mdni!!! breeding kink + free use thoughts w/ titus danforth
titus danforth tracking your cycle with a clinical obsession. hiring the best ob/gyns in the world to monitor your fertility health. all female team, of course, titus danforth is the only man allowed to even breathe near it.
but when titus realise your in the prime window to breed; all hell breaks loose. you’re cockwarming him all night, him shifting inside of you as cum pools to the stained sheets. fucking you for hours; denying your orgasms again and again, him keeping you on the edge just for him to rip the pleasure right out of your reach.
titus’ favourite thing however? keeping you in the cabin just off the danforth grounds, breeding you whilst you do the most mundane of tasks. him pulling your panties to the side as you get dolled up to look pretty for him in your thigh highs and babydoll dress. the only noise in that room is the sound of flesh hitting each other, moans and the occasional “what’s that for, kitten?” from him as you excitedly show him what a product is for.
titus wouldn’t admit it, but you look so pretty bouncing on his cock as you attempt to do a winged eyeliner correctly <3
he doesn’t even look at your body with lust – more so anatomically, like how farmers look at a breeding cow. your tits? perfect for filling up with milk to feed his heirs. your hips? perfect to grab when you bounce up and down on his cock. even perfect for you to bear his heirs. your pussy? perfect to pump his loads in one after the other.
about: the day of your first hunt was the day titus decided you’d become mrs. danforth
warnings: 18+, violence, murder, wedding night smut, pinv, reader is a tease, spicy polaroids, use of good girl, lingerie, slight overstimulation, breeding kink
word count: 1977
a/n: titus deserves a wife who’s just as messed up as him
Titus had never believed in love.
He knew he’d have to marry eventually, produce an heir to carry on the family legacy. He’d find some advantageous match. Maybe he’d even be lucky and she’d entertain him enough. It wouldn’t be a marriage of love. Love had never been in the cards for a man like him, who’d had blood on his hands since the moment he was born.
But the moment he truly saw you, his mind had changed.
It had been a once-in-a-blue-moon kind of hunt where all the families had been invited. One sacrifice had been picked by Chester Danforth, who held the high seat. Each family had picked a representative for their family (or two, in the case of the twins).
This hunt was the first time your parents had allowed you to be the representative for your family. You’d been preparing for it your whole life. And you were eager to prove yourself.
Titus was eager for blood.
He’d split off from Ursula to cover more ground. And he’d thought it was his lucky night when he’d seen the trail of blood leading into the greenhouse. But instead of finding his prey, wounded and hiding, he found you, knife embedded in the man’s neck.
You didn’t even flinch as you pulled the blade out, blood spraying from the wound, across your face. There was only a proud glint in your eyes as the man crumpled to the ground.
Titus wanted to be angry. He’d wanted the kill for himself. But seeing you there, that look in your eye matching his own when he took a life, stole the very breath from his lungs. You were beautiful even with blood spattered across your cheek.
You finally looked up, meeting Titus’s eye.
You’d really only heard stories about him. While you socialized in the same circles, you’d had little interaction beyond a polite greeting at events you both were required to be at.
You shifted your weight from foot to foot. There was something heavy in his gaze, something you couldn’t quite decipher. But it made you nervous. And it made your stomach twist, heat curling between your legs.
He looked down at the body in between the two of you. He nudged his leg with a heavy boot, looking for any sign of life. When there was none, he grunted in approval. “Two hours,” he said. It had only taken you two hours to find and kill him. “Impressive.”
And from that moment forward, he knew he had to have you.
Two years later, you were only minutes away from truly being his forever – from becoming Mrs. Danforth.
You stood in front of the full length mirror, adjusting the lace of your veil. You’d kicked all of your bridesmaids out along with your mother. All you wanted was a moment of peace and quiet before the ceremony to calm your nerves.
You weren’t having second thoughts. Of course not. You were in love with Titus, desperately so. He completed you in a way you never thought was possible. Wedding planning had simply been taxing. And now that the day was finally here, it was catching up to you.
The sound of floorboards creaking pulled you from your thoughts. You glanced back, expecting it to be your mother telling you it was time. But it wasn’t. It was your groom.
“Titus, you know you aren’t supposed to see me beforehand,” you chided despite the smile tugging at your lips. It was like he’d known exactly what you needed before you even knew – him. His presence seemed to shut your brain up.
He shrugged. “That is a stupid tradition,” he said, stepping further into the room. His eyes roved over your dress, taking in the lace and beadwork with an appreciative hum.
“Tradition is important.” Once he was close enough your hands found their way to his chest, trailing upwards to adjust his bowtie. You pressed a chaste kiss against his lips. “Now you need to go before my mother realizes you’ve been in here and blows a gasket.”
“I’ll see you at the altar, Mrs. Danforth,” he whispered before finally pulling away.
Mrs. Danforth. The sound of that echoed through your brain as your father walked you down the aisle. There were a thousand eyes on you but the only pair you cared about were those hazel ones waiting for you.
“We are gathered here today,” the officiant started the ceremony.
You were practically buzzing with energy as you went through your vows. You were eager to be his wife, to be Mrs. Danforth. And soon enough he slipped the ring on your finger and you repeated the action on him. Your ‘I do’s’ were said.
“You may kiss the bride.”
And Titus did.
His hands cradled your face, holding you like you were something precious, before he kissed you hard. He didn’t care who was watching as he devoured you.
When he finally pulled away, you were both breathless. But he didn’t go far. He pressed his forehead against yours, eyes falling shut for just a moment.
“Mrs. Danforth,” he whispered, breath ghosting against your skin.
“Mr. Danforth.” You grinned. “Shall we?”
“We shall.”
The reception was perfect – just how you’d envisioned it.
The night was finally winding down. The first of the guests had begun to leave. The rest were scattered around the gardens, a few still on the dance floor, the rest mingling in groups.
Titus was sitting at your table, sipping on a glass of champagne. He looked around, searching for you. Every moment you’d been apart he’d spent looking at you. He couldn’t keep his eyes off of you. He watched intently as you conspired with your bridesmaids. You were clearly plotting something, all huddled together with hushed voices.
It was even more evident that you had something up your sleeve as you peeled off from the group, a little grin on your lips. You made a beeline for your now-husband.
“Hi,” you hummed as you sat next to him.
“What are you up to?” he asked, straight to the point as always.
“I have a surprise for you.”
“A surprise?”
“Yep,” you said, popping the ‘p’. “A surprise.”
“Hm.”
He eyed you, tracking your movements as you slid a polaroid, face down, towards him. He picked it up.
It was a photo of you, wearing white, lacy lingerie and the veil you currently had on. You were laying on his bed, ass up, back arched, with one hand stretched in front of you to show off your wedding ring.
Titus inhaled sharply at the sight, his pants suddenly feeling tight.
“D’you like it?” you asked.
“Of course I like it,” he gritted out. It took every ounce of his self control not to pull you out of that chair and haul you inside. “Now, be a good girl and say goodbye to your guests, then we’re going inside.”
You nodded eagerly, scrambling to your feet. He didn’t leave your side as the two of you made rounds, thanking your guests for coming. And the moment you were done? He was practically dragging you to the bedroom.
“Fuckin’ tease,” he muttered, coming up behind you after locking the door. He toyed with the neckline of your dress. “You have that set on under here?”
“Yes,” you replied breathlessly.
“Let’s get you out of this, yeah?”
His hands meticulously undid the laces and buttons. If it were any other article of clothing, he wouldn’t bother. He’d have already ripped it off of you. But this was your wedding dress – the one you’d spent months grueling over. You’d probably suffocate him in his sleep if he ruined it.
You stepped out of the dress as it pooled around your ankles. Titus picked it up, draping it across one of the chairs.
“Get on the bed.”
The silk comforter was cool against your back as you laid down. Titus approached slowly, like a predator sizing up his prey. He nudged your thighs apart. His eyes locked onto the wet spot on those lacy white panties of yours. They were practically see through now that you’d soaked them thoroughly.
“Got yourself all worked up, huh?” He pulled your panties to the side. “Fuck, she’s dripping for me.”
Your hips shifted unconsciously, seeking friction from those thick fingers of his. He rolled his eyes at the impatience but he decided to be nice. It was your wedding night after all. So he dragged a finger through your slick.
He pulled a breathless noise from your lips as he finally sunk one finger into your aching hole. He pumped it slowly. In and out.
He pushed a second finger in, moving them in a ‘come-hither’ motion. Your head fell back against the pillows, his fingers curling against the spot that always had you seeing stars. He moved his fingers languidly, enjoying the feeling of your silky walls wrapped around him.
“Titus,” you whined his name, hips bucking into his hand. “Please!”
“Please, what?” he asked, voice dripping with condescension. “Gotta tell me what you want, honey.”
“Want more.” He clicked his tongue. “Want your cock, please.”
“That’s better,” he crooned.
He pulled his fingers from your cunt, bringing them up to your mouth. You opened up, licking your own arousal off his hand. With his free hand he worked open his pants, pushing them down far enough to free his aching cock. He hissed as your hand wrapped around him.
You stroked him a few times, before lining his tip up with your entrance. His hips finally met your own. He pulled one of your legs over his shoulder, letting him slip even further in. The other he hooked around his waist.
Each roll of his hips punched the air from your lungs. Nails dug into his broad shoulders in an attempt to ground yourself.
“Fuck,” he groaned. The sound of skin against skin and moans filled the room. “So fuckin’ perfect. Such a good wife.”
His hand slipped between your thighs, thumb landing on your engorged clit. He rubbed slow circles against the bundle of nerves. He could feel you clench around his length with every pass of his finger.
“‘m gonna cum,” you said.
“Cum for me, honey. Wanna feel you milk my cock.” His hips moved faster, trying to push you over the edge. And with a few more well angled thrusts he had the knot in your tummy snapping. But he didn’t stop, even as you began to squirm from the overstimulation.
“Titus–” With his name on your lips, it didn’t take long for him to follow you over the edge, spilling inside of you.
He stayed there, savoring the warmth of your cunt around his cock for a moment longer, before finally pulling out. You cringed as his cum spilled out of you, dirtying the sheets beneath you.
Once you’d caught your breath, you started to move, but he clamped his hands down on your hips, keeping you still.
“Titus,” you drawled. “‘m all sticky.”
“You can’t move yet. Gotta let it take.”
You raised an eyebrow. But he wasn’t even looking at you. He was completely transfixed, eyes on your weeping cunt. He lifted your hips slightly, putting a pillow under you to stop his cum from leaking out.
He finally looked back up at you. “Don’t you want t’give me a baby, honey?”
Oh. Heat crept through your body at his words.
Finally, you managed to nod.
“Then we gotta start trying now.” You shifted slightly, already getting worked up all over again at the thought. Titus grinned at the movement. “Does my wife like that? Y’want me to fill you up again? Make certain you get pregnant, honey?”
pairing: dad's best friend!titus danforth x female reader
summary: you lose a game you didn't even realize you were playing.
warnings: 18+ content (minors dni!!!), arranged marriage, dubcon, unspecified age gap, referenced devil worship, smut, piv sex, brief painful sex, wedding night sex, unprotected sex, creampie, cockwarming, breeding kink, dirty talk, possessive sex, possessive behavior, marriage kink, pet names, stockholm syndrome, happy-ish ending?
word count: 2.4k
a/n: i've been struggling to write/finish anything since i posted my chef jack abbot fic, but then the first line of this fic popped into my head and i knew i had to write it. i did not expect to write for titus before pope but i just haven't found the right inspiration yet i guess! this isn't really fleshed out to my normal standards but it's a fun, smutty little read and i hope y'all enjoy it!!
You never thought you'd marry Titus Danforth.
For one, he was your father's best friend.
For another, he was so much older than you.
For a third, you'd already rejected his proposal.
But most of all, you never thought you'd marry Titus Danforth because he was the man responsible for damning your family to hell.
Your father had met Titus when you were in college, and the two had become fast friends. By the time you'd graduated, your father had pledged his undying loyalty—and that of your family—to Mr. Le Bail and his High Council.
In the months and years that followed, you came to learn more about the council as a network of rich and powerful people who helped each other out. It was during this time when you met Titus and his twin sister Ursula.
They were both polite, but when Titus looked at you, there was something covetous and hungry in his eyes; it made you feel like a prey animal being stalked by a predator.
Still, you remained cordial with the Danforths because they were close with your father.
That is, until Titus proposed to you, and you discovered the truth about who, or rather what, Mr. Le Bail was. Then, you ran.
You cut ties from your entire family, changed your name, and moved to some backwater town in the middle of nowhere. For a long time, you lived in fear, thinking your family or one of the Danforths—or Mr. Le Bail himself—were going to show up at your door.
But eventually, your fear settled down, you became complacent, and you set down some roots. Not too many—you didn't date and you never got too close to any of your friends, but you made a life for yourself. It was a half-life, but it was yours.
Until it wasn't.
Until the day that Titus Danforth appeared on your doorstep and you learned you'd never escaped after all. The High Council had known where you were all along, but they'd been delayed in coming to fetch you because your father had assured them you would return one day.
But their patience had grown thin and you knew too much to shirk your duties to Mr. Le Bail. As a daughter of a council member, you were expected to marry and reproduce, to create progeny to continue worshipping Mr. Le Bail and do his bidding in the world.
It was only your father's assurances that you would submit to your duties that saved your life. It was decided that you would marry Titus Danforth, the only member of the High Council who had not yet taken a wife.
You were dragged, kicking and screaming, to the Danforth estate for your wedding. You refused to see your father or any member of your family, so you were stuffed unceremoniously into your pristine white wedding gown by the Danforths’ attendants.
The wedding itself was a small affair, only attended by the closest members of the High Council, and your family. Your father walked you down the aisle to keep up pretenses but as he handed you off to Titus, you turned to him, caught his eye through your thin, white veil, and hissed your parting words to the man who'd given you life.
"I'll never forgive you for this."
Titus smirked at your father as he took your hand in his, looking for all the world like a man who'd won a game no one else knew they were playing. He led you the final few steps up to the altar, ducking his head slightly to speak in your ear.
"I always knew I'd be the one to get you."
It was then that you realized the depth of Titus's deception. After you’d rejected his proposal, he'd conspired for years to make sure you still ended up marrying him. And you'd played right into his hand. You'd given him everything he needed—leverage over your father, a way to steal you from your family, and worst of all, he'd gotten Mr. Le Bail's blessing to do it.
You spent the signing of the book and the wedding ceremony cursing yourself for being so naive, barely paying attention to the lawyer’s words about devotion and duty. You were so deep into your self-recrimination, you barely noticed when Titus turned to you and began lifting your veil. It took all your effort to maintain control of your face and give your soon-to-be husband a look of disdain.
It didn't seem to bother Titus in the least. That covetous, hungry look was plain as day on his face as he stared at your mouth. He barely waited for the lawyer to give him permission before he was grabbing your face and pulling you toward him.
Titus's mouth crashed against yours, and your traitorous body reacted instantly—your belly swooping and a hot, pulsing throb beginning between your thighs. You tried to gasp for air only for Titus to kiss you harder, his tongue invading your mouth and staking his claim so vehemently, it made your knees week.
It was bad enough how good his mouth felt on yours, but the sounds he made, like he was a starving man eating his first meal in years, had lust blooming disloyally in your body.
Your new husband devoured you voraciously, licking into your mouth and stealing the breath from your lungs until you were dizzy and dazed, wobbling so badly on your feet that when he finally pulled away, you collapsed against his chest.
Titus's arms wrapped around your waist, crushing you to him like a child might hold a toy he worried someone might steal from him. His head lowered until his mouth brushed the shell of your ear, making you shiver in his tight hold.
"And now, you're all mine."
Those words echoed in your head as you went through the motions for the rest of the ceremony and reception. While you shook hands and accepted the congratulations of your family and the High Council, all you could hear was the feral possessiveness in Titus's voice.
It shocked you how much you didn't hate it.
You only returned to yourself when the door to Titus's suite at the estate clicked shut, the lock sliding into place with a resounding thud, like the period on the end of a sentence. It marked the end of your old life—and the beginning of your new one.
Titus was on you before you could even turn around or get your bearings. His hands grabbed your hips and spun you to him, his lips claiming yours even more ferociously than they did at the wedding ceremony. He walked you backward until your legs hit the bed, tearing the bodice of your dress so he could reach inside and palm your tits.
Desire warred with disgust in your body, though you didn't fight your husband as he pushed you down onto the bed and climbed on top of you. Titus's eyes glittered with a darkness that had your heart beating faster, your pulse pounding between your thighs when his expression turned greedy and he took his time looking his fill.
You were splayed on the bed beneath him, your tits out, chest heaving from all the breath he'd stolen during his kisses. But that wasn't enough for your new husband. He growled his frustration, got down from the bed and began ripping the skirt of your dress to shreds, until you were bared entirely for him from the waist down.
All of a sudden, you realized the error in your judgement when you'd gotten dressed. Along with the wedding gown, a set of lacy lingerie had been set out for you, and you'd chosen to forgo wearing it. But that meant that when Titus tore through your dress, all that was left was you.
At least you didn't seem to disappoint your new husband.
Titus's hazel eyes blazed bright and hungry as his gaze raked ravenously over your body, taking in the curves of your hips, the plushness of your thighs and line of your legs. His hands settled on your knees, and with surprising gentleness, he eased your thighs open for him, a low, feral growl rumbling in his chest when he laid his eyes upon the delicate petals of your sex.
"This is mine," Titus snarled, his eyes flicking up to yours as if he expected you to protest. His hand cupped your pussy, his palm cool against your heated core, his wedding ring hard and unyielding against your soft, naked flesh. "All of you belongs to me now, but this, especially, is mine."
All you could do was nod mutely, but that didn't seem to be good enough for your new husband, because his face contorted into a furious glare. It was obscene how hot he looked when he was angry, his eyes sharp and narrow as a blade.
"Did you hear me, wife?"
You nodded more vigorously, rushing to say, "Yes—yes, husband. It's yours, I'm yours.” The words babbled out of you so easily, it felt like a betrayal as much as a submission to your new husband.
You'd never thought, all those years ago when you first met him, that you would marry Titus Danforth. Nor did you ever think you'd submit so easily to him as his wife. But that was exactly what you did on your wedding night.
It took very little effort to allow Titus to climb on top of you, to take his cock out when he ordered you, to line up the tip of his thick shaft with your entrance. It took embarrassingly little effort to spread your thighs wide around Titus's broad body and accept his cock into your cunt.
Your new husband pushed deep into your pussy with one thrust, stretching you so quickly that it stung, even as it felt deliriously good to be filled. He claimed your body as wholly as he'd claimed your mouth, wringing a cry from your lips that he swallowed down greedily.
Every part of you—your pleasure, your pain—it all belonged to him.
Without giving you time to adjust, Titus set a savage pace, fucking you into his bed with your wedding dress in tatters around you. He was still mostly dressed, an ascot tied around his neck, his jacket buttoned tight and his pants only undone enough to free his cock. It was as if all that mattered to him had been getting inside you, claiming you, and once he'd started, he couldn't stop.
You held on tight to your new husband as he fucked you, his mouth breaking away from yours only to whisper filthy things in your ear—things about how he was going to use your body in every way he wanted. He was going to bend you over his father's desk, claim you in his sister's bed, set you free in the woods around the estate so he could chase you down and ravage you on the forest floor.
And every time he'd fuck you, he promised, he'd cum deep inside your cunt, right against your cervix, until he knocked you up. He was going to fill you with his seed until it took, and you were going to give him an heir.
But not just the one. Oh no. That wasn’t enough.
On your wedding night, while Titus fucked you for the first time, your new husband vowed that he would keep you pregnant until you gave him a whole horde of children—a whole new generation of Danforths who would serve Mr. Le Bail and carry on the family legacy.
And the worst part was, you'd always wanted a big family.
Your heart squeezed with yearning at the thought of having so many children to love and dote on. It no longer mattered that those children's father would be a man who'd manipulated you into marrying him. All that mattered was that Titus wanted them to, and that he promised to be a good father to them—better than his had ever been.
"Cum on my cock, sweet wife. Let your husband fill you up, let me knock you up. Make me a daddy and I'll give you the world, pretty girl. I'll be such a good dad, such a good husband, just give me an heir."
Titus slipped his hand between your bodies, pressing down on your lower belly and making you cry out as you felt his cock pound into your cunt more acutely. He felt thicker and bigger than before. With more rasping, filthy commands, his thumb found your clit and rubbed, rubbed, rubbed until you saw stars.
The whirlwind of your pleasure built in your body until it unleashed, sending you spiraling through a torrent of euphoria as you came. Your cunt clenched tight around Titus's cock and he grunted, fucking you through your release as he chased his own, finding it a few moments later.
True to his word, Titus spilled deep in your pussy, your inner muscles milking him dry as your body conspired with your new husband to give him the child both of you so desperately wanted.
Once he was wrung out, Titus collapsed on top of you. His weight was a delicious blanket, and your mind was delightfully blank after such an obliterating orgasm. That was the only reason you could think of for why your hands found Titus's hair and your fingers began carding through his silver curls.
You barely knew what you were doing until he gave a pleased rumble. His cheek was pillowed on your breast and he shifted, taking your nipple into his mouth and sucking gently, sending little sparks of desire down between your thighs.
"You'll see," he mumbled, his eyes slowly sliding closed, his softening cock still buried in your body. "It's not so bad to be mine."
You held your husband close, taking shelter in his warmth as the contentment from your release abated and you were left with the cold, hard truth of your life. For better or worse, you were married to Titus Danforth, and you had pledged your soul to Mr. Le Bail. The life you'd wanted was gone.
You never thought you'd marry Titus Danforth, but here you were. His wife. The only thing you could do was make the best of it. So that was what you'd endeavor to do.
And it turned out, your husband hadn't been lying—it wasn't so bad belonging to him.
thank you for reading!! reblogs and comments are appreciated! ♡♡♡
Summary: You return to the Danforth estate after your mother’s death, carrying the letter she left for Chester. You spent your formative years on the estate as the housekeeper’s child, never part of the family but never entirely outside it either. Coming back after years away makes it impossible to ignore the things you’ve always suspected… and have spent years convincing yourself weren’t real.
Warnings: SMUT (MDNI 18+) loss of a parent, grief, brief mention of alcoholism, language, implied age gap, very headstrong reader (shes fucking sassy and I love her), socioeconomic class differences, bickering, intellectual sparring (basically so much sexual tension), competence kink? alcohol, titus is soooo down bad for you (and very confused over it), male masturbation, i think that’s it?
A/N: Titus needs so much more love. I worked from home this week (which means I was bad and spent time writing this instead). I wrote this in a way where anything 'revealed' in this story is in the trailer / general lore implied from the trailer, and / or discussed in the first movie. However, I’ll label this as smidge spoilers just in case. This beautiful GIF found HERE. dividers by @saradika-graphics
Masterlist | You're reading Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | FINAL PART
Manhattan, New York – Columbia University
The room was already half full when students noticed the board. In thick, deliberate chalk strokes, you’d written:
HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER
The chatter died instantly. A few students exchanged looks. One whispered, "Is this… still Philosophy 482?"
You chuckled and tapped the board once with the chalk, standing at the front, hands folded behind your back, watching the rest of the class settle into their seats.
Finally, a student raised her hand.
"Professor… what exactly is today’s topic?"
"Exactly what you see," you simply gestured toward the board, and a ripple of laughter moved through the room. "This is the beginning of our next unit. For the first half of the semester, we’ve been laying the groundwork with the psychology of decision‑making, but for the next few weeks, we’re going to discuss power and what people will do to keep it. The ethics of secrecy. The morality of fear. And the rituals societies create to justify the unjustifiable."
You erased the word MURDER with a slow, deliberate swipe.
Underneath it, you wrote:
MORAL COMPROMISE
"Let’s begin," you said. "Would you sacrifice a person to maintain wealth, status, or influence?"
A student in the front row frowned. "Most people wouldn’t sacrifice anyone for status. That’s not normal."
"Who’s to say what’s normal?" you challenged. "Most people don’t have status to lose. Power changes the moral landscape. When the stakes rise, so does the willingness to rationalize the unthinkable."
"Is this just about corruption?" another student asked.
"Corruption is such a small word for such a large phenomenon. I’m talking about the stories powerful groups tell themselves. The rituals they cling to. The lines they cross because they believe no one will ever hold them accountable," you said.
Another student leaned forward. "Rituals? Like… actual rituals?"
"Every powerful group has rituals. Some are harmless. Some are… less so. But all of them serve the same purpose: to create loyalty through fear, secrecy, or shared belief," you answered.
A student in the back raised his hand slowly. "Are you saying some people would actually hurt someone to keep their status?"
"I’m saying," you replied, "that throughout history, people have done far worse for far less."
A murmur passed through the room. Then the boldest student (the one who always asked what everyone else was thinking) raised his hand.
"Do you believe there are people out there sacrificing people?"
You walked back to the board, underlined MORAL COMPROMISE, and turned back to the class.
"Belief is irrelevant. What matters is that throughout history, powerful groups have used myths, rituals, and fear to maintain control and make others afraid to question them." You let your gaze drift toward the window. "Whether the stories are true or not is less important than the mere fact that the power of the story is real."
A couple of students traded glances, clearly unsure what to make of your statement. One student lowered their head and began scribbling something quickly in the margin of their notebook.
You picked up the chalk again and wrote on the board:
THE ETHICS OF POWER
"Now," you said, turning back to them, "let’s discuss."
You were about to launch into the first discussion question when the classroom door opened without a knock.
Every head turned.
Your aunt stepped inside, still in her coat, hair slightly windblown, and her eyes darted around the room as if she wasn’t entirely sure how she’d gotten there.
"I need to talk to you," she said abruptly. It stopped you cold. Your aunt was the type to apologize for interrupting a voicemail, the type to ease into every conversation with a dozen gentle qualifiers. For her to cut straight to the point like that… something was wrong.
You turned back to the students. "Everyone, I’m sorry, I need to step out for a moment."
Your aunt was already backing toward the hallway, and you followed her out of the classroom, letting the door fall shut behind you.
"I’ve been calling you all morning," she whispered, voice trembling slightly. "You didn’t answer."
"I’ve been in back‑to‑back classes," you said. "I haven’t even had a break. What’s going on?"
"I was having breakfast with your mom," she swallowed, eyes glistening.
"Okay… and?"
Your aunt took a breath that shook on the way out.
"She had a heart attack."
The moment the package arrived, it didn’t feel real at first. It was too small, too ordinary-looking for what it contained. A cardboard box, the kind that could’ve held books or kitchenware. But you knew. Your hands knew before your mind did, and they went stiff.
You carried it inside like it might break, even though it was the heaviest thing you’d ever held.
Inside the box was the urn you’d chosen. She’d been clear about that for years. Don’t bury me. Don’t put me in the ground. She’d told you once, in a rare moment of unfiltered honesty, that watching her father lowered into the ground had carved something into her. Still, opening the container and seeing the ashes and knowing that this was what remained of the woman who raised you… it hit like a second heart attack. One for her, one for you. You sat there with the urn for a long time, not crying or anything, just sitting with it while the silence settled around you like dust.
You kept the memorial small because you knew she would’ve hated anything grand or performative. It was just a handful of close friends and the few relatives who actually mattered. Your father (who you hadn’t seen since you were a child) had wanted to come, but you asked him not too, especially when you heard him slurring over the phone call. It seemed he still loved his vodka. Having your alcoholic father basically a fucking sperm donor was not something you needed at the memorial. You didn’t say much that day. You didn’t need to. People shared stories…the kind that made your grief feel like a warm ache instead of a blade. Someone brought her favorite pastries. Someone else read a poem she used to quote.
At the end, you opened the urn and let the wind take a handful of her. It lifted the ash gently, almost tenderly, scattering it through the sunlight. It felt right. It felt like giving her back to something bigger than the body that failed her.
What people don’t tell you about death is that once the shock fades, you’re left with a stack of practical tasks that feel almost insulting in their normalcy. There’s no space to fall apart because there are passwords to track down, accounts to close, forms to sign, and strangers on customer‑service lines asking you to "verify the deceased’s date of birth." Every conversation feels like sandpaper. Every checkbox feels like a betrayal. But you keep going because someone has to.
You spent the next month sorting through her things, making phone calls, and canceling subscriptions she never got around to canceling herself. You met with the realtor to put her apartment on the market, walking through rooms that still smelled like her shampoo. The realtor talked about square footage and comps while you nodded along, pretending you were fine.
At one point, you were sitting in her small home office, going through drawers when you found an envelope tucked beneath a stack of utility bills. Written in her handwriting was a letter addressed to Chester Danforth.
You hadn’t seen him in a long time. Honestly, you hadn’t seen any of the Danforths in years. Your mother had retired 5 years ago, but she had worked for the Danforths for a long time. She had gotten the job when you were 14 and became their live‑in housekeeper, and you moved in with her. The estate sprawled like a fortress with endless echoing hallways, too many locked doors, and grounds so vast they needed their own staff just to keep the place from swallowing itself.
Chester was the patriarch of the family. He was a frightening man with a quick-tempered kind of presence that made a room feel smaller the moment he walked into it. People stepped carefully around him, including his own children. The twins were older than you, so you mostly saw them on holidays, during the occasional family meetings that required everyone’s presence, or on those 'hunting trips' the Danforth trio treated like sacred tradition. However, he treated you like a bonus child, but not in some warm, fatherly way. Chester wasn’t affectionate. He didn’t ask about your day or sit you down for heart‑to‑hearts. His kindness showed up in more transactional ways: offering to put you in a private school during high school, covering your college tuition, and making sure you had what you needed until you graduated from Princeton. It was an odd dynamic—being poor but living inside someone else’s wealth, benefiting from it without ever belonging to it.
The older you got, the more the imbalance of it all started to bother you. You didn’t want to be someone’s charity case, or worse, you didn’t want to owe him anything…not gratitude, not loyalty, and not a place in your life. So you pulled away after college and kept your distance. Your mother stayed on the estate long after you moved out, so she’d still pass along the occasional update...nothing dramatic, just the usual household gossip, but it was enough to remind you why you’d stepped away. There was something about that family that had always unsettled you. You always had the feeling that getting too close meant getting pulled into something you’d never fully understand.
You held the envelope for a long moment, thumb resting on the sealed flap. It would’ve been so easy to slip a finger under the edge and tear it open. You tilted the envelope toward the light, as if that would help you see through it. But then, just as you started to lift the flap, you heard your mother’s voice in your head, the way she sounded when she was laying down a rule she expected you to follow. If something isn’t meant for you, leave it alone. She’d said that to you once when you were a kid, and it stuck.
Whether you wanted to or not, you knew what you had to do.
It was time to go back to the estate and deliver the letter your mother never sent.
Newport, Rhode Island
Ursula yanked the door open like she was already annoyed at whoever dared knock. Her eyes swept over you once, unimpressed.
"You look like shit," she said, voice flat as a cutting board.
"Nice to see you too," you replied. The real surprise was that she answered the door herself. This was a house with enough staff to field a small army. She, of course, looked as flawless as ever with her blonde hair twisted into a perfect bun, makeup sharp, and wearing an outfit that probably cost more than your entire yearly salary.
She didn’t move aside, just stared at you like she was trying to place a face from an old yearbook. "What are you doing here? I haven’t seen since—"
"That night," you said, and Ursula’s mouth twitched.
"God. No wonder you look terrible. That was years ago."
"Not all of us can afford Botox."
"It’s preventative," she shot back.
"Where’s your father?"
"In his study." She glanced behind you, scanning the empty porch. "Is your mother with you?" The question came out a little too quickly, Ursula’s green eyes flicking past you with an eagerness she didn’t bother disguising. For a second, she actually looked hopeful, like your mother might materialize out of thin air with a polite smile and a casserole.
"If you see her, let me know. That’d be impressive," you said as you stepped past her into the foyer.
"Why?"
"Because she’s dead."
"What the fuck do you mean?" Ursula’s face went slack.
You exhaled, already exhausted. "Exactly what it sounds like." And then you gave her the short version.
Ursula blinked hard, processing. "A heart attack?"
"Yes."
"Fuck!"
Before you could respond, she grabbed your wrist and hauled you down the hallway, heels clicking like gunshots. She didn’t bother knocking when she reached the study; she just threw the door open.
"Excuse me," came Chester’s booming voice, and then his eyes landed on you. Surprisingly, he looked the same. And sitting across from him, turning slowly in his chair, was Titus. Ursula immediately cut to the chase, blurting out the news before you could stop her. Chester shot to his feet, with Titus rising a beat after him. It was odd. Titus hadn’t really changed, and yet he had. The gray suited him (annoyingly so), and it only sharpened the features that had always made him objectively attractive.
Chester asked when the funeral was, and you explained that there wasn’t going to be one, and that there had already been a small memorial.
Ursula’s head snapped toward you. "You didn’t invite us?"
In all the years you’d known her, you had never seen Ursula shed a single tear. Not once. But now her eyes glossed over (just for a second) before she jerked her chin up, refusing to let it fall.
Titus exhaled a quiet, dismissive scoff. "Ursula… she was the help." You turned to him immediately and gave him a look that made it unmistakably clear you were offended.
What a fucking asshole.
"I—excuse me," Ursula muttered, voice thin and breaking in ways she clearly hated. And then she spun on her heel and rushed out of the room, disappearing down the hallway before anyone could see whatever expression she was fighting to keep off her face.
Titus stood, straightening his jacket with a lazy flick. "I’ll go deal with her. Last thing we need is her mascara on the antique rugs." He took a few slow steps toward you, closing the distance. "Thanks for the update. Maybe if you’d told us about the memorial, we could’ve shown up and pretended to care." He leaned in just a fraction. "But, it was nice of you to spare us the travel. Very thoughtful."
And with that, Titus walked out after Ursula walked out after Ursula leaving Chester frozen in place and you still vibrating with the sting of his words.
Chester finally exhaled, the sound shaky, and lowered himself into the nearest chair like his bones had suddenly remembered their age. He rubbed a hand over his face, then looked up at you, and something in his expression softened.
"I’m sorry," he muttered. "She was a wonderful woman."
"Thank you," you murmured. "You look well," you added awkwardly, because you’d never been good at tiptoeing around feelings.
"It’s so like you to give me a compliment during a hard time. You haven’t changed at all." He tilted his head, studying you. "Are you okay? Do you need money?"
You rolled your eyes. "That’s not why I’m here."
"Well, I don’t know," he said, spreading his hands. "I haven’t seen you since that summer after you graduated from Princeton. You disappeared after Kip’s wedding."
Kip was Chester’s nephew and the twins’ cousin, close to your age, and he’d gone to prep school with you. He made your life miserable, telling everyone your mother was the maid. It was hard to make friends when the school’s golden boy treated you like gum on the bottom of his shoe.
"Kip’s wedding," you echoed. "I’d hardly call that a wedding."
"He did get married."
"For less than twenty‑four hours. And then his bride vanished."
"It’s not his fault his wife ran off with her ex."
"Whatever you say, Chester."
Your tone made it clear you didn’t buy that story for a second and that you knew something far more complicated and far more uncomfortable had happened that night.
And Chester knew you knew something.
"Well, I’m not here to go down memory lane," you said, cutting off whatever excuse Chester was about to reach for. "I’m here because I found a letter in my mother’s office. And I thought you would want this."
You reached into your bag and held it out.
Chester straightened a little, surprised, and took the envelope with both hands. He opened it carefully, smoothing the paper flat on his knee. You watched him read—watched the tiny shifts in his expression, and the way his eyes flicked back and forth faster at certain lines. When he finally reached the end, he folded the letter with deliberate precision and set it on the table beside him.
"Thank you…for bringing me this."
You nodded, but your eyes lingered on the envelope. You couldn’t help it. Something in the way he’d read it made you wonder what was inside. You didn’t pry, but the question settled in the back of your mind anyway, a small, persistent curiosity you tried to swallow down.
"I should go," you pushed yourself to your feet.
"Where are you going?"
"Back to New York."
“It’s the summer,” he said, as if that explained everything. "Aren’t you off?"
"Technically," you said. "I’m teaching 1 online course and doing research."
Your most recent research was exhausting, the kind of hyper‑specific niche work where every lead was a dead end, and every source felt like it had been written by someone who actively hated clarity.
He leaned back, studying you. "Stay."
"What? Why?"
"Why not?" he countered, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. Before you could argue, he added, "Why not stay a few weeks and take your mind off things?"
For a moment, you could almost see the version of him who snuck you extra dessert from the kitchen one day after a boy had called you ugly at school and you had punched him in the face.
"I don’t think Ursula and Titus want me here."
"Their reaction is fair. You know how much they adored your mother."
"Even Titus?"
"Especially Titus," Chester sighed.
You turned your gaze aside, jaw clenched. You had thought about inviting them. You’d even drafted the message multiple times, thumb hovering over the send button. But then the fear had crept in…
And you’d let that win.
The truth was, they had always treated your mother well. Better than well. She’d been the one person in this house everyone trusted. The one who could calm Ursula’s storms, the one who could coax a real smile out of Titus, and the one who could get Chester to eat something besides black coffee and stress. They’d adored her in a way that sometimes made you feel like you were the outsider.
"I fucked up," you said sincerely. "I’m sorry."
"I know you had your reasons," he grunted, the lines around his eyes easing. "The carriage home is under renovation." It was the place you and your mother stayed in when you lived here. "You know how small it is, so we’re expanding it. Adding a few things."
You almost snorted. It had three bedrooms, vaulted ceilings, a sunroom, and a kitchen larger than most apartments. 3500 square feet of "modest" living space, technically separate from the main house but still very much part of the estate. You had no idea what they could possibly be adding. A ballroom for the horses?
"But," Chester continued, gesturing vaguely toward the east side of the mansion, "the East Wing has more than enough rooms available. You’d be comfortable there." You took a small step back, instinctively creating space between you and the offer.
"I’ll… consider it."
Chester nodded once, accepting that as the closest thing to a yes he was going to get today.
A week later, you returned to the estate with your car and a single suitcase. You’d packed with precision—exactly two weeks’ worth of clothes, no more, no less. Staying longer felt like a stupid fucking idea.
The wait staff greeted you warmly, just as they always had with your mother, and carried your things through the East Wing to your room. The space was stunning. It was impossible not to feel a little disoriented by the beauty of the room. Chester wasn’t there since he was somewhere in Switzerland tied up in a board meeting or a summit he couldn’t skip…otherwise known as some fucking old white men's business you didn’t give a fuck about.
Your first task was making things right with Ursula. She accepted your apology in her own dramatic fashion: by calling you a shady bitch, grabbing her purse, and ordering you to drive her to her manicurist so she could fix a chipped nail. You didn’t argue. You drove her across town while she lectured you about the importance of cuticle oil, but only after she took one look at your beat‑up car, made a noise of pure horror, and whipped you the keys to her Bentley. She begged you to get a manicure once you both got there, but you declined, which earned you an eye roll. By the time you dropped her off at cocktails with her friends, you were reasonably sure you’d been forgiven. Or at least reinstated.
When you returned to the house, the late afternoon sun slanting through the hallways, you headed toward the kitchen, and found Titus. He stood at the counter, speaking with the chef about dinner preparations. Titus was specifying the exact marbling grade of the wagyu A5, from a particular farm outside Kobe, flown in from Tokyo that morning. He wanted it seared at a precise temperature, rested for a precise number of minutes, and sliced at a precise angle to preserve the integrity of the fat cap.
Then came the potatoes.
He was requesting a whipped potato so specific it sounded like a spell: Yukon Golds passed through a fine-mesh tamis three times, folded with cultured butter from Normandy, a splash of cream infused with roasted garlic and thyme, and finished with a drizzle of white truffle oil 'only if it’s the one from Alba, not the synthetic stuff.' He added something about the salt needing to be Maldon, not fleur de sel, because fleur de sel interfered with the texture.
The chef nodded along, clearly used to this level of specificity.
You were still trying to understand how mashed potatoes required international sourcing and a culinary dissertation when the chef finally noticed you standing in the doorway.
"Madame," he greeted warmly, "would you like some dinner as well?"
"Please don’t call me that," you said, stepping forward. You offered your hand and your name. "It’s extremely nice to meet you."
"Likewise," he shook your hand with a polite, practiced smile.
"I’ll make my own dinner," you added, glancing at the array of ingredients Titus had demanded. "You seem to have quite a meal to prepare tonight."
Titus’s head snapped toward you, his expression flattening into a slow, unimpressed glare. The chef gave a small, knowing nod and excused himself, heading toward the actual kitchen to begin the real work. This room was just the show kitchen.
You cleared your throat. "So… I guess we’re going to be roommates for a couple weeks."
"If you’re expecting me to roll out a welcome mat, you’re in the wrong house," he exhaled through his nose, sharp and irritated.
"Oh, trust me," you folded your arms, "I’m painfully aware of what house I’m in."
"You know, your mother never made things this complicated. She understood her place here."
"Her place?" you snarled.
"You may have been extended an invitation by my father, but it was done out of courtesy, not because you suddenly matter."
"Look… I know it's been a long time… but there’s no need to be such a dick."
His beautiful hazel eyes narrowed just slightly. "If you didn’t want the truth, you shouldn’t have come back."
"I can’t believe you’re still like this after all this time."
"Like what?"
"A petulant child pretending to be a man. Same old Titus. Snarky, spoiled, and convinced the sun rises just to shine on your trust fund." You pointed towards the other kitchen, exasperated. "And seriously—what was that? You could’ve just asked for a simple meal. Steak and mashed potatoes. That’s it. But no, with you it has to be a whole production. Three sauces, a garnish flown in from somewhere ridiculous, and wagyu that had to cross the entire Pacific so you can feel important." You shook your head, incredulous. "Jesus Christ, do you ever think about the fuel emissions from your dinners, or does the planet also exist to serve your palate?"
"Is this you trying to sound important?" He tilted his head, lips curling in a patronizing half‑smile. "I’d hate to see the unedited version."
"You walk around acting like you’re above everyone," you let out a short, disbelieving laugh, and threw your hands up, pacing a step away before turning back to him, "because you’re miserable, and you want everyone else to feel it too."
His nostrils flared like he was trying to breathe through the spike of anger. "I will not be spoken to like this in my house."
And maybe it was the long drive, or the exhaustion, or the way he was getting under your skin, but the words came out before you could stop them.
"Except it’s not your house. It’s Chester’s. You’re a forty‑something‑year‑old man still living at home with your daddy. Am I missing the part where I should be impressed?" You knew he probably owned his own multiple properties, but that was besides the point.
"I expected better material from you. That was lazy," his expression softened into something infuriatingly patient, like he was humoring a child, "and predictable."
"I can’t believe I was actually going to apologize to you."
"For what? Existing?"
"For not inviting you to the memorial."
"You didn’t want us there. Message received," his voice was flat, but the hurt underneath it was unmistakable.
"You’re right… I didn’t," you swallowed, and your fingers drifted to the counter beside you, tracing the edge of a decorative inlay—anything to keep your hands busy, anything to avoid looking directly at him while you said the next part.
"But my mother probably would have wanted all of you there... especially you. She had a soft spot for you," you admitted, eyes dropping to the pattern beneath your fingertips. "I’m sorry." The words felt strange in your mouth because he drove you insane, but you couldn’t pretend you hadn’t messed up. You kept your gaze on the counter, tracing the design again, slower this time. "I’ll stay out of your way while I’m here."
You pushed off the counter gently, your fingers slipping away from the cool surface, and took a step back, then another, as you moved toward the doorway.
You were infuriating.
It had been a few days, and you were doing a really good job of ignoring him, or at least pretending to. You didn’t look at him when he entered a room, and whenever he passed you in the hall, you didn’t acknowledge him at all. You didn’t even give him the satisfaction of a sarcastic remark. It was as if he wasn’t worth your attention.
He’d stomp around the estate, muttering under his breath, burning holes into your back every time you didn’t look at him. Titus didn’t understand why it bothered him so much, and the truth was, he was still furious about the way you’d spoken to him. No one talked to him like that…and no one ever had. You were lucky your mother was your mother because Titus had been this close to having all your shit tossed out onto the front steps, setting your car (or maybe even you) on fire, and telling you to fucking walk back to Manhattan.
But it was impossible not to notice you drifting through the house, as if you belonged there. You sat with the staff like you were one of them. Letting the chef teach you knife skills like you were some apprentice he’d taken a liking to. Chatting with the groundskeeper about soil acidity. Sitting with the new housekeeper over tea. And then there was Ursula… Ursula, who didn’t enjoy people. Ursula, who communicated mostly in dry comments and raised eyebrows. Ursula, who had once told a senator’s wife to "stop hovering, you’re blocking the light." But…now there was a spark of amusement in her eyes whenever you walked into a room. She’d mutter something under her breath, and you’d fire back without missing a beat, and Titus would catch the corner of her mouth twitching like she was fighting a smile.
He also didn’t fucking understand how you dressed like someone who’d wandered in from a bus stop, not someone who’d spent the formative years of her life in this house. Half the time, you wore soft, washed‑out t-shirts and jeans that were frayed at the hems. A canvas tote bag with a fading print instead of a designer purse. Shoes that looked like the same ones you still had in fucking high school.
Titus was cutting through the east hallway when he heard your voice before he saw you.
"…I don’t know if the argument holds anymore," you were saying to someone. "I’ve been trying to map the points for days, but the structure keeps collapsing because I can’t find the details I need. I’m starting to think I need to adjust the topic entirely." There was a soft murmur in response, something sympathetic. You let out a breath that sounded like defeat. "I just… I don’t want to scrap 4 months of work. But I can’t keep forcing something that isn’t working."
He finally rounded the corner and found you against the window, phone pressed to your ear, sunlight catching on a yellow sundress he’d never seen before. You looked… You looked beautiful. He’d noticed it the day he saw you in his father's study when you dropped the news about your mother. He hadn’t spent much time with you while you were in high school or college; you were simply the housekeeper's daughter that his father had decided to move in. Plus, when you went to Princeton, you had basically moved out yourself and only came back for holidays or summer breaks. He slowed without meaning to, and you glanced up mid‑sentence, eyes flicking to him.
"Hey, I—I have to go," you said quickly into the phone. "We’ll talk later."
You ended the call before the person on the other end could respond, like you were trying to hide the fact that he’d caught you in a moment you hadn’t meant to share.
"What’s wrong?" he asked.
You blinked, surprised he’d spoken to you at all. "Nothing."
"Right. You look like the picture of emotional stability."
You shot him a look, the kind that said don’t start, but he just raised an eyebrow, waiting. He wasn’t good at patience, but he could manage it long enough to call your bluff.
You sighed. "My most recent research is just… a pain in my ass."
"Tragic," he said dryly, leaning a shoulder against the opposite wall.
You rolled your eyes, and before he could say anything else, you reached for the laptop you’d left on the decorative side table and didn’t even look at him as you turned away.
Titus watched you go for half a second before pushing off the wall.
"What’s the actual problem?" he said behind you. He was trying to get you to keep talking…and that was the part you didn’t know yet: Titus didn’t ask questions unless he cared about the answer.
You turned just enough to look at him over your shoulder. "I told you. It’s fine."
"I might have a solution," he said, tone annoyingly self‑assured.
You turned fully this time, brows lifting, skepticism written all over your face. "Oh really?"
"Really."
"I’m examining the ritual life of the Carolingian court…8th to 9th century." You cleared your throat. "It’s… complicated. The documentation is sparse. Half the manuscripts are missing, and the ones that survived contradict each other. So I’m trying to reconstruct how the court actually used ritual to create legitimacy."
"Ritual?" he repeated.
"Yeah, that’s what my research is about. That’s what my entire career is about. Symbolic enactments of authority, legitimacy, continuity, and how political structures use ritual to make power feel real."
"So tell me," he said, deceptively casual, "when you say ritual… what exactly do you mean?” He took a slow step closer, gaze locked on yours. "Crowns and scepters?" A faint, sardonic lift of his brow occurred. "Coronations?"
"Rituals don’t have to be grand," you said, testing the words as you offered them. There was a deliberate edge to them, like you were choosing each word with care. "They can be as simple as… a game of hide‑and‑seek."
The moment the phrase left your mouth, Titus’s eyes flickered with a hint of suspicion, the subtle shift in his expression betraying his awareness. He tilted his head, a slow, measured smile playing on his lips, weighing your words and deciding whether you’d meant them the way they sounded. His gaze narrowed slightly, studying you with a calculated calm, but he’d heard exactly what you were implying. He knew you were testing him. And he was trying to decide how much to give back. You remained still, your posture poised and deliberate, not giving away any sign of nervousness. There was a quiet patience in your stance… an unspoken challenge lingering in the air.
"That’s an interesting example," he said.
"You’d be surprised how many rituals survive by being disguised as something harmless," you said. "Especially the ones meant to test people," you said, offering the next breadcrumb, watching to see if he’d follow it. Because he knew the two of you weren’t talking about Carolingian courts anymore.
"You’re right," Titus said, leaning back just slightly, like he was giving you space while still very much watching you. A slow, crooked smile tugged at one corner of his mouth—the kind that never reached his eyes. "This research is clearly out of my depths."
"Well, that’s refreshingly self‑aware of you," you tilted your chin up a little, lips pressing together like you were genuinely impressed.
He stepped away from you, down the hall. He didn’t rush, but he didn’t linger either. He needed space to think, to breathe, to get whatever that hide-and-seek comment had stirred up out of his head. When he reached a side door, he pushed it open and stepped outside. He exhaled, rubbed a hand over his jaw, and tried to make sense of the unease sitting in his stomach. Titus pulled out his phone and typed your name into Google. The Columbia directory loaded instantly, and your faculty profile appeared with your photo, your credentials, and your research.
Professor of Philosophy
Specializations: Political Theory, Symbolic Power, Ritual Studies
Research Interests:
– Structures of elite authority
– Hidden governance
– Ritual as social control
– Esoteric traditions in modern institutions
Education:
PhD in Philosophy: Social and Political Philosophy – Yale
MA in Philosophy: Ethics and Society – University of Cambridge
BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics – Princeton
Then he read the title of your dissertation at Yale, and then clicked on the abstract:
"Hidden Power: Esoteric Symbolism and Elite Ritual"
This dissertation shows how esoteric symbols and ritual traditions help elite groups preserve authority in the Western society. Rather than secrecy, their power comes from cultural continuity, shaping modern narratives of hidden influence and legitimacy.
He tapped the back arrow and returned to your main faculty page and kept scrolling.
Selected Publications:
– "The Architecture of Obedience: Ritual as a Mechanism of Social Order"
– "Inheritance and Initiation: The Unspoken Rules of Elite Continuity"
– "Games, Trials, and Tests: Symbolic Violence in Modern Ceremonial Practices"
He stopped for a moment, his eyes fixed on the list of titles in front of him. They were so exact, so precise, it almost felt like they were too on the nose. Titus finally lowered his phone slowly, his gaze drifting back to the picture of you he'd kept on his screen.
You knew something about his family… that much was clear.
And that was a problem.
"Oh my God, Titus. You’re panicking about nothing," Ursula groaned.
"It’s not nothing," he shot back. Yesterday, he had gone straight to his study, shut the door, and pulled up your faculty page again. What started as a quick skim turned into hours of reading, one tab opening another, each link pulling him deeper.
He read everything.
Every article you’d published. Every conference paper. Every footnote, every citation, every obscure reference. Then he opened your dissertation. Two hundred pages of dense theory, historical analysis, and symbolic interpretation, and he read it cover to cover. If he were honest with himself, maybe his dick got hard reading it. You were smart (undeniably and unavoidably smart) and competent in a way that commanded attention. By the time he reached the final chapter, the sky outside had already started to lighten. When Ursula found him, he was still in the same chair, still staring at the same paragraph he’d been rereading for twenty minutes.
Ursula pinched the bridge of her nose. "It’s a coincidence."
"No, it’s not," he growled.
She sighed dramatically, like he was exhausting her on purpose. "Fine. You’re right. It’s not a coincidence… But," she added, holding up a finger, "you said that nothing she’s written or produced alludes anything about the High Council. So clearly she doesn’t know everything."
Titus stared at her. "That’s your reassurance?"
"Yes," Ursula said, completely unbothered. "Because if she did know everything, she wouldn’t be fucking alive. Father has been following her career for years, and he’s never felt threatened by it."
A muscle feathered in his jaw. "You knew about this?"
"Of course I knew."
"Why didn’t you tell me?"
"You should’ve known sooner," she scowled. "Her mother talked about her constantly when she was in school… which was for like 500 fucking years. Every degree, every fellowship, every paper—God, it was endless."
"I wasn’t listening," Titus frowned.
"Well, that’s your problem," Ursula said, shrugging. "Her mother told us she was getting a philosophy degree. Then another one. Then another one. And Father kept tabs on her the whole time."
"He kept tabs?"
"Yes," Ursula said, rolling her eyes. "Because of her mother. And because… you know." She gestured vaguely. "That night… at Kip’s wedding."
He hadn’t thought about that night in years. In his defense, after so many hunts over the years, they all started to blend together. He remembered coming downstairs the morning after the wedding, and you were already in the foyer, suitcase zipped, coat on, looking like you’d been awake for hours. He’d stood on the stairs, unseen, watching as you thanked Chester for his hospitality and kindness over the last few years. Then you walked out the front door, got into the car waiting for you, and by the end of the week you were in the UK.
"Are you sure we don’t need to take care of her just in case?" Titus turned his head towards his sister, and the look he gave her said everything.
"Yes, I’m sure. She’s a philosopher, Titus. They write about power structures and rituals all the time because they’re bored and underpaid."
"She’s not bored," he rumbled.
"No. She’s not. But she’s also not writing exposés on the High Council. So until she does? Who fucking cares?"
Titus dragged a hand through his hair. "She knows enough to be dangerous."
"Everyone knows enough to be dangerous. You’re just upset she got under your skin."
"She didn’t get under my skin."
"Mm‑hmm," she hummed, unconvinced.
Titus glared at her, but she only smirked.
"Relax," Ursula said, trying to calm him down. "She’s observant, but she’s not omniscient. If she knew the whole picture, she wouldn’t be dropping hints. She’d be fucking running."
Titus was behind the bar the next night, pouring himself a whiskey he absolutely needed. The house was quiet, the kind of quiet that made his thoughts louder, and he’d just taken a drink when the door swung open hard enough to make the bottles rattle.
You walked in, furious.
"What is this?" you demanded, holding your phone out. Titus didn’t answer… He took another slow sip, set the glass down, and only then reached for your phone.
Subject: Resources for Carolingian Research
Dear Professor,
It’s a pleasure to meet you. My brother has done business with the Danforth’s for years, and Titus mentioned that you are currently conducting research on the ritual life of the Carolingian court. He thought I might be able to assist. I’ve attached several items that may be useful to your work. I hope they prove helpful as you continue developing your project.
A colleague of mine, Dr. Adams, is spending the semester teaching at Peking University; this area happens to be his specialization. I’ve CC’d him here in case you have additional questions or would like further materials.
Your credentials are impressive. If your schedule allows, we would be delighted to host you as a guest lecturer at some point this year. Your philosophical background complements Dr. Adams' historical approach particularly well. Interdisciplinary work is often where the most interesting insights emerge.
Warm regards,
Dr. Barnes,
University of Sydney
Department of History
Titus skimmed it once, then handed your phone back and picked up his whiskey again. "Am I supposed to be having a reaction? Why are you freaking out?"
"Because—" you shoved the phone toward him again, as if he hadn’t read it properly the first time. "Because I don’t understand how they have access to this. These manuscripts aren’t even digitized. They’re not public. They’re not—" You broke off, breath catching. "This isn’t possible."
"Maybe it’s not as impossible as you think."
"No, it is," you snapped. "This is impossible. These sources don’t circulate. They don’t leave the archive. People have been trying to get access to these things for years. And suddenly, some guy in Sydney just—just emails them to me?"
He tapped the bar with one finger, casual, almost bored. "Maybe Australians are smarter than Americans and can locate things more easily. I don’t know."
"Why did you contact him?"
"Because you needed help," Titus said, as if it were obvious. "His brother owed me. He’s a historian with access. You needed sources. It wasn’t complicated." He lifted his glass again.
"I didn’t need your help."
He raised an eyebrow. "You didn’t need access to the sources you’ve been trying to find for months?"
"That’s not the point."
"It’s exactly the point," Titus set his glass down softly, leaning a little forward, eyes now sharp and attentive.
You crossed your arms. "I didn’t need the help from you."
"Oh yes. God forbid you accept help from me."
"I didn’t ask for it, and I certainly don’t want help from a selfish and self-centered individual."
In just a week, Titus had learned to read the progression of your frustration—from the flicker of your lips to the furrow between your brows. He hated admitting that whenever you were pissed off, your eyes would devour him just enough to leave him craving more. He liked it. He enjoyed the thrill he got from being the reason you became rude when you were so nice to everyone else.
"You know, people use connections to get ahead, and you’re acting like using a connection is dirty. It’s not. That’s how the world works."
"Not my world."
"Where do you get off acting morally superior about this?" he chuckled quietly, a low, almost amused sound.
You opened your mouth to retort, but Titus cut you off with a quick raise of his hand. "You grew up in the Danforth bubble, whether you like it or not," he said. "Just because you ran away doesn’t mean you didn’t benefit from connections your entire life. But the second I use one on your behalf, suddenly it’s unethical?"
"That’s not what I—"
"It is," he cut in. "You’re fine with privilege as long as it’s invisible. The moment it has a name attached, you panic."
"So maybe," he said calmly, "stop yelling at me for having helped you."
And while you never said it out loud (not even to yourself on the worst days), you knew the truth: the life you had now existed because of the opportunities Chester Danforth had handed you when you were too young to understand their weight.
Being a philosophy professor at Columbia with a whole string of letters after your name still felt surreal sometimes. You were a Doctor, taught in bright classrooms, published in journals, sat on panels, and lived a life built on ideas and arguments, and the luxury of time to think. You’d worked fucking hard to get there, no question about that, but the door had been opened for you long before you ever reached it because Chester had invested in your education. Admitting that felt like swallowing glass, and it felt like acknowledging a debt you’d spent years trying to outrun.
"My mother always said I had too much pride to admit when I was wrong," you finally said.
"Then we’re both guilty. What I said about your mother… I shouldn’t have said it." The guilt has been pulsing in his wrists, turning his veins black. "About her just being the help. She was obviously so much more than that. I’m sorry."
The words hung there, raw and exposed, pulling at the thread of tension between you. His eyes locked on yours, dark and searching, the confusion from before twisting into something deeper—a pull that made his chest tighten, his body aware of every inch of space separating you.
A few tears escaped your eyes, and Titus stood there, frozen, his broad shoulders tense under the dim light of the room. He wasn't good at this…with emotions crashing like waves he couldn't shoot or outrun. His hands flexed at his sides, unsure whether to reach out or pull back, because he knew he wasn’t the best at comforting people.
You stepped closer, the air between you thick with unspoken things, and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek, his stubble scraping lightly against your lips. An unexpected ache unfurled beneath his ribs, subtle but insistent, as if something inside him had shifted a fraction to the left.
"Thank you, Titus..." you whispered, his name sounding like a melody despite the tears. "She loved you and Ursula very much."
You turned to leave the room, your footsteps soft on the floor, but paused at the doorway. Glancing back, you pointed at your phone, the screen still glowing with the email, "And thank you for this too."
"It was nothing," Titus muttered, the words tumbling out, awkward and honest, surprising even him as they bridged the gap of his usual guarded silence.
Titus watched your teeth sink gently into your bottom lip, causing a faint, subconscious tug low in his gut. Titus wondered what it would feel like to slide his tongue into your mouth, and to taste the subtle saltiness of your skin and the lingering hint of your breath. His gaze dipped involuntarily, drawn to the soft swell of your cleavage peeking from the neckline of your shirt, the gentle rise and fall of your chest with each steadying breath. Your eyes held his, fierce yet soft, pulling him in like a current he couldn't fight. The way your body moved, that subtle shift of hips as you lingered in the doorway, ignited a heat that spread through him, making his pulse throb.
You gave him a small wave and murmured a quiet goodnight.
Titus turned abruptly and walked out, striding down the hall to his bedroom. His bedroom was a good 5‑minute walk from the bar, and every step felt like a deliberate fucking punishment. Once he made it to his bedroom, he locked the door behind him before sinking onto the bed, back pressed against the sturdy headboard. His hand drifted down almost without thinking, fingers brushing over the fabric of his dress pants. He popped the button, zipper rasping open, and shoved them down just enough to free his cock. It was already hard, and he wrapped his calloused fingers around the base, squeezing lightly, and let out a low groan.
Fuck, he thought, eyes squeezing shut. You were beautiful, no denying it. Not in that fake, dolled-up way he'd chased before, but real… He stroked upward slowly, thumb circling the head where a bead of pre-come glistened. The sound of his name on your tongue echoed in his head, soft now in his imagination, whispered like a secret. 'Titus...' He imagined you saying it closer, your breath hot against his ear, your hand replacing his.
His grip tightened, pumping in a steady rhythm, hips bucking up off the cushion. He pictured you there, peeling off your clothes to reveal the curves he'd only glimpsed—full breasts straining against your shirt, hips that swayed with purpose. He spread his legs wider, free hand gripping his sheets as he jerked faster, the slick sound filling the quiet room. Your lips parting to say his name again, this time moaning it, your body arching toward him.
Sweat beaded on his forehead, breath coming in ragged bursts. He envisioned pinning you down, your legs wrapping around his waist, pussy wet and welcoming as he thrust in deep. 'Titus,' you'd gasp, nails digging into his back, that beautiful face of yours scrunching up with need. His cock throbbed in his fist, veins pulsing, and he twisted his wrist on the upstroke, chasing the heat building low in his belly.
Titus
Titus
Titus
His strokes became more erratic, his balls drawing tight, the pressure coiling like a spring. Suddenly, he came with a guttural curse, his spend spilling over his knuckles in hot spurts, splattering his shirt. His body jerked, chest heaving, as waves of pleasure crashed through him. For a moment, he just lay there, spent, cock softening in his grip, the sticky mess cooling on his skin. But as the high faded, something gnawed at him. He wiped his hand on his thigh, staring at the ceiling, confusion settling in. He'd fucked plenty of women…usually with no strings attached. Bodies slamming together, release and done. But this? Jerking off to the thought of you, not just your body, but the way you moved, the way you saw him? It twisted something inside, unfamiliar and raw. He'd never felt this pull before…this ache that went beyond getting off.
What the hell was this?
Masterlist | You're reading Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | FINAL PART
Thanks for reading! When it comes to the Carolingian research in this story, a lot of the material in her research may be intentionally fictionalized. I did look into how difficult it is to access certain manuscripts, and in reality, many of them are extremely restricted… but in this world, Titus can make anything happen. So that’s part of the fun.
Some of the degree program specializations I mentioned don’t actually exist at the universities I listed. That was deliberate. I wanted the reader to come across as someone who grew up in the Danforth bubble, with the kind of privilege and access that lands you in the Ivy League or top‑tier international programs. Her specialization is also uncommon in real academia. It’s loosely inspired by a program I found online (Doctor Ph.D. Degree Mythology & Occultism), and additional research on this topic Deciphering the Esoteric Meaning: A Conceptual Analysis | Meridian University, and I expanded it to fit the tone and worldbuilding of the story.
So none of this should be taken as historically or academically accurate. It’s all crafted to serve the narrative and the characters. Sorry for the little disclaimer moment—I just know academia and research are their own galaxies, and I want to be clear that I’m taking creative liberties. If anyone reading this has careers in philosophy, history, medieval studies, manuscript research, or anything adjacent… I’m genuinely in awe of you. I felt like a confused child Googling half this stuff. The years you all put into your work is unreal.
I wrote a thesis once upon a time, and I do not miss those days. Sending forehead kisses to anyone who has ever had to decipher a footnote.
blurb: Jack Abbott was supposed to find a safer hobby. He wasn’t prepared to find you.
jack abbott x fem reader
content/tw: age gap implied, older man, afab reader, explicit smut, praise kink, soft dom jack, PIV unprotected (wrap it up folks), public(ish) sex, referenced gun violence, Jack Abbott is an amputee and this is briefly mentioned, flirting, forced proximity, humour and smut, porn with a plot
a/n: i wrote this in about 6 hours of shawn hatosy arm fuelled horniness so it’s barely edited, hope it’s at least readable and makes sense 🫣
length: 5.7k
MASTERLIST (still haven’t gotten around to making one for this blog yet so it’s on my main for now)
By the time you reached the Maison du Goût cooking school, the day had finally loosened its grip on you.
You’d spent what felt like a lifetime kneading and sifting and decorating. Followed by a second life time of mind numbing admin. Payroll, utility bills, bulk ingredient orders. After days like that not many people would want to step into a kitchen with cold lights, stainless steel counters, the scent of butter in the air. But it was your happy place. Something inside you would unclench and the tension in your shoulders would melt away.
Cooking was different from baking. Baking was your life’s passion. Cooking hadn’t come as easily but it was all the more rewarding for it.
Precision mattered, but not in the way it did elsewhere. You could fix mistakes. Start again. Add salt. Lower the heat. Let something rest and come back to it kinder than before.
Nothing screamed.
Nothing bled.
Nothing died.
That was why you had first started coming. Baking had always kept your mind busy, but never still. It was numbers and structure, precision. Weights, percentages, temperatures, chemistry.
A constant series of calculations. Cooking asked less of your head and more of your senses. Taste this. Smell that. Stir until it feels right. Add a little more. Let it simmer. In cooking, you could disappear for a while.
You tied your apron behind your back, tucking a loose strand of hair away as the first of the evening students drifted in. The chalkboard by the door read:
French Cooking for Beginners: Week Three Mother Sauces, Knife Skills, Tart Tatin
Your idea of heaven. Some cooking. Some baking. Best of both worlds.
You were setting your notebook down when the door opened again and someone entered the kitchen.
He did not look like a man arriving for recreational mother sauces.
His hair was all salt & pepper curls. Not overly tall but thick. Visibly strong in a way that gave him more height than he actually had. Broad-shouldered. Bow legged. White t-shirt tight around his chest and shoulders. The kind of posture that suggested he had spent years in rooms where standing wrong had consequences. His expression was calm, unreadable, bordering stern.
He was noticeably older than you. And devastatingly handsome. Your stomach flipped.
Now is not the time or the place to be thinking inappropriate thoughts about an inappropriately older man.
He carried a knife roll.
An expensive one, by the looks of it.
…To a beginners cooking class.
You bit back a smile.
He scanned the room once, taking in exits, counters, people. Then chose a station near the wall and set his things down with deliberate care.
Interesting.
He looked up.
Caught you watching.
You smiled politely.
He gave the smallest nod in return.
You nearly laughed. You had never seen someone so tense in a cooking class. Half of the students already had a glass of wine in their hands and yet he was surveying the rooms with the intensity of someone whose life was at risk.
“Welcome back, everyone!”
Chef Mireille swept in precisely on time, elegant as ever in her white jacket and red lipstick.
“Tonight we learn knife skills, mother sauces, and if you behave, dessert.”
A murmur of approval moved through the room.
“And because life is cruel,” she continued with a wink to the room, “we are rotating partners”
Groans. Laughter.
You straightened immediately.
Please let me get the stern one.
Something about him was drawing you in. You were known to talk too much, pry a little too far at the best of times. But his rough exterior did nothing to repel you. It only made you want to look more.
Mireille pointed around the room, assigning partners at random.
Then at you.
Then at him.
“You two.”
Perfect.
You crossed to his station, smiling warmly at him.
“Hi,” you said brightly. “This will be fun!”
He blinked once, a little taken aback by your optimism.
“I can’t promise anything will be edible when I’m done with it.” he responded, dryly though there was a glint of something in his eyes.
You laughed “That’s alright, I’m excellent in a crisis”
That got the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth, like he was privy to a joke that you weren’t.
“I’m Jack,” he rasped, reaching a hand out to you.
You gave yours and grasped his hand with your own. It was calloused and so large it engulfed your own. You briefly wondered what they’d feel like on other parts of your body. But shut the thought down as fast as it came around.
“So,” you said cheerfully, “what made you sign up for this?” Your head tilted and you handed him his apron.
“It was… an aggressive recommendation.” he put, watching you as he put the apron on. Your mouth went dry seeing the veins in his arms, visible as he forcefully tied the knot.
“That sounds suspiciously vague.”
His lips pushed to the side like he was trying to hold back a smile.
“From who?”
“Friends. Colleagues. Therapist.”
Your eyes widened a little and you grinned. “An intervention?”
“Something like that.”
“That’s sweet.”
“Trust me, it wasn’t but they all think I need better hobbies and it was either this or pottery. Maybe that would’ve been the safer option” you saw him eyeing the fancy knife set he had brought with him.
You laughed softly.
He shook his head once, but there was the beginning of amusement there now.
“And you?” he asked.
“What made me sign up?”
He nodded.
“I’m work at a bakery” you said. “Thought it was time I learned to make things that don’t rely on sugar. Though Tart Tatin is safely in my comfort zone.”
“You bake professionally?”
“I do.”
“What kind?”
“Pastries, cakes, breads, anything involving butter and unnecessary effort.”
That earned the smallest real smile.
It was entirely worth the wait.
Chef Mireille clapped once for attention, waiting until the room quieted.
“Before we begin ruining perfectly good butter,” she said, “we talk about mother sauces.”
She lifted a wooden spoon like a pointer.
“In classical French cooking, the mother sauces are the foundations. The starting points. Learn them properly, and you can build a hundred other sauces from them. Learn them badly, and everything that follows tastes of regret.”
That got a laugh.
“There are five traditionally recognised mother sauces: béchamel, velouté, espagnole, tomato, and hollandaise.”
She moved down the line of ingredients as she spoke.
“Béchamel is milk thickened with roux. Simple, elegant. Velouté begins with stock and becomes lighter, silkier things. Espagnole is rich and brown and rewards patience. Tomato sauce, in the French sense, is deeper and more structured than many of you expect.”
Then she held up a bowl of cubed butter.
“And hollandaise,” she said, smiling faintly, “is where overconfident people go to be humbled.”
The room laughed again.
“And naturally, that is where we will begin. If you can master this sauce you can master them all. It is an emulsion. Fat and liquid persuaded to cooperate through technique, temperature, and attention. Too cold, it tightens. Too hot, it splits. Too rough, it breaks. Too timid, it never comes together.”
Her gaze swept the room.
“So, like many relationships.”
Even louder laughter this time.
Mireille set the bowl down.
“Tonight, we are learning what they teach: control of heat, patience, texture, and trust. If you can make a good sauce, you can cook. If you can rescue a broken sauce, you can really cook.”
She
“Now. Aprons on. Whisks ready. And if anyone curdles my hollandaise, at least do me the courtesy of telling me before I taste, hm?”
You divided the ingredients between you with the efficiency of someone who had done this enough times to know chaos always began with poor prep.
Jack read the recipe card once, then set it down like he intended to win on instinct alone.
He took the butter and put it on the stove, whilst you got to work whisking the eggs with white wine, a splash of cold water and a pinch of salt.
“So, Jack, what do you do when you’re not being mysteriously assigned hobbies?”
A brief pause as he stared down intently at the melting butter. As if, if he looked away for a second, it would all go wrong.
“Emergency medicine.”
“Oh. Really?”
“Really.”
“That must be intense.”
“Sometimes.”
You laughed.
“Sometimes?”
He glanced at you, then back at the butter.
“A lot of the time.” he admitted.
“II hope you don’t mind my questions. I’m just…. interested.” you said honestly. Because it was the truth. And you wanted to know more.
“In emergency medicine?”
“In you.”
That made him pause, spoon stalling in the pan.
You pretended not to notice.
Then he resumed stirring.
“ER now,” he said.
“Now?”
“I used to be a combat medic.”
Your whisk stopped.
“Well.”
He looked over.
“Well what?”
“That is significantly more interesting than baker.” You held out the eggs for him.
He huffed a laugh and poured the butter into the eggs, placing the bowl over a pan of simmering water.
“I mean… don’t get me wrong. I’m sure you’ve never had pastry collapse at six in the morning.”
“Comparable trauma?” he smirked, not turning to face you but you could see his eyes flicking towards you.
“Devastating.”
He laughed then.
Short. Real.
It changed his whole face.
You liked the sound of it immediately.
But the smell… wait? The smell?
Oh no.
Chef Mireille appeared at your shoulder with the uncanny timing of someone who could sense culinary incompetence from across the room.
She looked first at the pan.
Then at Jack.
Then back at the pan.
You craned your neck and got your first look as well. The hollandaise sat in the bowl in glossy yellow patches, butter pooling at the edges, curdled through the middle.
Mireille placed one hand on her hip.
“Well,” she said. “This poor sauce has suffered, it seems. The heat is far too high”
Jack’s brows raised in surprise and then dropped into a frown. You bit the inside of your cheek to stop yourself laughing.
Jack glanced down at the bowl. “In my defence,”
“Ah Ah. The heat,” Mireille cut in smoothly, “did not turn up by itself.”
A few people nearby laughed.
Then her eyes moved to you.
“And you,” she said, lifting one elegant brow.
Uh-oh. You swallowed the laughter you had been holding in.
“Were you paying attention?”
You straightened automatically.
“I was just,”
“She was helping,” Jack cut in.
Mireille ignored him with professional ease.
“You are usually one of my star pupils,” she told you, tone playfully stern. “Reliable. Focused. A woman I trust around butter.”
You pressed a hand to your chest. “Chef,”
“And yet tonight,” she continued, gesturing toward the bowl, “you have allowed this man to commit acts of impatience in my kitchen.”
Mireille pointed her spoon between the two of you.
“Start again. Lower heat. Slower hands. Less eye contact.”
Heat climbed your neck.
Now it was Jack who was holding back a laugh.
“We’re just cooking.”
“Mm,” Mireille said. “And I am twenty-five.”
She swept away before either of you could answer.
There was a beat of silence.
Then you turned and nudged Jack lightly in the ribs with your elbow.
“You’re dragging my reputation down.”
He looked at you, deadpan.
“Your reputation must be pretty fragile.”
You gasped softly.
“It was immaculate before you arrived.”
His mouth twitched and he absently rubbed the spot on his torso where your elbow had been.
“Then I’m glad I came.”
One more attempt, this time successful, at mastering the hollandaise, and it was time for the knife demonstration.
Your second batch had come together beautifully. Pale gold and glossy, thick enough to ribbon from the spoon. Chef Mireille had swept past, dipped a fingertip into it, and given a rare nod of approval before gliding on to terrorise another station.
You had tried not to look smug.
Jack had noticed anyway and shot you a subtle wink that made your heart skip.
Now the room gathered around the long central counter while Mireille demonstrated how to peel, core, and slice apples evenly for the Tart Tatin.
“Uniformity,” she said, lifting a wedge between two fingers, “is not about pleasing me, though naturally it does. It is about making sure everything cooks at the same rate. If one piece is too thick and one too thin, one burns while the other stews.”
She set the knife down.
“And grip matters. If you are fighting the knife, you have already lost”
She demonstrated once, swift and elegant, then sent everyone back to their stations with bowls of apples and the promise of shame for anyone who hacked them into rustic chunks and called it charm.
You returned to your counter with Jack beside you.
He picked up the knife immediately.
And held it completely wrong.
Not beginner wrong. Not nervous wrong.
Wrong in a way that suggested years of muscle memory.
His index finger ran high along the spine of the blade, thumb angled close, grip narrow and exact, as if he were about to make an incision rather than cut fruit.
You stared.
“That,” you said, pointing, “is not a kitchen grip.”
He glanced down at his hand.
“It cuts.”
“You’re holding it like a scalpel Doc.”
His mouth twitched.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine, they’re just apples”
Your face dropped into a deadpan stare and you teased, “You’re not dragging my reputation through the mud anymore”
You stepped nearer before you could think better of it.
Up close, he was even more solid than he looked. Heat rolled off him in a quiet wave. He smelled so good. Clean soap, cotton, and something warmer beneath it. Cedar, maybe, or just him. The kind of smell that made you instinctively lean in before sense caught up.
You reached for his wrist.
His forearm tensed the second your fingers closed around it.
Strong. Dense. Warm.
The muscles shifted beneath your touch like restrained machinery.
“Relax,” you murmured.
“I am relaxed.”
“You’re so tense, didn’t you hear what Chef said about fighting the knife?”
That earned a low sound that might have been a laugh.
“Not like that,” You slid your hand down, nudging his thumb and forefinger into place at the base of the blade, “Like this”
“Pinch grip,” you said. “Here. Control comes from the blade, not strangling the handle.”
Your other hand covered the back of his briefly, guiding the angle lower.
He went very still.
So did you.
You became acutely aware of the breadth of his chest just behind your shoulder, the steady rise and fall of his breathing, the fact that if you leaned back half an inch you would feel all of him.
Your pulse gave an unhelpful kick.
“Then your guiding hand,” you said, voice thankfully steady, “makes a claw.”
You took his free hand and curled his fingertips inward around the apple.
“Protect the tips of your fingers, bend them in a little.”
“Bossy,” he murmured near your ear.
“People generally appreciate instruction involving sharp objects.”
“I don’t usually need any instruction around sharp objects.”
“Debatable.” You smiled, though with you in front of him like this you know he couldn’t see.
You released him and stepped back.
“There. Now slice.”
He brought the knife down through the apple in smooth, clean strokes. Even wedges. Neat spacing.
Quick learner.
Annoyingly attractive.
“Well?” he asked without looking up.
“Well what?”
“Tell me I’m talented.”
You laughed.
“I’ll tell you you’re teachable. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
That time he smiled properly.
It hit you with the force of a minor collision.
Warmth transformed him. Softened the stern lines of his face. Made him look less like a man carrying something heavy and more like one who had briefly remembered how to set it down.
You forgot what you were saying for a full second.
He noticed that too.
“Tart Tatin,” he said coyly. “Try to focus.”
You stared at him.
“Are you flirting with me over apples?”
“I don’t know,” he said, slicing another perfect wedge. “Is it working?”
You rolled your eyes, another smile forcing its way onto your face before you could stop it. You didn’t bother humouring him with a response, your expression told him enough already.
From there, working together became strangely symbiotic.
You caramelised the apples on the stove, he stabilised the pan handle without being asked.
He fetched ingredients before you reached for them.
You corrected seasoning. He corrected heat. And then overcorrected it.
Still learning. You bit back a laugh
“The heat was fine, just watch the timer” you said.
“They burn if ignored.”
“Where was that attitude when you killed our hollandaise?”
He glanced over.
“I was distracted then:
Your heart beat heavy against your chest.
“You’re not now?” you asked, eyes flicking up to his. He was watching you with a flirtatious intensity you hadn’t experience from anyone before. Maybe you’d just been flirting with the wrong people this whole time.
“I am” he said, voice rough and low, “I’m just motivated not to disappoint you twice in one night”
“Hmm, maybe too late for that Doc. Your tart crust is looking pretty thick.”
He looked down at it.
“It is not.”
“It’s wearing armour.”
“It needs structure.”
“It needs tenderness.” you arched a brow, daring him to argue further.
That look again.
Unadulterated attraction.
“You talk like that about all pastry?”
“Only the difficult ones.”
The timer for the apples went off then.
You both reached to take the pan off of the heat at the same time.
Your fingers brushed.
Neither of you moved for a beat too long.
Then he moved away, allowing you to take it.
“Slow reflexes, old man”
“I was letting you have it, kid”
“How noble.” you retorted, trying to ignore the flush of heat between your legs at the nickname he had given you.
As the tarts came out of the ovens, the room softened into that pleasant end-of-class warmth.
More wine appeared at nearby stations. Mireille floated by critiquing apple placements and praising crusts.
Jack stood beside you, leaning on the counter. You were starting to think he noticed how much you’d been looking at his arms and had decided to show them off for you.
Extremely annoyingly attractive.
“What kind of bakery?” he asked.
You glanced over, surprised.
“Umm it’s called Willow & Rye. Mostly pastries, custom cakes, bread. If I’m feeling particularly masochistic I’ll make macarons on weekends.”
He hummed, eyes never leaving yours.
“You own it?”
“I do, took over from my mom or took over from her mom. I basically grew up in that place.”
“You like it?”
No hesitation.
“I love it.”
He nodded once.
As though filing that away.
“And cooking?” he asked.
“What about it?”
“Why take a cooking class after baking all day?”
You laughed lightly, understanding the absurdity, “Well… it’s very different to baking. And I like learning things I’m not good at.”
“Why.”
“Because being bad at something humbles you.”
“You’re not bad at this.”
You laughed, “Thanks. But thats now. I was never a natural with cooking like I was with baking. It took time.”
His mouth twitched.
You added more quietly,
“And I find it peaceful. Even when the kitchen is chaotic I can still find the peace I need there.”
Something in his expression shifted then.
Small enough most people wouldn’t notice.
You did.
“Peaceful,” he repeated.
“Yeah.”
He pushed down off of the countertop and wrung his hands together, looking down at them.
“Maybe that’s why I’m here too.”
Warmth moved low in your stomach.
So naturally, you ruined the moment.
“I still wouldn’t trust you to do any of this alone”
He stared.
Then smiled slowly.
“I learn fast.”
“Do you?”
His eyes dropped briefly to your mouth.
“I do.”
By the time the tart came out of the oven, golden and fragrant, the room had dissolved into happy chaos.
People packed leftovers. Chef Mireille kissed cheeks and assigned homework.
You stayed behind to wipe down your station, as always.
Jack stayed too.
Not helping, exactly.
Lingering.
“You can go, you don’t have to wait for me” you said.
“I know.”
He didn’t move.
You dried a pan, trying to reign in the heat you could feel spreading up your neck to your face.
He watched you with the same focus he gave everything else.
“You hungry?”
You glanced over at the half-eaten tart between you, raising a brow at him.
“Is that a joke?”
“Or thirsty, then.”
Not smooth.
Not practiced.
Just direct.
You liked that far more than smooth.
“I could use a drink,” you replied, a smile playing at the corner of your mouth.
The wine bar next door was narrow, warm, and softly lit.
You took a booth.
You ordered wine.
He ordered water, mentioning briefly that he was driving home when he saw the surprise on your face.
“Ah, here I was expecting whiskey” you said.
“Why is that?”
“It’s very on brand for gruff older man in need of hobbies.”
“You think I’m gruff.”
You bit your bottom lip, smiling and nodding before saying “Can I ask you a question?”
He gestured for you to go ahead.
“Now, don’t take this the wrong way because I think you look incredible in the apron but. Why do your friends feel the need to strong arm you into taking up a cooking class?”
He shook his head, amused before leaning forward, resting on his elbows.
“They think I have a habit of mistaking danger for recreation.”
You smiled faintly. “Do you?”
“Sometimes.”
He glanced down at the water glass, turning it once against the table.
“Before this, I was doing volunteer medic work with a SWAT unit.”
You blinked. “Wow,” nodding “That’s really brave”
His mouth twitched but he didn’t argue.
“Anyway, couple months back I caught a graze.”
Your smile faded.
“A bullet?”
“Technically.”
“Jack.”
“It barely touched me.”
You stared at him.
Mouth downturned, he drew a sharp breath through his nose, shrugging like it was no big deal.
“Apparently getting shot, however inefficiently, gave everyone around me opinions.”
You were quiet for a moment.
“And what do you think?”
That made him pause for a second.
“They’re probably just tired of waiting for the phone to ring. So. Cooking class”
He summed it up like it was nothing. Like he had just finished telling you about traffic.
Conversation unspooled easier after that.
He told you about his job, long shifts working nights. You laughed when he taught you the Nightcrawler chant that he does with his staff at the start of a shift to hype themselves up.
He told you about his friends who worried.
And he told you about his time in the service, a life built around reacting quickly. Losing his leg.
He didn’t overshare, but what he gave you was enough that you were able to build a picture of who he was, the life he lead. And you wanted more.
You told him about four a.m. starts at the bakery, kneading dough before sunrise, the violence of holiday cake orders.
You told him about pressures of keeping the third generation family business going.
And you told him about baking. Growing up. With your mom and grandmother. Food as a conduit for community. A way to gather close with everyone you love and share in something.
“You talk about food like religion,” he said.
“Oh please, in my family it was the next best thing.”
Eventually the wine bar closed down. Jack offered you a ride.
You wouldn’t have ever said yes to a ride from someone you had only known for a few short hours but… you didn’t want to say goodbye yet.
The walk to the car park was damp with recent rain.
Streetlights turned the pavement gold.
You stopped beside his car.
He opened the passenger door.
As you neared him, you hesitated.
“You’re not getting in?” his voice was low. You looked up at him, his eyes darting between yours and your lips. He swallowed and his adam’s apple bobbed.
You were suddenly very thirsty again.
“Not yet”
Streetlight caught in the silver at his temples. The night air was cool, but standing this close to him made it hard to notice.
He stepped closer and the air changed with him, into something electric.
“You got quiet,” he said.
“Just thinking.”
“Dangerous habit.”
A smile pulled at your mouth.
“I want you, Jack.”
He went still.
Not startled. Not offended.
Just still in that way controlled men did when faced with something uncontrollable.
His eyes searched your face like he was checking for hesitation, for uncertainty, for the chance that you didn’t mean it.
“You don’t know how difficult you’re making it for me” he said quietly.
Your brow furrowed, confused. Your hand reached out for his, trailing up his arms lightly.
“What’s difficult about this?”
His jaw tightened visibly.
“I’m older than you.”
You laughed a little.
“Yeah, Jack, I noticed.”
“That doesn’t concern you?.”
“It looks like it concerns you enough for both of us, apparently.”
That almost pulled a smile from him, but it faded before it fully formed.
You dropped your hand. “Look, if this isn’t-. If you don’t want this. I’m sorry if I got the wrong impression”
His hand came to your jaw then, rough palm warm against your skin, thumb resting lightly beneath your chin.
“No. I want you too, you don’t know how much. All night I’ve been thinking about it” he said, the words sounding dragged from somewhere deep. “That’s the problem.”
You leaned into his touch.
“Doesn’t sound like one to me.”
“No,” he said, one corner of his mouth tugging up, eyes dropping briefly to your mouth. “It sounds like the start of several.”
You smiled up at him innocently. Far from innocent.
He groaned, almost too quiet to hear but you did.
That did it.
You reached up, hands reaching for his curls and bringing his head towards your own.
He kissed you like he’d been restraining the urge for hours and resented the delay.
One hand came to your waist.
The other braced on the car above your shoulder.
Controlled. Strong. Deliberate.
You kissed him back harder.
He made a low sound in his throat.
You tugged him closer by the front of his shirt.
“Still think pottery was the better choice?” you murmured.
“No.”
“Good.”
He kissed you again.
Longer this time. His tongue pushing in against your own, teeth biting gently at your lip.
When you broke apart, breathless, you took him by the hand.
Closing the passenger door and opening the back door.
You looked at him, brow raised in a challenge.
He laughed and slid into the back, pulling you with him.
The windows fogged quickly.
Heat trapped in too small a space. City lights reduced to blur.
You learned several things, as you were straddled on Jacks lap with your dress hiked up above your hips.
Jack liked control until he trusted someone enough not to need it.
He was attentive in every sense of the word.
And all that contained stillness hid a startling amount of hunger.
You kissed until your lips were swollen. Chin rubbed raw against his silver stubble.
Hands explored through clothing first, hesitant nowhere but careful everywhere that mattered.
There was laughter between sharper moments.
Your forehead bumping the roof of the car.
His muttered complaint about leg room, wishing he’d had the fore thought to push the front seats forward.
You teasing him that tactical planning should’ve accounted for that.
But when the laughter subsided, all that was left in its place was the heat.
You lifted up on his lap and he reached down to align his cock to your soaking entrance. You hadn’t had a chance to see it but fuck did you feel it. You had a moment of panic, he was thicker than anyone you had been with before. And lets be honest… it had been a while.
He looked up at you, eyes darker than before.
“You still with me?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell me if anything feels wrong.”
Something in your chest tightened at the care in it.
You nodded.
“Good girl, so wet for me” he said softly, voice roughened by want, feeling exactly how much you wanted him as the tip of his cock entered you.
The words went through you like a spark.
He held you closer to his chest, patient where another man might have rushed, giving you time to adjust, time to breathe, time to feel every inch of anticipation.
Your fingers tangled in his curls.
Your eyes squeezed shut.
“Take your time baby,” he murmured against your throat.
Your thighs were shaking with the strain of holding yourself up but Jack noticed. And before you knew it strong rough hands were holding you up, hovering you just on the tip while you got used to the stretch. The veins in his arms were more prominent than you had seen all night. Jack moaned as your pussy clenched around him from the sight.
“Good girl” he said, drawn out “We’re gonna go nice and slow yeah?” he lowered you ever so gradually lower and lower as his cock went deeper and deeper inside of you. You had never been so fucking full. It was overwhelming. So full you could cry.
When you finally settled, his cock fully seated inside of you, Jacks head fell back onto the head rest. Eyes closed and mouth slightly open in absolute bliss.
You kissed up his jaw, hands moving from his hair to his shoulders. Clutching desperately as you began to move.
That spurred Jack back into action, his hands moving to cup your ass, finding the rhythm you wanted to set and lifting you in time.
“Ohh good girl. You’re so wet for me aren’t you” he cooed, drawing out a wanton moan from you that had you realising you’d been holding yourself breath. He had made you forget how to fucking breathe.
Bracing his hands against the seat, he used the leverage to buck his hips up to meet you and you folded, head resting against his shoulder.
“Jack, feels so good” you whined pathetically.
“Yeah baby, let me take care of you” he murmured in your ear, words enunciated by grunts as he rutted his hips, “Do you feel how hard you made me? I’ve been thinking about this all night. Wanted you as soon as I fuckin’ saw you baby”
Your insides quivered around him and he knew you were close, you wanted to straighten back up and move on him again but you were so fucked out on his cock you felt like you couldn’t move. He didn’t seem to mind.
“Good girl, you’re getting close aren’t you?,” he moaned, a ragged breath leaving his chest, “You’re gonna make me cum too, your tight pussy is squeezing me so well baby”
Fuck. That did it.
Your legs started to tremble and his hands were already there, on your hips, grinding you down onto his length where you had lost the strength to do it yourself.
“There she is. I’ve got you, cum all over my cock baby”
He held you steady, worked you through it with the same patient certainty he seemed to bring to everything, like there had never been any question he would carry you when your body gave out.
“That’s it,” he murmured, voice rough and low. “Let go for me.”
And with his hands anchoring you, you did.
Your body hummed with pleasure and the sob that you had been holding in let out as your orgasm rode through you.
You mumbled something indecipherable, unable to get the words out.
“Talk to me” Jack said, voice raspy and breathing fast, “What do you want baby?”
“Please Jack” you sobbed “I need you- inside me. Please”
His eyes closed again and his fingers dug into your flesh at your words.
“You want me to finish inside you?”
You nodded, head still resting on his shoulder, body complete mush.
“Say it.” he bit out. Demanding and assertive.
“I want you” you whimpered.
“Not what I meant,” His hips bucked up hard and you gasped for air, “Say. It”
“Cum inside me Jack. I need it. Please” you repeated that last word, over and over, blabbering and completely cock drunk.
Jack groaned and you could feel his cock twitching inside of you, filling you with his seed, overflowing and seeping back out.
What a fucking mess.
You leaned against his shoulder, you couldn’t say for how long, catching your breath.
Jack held you, long after his cock had gone soft, still buried deep in the warmth of you. His hands stroked your hair, down your back. Repetitively over and over. He pressed kisses into your temple and whispered how good you were.
You had never felt safer.
After a long time, you got up. Jack helped you dress which you were glad for. He had fucked any strength you had left out of you.
He drove you home, hand holding yours the whole time, rubbing soothing circles into your palm.
When he pulled up outside your building, neither of you moved immediately.
Then, direct as ever,
“I’ll make you dinner sometime.”
You laughed sleepily before you could stop yourself.
His brow lifted.
“I’ve seen your skills, Jack.”
“They improved significantly tonight.”
“Still.”
He leaned towards you, hand coming up to grasp your chin gently.
“You saying no?”
“I’m saying if we eat anything edible, I’m probably the one cooking.”
He smiled, nodding.
“You can cook. I’ll sous chef”
You grinned up at him, knowing you probably looked completely love sick.
“Deal” you said.
He walked you to your door, making sure you had stepped over the threshold before asking,
“Next Thursday?” he asked.
“The class?”
“The dinner.”
You pretended to consider.
“Depends.”
“On?”
“Whether you practice your knife grip”
He laughed.
Warm and rough. Pulling you back towards him slowly.
“I will practice.”
He stroked your hair and tilted your head back towards him, kissing you deeply.
“Then yes. Next Thursday, it is.” you agreed, mumbling against his lips.
You want to control me. You want all the power to yourself. You do. You always do. Look at me, Grace. Grace, look at me! I want you to see this, Grace. I want you to see this! Grace! I want you to see who I am. I want you to see that I am not a man who can be controlled. You mentioned the rules. There's nothing in the rules about killing a family member.
SHAWN HATOSY as TITUS DANFORTH
in READY OR NOT 2: HERE I COME (2026)
dir. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett
content. dbf!abbot x reader. pørn w/o plot. age gap. secret relationship.
dbf!abbot who can’t help himself as he pulls your panties aside and drives deep into you moaning in your ear about how warm and tight you feel.
his hands are all over you like he can’t get enough of touching you. his lips pressing soft kisses by your ear as he thrusts slowly and hard. murmuring praises about how good you are. how well you take him.
it doesn’t take much. hardly a few thrusts and your brain is turning into mush. “eyes on me, sweet girl,” he tells you with a lift of his lips on the edge of a teasing smile.
“is my pretty girl going dumb on my cock?” he coos smugly and when you don’t respond with words but whimpers instead his question is answered.
his thumb presses onto your clit. the slick sounds of him fucking into you loud in the room mix in with your moans as you come.
he bites down onto your shoulder as he reaches his own release. he loved leaving marks that you could easily hide. only for him to see and for you to remember. he hums at the teeth marks on your skin and then soothes it with his tongue. sweet kitten licks from this man who was so serious all the time when you caught him in conversations with your dad.
it was all for you. only for you. your jack abbot.
Can You Write A Fic With Either Jack Abbot Or Titus Danforth As A Teacher And Female Reader Is The Student? (It Can Either Be SFW Or NSFW.)
I Haven’t Seen Any Teacher x Student With Any Of Shawn’s Characters.
Also Can I Request A Fic With Tooth-Rotting Fluff Involving Jack Abbot Or Titus Danforth?
Ps You Know I Love Your Writing :)
The Professor (Jack Abbot)
in the words of shawn hatosy, your wish is my command.
MDNI - 18+
݁ ˖Ი𐑼⋆ Word Count: 2.3k+
݁ ˖Ი𐑼⋆ CONTENT: professor! jack abbot x age gap f! reader, professeor x f! student, slight dead robby mention, unprotected sex, p in v, dr. shen x abbot if you squint, eater! jack abbot, oral (f! recieving), major praise kink, he examines your body, i'm obsessed with shawn's salt and pepper curls kissed with the auburn color, he teaches you a lesson, yes, chef mention
݁ ˖Ი𐑼⋆ SUMMARY: After a tragedy struck Jack, he becomes your professor...
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Jack Abbot had decided to retire early, needing to slow down and ease into his later years. It was a spontaneous decision, he was reeling from the death of his fellow chief attending. He couldn’t risk being close to another person, especially if he was just going to continue to lose them.
So that’s when he decided to turn in his two weeks.
“Can’t believe you’re leaving me,” Dr. Shen said quietly as he completed his charts.
“You’re acting like I’m breaking up with you,” Abbot chuckled, his mouth quirked to the side.
“You basically are.”
That was three years ago. Jack had mastered the classroom environment since then, running a tight ship like he did the nightshift staff.
You placed your laptop on the desk in front of you, slipping your backpack off of your bare shoulders, adjusting your tank top strap as you placed the bag at your feet. You logged on, your fingers typed senseless against the keyboard, your gaze flicking to your professor.
You had dreaded entering this classroom when you had returned from winter break. You had heard the professor was pretty tough on students, and already with your other difficult classes piling onto the neverending stress, you were so fucked. However, that first day when you stepped your way to an empty seat, you noticed the silver fox as he prepared to conduct his students as if they were a symphony.
As the days progressed, you started to sit closer, admiring how his hands moved as he gestured while he spoke, how he’d adjust his readers every so often to have a clear view of the slideshow that was being projected. You noticed every morning how you inched closer and closer, eventually settling you to the front row.
Your grades were…rather impressive to Jack. He hadn’t had a star pupil like you since he started this stupid job. You mind was…well, fucking perfect. He could feel his crotch start to tighten when you would raise your hand, eagerly awaiting to answer his question.
He would subconsciously tease you, you always had the answer. This led to him calling out a random student’s name who was perched in their seat, scrolling through their phone. You’d huff when this would happen, glaring at your peer and then back to your professor.
As the warmer months crept in, you started dressing in skimpier clothing, wanting to give him access to every inch of your bare skin. Your roommate noticed you slapping on makeup at 7:00 am.
“Are you seeing somebody,” she’d ask as she munched on her breakfast. “I haven’t noticed any late nights for you, any walks of shame?”
“No, no,” you’d dismiss as you would place blush across the apples of your cheeks.
“Then what is it? Because you never go out with us, you’re always burying your nose in those damn textbooks.”
“Just wanting to look presentable is all,” you answered.
This didn’t go unnoticed to Jack. How you’d approach him after class, asking a stupid question that he knew you knew the answer to, just to purposely drop your pencil. All just to see you bend down and pluck the wood off the floor, giving him a peak at your soaked panties resting underneath your mini skirt.
“Alright class,” he clapped his hands together, bringing you back into reality. “I want today to be purely a time to review, especially with your final being next week. Please keep in mind your peers around you, I don’t want one word out of you.”
“I’ll be available for your questions, if you need some extra tutoring,” his head whipped to your staring gaze. “Please, come see me.”
You gulped as you grasped the pages of your text book. Turning your head to the words that spanned across the printed pages, the words circling your mind.
You tried to focus, your skin prickled underneath the cool air that was pumping from the vents, contrasting from the humid heat outside.
You knew you weren’t the only one that found your professor enchanting. You counted how many girls approached him with moronic questions, all dressed similar to you, like it was a uniform.
He rushed the students off, responding to their inquiries as he flicked and scrolled through emails. He wanted nothing but to talk to you. This tension of the semester was killing him.
He always felt guilty at his thoughts of you, how much trouble he could get into if he pounded his hips into you as your back would drape across his desk, his hands cascaded across your spine.
Once class ended, you packed your things, not wanting to leave his presence. He waltzed over to you once his students poured out of the room.
“Hey,” he placed his strong palm against your warm shoulder. “You feel ready for your final? You looked pretty out of it today.”
This was his first time talking to you one on one, the fluorescents casted a glowing halo across his curls. You glanced at the veins coursing down his arms, his tight biceps steadying you.
“U-Uh,” you stuttered. “Yeah, it’ll be fine. I’m not worried.”
His pupils peered into yours, hypnotizing you into his gaze.
“You sure?” he asked.
“Actually, y’know,” you squeeked out. “Learning all of this new material, I think I’m forgetting some anatomy. Can you help me?”
What a blatant lie.
He swallowed, his throat bobbing at your question. He sighed and turned his eyes back to your face.
You both padded across the classroom, reaching his desk. You explained how learning about heart conditions made you forget the terms of the arterial system. Lies consistently poured from your mouth, knowing it was just to get him to press his calloused fingers to your flesh.
“Okay, okay,” he stopped you, pulling you by your shoulders and placing you into your seat. “Let me remind you once again, okay?”
Goosebumps clothed your skin, your flesh prickling in anticipation. He pulled your legs up and across the wood, draping your limbs on top of his desk.
“Okay, I’m going to touch you okay?” he asked, going back to his days in the hospital, consent was always a must.
You nodded, your slick wetting your panties.
He started at your sweating palms, dragging his nails over your skin, pausing at your upper arm.
“This is your brachial artery.”
He continued combing his fingers up to your shoulder.
“This is your axillary artery.”
You felt his digits cross your collar bone, squeezing slightly.
“Your subclavian artery.”
His hot breath kissed your throat.
“This is your carotid, pumping blood to that pretty little brain of yours,” he whispered, his scorching breath spreading across your neck.
He moved to your legs, perched on the edge of his desk. He placed his pointer finger to your ankle, hauling its way towards your aching cunt.
“Your anterior artery follows all the way to your femoral,” his hand kneaded at your inner thigh, feeling the heat of your pussy brush across his knuckles.
“All of those arteries connect into your heart,” he said as he adjusted his readers, his muggy breath expanding onto your flesh. “Think you got it?”
“Yes,” you heaved. “Thank you for the lesson.”
“Anytime.”
He helped you to your feet, noticing how the fabric of your skirt closing off his means to your entry.
“Get some rest,” he placed his hand to your lumbar. “You need it, okay?”
You nodded, reaching down to grasp your bag and making your way out of his classroom.
That night, he beat his fist at the thought of you. His thick cum wrapping and coating his knuckles. How your little skirt would run over his thighs, your oppresive walls pressing and tightening around him.
“Fuck,” he muttered to himself.
Meanwhile, you just sat there upon your mattress in your cramped bedroom. Your roommate knocked her knuckles into the door. When you didn’t respond, she peeped her head in.
“You okay?” she whispered.
“Yeah,” you responded flatly. “More than okay.”
It was the day of your final, your mind raced and blurred at the test in front of you, recalling that last time you were in this room.
You circled and wrote your answers at the questions tirelessly, having gotten hardly any sleep the whole week before.
You were the first to turn the thick stack of papers, knowing your brain emptied at everything that you had learned this semester. You pushed the papers into Jack’s grasp. He took it absently as he graded the previous period’s tests.
He flipped his eyes towards you, you were never the first one to turn in your test, always diligently raking your gaze across your answers, double checking every single one.
“You sure?” he asked as he looked up beneath his readers.
“Yeah,” you said flatly, your mind racing at how your body cascaded his desk a week ago. “Y-Yeah, I’m sure.”
He placed your finalized test on top of the stack. You returned to your seat as his red pen grazed red marks across the sheets.
You…failed.
Once the timer was up, he collected all of the papers. You started packing your backpack once again. When you zipped the zipper closed, he poked your shoulder.
“Hey, so,” he paused, huffing a sigh from his thick chest. “You failed.”
You figured with the way you tossed and turned in your bed countless times in your bed, all your thoughts channeling that night.
“Not surprised,” you turned away as you slid the strap of your bag across your shoulder.
He gripped your wrist, his fingers pressing into the vein that ran across your wrist. He felt your pulse rally among your flesh.
“What happened?”
“Guess I didn’t learn my lesson,” you shrugged.
He pulled you into him, pressing his warm lips into yours. They crossed your cheeks and jaw. He finally pressed a kiss to your forehead.
“I’ll give you one more chance to earn your good grade,” he rasped as his forehead pressed into yours. “At the expense of me fucking the shit out of you.”
You huffed, your throat coursing along the muscles of your neck as you swallowed.
“Okay,” you whispered. “I’ll take that offer.”
He pushed your hips across the top of his desk, coating his fingers with your slick as he dragged his digits across your folds. You begged for him, pulsing his length across the walls of your organs.
“God,” you whined. “Please fuck me.”
“You don’t have to beg me to fuck you, I’m going to.”
He pushed his hot mouth across your neck and collar, sucking and tasting at your intoxicating scent. Your moan vibrated against his lips, pulling your panties to the side and coaxing a moan from you as he pushed his digit into you. He felt your wetness hug around the skin.
“Baby,” he heaved between kisses. “You’re so fuckin’ tight.”
You pulled the length of his finger into you, earning another one slipping into you. His digit drew naturally into you as your cunt slurped him further into you.
His thumb massaged your clit nicely, the hairs of curling around your pubis kissing his thumb.
He bent down on his knee, reliving his swollen, pulsating leg of the pain. He lapped and polished your fold clean around his tongue, swiping diligently. He lapped as your fluid swathed his tongue of your juices.
He continued covering your pearl in his mouth, supping and swirling his tongue around it. All while he raised your release to the surface. The tight coil in your abdomen pulsates around his mouth and his fingers.
He stood up as he fumbled with his prosthetic, pushing and pulling it off of his leg. He caged you beneath him, slipping his left hand, scrubbing across your nipple as he pulled your shirt up, exposing your plump breasts to him.
You were oh so young, and perky.
Your nipples solidified underneath the cold air pumping into the room, especially picturing your peers watching as he combed your tight walls. You arched into him below his grasp.
He took the zipper of his pants and dragged it down, releasing his full cock. He milked his member into your folds for a beat before slipping into your insides, driving his hips into you slowly. Expelling his precum around your cervix.
He felt your walls lure him intensely around him, constrict around his length. He pressed his palm into you, seeing and observing how your womb would bulge around him. He continued kissing your cervix, it would look so bad if he got a student pregnant, wouldn’t it?
He could imagine you walking around campus, his baby filling your insides. How the baby would kick and press into his hot hands. How he’d adorn your swollen stomach with kisses.
He swallowed as a whimper crept into his throat, he wanted to treat you like the good student you were. He latched and supped his mouth around the peak of your breasts, your chest vibrating when he would slam into you. Your skin would quiver as his moan would coax into your skin, feeling the tremor thump into your sternum.
He positioned and pawed his hands into your hips, dragging deeper into him. His nails scratch against your skin, your dermis. He drew his hands up and down and raised the flesh among your stretch marks.
“My star pupil,” he whined. “My student. My cute, sweet bunny.”
His length drummed into your walls, his release brandished your insides, feeling him claim and coat you. He continued to dress your guts as you felt your release pour from your hole. He injected your fluids back into you as he withdrew his fingers from you, expelling at his digits. He swiped and forced the mixture back into you.
The hot cum consistently dribbled on his desk, he forced his fingertips as you continued to throb against him.
He passed his tongue through you, tasting the blend of you both around his tongue.
Little did he know you gave birth to his baby nine months later, he would press a kiss against your temple. Who knew medical school would give him everything he ever wanted.
“Midlife crisis satisfied?” you’d ask as you held your child.
if Franchesca season doen't mention Anne Lister and Ann Walker then what's the point? Because I seen people being sad Fran and Michael won't be able to have a 100% happy ending and I'm just sitting here like, wasn't there a lesbian couple back then who were very publically together? Plus it's fiction, we can bent some rules, our girls will be happy
Summary: Levi is one of the two new operatives assigned to the watchtowers that overlooked The Gorge, and although he was strictly forbidden to contact the other watcher, you prove to be too tempting to pass up. Luckily for him, you just so happen to feel the same way.
Word Count: 6.3k | I do not give consent to having my work published or posted to any other platform or profile other than my own.
Warnings: not really spoilers for the gorge but can be ig, loosely follows the plot, fluff, swearing, smut, unprotected sex, pining, touch starved levi, this is lowkey a roller coaster.
It only took Levi a few days to fall into an efficient routine at his new ‘home away from home’, which was the biggest load of shit he’d heard in a while. This place wasn’t his home, he didn’t even know where in the world he was, for fucks sake.
But he’d make do, because he had literally nothing else better to do, and that was why he was picked for this. Well, that and the fact that he was one hell of a shot.
He fell into a pattern of walking the Western rim daily, restocking ammo, and checking the containment fence, cloakers and suspended mines and making sure they were all in order. It was pretty easy, and he’d already done his radio check he was required to do every thirty days.
His mission was to keep the contents of the Gorge inside the tall walls, but Levi still didn’t know what it was, exactly, he was keeping from coming out, because he had yet to witness it, and he’d been here a whole month already.
With that being said, the change of scenery was nice, and though he missed the beach, he didn’t mind the trees one bit. It was so quiet here, yet Levi wasn’t bored or antsy whatsoever. However, he was…curious about a few things; one being what the fuck he was tasked to watch over, two being who his Eastern counterpart is.
He hadn’t seen any movement at all across the Gorge, and he tried not to be a total stalker and use the binoculars to look over there and see what was going on on the East side. He assumed it was relatively similar, if not the exact same thing that was going on over here on the West side, which was a whole lot of nothing, but still, he was curious. There was nothing wrong with that, right?
One night in October, Levi was sitting outside on the observation deck of his tower, simply watching the world go by as he jotted down words in his notebook. Being away from his small room at home had really given him some inspiration, creatively, and he was sure he would have over a full book of poems by the time he was finished with this year long mission.
As he wrote, he saw something out of the corner of his eye, and when he lifted his head, he saw that there was a light shining in his direction from the East Tower, but it wasn’t one of the watch lights. It was from the other person.
Levi set his book down and got up from the chair, his curiosity peaked as he moved towards the binoculars. What he saw was a woman who looked like she was in her late twenties, standing on the East Towers observation deck, holding up a big notepad that read, ‘HI, NEIGHBOR. WHAT’S YOUR NAME?’
As he read the words, Levi’s lips curved upwards into a smile, and it only grew when he saw the way your own lips had formed a small grin, and even from this far away, he could tell that you’d been as curious about him as he’d been about you.
And wow, you were fucking stunning.
While Levi preferred to live his life alone, he had been with his fair share of women and has had girlfriends before, but you were something else. You were so beautiful, and he could tell by your greeting that you were funny, and somehow that only made him feel even more drawn to you.
He wasn’t curious anymore. No, now he was full on intrigued to know more about his ‘neighbor’.
Levi looked around the deck for a few seconds before he turned and went inside, hoping he didn’t accidentally give you the wrong impression in his search for something to write on. He grabbed the whiteboard he’d been using as a chart, and carelessly erased the data he’d already re-written elsewhere.
He quickly went back outside and saw that you were still standing on the opposing deck, though your smile was a little smaller, and he hastily wrote back to you with his big, bold handwriting.
‘WE ARE NOT ALLOWED CONTACT’.
Levi held it up and hoped you didn’t take his message too seriously, because he was thinking that this might be a perfect way to pass the time.
You read the board and pouted a bit before you turned your back to him and flipped to a new page in your book. He watched you write something on it, before you turned back to him and held it up, ‘HAVEN’T YOU EVER BROKEN A RULE FOR FUN?’
Levi laughed to himself as he shook his head, wiping his previous message from the board with his sleeve before he wrote, ‘MAYBE ONCE OR TWICE,’ and went to go hold it up, but then he paused and had an inner debate with himself for a few moments. Fuck it. He added, ‘FOR THE RIGHT PERSON.’ and then held it up for you to read.
He watched your smile return as your eyes trailed over every word, and he was suddenly very glad he added that last part, because you were full on grinning now, and he was sure it was one of the prettiest things he’d ever seen.
But you didn’t turn away or make a move to write a response, so Levi once again erased his message and scribbled something else down, ‘HAVEN’T YOU?’
When you read his second message, you bit down on your lip, something Levi was able to see almost concerningly well from just how upgraded the equipment was, but he refused to let his mind wander any further than it already has.
He watched you flip back in your book and scribble something out, and a few seconds later, you were holding up your first question, but had crossed out the first part, leaving only, ‘WHAT’S YOUR NAME?’.
Alright, alright, he’ll play along.
He grabbed the whiteboard and sprawled his name on it before turning it to you, ‘LEVI KANE,’
Levi watched as you stepped away from the railing again, and he saw the way your lips moved as you tried his name out on your tongue, and now he felt a little desperate to be close enough to hear your voice. And to hear how his name sounded coming from your mouth.
You nodded slowly, pressing your lips together as you crossed your arms and leaned over the railing a bit, and he tried to not notice the way your chest was pressed together and exposed a bit of cleavage.
‘WHAT’S YOURS?’ he wrote once he realized he still didn’t know your name, but you seemed to be content with that as you peaked through the binoculars one last time before shrugging with a teasing smile on your lips.
Then you turned around and walked inside the tower, leaving Levi standing alone outside his own.
You were mysterious and challenging, and he liked that. A lot.
And now he couldn’t wait for the next time you and he found yourselves on your respective observation decks at the same time.
-
A few days went by, and much to Levi’s dismay, he hadn’t been able to communicate with you. But that wasn’t without multiple attempts.
He casually flickered a flashlight in your direction, left the lights on for a lot longer than needed when he really should’ve been sleeping, and even shot off his gun, which he pretended was an accident, but you weren’t even there to see him do it.
It was quiet tonight, like most nights, but Levi liked it. It allowed him to write without any interruptions, and as of lately, a certain person had been the main source of his inspiration.
Funnily enough, it was the same person who just fired off three rounds with her pistol, and Levi shot up out of the chair he was sitting in, similar to the way he usually shoots up out of bed when he has his nightmares.
His book was tossed aside as he leaned over the railing, his eyes flickering along the East wall of the Gorge to see what you were firing at, but when he saw nothing, he looked up at you and saw the sheet of paper held in your hands. When he looked into the binoculars, he was able to read what you had written down, ‘HEY, STRANGER,’
A slow smile formed on Levi’s lips as his heartbeat slowed down to its normal pace, and he shook his head as he turned around and reached for the whiteboard he kept on the table next to the chair.
‘HEY BACK,’ he wrote, then held it up for you to see.
You smiled back and then held up another note that said one word. ‘BORED.’
Levi let out a quiet laugh and he let his gaze linger on your features for a few extra seconds before he stepped away from the binoculars again. God, you were so beautiful. Definitely the prettiest thing in this place, and that was a hard thing to compete with since he was surrounded by beautiful scenery. Yet you were still at the top of the list.
He scribbled down a question on the whiteboard, and he hoped you actually answered it this time, because he was dying to find out if your name was as pretty as the rest of you. ‘ARE YOU GONNA TELL ME YOUR NAME NOW?’
Levi watched your teeth sink into your lip again like it did the first time you and he did this, and this time, he did let his mind wander a bit. He wondered what sound you’d make if he took your lip between his own teeth. He wondered if you’d let him find out somehow.
You looked like you were having an inner debate with yourself before you finally flipped to a new page of the book and wrote something down. That something wasn’t your name, though. ‘WHAT DO I GET IF I TELL YOU?’
The look you gave him as you held it up had Levi pressing his lips together to hold back a groan. You were teasing him like you did before, and fuck if he didn’t like it. ‘WHAT DO YOU WANT?’ he wrote back, and he watched as a genuine smile formed on your lips.
Then you wrote something else and lifted it for him to see. ‘Y/N,’
It was just your first name, but Levi was more than okay with that, because it lived up to his expectations. Your name was definitely as pretty as the rest of you.
-
It was December now, and although the weather made Levi’s routine a bit harder, he still found time to talk to you almost every night.
He still didn’t know your last name, but at this point he didn’t care, because he was very much into you, and you were very much into him.
From the first night you reached out to him, Levi was hooked, and that feeling only intensified the longer he got to know you. And the close call you and he had a few weeks back definitely solidified his feelings for you, because he hadn’t felt that panicked in a long time as he watched you fire off countless rounds towards his side of the gorge while he defended your side.
On a side note, at least he finally knew what he was keeping from coming out now.
Since it was now winter, it was significantly colder out, and there was only so much Levi could do to keep warm. Sleeping on a mattress on the floor of the tower was uncomfortable as fuck before, but now that it was snowing nearly every day, it just became damn near impossible to get any sleep.
And though he only slept for maybe three hours last night, Levi was wide awake tonight, and from the looks of it, so were you.
You were sitting on the chair on the observation deck, a blanket draped around your body as you watched the flames of a few candles you had placed on the railing flicker from the wind. It wasn’t snowing right now, so it wasn’t super cold, but even if it was, Levi didn’t think he could pass up the opportunity to talk to you. Of course, in the form of a whiteboard and marker.
‘HEY, BEAUTIFUL. CAN’T SLEEP?’ he wrote down, then caught your attention by flashing his light at you.
You got up from the chair and kept the blanket around you as you peered through the binoculars, and a pretty smile formed on your lips, which only served to prove his words. You wrote down something in your book before holding it up, ‘I CAN…BUT I DON’T WANT TO. I WAS WAITING FOR YOU,’
Levi smirked and jotted down his response, this part of his nightly routine definitely being his favorite by far. ‘SORRY TO KEEP YOU WAITING. YOU COLD?’
Your smile grew before you gave him a pointed look, and he laughed as you wrote down your answer. ‘A LITTLE…WISH I HAD SOMEONE HERE WITH ME,’ you held up the page for a few seconds before quickly flipping onto a new one and writing something else, ‘YOU KNOW, SO WE CAN SHARE BODY HEAT.’
Levi groaned at your words and felt a familiar stirring in his groin, but he made no move to relieve it as he simply wrote down another message to you. ‘YOU BETTER BE TALKING ABOUT ME,’
During the first month of knowing you, Levi would’ve never written something so bold, but after a few months, he knew where you and he stood with each other. He’d made his interest known, and you’d done the same. It was fair game now.
He watched as your shoulders shook a bit as you laughed, and fuck he wanted to hear that sound so badly. He wanted to hear your voice, see your gorgeous smile up close, and he wanted to see if you fit as perfectly in his arms as he thinks you do.
Most of all, he wanted to taste those lips of yours and tug on your bottom one in the way you do every time he looks over at you.
You leaned over the railing a bit as you held up your sheet of paper, and Levi felt another surge of desire run through his body. ‘OF COURSE I’M TALKING ABOUT YOU,’
He bit down on his own lip as he shook his head and wiped down the whiteboard before writing something else. ‘SO MUCH FOR STAYING PROFESSIONAL,’
Nothing about this was professional. None of it. Levi had broken the strict rule of absolutely no contact with the East side watcher, but how could he have possibly followed it after he saw you for the first time? You were far too tempting. Far too alluring and captivating and enticing. And Levi was all in.
‘WERE WE EVER?’ you held up the note, and Levi knew he needed to head inside the tower, because he was concerningly close to showing you just how much your words affected him.
-
Towards the end of January, the snow had already begun melting, and it wasn’t nearly as cold out anymore.
Levi was sitting on the edge of the tower, his legs dangling off the edge as the wind blew through his hair. His chin was propped on one of the bars as he looked down at the Gorge, but he couldn’t see much because of the fog.
Really, he’d rather not see the things that are down there again, because they were nothing short of nightmare fuel, and he didn’t need any more of those.
Nearly half a year here, surrounded by nothing at all but trees, and yet he didn’t feel lonely at all. Isolated, sure, but not lonely.
When a flicker of light caught his eye, he looked up and saw you shining the beam of sunlight that was bouncing off your knife in his direction, and Levi felt a grin form on his face as he slowly stood up and looked through the binoculars. ‘WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT?’
A warm feeling took over his body, because you must have been watching him for a while, and that filled him with a sense of comfort he hadn’t felt in a long time.
He grabbed the whiteboard that was next to his book full of poems, most about you, and wrote down a simple answer. But he knew it’d make that pretty blush form on your face again. That was something else he was dying to see up close.
‘NOW? YOU,’
Levi was right in his assumption, as he saw your face break out into a smile and a soft blush, and you shook your head as you leaned against the railing.
Before you could think of anything to say back, he erased his words and returned your question, and you purse your lips as you peeked through the binoculars again.
You wandered over to your notepad and took your time writing something back, but Levi wasn’t impatient. Out here, with you just across the way from him, it felt like he had all the time in the world.
And you were worth the wait.
A few minutes passed before you lifted the page and revealed your words, and what pretty words they were. ‘YOU’RE A BREATH OF AIR, LEVI. AND I CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF YOU,’
Levi felt a shudder run through him, because that was exactly how he felt about you. He hadn’t heard you say a word to him, hadn’t seen you up close at all, and yet he couldn’t get enough of you.
And you’d just given him your heart. He’d make damn sure he took care of it, just as long as you took care of his.
With a steady hand, he wrote his response to you on the whiteboard before holding it up, ‘I’M FALLING HARD FOR YOU,’
And now he’d just given you his heart, though something tells him he’d already given it to you a few months ago.
Your eyes closed once you’d read his message, and you pressed your lips together as you flipped to a new page in your book, and Levi watched as you scribbled something down onto it. ‘I KNOW WHAT I WANT. BECAUSE I TOLD YOU MY NAME,’
Levi was instantly taken back to the second night you and he exchanged notes, and how you expected something from him if you told him what your name was. He was more than willing to deliver on whatever it was you wanted.
You took your time again as you wrote something else down, then flipped onto a new page before you even showed him the first one, and a few seconds later, Levi watched you go back to the previous page and hold it up, ‘IF WE EVER GET TO SEE EACH OTHER FOR REAL,’ then you flipped to the last page, ‘THE VERY FIRST THING I WANT YOU TO DO IS KISS ME.’
Levi felt a smug grin form on his face before he pressed his lips together and nodded slowly. He could definitely do that. He’d definitely do that. One hundred percent. Because he wasn’t falling for you anymore. He had already fallen, and there was no going back.
He barely missed a beat as he picked up the marker again and wrote down a question, but it wasn’t really a question. It was more like…a promise.
Once he purposely ended his sentence with a period rather than a question mark, he held the whiteboard up near his chest, which was home to his heart that was secretly beating very fast.
‘YOUR PLACE OR MINE.’
-
A few days after that last interaction, Levi had been working on the easiest and most efficient way to get across the gaping ravine to you.
He was going to fire off a literal rocket launcher with a zipline attached to it and then would trust you to tie it tight enough to whatever you could find so he didn’t fall into the Gorge.
Once that was done, he made himself look as presentable as he could, which required him to shave a bit and smooth out his hair. Then he picked a small bouquet of wildflowers for you, and then he was off.
The journey across wasn’t so bad, well the first half anyway. The last half required him to pull himself the rest of the way across, but it wasn’t too hard, thanks to all his previous training in the Marines.
With that being said, he was a little breathless when he finally made it over to the East side and unclipped himself from the zipline. His heart was beating fast, and part of it was because of the extra work he didn’t account for just then, but also because he was finally, finally, seeing you face to face.
As he started walking towards your tower, he heard the metal door swing open, and a few seconds later, you turned the corner and met his gaze almost instantly. He moved closer, and you looked as nervous as he felt, which was a cute change to your usual playful and teasing personality.
When he stood only a few inches from you, Levi let his eyes flicker all over your face as he took in all the stunning little details he failed to see through the binoculars, and then he leaned in and pressed his lips to yours in a deep kiss. He wrapped his arms around you and pulled you close as he explored your mouth with his tongue, making sure he satisfied the one thing you told him you wanted him to do when you got to finally meet up.
The second his lips touched yours, it felt like everything had fallen into place. You kissed him back just as intensely, your hands reaching up to cradle his face, and he felt like he could easily become addicted to this.
Levi pulled you impossibly closer, his hands resting rather possessively on your lower back for this being the first time he’s ever touched you, but he couldn’t help himself. You fit against him perfectly, and you simply just felt perfect.
When he finally broke the kiss, he was breathing a little heavier, and he gazed into your eyes as a grin spread across his face. “That,” he whispered, “was definitely worth waiting for.”
You laughed quietly, and he tightened his hold on you even more as he heard your voice for the first time after months of passing notes back and forth. “Absolutely,” you agreed, your thumb brushing along his cheek and smoothing over the ridges that were there from his scars. Your eyes left his and you glanced down at the bouquet he’d tucked into his belt, and he nearly moaned when you bit down on your lip. “Are those for me?”
Levi’s smile felt permanent as he reached down to pull the flowers out and offer them to you. “Of course they’re for you,” he answered, watching as you took them from him like they were the most precious things you’d ever held. His hand went back to your waist as he leaned in closer again. “So…what do we do now?”
He’d technically done what he came here to do, which was to give you the best first kiss of your fucking life, but that wasn’t the only reason, and he hoped that was as obvious to you as it was to him.
You smiled up at him before leaning in as well and draping your arms around his shoulders, your chest pressing right up against his as you hugged him for a few seconds. Your fingers tangled in his hair as you pulled back to kiss him again, this one a little shorter, but still just as amazing as the first one.
“How about I give you a tour? Show you what it’s like over here on the East side?” you offered when you pulled away and pressed your forehead against his, and he knew by the teasing tone in your voice that a tour was probably the last thing that was on your mind.
Still, he hummed and nodded slowly, letting you take his hand in your small one and lead him towards the door and up the stairs. He shamelessly let his eyes wander all over your backside as he trailed behind you, and he couldn’t believe he was finally with you after months of pining.
When you and he got to the top, he looked around the open space for a few seconds. It was about the same size as his tower, but he didn’t have a piano in his, which was a little unfair. “Quite the setup you’ve got here,” he observed, eyeing the mattress you had pulled all the way up here, just like he did with his.
You laughed as you walked over to the small kitchenette that was on the far side of the room, and he quickly decided that it was one of his favorite sounds. “I imagine it looks quite similar to yours,” you murmured as you filled a glass with water before placing the flowers in it and setting it down on the top of the piano.
Levi did another sweep of the relatively simple and clean room. “Can’t say it does,” he replied, shaking his head afterwards. “Yours is definitely better.”
You smile over at him before moving closer and reaching for his hand. “I’m so happy you’re here,” you whispered, pressing a soft kiss to his palm.
Levi’s breath got caught in his throat, and he swallowed quickly as his free hand reached up to cup your cheek. “I’m happy I’m here too,” he said back just as quietly as he stepped closer to you. “So fucking happy.”
The air had been thick with tension since the second he stepped foot on this side, and he tried not to give it too much attention, he really did, but it had only grown thicker, and now all Levi wanted to do was kiss you again, touch you all over, and completely give in.
You were so much shorter than him and moved with a lot more grace than he did as you led him over towards the makeshift bed, and he was content with letting you take the lead, because he was ready when you were, and though he couldn’t wait, he could wait for you.
He pulled you against his chest again, his hands settling on your hips as he looked down at you, and your eyes were so fucking gorgeous up close. Every part of you was. And he wanted to memorize every inch of you before he had to go back to his tower.
Your hands rested on his shoulders, and you gently dug your fingers into his skin as you guided him down until he was on his knees beside the mattress. You followed him down so you were kneeling in front of him, and you still had to look up at him as you caressed his face. “Tell me to stop and I will,” you whispered, your lips curving upwards into a teasing smile. “But I hope you know that I really don’t want to.”
“Then don’t stop,” he said back, his hands reaching for your hips again as he pulled you so you were straddling his lap. You were small in his arms, yet you felt absolutely perfect against him like this. His voice was a little rougher as he repeated the words he would be saying again soon enough, “Don’t stop.”
You let out a shaky sigh, your lips curling up into a relieved smile before you were leaning in and kissing him deeply, like the two before this one. Your hands gently pulled at his hair as you kissed him, and everything felt right. Like he already belonged here. Like he already belonged with you.
When you pulled away from his mouth, your teeth tugged at his bottom lip as you slowly rolled your hips against his, and Levi let out a soft groan. “Do you want to?” you quietly asked, your thumb stroking along his beard and chin.
Did he want to? Were you seriously asking him that right now? He couldn’t get enough of you, couldn’t stop his hands from touching every part of you he’s thought about over and over again while laying on his own bed across the Gorge from you.
“Do I want to?” he echoed, his voice a bit strained as he pulled you against him a little harder. “Fuck yes, I want to.”
You nod quickly and go to bite down on your lip again before Levi leaned in and connected your mouths once more. His big hands slid up your back under your shirt, and he could feel the goosebumps forming on your skin from his touch.
He helped you pull off his jacket and shirt, leaving his chest bare to your eyes when you pulled back to look at him. His thumb traced your bottom lip as your gaze flickered over every inch of his upper half, and you let out a soft sigh. “Fuck…you’re so hot,” you whispered and leaned in to press opened mouthed kisses along his shoulder
Levi groaned under his breath, his head tipping back a bit to give you more access as his hands pulled at your shirt until it was off your body, leaving your top half nearly bare. Your hands were running along his abs and chest when you pulled back and looked at him, your eyes hooded and unguarded.
“Touch me,” you encouraged quietly, and Levi finally let himself indulge in you.
His gaze dropped down to the tops of your breasts that your bra didn’t cover, and he was reminded of the teaser he got that first night when you leaned over the railing. Fuck the view from this angle was even better.
He slid his hands up your back as he leaned his head down and pressed soft kisses to your skin before he buried his face between your flesh. Your moan was music to his ears as he let his fingers fumble with the clasp of your bra, and he slowly guided the straps down your arms.
“God,” he groaned when the fabric hit the floor, and his hands immediately explored the newly exposed skin of your breasts. “You’re so gorgeous.” he breathed, his thumbs brushing over your nipples until they pebbled at his touch.
You were so beautiful, you took his breath away. Your skin was warm and inviting, begging to be touched and worshipped. By him, of course.
He leaned up and kissed you again when you reached down and unzipped his pants before pushing them down his legs. His tongue brushed against yours as he explored your mouth, and then you pulled away to tug off your jeans and panties, and his lips brushed against your hard nipples before you settled back down on his lap.
Levi was so hard for you, he knew you could feel him through his boxers as you rolled your body against his again as you kissed him and ran your fingers through his hair. You pulled away and tugged his boxers down his legs so you both were completely naked, and the setting sun casted golden hues onto your skin in a way that made you look like something straight out of Heaven.
He knew then that he loved you. He could finally admit it to himself. He loves you.
Levi sucked in a harsh breath when you lowered yourself onto him, your heat enveloping his cock like a glove. “Oh fuck,” he groaned at your tightness, one of his hands caressing your lower back while his other wrapped around the back of your neck.
He guided your face down to his so your foreheads were pressed together, and he was met with the beautiful sound of your moan when you started to slowly ride him. “Oh, my God,” you whispered, wrapping your arms tightly around his shoulders as your hips rolled against his.
Levi groaned, feeling your tight pussy squeezing him in a way that had him seeing stars behind his closed eyelids. Your chest brushed against his with every slow bounce, and he loved it. He loved all of it, the feeling, the sounds you were making, how good you felt in his arms.
“You feel amazing,” he rasped out, his hands moving down to your ass. “God…don’t stop.” he begged, repeating his earlier words as he met you halfway with shallow thrusts.
Your hands pulled at his hair as you let out loud moans and moved a bit faster on him. “Levi,” you whimpered, and he felt himself twitch deep inside you, because that was the first time he’d heard what his name sounded like coming from you. And he was already obsessed with it.
“Fuck,” he muttered, gripping you a bit tighter as he buried his face in the crook of your neck. “Say that again. Please, baby.”
You shuddered in his arms, and he had a feeling that you had a thing for pet names, which was definitely something he would keep in mind from here on out.
“Levi,” you moaned again, this time directly into his ear, and he growled lowly, deciding to give you a break as he rolled you onto your side and onto the mattress. He supported himself on his elbow as he began to thrust in and out of you in the new position, his other arm wrapping around you and holding you flush against his chest.
“So tight,” he murmured under his breath, his eyes dark with desire and utter adoration. “So good.”
You moaned a little louder and let him lean down to capture your lips in a messy kiss as he continued to fuck up into you. “Oh, God, you feel so good,” you echoed against his lips as you wrapped your arms tightly around his shoulders.
Levi could feel you tightening around him, and his hand slid back down to your ass as he pulled you harder against him. “Fuck, I’m close,” he muttered, and you nodded quickly as you ran your hands down his back, your nails leaving faint red lines along his skin.
“Me too,” you whispered, and then he felt you tense up in his arms when he thrust a little harder. Your eyes were nearly shut as you moaned for him, and when he felt you tighten around him even more, Levi leaned in and kissed you quickly before he tugged on your bottom lip with his teeth, satisfying his own craving as you came around him.
The sound you made went straight to his cock, and his eyes rolled back a bit as he rolled his hips a few more times before pulling out and coming all over your stomach and thigh.
You were shaking and whimpering as you came down from your high, your body covered in a thin layer of sweat and him. You looked absolutely breathtaking.
He wrapped his arms around you and pulled you close to him as he let out heavy breaths. “I’ve never felt anything like that before,” he confessed, his lips brushing against the top of your head as you snuggled against him.
“Me either,” you said back, and he never wanted to leave your side.
An unknown amount of time passed before you and he finally got up and showered together, and his hands never left your body for more than a few seconds. He accidentally let it slip up that he had written a handful of poems about you, and you begged him to read them to you, but he told you he would the next time he got to hold you against him after today.
That was his promise to you. That this was just the first time you and he got to properly see each other. It wasn’t the last.
When the time to go to sleep came, Levi held your body in his arms like you were always meant to be there, and for the first time in a very long time, his nightmares didn’t wake him up.
-
The next morning, when he was forced to return back to the West side, Levi kissed you until you were breathless, then he was making the trek across the Gorge and back to his own watchtower.
Later that day, just as the sun was starting to set, Levi was well past the point of missing you. He was cold without you, the quiet now louder than ever after the day and night he spent with you.
When he glanced over at your tower, he saw you already looking at him, your notepad held up in your hands, and he sighed.
He could live like this for a little while longer. But after this? After this, he was going to figure out a way to be with you properly. Because he was tired of being alone. He wanted you.
‘I’M COLD AGAIN…MISS YOUR WARMTH ALREADY. AND YOUR LIPS,’
Levi smiled at that and shook his head as he grabbed his whiteboard. He missed all of you already.
Once he’d finished writing down his own message to you, he held it up for you to read, and the smile you gave him was all the reassurance he needed to know that this was real. This was the real thing. And it was just the beginning.
After this, he’d never be alone again.
‘KEEP WARM, BABY. TIL WE MEET AGAIN…ALWAYS THINKING OF YOU.’
-
Thanks for reading x | @thetorturedpoetcalleddez @broosterradley @spookystitchery @afangirlfandom @different-tale-student @impossibleblizzardstudentposts @shanimallina87
You and Ryland Grace were never supposed to meet. Just messages sent across the void, a voice in the dark, something to keep the loneliness away. But somewhere along the way, he becomes more than that. And you’re left wondering if something this fragile can survive the dying sun.
Ryland Grace x hacker reader smut
Word count: 20k
Warnings: graphic smut, making out, age gap, talk of loneliness, jealousy, lying, angst
A/n: “this is all based on the movie! An au, kinda, sorry for any inaccuracies. He still meets rocky but rocky has enough astrophage to go to Erid and Ryland goes back to earth.”
The vast expanse of space stretched endlessly beyond the reinforced porthole of the Hail Mary, a silent ocean of inky black void punctuated only by the distant, unblinking eyes of stars cold, ancient, and utterly indifferent to the fragile life contained within the ship's humming shell.
Some already dead, some just born. It had been seven days since awakening, seven interminable cycles of artificial day and night dictated by the ship's chronometer, a digital heartbeat that mocked the natural rhythms Ryland Grace had once taken for granted on Earth.
The cabin, no larger than a modest studio apartment back home, felt like a coffin adrift in eternity. Walls of matte gray alloy etched with faint scuff marks from his restless floating, and stumbling. Control panels alive with the subdued glow of leds in shades of teal and amber, and the ever present scent of recycled air laced with the faint ozone tang of electronics and the sharper, synthetic bite of his unwashed flight suit tied around his lean waist.
He floated there, suspended in the zero gravity embrace that had long since lost its novelty and become just another layer of confinement. His body, slender from months of casual exercise but now softened by inactivity, drifted lazily as he maneuvered toward the galley nook.
The past week had been a descent into quiet desperation, a mental unraveling disguised as routine. Mission protocols had outlined every contingency except the soul crushing solitude, the kind that seeped into your bones like cosmic radiation, eroding resolve one silent hour at a time. He'd run diagnostics until the readouts blurred in his vision, plotted trajectories that looped back to the same grim calculus. Save the sun or die trying, alone.
The vodka, smuggled in a hidden compartment as a nod to one of his fallen comrades. He'd savored it earlier that evening (or what passed for evening in this timeless drift), the fiery liquid burning a path down his throat, warming his core against the perpetual chill that no amount of thermal regulation could fully banish. It had loosened the knot in his chest, if only for a moment, allowing him to confront the inevitable without the sharp edge of panic.
With the buzz fading into a dull throb behind his eyes, survival demanded pragmatism. He retrieved an unopened packet of ramen from the storage locker, its foil wrapper crinkling softly in the hush. The hot water dispenser hummed to life, dispensing a measured stream that he poured into the pouch, watching as steam bloomed in ethereal curls, twisting and dissipating in the weightless air like ghosts fleeing the light.
He sat himself at the fold down table with a his suit shifting around his waist and tore open the packet. The noodles, reconstituted into a steaming tangle, carried the artificial allure of beef and spice flavors engineered in a lab to evoke comfort, but tasting now like a pale echo of terrestrial meals.
He slurped them with deliberate care, broth dribbling onto his chin before he caught it with a swipe of his hand. Each bite was a ritual, a tether to humanity the salty warmth coating his tongue, the faint crunch of dehydrated vegetables yielding under his teeth, the way the steam fogged his glasses momentarily before he pushed them up the bridge of his nose.
The main console, dominating the forward bulkhead like a watchful oracle, bathed the space in its cool luminescence. Holographic projections flickered with real time data oxygen levels steady at 21%, hull integrity nominal, solar sails deploying in incremental whispers of efficiency.
The Eriduri system loomed in his mind's eye, a distant promise of purpose amid the stellar nursery of Rho Eridani, where alien worlds might hold the key to Earth's salvation. But here, in the interstitial black between stars, it was just him. The former middle school science teacher turned reluctant savior, his reflection in the screen a haggard ghost with unkept hair, stubble shadowing his jaw, and eyes shadowed by the weight of unspoken fears. His glasses reflecting hollowed light back to him.
He was midway through his meal, chopsticks poised for another awkward scoop, when the anomaly intruded. A subtle shift in the console's interface, a new window materializing in the lower right quadrant, unbidden and unauthorized.
A bioluminescent green cursor appeared, not the standard mission glyph but a simple, archaic underscore, blinking with rhythmic insistence.
On, off, on, off.
It was an anachronism in this high tech sanctum, evoking old Earth computers from his childhood stories, and it snagged his attention like a hook in still water.
He set the ramen aside, the pouch falling over with some uneaten weight, and propelled himself closer. His heart quickened, a staccato drum against his ribs, as the first message resolved letter by letter, each pixel igniting with deliberate slowness.
“Moonwalk”
The word materialized in crisp white sans serif font, hovering against the starry backdrop feed that served as the screen's default saver. Moonwalk. What cryptic nonsense was this? His mind cataloged possibilities in a flash. Solar flare interference scrambling the display? A subroutine glitch from the AI core? Or something more sinister: a breach in the firewall, an external ping from who knows where?
The Hail Mary was designed as a fortress of solitude, its comms array tuned to burst transmissions back to Earth, not casual chit chat. Yet here it was, in English no garbled code, no binary spew just a single, playful term that conjured images of Michael Jackson's iconic glide or Neil Armstrong's first lunar steps. Absurd, given his circumstances.
Wiping his hands on the frayed thighs of his pants the fabric worn soft from repeated use, carrying the faint imprint of his palms he leaned into the keyboard harness. His fingers, still greasy from the meal, hesitated over the keys, the plastic cool and unyielding. Protocols screamed caution. Isolate the terminal, run a scan. But curiosity, that old scientific vice, overrode them. He typed, the clack of keys echoing faintly in the cabin like Morse code tapped on metal.
“Never learned how”
He pressed enter, the message vanishing into the buffer with a soft chime that seemed louder than intended. Leaning back, the unused harness straps digging into his shoulders, he watched the cursor pulse. The cabin's atmosphere thickened, the air recyclers' whisper now a held breath, the distant creak of the hull expanding and contracting in the thermal flux outside amplifying his anticipation.
Seconds stretched into minutes; he could hear his own respiration, steady but laced with an undercurrent of adrenaline. The stars wheeled imperceptibly beyond the viewport, a cosmic ballet indifferent to his vigil. Then, a response.
“lol”
Three letters, lowercase and lighthearted, blooming on the screen like a shared secret. Laughter of the lines lowercase lol a digital chuckle that pierced the sterile void. Ryland's lips twitched, then parted in a genuine, dorky grin, the kind that crinkled the corners of his eyes.
Amusement bubbled up, unbidden and warm, chasing away the vodka's lingering fog. It was human, this flawed, informal, alive. In a ship built for precision and isolation, it felt like a breach of sunlight through armored plating. Intrigued, he felt a spark ignite in his chest, not fear but a tentative thrill, the first crack in the monotony's facade.
Emboldened, his fingers danced toward the keys again. Who are you? The thought appeared, glowing with curiosity, but doubt slithered in like coolant vapor from a vent. Who indeed? Mission control wouldn't toy like this. He backspaced furiously, the deletions a rapid fire retreat, leaving the cursor naked once more. Arms crossed over his chest, studying the interface as if it might betray its secrets through sheer willpower. The ramen cooled untouched, its aroma fading into the ambient staleness. The cursor stirred anew, as if sensing his impatience.
“Ryland Grace?”
His full name, precise and personal, etched in text that felt like a whisper directly into his ear. A jolt ran through him, electric and intimate, raising the fine hairs on his arms. How? The manifest was classified, the signal encrypted. His pulse thrummed in his temples, the cabin's confines pressing closer the overhead lights casting long shadows across the lockers stocked with freeze dried provisions, the emergency suit hanging like a sentinel in its alcove, the faint hum of the xenonite processors in the lab module aft, churning data on Erid's alien biology. Trust was a scarce resource out here, rationed like water. He didn't reply immediately, letting minutes accrue like interest on a debt. His mind raced through scenarios: a deep space probe with a rogue program? Intercepted comms from a rival nation? Or, improbably, a genuine connection to another soul, reaching across the light years?
The pit in his stomach twisted, a cold coil of uncertainty, but he couldn't ignore it. Finally, with a deep breath that fogged the console's edge, he typed.
“Depends on who's asking.”
Enter. The words launched into the unknown, and he unstrapped, pushing off toward the viewport to stare into the abyss. The wait gnawed at him, each second amplifying the ship's subtle symphony: the soft whoosh of air ducts, the occasional ping of micrometeorite deflection on the shields, the distant throb of the fusion drive idling in standby. His reflection overlaid the stars wide eyed, wary, yet undeniably drawn in.
“Interesting.”
The reply arrived like a gentle prod, enigmatic and laced with intrigue. No elaboration, just that single word, dangling like bait. He exhaled, a chuckle escaping despite himself callous, self deprecating, the kind that acknowledged the absurdity without surrendering to it. He returned to the console, but sleep called, or at least the pretense of it. Unstrapping fully, he navigated the narrow corridor to his bunk pod, a cocoon of padded netting and memory foam that molded to his form in the null g. The lights dimmed to a nocturnal red, simulating twilight over some imagined horizon, but rest proved elusive.
He turned in the restraints, the fabric sighing against his skin, his thoughts a tempest. What entity wielded such access? A hacker probing NASA's vaults? An alien intelligence mimicking human idiom? Or something benign, a forgotten subroutine awakened by his vodka fueled tinkering? The lol replayed in his mind, evoking a phantom smile, a bridge of humor spanning the unbridgeable. It humanized the unknown, stirring a longing he hadn't named: connection, however fleeting, in this engineered loneliness. The ship's log would note his vitals spiking, heart rate elevated, cortisol traces but he dismissed it, chasing fragments of dreams where voices echoed without screens.
Far below, on the blue marble of Earth, in a cramped dorm room at a university, the mysterious coder huddled over a laptop. The space was a chaotic haven of academia posters of nebulae and circuit diagrams peeling from cinderblock walls, a desk buried under textbooks on astrophysics and quantum computing, the glow of your screen the sole light against the midnight hush of the hallway outside.
You’d been debugging a simulation for your senior project, a virtual model of deep space comms when a stray line of code, born of late night impulse, had latched onto a public NASA feed.
What started as a glitch evolved into a handshake, your terminal bridging the gulf to the Hail Mary through some overlooked vulnerability in the pre launch software. Fingers hovering over her keyboard, you bit your lip, heart racing with a mix of terror and exhilaration. Ryland Grace the name from headlines, the man who'd gotten voluntold for the impossible.
Your accidental intrusion had unearthed greatness, a living legend adrift, and in that moment, two isolates astronaut and student touched across the void, the first thread of an unforeseen tapestry weaving through the stars.
The fluorescent hum of the lecture hall lights buzzed like a persistent insect against the edges of your frayed consciousness, a relentless drone that mirrored the chaos swirling in your skull.
It was mid morning on campus, the kind of crisp day where leaves skittered across the quad like errant thoughts, carried on a breeze that whispered promises of change you couldn't quite grasp. But inside this cavernous room rows of tiered seating scarred by years of restless students, the air thick with the mingled scents of stale coffee, fresh printer ink from syllabus handouts, and the faint, earthy undertone of rain dampened wool coats you were adrift, untethered.
The professor's voice washed over you in waves, a monotonous tide of jargon about astrophage propagation models and orbital decay rates, but the words dissolved before they could anchor. Your notebook lay open on the pull down desk, its lined pages a barren landscape marred only by a half hearted doodle of a spiraling galaxy, born from the night's insomnia.
You shifted in your seat, the vinyl cushion creaking softly under your weight, the chill seeping through your jeans a stark reminder of the draft snaking in from the half open window at the back.
Around you, classmates scribbled notes with the fervor of the damned, their pens scratching like tiny claws on paper, illuminated by the projector’s blue glow casting ethereal shadows across their faces.
One girl two rows ahead twisted her hair into a knot, her foot tapping a rhythmic Morse code of impatience; a guy to your left yawned wide enough to crack his jaw, the sound swallowed by the professor's droning explanation of simulation parameters. You envied their obliviousness, their ability to inhabit this mundane bubble while your world had cracked open like a fault line in the Earth's crust, spilling secrets from the stars.
Ryland Grace. The name alone conjured a constellation of memories you'd pieced together in the witching hours, fragments gleaned from flickering screens and breathless news clips. Everyone knew of him or at least, the myth of him. The unassuming science teacher from some sleepy town, plucked from obscurity to join the ranks of the great volunteers, those improbable heroes who'd stumbled into the astrophage crisis like characters in a cosmic thriller.
You'd seen the archival footage, the press conference where he'd cracked a smile lined with a lopsided grin, rubbing the back of his neck as if embarrassed by the weight of salvation on his shoulders. "Just doing my part." Voice steady but laced with that arid, self effacing humor that made the anchors chuckle.
Saving Earth hadn't been a grand quest for him; it was puzzle solving on a planetary scale, his mind a quiet engine turning the tide against the solar devouring plague. Interviews painted him as the everyman savior awkward pauses, thoughtful stares into the camera, a man who'd traded chalkboards for starships. But last night, those pixels had come alive, not as history but as a living echo, his words from old talks looping in your headphones until dawn crept in, painting your bedroom window with light.
Sleep had been a cruel tease, slipping through your fingers like comet dust. You'd collapsed onto your bed around four a.m., the mattress sagging under the pile of textbooks and hoodies that doubled as your pillow fort, but your eyes refused to close.
You'd propped yourself against the headboard, the wooden frame groaning in sympathy, and let the glow of your laptop pull you under. The room around you was a testament to controlled chaos string lights draped haphazardly over the bed's headboard, casting warm amber pools across the cluttered desk where your project files sprawled like a digital battlefield.
Empty energy drink cans formed a metallic skyline along the windowsill, their aluminum cool to the touch when you'd reached for one absentmindedly, the fizz long gone. Posters of pulsar arrays and exoplanet renderings peeled at the corners from the cinderblock walls, curling like invitations to elsewhere, while the faint scent of microwave popcorn lingered from a study session that had devolved into solitude.
A few miles down the road, campus stirred faintly the distant rumble of a maintenance truck, the muffled laughter of early risers heading to the dining hall but in here, isolation wrapped around you like a second skin, thick and unyielding.
The project had seemed innocuous at the start, just another hoop in the gauntlet of your senior year. Professor Hale, with his wire rimmed glasses perpetually fogged from his perpetual thermos of black tea, had leaned against the chalkboard that first day, sleeves rolled up to reveal faded tattoos of orbital paths inked in his wilder youth. "Optimize Earth based satellite observations of astrophage activity." he'd intoned, his voice gravelly from too many late nights grading.
"Simulate the feeds, patch the blind spots, think of it as giving our eyes in the sky a tune up." You'd nodded along, fingers flying over your keyboard to jot the specs of low Earth orbit trajectories, infrared spectral analysis, error correcting algorithms to filter the noise from the astrophage blooms that still haunted the solar system's fringes.
It was meant to be entirely theoretical, a sandbox of code and data drawn from public archives, honing your skills for the post grad job hunt in a field where wonder paid in spreadsheets.
But curiosity, that sly saboteur, had nudged you further. Late one evening, fueled by a cocktail of caffeine and quiet desperation, you'd tinkered with a backdoor subroutine, a harmless tweak to mimic real time pings, pulling from declassified NASA relays. What you'd expected was a simulated touch, a loop of dummy data echoing back your inputs.
However, the terminal had hiccuped, lines of code unraveling like frayed wiring, latching onto something distant, anomalous. Faulty engineering, you'd realize later, a pre launch oversight in the Hail Mary's comms firewall, a vulnerability born of rushed deadlines and the frantic scramble to launch the volunteer vessel light years toward Tau Ceti.
Your screen had bloomed with an unfamiliar interface, the cursor blinking like a beacon in the void, and then connection. Not to a satellite cluster orbiting Earth, but to him. The man orbiting, adrift in the interstellar black, his ship's systems whispering back through the ether.
The ethical storm had brewed from that first spark. You'd stared at the exchange of his cautious quips, your hapless lol that had made your chest ache with unexpected warmth feeling the weight of it settle like lead in your veins. Detrimental didn't begin to cover it.
This wasn't a prank or a glitch; it was a breach, a digital trespass into classified solitude. Reporting it meant scrutiny, investigations, questions about your code, the potential unraveling of your academic life in a university already rife with cutthroat competition.
Whispers in the halls about "that girl who hacked the stars" could turn admiration to suspicion, scholarships revoked, futures derailed.
A greedy part of you, the one curled in the shadows of your loneliness, wanted to hoard it. This secret bridge, this improbable thread linking your cramped dorm to the endless night it was yours, a private rebellion against the isolation that gnawed at you daily.
No roommates to share the burden (yours had transferred out last semester, leaving the space echoing with absence), no family calls that pierced the time zones without feeling performative. You were an island in a sea of faces, your nights spent chasing equations while the world outside paired off in laughter and light.
Yet the moral compass you'd inherited honed by ethics seminars and late night debates in the astrophysics lounge tugged insistently. Was this kindness or cruelty?
He was alone out there, somewhat alone. You wondered, if he had the rest of the crew to support him. In the quiet hours as your laptop fan whirred like a distant engine, if you were his only voice since departure. No mission control pings, no AI companions beyond cold protocols, just the hum of life support and the stars' indifferent gaze.
Communicating again risked everything his focus, the mission's integrity, your own fragile grip on normalcy. Sweep it under the rug, delete the logs, let the connection fade like a dream upon waking. But truth be told, the thought hollowed you out. You were just as marooned in your own way drifting through lectures and labs, the weight of unspoken dreams pressing like the dorm's thin walls against the wind.
Loneliness wasn't measured in light years; it was the echo in an empty room, the ache of reaching for something real across an unbridgeable gap.
As the professor wrapped up, dismissing the class with a wave toward the whiteboard's scrawled equations, you lingered, your fingers tracing the edge of your notebook.
The hall emptied in a rustle of backpacks and murmured plans for lunch, the air growing cooler in their wake. The voices beckoned with its deceptive normalcy students huddled over phones, leaves swirling in eddies but your mind was light years away, tangled in the what ifs.
Type another message? Or let the cursor's blink become a memory, fading into the cosmic static? The dilemma coiled in your chest, tender and raw, a slow burning fire fed by the shared solitude of two souls one in a metal ship slicing through the void, the other in a concrete tower under earthly skies.
For now, you rose, slinging your bag over your shoulder, the strap biting into your skin like a promise you weren't ready to keep. But the pull was there, insistent as gravity, drawing you back toward the screen that waited in your room.
The glow of your laptop screen bathed your bedroom in a soft, ethereal black and green, turning the cluttered space into a makeshift command center suspended between worlds.
It was well past midnight now, the campus outside your window hushed under a blanket of stars that felt mocking in their proximity close enough to touch if you stretched, yet infinitely distant compared to the man on the other end of this improbable line.
Your desk lamp flickered faintly, casting elongated shadows across the scattered notes from Professor Hale's class, their edges curling like whispers of forgotten equations. The air in the room hung heavy with the remnants of your all nighter the tangy bite of cooling ramen broth from a bowl pushed aside hours ago, the faint putrid whiff from your overheating processor, and the subtle, comforting musk of your oversized hoodie, pulled tight around you like armor against the chill seeping through the single pane window.
Your fingers, chilled from the draft, hovered over the keys, the plastic cool and unyielding beneath them, as if the keyboard itself sensed the gravity of what you were about to reveal.
You took a breath, the kind that rattled in your chest like loose change in a pocket, and began typing. The cursor blinked patiently, a steady heartbeat in the digital void separating you from the Hail Mary.
“Hey, it's me again. I'm a software engineering major, working on predictive models for harnessing the Sun's energy to speed up algae growth, think solar powered superfood for the apocalypse and real time tracking of astrophage blooms. Totally nerdy stuff. Anyway, while I was running some code to test signal relays and satellite algorithms, I guess my experimental tweaks intercepted your live comms? Your ship's out there observing and experimenting in real time, and boom accidental hack. Sorry not sorry?”
Hitting enter felt like launching a probe into uncharted space, your heart thudding in sync with the fan's low whirl. The seconds stretched, elastic and taut, until his response flooded the screen in a cascade of text that made your eyes widen.
He was taken aback, that much was clear from the rapid fire paragraphs waves of information surging over him like a solar flare. Relief? Terror? Or some cocktail of both that left him reeling at the thought of a college kid breaching his interstellar fortress.
You could almost picture it, him in that cramped cockpit, brawn frame tensed against the acceleration couch, his face those sharp features from the interviews, etched with the lines of too many sleepless missions paling under the console's amber glow as he processed the intrusion. Then, the punchline landed.
“You’re getting an A, for sure.”
A laugh bubbled up from your throat, unbidden and bright, cutting through the room's stale quiet like a comet's tail. You clapped a hand over your mouth, but it was too late the sound echoed off the cinderblock walls, startling you into a grin. Imagining the crinkle at the corners of his eyes, that signature quirk from the old press clips where he'd deflect heavy questions with a wry twist of his lips, made your cheeks warm. He was out there, cracking jokes amid the void, and somehow, it bridged the gap just a fraction.
Emboldened, you typed back, fingers dancing now with a lightness you hadn't felt all day.
“How’s space?”
His reply came slower, measured, sidestepping the shadows you sensed lurking in his subtext, the impending doom coiled in his chest like a spring, the ghosts of comrades he'd watched drift into the black. No, he wasn't ready for that confessional dive.
“Totally super cool.”
You chuckled again, softer this time, the sound muffled as you leaned back in your creaky desk chair, its springs protesting like an old friend ribbing you. Boring? Understatement of the century. But there was a intellectual wit in the brevity, a relatable deflection that screamed adulting in the apocalypse.
Picturing him out there, surrounded by blinking readouts and the endless starfield, boiling down cosmic isolation to a tourist brochure line, it was almost endearing.
“Seen any aliens yet?”
You fired off, curiosity laced with a playful nudge, testing the waters of this bizarre rapport. Quicker this time, his words zipped back.
“Dont joke about that. It's actually an irrational fear I have.”
Your fingers paused mid air, the keyboard's faint clicks falling silent as a flutter stirred in your chest not just intrigue, but something warmer, like sunlight filtering through storm clouds. His vulnerability peeked through the screen, raw and unexpected, making the distance feel less like a barrier and more like a shared secret.
You told yourself it was just the thrill of the connection, the absurdity of chatting with a space legend via glitchy code, but the warmth lingered, pooling low and insistent.
Not sure if it was too soon, hell, you'd been at this for what, hours now? your mind wandered to the crew, those faceless figures from the mission briefings, sealed in their tin can hurtling through the dark.
“Has any of the crew made any interactions outside the ship?”
The pause that followed was interminable, the cursor's blink stretching into eternity, each flash a metronome counting the weight of unspoken truths. Your room seemed to hold its breath with you the string lights dimming slightly as your laptop battery dipped, the distant hum of a vending machine in the hall fading to white noise. When his response finally materialized, it was clipped, heavy.
“No it's been quiet.”
A beat, then.
“Too quiet.”
Your stomach tightened, a visceral twist that had nothing to do with the half eaten granola bar on your desk. Loneliness, typed out in stark pixels, sounded so achingly human, so tangible it clawed at your own isolation. Why you? Why this glitchy backdoor the only lifeline piercing his solitude? Fingers moving slowly, deliberate, you typed to bridge the chasm without prodding too deep.
“Sometimes quiet is good. Makes life feel slower.”
He stared at the words, the ship's hum a constant underscore to his thoughts. How was some college kid dispensing life advice like a pint sized therapist? He was double your age, probably scarred by lesson plans and lab explosions long before she'd aced her first midterm. But damn if it didn't land, a gentle nudge against the isolation gnawing at his edges. He liked the rhythm of it, the easy back and forth that felt less like interrogation and more like camaraderie. Entertaining it further couldn't hurt.
“It wasn’t much different on Earth.”
Your brows furrowed, creasing the space between them as you leaned closer to the screen, the glow reflecting in your eyes like distant nebulae.
“How so?”
“The loneliness."
The words hung there, simple and stark, pulling your thoughts back to the crew the team he'd launched with, packed into that pressurized pod like sardines in a survival suit. Confusion bubbled up, relatable in its everyday logic.
“But you're surrounded by the other astronauts in a tin can.”
A slight laugh escaped him, huffed through his nose in the confines of the cockpit, the sound swallowed by the recyclers' whir. He pushed his glasses up his nose. It would've been funny, pitch perfect cosmic irony, if the circumstances didn't carve it hollow. His fingers tapped out the truth, steady as a heartbeat monitor. His bottom lip tucked between his teeth, glancing at the keyboard and the screen.
“It’s just me.”
You froze, the cursor's blink the only movement on your screen as his words sank in, heavy as asteroid debris. No immediate reply from you, just the quiet digestion, the room's shadows deepening as empathy wrapped around you like a chill draft. Finally, soft and sincere.
“Im sorry.”
“Dont be.”
Your lips tightened, a thoughtful press as you racked your brain for a lifeline, something to haul the mood from the brink without dismissing the ache. The clock on your nightstand glowed 2:17 a.m., a reminder of how the hours had slipped away in this digital confessional. Funny, wasn't it? You, who stumbled over small talk at coffee lines and ghosted group chats, had poured out paragraphs to a stranger, an astronaut, no less via a hacked interface that probably violated a dozen treaties. Easier this way, pixels over people, no awkward eye contact or fumbling pauses.
“Im stuck on Earth, you’re stuck in space, friends?”
You hit send on the olive branch, hoping it landed light, not too forward though after spilling guts across the void, what was one more leap? His reply came swift, warm as a solar flare.
“Already are.”
A smile tugged at your lips, genuine and slow, chasing away the room's lingering chill. In that moment, the room's confines felt a little less like a cage, the stars outside a little less indifferent. Two loners, tethered by code and coincidence, trading quips in the quiet hours, it was the start of something improbably real, witty and warm against the cold expanse.
The Hail Mary drifted onward, a lone speck in the infinite black, its hull whispering secrets to the void with every faint creak of expanding metal under the sun's distant gaze. Two days had slipped by since that last flicker of words on the console. The silence had settled in like frost on a winter window, creeping into every corner of his world.
The ship's rhythm, once a monotonous hum of life support and engine purrs, now amplified the emptiness the soft whoosh of air recyclers, the occasional ping of telemetry data scrolling unread across screens, the weightless drift of a stray protein bar wrapper orbiting his bunk like a mocking satellite.
He sat there in the dim glow of the lab module, the lights casting long, ethereal shadows that danced across the grated floors and bulkheads, turning the cramped space into a cavern of solitude.
Isolation wasn't new; it was the mission's cruel companion but this felt sharper, like a blade honed by that brief spark of connection. He tugged at the elastic waistband of his boxers, the fabric worn thin from endless lounging, and let his body curl slightly in the work chair.
His mind wandered back to you, unbidden, piecing together fragments from the ether a software whiz, algae models and astrophage trackers, that easy laugh in text form.
What did you look like? He pictured hair tied back in a hasty ponytail, eyes bright with late night caffeine highs, maybe freckles dusting a nose buried in code. Or worse, the cynical voice in his head chimed some basement dwelling troll, all greasy bangs and conspiracy posters, typing from a lair of empty energy drink cans. He snorted softly, the sound echoing hollowly, a coarse chuckle that didn't quite reach his eyes. Rubbing a hand over his face, stubble rasping like sandpaper.
He wished you'd ping again, that green cursor blinking like a heartbeat in the dark. But reaching out? Nah, too clingy for a guy who'd just admitted his crew was ghosts. He drifted through questions in his mind, rehearsing them like a nervous kid prepping for a date. What's your favorite constellation? Ever wonder if algae dreams of the stars? Keep it light, don't scare you off with the void's weight.
The console hummed nearby, its green interface a siren call, tempting him to poke at the code, see if he could nudge the signal stronger. And then, like a comet streaking through fogged thoughts, the idea ignited video.
Why settle for pixels when he could bridge the gap with faces, voices? A simple upgrade to the relay tweaks the bandwidth, patching the vulnerability you'd exploited. See you for real, catch those eyes he'd imagined, maybe even share a real laugh that echoed beyond text. His pulse quickened at the notion, a warm flush creeping up his neck despite the ship's steady 20 degree chill.
As the fantasy sharpened, what if you had a smile that lit up like a supernova, soft curves under oversized hoodies, fingers nimble on keys and maybe elsewhere? his hand drifted lower, almost unconsciously. The thin cotton of his boxers tented slightly under the growing ache, and he palmed himself through the fabric, a slow, deliberate pressure that sent a shiver racing up his spine.
Space made everything feel amplified, his body responded with a lazy heat, blood rushing southward in the weightless drift. He bit back a groan, eyes fluttering shut as he imagined your voice, breathy and curious, asking about his day among the stars. God, he was pathetic forty something astronaut, science teacher turned savior, reduced to this by a hacker's hello.
Felt like a virgin fumbling in the dark, heart hammering over the first girl who'd tossed him a line. His strokes grew firmer, thumb circling the outline of his hardening length, the friction building a low burn that contrasted the cool air whispering over his skin.
Crazy over text from a stranger light years away might as well launch himself into a black hole, let the event horizon swallow the embarrassment. But the desire coiled tighter, tender and raw, mingling loneliness with a spark of something deeper, a yearning for connection that went beyond code. He slowed his hand, breathing ragged in the quiet, the ship's hum a distant lullaby as he floated there, suspended between isolation and impossible want.
The third day dawned or what passed for dawn in the eternal night of the Hail Mary's orbit with him hunched over the workbench in the engineering bay, the faint buzz of soldering iron filling the air like a persistent whisper.
His fingers, callused from years of jury rigging prototypes back on Earth, danced with delicate precision over the circuit board, tweaking the final relays for the video patch. The labs module's lights cast long shadows across the exposed wiring, glinting off the half assembled comms array that sprawled like a mechanical spider on the console.
Sweat beaded on his forehead despite the controlled chill, the recycled air carrying a sharp tang of flux and overheated silicon. He'd barely slept, mind replaying your last message. A lot like a loop of forbidden code, warm and insistent in the cold void.
Every solder joint felt like a step closer to bridging the impossible distance, to seeing the curve of your smile or the way your eyes might light up mid sentence. The ship hummed around him, a symphony of soft whirs and distant vents, but his world had narrowed to this the glow of the oscilloscope, the flicker of test signals bouncing back green. A weight pressing on his chest like unspent thrust, but you? You were the variable that disrupted the equations, turning isolation into something almost bearable.
The console chimed then, a sharp trill that cut through the haze, and his head snapped up so fast he nearly tangled in the tethers. His heart kicked like a thruster firing cold, a rush of adrenaline flooding his veins hot. The screen bloomed with your words.
“Sorry been busy with classes.”
A grin split his face, wide and unguarded, the kind that pulled at muscles he'd forgotten how to use. Happiness bloomed in his chest, fierce and unbidden, chasing away the shadows that had crept in during the wait.
Three days seventy two hours of staring at blank screens, replaying old logs, wondering if the connection had frayed like a worn tether. But here you were, slipping back into his digital orbit as if the gulf between worlds was just a skipped coffee break. He floated there for a beat, weightless in more ways than one, the soldering iron cooling forgotten in his grip. God, it felt good. Like the first breath after holding it too long, or the sun breaking through the milky ways hazy atmosphere in his wildest mission dreams.
He didn't type right away, letting the moment settle, his fingers drumming a silent rhythm on the console's edge. Jealousy flickered at the edges of that joy, a petty spark he shoved down quick classes? Professors droning on about algorithms while you hunched over notebooks, surrounded by chatter and the scent of chalk dust? It twisted something in him, imagining your attention pulled away, scattered among strangers who couldn't possibly understand the fire you'd accidentally ignited across the stars. Like I'm not the highlight reel here, he thought, the words bitter on his tongue even unspoken. What if those lectures swallowed you whole, left him adrift again in this tin can, just another blip on a forgotten feed?
But then the flip side hit, softening the edge those same classes, that relentless grind of sims and data dives, were the very glitch that had beamed you into his life. Your project, your midnight tweaks chasing astrophage hints through satellite streams, had cracked open his ship's firewalls like a serendipitous wormhole. Without it, he'd be alone with the ramen packets and the endless starfield, no witty barbs to pierce the quiet, no voice (text bound, sure, but alive) to remind him he wasn't erased from the universe. Gratitude tangled with the envy, turning it into something almost tender, a quiet acknowledgment that fate had a wry sense of humor.
Shaking off the tangle, he leaned forward, the prototype's final test light winking affirmatively beside him.
“No worries, classes sound like a solid alibi. Mine involved dodging cosmic rays and arguing with a finicky antenna. How'd yours go? Any breakthroughs that rival hacking a spaceship?”
He hit enter, the words laced with that dry lilt he hoped carried his relief, masking the way his pulse still thrummed from your return. The engineering bay felt less claustrophobic now, the air warmer against his skin, as if your message had nudged the life support up a notch.
Back in the bedroom, the afternoon sun slanted through half drawn blinds, dusting your desk in golden motes that danced over the scattered printouts and cooling mug of tea. The lecture hall's echo still lingered in your ears, the professor's voice droning on vector calculus, your mind half there, half wandering to the man soldering away in silence.
Guilt had nipped at you all morning, a persistent itch amid the rustle of notebooks and the faint hum of the overhead projector. You'd checked your phone a dozen times during breaks, thumb hovering over the app that bridged your worlds, but classes had chained you down group discussions on energy models, a pop quiz that demanded focus you could barely muster.
Now, free at last, the weight lifted as you watched his reply pop up, that familiar humor wrapping around the screen like a comforting arm. A soft laugh escaped you, easing the tension in your shoulders, the room's clutter textbooks piled like fallen stars, a forgotten hoodie draped over the chair fading into the background.
“Breakthroughs? Nah, just survived a debate on quantum entanglement without dozing off. Your antenna drama sounds way more exciting. Jealous of the stars yet?”
His chuckle rumbled low in the module, vibrating through the bulkhead as he read it, the prototype humming to life beside him with a series of affirming beeps. Jealous? Of the stars? He was jealous of the desk that got to feel your elbows propped on it, the air that carried your sighs. But he kept it light, fingers flying.
“Stars are overrated, cold and distant. I made something. A prototype. Video feed's primed. Hoping to bridge the faceless words, want to try?”
Your breath hitched, the sun warming your cheeks as you stared at the words, anticipation coiling slow and sweet in your belly. The room felt smaller, more alive, the distant murmur of campus life outside your window a faint underscore to the pull toward him.
“Show me the cosmos, Ryland.”
The feed flickered to life with a hesitant shimmer, the hue blooming across your laptop screen like the first tentative strokes of dawn on a frost kissed windowpane. Pixels danced and settled, resolving your image into crystalline clarity against the cluttered sanctuary of your room the walls a patchwork of faded posters constellations mapped in marker ink, band logos peeling at the corners from the relentless humidity of late nights and the soft, diffused glow of a desk lamp casting elongated shadows that played across the rumpled sheets of your unmade bed.
The air in your space hung heavy with the mingled scents of instant noodles cooling in a bowl nearby, the faint citrus tang of your shampoo lingering from an earlier shower, and the earthy scent of rain soaked soil drifting in through the cracked window, where the dying sun painted the horizon in strokes of molten orange and bruised violet. In this pocket of solitude, the world contracted to the intimate glow of the screen, your reflection staring back with wide eyes framed by tousled hair, catching the light like threads of spun copper.
He felt the ship's systems hum beneath him like a living entity, the steady vibration of the life support recyclers thrumming through the deck plating and into his bones, a constant reminder of the fragile bubble separating him from the indifferent vacuum beyond the reinforced viewports.
The console before him bathed his face in cool blue light, etching sharp contrasts along the rugged lines of his features. The faint stubble shadowing his jaw a little more darker, the creases at the corners of his eyes deepened by years of squinting into telescopes and troubleshooting engines under the relentless sun. He was older than you'd imagined, not the boyish hero of news reels, but a man weathered by time and trials, his frame solid and unyielding in the confines of the harness that kept him anchored amid the weightless drift. The white 'Horse Shoe Bend Auto Club' shirt, a relic from his pre mission days, stretched across his chest, the fabric softened by countless cycles through a washing machine, its faded lettering a testament to simpler times spent wrenching on carburetors and swapping stories over cold beers. It clung to him in the recycled air, hinting at the breadth of his shoulders, the subtle play of tendons in his neck as he swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing with the force of the moment.
You were taken aback, your breath hitching in your throat as his image sharpened the way his messy hair, threaded with silver at the temples, curled slightly at the ends from the humidity controls fighting a losing battle against his natural waves. He looked at you not with the polished detachment of a broadcast interview, but with raw, unguarded surprise, his blue eyes framed with gold from his glasses like distant stars widening as they traced the soft contours of your face, the gentle slope of your shoulders beneath the oversized hoodie that swallowed you whole.
You wondered, in that electric instant, if the age between you registered for him as a chasm or a curiosity if a man who'd stared down the apocalypse could find something stirring in the fresh bloom of your youth, the unscarred optimism that still clung to you like morning dew. The thought sent a flush creeping up your neck, warm and insistent, making you shift in your chair, the wooden legs scraping softly against the linoleum floor, a sound swallowed by the sudden roar of your pulse in your ears.
He, too, reeled from the impact, his hand tightening on the armrest until the synthetic leather creaked under his grip. The void outside the porthole seemed to press closer, the starfield a glittering abyss that paled against the warmth radiating from your pixelated form. He'd pictured you in fragments during the text exchanges, clever fingers flying over keys, a mind sharp as a laser probe but this? This was visceral, the way your lips parted slightly in surprise, the faint blush that ghosted your cheeks when you smiled tentatively, the subtle rise and fall of your chest mirroring his own quickened breaths. Desire flickered low in his gut, unbidden and fierce, tempered by the tenderness of seeing you real, human, alive in a way the sterile confines of his ship had begun to erode. The air recyclers whispered on, circulating the faint metallic tang of the cabin, but it couldn't dispel the heat building between you, a tension coiling like a spring in the ether.
“Oh. Wow.” He breathed, blinking rapidly, like each blink took a photo of you. The words escaping in a gravelly rush, roughened by disuse and the dry swallow of recycled oxygen, carrying across the universe with a vulnerability that made your skin prickle. “I didn’t expect you to be pretty.” His voice wrapped around the admission like smoke from a dying fire, warm and hazy, laced with that understated awe that made your heart clench.
The connection stuttered then, a cascade of digital interference fracturing the feed into a mosaic of static snow, your image dissolving into abstract bursts of color before reforming with a reluctant snap. The interruption amplified the intimacy, leaving his confession to reverberate in the suspended silence, the air in your room thickening as if the very atmosphere held its breath. Your fingers dug into the edge of the desk, nails biting into the scarred wood, as a laugh bubbled up nervously, disbelieving to bridge the gap.
“What?” you managed, the single word laced with a breathy edge, your eyes searching his through the renewed clarity, the flush deepening to a bloom across your cheeks and neck.
He chuckled, a low, rumbling sound that vibrated through the speakers like distant thunder rolling over parched earth, his free hand rising to scrub at the back of his neck in a gesture so endearingly human it tugged at something deep within you. The motion pulled the shirt taut across his torso, outlining the steady strength beneath, and when his gaze returned to yours, it carried a spark of that wry humor, a deflection wrapped in genuine warmth that eased the raw edge without extinguishing the spark.
“You know,” His tone dipping into a conspiratorial murmur, as if sharing a secret in the hush of a crowded room, “You never told me your name.” The question hung there, simple yet profound, a thread pulling you closer across the cosmic divide.
You offered it up then, your name spilling from your lips in a soft cadence, the vowels rounding with the subtle inflection of your voice, carrying the everyday rhythm of late night confessions and half remembered dreams. It felt intimate, exposing, like baring the curve of your collarbone in the dim light.
He repeated it slowly, almost reverently, the syllables tumbling over his tongue as if testing their weight, savoring the shape of them like a rare melody plucked from the silence of space. His head tilted in a languid nod, the console lights catching the faint sheen of sweat at his hairline, and his eyes softened, crinkling at the edges with a smile that reached deep. “I like that name.” The words a gentle caress, evoking the imagined brush of callused fingers along your jaw, steady and unhurried.
“Thanks?” The confusion lifting at the end in a playful lilt, but your gaze betrayed the undercurrent the way it lingered on the faint laugh lines framing his mouth, the silver strands that only amplified his appeal, transforming him from a distant icon into a man of tangible depth, worlds removed from the tentative explorations of your past entanglements.
The sun outside your window surrendered fully now, its final rays bleeding into the deepening twilight, the sky shifting from fiery amber to a velvet indigo laced with the first hesitant stars. The room cooled gradually, the air carrying the crisp bite of evening, mingling with the faint vanilla from a forgotten candle on your shelf, as campus lights winked on like fireflies awakening in the gathering dusk. Your world funneled to him. The subtle shift of his harness as he leaned forward, the way his breath fogged the camera lens ever so slightly before the filters cleared it, syncing with your own in a rhythm that pulsed with unspoken invitation.
From that precipice, the conversation unfurled like a solar sail catching the wind effortless, expansive, delving into the marrow of your existences with a hunger born of isolation. You wove tales of Earth's chaotic tapestry. The symphony of rain pattering on awning metal during unexpected downpours, the electric buzz of a lecture hall alive with the scratch of pens and the mumble of half formed ideas, the quiet triumph of debugging code until the screen bloomed with success, lines of green text like verdant fields after drought.
He reciprocated with the stark poetry of the cosmos the silken whisper of astrophage samples swirling in zero g containment, the bitter edge of ramen chased with the synthetic tang of rationed fruit, the profound stillness broken only by the occasional ping of incoming data, a lifeline to a world he'd left behind. Laughter threaded through the exchange, dry and effervescent. Your anecdote about a professor whose monotone rivaled the ship's autopilot drawing a bark of genuine mirth from him, his recounting of a toolkit revolt in microgravity tools orbiting like mischievous satellites prompting your unrestrained peal that echoed in the empty module, warming the chill metal walls.
Tension simmered beneath the surface, a slow building heat that manifested in stolen glances held too long. The arc of your neck as you tilted your head in thought, exposed and inviting; the flex of his forearm as he adjusted a dial absentmindedly, veins standing in stark relief against skin.
Pauses stretched, laden with potential the brush of your fingertips near the keyboard, echoing the hover of his over the console, as if proximity could transmute into touch, dissolving the barriers of light speed lag and impenetrable hulls.
Chemistry crackled in the ether, electric and undeniable, each shared vulnerability a spark igniting the fuse. His quiet admission of doubting his heroism, your confession of nights spent staring at ceilings, wondering if ambition was just another form of running.
Midnight encroached on silken feet, the sun's embers long extinguished, leaving the sky outside a profound black pricked with constellations that seemed to lean in, eavesdropping on your unraveling. Your room transformed into a cocoon of shadows, the laptop's glow the sole beacon, illuminating the faint freckles across your nose, the way your eyelids grew heavy yet reluctant to close.
The air grew thicker, laced with the subtle musk of your skin warmed by the screen's radiation, the tick of the wall clock a metronome to your deepening bond. You'd peeled back layers in those stolen hours his boyhood dreams of racing across open deserts, soured by the weight of global salvation; your tangled fears of mediocrity in a field of giants, the ache of empty weekends in a city that pulsed without you.
It was as if you'd mapped each other's constellations, the scars of old heartbreaks, the north stars of unspoken hopes, etched into the digital stream with a precision that felt fated.
“I wish I would’ve met you sooner,” Your words emerging raw and unarmored, threading through the speakers like a fragile comet's tail, curling around him in the frigid expanse of his cabin. The confession bore the sting of regret, the moon's pallid light now slipping through your blinds in silvery ribbons, tracing cool paths along your arms and the curve of your exposed wrist.
His face shadowed subtly, the overhead lights carving hollows beneath his cheekbones, his expression a mosaic of longing and restraint. He shifted in his seat, drawing your eye to the steady rise of his chest.
Leaning closer, his gaze ensnared yours with an intensity that made the air between screens hum with latent energy, a magnetic pull defying the physics of distance. “No you don’t,” He countered, shaking his head, his voice a velvet rumble, firm yet laced with that self effacing wit that masked deeper truths. “I was a loser on Earth. Still am now, but a cool loser since not everyone goes to space.” The joke landed with feather light grace, a humorous veil over the vulnerability, but his eyes, those storm tossed seas reflecting the infinite black held fast, the chemistry between you igniting like a flare in the void, drawing you inexorably nearer.
The question rose unbidden, heavy as the gathering night, your voice fracturing on its edges like thin ice underfoot. “Are you ever coming back?” It lingered in the midnight hush, the laptop's fan whirring a frantic dirge, the battery icon pulsing crimson in accusation, the raw plea etched in the lines of your face, the parted lips, the wide eyed hope warring with dread.
Silence bloomed, profound and eloquent, his jaw clenching with a faint tic of muscle, the unspoken verdict settling like cosmic dust in the wake of a supernova, no, not in the way that mattered, the mission's inexorable tide pulling him further into the dark.
His hand ascended slowly, deliberately, palm pressing against the lab tables unyielding surface in a mirror to your own gesture, fingers splaying wide as if to bridge the gulf, to feel the phantom warmth of your skin. The yearning in that motion was palpable, a tender ache that twisted toward something fiercer, more primal the imagined press of bodies, breaths mingling in shared orbit.
Then the feed rebelled, pixels splintering into chaotic fractals, the audio distorting into a mournful keen as the power reserves faltered. “Wait!” Lunging forward, but darkness claimed the screen in an abrupt quench, the room plunging into inky repose broken only by the faint glow of your phone on the nightstand.
The laptop's chassis radiated a dying warmth against your thighs, the absence of his voice a visceral void, like the sudden chill of winter wind stripping away summer's embrace. You remained frozen, gaze fixed on the blank void, the echo of his timbre haunting the shadows, your chest tight with the bloom of an infatuation both foolish and fervent a crush on a specter glimpsed in fleeting frames, his rough hewn allure and quiet strength stirring yearnings you'd scarcely named.
Childish, the doubt whispered, curling in your gut like smoke; he'd never cross that threshold, never trace the lines of your form with hands that knew the spin of wrenches and the spin of fate. Did he harbor the same shadowed interest, that blend of carnal pull and soul deep affinity? The uncertainty gnawed, sharp as asteroid grit, yet beneath it flickered defiance. Miracles unfolded daily in this universe, worlds saved from invisible foes, signals piercing the black. Why not yours?
The night enveloped you, stars indifferent sentinels beyond the glass, but in the quiet aftermath, you savored the residue, the flavor of your name on his lips, the tether of connection enduring like a persistent signal in the cosmic noise.
Your eyelids fluttered open to the insistent trill of your alarm, a synthetic birdsong the faint scent of brewing coffee wafting under the door like a promise of normalcy. But normalcy felt fractured, your mind still adrift in the echo of his voice, that gravelly timbre wrapping around your name like a secret shared in the hush of predawn. The laptop sat dormant on your desk, its screen a blank mirror reflecting the disarray, scattered notes on astrophage trajectories, an empty mug ringed with the dregs of yesterday's tea, and the faint outline of your handprint on the edge where you'd gripped it too tightly during the feed's final sputter.
You pushed yourself up, the mattress creaking under your weight, sheets tangling around your legs like reluctant lovers. A glance at the clock confirmed the inevitable. Class in under an hour, and the gnawing realization hit like a rogue asteroid. Your project submission, the predictive model for satellite data integration, was due at the start of lecture.
Panic bloomed in your chest, sharp and cold, mingling with the stale air of the room, heavy with the remnants of unwashed laundry piled in the corner. You'd been so consumed by the digital tether to him, those hours dissolving into a haze of laughter and confessions, that the real world had blurred at the edges. No model rendered, no simulations run just the ghost of his smile lingering in your thoughts, the way his eyes had crinkled with that wry amusement, pulling you deeper into an orbit you couldn't escape.
The campus unfolded around you in a symphony of routine as you hurried across the groups, backpack slung over one shoulder, the crisp air nipping at your exposed skin and carrying the earthy perfume of fallen leaves crunching underfoot. Students clustered in animated knots, steam rising from paper cups clutched against the chill, their voices a babel of exam woes and weekend plans that felt worlds away from the cosmic intimacy you'd tasted. Your breath came in visible puffs, syncing with the quickened beat of your heart, each step a reminder of the secret humming beneath your surface like a hidden engine, propelling you forward while whispering of distances unbridgeable.
The lecture hall loomed at the end of the engineering building, its brutalist concrete facade softened by ivy creeping up the walls in defiant green tendrils. Inside, the air hummed with the low buzz of fluorescent lights and the shuffle of bodies settling into tiered seats, the scent of chalk dust and overheated electronics thickening the atmosphere.
You slipped into your usual spot near the front, the worn armrest cool against your palm, but before you could even unzip your bag, a shadow fell across your desk. Professor Hale was tall and angular, with wire rimmed glasses perched on the bridge of his nose and a perpetual furrow etched between his brows hovered there, his tweed jacket shedding faint motes of lint like stars from a disintegrating galaxy.
"A word?" His voice was measured, carrying the quiet authority of someone who'd mentored prodigies and watched them falter. He gestured toward the side aisle, away from the gathering crowd, and you rose on numb legs, the scrape of your chair echoing like an accusation in the relative quiet.
The hallway beyond the doors was a narrow vein of linoleum, fluorescent strips overhead casting a sterile glow that washed out the colors of your shirt, making the world feel two dimensional. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, the fabric of his sleeves whispering against the cinderblock as he fixed you with a gaze that probed without malice, curious, concerned, laced with the disappointment of unmet expectations.
"You've always been one of my sharpest," Tone even, like the steady drip of a faucet in an empty room. The words landed softly, but they stirred the knot in your stomach, twisting it tighter. The narrow window, a pigeon fluttered against the glass, its wings a frantic blur before it veered away into the gray sky.
"Your work on the energy harnessing algorithms last semester? Brilliant. Predictive models that anticipated variables the rest of the class hadn't even touched. So, when I didn't see your submission this morning well, it's unlike you. Everything alright? Personal issues? Overloaded schedule?"
Heat crept up your neck, not from shame but from the proximity of the truth you'd buried deep the nights blurred into one endless conversation, Ryland's dorky jokes cutting through your isolation like a laser through fog, his confessions drawing out your own in a vulnerable dance that left you breathless. You could picture him now, adrift in the Hail Mary's confines, perhaps staring at his own console, wondering if the silence meant you'd drifted away. The thought sent a pang through you, sharp as the chill seeping from the floor tiles, but admitting it? To spill the secret of a man light years distant, a hero whose solitude mirrored your own in ways that felt fated? No, that was a bridge too far, a vulnerability that could unravel everything.
You swallowed, forcing a smile that felt brittle at the edges, your fingers twisting the strap of your backpack until the nylon bit into your skin. "Just... got caught up in some tweaks," The lie slipping out smooth as recycled oxygen, laced with just enough technical jargon to ring true. “The satellite data feeds were glitchier than expected astrophage interference patterns throwing off the baselines. I was iterating on a workaround late into the night, and time slipped away."
Hale’s eyes narrowed slightly, the lines around them deepening like craters under scrutiny, but he nodded, the gesture slow and appraising. The hallway echoed with the distant murmur of the lecture beginning without you, voices rising in a crescendo of rustling papers and the professor's opening remarks filtering through the door like muffled thunder. "I get it, passion projects can eclipse deadlines. But talent like yours doesn't excuse sloppiness. Mock something up by the end of the day? A variant model, perhaps? Focus on the core outputs energy yield projections, tracking efficacy. No need for the full integration if you're still refining. Just show me you're still in the game."
Relief washed over you, cool and fleeting, as he clapped a hand on your shoulder firm, paternal, the warmth of his palm seeping through your hoodie like a brief anchor to the tangible world. "Don't let it slide again," his voice dropping to a conspiratorial rumble, the faintest hint of a smile cracking his stern facade. "The field's cutthroat enough without self sabotage."
He turned then, the door swinging open with a hydraulic sigh, admitting a gust of warmer air scented with dry erase markers and the faint mechanical smell of projectors.
You lingered in the hallway a beat longer, the cool wall pressing against your back, grounding you as your mind raced ahead. A mock up simple enough. Pivot to a terrestrial simulation, repurpose public datasets on solar flares and algal blooms, fabricate the outputs to mirror the required details without dipping into the live feeds that had led you to him.
No risk of pinging Ryland's systems, no accidental breach that could sever the fragile thread between you. The harm in secrecy? None, you told yourself, the words a mantra against the flutter in your chest. It was yours a private constellation, unmarred by scrutiny or protocol. Professors pried into code, not hearts; they mapped algorithms, not the quiet ache of longing for a voice across the void.
Back in your seat, the lecture blurred into a haze of equations scrawled on the board, chalk dust swirling in the projector beam like nebulae birthing stars. Your notebook filled with sketches, but beneath it all simmered the undercurrent the memory of his laugh, low and rumbling, evoking the imagined brush of his fingers along your arm, steady and unhurried.
By afternoon, in the dim glow of the computer lab keyboards clacking, the air humming with the whir of cooling fans you pieced together the facade. Lines of code flowed under your fingertips, elegant and deceptive, yielding graphs of projected efficiencies that danced on the screen in vibrant blues and greens, echoing the real without invoking it.
As the sun dipped low, casting long shadows across the quad through the lab's windows, you hit submit, the confirmation chime a hollow victory. No mention of the man who'd stolen your focus, his image flickering in your mind's eye the silver at his temples catching the console light, the subtle strength in his jaw as he leaned into the camera, eyes holding yours with a gravity that defied energy. The secret nestled safe, a warm ember against the encroaching dusk, promising more stolen moments in the quiet hours when the world slept and the stars aligned just for you.
The door to your apartment clicked shut behind you with a soft, definitive thud, sealing out the clamor of the evening campus, the distant laughter of students spilling, the rustle of wind through skeletal oaks, and the faint, acrid tang of exhaust from the shuttle bus rumbling away.
Your backpack hit the floor with a muffled thump, keys jangling as they followed, and you exhaled, the tension of the day uncoiling like a spring finally released. The room enveloped you in its familiar hush the faint hum of the fridge in the corner, the subtle creak of floorboards settling under your weight, and the lingering scent of vanilla from the candle you'd burned last night, now a waxy stub on the windowsill.
Twilight bled into indigo, streetlamps flickering to life like hesitant stars, casting elongated shadows across the rumpled bed where your thoughts had wandered all day back to him, to the gravel in his voice, the way his presence filled the screen like a gravitational pull you couldn't resist.
You sank onto the edge of the mattress, the springs sighing in protest, and fired up the laptop with fingers that trembled just slightly from the anticipation. The screen bloomed to life, its glow warming your face in the dimming room, and you initiated the call without a second thought.
All day, through the drone of lectures and the frantic tap of keys in the lab, he'd been a constant undercurrent a stolen glance at your phone during break, imagining his wry smile; the brush of your thigh against the desk as you pictured his hand there instead, steady and warm.
The connection stabilized with a familiar chime, pixels resolving into the confines of the ship that stark, utilitarian cockpit bathed in the soft light of control panels, the hum a perpetual whisper in the background like the ship's own restless breath.
Ryland appeared, framed by the camera's unyielding eye, and your heart stuttered at the sight of him. He was slouched in his lab chair, a black I Had Potential shirt clinging to his frame in a way that spoke of too many hours in space, the fabric rumpled and faded, hugging the breadth of his shoulders and the subtle definition of his chest.
His hair was disarray, as if he'd run a hand through it one too many times, and dark stubble growing, giving him that rugged edge that made your pulse quicken. But there was something off his eyes, usually sharp with that calculated precision, darted sideways with a mix of exasperation and something almost like glee. The ship looked... different. Cluttered. Hoses and makeshift contraptions snaked across the console, and in the corner of the frame, a peculiar setup glinted under the lights a small, rocky outcrop secured in what looked like a hamster ball habitat, light reflecting against the glass panes.
“Hey.” His voice crackling through the speakers with that warm, lived in timbre that wrapped around you like a blanket fresh from the dryer. A grin tugged at his lips, but it was lopsided, edged with the absurdity of whatever chaos had unfolded. “You look like you survived the academic trenches. How's Earth treating its favorite hacker?”
You laughed, the sound bubbling up unbidden, easing the knot in your chest as you leaned closer to the screen, propping your chin on your hand. The room around you faded the glow of the laptop, the only anchor, pulling you into his world. “Barely. Classes were a blur. But you... you look like you've had one hell of a day. What's with the mad scientist vibe? And that shirt is a bold choice for a guy who's supposed to be saving the galaxy.”
He chuckled, low and rumbling, rubbing the back of his neck in that nervous way that made your stomach flip. The motion drew your eye to the flex of his forearm, veins tracing paths under skin, and you bit your lip against the warmth spreading through you. “Oh, this old thing? Figured it was fitting. Also my irrational fear happened.” He paused for effect, his gaze locking onto yours through the feed, that spark of shared mischief igniting something deeper, a quiet thrill that hummed between you like static electricity. “Turns out, I'm not alone up here anymore. Meet Rocky.”
He shifted the camera with a casual swivel, angling it toward the habitat. There, in the lab, was... a rock. Not just any rock an alien, Erid spawned entity, its surface etched with faint, iridescent patterns that caught the light like bioluminescent veins. If you squinted, you could almost swear it pulsed with a subtle rhythm, alive in its foreign simplicity.
Ryland's voice dropped to a mock serious tone, laced with that dry humor that always pulled a smile from you. “Rocky, this is... well, my friend from Earth. The one who's been keeping me from going crazy.”
A series of clicks and chirps emanated from the speakers of Rocky's communication, translated in real time by whatever kludged software Ryland had whipped up. The rock bobbed slightly, as if nodding, and the audio rendered it into a gravelly, synthesized voice that sounded suspiciously like a chain smoker who'd seen better days. “Friend? From Earth? Is girlfriend?”
Ryland froze, his face flushing a shade that clashed hilariously with the black shirt, eyes widening like he'd been caught with his hand in the astrophage jar. He coughed, straightening up abruptly, the chair creaking under him as he fumbled for words. “Whoa, hey, no Rocky, buddy, pump the brakes. She's a friend. A colleague, even. You know, the kind who hacks into spaceships and saves lonely astronauts from themselves.”
His gaze flicked back to you, apologetic but twinkling with embarrassment, and the awkwardness only amplified the charm the way his ears pinked at the tips, the quick rake of fingers through his hair. It was cute, so much so that pierced the cosmic divide, making your chest ache with affection.
You couldn't help the giggle that escaped, covering your mouth as heat bloomed in your cheeks, mirroring his. The compatibility hit you then, sharp and sweet. His fumbling honesty bouncing off your easy laughter, weaving a thread that felt unbreakable despite the void. “Girlfriend, huh? Rocky's got better intuition than NASA, apparently.” Your voice teased, light and playful, but underneath thrummed the truth the pull toward him growing with every shared absurdity, every glance that lingered a beat too long.
Ryland groaned, but it dissolved into a laugh, genuine and freeing, his shoulders shaking as he leaned back, the tension easing from his frame. “Ignore him. Rocky's new to Earth lingo thinks every conversation's a rom com plot. But seriously, today's been a trip. Woke up to him commandeering the ship, rerouting power like he owns the place. Took over the entire vessel before I could even eat my ramen.” He gestured vaguely at the habitat, where Rocky emitted a series of smug chirps. “Rocky efficient. Human slow.” Ryland shot it a mock glare. “See? Cocky little gravel pit. But he's brilliant figured out astrophage tweaks I hadn't even dreamed of. Saved my ass, really.”
The way he talked about it, animated and alive, eyes lighting up as he described the chaos, the sparks from overloaded circuits, the frantic rigging in the dim glow of emergency lights drew you in deeper. You could picture him in that shirt, brow furrowed in concentration, a bead of sweat tracing down his temple. The image stirred something tender and heated, a slow simmer of desire tempered by the genuine spark of his mind, so like yours in its relentless curiosity. “Sounds like you've got a companion now. I’m jealous, my day's highlight was faking a model to cover for forgetting my homework because someone kept me up too late last night.” Your words carried a flirtatious hint, testing the waters, and his responding grin slowly, knowing sent a shiver down your spine.
“Guilty as charged.” Voice dropping an octave, the awkwardness from moments ago forgotten in the warmth of your rhythm. Rocky chirped again, oblivious, but neither of you paid it mind. In that suspended moment, with the ship's hum syncing to the quiet rhythm of your breaths, the distance felt illusory.
The glitch in the feed was a fleeting hiccup, a momentary stutter in the digital tether that bound you across the cosmos, but it served only to heighten the reluctance threading through Ryland's voice. He reached out instinctively, his fingers brushing the console as if he could steady the connection with sheer will. “Come on, don't bail on us now.” The words half to the screen, half to the indifferent machinery. The image sharpened again, your face reappearing in the warm lamplight of your dorm, eyes bright with amusement at his plea.
You tilted your head, a playful smirk tugging at your lips, the loose strands of your hair catching the light like threads of starlight. “Us? Already a package deal with the rock? I feel honored.” The words carried a teasing jest, and Ryland's flush deepened, but he recovered with a grin, the kind that crinkled the fine lines around his eyes and made the isolation of his ship feel a touch less vast.
Rocky's enclosure hummed to life in the background, the bioluminescent glow intensifying as if the alien were leaning in, his translated voice rumbling through the speakers with that gravelly edge part curiosity, part mischief. “Package? Like cargo? Humans bundle everything. Girlfriend cargo?” The question landed like a well timed asteroid, blunt and unfiltered, and Ryland's head snapped toward the shelf, his expression a mix of exasperation and reluctant fondness.
“Rocky!“ He pinched the bridge of his nose, walking and putting a foot against the bulkhead. The motion pulled his shirt taut across his shoulders, a subtle reminder of the body beneath the fabric, honed by necessity in this confined world.
You couldn't help the bubble of laughter that escaped, covering your mouth with one hand as your shoulders shook. The sound echoed softly in your room, mingling with the distant patter of rain against the windowpane, grounding you even as your pulse quickened at the easy camaraderie unfolding. “Girlfriend cargo? That's a new one. Rocky, if I'm cargo, do I get hazard pay?” You leaned forward, elbows on the desk, the sweater's soft weave brushing your arms, drawing his eyes for a fraction longer than necessary.
The rock's lights pulsed in what you imagined was delight, a series of rapid chirps translating into a dry chuckle. “Hazard? Space full hazards. But you fix code valuable cargo. Grace needs fixing too. Always bumping walls.” Ryland let out a bark of laughter, genuine and unrestrained, the sound reverberating through the feed like a warm current, chasing away the chill of the recycled air on his end.
“Those bumps are character building!” he protested, gesturing animatedly, his hands cutting through the air in exaggerated arcs. “And for the record, Rocky's the one who turned the nav console into his personal scratching post earlier. Scratched right through a diagnostic panel. I spent hours patching it while he supervised from the corner.” He shot the enclosure a sideways glance, mock accusatory, but the affection in his tone was unmistakable the way it softened at the edges, revealing the bond forged in the fire of survival.
Rocky didn't miss a beat, his response a smug vibration that the translator rendered with impeccable sarcasm. “Supervise efficient. You patch slow. Like human glue sticky mess.” You watched Ryland's face light up with indignation, his lips parting in a feigned scoff, and the sight sent a flutter through your chest, the banter pulling you deeper into their world, making the stars between you feel negotiable.
“Oh, come on, that's rich coming from the guy who glued his own sensor to the wall trying to improve the humidity levels.” You chimed in, your voice laced with mischief, drawing from the snippets Ryland had shared in texts the chaotic domesticity of sharing a ship with an extraterrestrial engineer. “What was it you called it? Optimal moisture matrix?” The reference hit its mark; Ryland's eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed in playful retaliation, a spark of delight flashing across his features.
“You been paying attention, huh?” He drifted closer to the camera, the console's glow casting shadows that accentuated the stubble along his jaw, the subtle tension in his frame as he held your gaze. “Yeah, optimal disaster is more like it. Woke up to the whole habitat smelling like a wet cave. Rocky's idea of romance, apparently.” The word romance hung for a beat, unintended weight in it, and Rocky's lights flickered curiously.
“Romance? Like human bundling? You two bundle across stars?” The rock's innocence or was it calculated? ignited another round of laughter from you, your cheeks warming under the screen's scrutiny. Ryland groaned theatrically, running a hand through his hair, tousling it further into that effortlessly disheveled state that made your fingers itch to smooth it back.
“Rocky, buddy, you're killing me here. No bundling. Just... good conversation. The kind that makes a long haul feel shorter.” His voice dipped, sincere beneath the deflection, eyes locking with yours in a way that bridged the delay, conveying the quiet truth this exchange, this trio of voices weaving through the void, was mending something in him, stitch by invisible stitch.
You nodded, the moment shifting from levity to something softer, your fingers tracing idle patterns on the desk, the wood cool and familiar under your touch. “I like the bundling theory, though. Makes the distance seem... collaborative. Like we're all in this asteroid field together.” The words carried a gentle invitation, and Ryland's expression eased, a small smile curving his mouth as he absorbed it.
Rocky, ever the opportunist, rumbled approvingly. “Collaborative good. Bundle fixes ship.” The bluntness sliced through the tenderness, eliciting a chorus of chuckles, yours bright and breathless, Ryland's low and rumbling, the harmony of it echoing in the speakers like a shared pulse.
“Alright, philosopher rock, let the humans breathe,” Ryland said, though his tone brimmed with warmth, reaching over to tap the enclosure lightly, eliciting a series of indignant clicks. “Breathing inefficient. Talking better.” But the lights dimmed slightly, Rocky retreating to his observations, leaving the space for the two of you once more.
The banter had woven a new layer of ease between you, the call stretching onward as the rain outside your window intensified, drumming a rhythmic backdrop to your words. Ryland shared more tales of Rocky's antics the time the alien had reprogrammed the alarm to blare Erid hymns at dawn, or how he'd borrowed Ryland's last protein bar, mistaking it for a geological sample. You countered with cafeteria experiments that rivaled Rocky's culinary critiques.
Through it all, the undercurrent thrummed glances that lingered on the curve of a smile, the way his voice roughened when he spoke of quieter fears, your own admissions slipping out like confessions under starlight. Rocky's occasional interjections kept the levity alive, a gravitational pull keeping the conversation from tipping too far into the profound too soon.
As the hours waned, the feed's stability faltered again, the sun cresting on your horizon and painting your room in dawn's soft hues. Ryland's face, etched with the reluctance of parting, filled the screen one last time. “This... it's better than I imagined. Don't be a stranger.”
“I won't.” You promised, the words a vow etched in the quiet spaces between. The connection faded, but the echoes of laughter, the warmth of shared absurdity, lingered a constellation of its own, guiding you both through the dark.
The following day unfolded in a haze of ordinary tedium on your end of lectures droning through the haze of a too strong coffee, the relentless tap of keys on half finished assignments, and the quiet ache of absence that settled in your chest like uninvited fog. Your room felt smaller without the glow of the screen, the rain from the night before giving way to a crisp chill that seeped through the window cracks. You checked the connection sporadically, half expecting a ping, but the void remained silent, leaving you to wonder if the stars had swallowed the fragile thread between you.
When evening finally draped its shadows over campus, you initiated the call, the familiar hum of the prototype filling the room like a heartbeat. The feed crackled to life, Ryland's face materializing in the dim light of his habitat, the white fat cat shirt clinging to the subtle contours of his frame, shadows playing across the stubble that had grown a fraction thicker. His eyes, though, carried a weariness edged with that irrepressible spark, and behind him, Rocky's enclosure pulsed with a subdued rhythm, as if the alien sensed the shift in the air.
“Hey.” A low rumble that cut through the static, pulling a relieved smile from you despite the knot of anticipation in your stomach. He leaned forward, elbows on the console, the motion drawing your gaze to the way his fingers drummed idly a habit born of confinement, you suspected. “Missed this. Been a long one.”
You settled into your chair, the worn fabric sighing under you, the lamp's warm halo framing your face as you tucked a stray lock behind your ear. “Same here. Quiet day, but... yeah. How's the chaos holding up?” The words carried a lightness you forced, but his answering grin softened the edges, making the distance feel like a mere illusion.
Ryland exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck, the gesture exposing a sliver of skin at his collar that sent an unwelcome flutter through you as it always does. “Chaos is an understatement. I... I don't know if I can keep this up with Rocky. The rock's driving me up the wall.” He glanced sideways at the enclosure, where a faint glow stirred, as if eavesdropping. “Yesterday, he decides my quarters need inspection. Bounces around well, rolls, I guess poking into every corner. Asks if it's the garbage room because it's 'a little dirty.' A little! I've got limited supplies out here, and he's treating it like a biohazard zone.”
The image painted was absurdly vivid Ryland trailing after the pebbled intruder, exasperated pleas echoing in the confined space. You bit back a laugh, but it escaped in a soft huff, your fingers twisting the hem of your sweater. “Garbage room? That's... thorough. Did he reorganize your sock drawer too?”
“Worse.” Ryland groaned, but amusement laced the sound, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “He starts questioning the whole setup. Why the mess? Why the solitude? And then get this he hits me with, “don’t understand why she talks to you. Grace ugly. She's pretty. Incompatible.'' He mimicked the translator's gravelly tone with exaggerated bluntness, his face flushing a deep crimson that spread to his ears, the color stark against the pallor of recycled air life.
Your breath caught, heat blooming in your cheeks as the words sank in Rocky's unfiltered alien logic slicing through the banter like a comet's tail. Ryland's gaze locked onto yours through the screen, vulnerable and searching, the humor fading into something rawer, more exposed. He swallowed, the line of his throat working visibly, and leaned in closer, the console's edge pressing into his forearms. “So... do you? Think I'm ugly? I mean, out here, with the beard that's more scruff than style and the ramen weight starting to show, to be honest.”
The question hung, charged and intimate, the digital lag amplifying the tension until it thrummed like a live wire. Your heart stuttered, flustered warmth flooding you as you met his eyes, those expressive blue depths that held galaxies of doubt and hope. “Definitely not,” You blurted, the words tumbling out in a rush, your voice softer than intended, laced with a sincerity that made your pulse race. You shifted, the chair creaking faintly, aware of how your free hand clenched in your lap, the fabric of your jeans rough under your nails. “You’re... far from it, Ryland. The beard suits you. Makes you look... real. Approachable. Handsome, even.” The admission slipped free, hanging between you like a shared secret, your gaze dropping briefly to your hands before lifting again, emboldened by the way his expression softened, a slow smile curving his lips.
He let out a breathy chuckle, relief etching lines of ease across his features, and turned toward the enclosure with a triumphant tilt of his chin. “You hear that, Rocky? She says definitely not. Handsome, even. Take notes, buddy Earth compliments are a thing.”
The rock's lights flared in a cascade of blues and greens, the translator kicking in with a rumbling huff that bordered on indignant. “Heard. Humans blind? Or kind? Incompatible still. Pretty talks to ugly, mystery.” Rocky's response elicited a bark of laughter from Ryland, his head tipping back, the sound rich and unrestrained, vibrating through the speakers and wrapping around you like a warm embrace. You joined in, the shared absurdity easing the flush from your skin, though the undercurrent of his gaze lingered, heavy with unspoken layers.
As the laughter ebbed, Ryland's demeanor shifted, the playfulness giving way to a quieter intensity. He straightened, drifting slightly in the low gravity, his fingers tracing the edge of the console absentmindedly. “Speaking of mysteries... I've been turning this over in my head. Your hypothesis the pathlink tweaks, the algae models. Why haven't you handed it off to the government? They could run with it, get teams on it. You're onto something big here.” His tone was gentle, probing without pressure, eyes steady on yours, reflecting the soft glow of his instruments like distant stars.
You hesitated, the room's quiet amplifying the weight of the moment the distant hum of campus life outside your window a faint counterpoint to the vast silence of space. Leaning forward, you felt the cool air brush your skin, grounding you as you met his concern head on. “I don't trust them, Ryland. Not fully. They've got their agendas, their protocols, and... what if it gets buried? Or twisted? You've seen how they operate from up close.” The words carried the bitterness of late night doubts, your fingers interlacing on the desk, knuckles whitening briefly.
He nodded slowly, the motion thoughtful, his brow furrowing in that way that made you want to reach through the screen and smooth it away. “Yeah... I get that. More than you'd think. They sent me out here as the Hail Mary, literally. But even if you did give them the pathlink, it wouldn't change much for me. I'm still drifting, still the one who has to implement it. No one's on Earth gonna bridge this gap like I can no matter how many instructions I beam down. It's me or... nothing.” His voice dipped, laced with the quiet resignation of his reality, but there was a flicker of gratitude in his eyes, as if your reluctance mirrored his own isolation, binding you tighter.
The admission settled between you, tender and profound, the banter's levity yielding to this deeper accord. Rocky's enclosure hummed softly in the background, a silent witness, as Ryland's gaze held yours, the connection pulsing with a warmth that defied the cold void. “Thanks for... seeing it that way. Makes me feel less like a ghost out here.”
You smiled, small but genuine, the tension uncoiling into something softer, more enduring. “You’re not a ghost to me. Never were.” The words bridged the lag, a promise woven into the stars, as the call stretched on, the trio's voices human and alien intertwining in the quiet dance of shared truths before the connection cuts out.
The days had woven themselves into a tapestry of quiet longing since your last exchange, each hour on Earth pulling at the threads of your routine like the inexorable tug of gravity. Midterms loomed like distant storm clouds, your room a sanctuary of scattered notes and the faint scent of cooling rain seeping through the cracked window.
The prototype device hummed softly on your desk, its screen a dormant portal, but your thoughts drifted ceaselessly to the void beyond, to him adrift in the endless black, his voice a ghost that lingered in the spaces between your breaths. When the moment came to reconnect, your fingers moved with a deliberate grace over the keys, the connection blooming to life with a chime that resonated like a heartbeat, syncing yours to the rhythm of the stars.
The image sharpened into focus, revealing the cockpit's intimate confines the subtle glow of consoles casting shadows across metallic surfaces, the air recycler's whisper a constant undercurrent, carrying the faint, metallic tang that you imagined clung to his skin. Ryland filled the frame, and the sight of him stirred something deep and visceral within you a slow uncoiling of warmth that spread from your chest outward, tingling along your limbs. He wore that shirt, the one with that’s red and has Element of Surprise scripted in bold letters across his chest, the fabric a soft, worn cotton that molded to the contours of his torso, hinting at the lean strength beneath from months of solitary labor. Sleeves exposed the subtle flex of forearms etched with faint scars from tinkering, and his hair, in that effortlessly disheveled way, caught the light like burnished gold. lips that curved into a smile as his blue eyes met yours through the feed, holding there with an intensity that made the digital divide feel paper thin, charged with unspoken promises.
“Hey.” He greets as always he leaned forward slightly, the console's edge pressing into his palms, knuckles whitening just enough to draw your gaze, and the way his eyes traced your face lingering on the curve of your cheek built a tension that hummed in the air between you. “Missed that face. Space is not the same without my favorite hacker keeping me on my toes.”
You shifted in your chair, the fabric of your sweater whispering against your skin as you drew your knees up, the room's soft lamplight painting golden highlights across your collarbone. A flush crept up your neck, warm and insistent, under the weight of his regard, and you let your fingers toy with the hem of your sleeve, a small anchor against the pull of his presence. “Its been quiet without your chaos. Classes are devouring me, but... I've been counting the stars, wondering about you.” Your words carried a softness, laced with the vulnerability that had grown between you, and you watched the way his expression shifted eyes darkening with a shared ache, his breath catching just audibly over the line.
He nodded, the motion slow, deliberate, as if savoring the connection, his hand rising to rub the back of his neck in that habitual gesture that exposed the vulnerable line of his throat, the pulse there visible in the play of light. Behind him, Rocky's enclosure pulsed with faint iridescence, the alien's facets scattering prismatic glints like distant nebulae, but tonight, the rock's presence wove into the intimacy rather than intruding a silent witness to the deepening bond.
Ryland's fingers drummed a restless pattern on the armrest, the sound faint but rhythmic, betraying the undercurrent of nerves beneath his steady gaze. “Yeah, well... prepare for some chaos, because Rocky and I? We did it. Figured out the plan. Astrophage reroutes, drive optimizations, your tweaks were the key, by the way. I'm coming home.”
The words hung in the ether, a revelation that ignited a firestorm within you joy mingling with a poignant ache, the reality of his return both a balm and a torment to the longing that had taken root in your heart. You leaned in, elbows resting on the desk, the cool wood grounding you as your eyes searched his, tracing the flecks of green in the blue, the subtle crinkle at the corners that spoke of laughter held in check. “Home.” you echoed, the word tasting like hope on your tongue, your voice threading with emotion that made your throat tighten. “Ryland, that's... God, that's everything. Tell me more. When?”
A chuckle escaped him, vapid and warm, the sound curling through you like smoke, easing the edges of his tension even as his eyes held yours with a raw, unguarded intensity. He glanced briefly toward the viewport, where the starfield stretched infinite and indifferent, then back to you, his posture shifting closer, filling the screen until you could almost feel the heat of him, the imagined scent of his skin clean sweat and recycled air. “Rockys got this Eridian knack for efficiency. We bounced ideas off each other for what felt like eternities him chirping about quantum flows, me throwing in human gut instincts. It's nerve wracking, though. The re entry burn, the quarantine protocols, stepping back into a world that's moved on without me.” His voice dipped, husky with confession, vulnerability etching lines across his brow, but then his gaze softened, locking onto yours with a tenderness that sent a shiver racing down your spine. “But you... thinking about seeing you? Keeps the fear at bay, makes it all feel possible.”
Heat bloomed across your skin, a slow tide that pooled low in your belly, his words evoking visions of that meeting the brush of his hand against yours, the warmth of his breath on your neck and you bit your lip, savoring the anticipation that thrummed between you like a shared pulse. Rocky's lights flickered in the background, a playful ripple that drew a soft huff from Ryland, diffusing the intensity with a touch of humor. “See? Even Rocky's excited. Apparently he even has a mate, been together for eons. How do you say her name?” A long plethora of chimes come from Rocky and Ryland gives you a funny stare and nods. “Yeah, right, so that, we agreed upon to be Adrian.” The dry quip pulled a smile from you, lightening the air, but the tone remained desire tempered by the profound tenderness of souls reaching across the cosmos. “They’ve been separated for the past few years trying to figure out astrophage travel. But now since we figured it out… he gets to see her again.”
“That sounds incredible.” Your fingers drifting to trace the screen's edge, as if you could reach through and feel the texture of his shirt, the steady beat beneath. To feel Rocky’s dome. “Nervous for you and him, but... excited doesn't cover it. How long? I need to start marking calendars, dreaming up ways to make that year fly.”
He settled back, the shirt stretching taut across his chest for a heartbeat, drawing your eye to the rise and fall of his breathing, before his grin emerged crooked, inviting, laced with that comedic edge that made your heart stutter. “A year. Cosmic bureaucracy and all that. Long enough to build the suspense, short enough to keep me sane. Gives us time for more planning. Practice for when I can finally show you that surprise in person.” His wink was slow, deliberate, eyes gleaming with promise, the banter weaving seamlessly into the emotional tapestry, balancing the raw pull of want with the gentle anchor of their connection.
As the conversation unfolded into the night, the cockpit's hum and the rain's patter outside merged into a lullaby of possibility, their words a bridge spanning the void laughter punctuating tender admissions, glances lingering like caresses, the year ahead a canvas for the slow, inevitable convergence of hearts adrift no more.
The conversation meandered through the quiet hours, the ship's ambient hum blending with the distant patter of rain against your windowpane, each word a thread pulling you closer across the unyielding expanse. Ryland's presence on the screen felt more tangible with every shared glance, his eyes catching the console's glow like embers in twilight, and you found yourself mirroring his lean, the desk's edge cool against your forearms as you savored the subtle play of shadows along his jawline.
He shifted then, the fabric of his shirt whispering softly as he crossed his arms, the lettering twisting just enough to draw your eye to the steady rise of his chest. A thoughtful pause hung between you, broken only by Rocky's faint, rhythmic clicks from the background like pebbles tumbling in a gentle stream before Ryland's voice emerged, low and tentative, laced with that dry humor that always tugged at the corners of your mouth. “You know, when I do touch down whenever that cosmic red tape finally clears I've been thinking about our first real moment. What do you say to dinner? Or whatever passes for it after a year of freeze dried everything.”
The suggestion landed like a spark in dry tinder, igniting a warmth that bloomed slow and insistent in your core, visions flickering unbidden his hand brushing yours over a candlelit table, the brush of his knee under the cloth, the way his laugh might vibrate through the air between you. You tilted your head, letting a playful smile curve your lips as you traced the rim of your mug with a fingertip, the ceramic still warm from forgotten tea. “Dinner sounds perfect. Something simple, maybe? Italian? There's this little spot near campus cozy, with these twinkle lights that make everything feel like magic.”
He chuckled, the sound rich and rumbling, his eyes crinkling at the edges as he rubbed his chin, stubble rasping faintly against his palm. “Italian, huh? Bold choice for a guy who's been dreaming of a burger that doesn't taste like regret. But nah, let's go fancier steakhouse. Real meat, the kind that sizzles and leaves grease on your fingers. Earned it after all this.” The banter flowed easy, charged with an undercurrent of anticipation, his gaze holding yours with a lingering intensity that made your pulse quicken, as if he could already taste the evening unfolding.
You shook your head, laughter bubbling up soft and light, your hair falling forward to brush your cheek as you leaned closer to the screen. “Steakhouse? Too stuffy. We'd be those awkward people whispering over napkins. What about sushi? Fresh, light, something to celebrate without the heaviness.” The words danced between you, a playful push and pull that mirrored the deeper current of longing, his expression shifting from amusement to mock exasperation, brows furrowing in that endearing way that exposed the faint lines of fatigue around his eyes.
”Sushi? In the middle of... wherever we end up? I'd take one bite and start missing my ration packs.” He grinned, wide and unfiltered, the motion pulling at his features and sending a flutter through your chest, but before you could counter, Rocky's enclosure lit up with a sudden flurry of iridescent pulses, the alien's facets shimmering like a disco ball in distress. A burst of chirps erupted from the speakers, translated into that gravelly, synthesized drawl that always carried a hint of mischief. “No argue. Dinner at Earth home. Her place. Spaghetti. Simple. Efficient. No mess human style.”
Ryland's eyes widened, his mouth parting in a half laugh, half protest as he twisted in his seat to face the rock, the chair groaning under the abrupt motion. “Whoa, stay in your lane, buddy. This is human food. I’ve seen the way you eat, I want nothing to do with it.” But the alien's lights only flickered smugly, a series of affirmative beeps solidifying the decree, and Ryland turned back to you, shoulders rising in a helpless shrug, his cheeks tinged with a flush that deepened the warmth in his gaze. “Well, there you have it. Rocky's got opinions stronger than astrophage. Spaghetti at your apartment it is. Hope you've got a good sauce recipe, don't want him critiquing the quantum mechanics of your marinara.”
You couldn't help the burst of laughter that escaped, genuine and freeing, your hand pressing to your lips as the image settled in your mind Ryland in your space, stirring a pot. The thought wove tenderness into the desire, a domestic intimacy that made the year ahead feel both endless and achingly close. “Spaghetti it is, then. Your first Earth meal, courtesy of the galaxy's nosiest engineer. Just promise you'll save room for dessert, something sweet to make up for all the arguing.”
His smile softened, eyes tracing your face with a deliberate slowness that sent a shiver tracing your spine, the digital barrier thinning under the weight of shared possibility. “Deal. Can't wait to find out what that looks like, up close.” The words lingered, heavy with promise, as the night deepened around you both, the rain a soft symphony to the budding plans that bridged the stars.
The months blurred into a tapestry of pixels and promises, each video call a stolen breath across the light years, weaving your lives into something profoundly ordinary and extraordinarily intimate. What began as tentative banter evolved into a rhythm as familiar as your own heartbeat, Ryland's face filling your screen at odd hours, his voice a gravelly anchor amid the static of your room's fluorescent hum or the ship's ceaseless drone. Holidays became your anchors, virtual rituals that bridged the void with laughter and longing, turning isolation into shared secrets.
The first Thanksgiving arrived like a whisper in the dark, your screen aglow with the warm flicker of a candle you'd lit on your cluttered desk, textbooks shoved aside for a plate of makeshift turkey canned, but spirited. Ryland appeared disheveled, silver flecked hair messy from a nap, his shirt rumpled as he balanced a tray of rehydrated mash that looked more like glue than gravy. “Alright, hacker extraordinaire,” he drawled, eyes crinkling with that dry mischief, “Do we toast to overcooked birds or just pretend this isn't the saddest feast since the Mayflower's leftovers?” You laughed, the sound bubbling up as you raised your glass of cheap wine, the tart bite lingering on your tongue. “To survival. And to you not poisoning yourself with whatever that is.” His grin widened, fork pausing mid air, and for a moment, his gaze held yours with a heat that made the room feel smaller, the distance a tease rather than a barrier.
Rocky chirped from the corner of the frame, lights pulsing in rhythmic approval, as if joining the toast, and Ryland rolled his eyes. “See? Even the rock thinks you're the better cook. Next year, you're making the real stuff.” The words hung, laced with implication, your skin prickling at the thought of his presence, solid and warm, in your space.
Christmas unfurled in a cascade of lights strung haphazardly across posters of nebulae and code snippets, his rigged from console leds that bathed the cabin in a starry haze. You exchanged gifts through the ether a digital playlist of Earth anthems for him, crooners and rock that made him hum off key, his baritone vibrating through the speakers like a caress; for you, a hand sketched star map, annotated with silly notes “This one's where I first saw your message. Blinked like a heartbeat.”
The call stretched late, snow dusting your window while Tau Ceti's glow framed him, and conversation meandered from childhood memories to whispered what ifs. “Remember when Rocky tried caroling?” He chuckled, the alien's enclosure flickering to a discordant beep beep that had you both dissolving into giggles. But beneath the humor simmered something deeper; his eyes traced the curve of your neck as you adjusted your scarf, voice dropping. “Wish I could unwrap something real this year. Like... seeing that smile without the lag.” Heat bloomed low in your belly, your fingers twisting the fabric as you met his stare, the air between screens thickening with unspoken want.
New Year's Eve marked a turning point, the clock ticking toward midnight in disjointed time zones yours syncing to Earth's revelry, his to the ship's chronometer. Fireworks bloomed outside your window, bursts of color painting your face as you counted down together, Rocky adding a flurry of excited clicks like premature confetti. At the stroke, Ryland leaned close, breath fogging the camera lens, his whisper husky. “Happy New Year. To us whatever that looks like when I get back.” The kiss he blew was playful, lips puckering comically, but the linger in his eyes sent a shiver racing down your spine, your own lips parting on a soft exhale. “To not being alone anymore.” and in that charged silence, the flirtation edged toward fire, his hand flexing as if reaching through the void to trace your jaw.
As spring thawed into summer on Earth, your calls grew bolder, the banter laced with touches of skin glimpsed accidentally your tank top slipping during a stretch, his shirt riding up to reveal the taut plane of his abdomen, dusted with faint hair that caught the light.
Rocky became the unwitting chaperone, his gravelly interjections punctuating the tension. “Humans hot? Air recycle fail?” During a particularly heated debate over quantum entanglement that doubled as metaphor for your pull. Ryland's laugh would rumble then, self conscious but inviting, drawing you deeper into the dance of words and glances.
Autumn brought the ache of impending change, leaves turning gold outside your window as Ryland's updates shifted repairs complete, trajectory locked for home.
The goodbye to Rocky unfolded in fragments across calls, emotional cries bubbling like champagne ready to overflow. One evening, the ship’s lights dimmed to simulate dusk, Ryland cradling the alien's enclosure like a cherished relic, facets glinting softly. “He’s packing up too, heading back to Erid with his people. Been the best friend I’ve ever had.” His voice cracked, blue eyes misting as Rocky bobbed in farewell, chirps translating to a gruff. “Good Earth friend. Keep Grace out trouble.” You watched, heart twisting, as Ryland pressed his forehead to the case, murmuring promises of safe travels. “You were the best co pilot a guy could ask for. Don't go eating any more control panels without me.” The humor masked the raw edge, but when he turned back, vulnerability etched in the lines of his face, you felt it echo in your chest. “Feels like losing a piece of the ship. But... progress.” His gaze locked on yours, steady and searing, the weight of you unspoken but palpable.
A few nights after Rocky's departure shuttle undocked, intimacy crested in a wave neither could deny. The call started light Ryland, hair damp from a sonic shower that left his skin glowing. Conversation drifted to dreams, then desires, voices lowering as the ship's hum faded to background. “Tell me what you'd do if I were there.” He prompted, tone playful yet edged with gravel, eyes darkening as you described the brush of fingers along your collarbone, the slow unbuttoning that would follow. Heat pooled in your core, breath quickening as his hand mirrored the motion on screen, tracing his own throat, then lower, the fabric tenting subtly. “Like this?” He rasped, voice thick, and you nodded, emboldened, your palm sliding beneath your waistband, the friction sending sparks through your veins.
The screen became a portal to shared surrender, his breaths syncing with yours in ragged harmony. He leaned back, chair creaking, shirt tugged up to expose the ripple of muscle as his hand worked with deliberate slowness, eyes never leaving yours fierce, adoring, a low groan escaping when you arched, whispering his name like a prayer. “God, the way you move...” Laughter threaded the tension, dry and breathless “Rockyd call this inefficient energy use.” A tender smile curving his lips as he reached out, as if to cup your cheek through the glass.
Through it all, the year etched itself in stolen moments flirty jokes over virtual coffee, funny mishaps with Rocky's translations, sensual explorations that blurred screens into skin. The distance, once a chasm, now a thread pulling you inexorably closer, anticipation building like a slow orbit toward collision.
The Hail Mary pierced Earth's atmosphere like a returning prodigal, its hull scarred by cosmic tempests but whole, a testament to ingenuity and unyielding will. You watched the live feed from your apartment, heart hammering against your ribs as the shuttle detached, gliding toward the landing pad under a sky bruised with dawn's first light. A year of pixels and promises had led to this, the man who'd become your anchor in the void, descending back to solid ground.
Your fingers trembled as you smoothed the simple tee with jeans you'd chosen, the fabric whispering against your skin like an echo of his voice in those confessions. The world outside buzzed with media frenzy, helicopters whirring like metallic insects, but you slipped through the chaos with a forged press badge, your instincts guiding you to the secure perimeter where the real reunion waited.
The air hangar smelled of scorched metal and hydraulic fluid, a stark contrast to the sterile recyclers of his ship. You lingered in the shadows of a maintenance bay, pulse syncing with the distant rumble of engines powering down. There he emerged from the hatch in a flight suit that clung to his frame, unzipped just enough to reveal the faded collar of his I Wear This Shirt Periodically tee beneath.
His hair, longer now and forever messy, caught the floodlights in silvered waves, and those blue eyes scanned the crowd with a mix of wariness and wonder. His beard now a shadow. He shaved. When his eyes landed on you, time fractured his face split into a grin that crinkled the corners of his eyes, boyish and unguarded, cutting through the months of separation like a laser. He broke from the official greetings, weaving through technicians and officials with purposeful strides, the dry humor in his posture evident even from afar the slight hunch of shoulders as if bracing for Earth's gravity to mock him.
“You didn’t die.” You joked as he closed the distance, his scent hitting you first a faint tang of hydraulic fluid and something uniquely him, warm and lived in, a natural musk. His musk. He’s no longer filtered through speakers. Up close, he was taller than the videos suggested, his presence filling the space between you with an electric hum. “Told you I'd try not to crash.” That rich baritone wrapping around you like a familiar embrace, laced with the self deprecating edge that had first hooked you. But his eyes betrayed the jest, darkening with a hunger that mirrored your own, tracing the line of your jaw as if memorizing it anew.
The crowd blurred into irrelevance; his hand found yours, calluses rough from years of tinkering, thumb brushing your knuckles in a slow circle that sent sparks skittering up your arm. “God, you're even more... you, in person.” The words hung, incomplete but weighted, his free hand hovering near your waist before dropping, he flexes his fingers as if testing the reality of touch. He feels lightheaded, unsure whether it was from earth's gravity or you.
The drive to your apartment was a haze of stolen glances and fragmented conversation, his knee brushing yours in the borrowed SUV, the contact igniting like a short circuit. He marveled at the mundane the way streetlights flickered over rain slicked roads, the hum of traffic that drowned out the silence of space, his blunt and observational commentary “Feels like I've landed in a alternate universe, where I’m famous.” You laughed, the sound lighter than it had been in months, directing him through the city's veins to your modest building, where the elevator ride amplified the tension, the confined space thick with unspoken anticipation. His shoulder pressed against yours, heat seeping through fabric, and when the doors dinged open, he followed you inside without a word, the click of the lock sealing you both away from the world.
Your apartment was a sanctuary of controlled chaos bookshelves groaning under astrophysics tomes and code printouts, fairy lights still draped twinkling softly against the late afternoon sun filtering through half drawn blinds. The air carried the faint scent of takeout remnants and your shampoo, grounding and intimate.
Ryland paused in the doorway, taking it in with a slow sweep, his duffel bag thudding to the floor. “So this is your cave.” Turning to you with a tilt of his head that caught the light on his glasses. He stepped nearer, the space between you shrinking to breaths, his fingers grazing your elbow a tentative anchor. “It’s a nice cave.” He whispered quietly. You turned into his touch, heart thudding, and guided him to the kitchen, needing the ritual of motion to steady the tremor in your limbs. “Hungry? I promised you a real meal, no rehydrated mush.”
Cooking became the slow unraveling of restraint, a dance of proximity in the narrow galley. You pulled ingredients from the fridge, fresh basil from a windowsill pot, tomatoes bursting with summer's end, ground beef simmering in a cast iron skillet that filled the air with savory warmth. Ryland hovered, his forearms corded with muscle, his attempts at chopping garlic clumsy but endearing, knife slipping as he stole glances at you.
“Admit it.” He teased, bumping your hip with his, the contact lingering a beat too long, sending a flush creeping up your neck, “You just want me for my questionable knife skills. Like Rocky with his appendages enthusiastic, zero precision.”
You swatted his arm lightly, the brush of skin electric, laughter bubbling as you stirred the sauce, the steam curling between you like a veil. He leaned over your shoulder to taste, his chest brushing your back, breath warm against your ear. “Needs more... heat.” The double entendre slipping out with a grin, his hand steadying on your waist as if to emphasize the point.
The sauce bubbled, mirroring the simmer in your veins, and when you plated the spaghetti, twirls of pasta glistening under olive oil he pulled out a chair for you with exaggerated chivalry, eyes twinkling. “Ladies first. Or human. Whatever you are.”
Dinner unfolded in a rhythm of shared stories and silences heavy with subtext, forks clinking against ceramic as the city lights began to wink on beyond the window. He devoured the meal with unfeigned gusto, moaning appreciatively around a mouthful “Never thought I’d admit that Rocky was right.” He chews, glancing down at his plate. Lips glossy from sauce. “Spaghetti was the only answer.”
His foot nudged yours under the table, a subtle press that escalated to his ankle hooking yours, drawing you closer in the invisible tether. Conversation meandered from Rocky's farewell antics (the alien's final gift a little astronaut he made) to the absurdities of reentry briefings, his jokes painting pictures. “They grilled me on protocols like I was smuggling contraband. As if astrophage samples weren't enough excitement.” His gaze lingering on the way your lips curved around a sip of wine, the glass stem cool between your fingers.
You feel his intense gaze as you eat. “What? Is there something on my face?” Your brows furrow as you scan his face for a reaction. His face turns almost into adoration with a hint of a mischievous smirk. “Oh, nothing.” He sighs dramatically with a shrug of his shoulders. Liking the way you fall into his web. He eats casually as you now stare at him in return. “What?” You say incredulously with a smile erupting on your face. His eyes flick up to you again. “You actually do have something on your face.” Before you can register his words he’s leaning over the small table. Taking your jaw into his large hand, cradling your cheek as his thumb sweeps across your bottom lip. Wiping away the missed sauce; he settles back into his seat. The pad of his thumb between his lips as he swallows the liquid off his digit. He twists noodles around his fork casually like he didn’t completely rewrite your nerves.
Clearing the table was pretext, dishes stacking in the sink as excuses to orbit each other, his body heat a constant pull. A few jokes here and there about how the cleanliness would make Rocky spiral. He trapped you against the counter when he reached for a plate, hips aligning in an accidental on purpose press that drew a gasp from your throat. “Sorry.” He lied, voice gravelly, not pulling away his hand splayed on the small of your back, thumb circling in slow, deliberate strokes that unraveled you.
The air thickened, charged with the scent of garlic and desire, and when you turned in his hold, faces inches apart, the world narrowed to the flecks of green in his eyes. “You can stay the night if you want.” His eyes flick to your lips before he answers. “I don’t know. They asked me to go teach tomorrow. It’s kinda funny how they do that,” He pauses, removing himself from you to put away a spice on the top of the shelf. The sliver of his taut hips coming into view. He notices your stare and he revels in the attention. “How you get sent to space and you come back and have work the next day.” He props himself up against the counter across from you, his gaze heavy. It’s quiet and there’s a silent exchange of words shared. “Are you sure?” You blink dumbly at him like the question was unfounded, his eyes are downcasted when you say “yes.”
He takes a long step towards you, hands planted beside your waist on the counter top. Your back pressing against the edge. “You know I was expecting someone way different looking.” His remark hits you funnily in your chest. Was he expecting someone prettier all those calls ago? “What do you mean?” He shrugs, smirking. “I was expecting a troll.” You laugh slightly at how silly the idea was. “Why’d you imagine me as a troll?” He shrugs again. “Every hacker movie ever is a dude in a basement who looks like a troll.” He leans down closer to you. “All I’m saying is that you’re prettier than a troll.” You laugh breathlessly at his somewhat compliment. “I’d hope so.”
His eyes draw down to your lips before he leans in and presses his against yours. You accept the warranted kiss. All those months of longing felt excused. His lips were surprisingly nourished and soft. The short hair on his cheeks scratching your face. Your hands hesitate over his chest unsure of where to touch him. You’ve dreamt of this for so long that you’re not sure how to execute your dreams. You’ve been with men before sure, but never someone of his stature. He notices your hesitation and lack of affection, he pauses, lips disconnecting. A single string of saliva connecting you together. As he pulls back his lips wet, “Is there something wrong? I know it’s been a while but I didn’t think I’d lose that much of my game.” You shake your head quickly. Cheeks warm from him thinking it’s his inadequacy. ”It’s not that.” His eyes level with you, brows furrowed. “Don’t tell me you’re a virgin.” He chuckles deep in his chest. “No! Not that either.” You laugh softly and your eyes fall to the floor bashfully. “I’m just nervous.” He laughs a little louder, shocked at your revelation. “What’s there to be nervous about?” He steps back and leans his hip on the counter across from you. He doesn’t speak, he just stares. From the time that you’ve known Ryland his gaze tells you a thousand things. But when he looks at you, you can’t ever tell what he’s thinking.
“Look at you.” You blush at his words, head fallen downwards. His warm hand cradles your cheek as he tilts your head up. “Wanna know a secret?” His kind eyes search your face as you nod. “When I first looked at you I thought I died and saw an angel.” You laugh shoving his shoulder. “Did not” “Did too! I swear!”
He pushes his forehead against yours, his breath fanning across your cheeks. “So, tell me, what’s there to be nervous about?” “Nothing.” “Exactly, so kiss me.”
You lean up on your toes and press your lips against his instead of him leading you. You rest your hands on his thick shoulders and he moans at your touch. The touch he’s first felt in years. To say he was touch starved was an understatement. The rumble sends shivers down your spine. You feel like you’re melting into the counter, He lifted you onto the counter with effortless strength, the cool granite a shock against your thighs as his body slotted between them.
Your hands roam from his shoulders to the sides of his damp flushed neck, to his messy hair. Your hands roaming, fingers threading through his hair, tilting his head for better access, then his hands trail down your sides to grip your hips.
He bites lightly onto your bottom lip, as you gasp his tongue invades your mouth. At the invasion you slightly arch into his chest. He pulls back heaving. “Not so nervous anymore are you?”
You shake your head before he smiles lopsidedly. Pulling you up to his chest and you squeal wrapping your legs around his torso. Arms around his neck as he carries you down the hall, his eyes trained on your face. "Where's your room?” Pointing to the door he follows and you open it for him.
He stumbles slightly and sets you down onto your bed. You roughly bounce a couple times laughing. He looks up from his stance on the floor, his glasses shifted on his face, the legs of the glasses on his jaw. He looks to the door and sees a stuffed animal he tripped over. “A monkey really?” His face wrenches in confusion as he fixes his skewed glasses on his broad nose. You smile, throwing your hands around to emphasize “It’s cute!” “It ruined my smoothness.” You roll your eyes.“Did you have any smoothness in the first place?” His mouth falls open in mock shock, his eyebrow quirks, and you wonder if this is how he scolds his students. “Oh, really?”
He lifts to his achy sore knees and presses down on the mattress to gain his standing again. “That’s not what I heard in the kitchen.” His voice lowers as he climbs upwards. “yeah?” You whisper, encouraging him. “You know what I heard?” “What?” Laying down as he towers over you, his hands start to pull up your shirt. The warmth of his hands spreads across your stomach and ribs as they travel. His knees hovering beside yours, his body mere centimeters from touching your center. His hands stop once they reach the end lace of your bra holding himself with his forearms on the sides of your head. Lips going to your ear. “I heard pretty little moans coming from that mouth of yours.” His body pushes down slightly and you can feel the girth of him in his jeans on your abdomen. It's heavy
“How did they sound?” He asks himself, shifting his lips to your jaw arching into him as his hand roams from the side of your neck over your shirt. Over your bra and he starts palming your chest. Feeling your nipple bud under the fabric. Mimicking your high pitched whine in your ear and cheeks burning. Your clit throbbing from his touch on your breast. “Ryland please.” Spent out eyes half closed and dumb. His head foggy as he looks at how desperate you look “Yes what?”
Your breath ragged almost begging him. He toys with your bra, eventually dipping his hand into the cup and feeling your soft skin on his palm. Playing with your tit, your bra strap straining against his wrist. “I want you to touch me.” Kissing your jaw chastely, the hair on his face scratching your cheek. “Where?” “Everywhere.” You whine and that does something to him. With a final kiss pressed to your temple he looks at your chest spilling out. Making a mental note of the sight. Pulling your shirt overhead along with your bra.
When you lay back down he’s on you in an instant. Kissing and lapping at your chest, moaning against your heart. It burns you alive. He hasn’t even taken off his clothes yet and you’re already soaked. Thighs pressing together, still clothed, your top half naked and bare as he eats you alive. He’s starved, his lips circling around your nipples. Nibbling them until they're sore and aching. You have to push him off from how sensitive they’ve gotten. His wet mouth coming off with a pop and slobber connecting him to you. He moves downwards on the bed, his puppy dog blues dilated behind glass.
“You want me to take care of you?” You nod incessantly. “Please.” He smiles like he already knows the answer. Unbuttoning your jeans tugging them down with your panties. Your lower half jiggled with how forceful he tugged them down. Going on his knees at the end of your bed, pulling your legs apart to hang on his shoulders at the edge. Watching the slickness of your pussy glistening for him. He has to palm himself to keep the throbbing in his jeans.
Warm and patient his hands glide up your thighs as yours cling to the silk bedding. He drags a knuckle down the front of your spread lips, feeling how warm you are. How soaked, you shiver at his digit you can’t make a note of it before his mouth attaches to your core. Writhing as his tongue laps heavy wide strokes through you. Each stroke of his tongue sends fire through you. Tits bouncing with every jolt. Those pathetic whines he loves is like music to his ears. He waited months for this, imagining you strung out from his tongue. Countless lonely nights in his shitty bed longing for your touch. Your caress and now that he’s had it he can't get enough.
Groaning as he tastes you. He’s grinding into your mattress straining in his jeans. He's surprised he hasn’t accidentally prematurely came. Face burying deeper and his scruffy cheeks get crushed by your thighs. Squeezing his head as you get closer and closer to that heavenly feeling. Your whimpers surely to wake your neighbors but you don’t care you’re so close. So sensitive.
Clamping your eyes shut, not daring to see his blue eyes steadily looking up at you from behind your mound. His nose rubbing your pubic area as he attacks your clit. A long finger pushes itself into you and instantly the fullness tears you to shreds. Crying out his name and whimpering body locking around his dirty blonde head you shake and cry. Trying to run from his mouth but his mouth follows you. Teeth softly biting your core. You can’t breathe as you come down. He just laps it up like a dog.
Wetness pooling on the sheets he sighs huskily at the sight. Mouth drenched in your fluids. In a singular motion he pulls his shirt overhead, you stare leaning up on your elbows ogling his body. You knew he was strong, but not jacked. “Holy shit.” Slurring your words. He laughs softly. “Like what you see?” You nod dumbly, mouth open. He steps on the backs of his converse. Unbuckling his jeans before he realizes you’re staring at him so intensely. Slows himself down, slowly unbuckling his belt like some stripper. “Don’t tease!” You whine and he smiles patting your thigh. “Since you were so good I’ll obey.”
For some reason the word obey spikes your blood and your thighs clench together. He notices and smiles again, before he pulls his jeans down with his boxers they pool around his ankles. His cock springing free angry and pink veins pumping red from tip to mid shaft with purple ones littering around the circumference. God he’s longer than he is girthy but your pussy already is sore from looking at it.
He motions you to sit higher up on your bed and you do but as he puts his knees on to the bed and starts crawling up the only thing you can focus on is the bobbing head of his cock. His hands rest on your knees slowly pushing your legs more apart. “My eyes are up here angel.” You quickly look into his eyes but it was just a diversion, he watches your face twist into pain as he pushes the mushroom head inside your tight entrance.
Your hands immediately go to his chest and pushing your nails into the sculpted muscle. “It's too much! I can’t!” Feeling every ridge and vein intruding inside. He can’t even reassure you as his eyes are locked on his cock splitting you open. “You already are.” One of his hands falls from your thigh to your mound. Thumb circling over your bruised clit. His forehead pushing against yours as he leans down further and pushes deeper. You start feeling longer curves in his shaft, the veins in his arms popping as he strains his body weight up. Curteous to not crush you he tries his hardest to resist not fucking you until your bimbo.
He feels your pretty soft gummy walls fluttering around him and he accidentally thrusts shallowly. Making you keen. “You're taking me so good.” He praises, kissing you gently. You can taste yourself mixed with spaghetti on his lips.
When he bottoms out and he doesn’t move. Letting you relax around him, his balls settled against your ass. His chest pressed against yours. He forgets about being inside you and focuses on kissing you hungrily. Melting into his kiss he slowly starts rutting against you.
Not pulling out just shallow little ruts. His thumb speeds up on your clit, feeling you tighten and your legs locking around his hips. You’re so full you can’t think anymore. His lips. His thumb. His cock. His weight. Him.
Then he actually starts pulling back the long stretch and burn until his tip is the only thing in. Staring at your face for a long while, you stare back. Admiring his features, the sweat forming around his face, his chest, the locks of hair stuck to his damp forehead. The way his glasses are slightly foggy. Before you nod and he pushes back in, his head is thrown back. The veins in his throat pulsing. Groaning with your whine you both are the loudest things in your complex.
You feel your body stretch to fit him, your fingers clinging to his wrists. Without hesitation his eyes flickering from your eyes, your lips to your chest to your center, the wet squelching smash of his hips returning to yours. His thighs already wet with your slick. Setting an unfathomable pace for his age and you can’t keep up. Eyes rolling into the back of your head. His thrusts picking up, sweat starts to fall onto you.
Sticking your tongue out to taste the sweaty droplets as they fall and comically so does his wire glasses. his hips stutter and he’s babbling apologies. A red blush rising on his neck and face from embarrassment. It’s quickly halted when you take his glasses and put them on. They're too big for your small face, something burns in him seeing you wear his glasses.
Thrusts grows sloppy and you’re pitiful knowing that your next orgasm is a couple thrusts away deeper now. Rougher. Every thrust rocks you higher up the bed and the headboard knocking against the wall gasping each time, fingers tracing over the veins in his forearms overwhelmed but craving more. You cry out softly when he hits that spot, and he rasps, “Yeah? Right there?”
You fall apart with a cry, clenching around him so hard he chokes on a groan and stills himself. Your walls are so clenched tight he can’t move. A couple shallow thrusts later he follows thrusting deep. Spilling into you three white hot sticky stripes. His whole body shudders, as he drops down onto you. Careful to not crush you but his body weight is smothering in a good way. He’s too hot and too sweaty.
Both of your breathing staggered as each of you trying to capture your breaths. His heart drumming against yours. He hugs your chest to his, before both of you agree it’s too hot so he rolls over. Staring blurrily at the ceiling.
“The spaghetti tasted really good.” Laughing at his comment. “What it was?” Standing with a slight humph, taking his glasses back silently. Walking naked out of your room. Admiring his strong back with your red welts on his shoulders. His fatty cheeks before he pauses in your doorway. "Where's the bathroom?” “On the left!” As you hear him pee he starts yapping again. “You know dinner was so good that I’d love to have it every night.” You hear the sink turn on and off before he comes back with a rag. Gently spread the warm water between your thighs to clean you up. Trying to ignore the twitch of his cock seeing his seed spilling out. “But you know what I liked eating the most?” He arches his eyebrow with the most devious smile. He looks at you shoving his shoulder, getting up to go to the bathroom. “Shut up, spaceman.” “What? It’s true!”
germansingergirl
yousharknotpass
dailybridgerton
vaporwave
