if summoned by your suspicion, harsh knocks rattled the door. Egg and you exchanged a glance and you warned him with your eyes to take cover in the back.
However, not receiving any answer, the pounding stopped for a heartbeat. Until—
Crash! The door burst open as two men forced their way inside.
Rough hands seized you before you could even cry out. One grabbed your arms; the other lunged for Egg. The room erupted into chaos, furniture crashing aside.
“Egg—run!” you shouted. “Get Ser Duncan!”
To his credit, the boy twisted fiercely, ducking beneath a grasping arm. He tore free with surprising agility and bolted through the still-open doorway.
One of the men cursed but the other caught your hair in a brutal fist just as you tried to break away and pain exploded across your scalp.
“Let me go!” you cried, voice breaking. You gasped, clawing at his wrist, but he yanked your head back sharply—and then he stilled, squinting at the strands near your temple where new growth had come in silver-white against the darker dye you had so carefully maintained.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he breathed. “Look at this.”
The other man turned. “What?”
“She’s a Targaryen,” he said, eyes gleaming. “Look at the hair.”
Cold dread washed through you, regretting how you hadn’t reapplied the dye to your hair.
“Search it all. If she’s dragonspawn, there’s coin worth taking.”
You still trashed, but the second man had begun tearing through the chamber—overturning chests, ripping open packs, scattering your belongings across the floor. Then—
“There’s something here!”
He held up a ring. Your father’s signet ring caught in the light, its color unmistakable.
“That is mine!” You struggled again, kicking, clawing—but you were suddenly thrown to the floor.
For a moment, you couldn’t breathe. You scrambled back, hands shaking, vision blurring with tears. Your left wrist screamed in protest—you must have twisted it in some way.
The men loomed over you.
“Well, the innkeep did say we can do with her as we please afterwards, though?”
You let out a scream, fighting as their hands restrained you.
Dunk had always known, but that knowledge did little to dull the sting.
He had known that you stood far above a man like him. You were born to a place in the world he could scarcely dream of reaching. And he... he is only Dunk—a hedge knight, too low in birth, too poor in coin, too clumsy in speech.
What could he possibly offer you but calloused hands and a life spent wandering dusty roads?
Yet somewhere along the road—between the long rides, the shared fires, and the easy laughter you gave him so freely—he had allowed himself to forget. Just for a little while, he had pretended he could stand beside you without feeling the weight of all the ways he fell short.
And there was one thing he had sworn, and that vow had never wavered. He would protect you. It might be the only thing he could give, but it was out of love all the same.
“Ser Duncan!”
Dunk had only just turned back towards the inn, his thoughts still heavy, when the boy came barreling down the lane.
“Help— my sister!” Egg’s voice was hoarse, cracking with panic and tears. “They’ve got her!”
“Who—”
“The robbers! They’re hurting her!”
Suddenly, Dunk couldn’t think. Suddenly, the image of man twice your size looming over you made his stomach churn.
He broke into a full sprint then, shoulders shoving past anyone in his way as he tore through the inn doors hard enough to rattle the frame.
Your scream reached him the moment he stepped inside. He took the stairs two at a time, then three—his boots thundering against the wood as he raced towards your chamber.
The door was ajar. Inside, two men hovered over you.
Dunk did not see anything else at first. Not the overturned furniture. Not the scattered things. Just you, curled on the floor.
Your trembling form. Your busted lip, blood against your mouth. Lips wobbling, tears falling endlessly from your eyes.
The world went red that instant.
He seized the nearest attacker by the collar and flung him bodily across the room. The man crashed into the wall with a sickening crack.
The second barely had time to turn before Dunk’s fist connected with his jaw, his blow landed like a hammer.
Each blow landed with the force of a fury so absolute it made him unrecognizable. The man crumpled, but Dunk didn’t stop. He hauled him upright again only to slam him back down. His knuckles splitting, his breath coming hard and ragged.
When the first man tried to rise, Dunk kicked him back down. He beat him too until he was little more than groaning heaps on the floor.
Only when the room fell silent—save for your sobbing—did Dunk stop. His chest heaved, hands were bloodied. His face, still flushed with rage, slowly turned towards you.
And the fury drained as he had a one true look at you. At how you shook uncontrollably, making yourself smaller in that corner, looking as if you were thoroughly violated.
“Princess—” he croaked out, blue eyes widening, feeling numb all of a sudden. “Oh no…”
The sight of you hollowed him out.
My fault. The thought struck him like a blow. All my fault.
He had left you. He should have been here. I should have protected her. Guilt twisted so sharply in his chest that his own vision blurred.
Dunk dropped to his knees in front of you. His large hands hovered uncertainly in the air as his eyes searched you desperately for injuries. He was afraid to touch you or even to ask if you were okay—
“Ser Duncan…” you tearfully looked up at him, clutching your broken wrist. All you comprehended now was that you were so relieved that he was here, and that you were safe—
You suddenly threw yourself at him.
Your good arm wrapped around his neck as you buried your face against his chest, a broken sob tearing free from your throat.
Dunk froze for the briefest heartbeat, before pressing his cheek against your hair. His large hand moved slowly over your back in clumsy, gentle strokes, trying to soothe you the only way he knew how.
“I’m sorry— oh Seven, I’m so, so sorry…” Dunk choked out, his voice breaking, tightening his arm around you. “Forgive me, m’lady... I should never have left you alone. I’ve failed you… I let this happen to you.”
You clung to him like a lifeline, and Dunk held you just as tightly.
The very same night, you left the inn.
Before the sun had even begun to rise, Dunk had already secured a carriage. It cost more coin than he could comfortably spare, but he did not hesitate. All that mattered was getting you away from that place—and making sure you were cared for properly.
“Does it hurt?” he asked sadly as he tended to your injured wrist tenderly. His eyes flicked to yours, filled with worry.
“I’m fine, Ser Duncan,” you assured.
Still, every time you winced, Dunk’s brow would crease again, his mouth tightening with guilt as though the hurt were his doing.
And as if to make up for his sins, from that night onwards, he hardly left your side.
If you stood, Dunk stood with you. If you walked, he walked just half a step behind, watchful and alert. In taverns or markets, his sharp blue eyes lingered on any man who stared too long, his gaze hard enough to send most looking quickly away.
“Y-you’re scary,” a little boy once blurted in a busy market, staring up at him with wide eyes.
Dunk, already on edge and half expecting danger around every corner, merely glared down at him, and it sent the poor boy running.
“Ser Duncan, he’s just a kid...”
“No one’s getting within three feet of you, m’lady.”
. . .
One evening, the two of you sat beside a small roadside fire while the sky deepened into twilight. Dunk knelt beside you, carefully unwinding the bandage around your wrist to change the dressing.
“I’m a lunk,” he muttered, eyes focusing solely on the healing bluish bruise on your skin. “Thick as a castle wall, me. Should’ve listened when you said something felt wrong about that inn.”
You knew he felt very apologetic for what happened, but it wasn’t the first time you caught him thinking that out loud about himself, and it squeezed your heart every time he did.
When he was done tending to you, you found his gaze.
“No,” you said firmly.
Dunk blinked, surprised. You reached out with your uninjured hand, grabbing his arm so he would not look away.
“No,” you repeated. “You are not a lunk.”
His brows knit together, confusion flickering across his broad face.
“You’re a knight of the Seven Kingdoms. My knight,” you continued, your voice soft but certain. “The bravest—also the kindest—one I know. So do not ever say that you’re a lunk.”
For a moment, he simply stared at you. The fire crackled softly in front of you, the warm glow dancing in his blue eyes.
Something in his expression shifted then. You could almost see the insecurity that clouded his eyes faded with your words.
Slowly, Dunk squeezed your hand back. Then, very carefully—as if afraid he might overstep—he leaned forward.
His large hand came up to cradle the back of your head for just a moment, and he pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead.
It was brief. Tender. And full of a warmth that made your chest flutter.
When he pulled away, his ears had gone a little red, but there was a new steadiness in the way he looked at you now.
“Thank you, m’lady,” he murmured.
There were many things he wanted to say, but his breath caught when he found your mesmerizing gaze. I love you, his heart whispered. He hoped you knew that.
For the first time in days, Dunk’s shoulders seemed to sit a little straighter.
And though the road ahead was long and uncertain, he felt—perhaps for the first time—that maybe he truly was the knight you believed him to be.
