tags: mentor jack abbot x mentor michael robinavitch x mentee reader, angst, hurt/comfort, burnt out reader, only child, high parental expectations, judgmental parents, it has to hurt before it can get better, the need to run to grow
notes: well....after orbiter i kinda binged listened to more noah kahan, so if you demand paid therapy talk to him not me, like always if you enjoy getting your emotions pulverized and built back together, putting my phd in daddy issues to good use, please comment on this post to be added to my permanent taglist!
extra: made sure to get all the h's in Pittsburgh for my anon here
word count: 8.5k
The Pitt existed in a constant state of controlled disaster. Every hallway carried noise. Every room carried urgency. It breathed around you like a living thing with stretchers rattling over worn tile floors, trauma pages shrieking overhead, nurses calling for labs over the phone while exhausted residents moved from room to room with coffee-stained charts tucked beneath their arms. The overhead light cast everything in the same washed-out brightness that made it impossible to tell whether it was four in the afternoon or four in the morning, and by the twelfth hour of your shift, time itself had begun to feel slippery and unreal.
You had learned to survive inside the madness long before you had learned how to survive anywhere else.
Only a year into residency, most people in the department knew you as the resident who never stopped moving. You picked up extra shifts before anyone could ask. You stayed late without complaint. You volunteered for difficult patients, difficult procedures, and even more difficult families. If someone needed help, you were already there before your name was called.
Nurses adored you for it. Attendings trusted you because of it. Med students followed after you like ducklings because despite your exhaustion, despite the permanent shadows beneath your eyes and the way your hands occasionally shook after eighteen-hour shifts, you were patients with them in a way few residents still had the energy to be.
But Jack and Robby knew better.
That was the most unfortunate thing about being mentored by two men who noticed everything.
You had somehow ended up under both of their wings during your first terrifying months at the Pitt, though neither of them would probably describe it that way aloud. Jack had claimed you first, in a sense. He had been the one to sit beside you after your first patient death that happened to be right as he walked in for handoffs, talking softly while you stared blankly at the vending machine in the waiting area because you couldn’t stop hearing the flatline in your head. Somewhere between that moment and now, he had somehow become the person who checked whether you’d eaten, who remembered the names of your difficult patients, who bumped his shoulder against yours after bad shifts and told you quietly that you did good work before your brain could convince you otherwise.
Robby had been different.
Robby mentored you the way sharpened steel honed another blade: precise, observant, relentless in a way that had terrified you initially because he missed absolutely nothing. He corrected your charting with brutal efficiency, expected excellence without excuse, and had a habit of standing silently behind you during procedures until your nerves nearly gave out completely. Yet somehow, beneath all of that intimidating composure, he had become one of the few people whose approval genuinely mattered to you. Maybe because it had been hard-earned. Maybe because when Robby praised someone, it actually meant something.
Together, the two of them had slowly turned into the closest thing you had to stability inside and outside the hospital.
Which was dangerous, really, because it meant they noticed things you desperately wanted hidden.
“You’re doing it again,” Jack’s voice cut through your concentration softly enough that you nearly missed it beneath the noise of the department.
You looked up from the computer at the nurses’ station to find him leaning against the counter beside you, early like always, salt and pepper curls slightly flattened and damp like he’d just stepped out of the shower and only ran a towel over them without any added products. There was a coffee cup balanced carelessly in one hand and a familiar look on his face that instantly made your stomach sink.
“What?”
“You’re clenching your jaw.” He pointed toward your face. “You only do that when you haven’t eaten like biting your cheek is going to magically fill your stomach.”
You looked back down at the chart in front of you, tearing your eyes away from his hazel ones. “I ate.”
He snorted quietly. “You are genuinely one of the worst liars I’ve ever met.”
“I had half a muffin,” you confessed.
“Was that before or after noon?”
You didn’t answer and that in itself was answer enough to make the man sigh dramatically before reaching into the pocket of his jacket and producing a protein bar that he slid across the counter in your way. The gesture was so practiced now it almost embarrassed you, because somewhere along the way, Jack had apparently decided monitoring your nutritional intake had become his person responsibility.
“You know,” he said casually, “most people usually eat more than vending machine crumbs during a twelve-hour shift.”
“I’m busy.”
“So is everybody else.”
You finally glanced up at him, an argument resting on your tongue, but the words died behind your teeth because he was looking at you with that same unbearably gentle concern he always wore whenever he thought you were running yourself into the ground again.
It disarmed you every single damn time.
Before you could force out another excuse, a trauma alert rang overhead sharp enough to snap the entire department into motion.
“Trauma two, ambulance bay. ETA two minutes.”
Jack straightened automatically. Across the department, you caught sight of Robby (who was supposed to already be gone) already moving toward the trauma room while barking instructions to a nurse beside him, his expression shifting seamlessly into focused command.
“Come on,” Jack said, but you were already following.
Moments later, the patient arrived unconscious after a multi-car collision, blood soaking through gauze wrapped hastily around his abdomen while paramedics rattled off vitals over the anxiousness of the group. The trauma room exploded into movement the second the stretcher crossed the threshold. Nurses shifted around each other with practiced efficiency, monitors shrieked intermittently, and beside you Robby’s voice remained impossibly calm.
“Pressure?”
“Dropping.”
“Get another line in.”
You slipped into place near the patient’s shoulder, adrenaline replacing exhaustion as your gloved hands moved through familiar motions. Your mind always quieted during trauma cases. There wasn’t room for self-doubt when someone’s life was actively bleeding out in front of you.
Robby glanced toward you briefly while adjusting his gloves. “You’re on airway.”
You nodded once.
Years ago in med school, the assignment would’ve terrified you enough to make you freeze even with an attending helping you through it. Now you moved through muscle memory, repetition overriding fear. To your left, Jack handed over supplied before stepping in to stabilize the patient’s chest.
The three of you worked together seamlessly by now: one of the problems with mentorship built over too many sleepless nights and too many near disasters; you learned each other’s rhythms too well. Jack knew exactly where your confidence faltered during procedures. Robby knew when you were overcompensating by volunteering for more than you could realistically handle. Both of them knew the particular silence tat settled over you after difficult phone calls from home.
Neither had ever pushed too hard about those.
That is until now.
The trauma stabilized eventually after what felt like hours compressed into minutes. Once the patience was sent upstairs, the adrenaline drained out of your body so suddenly it left you dizzy. Your head pounded faintly behind your eyes. You realized belatedly you were running entirely on caffeine and anxiety.
No one noticed when you slipped quietly down the hallway toward the supply closet near the back of the ER.
Or at least, you thought no one noticed.
The closet was cramped and dimly lit, packed floor-to-ceiling with stacked saline boxes and extra linens. It smelled faintly like antiseptic and cardboard. You leaned back heavily against the shelving unit with your eyes closed, fingers pressing hard against your temples while you tried to steady your breathing.
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale—
Your phone buzzed wildly in your pocket, and the same lighting up the screen had your stomach dropping.
Mom.
For a brief moment, you considered ignore it entirely. But years of guilt and obligation had conditioned your body to respond before your brain could argue otherwise.
You answered quietly. “Hi.”
“There you are,” you mother said, her irritation bleeding through the speaker. “I’ve been calling.”
You closed your eyes harder. “I’m at work.”
“Well, forgive me for wanting to hear from my daughter.”
In the background, you could hear the television from your parents’ living room playing faintly. The sound hit you with sudden painful familiarity. You could practically picture the entire scene despite being hundreds of miles away: your father in his recliner, your mother pacing the kitchen while holding the phone too tightly.
“How’s the hospital?” she asked.
“Tiring.”
Your father’s voice cut in from somewhere behind her. “Still pretending to be a hotshot doctor?”
His words landed exactly where they always did, making your bottom lip wobble before you trapped it under teeth.
You swallowed carefully. “I’m not pretending.”
He laughed once under his breath. “Right.”
Silence stretched. The voices on the TV laughed. You slid slowly down the unit until you were sitting on the floor between the shelf and stacked boxes, exhaustion suddenly pressing into your bones with unbearable heaviness.
“We just worry about you,” your mother continued, though the concern in her voice always came wrapped in something sharper. “You sound miserable every time we talk.”
“Everyone’s the same, Mom. That’s residency.”
“No,” your father snapped, voice now closer and louder in the phone. “That’s what happens when somebody spends their whole life chasing things they were never meant for.”
Your chest tightened painfully as footsteps approached quietly down the hallway outside the supply closet. You didn’t notice.
“You could’ve stayed here,” your mother said. “You could’ve worked somewhere smaller. Normal. But no, you always just had to prove something.”
“I’m not trying to prove anything.”
“Aren’t you?” your father snarked back. “You think these people actually see you as one of them? You think you belong in that fancy hospital?”
Your throat burned.
No matter how many patients trusted you, no matter how much Jack and Robby praised your work, no matter how many lives you helped save, some small broken part of you still believed him.
You stared numbly at the floor tiles beneath your shoes, eyes blinking away tears and failing.
“I have to go,” you whispered.
“Of course you do,” your mother replied sharply. “Work matters more than family again.”
The call ended before you could pull the phone away from your ear. Quiet swallowed the room afterward so completely that the distant sounds of the emergency department suddenly felt muffled and far away. Your grip tightened painfully around your phone while humiliation and exhaustion tangled together so tightly in your chest it became difficult to breathe.
When the closet door opened suddenly, your head jerked upward.
Jack stood there first, one hand resting against the handle. The concern on his face hit you like a physical blow because it wasn’t pity. Somehow thought, pity would have been easier to stomach instead of the open heartbreak painted across his face.
Robby stood just behind him, arms folded tightly across his chest, jaw visibly tense beneath his incoming beard.
Neither man spoke right away, which told you that they heard enough. The thought made heat blood your face.
“I’m fine,” you blurted out, the response almost automatic and reflexive.
Jack’s expression only softened further. “You’re sitting on the floor of a supply closet.”
You tried to laugh weakly. “Needed a minute.”
Robby’s gaze remained fixed on you with clinical precision, but there was anger simmering under his composure now. You could tell it wasn’t directed at you but outwards to the voices he’d overheard tearing pieces of out of somebody he had spent years trying to build back up.
“How long has that been going on?” he asked quietly.
Your eyes went back down to the flooring. “It’s not a big deal.”
Jack exhaled slowly through his nose. “You don’t believe that.”
The gentleness in his voice nearly undid you more than the phone call itself had. You always hated this part most, the unbearable vulnerability of being seen clearly by people you respected. Jack and Robby had watched you become a doctor piece by piece. They had seen you at three in the morning after losing patients. Seen you shaking before procedures. Seen you exhausted, angry, frightened, overworked. And along the way, they had also noticed the deeper wound beneath all of it:
The one you spent most of your life trying to hide.
Robby stepped forward and crouched slightly so he was closer to eye level, his voice remaining calm and even in the way it always did when he was trying very hard to not overwhelm patients.
“You are one of the best residents in this department,” he said plainly. “You know that right?”
The laugh that followed came out thin and humorless. “Sure.”
“I’m serious.”
“I think as my attending you have to say that.”
“No. I really don’t.”
Jack stepped further inside the closet before leaning back carefully against the shelves opposite of you. “You stayed two hours past shift last week helping an uninsured patient figure out medication access because you knew nobody else would. You caught a pulmonary embolism every other resident missed in triage. Half the med students here want to be you when they graduate.”
You stared down at your hands because looking at either of them suddenly hurt too much. Whatever they said didn’t matter against the voices you’d been hearing your entire life. Robby seemed to recognize that quickly as sadness settled under his frustration.
“They’re wrong about you,” he said softly. “So very wrong”
Tears now burned at your eyes because, honestly, no one had ever said that to you before. Not friends. Not professors. Not even yourself.
Jack’s voice softened even further. “You do not have to destroy yourself to prove that you have the right to be here.”
Your face must have cracked at that because both men went still as the terrible truth sat openly between all three of you: you genuinely didn’t know how to exist without earning your worth first.
_______________________
Robby’s office always smelled faintly like burned coffee and old paper.
You noticed that before anything else when you stepped hesitantly through the partially open door, your stomach already twisted tight with anxiety from the brief message Dana had relayed twenty minutes earlier.
Robby wants to see you in his office.
Which, in your experience usually meant one of three things: you charted something incorrectly, you had forgotten something important, or someone had died.
By the time you reached the office, your pulse had worked itself into a miserable rapid flutter under your ribs despite trying to convince yourself you were overreacting. The Pitt swallowed the rest of the noise, leaving behind a small ringing in your ears. Robby’s office felt strangely isolated from all of it.
Behind his desk, Robby sat with his reading glasses low on his nose, flipping through a stack of papers with the same composed concentration he approached nearly everything with. The desk lamp cast warm yellow light across the room, softening the harshness of the hospital fluorescents filtering in through the blinds. A half-finished cup of coffee sat forgotten near his elbow beside several patient charts and an open laptop screen crowded with emails.
He looked up when you entered.
“There you are,” he said warmly. “Close the door.”
Your stomach dropped further.
You obeyed instantly, fingers tightening around the strap of your bag as the door clicked softly shut behind you. For a moment, neither of you spoke. Robby returned his attention firefly to the papers in front of him while you remained awkwardly hovering near the doorway trying not to catastrophize every possibly outcome.
Your brain, against your best wished, supplied several anyway.
You replayed the last few shifts rapidly in your head searching for mistakes. Had you missed a lab? Forgotten an order? Spoken too sharply to a nurse during trauma intake? The anxiety sat so naturally in your body now that panic felt less like an emotion and more like muscle memory.
“You can sit down,” Robby said after a moment, finally glancing back up at you.
“Oh. Right.”
You skittered across the office and lowered yourself carefully down into the chair across from his desk, posture still rigid with apprehension. Robby watched you for a long moment over the rim of his glasses.
“You think you’re in trouble.”
His observation landed embarrassingly accurate.
You opened your mouth automatically. “Am I?”
To your surprise, something almost amused flashed briefly across his face. “No.”
The tension in your shoulders loosened slightly, though not fully. Years of criticism had taught your nervous system not to trust relief too quickly.
Robby leaned back in his chair slowly, folding his hands together atop the desk. “How long have you been considering fellowship programs outside Pennsylvania?”
Your breath caught. The question hit so directly you genuinely didn’t know how to answer for a second. The trust was humiliating in its own way. You had been considering them for months in secret, in the privacy of late nights and exhausted internet searches and moments where Pittsburgh suddenly felt too small for the life you wanted but had never allowed yourself to reach.
Sometimes after difficult shifts, you would sit alone in your apartment scrolling through fellowship programs across the country just to imagine it for a moment. California. Seattle. Boston. Places so impossibly far away they barely felt real. Hospitals attached to research institutions and trauma centers bigger than anything you’d ever known. Places where no one knew your parents. Places where your entire history wouldn’t already be waiting for you before you arrived.
But then guilt would settle almost immediately afterward.
You would close the tabs, delete the searches, and clock in the next day without thinking of leaving. Because wanting to leave felt selfish. And because some part of you still couldn’t imagine being brave enough to actually go.
Your hands folded tightly in your lap. “I haven’t really.”
Robby remained entirely unconvinced. “You’re a terrible liar.”
The words startled an unwilling laugh out of you despite your nerves. Jack was the one to usually say that not him. At the sound, Robby’s face melted before he reached for a folder sitting near the corner of his desk.
“I got a call last week,” he said hesitantly, almost like he was testing the waters. “From a colleague at Harborview.”
Your heartbeat stumbles.
Harborview.
Seattle.
Clear across the country.
You stared at him silently as the office suddenly became too warm.
He slid the folder across the desk toward you, the paper catching slightly against the grain before stopping directly in front of your hands. You looked down slowly, eyes catching and widening at the sight of the logo at the top that belonged to one of the most prestigious trauma centers in the country.
And below it, your name was written in Robby’s perfect penmanship.
Something cold and electric moved down your spine all at once. Your fingers hesitated against the edge of the folder before opening it carefully. Inside sat printed information about the fellowship program alongside a letter clipped neatly to the front.
A recommendation letter.
Signed by Michael Robinavitch, MD
Your eyes caught only fragments at first because your pulse had become unbearably loud in your ears. What he had written brought tears to your lash line.
Exceptional clinical instincts . . .
Among the most promising residents . . .
Demonstrates rare emotional intelligence under pressure . . .
Would excel in any institution fortunate to train them . . .
Your throat tightened at you looked up too quickly. “You—”
“I submitted it three days ago,” Robby confessed quietly.
Shock hit first. Then confusion. Then something dangerously close to hurt.
“You sent this without asking me?”
Robby held your gaze steadily. “Yes.”
It felt almost impossible to breath because this—this was the dream, wasn’t it? This was something you had secretly wanted for so long it physically ached sometimes. An escape route handed gently into your trembling hands. A chance at something bigger than the life you’d been told to settle for.
So why did it suddenly feel a little like grief too?
“You want me to leave?” you asked before you could stop yourself.
Robby’s face dropped slightly. “No.”
“Then why would you—”
“Because you were never going to do it yourself.”
You looked back down at the letter because suddenly meeting his eyes felt unmanageable. You had spent so long imagining leaving that you never truly prepared yourself for the possibility someone else might believe you capable of it too.
Robby leaned forward in his chair, head tilting to try to meet your eyes. “You belong somewhere like this. You know that.”
You laughed under your breath, the sound fragile in and of itself. “My parents would lose their minds.”
Robby’s jaw tightened as he said your name. “This isn’t about your parents.”
Except it always was. Every choice, every opportunity, every dream carefully cut down before it could grow too large to reach.
You swallowed hard against the sudden pressure building in your throat. “Seattle is across the country.”
“I’m aware.”
“I don’t know anyone there.”
“You would.”
The certainty in his voice hurt unexpected because it implied something you still struggled to believe yourself: that people would want you there. You stared down at the recommendation letter, vision beginning to blur slightly.
“You really think I could do this?”
“I think,” he started, “you’ve spent your entire life making yourself smaller for other people.”
Your breath hitched again.
“You are one of the best doctors I’ve had to privilege to train,” he continued. “And if you stay here because you’re afraid of disappointing people who will never be satisfied anyway, you’re going to wake up in ten years from now wondering what happened to your life.”
His words landed with devastating precision because deep down, under all the fear and guilt and fatigue, you had already wondered that yourself.
Robby’s kind, brown eyes held yours. “You’re getting smaller here.”
The office felt unbearable quiet now except for the faint hum of his fan and the occasional muffled announcement from the ER outside.
Finally, your voice came out barely above a whisper. “What if I fail?”
He looked at you the same way he looked at difficult trauma cases; not dismissing the fear but refusing to let it dictate the outcome. He wasn’t going to let you walk away from this because you were scared.
“Then you fail,” he said simply. “And you survive it.”
Failure had always sounded catastrophic in your parents’ voices. Permanent. Proof that they had been right all along.
But with how Robby said it, it felt like it was survivable and human.
For the first time, the possibility of leaving didn’t feel entirely impossible anymore. It felt terrifying yes, but also maybe worth it all anyway.
_______________________
The emergency department had somehow managed to pause for you.
Not fully, of course. The Pitt never truly stopped moving. But for once, the chaos had shifted itself long enough to make room for something softer.
You stood near the center of the department feeling almost painfully aware of yourself while half the ER crowded around the nurses’ station holding vending machine snacks, cafeteria cupcakes, and paper coffee cups lifted in celebration. Someone had dragged over a flimsy folding table covered in sheet cake with GOOD LUCK written across it in slightly smeared blue icing. Balloons bobbled lazily near the ceiling tiles, looking deeply out of place in the harsh lighting.
It was absurd, embarrassing, and almost humiliating. And somehow it nearly made you cry.
“You look terrified.” Jack’s voice appeared beside you through the noise, warm amusement threading easily into his words.
You glanced sideways to find him balancing two plastic cups of terrible hospital punch while watching you with barely concealed fondness. “I hate this,” you muttered under your breath.
“You absolutely do not.”
“I’m being publicly perceived.”
Jack snorted softly before handing you one of the drinks. “Tragic.”
Across the department, several nurses had cornered Robby near the charting computers demanding he say something resembling a speech. Judging by the look on his face, he would’ve preferred active physical violence.
“You trained them,” Dana was insisting firmly.
“So did literally anyone else here,” Robby replied.
“Yeah, but you’re the scary one, so it’ll mean more.”
A ripple of laughter moved through the staff nearby while Robby looked profoundly unamused by this logic.
Your chest tightened unexpected as you watched your surroundings unfold in the familiar faces, the exhausted laughter, the warmth threaded through the department despite another endless shift looming only hours away. The Pitt had become something dangerously close to home somewhere along the way. Not because the work was easy—God knew it wasn’t. But because these people had seen every broken terrified version of you and stayed anyway.
And now you were leaving them; the thought still felt surreal even after the acceptance calls, even after signing the paperwork, even after the official announcement against your will that you would be joining one of the most prestigious trauma fellowship programs in the country at Harborview in Seattle.
Seattle.
The word still startled you. It was so far from Pittsburgh that it barely felt attached to your real life at all.
A resident from across the department raised his coffee cup toward you. “You know how insane this is, right?”
Heat flooded your face. “Please don’t start.”
“No, seriously,” Perlah chimed in. “Do you know how many people would kill for that placement?”
“You’re representing the Pitt now,” Princess added proudly.
Her sentence lodged itself awkwardly beneath your ribs. Representing the Pitt. You weren’t escaping it, weren’t abandoning it, but representing it. You looked instinctive toward Robby. As if he sensed it, his gaze lifted from across the room and settled briefly on yours. His features softened for a half a second before Dana shoved a plastic knife into his hand and demanded he cut the cake already.
Jack bumped his shoulder lightly against yours. “You should probably enjoy this.”
You laughed weakly. “I’m trying.”
“You’re spiraling internally.”
“I’m always spiraling internally.”
“Fair enough.”
The familiar ease of the conversation helped settled your nerves slightly, though not enough to stop the overwhelming ache building slowly in your chest. You kept catching yourself looking around the department like you were trying to memorize it all before it disappeared: the trauma bay doors, the faded blue walls near triage, the nurses’ station where you had spent countless night charting beside Jack while Robb criticized your caffeine intake with hypocritical seriousness.
This place had watched you become someone, and now it was letting you go.
A few hours later, after the cake had been mostly demolished and the department slowly returned to its normal rhythm, you found yourself cornered near the supply station by Perlah and Princess aggressively insisting you take leftovers home.
“You’re too skinny for Seatle,” Princess informed you.
“I don’t think that’s how geography works,” you replied.
Before they could continue, Jack appeared suddenly at your elbow. “Borrowing them,” he announced.
Perlah narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “For what?”
“Secret attending business.”
“That sounds fake.”
“It is fake,” you admitted.
Jack ignored the three of you and jerked his head toward the hallway. “Come on.”
Confusion washed over you, but you followed him anyway. A few feet ahead, Robby waited near the elevators with his hands tucked into the pockets of his zip up jacket. The second he saw the two of you approaching, he pressed the button for the elevator without explanation.
You frowned slightly. “Am I being murdered?”
“Probably,” Jack teased.
“Good to know.”
Robby simply shook his head tiredly as the elevator doors slid open. Neither man explained anything during the ride upward. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable exactly, but it carried a strange weight to it that settled gradually over your shoulders the higher the elevator climbed. Your pulse quickened with anticipation and something sadder underneath it.
The roof access door creaked loudly when Jack shoved it opening, causing the cold night air to hit your face.
Pittsburgh stretched endlessly around you under the dark sky, the city glittering gold and white against the streets below while ambulance sirens echoed faintly off in the distance. The hospital roof had become something sacred over the years for exhausted staff members needing five minutes away from the noise downstairs. You had come up here after bad shifts before, after losing patients, about pulling doubles that left you too hollowed out to immediately drive home after.
Tonight, though, it felt different.
You stepped further onto the roof slowly while Jack let the heavy door slam shut behind him. The city wind tugged lightly at your jacket while your eyes drifted toward the skyline. Seattle suddenly feeling impossibly far away.
“You know,” Jack said quietly behind you, “you almost turned this down.”
You huffed softly. “I know.”
“And you’re still thinking about it.”
“I know.” The honestly slipped out before you could hold it back.
Despite everything—the excitement, the honor, the impossible opportunity—fear still lived stubbornly in your body. Fear of failing. Fear of disappointing everyone. Fear that your parents had been right all along and eventually someone at Harborview would realize they had made a mistake choosing you.
You wrapped your arms tighter around yourself against the cold. “I keep waiting for somebody to figure out I have no idea what I’m doing.”
Jack and Robby exchanged a brief glance behind you.
Robby sighted softly through his nose like the words physically pained him. “You know,” he said, “most arrogant doctors are the most terrible doctors.”
You glanced back toward him.
“However, the ones who question themselves,” he continued, “the ones who worry about failing . . . they’re usually the ones who care enough to become great doctors.”
You swallowed tears down thickly.
Jack stepped closer, pulling something oblong from the pocket of his jacket. “We got you something.”
“You didn’t have to—”
“We know,” Jack interrupted gently before holding the item out for you to take.
Your eyes dropped toward the object in his hands, and your heart fluttered.
A stethoscope.
It wasn’t hospital-issued, wasn’t cheap.
The instrument was beautiful with dark blue tubing catching faint city light beneath the skyline while silver detailing gleamed softly near the chest piece. You stared down at it wordlessly. For a second, you genuinely couldn’t breathe as you took it from him, fingers rubbing along the soft rubber.
“There’s something engraved on it,” Robby added softly.
Your fingers trembled slightly as you turned it over. Near the tubing junction, etched carefully into the metal in precise lettering, were four simple words:
Still in your corner.
The world blurred, and you swallowed hard against the sudden painful pressure in your throat while your thumb brushed shakily over the engraving again.
“Oh,” you whispered.
Neither Jack nor Robby spoke, which somehow made it all worse.
Your eyes burned fiercely as a tumble of emotions crashed through you all at once: gratitude, grief, fear, love so deep and overwhelming it physically hurt to carry.
“You take this with you,” Jack spoke softly but sternly. “Every interview. Every trauma. Every shift from hell.”
“And when you’re convinced that you’re failing,” Robby added, “you hold onto it and remember that two old guys from Pittsburgh already know exactly how capable you are.”
Your composure broke as you tried to laugh through the tears threatening your voice, eyes looking back down because crying in front of them still embarrassed you despite all the versions of you they’ve seen before.
“This is unfair,” you muttered, back of your hand wiping aggressively under your eyes.
Jack smiled sadly. “Yeah, probably.”
The stethoscope felt heavier in your hands than it should have only because of what it meant.
For so much of your life, support had always felt conditional, fragile, something that disappeared the second you disappointed people. But standing there on the hospital roof with a glowing Pittsburgh and cold night air nipping your skin, Jack and Robby were handing you something terrifyingly unfamiliar:
the certainty that even thousands of miles away, even if you struggled, even if you failed sometimes, even if Seattle became lonely and overwhelming and difficult, you would not lose them.
You pressed your fingers tighter around the tubing, Robby’s features softening as he watched you.
“You’re going to do extraordinary there,” he whispered.
Your eyes burned harder not because you fully believed him yet, but because you finally found yourself wanting to.
_______________________
The Pitt had changed in a thousand tiny ways over the years.
Some changes were obvious. Different residents moved through the halls now, newer faces slipping into routines that once belonged to people long gone from the Pitt. The trauma bays had newer monitors. The waiting room chairs had finally been replaced after years of complaints. Dana had somehow gained even less patience despite everyone previously believing that impossible.
Other changes felt quieter.
The kind you only noticed in passing moments.
Like how Robby still occasionally looked toward room six whenever an especially difficult trauma rolled through because that had always been your room somehow. Or how Jack still brough an extra coffee on his way in before remembering halfway through the line that you weren’t there to steal the extra one anymore.
Absence settled strangely into places once someone left them behind especially when they had mattered.
“Whitaker, if you touch that central line tray with your bare hands again, I’m revoking your ability to speak.”
“I literally wasn’t touching it. I merely glanced in its direction.”
“You were thinking about touching it.”
“I can’t believe this is my work environment.”
The familiar noise buzzed around Robby as he stood near the nurses’ station review labs on a tablet, exhaustion pressing heavily behind his eyes after hours’ worth of chaos. Nearby, Dana looked personally victimized by Dennis’s existence while Trinity tried unsuccessfully to hid her laughter behind a patient chart.
Victoria glanced up from the computer beside them. “You know,” she said thoughtfully, “I think Dana actually likes bullying him.”
Dana didn’t even look up from her paperwork. “Correct.”
Dennis pointed accusingly. “See?”
“You’re still alive, aren’t you?”
“That feels entirely unrelated.”
A tired smile tugged briefly at the corner of Robby’s mouth despite his best effort not to seem interested in the banter.
The newer residents had settled into the Pitt in their own messy way over the past year. Samira moved through rooms with sharp instinct and too much emotional attachment to sad patients. Frank boasted too much when nervous and somehow ended up charming most of the nursing staff because of it. Trinity hid startling clinical intelligence beneath dry sarcasm and exhaustion. Dennis had slipped into the department like he belonged there from the beginning, steady and observant in a way Robby respected immediately. And Mel blessed the Pitt with her soft voice that never seemed to sugar coat things but still had the ease to bring patients down from panic.
Different from your class but good.
Still, every once in a while, one of them would do something that reminded him painfully of you. Usually it happened when they stayed too late helping patients who technically weren’t their responsibility anymore.
Dana finally looked up from her charting. “You heard from your golden child lately?”
Robby sighed softy without looking away from the tablet. “They are not my golden child.”
“Sure they are.”
Dennis looked between them curiously. “Wait, who?”
Dana said your name as she casually leaned against the counter. “Former resident. Robby and Abbot’s favorite.”
“We—I don’t have favorites.”
“You still bring them up during trauma reviews.”
“It’s educational.”
“No, Cap, that’s emotional attachment.”
Robby shot her a flat look while several residents nearby became more interested.
“Hold on,” Frank said, glancing up from his chart. “This is the one from Seattle, right?”
His sentence caught everyone’s attention; even Jack’s, who had just wandered back into the department carrying two coffees and the stagger of a man who maybe got 5 hours of sleep before heading back into work.
“Who’s talking about Seattle?” he asked.
Dana pointed toward Robby. “I asked how your kid was doing.”
“Oh,” he answered, face dropping all sharpness and melting into something melancholy at the thought of you.
Trinity blinked between the two attendings. “Okay, now I need context because both of you suddenly look like divorced parents at a graduation.”
Samira, bless her heart, nodded along. “Seriously. Who are they?”
The two men glanced at each other before taking breathing out a synchronous sigh before Robby set the tablet down against the counter.
“They were probably one of the best residents the Pitt has had,” he said.
Mel’s eyebrows raised. “That good?”
Robby crossed his arms loosely and nodded. “Top of their class. Exceptional under pressure. Trauma instincts most attendings would kill for.”
“And terrifyingly hardworking,” Jack added while handing one of the coffees to Dana. “Like, genuinely concerning levels of hardworking.”
“I once found them charting with a concussion,” Dana mentioned.
The small group all looked horrified.
“That cannot be real,” Trinity spoke.
“It was absolutely real,” Jack confirmed. “They tried to tell us they were ‘fine’ while their head actively bled through gauze.”
Victoria let out an impressed laugh. “Okay, that’s kind of iconic.”
“It was deeply annoying,” Robby corrected even though there was an unmistakable fondness in his tone. “The kid wouldn’t just stay down.”
Mel tilted her head slightly. “So why’d they leave?”
Jack leaned back against the counter next to Robby, hazel eyes drifting absently toward the trauma bay doors like you’d step through them in the next moment. “They got offered a fellowship at Harborview. Trauma surgery.”
Trinity’s eyes widened. “Harborview?”
“Yeah.”
“Holy shit.”
Frank looked genuinely stunned. “That’s insane.”
The corner of Robby’s mouth tugged upward. “They deserved it.”
Mel studied the two attendings quietly for a second before speaking. “You miss them.”
Jack huffed something similar to a quiet laugh. “Turns out when somebody spends years haunting your ER, you noticed when they’re gone.”
Trinity pointed her pen toward him. “See? Divorced parents.”
Jack’s eyebrows pinched. “Nobody’s divorced.”
“You’re coparenting emotionally.”
Robby pinched the bridge of his nose tiredly while Dennis nearly choked laughing.
However, underneath all the humor, their ache remained. Because the truth was you’d been gone for years. Seattle had become your life. Harborview. Research publications. National conferences. Cases more complex than anything the Pitt could ever offer Every once in a while, Dana would forward an article mentioning your name, and the entire department would pass it around like proud relatives.
Look at them!
Look how far they’ve made it!
Yet whether you’d ever come back was always a lingering uncertainty that threaded with their pride.
Jack stared absently into his coffee for a moment before smiling faintly to himself. “You know they still call Robby before major procedures.”
A look of irritation crossed Robby’s face. “That happened once.”
“Three times.”
“Four,” Dana corrected helpfully.
Robby looked personally betrayed.
Samira grinned. “Wait, seriously?”
Jack nodded. “Middle of the night sometimes. They’ll panic about a surgery complication and call him like he’s Google MD.”
“That is adorable.”
“It is not.”
“It’s extremely adorable,” Dana cheesed.
“Seems like you really love them,” Dennis added after watching Robby try to hide a fond smile.
Robby simply shrugged. “They’re worth loving.”
Everyone in emergency medicine understood what he meant. To train someone, watch them grow, lose sleep over them, fight for them, and let them leave anyway because loving them properly meant wanting more for them than you could personally give had to mean something.
“They’re doing good things out there,” Jack said softly.
Beneath their sadness of missing you, beneath the uncertainty of whether Pittsburgh would ever become home for you again, there was still steady, undeniable, endless, and unwavering pride that blossomed in their voices whenever your name came up.
And that was more than some could even wish for.
_______________________
The Pitt sounded exactly the same.
That was the first thing you noticed standing just outside the ambulance bay entrance beside Gloria, fingers curled tightly around the strap of your bag while your pulse thudded unevenly beneath your ribs. Even through the sliding doors, you could hear the department breathing in a familiar rhythm with distant overhead pages crackling through speakers, monitors beeping deeper into the ER, phones ringing near the nurses’ station, and voices overlapping one another beneath the constant movement of gurneys against tile floors.
For years after leaving Pittsburgh, those sounds haunted you a little like a phantom limb and memories stitched into your nervous system.
Seattle had its own rhythm. Harborview had become home in many ways over the years in its trauma rooms, its residents, the skyline outside your apartment after long shifts. You had built an entirely life there; a very successful one; the kind of life younger you used to ache for so badly it hurt.
But the Pitt still lived deep in your bones.
You swallowed thickly.
Gloria glanced sideways at you as she pushed open the ambulance bay doors. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”
“I might,” you answered truthfully.
“That’s reassuring from our new attending.”
“I haven’t been back here in years.”
“You’ve also performed surgery on people with rebar through their chest cavities without breaking a sweat.”
“That was highly dramatized.”
Gloria laughed softly before stepping fully into the department.
Warm light spilled over your instantly. The familiar smell of antiseptic, coffee, and stale hospital air wrapped around your senses so quickly your chest tightened. The ER stretched before you exactly as you remembered. And somehow, despite all the years apart, your body still knew this place instinctively.
No one noticed you at first which was good; you weren’t entirely sure your heart could survive being perceived so quickly.
Gloria guided you quietly toward the side of the nurses’ station while staff rushed around nearby. A sleepy looking blond stood half-asleep beside a computer while a brunette argued with Dana about discharge paperwork. A young, dark-skinned med student leaned against the counter drinking matcha with an expression of someone reconsidering every life choice that brought her into emergency medicine.
And across the department, Robby stood at the center of handoff looking so tired enough that your chest ached on instinct for him. He looked older than when you left, all worn down in the way emergency medicine wore people down eventually. His sleeves were rolled unevenly to his elbows, stethoscope hanging crookedly around his neck while he scanned through a chart with quiet concentration. The sight hit you harder than expected because memories came rushing back all at once.
For years after the move, there were still moments you caught yourself thinking: I should ask Robby what’d he do.
Some habits never left.
He looked up briefly while continuing handoff, entirely unaware you were standing barely twenty feet away watching him.
"We’re short two nurses today,” he said tiredly, glancing between the residents gathered around him. “Which means nobody gets to psychologically unravel until after noon.”
The sleepy blond raised a hand weakly. “Can I schedule mine in advance?”
“No, Whitaker, you cannot.”
“That feels very anti-worker.”
“You’re lucky we feed you,” Dana spoke up without looking away from her board.
Whitaker (now that his name had been provided) blinked. “We’re getting fed?”
Nearby, the brunette laughed while a man with a hairline people would fly to Turkey for shook his head behind a patient chart with visible amusement.
At the sight, a warmth settled low in your stomach. You had missed this—the Pitt and all its ramblings and teasing and ability to make someone feel comfortable in their own skin.
Robby flipped absently to another page in the chart before continuing. “Also, administration finally approved another attending for day-shift trauma coverage.”
That caught everyone’s attention.
The brunette straightened slightly. “Wait, seriously?”
“About time,” Dana muttered. “You’ve been stretched thin for far too long.”
Whitaker looked suspicious. “Are they normal?”
“No normal person willingly works here,” the dark-skinned med student said around her straw.
“Fair.”
Robby sucked in a deep breath, shaking his head. “I haven’t met them yet, but apparently they’re starting this morning, so please try not to scare them off immediately.”
Dana finally looked at him. “You say that like it’s our fault people quit.”
“It usually is.”
A ripple of tired laughter moved through the group.
Robby opened his mouth to say something again as he lifted his gaze, but his words died instantly on his tongue as his eyes found yours.
For one suspended second, the entire department seemed to blur around his face’s expression that changed through confusion first, then disbelief, before settling on something so sharp and emotional it nearly knocked the breath from your lungs even from across the room.
The chart lowered slowly in his hand, his feet already shuffling slowly toward you while everyone looked between you and him with confused wide eyes.
Michael Robinavitch didn’t freeze for anyone.
You smile before your nerves could completely betray you. “Hi, Robby.”
Whitaker frowned, eyes glancing between you too as he leaned closer to the brunette. “Why do I suddenly feel like I’m watching something deeply important?” he stage whispered.
Robby didn’t hear him. He stopped and stared at you like the floor had disappeared beneath him. “Kid?”
The nickname hit hard. No one in Seattle ever called you that. There, you were doctor, attending, colleague. Somewhere along the way, you had become someone polished and capable and frighteningly respected.
But one word from Robby and suddenly you felt twenty-six again, exhausted and terrified and trying desperately to prove you deserved to exist in this department.
“You’re here,” he said softly.
You giggled, eyes bright and glossy. “That’s usually how jobs work.”
That seemed to finally know him back into motion as he wrapped his arms around you and brought you into his chest. You all but melted into him, the smell of his cologne hitting warm in your nose. His cheek rested on the top of your head.
“You didn’t tell me,” he murmured.
“I wanted to surprise you.”
“Well, congrats; color me very surprised and very happy.”
Around you, the rest of them had gone nearly silent watching the interaction.
Dennis glanced wildly between everyone. “Hold on.”
Trinity’s eyes grew even bigger. “Oh. OH!”
Victoria slapped a hand over her mouth. “That’s them.”
Mel blinked slowly. “The Seattle one?”
You pulled back from Robby and looked over at Dana. “Am I hospital folklore?”
She nodded, eyes also glossy as she took you in over her silver frames. “You absolutely are.”
Dennis looked scandalized. “Wait, this is the resident you two keep talking about?”
Robby sighed softly without taking his eyes off you. “Apparently.”
“No, seriously,” Trinity cut in, staring openly now. “You’re like . . . Pitt mythology.”
A snort flew loudly through your nose. “That feel so dramatic.”
Hearing you laugh again seemed to physically settled something inside Robby as his face morphed into something prideful. His arm raised and wrapped around your shoulders, effectively pulling you back into his side with a smile.
It looked like everyone was dying to interrogate you further, but before they could, the trauma alarms screamed overhead. Dana, who had picked up the station phone, lowered it.
“GSW incoming. SWAT raid gone wrong; officer involved. ETA two minutes,” she announced.
Like a clack of thunder, the department exploded back into motion. Nurses rushed toward the bay, and the residents scattered for more supplies all while monitors flickered awake. Gloves snapped loudly in the air into place around wrists. And without even thinking about it, you set your bag down on the station and grabbed a pair yourself.
“Mind if I join in?” you asked calmly.
The newer residents went slightly quiet at the confidence in your voice while Robby looked at you fully. You weren’t the frightened resident he used to know you as. Now, you were a physician standing tall beside him. Another wave of pride washed over him.
“Yeah,” he said awestruck in a way. “Please do.”
The trauma bay doors slid open moments later. Paramedics and uniformed SWAT members wheeled in a bleeding officer while voices overlapped through the commotion.
“GSW through the shoulder—”
“Pressure is dropping—”
“Move, move—”
Then, another familiar and sarcastic voice cut through the others. “If one more drop of blood gets on my new shoes, I’m actually going to file a complaint against veteran discrimination.”
Your head snapped in his direction as Jack stepped through the ambulance bay doors half-covered in SWAT gear, helmet tucked beneath one arm while blood stained the bottom of his pant leg. He looked irritated and entirely focused on the patient—
Until his eyes landed on you, causing him to freeze instantly. Everyone watched as disbelief, relief, and love flashed so quickly across his face it almost felt too intimate to witness. Your composure nearly shattered on the spot.
“Hey, Jack,” you said, voice loud enough to carry over.
The words had barely left your mouth before he crossed the department toward you quickly. He didn’t seem to care about the motion around him, didn’t seem to even notice he had an audience.
Once second you stood there clutching your blue, latex gloves in trembling hands and the next Jack had pulled you tightly against him, one arm wrapping around your shoulders hard enough to nearly steal your breath entirely.
“Oh,” he whispered quietly against your hair. “Hey, kid.”
Your eyes burned while your arms wrapped around his middle, familiar warmth and exhaustion and home hitting all at once beneath the light.
“You came back,” he murmured softly.
“Yeah,” you whispered back.”
Suddenly, the years of distance, Seattle itself, phone calls, missed birthdays, research conferences, and lonely apartments after terrible shifts didn’t matter because Jack still held you exactly the same way he used to after nights in the Pitt, carefully like something precious that had exhausted itself by trying too hard for too long.
Somewhere nearby, Dennis whispered, “Oh my gosh, they really are their kid.”
No one corrected him.
Jack finally pulled back enough just to cup your face briefly in both hands, hazel eyes moving over you like he was trying to memorize every changed detail all at once. “You look good.”
Healthier his expression implied. Lighter
You swallowed thickly. “You look tired.”
“That’s because Robby keeps aging me prematurely.”
“Liar,” Robby muttered nearby, though his voice had gone suspiciously soft.
The patient groaned loudly behind all of you, shattering the moment but snapping the motion back into place. You stepped toward the trauma bed first.
“Okay,” you said, pulling gloves on. “Let’s save this guy before Dana kills us for emotional loitering.”
Dana pointed toward you across the room. “See? They did come back healthier.”
Laughter rippled quickly through the bay as you, Jack, and Robby moved together in a seamless action just like no time had passed at all.
you agree to open your relationship after your boyfriend kept begging. at first he's on the apps getting absolutely zero matches, but then he gets a date. And the first time you go out with your friends with the full intention to find someone, you meet jack abbot. and he is hell bent on making sure you do not forget him.
genre: jack abbot x tattoo artist!reader, strangers to friends to ????, best friend trinity and by proximity dennis lol, smut 18+ nsfw
word count: 5100
(a/n: all i gotta say is hell yeah. also ignore the fact that jack is able to be around during the night even though he works night shift lmao. just use your imagination.)
The thing about opening a relationship is that someone has to actually want to be in one.
You'd been turning this thought over for three weeks now, looking for the flaw. You'd found it pretty quickly. The flaw was Derek.
Derek, who had spent four months gently, persistently, lovingly lobbying for what he called “an evolved approach to modern partnership.” Derek, who had bookmarked three articles about ethical non monogamy and left them open on the shared laptop like bread crumbs he expected you to follow. Derek, who had said, with earnest sincerity, “I just think we're evolved enough for this, babe. Don't you?”
You had said yes because you were thirty years old and had been with this man for ten of those years and somewhere along the way you had apparently misplaced the part of yourself that said no, actually, I don't.
So: open relationship. Officially, as of three Saturdays ago, you were doing this.
Derek had downloaded Hinge, Bumble, Tinder, and some other app that you'd never heard of and didn't ask about. He'd spent an entire Sunday afternoon cycling through profile photos, soliciting your opinion on which ones showed his authentic self, while you sat six feet away inking a peony onto a client's shoulder and making noises of vague encouragement.
Three weeks later, Derek had zero matches.
Not a disappointing handful. Zero.
You on the other hand, had not bothered to download any apps.
You hadn't really meant to make a statement with this. It had just been a busy three weeks. You'd finished a full sleeve on a regular, taken three new consultations, and rearranged the whole studio. There simply hadn't been time to curate a selection of photos for a profile.
This was what you told Trinity on Thursday night, sitting in the back room of your shop, eating takeout.
"You haven't downloaded any apps," Trinity said, around a mouthful of noodles, "because you don't actually want to do this."
"I've been busy."
"You know what you haven't done?" She pointed her fork at you. "Anything. You have done nothing. Derek is out there failing spectacularly at the thing he begged you for and you are pretending this is a scheduling issue."
"I just don't think apps are really my.."
"Y/N."
"..thing, I'm more of an organic.."
"Y/N."
"..meeting people naturally kind of.."
"Y/N."
You looked up.
Trinity had put down her fork, which was how you knew she was serious. "You have been with Derek since you were twenty. You have never, as an adult, gone on a date with anyone who wasn't Derek. You don't know what you like because you stopped asking yourself that question before your prefrontal cortex finished developing."
You opened your mouth.
"I love you," Trinity continued. "Derek is someone you have outgrown. You know it and I know it and I think somewhere in the part of him that isn't currently refreshing Hinge, he knows it too. This open relationship thing isn't evolution."
The shop was quiet around you. The flash art on the walls looked down from their frames.
"So," Trinity picked her fork back up. "Saturday. You and me. Roomie Dennis is meeting us at Dillon's at nine. You're going to put on something that isn't a work hoodie, you're going to go to a bar like a normal adult woman, and you are going to at least look at other human men and remember that they exist."
"I know men exist."
You thought about saying something. Several things, actually, arranged in a pretty solid argument about how you were fine, how the situation was fine, how you didn't need to go to a bar to prove you were a person. "Fine," you said.
"Saturday. Nine o'clock. Wear the black top."
…
Dillon's was a bar that had been there forever. Dark wood, low lighting, a jukebox in the corner that still worked if you fed it right, and a bartender named Pete who remembered what you ordered after the second visit. It smelled like old leather and something hoppy and wasn't trying to be anything other than exactly what it was.
You had been here maybe a hundred times. You had never once come here with the intention of meeting someone.
"You look like you're waiting for a root canal." Dennis said, appearing with a fresh drink and an easy grin. Dennis was beautiful and knew it. But he used it as a resource for other people rather than a mirror for himself. He handed you the drink. "Relax. You're not here to find a husband. You're here to remember you are your own person."
"Trinity's been talking to you."
"Trinity texts me a lot of things." He clinked his glass against yours. "Drink. Look around. Remember that the world is full of people who aren't Derek."
You drank. The world was, in fact, full of people who weren't Derek. You weren't sure what to do with that.
The three of you had claimed a corner of the bar around nine, and for a while it was just good. Trinity in her off duty clothes looking like someone had cut her loose and handed her a gin and tonic, Dennis telling a story about their neighbor's emotional support peacock that had genuinely no business being as long as it was, you laughing until something in your chest loosened a little.
This was fine.
Then, around eleven, Trinity met someone.
She was tall, with close cropped hair and had cheekbones that belonged in a museum, and she was looking at Trinity from three feet away like she had already made several decisions about the rest of their night. Trinity looked back. Something passed between them that was frankly none of your business.
"Go," you said.
"I'm not going to just leave you."
"Trinity." You pointed. "Go."
She did pause long enough to squeeze your arm and say "text me when you're home" and then she was gone, absorbed into the low light of the bar with the tall woman.
Dennis lasted another twenty minutes before he ran into someone he knew from his climbing gym, and then there were two of them, and then there were four, and then there was a whole situation happening at the other end of the bar that Dennis was at the center of like he always was, like a very charming sun with a small solar system of people around him.
You were alone at a bar for the first time in approximately a decade, with a drink that was three quarters gone and no particular plan for the next hour of your life.
You thought about going home. Derek would be awake, probably on his phone. You thought about what Trinity had said and the ten years that had quietly passed while you were busy building a life that was genuinely yours in every way except the one that mattered most.
You went to the bar top and ordered another drink.
"That's either a good sign or a bad one," said a voice to your left, "depending on what you're drinking."
The man settled onto the barstool next to you. He was older than you, late forties maybe, with salt and pepper hair that looked like it had started the evening neater than this.
He nodded at your glass. "Whiskey sour?"
"Whiskey sour" you confirmed.
"Good sign then." He caught the bartenders attention. "I'll have whatever she's having."
You should have looked back at your drink. That would have been the sensible thing. Instead you said, "Long night?"
He glanced at you, and there was something in it. A brief recalibration, like he'd expected to be left alone and had just revised his preference. "Long week," he said. "You?"
"Long decade, honestly."
The corner of his mouth moved. "That specific?"
"Very."
Once his drink came, he turned it once on the bar, a slow rotation. You noticed his hands. Large, careful, the hands of someone who used them precisely. You noticed other things too, cataloguing details. The slight wear at the collar of his shirt. The way he held himself, upright without being rigid, comfortable in his body.
"Jack," he said, and offered his hand.
"Y/N," you said, and shook it.
His grip was warm and brief. "So," he said, settling back. "The decade."
"I wasn't actually going to elaborate on that."
You looked at him. He looked back at you, and there it was the thing you hadn't been expecting, the thing that made you stay on your barstool instead of picking up your drink and relocating. He had the kind of eyes that were paying attention. Not performing attention. Actually, specifically, interested in you.
It had been a long time since someone had looked at you like you were something worth figuring out.
"Ten years with someone," you said, because apparently you were doing this. "We opened the relationship three weeks ago. His idea. He has zero matches thus far."
Jack considered this. "And you?”
"Didn’t download them. Instead, I cleaned my autoclave more times than necessary. If that gives you any indication of how I’m handling it."
Then the smile arrived "You're a surgeon?"
"Tattoo artist."
Something shifted in his expression, interest sharpening. His eyes moved briefly to your arms, to the ink there, the way people's eyes always did, and then back to your face, and unlike most people he didn't immediately start asking you what they meant or whether they hurt.
"What do you do?" you asked.
"ER attending." He paused. "And some other stuff."
"Some other stuff," you repeated.
"SWAT medic shifts. When I'm needed."
No shit. You looked at him for a moment. His strong muscles pulling at his shirt. "So.. long week."
You talked for three hours.
Not continuously but always back to each other, always the thread of it intact. He told you about his army medic deployment without making it a hero story, just a thing that had happened to him that had made him who he was. You told him about opening your studio at twenty four with nine thousand dollars and a business plan you'd written on graph paper. He asked you questions like he actually wanted the answers.
At some point you stopped thinking about the open relationship and Derek. You stopped thinking about going home. You were just here, at this bar, on this barstool, talking to this man who laughed at your jokes and it felt like something you hadn't known you'd been hungry for.
Which was exactly why, at half past one, when the bar was thinning out and the jukebox had cycled back around to something slow, you picked up your jacket. "I should go."
He didn't argue, just nodded in agreement. "Yeah."
You slid off the barstool and he stood when you did, the reflex of someone who'd been raised a certain way and hadn't bothered to unlearn it and you were suddenly aware of how much space he occupied when he was standing. How solid he was.
How close.
"It was good to meet you, Jack," you said.
"You too, Y/N."
You waited for him to ask for your number, but he didn't. He just looked at you with those eyes, easy and steady, and said "Don't forget my name."
You thought about saying something smart. Something that matched it.
Instead you just nodded, once, and walked out into the night air with your heart doing something complicated in your chest that you absolutely were not going to examine until you were home.
..
Your favorite coffee shop was four blocks from your shop, which meant you went there approximately every day and had therefore developed a loyalty that was less about the coffee and more about the fact that the barista at the counter knew your order.
Tuesday morning. Six days after the bar and you were waiting for your order, scrolling through a client's reference photos on your phone with one hand and thinking about how to translate a very detailed Japanese woodblock print into something that would read well on a shoulder, when someone stepped up to the counter beside you.
"Medium dark roast. Black."
Every single hair on your arms stood up. You looked up slowly, hoping very much to be wrong about what you were about to see.
Jack Abbot was standing inches away from you in what appeared to be post shift clothes. Dark pants, a grey fitted shirt with the sleeves pushed up. His hair was slightly disheveled. There was a tiredness around his eyes that hadn't been there at the bar.
He looked good and that was deeply inconvenient.
He turned and his eyes landed on you and did the same thing yours had just done. A half second of processing and then something that settled into warmth.
"Tattoo artist," he said.
"ER attending," you said back.
The corner of his mouth moved the way it had at the bar, that almost smile. "Small city."
"Very small, apparently."
The barista set your coffee on the counter. You picked it up and held it with both hands and tried to look like a normal person.
"How's apps going for the boyfriend?" he asked.
"Still nothing."
"And you?"
"Nope." you said. Holding your tongue back from saying and it might have something to do with you. This person standing in front of me that I can’t seem to stop thinking about.
He laughed and you couldn't stop yourself from enjoying it. Didn't want to.
His order came up. He took it, and for a moment you were both just standing there in the morning light of the coffee shop with your respective drinks, and it should have been awkward, but it wasn't.
"How's the composition coming?" he asked.
You blinked. "What?"
"The shoulder piece. You were looking at reference photos." He nodded at your phone.
You stared at him. "You could see that from over there?"
"I have good eyes." He looked down at his cup and smiled. "And..I was looking."
There it was again. That quality of attention. He'd just been looking, so he said so. Straightforward.
"The reference is very detailed. Too much for the placement. I need to pull out what matters and let the rest go."
You were embarrassed then. By how much you were talking, but with him it felt easy. Felt like he wanted to hear it.
"I have to get back," you said.
"Me too. Just got off a shift and my bed is calling my name. " He lifted his cup briefly. "Good to see you, Y/N."
"You too, Jack."
You made it exactly half a block before you stopped on the sidewalk in the thin morning sun and pressed your free hand briefly over your face and stood there for a moment, just breathing.
…
You didn't tell Trinity.
This was not a decision you made consciously. It was more that every time you opened your mouth to bring it up you got as far as so a weird thing happened and then something stopped you.
You couldn't name what the something was. Which was its own kind of answer, probably.
Derek had finally gotten a match on Hinge. He told you about it over Thai food from a spot he'd found near his office. He was nervous in the way he got when he wanted your permission for something and was working up to asking for it, and you gave it before he got there because it was easier and because part of you was simply, unexpectedly, relieved.
He went on the date on Friday. You worked late, finished a geometric back piece on a client who fell asleep halfway through.
You pulled out your phone. Derek had texted a photo from what appeared to be a rooftop bar, his arm around a woman with a bright smile, the caption reading she's really cool! Hope your night is good.
...
You were between clients on a Thursday afternoon when the bell above your shop door announced someone.
This happened sometimes. The by appointment or by chance on the door was genuine. You believed in leaving room for the unplanned, for the person who walked past a window and felt something pull at them and followed it inside.
Some of your best work had come from chance clients. Your assistant, Bella, handled walk ins on most days, did a quick consultation, got them on the books.
You were not prepared for the specific walk in that came through your door just now.
Jack stepped inside and stopped. You'd designed the space with the same intention you brought to everything, It looked like a place that felt like home. People felt that when they walked in.
Jack felt it. You could see him feeling it, his eyes moving slowly around the room, taking it in.
Bella looked up from the front desk. Looked at him and then looked at you.
"I've got it," you said.
She went back to her computer with the poorly concealed vibe of someone who was going to have questions. and lots of them.
You crossed the floor and stopped in front of him and waited for him to finish looking. His eyes landed on a woman's face in profile. One you'd drawn at twenty three. He looked at it for a long moment. "Yours?" he said.
"All of it's mine."
He nodded slowly. Then he looked at you "I was in the neighborhood." he said.
You looked at him and quirked a brow. "You were in the neighborhood?"
"Broadly speaking."
"The hospital is eleven blocks away."
"It's a big neighborhood." Not even a flicker of embarrassment. "I wanted to see your shop."
You stood there for a moment looking at this man who had walked eleven blocks out of his way on a Thursday afternoon and was telling you so without any apparent intention of making it smaller than it was.
Something in your chest made the decision your brain was still debating. "Let me show you around."
He asked questions that showed he'd already been thinking. About the difference between styles, about how you decided what went on the walls versus what stayed in your portfolio, about whether the design process started with the client or with you.
You answered them. All of them. More than you usually did.
He stopped at your station and studied it. "Organized," he said.
"Everything has a place."
"Same in an ER." He looked at the tray. "You have to be able to reach what you need without looking."
"Exactly." You paused. "Although my tools are slightly less.."
"High stakes?"
"I was going to say scary, but sure."
He laughed and you walked him back to the front and he stopped at the door and you were close enough that you were suddenly aware of the particular gravity of him, the way a room organized itself slightly around where he was standing.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a card and then turned it over and wrote ten digits on the back and he held it out. "In case you need it." he said. "For anything."
You looked at the number and smiled. “Anything?”
The almost smile arrived fully this time, unhurried and genuine and just slightly devastating. "Anything."
The bell above the door announced his exit and you stood at the front of your shop turning the card over and over in your hand.
Bella appeared from the back. "Who," she said, "was that."
"Just a walk in.” you help the card up to your lips, tapping it against the smile that refused to go away.
…
It happened on a Wednesday, which felt wrong somehow. Momentous things should happen on weekends, or at least on a Friday when the week had built to something. Wednesday was for grocery runs and laundry.
And yet.
It started with a broken pipe.
Your upstairs neighbor had a pipe situation at seven in the evening that became a ceiling situation in your apartment at seven fifteen, which became a you cannot stay here tonight situation by seven thirty when the super looked at the spreading water stain above your bedroom, calculating how much this was going to cost him personally.
Derek was in Portland.
This was the other thing that had happened, quietly, over the past two weeks. Derek had matched with the rooftop bar woman, whose name was Sienna, and Sienna lived in Portland, and Derek had mentioned a visit, informing you of a decision already made. You had said have fun and meant it, or at least a part of you had meant it, and now he was in Portland and you were standing in your hallway with a go bag and nowhere obvious to go.
Trinity was on a double shift. You knew this without checking because Trinity's schedule was a fixed star in your sky, reliable and brutal. And plus she and Dennis didn’t have that much room to start with and you felt like a burden.
You sat in your car outside your building for ten minutes, bag in the passenger seat, and considered your options. You took the card out of your wallet. You had looked at it more times than you were going to admit to anyone, including yourself.
Without thinking too hard about it you said a simple fuck it and you called him.
He picked up on the second ring. "Y/N."
Just your name. Like it fit naturally.
"Hi," you said. "I have a weird situation."
"Tell me."
When you finished there was a brief pause. "I have a guest room," he said. "It has a bed and a lamp and I think a spare toothbrush somewhere. It's not exciting but it's dry."
"Jack, I cant.."
"I’m off tonight and I was going to eat leftover soup and watch something forgettable on television," he said. "You'd be doing me a favor. I hate eating soup alone."
That got a laugh from you. You sat in your car in the dark and catalogued all the reasons this was a complicated idea. There were several. They were legitimate. You thought about the water stain and about Derek in Portland with Sienna, who seemed nice, genuinely.
"I like soup." you said finally.
"Then come over."
…
His apartment was on the fourth floor of a building that was older than it looked and better than it had any right to be. High ceilings, good bones, the comfort of a space that had been lived in deliberately. Books on actual shelves, not for decoration. A kitchen that showed evidence of real use. A couch that was deep and worn in exactly the right places.
It looked like him. Everything was where it was for a reason.
You stood in his entryway with your bag and felt suddenly like you were seeing something private.
"Soup's already on the stove," he said from the kitchen. "Chicken and rice. Hope that works."
"That's..yes." You set your bag down. "You actually made soup."
"I said I had leftover soup."
"I thought that was a.." you stopped. "Never mind."
He appeared in the kitchen doorway with a dish towel over one shoulder, looking at you. "Why would that be a figure of speech?"
"People say things they don't mean."
"I don't."
He disappeared back into the kitchen, and you stood in his entryway another moment, holding that statement in the quiet.
You hung up your jacket and followed him in.
…
You ate at his kitchen table with an ease that should have required more history than you had. He told you about his recent shift. Some small victories. And you told him about the back piece you'd finished the week prior, the client who'd fallen asleep halfway through, the way people sometimes came in for ink and what they actually needed was to be still for a few hours while someone took care of them.
"That's most people," he said.
"The falling asleep part?"
"The needing someone to take care of them part." He turned his spoon once in his bowl. "People don't let themselves have that enough."
You thought about ten years of being the one who smoothed things over. Who held the shape of everything together so it didn't come apart. You thought about when the last time was that you had simply let someone take care of you.
You set your spoon down. Looked at the table for a moment, then back at him. "I want to stay tonight," you said. "Not the guest room."
His expression shifted slightly, but he didn't say anything yet, just waited, because he could tell you weren't finished.
"I'm still with Derek," you continued, keeping your voice even. "The arrangement is..we're open, that's real, I'm allowed to do this. But I need you to know that's what this is. I'm not..I can't offer you more than tonight. I don't want you to think this is something it isn't."
You held his gaze while you said it because you'd made this decision and you weren't going to look away from it now.
Understanding arrived and something careful behind it. "I'm not asking you for more than tonight," he said quietly. Then, after a second, softer, "But I want you to be sure."
"I'm sure."
He looked at you for one more moment. "Okay," he said.
…
He was unhurried in a way. Like a deliberate kindness, even as he pinned your wrists above your head with one hand.
He shifted his weight, his limb unbuckled and cast aside on the floor, leaving him balanced over you. He moved with practiced strength, using his leg to help brace his torso as he loomed over you. "You've been looking at me like you're afraid I'll break," he rasped, his voice dropping low that made your toes curl. "Stop thinking. Just feel how much I want you."
He asked without asking. It wasn't in words, but in the way he moved. He reached down, his fingers slicking through your folds.
"You're so fucking wet for me," he murmured, a smirk playing on his lips when he heard your breath hitch. "Tell me you want it. Tell me you want me inside you."
You tried to say something, a nervous joke to break the mounting intensity, but it came out as a desperate whimper. He laughed and the sound of it against your skin made the air feel safe in a way you hadn't known you needed.
"Good girl." he whispered, the praise hitting harder than the touch. "Stay right there. Don't move a muscle for me."
The sheer size of him felt like a promise kept. He positioned himself at your entrance and he paused for a heartbeat, watching your face, before he drove home in one devastating motion.
You couldn’t help your back arching off the sheets as he filled you to the absolute limit. It wasn't a sharp spike. It was a swell, an all encompassing heat that filled every hollow place you’d been hiding.
His rhythm was a punishingly beautiful cadence. Because of his reach, he leaned heavily into you, his chest crushed against yours, his skin slick with sweat. He pulled nearly all the way out before sinking back in, each stroke hitting deeper, harder, grinding his hips against yours until you were sobbing his name.
"I’ve got you," his hand leaving your wrists to cup your face, forcing you to look at him while he wrecked you. "Take it. Take all of it."
Your walls clamped down around him, the friction becoming unbearable. He didn't speed up. He simply pushed harder, his movements becoming more urgent. The tension finally snapped, shattering into a thousand points of warmth. You shook beneath him and he followed you a second later, a groan escaping him as he buried himself to the hilt.
And the only thing you could think was, Oh. This is what it’s supposed to feel like.
KATAANG - THE KISS
Obsessing again with ATLA and got inspired so I did Kataang based on "The Kiss" by Klimt. Probably not an original idea but I'm very proud of it.
jack once found a camcorder from his past in a box in the garage. over time, the records of these videos capture small moments, not the large ones.
content warnings: girldad!jack, wife!mom!reader, brief mentions of jack’s service, self-doubt, old school home videos, give dad jack a chance tumblr—you might love him, a lil bit of sad life angst,
[jack abbot x fem!reader wc: 4.2k ]
masterlist | other jack abbot fics
A shriek echoed from the garage on a Sunday afternoon.
The bright and sunny day suddenly became overcast by a cloud of fear that struck you like a lightning bolt. Its high voltage sending you rushing down the hallway, racing through the kitchen, and into the open doorway to where Jack had been working in the garage.
"Jack?" You shouted before you saw him.
There were no groans, no audible screams or sobs—just the pattering of your sock covered feet answering a reaction. But when you landed in the doorway and your hands flew to the wood that encased it, Jack was standing between boxes holding a camcorder from twenty years ago.
"Jack?" You called out to him from the small stoop. "Everything alright?"
"Baby, look." He held up the camcorder. "Isn't it cool?"
Holy shit. You married a child. An endearing, charming, horribly sexy manchild who couldn't help but be excited to find a device that had long been replaced by the video feature on his iPhone.
"I thought you died." Dropping your hands, you sighed heavy yet entered the garage anyway. "What's got your panties in a twist? I just got her to fall asleep."
"Hey," Jack looked at you with faux offense, "I wear briefs, not 'panties,' so I got my 'briefs' in a twist. And look at it?" He held it up again and out to you. "I thought I lost this thing years ago."
His fingers brushed yours gently as he passed it over and returned to digging in the box to find its cord.
"What's on it?" You asked. "A sex tape?"
Jack scoffed. "You wish."
“With another woman? No thank you.”
“It’s not a sex tape.”
You turned it over in your hands. “My conscious has been cleared.”
The camcorder's cords were plucked by his hands within seconds of searching. In the box labeled "apartment," an old basketball was littered atop old medical books and a ratty backpack with his name in bold across the back. You pressed into the buttons as if they would magically turn on the camera, but all it did was sound rapid clicking before Jack took it away from you.
"You're gonna break it."
"It's probably already broken," you chuckled. "It's ancient, a dinosaur."
"Then we're ancient too."
"Mhm," you hummed. "I think the last two years reminded us that we are."
Jack nodded absentmindedly as he stared down at the camera in his hands.
It felt like witnessing a portal into his past.
One before the trials of pain he thought were in the name of doing good. Jack wondered about the tapes that were sure to be buried in a box in his parent's attic states away. Packing it away had cemented a chapter in his life closing: young adulthood, a childlike demeanor shaken away forever.
He had never bothered to dig into boxes when he was with his parents. Each and every time he thought about it, he reminded himself that it was only clutter.
Jack, however, had a hard time ridding himself of the all the clutter. Yet as he held it, he wondered if there was a reason he had never let go. The life he lived now, at 50, was not the one he envisioned when he packed it away for the last time.
Maybe now was reason for its rediscovery.
Maybe her arrival to Earth was enough to signal that he had healed what he left behind.
"What if it works?" He questioned in a trance.
You glanced from Jack to the camcorder to him again and tipped your head softly to the side. "What about it?"
"Maybe we could use it, you know, to film our life here."
Oh God. Your heart just fucking exploded in your chest.
Jack never had to try very hard to make you feel… anything. It came naturally with his presence and it was a fragile reflection of the years you've spent searching and loving the man you called your husband. Now, well into a new chapter of your lives, it only seemed to deepen.
“Our life” was larger than the two of you now. It wasn’t something you had imagined happening at your age, nor after years of never finding the right person to see that future with. But when fate identified a deep misfortune in the circumstances in both yours and Jack’s lives, it gave you something you didn’t realize you needed.
And you called her Birdie.
Birdie.
A nickname with many meanings that you could see in the sheen of Jack's eyes. It was her, the girl asleep in her low toddler bed, that centered the focus of Jack's video dreams.
"We missed her first steps," Jack considered, "and we missed recording her first words."
"Yeah," you agreed. "But those are almost impossible to capture anyway."
"Think about it." A sudden burst of inspiration caught wind inside of him.
Jack didn't wait for you as he rushed back into the house and went straight for the first outlet he could see in the kitchen. He shoved the canister of cooking utensils out of the way and plugged in the charging cord and waited for the screen to illuminate. You followed behind him with less enthusiasm and careful consideration that it may not work.
"If I can film her in the playroom or when she throws her food on the floor, she can have those memories forever."
"And at her wedding, you're gonna be that dad who shows all of her friends the videos of her having a tantrum over halved grapes and cubed chicken, right?"
Jack nodded without registering the wary tone of your voice. He was too excited about the prospects.
"Exactly."
"What about just filming on your phone?" You asked. "You've got videos her already."
He did, you weren't lying. They were all in the shared folder labeled with her given name that just kept growing and growing every day for the last 700-odd days of her existence. And he frequented it, daily, to quell the stress of all that existed outside of your home.
Jack was at peace here. With the two girls he loved more than anything on the planet, and in the safety of their embraces for as long as he will be alive.
"This is different."
"How?" You pressed out of interest.
"It's… intentional, I don't know. These videos," he pointed to the camcorder, "are moments that I want to record. With our phones, it's too easy just to film anything."
"Try to turn it on," you suggested quietly. "Don't scream this time, okay? Don't wake her up."
Jack glared at you comically and pressed the button. His fingers tapped the counter impatiently and you put a soothing hand on his back.
"Hey," you whispered. "It's only a camera."
Jack bit down on the side of his cheek and shook his head. He didn't speak, only adverted his gaze away from the camcorder and into the backsplash you picked out years ago.
"Jack?"
"I don't think I've turned this on since…" The gap in his words was filled by the heavy silence of what it left.
It had been sitting in a box, dead, since the spring of 2002.
Whatever life existed in the memory of the device was as foreign as the feeling in his chest. He thought of the repetitive motion of your hand instead of the flood from his subconscious. Jack didn't want to remember what that life looked like—he had mourned it, for years, before coming to terms with the fact it was never going to be his again.
"Where'd you go?" You asked him quietly. "Come on back, honey. We've got you."
The camera screen turned on and nothing but settings appeared. No proof, no other videos to haunt him. Jack sighed, audibly, before shaking his head and closing the camera so it could charge. He turned enough to wrap his arm around you and pull you close. His lips settled on your forehead before resting his cheek atop your head.
"I'm fine," he assured. "It's stupid."
"No, it's not."
"No," he agreed instead of fighting it further. "It's not."
"Let it charge up and then when she wakes up from her nap, the first video on the card will be of her smiling at you because she loves you so much."
Jack's cheek pulled against your hair. He loved that little girl like it was his lifeline. Yes, of course, he adored you just as much but he never knew he could love as deeply as he did until she was born out of surprise. A risky pregnancy was rewarded with what he could only be described as perfection.
Even if she grew up into a teenager who would resent him for not letting her drive past 8 or go to a high school party, Jack would love her forever.
He hoped she would too.
"And I love you too," you reminded him. "Don't forget it, okay? I don't deal with all of your shit like screaming bloody murder over a camcorder for nothing."
"I'll shout like a mouse next time."
"That's more like it."
The first video logged on the new SD card was filmed by you standing in the small gap of Birdie's bedroom door as Jack woke her up from her nap.
A tan bunny curled into her chest while the sheets of her toddler bed were askew in a million directions. Her room looked like a tornado tumbled through it: toys laid everywhere and a dresser drawer stuffed with clothes. The chair in the corner of the room that had once been reserved for rocking a baby back to sleep was filled with books—but Birdie only ever wanted to hear Jack read Goodnight Moon over and over and over again.
You tried getting her to love Kipper.
She still only wanted to hear Goodnight Moon.
As Birdie woke from her nap, she tossed and turned as Jack rubbed a warm hand along her side. Her feet kicked at her blankets, voice whining from being awakened from a dream about fairies and mythical forests.
"Birdie, baby," Jack cooed. "You gotta get up now."
As always, when the girl heard Jack's voice as she woke, her eyes opened an instant. Her bunny went flying over his shoulder and she scrambled to her knees on her mattress.
You zoomed in the camera to capture her glow. There was little that made your heart as full compared to watching the product of love embrace it in return. A weight lifted from Jack's shoulders as she hugged him like a monkey. Her entire body seemed to cling to Jack the moment his arms wrapped around her and he fell back onto his heels.
"Woah there," Jack laughed. "Nice to see you too."
Birdie dug her head into the crux of Jack's shoulder and neck. You couldn't help but grin at the sight.
She fused the cracks underneath his surface that could only be mended by fate. The tiny hands of a child unbothered by the world made his heart ache as much as it healed. Jack didn't want to imagine the cruelty she was sure to experience as she grew up—even if he tried to protect her the best he knew how.
One day, she wouldn't need him. She wouldn't need you.
And one day, neither of you would be there for her when she needed you most.
But he held onto her tightly in the moment. As you filmed the quiet seconds between a father and his daughter, it felt necessary to continue. Every moment captured on the device tucked into your fist was a snapshot of her childhood. It would contain the scenes of a life well loved and cared for, especially in the years that made her understand what love was.
She would see it in the way you both looked at each other. In the scent of meals she'd eat for her lifetime; the patterns on china that only came out during the holiday seasons. She'd recall it in the tears Jack shed when she'd graduate elementary school, then middle, high, and college. And while she'd pretend to be embarrassed by sharing a knowing gaze with you, her adoration would only grow thicker.
When she sat beside Jack in the hospital as he cradled your hand to his lips, Birdie would hope one day someone would love her as much.
And when all of Jack's surviving friends, colleagues, and servicemen lined up to tell her what a selfless man he had been, she'd never wish to have known anyone else as her father.
Jack felt it all in her embrace.
Birdie babbled a few words he couldn't decipher and wiggled out of his grasp. She ran out of bed, to the door, and into your legs. It had become a habit to cling to her parents with every ounce of her body. A safety thing, her pediatrician had informed when you asked if it was normal.
You turned the camera down to your legs but didn't bother checking the focus. Instead, you looked to Jack and matched the dazed, loving stare he gave. He mouthed a distinct "I love you" with a wink before sniffing away the intensity of his sentiment and rising to his feet with a low groan.
"Dada." Birdie let go of you and pattered back to Jack with her hand outstretched. "Outside."
"You wanna go outside?" He asked her. She nodded ferociously, gripping onto his hand and guiding him toward you and the door.
You held up the camera, letting it focus on Jack as Birdie dragged him closer and closer until he was filling the frame with his face and pretended to knock his head into it.
"Ow, Birdie," he wailed dramatically. "Did you see that? Momma's trying to take me down!"
Jack's hand slipped from hers as he crowded you against the door in ignorance of your pleas to not be attacked. Birdie's giggles transformed the room. The sound carried while Jack pulled you into it, wrestling to the floor and the camera with it tilted on its side to capture a frame of a husband and wife being overly dramatic for the sake of their daughter.
Birdie rushed back into the room with vocal objections before Jack playfully wrapped himself around her, pushing into your arms on the floor, and made the canvas of the room full of color.
When one SD card filled itself, Jack kept the suppliers in business.
Every visit to the zoo, the park, the YMCA, or Dana Evans’ yard, it was recorded on his 2002 camcorder. The recollections of what filled the camera’s view before slowly reduced. Jack stopped feeling like he was erasing the past but instead shaping the future.
But Jack had trouble being in front of the camera after the first instance. It wasn’t that he hated the sound of his voice or disliked the way he looked, Jack simply cared more about capturing the moment rather than being in them.
And after a few months, that started to eat away at you.
The intent was for Birdie to carry these videos with her forever. Now, Jack was only really in a fraction of them physically. A side glimpse, a low voice, the first day, and when she started pushing her little tykes vehicle down the driveway with his help. The rest were of you and her—so, you devised a plan.
“Hold my hand.”
You held out your splayed hand for five small fingers to grab. You repeated it, almost like asking a dog to eat a treat, before Birdie actually took the bait.
“We’re gonna go surprise, dada, okay? Don’t yell for him. We have to be really quiet.”
“Okay, mama,” her light, high voice replied as an ambulance pulled out of the bay.
“It might be loud in there. If you want to cover your ears, you can do that.”
Her body molded into your legs. Birdie’s auburn curls bounced with every step, shyly turning away from the few staff lingering in the corridor as the automatic doors hissed open.
“You’re okay,” you reminded her. Her fingers squeezed yours.
“Uh oh,” Dana’s thickened accent nearly shouted from the hub. “Big trouble is here!”
Birdie’s cheeks grew round with a grin. In her blue Jean overalls and ruffle trim socks, she looked up at you and swayed her body before planting her feet in the middle of the walkway.
“Little Birdie isn’t scared now, is she?” Dana removed her stethoscope from her neck and stepped out of the hub. “What are we doing? Filming a documentary? I didn’t put the right makeup on today.”
“No,” you laughed, “this one here wanted to surprise her dad with a birthday lunch.”
“Isn’t that sweet?”
Dana knelt down in front of Birdie and poked the appliqué butterfly in the center pocked on her chest. “How are you Ms. Birdie? I’ve missed ya, haven’t seen you in a little while.”
“Hi,” Birdie replied shyly, covering her face with your entwined hands.
Dana’s eyes crinkled at the sides. She observed your daughter with a kindness she always reserved for children. That nervous, uncertain energy that came with the early years of interaction was irresistible. It reminded her of her own kids who were far too old now to understand what she missed so much about being a parent of a young kid.
“She’s lookin’ more like Jack everyday,” Dana sighed your name like it was a problem. “You gotta start telling your genes to fight back.”
You ran your hands over Birdie’s curls. Fondly, you liked that she was taking after him.
“Do you know where he is?”
“Doin’ some teaching for our very fine residents in Trauma 2. Should be done soon.”
You nodded. “Think we can sit down?” You motioned to Birdie with your head. “She kept asking about the ‘spinny chairs’ in the car.”
“Oh yeah,” Dana acknowledged conspiratorially. “I think I’ve got just the chair.”
The hub was as you recalled it from the last time you visited the Pitt. Visiting Jack at work was never something you sought out—a few sporadic lunches over the years but nothing concrete to make those in the building, other than those he considered to be friends, recognize you. It was his job. His job. Spouses didn’t frequent one another’s places of employment often and with both of your schedules, especially now with Birdie, it happened less and less.
But the memories Jack had been compiling for the last few months were making his life all that much brighter.
He was right about the whole thing.
It was intentional. It was more significant.
And the camera in your hand became another piece of the Abbot’s daily routine.
Dana spun Birdie in a chair beside a computer as a few residents escaped from Trauma 2 and returned to their previously occupied places. As one logged into the computer, the other focused her attention on Birdie.
“Who do you have there, Dana? Isn’t she a cutie.”
“This is my little pal Birdie,” she said jovially, smiling at Birdie’s giggles that only seemed to echo louder and louder the longer they went on. “Santos, you’ve never met Birdie before?”
“I don’t think so.” Santos kneeled beside the chair. “Hi Birdie, my name is Trinity.”
“Hi,” Birdie replied as her initial nervousness subsided. In her broken 2 year old language, she urged Dana to keep going.
“Is she with a patient?” Trinity asked.
“She’s mine,” you voiced diagonal from her. A tote bag on the floor, she clocked the camcorder in your hand and her brows furrowed before letting up. “We’re just visiting.”
“Well she’s adorable.” Trinity watched Birdie spin and the way her hair flew. “Are you looking for someone?”
“Dada,” Birdie shouted as the spinning stopped. “Dada’s birthday is today.” Though, birthday came out to be more like ‘burfday,’ the reason was noted.
The young man behind Trinity logged out of the computer and joined the conversation.
“Whose birthday is it?”
Dana helped Birdie off the chair as the girl went running into your knees. You made a sound of fake harm before scooping her up and setting her back against your chest.
“Dr. Abbot’s.” Dana stood. “Santos, Whitaker, meet the Abbot’s. Abbot’s, meet two of our residents: Trinity Santos and Dennis Whitaker.”
“Dr. Abbot’s…” Dennis trailed off. His eyes bounded between Trinity, Dana, Birdie, and yours quickly. “Family?”
“Dr. Abbot has a child? A literal child? Like this cute little girl is Dr. Abbot’s kid?” Trinity asked aghast. "He spawned cuteness?"
“Well it takes two to tango,” you informed and she could have gagged. Goddamn.
“I didn’t need that imagine put into my head,” Trinity gasped dramatically.
“You say that like Dr. Abbot isn’t handsome,” Dana defended as she resumed her position in the hub, putting her stethoscope back on. “Didn’t you hear that old lady who came in last week with the broken hip? Jack the snack.”
“Maybe I’d feel differently if I liked men, Evans.” Trinity rolled her eyes.
“Are they almost done in 2?” Dana diverted the conversation. “Can’t have little Ms. Birdie see all the bad that comes in through those doors.”
“The break room is right over here,” Dennis suggested kindly. “I can help carry your stuff.”
“No,” you shook your head, “it’s fine. I have to film this anyway.”
“But what if a pait—”
“Dr. Whitaker, I might not be a doctor but I am aware HIPPA exists.”
The man blushed profusely. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” you assured. “Not everyone knows the rules.”
“They’re almost done,” Trinity cut in. “Crash was stitching up and missed a whole gap so he’s supervising it until she ties it off—speak of the devil.”
Crash, or Victoria Javadi walked out with eyes so vacant she could have seen a ghost.
“I’m never doing that again.”
“You live and you learn,” Dana said.
She approached you, motioning with her hand for the camera. “I’ll do it.”
“Are you sure?” Birdie’s head bumped into your chin as she sought to wiggle out of your grasp and to the floor.
“You’ve got your hands full, Mama. I promise I won’t miss it.”
A smile of thanks flashed on your face before helping Birdie off the chair. You held her hand as the doors to Trauma 2 pushed open again and the whizz of the hand sanitizer dumped itself into Jack’s palm.
“Dana,” he called out to her but watched the patient bed roll out of the room in turn. “T2 is headed up with Walsh now. What else you got for—”
Birdie’s head peaked around the side of the hub. Jack’s eyes found her immediately, stopping him in his tracks. He pointed at her with a skeptical finger.
“Is that my child?”
“I think you’d know your own baby, Jack.” He noticed now that Dana was holding up the camcorder and you were ducking unsuccessfully in a chair beside her.
“Oh I’d know her with my eyes plucked out.”
“A vision,” she panned.
You pulled Birdie back as Jack regained his motor skills and made for the hub. Whispering a secret into her ear, you sent her out again to meet Jack halfway. She beckoned him down to her and he bent without argument.
“Whipped,” Dana mumbled loud enough to catch on camera.
“What’s goin’ on, sweetie?” Jack asked her. “I thought I left you fast asleep this morning.”
She continued to motion for him to draw closer. When she felt he was within reach, she stood on her tip toes and cupped her hands to his ear.
For Jack’s ears only, Birdie whispered a less than articulated manner:
“Happy birthday, Dada.”
"Thank you," he said softly back. His eyes bloomed into hearts big enough to cure the grinch of his cruelty.
"Would you look at that," Trinity huffed. "Jack Abbot's a girl dad."
Years later, the woman who once went by the name of Birdie found a camcorder in the box of her parent’s attic.
Boxes lined the hallways and the rooms that used to have an abundance of sunshine. As she passed her childhood room, she thought of how different it looked when the rain muddled the skies and the slats on the blinds wrote sad poems on the floor.
The woman plugged in the camera with hope that it would turn on. It’s ancient, she considered as the minutes surpassed with no reward.
But then the screen illuminated.
And an SD card was already input into it.
When she pressed play on the first file, she saw a shaky hand pan over the emergency department where her father once worked. She saw faces of people she don’t know scattered amongst the few she did, and watched as her mother brushed a hand through unruly curls on her head.
Yet behind her, across from her mother as she sat on a chair, was the man in scrubs she still felt she could smell in her sleep.
This was the last video Jack Abbot had watched on the camcorder.
His birthday. So many years ago.
With a girl he called Birdie in focus for it all.
A/N: small little glimpse into how I see dad jack. and I couldn’t help but make it a little melancholic.
Reblogs, comments, and likes keep writers writing! Thank you!
summary: you never knew what love was until Jack showed you its true meaning. and when he asks for your hand in marriage, you have a mission to fulfill.
characters: jack abbot x reader
contents: age gap, just fluff because this is soft and sweet! also, mentions of childhood trauma and parental neglect.
word count: 3.7k
The metallic tang of adrenaline coats your tongue, sharp and cold. One second, a chill creeps up your legs, the next, your heart is a frantic percussion against your ribs. It’s a physical rebellion, a body reacting to a scenario it was never wired to expect.
First of all, you never imagined yourself in this situation, because everything in your life pointed to the opposite. And if we’re being honest, you have a long and lasting history with the word “marriage.”
You grew up in a house where love sounded like raised voices and doors closing too hard. Where you learned to turn Hannah Montana up loud enough to drown out the arguments downstairs. You didn’t need anyone to explain what was wrong, you could see it in the way your parents spoke to each other, like they were always keeping score, like winning mattered more than understanding.
When they separated, people said it would be better. It was supposed to be simple, one weekend here, one weekend there, a rhythm you could get used to. Something stable.
Supposed to be.
Your mother treated new relationships like life rafts, clinging to anyone who could drown out her own silence. Your father took to the open road, chasing the ghosts of a college dream he claimed the marriage had stolen from him.
By fourteen, you had mastered the art of self-sufficiency. By sixteen, you had learned to mourn your first heartbreak in a vacuum, crying until dawn without expecting a hand on your shoulder.
Independence wasn’t something you chose. It was something that grew around you, like a shell.
Your mother was growing increasingly distant, living the life she had perhaps always longed for. You were just a pawn in her game, one she’d left on the sidelines. You saw your father cry alone in his car after a weekend with him, knowing his life was forever ruined.
And it took many years of therapy and self-care to grow up and break free from the chains that trauma of that magnitude can impose on a human being.
It’s confusing, actually. Even later, in college, when things were supposed to feel different, you carried it with you. Relationships never quite settled. You were there, but never fully. Close, but never close enough. People noticed, like they always do.
For a long time, you wondered if something in you had been built wrong.
It took years—real ones, slow ones—to understand that it wasn’t a flaw. It was a defense. Something that had once kept you safe, even if it kept everything else out too.
That rift only began to heal when you joined the PTMC. A few years of residency were all it took to meet the person who would change your life in irreversible ways.
Everything you believed about love—the idea that it was temporary, something people held onto to soften whatever was missing inside them—started to lose its shape when Abbot came into your life. Sneaky and deliberate, he did exactly what you feared most: reached your heart.
With a tenderness and ease you never imagined possible.
Jack didn’t try to break down the walls, he simply sat outside them until you were ready to open the door. He offered a quiet, steady presence that didn't demand you perform or "fix" yourself.
He noticed things, but he didn’t make a spectacle of them. The way you hesitated before trusting something good. The way you sometimes pulled back without explaining why. He never chased you for answers, you think that’s why you started offering them.
With him, it wasn’t about intensity, it was about consistency. About the quiet, almost unfamiliar feeling of being understood without having to explain everything.
And somehow, without you realizing exactly when it changed, being with him stopped feeling like something you had to manage. It just felt… easy.
That’s why, a year and a half into something you kept mostly to yourselves—built in quiet hours, in late-night walks and coffee left untouched on his kitchen counter—Jack knew.
It wasn’t a realization that arrived all at once. It settled in gradually, until one day it simply felt certain.
It happened on a cold morning in December. The kind of cold that seeps into the windows and lingers. You were in his kitchen, moving around each other with an ease that had become second nature, the sound of something simmering low on the stove, the light outside dimmed by steady snowfall.
You asked him to pass the salt.
Something slid across the marble. You reached for it without looking, already half-turned back to the stove, but what you felt wasn’t glass or metal. It was smaller and smooth. Closed in your hand.
When you looked up, Jack was already watching you.
He stood there in a worn sweatshirt, grey hair slightly out of place, like he hadn’t bothered to fix it after running his hands through it one too many times. There was no performance in him, no buildup. Just that quiet, almost careful expression he got when something mattered.
The box in your hand felt heavier once you understood what it was.
For a second, you didn’t move. And it's not because you didn’t know the answer, but because some part of you was still catching up, trying to reconcile this moment with the version of your life where this never happened.
And yet, there you were.
He didn’t make a speech. He didn’t need to. The question was simple when it came, steady in the same way he had always been with you. You said yes with the stove still on, with the wind pressing faintly against the windows, with everything around you continuing as if nothing had changed.
But it had.
It was so ordinary it almost felt unreal. No grand gesture, no perfect timing—just the two of you, in a space that had slowly become shared, choosing each other out loud.
When he slid the ring onto your finger, his hands were warm, grounding. You noticed, distantly, the way his breath caught, nothing dramatic, but enough to give him away. As if this meant more to him than he had expected it to.
And it did.
Your vision blurred before you could stop it. Not from shock, not from fear, just from the weight of the moment, from the quiet certainty of being there, of being chosen, of choosing back.
And what an irony to find the love of your life where you were least expecting it.
A kind of love that doesn’t try to convince you it exists.
Because that’s what Jack was like—loving him was easy and unquestioning. After a lifetime of wondering if love really exists, if that word, “love,” is actually something that exists, and not just a term rooted in the depths of the human soul to fill the gaps of emotions and paradoxes, you were certain you had found the answer. But there isn’t one. Not a single, clear answer.
What exists are the ways people show up. The small, consistent choices. The things they do without thinking, because it comes naturally to them. And with Jack, the answer revealed itself like that, quietly, without asking for your attention.
In the way he looks at you, soft and focused, like he’s still a little surprised by you. In the offhand “great job” that started as nothing and somehow became everything. In the coffee cups he leaves by your charts, marked with uneven smiley faces that shouldn’t matter as much as they do.
It’s there when his hand finds yours without hesitation, fingers fitting together like they’ve learned the shape by memory. In the way he pulls you close, firm and grounding, like he doesn’t intend to let go anytime soon. Or how his eyes search for you wherever you are. In the kisses that carry more feeling than urgency, in the quiet confession of I love you that never sounds rehearsed, never sounds uncertain.
Those lazy, golden mornings where he’d pull you back into the covers, his arms a protective circle around you, squeezing just enough to let you know he wasn't letting go. The passionate frenzy that followed when he buried himself inside you, all sweat and lust. It was the ultimate dismantling of your walls. Skin against skin. For the first time, you didn't feel the need to remain distant.
So yes, it was easy to love him and even easier, somehow, to believe that he loved you too.
Jack didn’t make promises he couldn’t keep. He didn’t try to be more than he was.
He was just there. And for you, that was everything.
So, life in the ER was still hectic, and you were trying to find the right moment to approach Robby. You focused on your screen, typing up charts with more force than necessary, pretending your attention was fully there. It wasn’t. Every few seconds, your gaze drifted, tracking Robby as he danced through the room, stopping, answering, adjusting, always in motion.
“If you press any harder, that keyboard might give up on you.” Dana slid into place beside you, already flipping through her own paperwork, glasses perched low on her nose.
You blinked, only now noticing the tension in your hands. You eased your fingers, exhaling quietly, then glanced back toward Robby, who was deep in conversation with Whitaker.
“Is everything alright, dear?” Dana asked, peering at you over the rim of her glasses.
“No. Actually, yes. Maybe.”
She gave you a look. “That sounds promising.”
You hesitated, then let it out before you could overthink it. “I need to talk to Robby. I just—don’t know how to start.”
“Sweetheart, just rip the band-aid off already, whatever it is. That old man likes things straight and clear as day. You might want to do it soon, though. Before his sabbatical.”
You turned to her fully. “His what?”
“Oh.” She shrugged lightly. “He’ll be gone for a while. Didn’t you hear? So it’ll just be us holding things together.”
Something in your chest tightened, not panic, not quite urgency, but close enough.
You pushed your chair back. “Okay. I’ll do it now.”
“Good for you,” Dana murmured, already back to her charts.
The noise of the ER swallowed you again as you stepped away from the hub. You spotted Robby a few feet ahead, catching him just as Javadi stood frozen in front of him, her expression unreadable. Then she turned abruptly, walking off with Whitaker without a word.
Robby exhaled, and only then did you notice it, the flush creeping up the back of his neck, sharp against his skin.
“Um, Robby?”
“Yes?” he replied, the word edged with fatigue as he shifted his attention to you.
“Can we talk for a minute?”
He checked his watch, then reached for a clipboard a nurse handed him mid-sentence, signing it quickly before looking back up. “Did something happen?”
“No, but… could we talk somewhere private?”
This time, he really looked at you. The tiredness in his features was more apparent up close, his white hair only making it harder to ignore. You swallowed, steadying yourself.
After a brief pause, he nodded toward the break room. You moved first, not giving yourself time to reconsider, trusting that he’d follow.
The door clicked shut, and just like that, the noise of the ER dulled into something distant.
Robby crossed his arms, then motioned for you to sit.
Up close, the nerves were harder to ignore. This wasn’t just any conversation. The man in front of you had been there at the beginning, when everything felt uncertain, when you were still learning how to stand your ground. He had steadied you more times than you could count, sometimes without even realizing it.
There was a kind of respect there that went beyond hierarchy. Something quieter and lasting.
“Should I be worried?” he asked.
“No—no,” you said quickly, shaking your head. “It’s just… something else.”
He nodded once. “Alright. I’m listening.”
You drew in a breath, holding onto it for a second before letting it go. “You know that Jack and I… we’re together.”
Robby’s brows lifted slightly, a flicker of confusion passing through his expression.
“I promise this is going somewhere,” you added, almost smiling. “I just—I wanted to say that I’m really grateful. For everything. Since my first day here. You’ve… you’ve done more than you had to, and I don’t think I ever said that properly.”
He watched you quietly, not interrupting.
“And with Jack,” you continued, “I know it hasn’t exactly been… simple. So thank you for letting us have that space. For not making it harder than it already was.”
Robby exhaled through his nose, something softer settling in his features. “You’re a good doctor,” he said. “I did what anyone in my position should do.” A brief pause. “Is everything alright between you two?”
“Yes,” you said, and this time it came easier. “It is. That’s actually… why I’m here.”
You let the next words come without overthinking them.
“We’re getting married.”
For a moment, he didn’t react. Not in any obvious way. Then it caught up to him slowly. A small smile, a quiet breath that turned into something close to a laugh as he ran a hand over his face.
“Well,” he said, looking back at you, “congratulations. I’m glad to hear it.” His expression softened further. “I hope you both are happy.”
“I am. We are!” you answered, and meant it. “But there’s… one more thing.”
That made him pause.
“I’ve never really talked about my parents,” you began, your voice steady but quieter now. “It’s… complicated. They’re not… involved. And they won’t be there.” You let out a short breath, something between a laugh and an exhale. “I think I always knew that would be the case.”
Robby didn’t interrupt. He just listened.
“So,” you went on, the words coming a little faster now, before you could second-guess them, “I was wondering—only if you’d be comfortable with it, and it’s completely okay if not, but it would mean a lot to me if…”
You faltered, then shook your head, a small, nervous laugh slipping out.
“If you walked me down the aisle.”
Your heart pounds in your chest. Robby stands frozen. He just looked at you, like he was trying to understand if he’d heard you correctly.
“It’s really okay if you don’t want to,” you added quickly. “I just thought—”
“Are you sure?” he asked.
You blinked. “What?”
“Do you want me to do that?”
There was something in his voice now. Something closer to disbelief.
“Yes,” you said, more firmly this time. “I do.”
“Me?”
And then it settled.
“Robby,” you said gently, “you’re very important to me. There isn’t anyone else I would ask.” You hesitated for only a second. “When I picture it… you’re there.”
That did it.
His expression shifted, slowly at first, then all at once. His eyes glossed over, not dramatically, but enough to give him away. For a man who carried so much without showing it, the reaction was quiet and unmistakable.
It took him a moment.
Then he stood, closing the distance between you, hands coming to your shoulders before pulling you into an embrace.
“Of course,” he said, his voice lower now. “Of course I will.”
You nodded against him, blinking back the sudden sting in your eyes. When you stepped back, you both took a second, like you needed it.
“Thank you,” you said, softer this time.
He gave a small nod, still collecting himself.
You turned toward the door, your hand already on the handle, ready to step back into everything waiting outside.
“Oh—” you added, glancing back, “you’ll be back in time, right?”
“For what?” he asked, a trace of confusion returning.
“Your sabbatical. Dana mentioned it.” You shrugged lightly. “You’ll be back for the wedding?”
There was a flicker of something in his expression, brief, almost imperceptible.
“Yes,” he said. “I will.”
You smiled, something lighter settling in your chest now.
“Good,” you murmured. “Thank you, Robby.”
“Look at you,” Robby said, reaching up to straighten Jack’s bow tie. “All sharp and polished, didn’t think I’d see the day.”
Jack didn’t laugh. He was too aware of everything, his hands, slightly damp, the tightness in his chest, the way his heartbeat refused to settle into anything steady.
“Fuck off,” he muttered, eyes fixed ahead as he adjusted the tie again, even though it was already straight.
Especially Jack, who’s a bundle of nerves with his heart practically in his throat. Outside, the scene is set: rows of white wooden chairs occupied by a handful of friends and Jack’s few relatives. All gathered for a small, intimate celebration at a house in the countryside, a place you found at the last minute when Whitaker—who freaked out when he discovered the whole thing—let you know it was available and not too far from the city.
“Damn! Looking good, Dr. Abbot!” Santos practically shouted as she entered the house, where you were getting ready.
Jack let out a low, disapproving sound under his breath, which only made Robby chuckle.
“They don’t know when to stop,” Jack said.
“No,” Robby replied, glancing over with a faint smile, “they really don’t.”
Then they looked at each other, an exchange that said so much—a partnership of years, a recognition that only two people who’ve been through hell on earth can share. There was history there. Years of it. The kind that didn’t need to be explained, only recognized. It passed between them in a glance—everything they had seen, everything they had carried, side by side.
Jack had been trying to hold back the tears in his eyes all morning, besides having his nerves on edge, he wanted to stay composed and save all his tears for when you walked down the aisle.
“I’m happy for you, brother,” Robby said, pulling him into a firm embrace, his hand coming up to pat his back twice.
Jack nodded against him, swallowing hard before stepping back.
“Yeah,” he managed, a small smile breaking through. “Thanks for coming back.”
Robby hesitated for just a second as he let go. And when he did, it was devastating. With a heavy heart, he gave Jack’s shoulder a light squeeze, acknowledging the gratitude and sincerity behind it.
“You look…” Javadi paused behind you, her eyes widening at your reflection. “You look amazing.”
You smiled, a little shy under the weight of it. “Thank you.”
“Good thing you didn’t go with the other dress,” Santos added from across the room, adjusting her suit. “You would’ve looked like a wedding cake.”
You laughed, smoothing your hands over the fabric. The dress was simple, no excess, no effort to impress. It fit you the way something chosen carefully does. It felt like you.
“Shen’s about to lose it, saying everyone’s freezing their butts off out there.” Ellis rolled her eyes and took a deep breath. “We’ll go when you’re ready, bride-to-be.”
You turned to the mirror one last time. Everything seems to come crashing down like an avalanche—all the fear, all the insecurity, all those beliefs and doubts that seemed to terrify you your whole life—they’ve vanished.
What remained was something steadier. A version of yourself you hadn’t always known how to reach.
“I’m ready,” you said.
“I’ll get Robby,” Javadi replied, already heading for the door.
Your bridesmaids followed, leaving only Dana behind.
She stepped closer, her hand resting gently on your shoulder. “Can I say something?”
“Of course.”
“I’m really happy for you,” she said, her voice warm, certain. “Truly.”
You nodded, your throat tightening just slightly. “Thank you.”
She held your gaze for a second longer. “You chose well.”
Yes, you did.
Outside, the air was colder, sharper against your skin. The sun had begun to dip, casting everything in that soft, fleeting light that makes things feel suspended in time.
Robby was waiting near the entrance.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready.”
The music started as you stepped forward.
People stood. You registered it in fragments—Santos lacing her fingers with Garcia’s, Javadi beside Samira and Mateo, Dana already dabbing at her eyes. It all blurred together, because your attention found him almost immediately.
Jack.
Jack's at the small makeshift altar, surrounded by white and yellow flowers. You catch his expression, his eyes welling up, and how his lips curl into a small pout, trying to hold back the tears. Those gentle eyes are all on you. He paces, almost restless, counting down the seconds until he can finally hold you in his arms and call you his wife.
He was looking only at you.
And just like that, everything else fell away.
Step by step, the distance between you closed. You felt Robby beside you, steady and grounding, until you reached the end.
When he placed your hand in Jack’s, the gesture was quiet but full of meaning. Jack nodded to him, something unspoken passing between them, before his attention returned to you.
Your hands meet and everything else ceases to exist except him.
His hands are on yours the whole time, caressing, stroking, making sure that this moment is real and that you are there. From that point on, the ceremony moved forward, but it felt distant, almost secondary. His eyes smiling with the small wrinkles around them, his pupils dancing as a way of saying he loves you, without verbalizing.
It’s a devastating love, the one you feel.
By the time the final words were spoken, there was a quiet shift in the air, like something had settled into place.
“You may kiss the bride.”
Jack touches your face as if it were the first time, a gentle touch, but this time he isn’t hesitant like the first time he kissed you in the car at your front door. No, this touch is certain, firm. His eyes wander over your face, committing every detail and feature to memory for the thousandth time, because he wants to remember this moment—even fifty years from now—when he took you in his arms and kissed you for the first time as his wife.
And you feel deep in your heart, in your very core, the most bittersweet and gentle feeling a person could ever feel.
Jack is yours. You are his. Just as it should be.
And this time, there was no reason to look for answers...
LORD the scene with robby.... asking him if he'll be back from the sabbatical in time for the wedding.... considering everything going on right now in the second season.... I SOBBED
this is so well written, im in love aaaaaaaa
jjk men & reader are a bit mean throughout depending on the situation, slight angst to comfort, cursing, mentions of breakups (none of ya'll actually do dw) - this took me forever i'm so sorry, each one is like the length of a mini fic for some fucking reason
gojo, geto, nanami, choso, toji, sukuna
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
satoru gojo:
there's nothing on this planet earth that satoru hates more than fighting with you.
nevertheless, at the worst of times, the two of you can't seem to help it, as satoru has the remarkable tendency to unknowingly take things too far or fail to take your concerns seriously enough.
and that's always been the big, underlying problem. how satoru can not help but to look at everything with a humorous eye. the blue eyed sorcerer subconsiously pokes fun at and makes jokes of practically everything, for that is just the kind of person he is. that is how he operates. he does not like the sinking weight of difficult conversations. he does not like when there is room for sadness or anger, so he attempts to deflect any reaction of so with an attitude that you find endearing most times, but really begins to get on your nerves when you actually want to have a conversation.
despite your frustrations, you are able to say that satoru is not incapable of having a serious conversation. you've seen it happen before, of course, the way his tone dips into something low and weighted as he speaks with a sharpness in his eyes that he does not even begin to think of tearing away. satoru would never speak to his students in such a way, unless to intimidate them into thinking with complexity in the midst of a fight.
you've seen him take that tone with the higher ups, though, when he's beyond angry with them, when he's forced to talk all business and strategy and they dare to even suggest that he should allow his students die if the council ever decided that it's time to destroy sukuna's vessel or anyone else.
and outside of work, he's only spoken to you that way a handful of times. in fact, you can count the instances on your finger. he only really gets that serious with you if your wellbeing is put to question or is at stake, and he has to pry answers out of you before jumping to protect and look after you.
you're the one thing that satoru really, truly does not play about, and yet he has developed this habit of dismissing you or brushing you off when the roles are reversed - when it's you worrying about him and not the other way around.
satoru does not mean to make it seem like he doesn't care about your feelings. it's quite the opposite, in fact. there's not a thing he cares about more in this world, but even so, he just can't seem to get it sometimes. he can't seem to understand where you are coming from, especially when it's his safety that you begin fussing over. satoru knows no other way to react but to coo and cradle you like a baby, practically laughing you off, as if you wanting him to be safe is such an insane thing. as if it's silly for you, gojo's girlfriend, to worry about when or if he's coming home.
because of course he's coming home to you after every mission in one piece. he's satoru gojo. no one's ever bothered to show the decency of worrying over his wellbeing because there's never been any reason to. satoru is treated like a god among men, like a machine, a robot, a weapon, and weapon's don't have weaknesses. machines don't feel pain. and satoru is far from an ordinary human being, therefore, he admits that it's so confusing when you get angry with him for coming home so late one night after he called to tell you not to wait up for him. when literally nothing bad was ever going to happen to him.
satoru hates fighting with you. he hates when you're mad, but sometimes, he can not help but fall into the daunting rhythm of heated back and forth with you, especially when you throw accusations and worries about him that satoru has never experienced, never paid any attention to.
and what you genuinely can not stand is that stupid, perplexed expression on his face when you snap at him. the way his sapphire hues shine with what you dare to identify as annoyance, his brow quirking, his lips turned downward in the way it did back in high school, when he was far more bratty. like you're the crazy one for waiting up all night with fears swirling in your mind, with anxiety a heavy pit in your chest, and your heart pounding in your ears as you prayed for him to walk through that door any second.
how could he question you? how could he judge you with that gaze as if you're blowing things out of proportion? making a big scene for no reason when he's right there in front of you, fine, like he always is. like the world knows him to be, so why don't you?
"princess, i don't understand," satoru's laughing, a sound of exasperation and dismissal that you fucking hate. you feel your blood boiling as you stand before him with brows angled so hard that you can feel the skin around them begin to ache.
it's so late. close to four in the morning, and satoru has only just returned home. you're fuming, buzzing with the adrenaline of having waited hours for him as well as your brewing anger.
satoru is all lightness and jokes and weariness that begins to harden the former into something more impatient. "i'm home now, aren't i? i'm fine! i told you i would be late, so i don't know why you're so upset."
"that's all you ever fucking say when i bring this up, satoru. that you don't understand." your words are harsh, cutting through the air like knives that pin satoru to a corner by the hem of his shirt fabric. satoru hates it. hates the way you say his name with venom dripping from your tone. hates the way this argument has already gone on for ten minutes, and he still doesn't know what for. he just wants to get in bed with you and go to sleep after a long week, and here you are, shouting at him in the middle of the night over something he couldn't even control.
"i don't, (y/n)," he exhales, and when your name falls from his lips instead of one of the plethera of nicknames he prefers to address you by instead, you know that he's reached his limit. he can no longer react breezily as you push harder and harder, stubbornly refusing to back down from this fight. your heart is heavy, and you make up for the tears you shed out of fear in the way you bite back. "because you know i come home to you every night, after every single mission. without fail."
"that's not the point! you're not even trying to understand me!"
"well how could i when you just start yelling the second i walk through the door?"
"satoru," you hiss, as you feel tensions rising, emotions escalating. you can see satoru's expression hardening, his greivances now apparent on his face as he frowns at you, abhorring the way his name falls from your mouth yet again. "you called me to tell me that you would be a little late at eight pm. it's now fucking four in the morning. how could you even think that i wouldn't be up waiting for you? that i wouldn't be terrified?"
"maybe because i gave you the heads up hours in advance."
"how was i supposed to know that meant you wouldn't be back until damn near dawn?"
"you think i knew that when i called you?" he scoffs, throwing his arms out. "come on, (y/n), give me a break. what the hell do you want from me? you knew what you were getting into when you even started dating me, so why's this a problem now all of a sudden?"
you scrunch your nose. "it's not all of a sudden! i've been worrying about you since fucking grade school, you idiot!"
"who do you think you're talking to?" you hear it. that drop in his voice that you rarely ever encounter. you see the way his eyes darken, his jaw tight, but you don't care. he can get angry all he wants, but it doesn't matter because the hell that he put you through tonight alone is enough to justify talking to him any way you'd like, in your mind. "be mad all you want. scream at me, hit me, but don't go calling me names. you know i don't like that shit. not from you."
any other time, you would have listened. you would have taken his tone as a warning, but tonight, you ignore him the same way he always ignores your worries. the same way he always brushes you off when you tell him to text you when he gets to a certain location, calling you cute and silly in the head for even thinking of showing him concern.
"then don't talk to me like i'm a child," you snap. "you talk about me being angry like i'm throwing a fucking tantrum, and it drives me crazy."
"i'm not talking to you like a child, (y/n), but this is getting ridiculous."
"is it really?" you lean back with raised brows and a snarky smile. satoru's lips flatten into a line as he examines your coutenance, irritated. "oh i'm so sorry. it's just so ridiculous that i want you to come home unscathed at a decent hour. it's ridiculous how i want you to be safe when everyone wants to throw you into the pit of hell all the time." you roll your eyes as you speak cynically, and satoru sours with every second.
he hates fighting with you because when you're angry, you get so cruel. so mean, when normally, you are such a contrast. so sweet, doting, and understanding. you rarely get like this, which should mean that satoru has done something very wrong, but he just can't see it. he doesn't get it. he almost refuses to.
and it's so hard to fight with the ivory haired man because you know he doesn't hear the words you are saying in the moment, but how you are saying them. he does not do well with your harshness, especially when he's already beat. he fumbles, slips up, and eggs it on without trying.
"that's my job," he says sternly. "that's what i've always done."
"okay, and when do you slow down?"
"i don't get to."
"you're satoru gojo," you cry, his name pouring like a curse from your lips. "of course you get to! you can do whatever the hell you want! anything, apparently, except fucking get back to your worried girlfriend on time-"
"on time for what? you never told me to be back at a certain time, (y/n)," he cuts in. "and clearly you don't understand me at all if you think i can just drop everything and come running to you because you're scared for nothing."
you tilt your head, squinting your eyes as you run your tongue over your teeth. your hands reach your hips, satoru's words striking you coldly. "so that's how you feel," you start slowly. "i'm scared for nothing. i don't understand you."
satoru clicks his tongue and looks to the sky. "you're twisting my words."
"really? 'cause i'm just repeating the exact words that came out of your mouth."
satoru catches wind of the way your voice has mellowed out, and he can see that he's struck a nerve. but so have you. "(y/n)-"
"so just - let me get this straight," you bring your hands together. "all of a sudden i don't understand you because you can't deal with the fact that there's someone in this shitty ass world who actually bothers to think about the toll all of your responsibilities take on you."
"that's not-"
"i don't understand you because i spend every waking moment of my life when you're away hoping that something bad doesn't happen to you. hoping that you aren't caught off guard, that some kind of weakness hasn't been exploited to hurt you."
now, your boyfriend is offended, for it is starting to sound like you think that he isn't strong. satoru's ego gets the best of him as he reels. "who the hell is gonna catch me off guard or exploit me? shit like that doesn't happen. people give me these jobs for that reason."
"and i'm telling you that i don't fucking care," you stamp. "i don't care that you're the strongest. i don't care that you're the honored one. i don't care that you're the only person who could save this planet from doom if it ever came down to it. i don't care about any of that shit. satoru, i care about you. and god forbid i do, or else you'll start basically calling me stupid."
"what?! i didn't call you stupid, (y/n). you're the one who called me an idiot!"
"you don't have to actually say that i'm stupid to make me feel that way. i can tell by the way you always laugh when i tell you i'm worried, satoru. you laugh."
"so what if i laugh? that doesn't mean i think you're stupid when i do, (y/n)."
"then what do you think? that i'm adorable? that i'm silly? because those are basically nice ways of calling me stupid! and that's what you think of my feelings!"
"you're blowing things way out of proportion. i don't think you're feelings are stupid. i would never think that," he argues desperately.
"but you do! you don't even know you do!" you point accusingly. "i know you're the strongest, satoru, but damn! think about yourself for once! think about me!"
all satoru can really hear is your blame - the fact that he thought you understood, and you don't. he's tired. he's angry. he's missed you, and you're yelling at him, and he feels like shit.
but he doesn't realize that this is you understanding and loving him at the same time.
"i do think about you," he growls lowly. "every damn day. every second. every minute. every hour. i feel guilty enough for leaving in the first place, but clearly that's not enough. i have to juggle the world on top of this shit now, too. i'm doing everything i can. i would have thought by now that you'd understand and actually support me. but i guess i was wrong. i can't even come home and go to bed with my girlfriend without her pulling this. if you knew you couldn't handle it, then maybe you shouldn't have agreed to be with me."
he gestures between you like you are the very thing getting in his way, and you fall silent as you watch him with wide eyes. his words hang in the dim silence, and your throat tightens with all your frustrations, all your anger, all your heartbreak, and all your love.
granted, you can understand where he is coming from. it isn't like he didn't call you at all, and he likely expected you to have gone to bed when he told you to over the phone, but it's assumptions like those which get you so heated. how can he think that you'll be able to sleep without him safe and sound beside you? the man jolts awake when you fucking get up to use the bathroom, so you can't fathom how he can't fathom where you're coming from.
yes he's the strongest, and you are physically weaker than him. satoru frets over every ache you experience, every sickness you develop, every frustration you express except for when it comes to him, and you can't believe the sheer hypocricy. does he think that you don't love him? does he think that since the rest of the world doesn't, you shouldn't blink an eye when a higher up sends him straight into danger?
you get that he is damn near impossible to touch, but satoru is not just the strongest to you. he's your boyfriend. he's the love of your life, and whether he's invincible or made of stone or what, you'll fuss over him at any chance you get. you love him. you only feel stable when you know he's okay, and yes, you can see how that puts an extra strain on satoru's shoulders, but it does not give him the right to dismiss you. it does not give him the right to practically swear you off like you're a plague.
your mouth clamps shut, and you smile. something so calm. so threatening that has satoru's anger buffering. you take in a deep breath, looking all around the space in an attempt to distract from the way your eyes begin to sting.
satoru sees it immediately. the shine of your eyes in the half darkness. he's instantly breaking, reaching his arms out as his face falls. "are you... about to cry?" he asks urgently, stepping toward you. "please don't cry. i didn't mean-"
"yes you did," you step back from him, leading him to freeze in his spot. you blink hard, pressing your lips together tight. "it's alright," is all you say, voice noticeably soft. "good night."
when you fight, satoru feels like his world is caving around him as he watches you turn your back and retreat into the bedroom stiffly, without another sound. just gone.
you rarely fight, but when you do, it lingers. it burns. nasty words said in the heat of the moment stain the open air, and satoru is left to mull over everything that was said with a logical and emotional eye now that it's all died down.
his heart aches, and his mind is swarming now with panic as he settles down in the aftermath, having snapped out of his haze the moment he saw tears spring to your eyes. he can't have that. he can't have you that upset because of him. he can't have you crying because he didn't think before speaking.
he exhales heavily with a frown, thinking hard as he scratches the nape of his undercut with curled brows. satoru didn't mean to get so angry with you, but how else was he meant to react? you were talking so mean about the one thing in satoru's life that is non negotiable. the one thing that he was trained to do since birth, since the world first laid its greedy, demanding eyes upon him.
but then, satoru realizes that you've never shown that you aren't accepting of his role in this world. you are always checking in on him, making sure he's fed before he leaves and when he returns, massaging aches in his body that he did not even realize were there until your soft hands met certain weak spaces - and when it comes to your touch, every ounce of his flesh is considered a weak space.
since the moment he met you, you've been nothing but supportive, a rock, the foundation of his mental strength. you're there, thinking about him, worrying about him even when you don't have to, and that is not because you don't understand him but because you care for him as deeply as he cares for you.
satoru tries to envision it from your perspective. how would he feel if you did not return home until four in the morning? hell, satoru would never even let an hour pass without tracking you down himself, whether you had called him to let him know or not. he does not think twice about checking in on you if he is unsure of your whereabouts or your safety... but you don't have the privilege of doing that, do you? you can't teleport. you can't spy on satoru from afar with the gift of tripled vision. you can't really do anything but text him, sit, and wait.
and it's only then, when satoru pictures how he would feel if the roles were reversed, that he finally starts to piece it together and actually get where you're coming from. you don't care that he's the strongest, you had said, because his strength does not change the fact that he is flesh, bone, and blood at the end of the day and he is nothing if not yours first. he is nothing if not the man you intend to marry one day, as he's already got the whole thing planned out, and you worry out of love. not because you think he's weak. not because you don't understand him.
and not because you aren't cut out to be his girl.
satoru cringes. he shouldn't have said that. he really shouldn't have said that. he can't imagine what you're thinking now, in this sudden godforsaken silence. his words echo through his head on repeat, and it hasn't even been twenty minutes before satoru is caving, trudging hesitantly into your bedroom to make ammends.
the two of you can't sleep without the other, after all. he doubts that either of you will get any rest if you don't make up now, for your teary eyes are burned into his mind and will not relent if he goes to lay his head without another word to you.
when he enters your shared bedroom, he sees that you have blocked him off. your back is to him and your legs are curled up to your chest, the blankets and pilows are bunched beside you in the middle of the bed, leaving satoru with no room to touch you if he is to settle down beside you.
his heart plummets. you're really pissed.
ignoring the mountain you've shoved next to your body, satoru rounds the bed to crouch down beside you. the second your face comes into view, he catches you knuckling hard at your eyes as you rush to close them, sniffing softly. satoru's eyes run over the traces of tear stains on your moonlit skin, your nose flushed as your dewy lashes flutter. the sorcerer tilts his hand with a frown, settling his knees on the carpet before you.
he pouts, lifting a hand to slide over your arm. you stiffen like his touch is cold, and it crushes him. "i know you're not asleep yet, princess," he murmurs, voice soft and steady through the haziness of the wee hours of the morning. you don't move. your arm just twitches, rejecting his touch as his hand slides from your skin. he sets his chin on the empty patch of sheets beside you, hypnotic eyes gazing at your face sadly. "(y/n), please open your eyes. i don't want us to end the night like this. i'm sorry, okay?"
you turn over your shoulder, your back to him once more as you face the opposite direction. satoru's heart cracks a little more on the inside. he hates this. he hates being shut out by you. he hates not knowing what's going on inside of your head.
so he does not yield. satoru proceeds, sliding his hand over the warmth of your back to soothe you. you tense again, but do not push him away, as you have nowhere to go.
"baby, please," he begs. there it is again. that rare severity in his tone, now laced with something sweet and yearning and apologetic. he speaks delicately, like he's afraid to reach the volume that the two of you were arguing at only minutes ago. "please, don't shut me out. i want to talk about this. i didn't mean what i said about you not handling being with me. that was so mean. i don't know why i said it. you're the perfect girlfriend. you're always perfect to me. gonna marry you one day, you're so perfect. i'm just tired, baby. i'm really tired and i hate when we fight. i know it's not an excuse, but i don't know how to react when you tell me you worry. i'm not used to that..."
"you should be," you murmur, a croaked response. satoru clings to it, leaning in further as he caresses you. "we've been together for years. this isn't new. i've always been like this..."
"i know," he says gently. "i know. you're always thinking of me. you're always making sure i'm okay."
"but it's not just that," you stiffen before turning over your shoulder to meet his eyes with glassy ones. he watches you closely, carefully, eyes full of things that you can't begin to name as you shift. "i mean... i know i can be overbearing and that - that you can handle yourself-"
"you're not overbearing."
you give him a look. "but still, i can't help worrying, satoru. what if someone actually manages to hurt you one day? what if you get trapped somwhere and i don't know how to help you?" you ask, voice so gentle that your boyfriend fears it may break if you speak any louder. "i wouldn't be able to handle it. and when i hadn't heard from you for hours after that one call, i just - i panicked. i always panic, but i really panicked this time."
"oh baby," satoru sighs, ocean eyes swollen with love. "i'm sorry. you know that if any of that stuff were to happen, i'd fight with everything in me to get back to you."
"i know," you sigh, shifting to turn fully around to face him again. satoru's hand adjusts, settling over the curve of your waist as you plop your head back against the pillow. "and i know none of that would ever happen. and i know... that maybe i am silly for even thinking about that stuff-"
"you're not," he is swift to say. "i should've never said that you were. or made you feel like that. i love you so much. sometimes when you get all anxious, i just get distracted by how sweet you are and... it's not fair. you're a human being with emotions, and i should respect them whether i agree with the reasons behind them or not."
your nose flares as satoru tilts his head to look you in the eye properly. the stream of moonlight that filters in from the behind curtains casts a soft glow around the outline of satoru's figure. his white strands fall messily over his eyes as he looks at you, his lips curving with a comforting, light smile.
you're still angry, but not so much in the moment. instead, you're overwhelmed with sadness. with grief for the idea of losing satoru. the sentiment makes you feel crazy, and the fact that he is the strongest only makes you worry for the people seeking to overpower him, to find his weakness, to kill him.
your mouth wrinkles as you look over him, brows knitting together as your lips tremble. satoru's smile falls when he sees, and his hand moves to smooth over your hair. "what is it, baby?" he frowns, and you whimper.
"i don't want to lose you," you admit. "i'm so terrified of losing you, satoru."
he completely melts to sap. "come here."
satoru is quick to his feet, moving around to fix the pillows back into place so that he can shuffle into bed next to you, wrapping you up tight. his strong arms slip around your waist and he presses his back flush to you. he presses a warm kiss to the space behind you ear and to the crook of your jaw, nuzzling is face there to soak your warmth. he feels you tremble gently with soft sniffs and tears, and he feels foolish for not seeing how deep this feeling runs for you.
he lets the closeness settle over the two of you, the silence holding you snug. and while you are still angry, you can not afford to pretend like you don't need this, like feeling satoru pressed to you with his warm breathing fanning against your neck, spreading goosebumps over your skin is not easing your heart and mind. he holds you tight, squeezing softly.
"you're not gonna lose me," he mumbles into your skin, just next to your ear. "not ever. i promise you that. i may be the world's strongest, but i'll be damned if i don't always come back to you."
"i know," you sniff, voice shaky and whispered. "i know. it's not that i don't trust you. and i don't think you're an idiot. i'm sorry i said that too."
"it's okay, pretty girl," he kisses your neck. "i am a little bit of an idiot."
"...you are."
"yeah, yeah," he chuckles something tender against your back, and the corner of your mouth twitch. "listen. i hate to say it, but i'm not always gonna be able to pick up the phone to answer a text or give you a call to tell you i'm okay. i won't always have the time or that privilege. and when that happens, what i don't want is you stressing yourself out so badly every time i have a mission. you have your own life to live, princess. don't spend it worrying about me," he says. "trust your man, baby. you do your job and take care of yourself and i'll do mine. i'm not letting anyone get close enough to keep me away from you."
you nod slowly, solemnly. "i'll do my best."
"that's all i can ever ask you," satoru smiles, thumb smoothing circles over your abdoment as his fingers brush over your ribcage. "i'm sorry i haven't been taking you seriously. i never meant to make you feel dismissed," he apologizes. "you're so good to me. i've never had someone like you, (y/n). you look out for me in a way no one ever has."
he solidifies each word, each promise with a peck, pink lips pillowy to your flesh as he savors you, holds you, caresses you. "i'm sorry, baby, i hate fighting. i'll be more considerate, yeah? i'll do everything i can to keep all that stress as low as possible."
and after a while, you finally give him a sign that you are okay by snorting. he smiles along with the sound against the curve of your shoulder. "impossible when you're the one stressing me out all the time."
"baby," satoru groans. "i'm dying here. please."
you laugh lightly, something halfhearted and breathy. “i’m sorry for starting a fight so late. i’m just… i'm really upset.”
“it’s okay, baby, i know,” he sighs. “no more apologizing. you need some sleep. okay? can we talk about this more in the morning?”
you exhale slowly before sniffing once more, swiping the back of your hand over your face. satoru lifts to prop himself up with his elbow, looking over you from over your shoulder to ensure that you're okay. your glittery eyes snap to his when you see him. you press your lips together to wordlessly agree, and the ivory haired man dots his lips to your cheek, watching you softly with heavy eyes.
"i'm not going anywhere," he reiterates. "you know that right?"
you nod. "yeah. i know." your hand slides over top of his around your midsection. "neither am i."
satotu smiles. "of course not. i would never let that happen."
suguru geto:
arguing with suguru leaves your feelings hurt.
you've known the dark haired cult leader long enough to know exactly how he gets when he is angry with you. it's rare, of course, as the hazel eyed man is more often than not gazing at you with rose colored vision, caring for you as a man should care for the woman he loves more than anything on this acursed world. suguru aims to dote on you at any given moment of any given day, as that is what suguru deems his role in your life should be.
being with suguru is like living within constant steadiness and pampering. he made it known from the very beginning that he had no intention to be casual with you, nor give you a shortage of the life he knows you deserve - the life he can and does give. he believes that you should never have to do any heavy lifting of any kind, for a life with him is a life of easiness, relaxation, and warmth. it's a life of being known so well, silently seen in a way that continues to stun you every day, that captures your soul and lulls you into that blissful hum you call being with suguru.
it is not that suguru rarely gets angry, however, but that he is rarely angry enough with you to start or engage in an argument. ordinarily, all of his frustrations point directly to his place of work. the role of a cult leader so well esteemed is taxing, especially for someone like suguru geto, who can not stomach the mere sight of his followers for more than a consecutive thirty minutes at a time.
hell, suguru has been angry plenty of times, shown in twitches of the brow, tight yet dark smiles, and a shadow over his eyes that emerges each time his shoulder so much as grazes the fabric of a pitiful non-sorcerer's frame. those who are at fault for the veins that spring to his otherwise smooth skin of his forehead only have a few seconds to make peace with the path their course of life has taken before they're facing his cynical wrath.
but on those days, the moment he steps through the doors of your home, and the smell of something savory cooking on the stove rumbling beneath the sound of his girls' lively chatter, the vision of you greeting his sore eyes first as he rounds the corner to the kitchen, all of those aggravations from the day are washing away. he crosses the threshold into sanctuary, tender, lived in life, and the man is all sweet smiles, silky words, and soft kisses.
the only time suguru ever really gets angry with you is when he feels like you aren't listening.
despite being a hardworking father and loving partner, suguru does not have remarkable patience for things that he does not find tolerable.
the girls want to dress him up in pink and make him sit down in a tiny ass chair for a fake tea party? of course he has all the time in the world. you can't decide on a dress that you want to get for an upcoming fundraiser for the time vessel association, and want to try on every single option for suguru to see? he's more than happy to settle in that lounge chair with his cheek resting in his fist, a slow smile creeping over his face as his eyes survey you in the next tight fabric.
having patience for those things comes easily, as he loves his family deeply, but he does not have patience for when any of you are in a mood. it's easy for suguru to discipline his girls if they step out of line, for they have learned respect. they're young, still learning, therefore each moment they make a mistake is a lesson, and they handle so without complaint when suguru is occasionally forced to give them that pointed look. where his brow raises and his eyes sharpen as a gentle warning, one that is never taken lightly.
but you... you are not as cooperative when you have pushed suguru's buttons.
you test him the most.
god, suguru loves you, but he wishes that you would learn when to quit while you're ahead sometimes. he would never blame you for when his attitude gets a little out of hand and words slip that should have remained unsaid, but he would think that you would have begun to learn the patterns by now, to surrender before it's to late.
sometimes, however, suguru thinks that is his ego talking. at work, suguru is worshipped, praised, feared. he lifts a finger and money comes pouring in without struggle or question but with eagerness. sometime ago, something in his brain snapped, and humility warbled. scattered. often, without trying, suguru displays such snarky superiority, and it can flutter into spaces it shouldn't. when he wonders why you have to fight against him when you don't agree on something instead of just listening and accepting. when he subconsciously expects subservience from you and is shocked when he doesn't get it.
it's not something he does often with you, but it does slip. and with the explosive combination of your fiery resolve and suguru's potent frustrations, you explode when you bump heads.
it starts with something suguru does or says that pulls a reaction from you that you can't control. the kind that slips before you even realize that you are reacting physically, and suguru is ever so quick to catch on. he'll let silence swallow the two of you for a moment as you continue on with your task, moving about as though unbothered, while the energy around you says completely otherwise.
then his question comes: "is there a problem?" like he dares you to let something else sassy slip instead of just using your words and telling him what you have an issue with. that brow will quirk and his eyes will look hard and still on you as you move around.
and of course, no matter how many times you continue to prove that you are not one of his little cult members that he can boss around or treat like children, his muscles still tighten with aggravation when you do it, you say something else like: "what do you think?" or "i don't know, is there?"
suguru can feel the headache coming on. the little twitches in his forehead that he has to focus hard to calm down. from there, it only escalates. he'll close the newspaper he's reading or put his pen down to the surface of the table and rise to his feet. what bothers him more is the fact that you don't even look at him. you show him that you don't even care enough to spare him a passing glance, when there are people far less worthy who would kill to get just a glimpse at him, to be corrected by him for their betterment.
you, of all people, the one person who actually matters, don't give him that satisfaction.
and it drives suguru insane.
he takes the tone he knows best when it comes to you. it's strict yet soft, but his voice is clear like he's practiced this response before to different crowds.
oh, and you're familiar with this tone. it's the tone of a man who is comfortable in his dominance, who thinks he can give you a countdown to actually speak your mind like an adult before there are some serious consequences. this is when you know that suguru is not taking your frustration seriously enough, as he's caught in his own world of trying to prove you wrong.
you hate it when he gets like that with you, when he forgets who exactly it is he's talking to, and while he begins to formulate a plan for control, you shatter it by speaking over him with your own opinions and thoughts. snappy. disrespectful.
suguru will stare at you with wide eyes and downturned brows pressing into his milky skin, and that patience that was barely holding on by a thread snaps. suguru transitions from attempting to gently guide you into understanding and giving in to snapping back at you, reciprocating your energy and tone.
your concentration is finally broken as your energy is focused into arguing, and it's the kind of back and forth that is venemous, sharp. it stings with each witty blow intending to be heard over the last. it's a battle for the last word, for the final say, for who is right.
so the two of you won't relent. you - because you aim to deconstruct suguru's arrogance every time he shows signs of it anywhere outside of his cult, where its appropriate, and him - because your boyfriend simply hates to lose.
accusations fly, your words overlap as neither of you want to give the other a moment to explain, to speak. in both of your minds, you're each right, and you'll be damned if the other tries to convince you otherwise.
eventually, you'll grow increasingly desperate to get suguru to back down. your voice will raise, but suguru will absolutely not have it. he warns you to knock if off, his countenance so cold, like he's speaking to someone he can't stand. this only provokes you emotionally, and you're biting back with anything at all.
then, after however long the two of you have spent disputing, suguru will end it with words so cruel, so empty, so mean that you remember what suguru has been through. what he's lost. the things he's done to get to where he is now. the man that he is when he steps out that door every morning, though you love him wholly.
and it's not that he ever insults you. he never calls you names or attacks you in such a way. no, its cruelty in the way he twists his tone around to make it seem like you are the one who will never understand his genius. like a professor who is tiresome after hours of trying to teach a student something they simply can not grasp. like you aren't his girlfriend, his woman.
the one who has to press her head to the inside of his outstretched arm for him to be able to fall asleep every night. the one who prepares and packs every single one of his lunches to give him a taste of home and comfort that he so desperately clings to through troublesome days. the one who he gazes up at softly as she cradles his head in her soft lap, threading fingers through buttery strands of midnight hair. his lashes fluttering when he catches her palm and brings it to his lips, kissing over the lines of her inner hand as she smiles.
the woman who followed him into hell. the woman who helped give him the life that he has now.
you hate it when he gives you a glimpse of how he would treat you if he didn't love you.
and suguru doesn't mean to. he's only playing his role as top dog, falling into it like it's muscle memory every time he feels like his intelligence, his control, your love is threatened.
perhaps that's all his stubborness is. a knee jerk reaction when he feels that you've begun to look at him as though he is an ordinary person. with no color or magic. just him. bare, naked, and free for you to judge, free for you to decide that you no longer trust him, that you no longer need or look up to him for stability.
you and his girls are the only people on this planet who question him. and deep down, it frightens him a bit. it shakes him, rattles his confidence in what he provides for you.
it isn't healthy. it isn't kind. it's just suguru, and in typical suguru fashion, your little "fuck you" and the way you storm off, ignoring his calls of your name makes him take it as a sign that he's won.
...but at what cost?
after the front dorm slams, he does not panic just yet. he's still fuming, hyper with the rush of your argument and the triumph of making you yield. he calls you three times, each one unanswered. he takes to texting you, telling you to come home. he waits for you to reply with his fingers thrumming against the counter. when you do, he rushes to read -
for once in your life, stop bossing me around like you do everyone else.
his brows knit as he hurriedly types.
?
what does that mean?
you don't reply. not to that, or to any other text he sends or call he gives. only in your prolonged absence, he feels the weight of his words and yours sink over him in the middle of a task, and he stills. anger, once so unrelenting, dissapates. he rubs a hand over his face with a long exhale, staring hard at the wall as he mulls over every moment, every word.
he was harsh.
really harsh.
suguru doesn't know where it comes from. how he gets there. he gets so caught up in everything, he falls into rhythms that are reserved for those who deserve it, and you are not one of those fools. you're his angel. you're the love of his life. you are everything good that contrasts the bullshit he goes through every day, and yet, he's hurt your feelings. he's pushed you away. he's shoved you into a corner. he's taken out his frustrations towards other things on you simply because you challenged him, and instead of addressing it with maturity, he let himself snap.
no matter how angry you make suguru, no matter how much of a brat you behave like, you don't deserve that. even if he's angry with you, it doesn't last long.
when an hour passes, and you still do not return or answer his calls, the panic begins to set in at full capacity. the fear of losing you hits him hard, and he starts to wonder if this is enough to make you want to leave him. if it's enough to crumble the love, time, and effort forth you've put forth to to build this.
he starts to wonder if you're safe. if you've eaten. when the hell you'll be back.
pacing, he clenches his jaw and closes his eyes hard, willing the bad thoughts away as his thumbs hover over the keyboard with anxiety. they twitch, eventually moving quick. his tone immediately shifts.
angel. i know you're angry. you have every right to be. but i'm asking you. please come home. or at least let me know that you're safe and turn your location back on.
he's sitting on the couch now with legs spread wide, his back hunched over the phone between his thighs. the screen casts his face in a soft glow as he watches, doing the very thing he hates most in this world - waiting.
the bubbles appear and disappear countless times from your side. suguru bites down hard and types again.
i'm sorry.
after a few more grueling minutes, a message from you pops up.
you're not sorry. you're just saying that to make me come back.
suguru | now
i'm not baby.
i mean it.
suguru pauses, uncertain, trying to find the proper words.
i should have never spoken to you like that.
you | now
then why did you?
you get like that whenever you don't agree with me about something. it's so fucking annoying.
suguru | now
i know. i don't realize in the moment, but there's no excuse. i'm sorry, (y/n).
where are you?
you don't have to come home now, but at least tell me where you are so i can find you.
please.
eventually, you cave and turn your location back on. you put your phone down with a sigh, kicking your legs out over the bench you currently occupy. hardly ten minutes pass before your boyfriend is approaching slowly with his hands in his pockets, dark clothes baggy over his frame.
his warm eyes shine as yours meet his, and suguru can still see the anger clear on your face. the walls you've put up. the betrayal and sadness in your glossy eyes.
you look over him in firm, grounded silence. you feel every muscle in your face and body is tight from exertion and emotion.
you study the picture of his face as it steps into street light. shadows and colors sweep over his skin, lips curved in a frown as he looks at you with remorse and the humility you were searching for earlier.
you push air out hard and cross your arms, looking away. suguru keeps his eyes on you as he steps forward, moving to sit close next to you on the bench. suguru does nothing but sit there and make himself known to you, known that he cares, known that he's here despite lingering tensions and wounding words.
your arms brush. his knee hits yours. your perfume tickles his nose.
you take your time as you crane your neck, turning slowly to look up at him. suguru follows the feel of your eyes on him, turning to face you as well.
"i'm sorry," he says, verbalizing so for the first time, letting it linger and seep. "you're right about what i do... it's not okay."
your brow twitches as you eye him. "and what is it you do?"
suguru blinks, hunching over with elbows to his knees and interlacing his fingers. he sighs, vulnerable. "i expect you to always agree with the things i say because i want you to trust me."
"i do trust you, suguru," you urge. "how could i not? you're always there for me. you gave me this life with you."
"i know you do, angel."
"then why is this even a conversation?"
"because i clearly get in my head without realizing. i'm used to things operating a certain way and-"
"i’m not going to always be on the same page as you. that doesn’t give you the right to be mad when i’m not. I’m not your employee, suguru," you declare sternly. "i'm not a member of your cult. i'm not someone you can throw plans at or toss around.”
"no you aren't," he nods, urgently, agreeing. "you're my sweet girl. you're everything. words don't begin to describe all that you are."
"you surely weren't talking to me like you felt that way before."
"and i can't apologize enough for that," he straightens himself up as he looks at you. "you’re right about everything. i’ve just been so irritated lately with the the cult. the second it felt like you didn’t take me seriously, i wasn’t thinking straight. i took out my stress on you.”
“that’s not fair,” you frown. “just because i don’t like something doesn’t mean i don’t take you seriously, suguru.”
“i know, (y/n). i know,” your dark haired boyfriend deflates, all that fire he had in him dissipating in the humility of your words. “i have a lot to work on. but i’m willing to do the work, angel. i don’t want you to pull away or feel like you can’t talk to me because of what just happened. i don’t want to risk losing you over something like this.”
the mention of him thinking about losing you has you easing up slightly, your face relaxing into something soft and tortured as you look over his guilty expression, the kindness you know suguru to possess resurfacing with the smothered fear of not having you in his life.
"...i'm not going to leave you over this, sugu," you tell him gently. suguru immediately detects the shift in your tone. his gaze turns slightly hopeful, his body shifting toward you more. you exhale gradually upon searching his eyes, finding that his headstrong will has toppled in your presence, an hour or so after he's sat with his words. "you don't think i would, do you?"
the hazel haired man chuckles dryly, uncertainly, turning his head forward with the sprinkle of dark strands over his face. "i'd hope not."
another thing that you've noticed about your boyfriend is that he has the tendency to guilt trip you after arguments, whether it is intentional or not. you furrow your brows as you watch his eyes blink back to you, tendering at the very sight of you as he tries his damnedest to make amends.
you see that gentle quality, the way he's stepped down from that pedestal of his to see you eye to eye. the honesty. the humiliation.
the soft spot in your heart takes the sudden lead, and you reach out for suguru's hand, sliding yours over top his conjoined ones. your warmth bursts through suguru's body, exaulting him from everything he's ever done wrong, though there's only a few things.
the hazel eyed curse user smiles something weak, hesitant, and grateful. "i wouldn't," you emphasize lovingly. "i just wish you'd be kinder when you're upset."
"i will be. i promise," he nods. he unlocks one of his large hands to take yours in his, sliding the heat of his palms over your slightly cool hand. he looks up at you with stars in his eyes and you fall apart. "as long as we can agree that if you're upset with me, you should tell me properly instead of immediately getting an attitude."
you still with a deadpan stare, the lightness in your chest fading in an instant. sugury waits, this time patiently, for a response. his lips curl slowly when he notices that you've fallen silent, and he can't help the amusment that overcomes him as his brings your knuckles to his lips in a lingering kiss.
"well?" he muses.
you glare at him, then rip your eyes away with the click of your tongue. you know he's right. you know it's only fair that you treat him with the same respect that you demand, but you can't stand the smugness that comes with acknowledging that even just a part of your boyfriend is right about something.
"come on, angel. we have to work together on this."
you roll your eyes to the sky, then look down at the ground. "fine. m'sorry for snapping at you the way i did."
that's enough to bring a wide smirk back to suguru's face. "that's alright, sweet girl. i probably deserved it," he kisses the back of your hand again, then your wrist as you grumble incoherently under your breath. "i love you."
he sweetens the circumstances with those three words, chipping away at your now shaky willpower. you feel his warm lips meet the inside of your wrist, and you shudder.
"i'll be more patient. i'll be nicer. you've only ever been nice to me. i'm an asshole, i know. you deserve so much better."
he grabs your other hand, turning you fully to him. he holds your hands within each of his tightly over his thigh, swiping his thumbs over your skin.
"i'm sorry," he apologizes again, meaning it more and more every time. "i love you."
despite your frustration, your wounded pride, your still teaming anger, the love you have for your boyfriend swallows everything whole, as you know suguru better than anyone else. you know he's truthful. you know he didn't mean it. you know he loves you in a way that no one else has or ever could.
as long as he makes mistakes, you'll be there to correct them. whether you fight, or don't speak, or can never come to an agreement. you'll stay and argue for what you know is worth it.
"i love you too," you exhale like you've failed to hold it back, and suguru grins.
kento nanami:
arguments with kento aren't loud and proud things. they aren't screaming matches. they aren't vile words spewing from either direction. they aren't the swipe of aggravated hands through the air with bold words. they aren't loud slams to a surface in the house or heavy footsteps.
arguments with the blonde aren't some huge, daunting spectacle. they are conversations, strained, teetering over the edge of something bigger that never crashes through the barrier of steady, calm voices laced with importance.
kento has never been the kind of man to tolerate being cruel to one another. he does not believe in such a thing. when either of you are upset, which you rarely are with one another - as your communication skills are normally polished to perfection, he'll let the two of you go back and forth for a little bit until stopping the conversation altogether when he feels that it could get out of hand at any moment.
the suit turned sorcerer never raises his voice. never even scowls at you. his irritation shows itself in rigid posture, an exasperated hand to his hip, the pinch of the bridge of his nose, and the tightening of his lips. the chocolate eyed man does not like being cross with you, ever, but he is no better than the ordinary person. he's just as much of a human being as you are, therefore, sometimes, feeling a bit of frustration toward you is inevitable.
nanami certainly handles your arguments better than you ever could. he's incredibly efficient when it comes to controlling the course your disputes take, controlling his emotions so that they don't blow over. kento likes steadfastness, pace, and understanding. the most he will do if he is too heated is tell you that he thinks you both should take some time on your own to cool off before recalliberating after some time has passed.
you, on the other hand, are much less inclined to follow this syncopation when you are all wrapped up in grievances that you don't even know how to begin to express to your well mannered boyfriend.
it's not that you want to fight with kento. you hate it. you hate when the two of you find moments where you don't see eye to eye, but you can not deny that there is a part of you that wishes kento would meet you where you are in terms of how you want to go about solving certain issues. where he prefers quiet and calm, you take to the impulse to fight more lively. yet, kento never gives you that chance. the second he feels that you or he will shout, he's shutting it all down. you know it's for the best, but sometimes you think that he needs to let go. that he needs to fight back a bit more bolder from time to time. you don't want to get into it horribly with him, but you want him to express some more of that passion to you when you feel it bubbling up in your own chest.
kento, however, does not understand that notion in the very slightest. fighting with more passion means fighting without reigns, and he does not want to do that with you. he doesn't even believe in doing such a thing with the woman he loves. he has too much love, too much respect, too many morals to even think to allow himself to snap at you or yell at you. he does not even feel urges to do so when he gets upset.
he does not know why you say such a thing either, for the aftermath of your arguments always leaves you in tears. fighting with kento is such an uncommon thing that it takes a toll on the both of you, shadowing you in the sensation of aching chests and the yearning to forgive, to make up, to forget everything that led you to such a place.
if kento ever made you cry because he yelled... he doesn't think he would ever recover.
this time around, you're fighting about his overtime, the one thing about kento that truly brings such a reaction out of you. it's been three consecutive months of him staying at work late, holing himself up in his office to complete paperwork that his employer does not have the decency to let him finish the following day, in the morning.
dinner has always long been put away when he returns, the scent of spices and something sweet lingering in the empty air when he walks in to see you scrubbing dishes rather aggressively in your pajamas. dark shadows trace under his eyes, and locks of his hair threaten to fall out of slicked place, exhausted from a long day's work.
ordinarily, you find some kind of peace with it. nanami works hard for you, to keep a nice roof over your head and to give you the life that you deserve. nanami is one of the most dedicated, hardworking men you've ever met, whether he is happy to do the work or not. the only thought that gets him through the day is that you'll be at home, waiting for him, there to greet him with a kiss the second he steps foot through the house.
and you do. you're not cruel enough to deny him such a thing when he sets his briefcase at the door to saunter over to you with slow steps. you can hear the fatigue in the way he moves, and that observation alone is enough to build onto what you've already been feeling.
you turn your head subconsciously when his arms come around your middle from behind, and he cranes down to press his lips to yours. you return the peck, but keep your eyes forward on the way you scrub angrily at a stubborn stain on one of your good pans.
kento notices your detachment immediately, but does not say anything yet. he just lingers, absorbing the feel of your warm frame against his chest, closing his eyes to breathe in a soft, long intake of air, expelling it with relief.
"how was your day, honey?" he murmurs into your hair, voice thick with weary.
you hate the toll his job takes on him. you hate the way it makes him behave like a walking zombie at the end of the day, hours after the time he is meant to come home.
stupid overtime. always taking your husband away from you. always beating him down until he can barely think or move any longer. it's merciless. it's time consuming. it's a problem.
and yet, he still comes home with the goal of catering to you, though all he can really do is collapse to the bed with your limbs entertwined until it is time for him to get up and do it all over again in the morning.
you grind down on your teeth, blinking hard at the thought. this can't go on. you don't want to go on rarely seeing your husband, letting work sweep him away like they own him, letting them drain every ounce of energy from his body. it's inhumane, and what bothers you more is that kento does not seem to care. he works mindlessly. it's his job, he always says. it's what he's used to doing.
but just because he's used to it doesn't mean he should continue at this rate. he deserves a promotion, paid time off, something to make up for the way his place of work fucking siphons his spirit.
you're so busy cursing out nanami's circumstances inside your mind that you don't realize you haven't answered his question. nanami still holds you close, but he begins to wonder if you're ignoring him on purpose or are just too distracted with your thoughts.
you never fail to greet him when he comes home from work. usually, the moment you hear the lock turn, you're jumping up and rushing to him, helping him out of his coat and putting his bag down so that you can hug him tight.
tonight is different. you're acting as though he does not exist. he could blame the chore of doing dishes for taking away your attention, but he somehow feels that there is more to it. and he's sure he already has a good idea of what is on your mind.
you feel one hand leave your waist to move your hair from your shoulder thoughtfully. he leans over to get a better look of the side of your face, watching as your eyes dart up only for a second before shooting back down to the sink.
"(y/n)," he calls your name, and you hum distractedly, flatly. "how was your day?" he elects to ask again. playing it safe. searching for the roots of your dull mood.
"it was alright," you mumble after a few seconds of nothing. you can feel kento studying you, watching close with an eventual hum and the fiddling of your hair.
"just alright?" he asks, and you shrug. kento takes the sign and removes himself from you slowly.
he moves to stand beside you, a few inches away, with his hip pressing into the counter as you lift drenched dishes onto the drying rack.
you don't ask him in turn how his day was. you don't even budge when he moves away from you. the blonde can feel what is beginning. he can sense every tell that you are about to bring something to his attention that you don't like.
and he knows it's about work. he's been skating on thin ice long enough to know that there is no other explanation for the way you are behaving now.
yet, still, he asks, giving you the opportunity to voice what is on your mind instead of feeding you the answer. "is something the matter?"
"no," you say quickly.
kento lifts a brow, crossing his arms. "are you positive about that?"
"yep," you clip, scrubbing hard.
kento sighs tiredly. "you are very clearly upset about something, (y/n)."
"why would i be?" you ask sarcastically. "it's not like i have any reason to be upset. it's not like this is the umpteenth night you've worked overtime and left me alone during dinner." you push out your bottom lip and lift your brows as if to portray feigned indifference. dishes clatter loudly with your low words, as if to speak on behalf of the fire building inside of you. "why would i care about that, ken?"
your honey eyed boyfriend does not respond right away. he lets your tone sink in as he observes your mannerisms closely. you're tightly wound, punishing already clean plates with the brutal swipe of the sponge over the surface, your mind hardly even cognizant of what you are doing. it moves on autopilot as it swarms with other, more pressing matters, and kento sees it all plainly before him.
he's not surprised. not even offended yet. it's only natural that you feel this way, for you have a point. he's been at work more than he's been at home lately, and it has been eating away at him slowly from the inside. he tries to make it up to you when he is able to be present but even then, he is not given much time of his own to do so.
the blonde reaches for the sink knob and twists it, cutting off the hot water that was splashing up into your face. you are forced to freeze your actions when he does, leading you to cut your eyes up to his face pointedly.
"turn that back on, please," you say sternly. "i'm not done."
ken stares back at you calmly. "i think you've cleaned enough. you should stop so we can talk about this."
"i don't want to talk about this. i want to finish washing dishes and then go to bed."
you reach a dripping hand toward the knob, but nanami does not budge. "no, honey," he denies you, composure stricter than before. "i said that's enough."
"that's what you said, huh?" you suck your teeth, dropping your unfinished dish back into the sink and turning hot on your heal to wipe your hands dry. "you know what i don't understand, kento?" you start, turning back to look at him as you dry your hands hard with a dish towel. "why you think you can tell me when to quit stuff when you don't even bother to listen to me when it comes to your job."
"(y/n), that's different. we've talked about this," nanami exhales, tilting his head slightly with heavy eyes. you see the exhaustion swimming in his hues, and you frown, the sight only making you more upset. "you know i hate being away from you all day, but i have to do what i have to do."
"no, you do not have to work overtime every damn night, ken," you counter with palpable insistence. "that's not okay. you're at that office all the time. your bosses don't even care whether you live or die."
"i know you're frustrated, but mind your language, my love. i don't want to fight with you," he advises, and you scoff, turning back to put the towel where you found it.
"you're focused on the wrong things," you shake your head. "i don't want to fight with you either, but this is getting out of hand."
you turn back to face him, watching as his expression hardens in just the slightest.
"look at you," you gesture toward him grandly. "you're exhausted. and yet you keep letting them toss you around like nothing."
"no one is tossing me around. i'm fulfilling the responsibilities that i signed up for"
"that goes both ways, kento. your place of work should not be drilling you all the time like this. as an employee, you have a right to time off. and you never take it. you never even vouch for it," you say. "when's the last time you came home at a normal time?"
nanami thinks about it, but finds that he honestly can't remember.
which does not help his case.
you toss your hands out. "see? you can't even say!" you cry. "it was three and a half months ago. three, kento. i've spent three months cooking dinner that you don't even get to touch when you get home because you're so tired. three months missing you, hoping that you'll come home only for you to text me again and again that you'll be late. do you know how long that is? how long that feels?"
"sweetheart," kento begins wearily. "i'm not sure what you want me to say. if i could control such things, i would, but i can't. i'm sorry that i've made you feel neglected. i'm sorry i can't be home more. none of this is ideal, but it is only temporary."
"then how long will this keep going on?" you challenge. "hm? tell me, how long."
"i don't know that, yet."
"exactly. and you're fine with that, aren't you? you won't ask any questions as you wear yourself down to the bone for people who don't even bother to give you the decency of checking in."
"we don't live in a world where we i have the luxury of asking questions," he starts to lecture, and you avert your gaze, huffing impatient air. "obviously i am not fine with such a thing, but without these jobs, i can't look after you. i would much rather have the means to support us than not."
"you're not looking after me, though. you're just throwing things at me in hopes of them distracting me from the fact that you're not here."
that statement is what throws kento off kilter a bit, his steadiness put to question as he looks at you with insulted question in his eyes as you avoud his gaze, his lips parting and his brows turning down. "i'm not looking after you? really? is that what you believe?" he asks.
you hear the tonal shift, and dare to look him in the eye. maybe now, he'll finally hear you. "how can you look after me when you're not present? and who the hell is supposed to look after you when you're at work?"
kento hears everything you are saying, but is still stuck on the fact that you think he doesn't take care of you properly. he has to determine whether you really feel that way or if you are just saying so to get a rise out of him. nevertheless, the thought cuts him, that you feel like he is not doing his job as your boyfriend well. that you feel uncared for. unnoticed. unseen, when day in and day out, you are the only reason kento can even push through the way that he does. when every ache in his back, crick in his neck, stack of papers, line of curses are pushed through for the sake of you.
and you think that he isn't looking after you?
if you only knew.
"you aren't being fair, (y/n)," he speaks. "everything i do is for you. for us."
"is it, though?"
"yes," says rigidly, quickly. "i'm surprised that you would even ask me that."
"if you're really surprised, then you're not paying attention."
oh, kento does not like the accusations you're throwing. not when he studies you so closely, that he could name every thought flowing through your brain before you voice them.
the blonde can feel himself getting more upset, so he aims to settle things down instead. "i'm not going to argue with you about whether you think i take care of you properly or not."
"of course you're not," you grumble under your breath.
kento twitches. "and that is supposed to mean...?"
"you don't fight about anything," you groan. "not with your boss about getting a more flexible schedule. not with me about this. nothing."
"why would i want to fight with anyone about anything when i don't need to? especially with you?"
"you do need to, kento. you need to fight for the right that you have."
"and risk losing my job?"
"you're not gonna lose your job, for god's sake. you're the best employee anyone has ever seen. when you let people walk all over you, they just take advantage of your work ethic."
"what you call letting people walking all over me is simply me picking and choosing my battles. and i choose a steady income and a life where i can give you what you want over anything else."
"what i want is you!"
"you have me."
"no, i don't! not anymore," your arms slap to your sides loudly. "your job has you. not me. you say you're still present, but you're not. i should know, kento. i'm the one spending all this extra time alone."
kento steps toward you when he hears a subtle quiver in your voice as it breaks at the end of your sentence. you turn away, shaking your head and waving him off, but his hand proceeds to reach for your arm, cradling it softly, dragging down to reach for your fingers.
his eyes stay glued on your face, catching every twitch, every wrinkle, every inkling of sadness and longing.
kento does not want either of you going to bed like this. you're very clearly shaken, having been shouldering these feelings for longer than you are willing to admit. no matter his personal frustrations, kento can not help but to empathize with you when you get like this, when you are feeling too much to name, when the very solution of your greatest problems is to just have him near you again.
the second your boyfriend is touching you, you feel yourself weakening, as this is what you've been deprived of. the closeness. the intimacy. you've been yearning for your future husband like no other for months, and it has been killing you that the very reason for him being torn away from you is because he is being burnt out in an environment that could never appreciate him the way you do, the way so many others would.
arguments with kento never last long. whether it is because nanami has encouraged the two of you to step away, or because true emotions interfere, they're quick things that always lead into more in depth, cherished discussions.
"tell me, sweetheart," he encourages tenderly, cupping your chin in his fingers and holding you still, keeping your eyes on his. up close, you can see every detail of his weariness in the lines that crease beneath his lashes and in his forehead. "tell me everything."
your lips wobble as you look up at him. "i'm tired of barely seeing you," you breathe. "i hate it when you come home late, kento. you know i do. it wasn't always like this before. and i hate seeing the toll your job is taking on you. i just want you here. i don't want it to feel like you're a stranger anymore."
"do you think i'm a stranger now?" he asks you softly.
your brow curls. "no," you say. "but it feels that way sometimes."
"i didn't know that," nanami says, tracing your jaw with thick fingers. "i sincerely apologize."
"why do you do this to yourself?" you question, voice hardly above a whisper now. "i'm more than supported by you, ken. saying it's for me isn't an excuse."
"it isn't an excuse, (y/n), it's how i feel."
"but i'm telling you now that i don't want that. i don't want you to put all this pressure on yourself for the sake of me. i'm good. i work too, kento. we support each other. we work together. it doesn't have to be just you carrying all this weight, and yet, you force yourself to. it's like you don't even hear me."
"honey, this is just how i am," he confesses. "this is how i have operated all of my life. it is engrained in me to work to give you more. and i am happy to."
"you are not happy at that place."
"i'm happy to work," he says again, sliding his index finger over your brow, following the curve of your cheekbone back to your chin. "for you."
"can't you just admit that living this way is exhausting?"
"it's more than exhausting," he finally agrees, and you're almost shocked that he does so easily. "absolutely it is, but exhaustion is not enough to stop me from doing what i need to do. you say it's not for you, but it is. because it is you who i think of to help me through. without you, i would have given in a long time ago."
"so give in now," you bring your hands to his face, holding his cheeks softly. nanami blinks down at you with care, sinking into the comfort of your palms as he fiddles with the hem of your shirt. "you don't need to quit. i'm not saying that, but at the very least, call in sick tomorrow. let me take care of you for one day. let's spend time together. we can sleep in, and i'll make us breakfast. i can give you a massage... we can take a bath... and you can relax. for one day."
your arms loop around his neck as you talk. nanami's hand slips around you and brings you into him like muscle memory, closing the distance between you with brushes of your nose and the twirl of his blonde hair around your pinkie. nanami sinks into the plea of your pretty eyes, your contact numbing him to the previous irritations. his exhaustion hits him tenfold like this, as though you have the power to strip him down to his truest self before you.
your descriptions are soothing, your voice and your promises making his lashes flutter as you attempt to sway him with the heat of your chest and your touch.
it's working.
"...then after," you hum. "you can talk to your boss about giving you better hours."
kento sighs. "(y/n)-"
"it doesn't have to be the day after tomorrow. it can be any time within the next week," you say. "please, baby. consider it. if you're doing all of this for us, then you can do this for us too. because i don't know how much longer i can handle this."
you smooth your thumbs over his cheekbones, pouting at the way his eyes close, your hands enough to make him fall asleep right there. "look at you. you're so tired. you're always moving so fast, you don't even get to feel how tired you are."
kento kisses the inside of your palm, bringing his other arm around your waist. "you worry about me too much, my love," he rumbles.
"i don't think i worry about you enough."
the skin at the corner of your boyfriend's eye crinkles with the expulsion of a soft breath.
he takes in your concerned face, how beautiful you look even when you're upset, how desperate you become when you just want him to be okay.
he hates that he has made you feel unseen so many times. he'd been so focused on taking care of the financial aspects of your relationship that he's been neglecting the physical and the emotional. he has not even had time to think about how distant he has been due to how much he has been working, and he admits that he does need a break.
nanami operates as though everything will fall apart if he stops for one second, perhaps because he knows it will be hard to return to his rigorous routine once he's gotten a taste of freedom.
he needs a vacation. badly. the both of you do.
kento does not have the strength to continue arguing with you. not tonight, not with you looking at him and holding him the way you are now, not when all you're asking for is some quality time with the man you love. how can he continue to deny you such a thing when he's subconsciously withheld it from you for so long?
"i'm sorry for neglecting you," he apologizes again. "that was never my intention. i knew me working so much bothered you, but i did not know all the reasons why. i'm sorry, honey."
you waste no time pressing your lips to his snugly. kento hums gently, lethargically holding you tighter, pressing in close as your lips move daintily, languidly over his.
you pour in every hope for his wellbeing, every second you've spent longing for him, every day you've spent praying that he'll take care of himself instead of staying late. you pour in every ounce of love that at times feels too great to name. you pour in every bit of care, every ounce of anger and sadness and desolation you've felt.
the kiss softens into something precious, something sweet and fragile and tame and promising. the two of you sink into the familiar, yet foreign rhythm, and nanami pushes in firmer as your lips to his make him realize just how long it has been since he has kissed you like this.
your fingers tangle eagerly in his hair, sliding over his undercut as he tilts his head, savoring you, seeking you. what was a bubbling argument mere moments ago has turned into a moment of long awaited affection, rekindling, a breakthrough.
you break away to breathe hot against him, lids heavy, eyes hazy and forlorn. you can no longer tell where his scent starts and yours ends, and you are thrilled, for this is all you want. this is all you need to get by.
"please, ken," you murmur so sweetly against his mouth. "please just stay with me tomorrow."
"i will, honey," he nods, pressing his forehead to yours. "i hate that i've made you beg for such a thing."
you fall into a plethora of kisses that don't end, warm pants, and contented sighs. "i'm sorry for yelling," you moan against him between lingering pecks.
"i'm sorry for making you yell."
the dishes are left forgotten in the sink as nanami picks you up with grace, keeping your lips locked as you wrap your legs around his torso, clinging like a koala as he walks you back to your bedroom.
the two of you fall into the sheets, wrapped up in each other, as nanami seals promises to be better with loving strokes and searing kisses over your bare skin. when you fall asleep, the sound of each other's heartbeats lull you both, and nanami decides as his eyes close over the ethereal vision of you that it is time for some kind of change.
choso kamo:
choso would honestly rather die before he argues with you.
and that much is a fact. you know it from the way he chokes up the second you're sending a glare his way, the way he hastily rushes out a string of apologies before you even get the chance to say anything, his hands coming around you and pressing you to his chest to erradicate any semblance of anger from your body.
the brunette does not do well with conflict surrounding you. not at all. ever the emotional being, choso will drop to his knees before you in devastation, pleading for forgiveness simply to avoid you ever having to be angry with him. choso's goal going into every single day is to please you more than he has the previous day, to make you as happy as you make him because he loves you so much that it makes him dizzy and giddy headed. if he ever makes you mad, if he causes you to feel something toward him other than joy and admiration, he'll feel as though he has done a poor job as your partner. he'll kick himself for days, wondering why he did such a thing and how he could fix it - though you've already told him that none of it was a big deal in the first place.
besides, you don't ever get angry with him. not really. you find yourself lecturing the half curse more than you do actually arguing with him, as the said violet eyed man actively works his way around any sign of so. when you get upset with choso, it's usually due to poor communication or some kind of misunderstanding that is cleared up within a matter of seconds.
choso, on the other hand, never finds fault in anything you do. he loves you fiercely, proudly, and he is so enamored by all of you that it's impossible for you to even get him mad. not that you actually try to do so.
this time around, however, is the one and only exception.
it hits him fast.
choso can be irritated rather easily, but normally only when he is in the presence of people he does not want to be around, or when he's overstimulated. he'll mope to himself with a little storm cloud hovering over him, brows and jaw tight as purple hues glower into nothing.
he's never displayed this particular side to you, as you have never given him reason to stew in such annoyance, but today he finds is the horrified exception, as he had already been annoyed about being roped into another short mission with yuki, having been stolen away from time with you. the course of today's events had him in a rather sour mood, and the text he sees pop up from you on his phone is the very icing on the cake.
he's strolling behind yuki as he opens his screen eagerly, hoping to be relieved by something you've sent. instead, he stops dead in his tracks as he stares with wide eyes at your messages.
he blinks once in disbelief, clicking hard on the photo you sent and zooming in.
no. it can't be. you didn't. you wouldn't.
captured in frame is an image of your hand clutching a buttery pastery in the camera, your freshly done nails pressing softly into the crust, the sun shining over your (s/c) from behind the phone. that alone is not choso's issue, but that hand that hovers next to yours in a similar fashion, holding the same pastry.
and that is not the hand of one of your girlfriend's. in fact, it is not even a woman's hand at all. no, instead, it is the well sculpted, rigid hand of a man that choso does not recognize, does not know. and suddenly, his mind is wiping blank as his bright eyes glare daggers into the screen. his heart booms in his chest, which tightens over the organ.
he does not like this feeling. he knows what it is, but he does not like that it is arising because of you. and though choso is still learning a few basic human concepts, he's been with you and around the other students long enough to know that this is not a coincidence. that you aren't just sending this picture to be sweet, to give your boyfriend an update on what you are doing.
not when you left things the way you did before he left the house earlier that day.
choso had promised to accompany you to this new bakery's grand opening weeks in advance, and today was finally the day. the brunette remembers how excited you were, how you bounced on the balls of your feet when you hovered over him that morning, shaking him awake so that the two of you could beat the line. the pale skinned man had shared your enthusiasm, not because he really cared about the bakery, but because you cared. he liked the way your eyes lit up when you talked about it, showing him the menu and scrolling through each delicious item on your phone.
it was a date that you had set long ago. a full day you would make out of it. a reward for the hard work the two of you have been putting in lately.
only, your plans were cut short when choso got a call from yuki. your stomach sank and your face fell when you overheard the conversation, watching as choso's face tightened with aggravation as he scratched the back of his hair and sighed heavily with defeat into the phone. with great remorse, enough remorse to make it look like it was killing him, choso broke the news that he and yuki were called in for a quick, last minute job.
you masked your disappointment very poorly. for this isn't the first time something like this has happened. it has seemed as though lately, at the worst of times, your boyfriend is always needed for a mission with the blonde special grade sorcerer that seemed to pop up from out of nowhere.
you know choso well enough to know that he could not care less who he was partnered up with or why, as you are the only woman he even looks at with hearts in his eyes and his face flushing red. hell, you're the only woman he even thinks about on a daily basis. nevertheless, you could not help but to feel threatened, as the beautiful woman sweeps him away at least once a week, and it was beginning to drive you crazy.
and you knew in that moment that choso was not to blame for such a thing, nor was yuki. the two of them were simply fulfilling the roles that they had been assigned. even so, your throat tightens with frustration and envy as your date spirals down the drain so that your boyfriend can run off with another woman.
it's really starting to get on your nerves.
but you know that this is something that is difficult for choso to understand. not because he does not understand your desire to be with him and to honor your plans, but because he feels like there is absolutely no reason for you to feel threatened by yuki. or anyone at all. the man is so obsessed with you, others would deem it unhealthy, but you can not help the power of your insecurity and the sadness that you try so hard to swallow down when he asks you to forgive him with a hand cupping your face and those big puppy dog eyes boring into yours.
it is difficult for him to leave you when you only give him halfhearted, mumbled assurances, but he has no other choice when fifteen minutes of him saying goodbye and promising to make it up to you pushes back his schedule and makes him run behind.
choso had been thinking about that kicked look on your face all day, pondering over what he can do to cheer you up when he gets home as he claps his palms together and spears a line of blood into his target's head without struggle or thought.
he's sleepy. and he misses you. and he wants to go home, but then he sees your text.
and instead of feeling guilt, something in his mind snaps to instant displeasure.
he calls out to yuki to tell her that he'll catch up to her while he takes a call, and she nods with a wave over her shoulder and a hand on her hip as she continues back toward the school.
choso clicks the phone icon under your name quickly, pressing the device to his ear whilst gnawing the inside of his cheek. it takes a while for you to call, and choso is growing impatient until you eventually pick up on the second to last ring.
there's shuffling on your side of the line over distant, buzzing chatter. he hears your unmistakable laugh, his ears ringing and his pupils shrinking as your giggle flutters so easily into his ears, but you're not laughing with or for choso this time. you're laughing with someone else.
"hello?" you finally greet with the rumble of humor in your lazy voice. your tone has dropped to speak with your boyfriend, he notices, and he thinks this might be the day his worst nightmare comes true.
"where are you?" he asks hastily, wasting no time. "who are you with?"
"i'm doing good, choso, how are you?"
you purposely dodge choso's questions to be smart, to act as if he is imposing, and though he does not completely understand that that is what you're doing, he hates the way you're talking. he hates the whole situation before he's even been given an explanation.
"i'm not good. where are you and who are you with?"
"i'm just out with a friend."
you're being vague. you're blocking out any chance for choso to figure out just exactly who is accompanying you, and he feels his blood begin to boil at the mere secrecy of it all. the two of you never keep secrets from one another, nor do you spend time with people of the opposite sex that the other does not already know as one of your friends.
"what friend," choso interragtes, his voice low as he listens hard.
"a friend, choso. jeez."
"do i know him?"
"does it matter?"
"yes. do i?"
"i don't know who you do or don't know."
"the way you're acting tells me that i don't," he concludes. "(y/n), did you go with him to the bakery that you and i were gonna go to?"
you stall for a moment, letting the silence consume the both of you as there is more shuffling. choso hates that he can't see what's going on. hates that he's not there instead of this stranger. hates that you've taken this attitude with him, this lilt of sassiness that you've never shown him before.
"(y/n)?" he calls you again, with more bass in his voice this time.
"so what if i did?" you drone on. "it's not like you were gonna go with me. you know, even though we had planned to go together for weeks."
"how could you do that?" choso grits his teeth. "you knew i was looking forward to that with you too. i couldn't control that i wasn't able to go. why would you go with some other man without telling me, then send me a picure of what i'm missing?"
his lips tug downward as he runs it all over in his mind, bristling with betrayal and rage at the thought of another guy getting to do the things with you that are only reserved for the two of you.
he swallows down hard, this pill much too difficult to swallow. this isn't like you. this isn't something you do. it's completely out of the ordinary, out of character, and choso thinks that is one of the reasons as to why this is hitting him so hard. he feels like the wind has been knocked out of his lungs, but he is not going to beg for your sympathy this time. no, instead, it's him he feels deserves an apology.
this is wrong. so mean, so hypocritical. you know how choso gets. you know how he clings to you. you know how sacred he considers time with you, or with anyone he cares deeply for.
with you, however, it's different. choso already does not like doing things without you, being left out of adventures and outings that involve you, so for you to do this is a low blow. it stings. it puts a further damper on what had already been such a miserable day, and he never would have expected you to contribute to his negative feelings.
choso is needy, choso is possessive, choso does not like to share. you've never done anything to make him act out of line due to feeling as though someone is looking to take his rightful place by your side so this is new. this feeling is strange. he's not entirely sure what to do with this anger and frustraton and jealousy that's building within him, and he's sure that something will slip without meaning.
by the way this conversation is already going, something is sure to go wrong.
"i don't know what to tell you, choso," you exhale. "i was excited too, but you had stuff to do. so i decided not to wait for you for a change."
your words crash into choso's heart like rushing water breaking into a dam, and choso is completely frozen in his spot, your voice echoing in his mind like some taunt. like a ghoulish nightmare that will cease to end.
"you're being mean," he snaps. "i don't like it."
"i'm not being mean. i'm just doing what i want."
"like we don't always do what you want."
"what?"
his own response came spewing before he could even think it over, but now that it's out there, the brunette can not necessarily take it back. it's not fully true. he knows that. he's only saying such a thing to throw it back in your face. you do plenty of things for choso, as you enjoy entertaining his hobbies as much as he enjoys entertaining yours.
but you hurt his feelings. there's no coming back from that. so now, his mind jumps to defend himself, to fight against the thought of you replacing him.
"no, say it again. what did you say?"
"i said we're always doing what you want," he repeats slowly. "you didn't even think twice about how any of this made me feel. you just thought of yourself."
he hears you scoff, then there's more shuffling, likely as you move to somewhere more private. choso assumes so by the way the background noise softens. "i can't believe you're trying to call me selfish. me. of all things."
"i didn't say you're selfish."
"then what exactly were you trying to say by telling me that i didn't bother to think about you?"
"(y/n), you're out with another man. you did not think about me when you chose to do that."
"i told you, he's a friend."
"then why is this the first time i'm hearing about him? what does he look like? where is he from?"
"giving you all that information isn't going to change the fact that i'm with him."
"are you breaking up with me for him?"
"wh - no? i'm not breaking up with you, choso."
"it's hard to tell, the way you're acting," he frowns. "i don't want you there with him anymore. i want you to leave."
"like hell i will. you can't tell me what to do. i told you, i'm done sitting around and waiting for you to come home from being with yuki."
"what does she have to do with any of this? she's just my partner."
"ohhhh, she's your partner?" you mock. "i didn't realize that i was cutting into precious time with your partner. forgive me."
"stop it. i don't like you like this, (y/n). you're acting so weird."
"now you don't like me?"
"i don't like the way you're acting. i'll always like you."
you hesitate for a moment, momentarily caught off guard by his honesty. "i'm hanging up now, choso."
"don't hang up," he demands. "if you're not going to leave, then the least you can do is tell me his name and show me his face. i'll be there soon."
"i'm not doing that," you shut him down. "and i don't want you here."
that's the first time he's ever heard you tell him something like that. he feels as though invisible scars litter his body as each of your cruel responses cut and slice mercilessly. "you don't want me there...?"
"no, choso. you're busy anyway. just do whatever you're doing, alright?"
"we're practically done," he mumbles. "why don't you want me there anymore? because i'll ruin your date?"
"because you weren't here in the first place. i don't want you here now."
"you're punishing me for no reason."
"i'm not punishing you. if you feel punished, then that's not my problem."
"(y/n). go home. i'm serious."
"no."
"then i'm coming to get you."
"no, you aren't."
"yes, i am."
"goodbye, choso. have fun with yuki."
he's halfway through calling your name when the line cuts and you are gone. the brunette stands there for a second more, ruminating, heart hammering.
that was your first real argument.
the first time you've ever spoken to each other that way. the first time he didn't rush to fix things before they could get worse, the first time your frustration did not melt away with the sound of his voice, the first time either of you had been so separated, so cold, so distant.
ordinarily, tears would have sprung to choso's ears from the sheer emotion of it all, but he finds that none are coming. what he feels now is something dark, something engrossing that swallows him whole as he pulls up the location to that bakery from your messages, a growl building in the back of his throat as he swipes past that godforsaken picture.
choso loves you, but he's never witnessed you act like such a brat before. he hates to say it, he hates to call you that, but he can not find any other word to describe just what exactly it is you think you're doing.
the brunette does not have the capacity to think that you're just using some guy to fill his place and make him angry. all he sees, all he knows, is that you are with a man who is not himself, and he's acting on impulse as he normally does, rushing to meet back up with yuki so that he can wrap things up.
you're not sure what made you think that your words were enough to keep choso from finding you. normally, the man is so obedient, so willing to do whatever you say, but you think you've really crossed a point of no return when you're waving goodbye to your old high school friend, and you happen to turn your head to see your boyfriend fastly approaching.
you've never been scared of choso. he's your sweet boy. the kindest, gentlest being you've ever met. what makes choso feared by others is not something that he's ever been keen on revealing to you.
so when you catch wind of him walking toward you down the street, plum eyes sharp as he locks them onto you, you freeze. the marks on his face are shifting and morphing with his rage, and he wears so rather openly on his expression.
your boyfriend is pissed off, and he was not joking about getting to you by any means necessary.
you notice that the closer he gets, he does not slow. it is only when he is a few inches away from you when you realize that he is not yet walking to you, but going after your friend who has already made it inside of his car.
your eyes go wide as you catch choso around his built torso, blocking him from proceeding further as he lets your touch will him away. if he really wanted to, he would have plowed through you without question. but you're still you. you're still (y/n). there's no need to risk taking your arm off by accident because he's worried about some guy. besides, he's not the one who can give him answers. you are.
choso steps back with firm stomps as you lightly push him away. flaming wine hues glow hard down at you once he's hovering over you, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths as the veins in his neck poke and his fist clenches and unclenches at his side.
"what the hell are you doing?" you hiss. "i told you not to come, choso."
"where is he going?" he points past your smaller from. "who was he, (y/n). where is he going."
"for the love of - he's a friend, okay? i was serious about that. he was just a friend from school that i ran into."
"ran into?"
"yes, here. at the bakery."
"so you went by yourself. he didn't go with you?"
"no, choso. i'm not in regular contact with him. he just appeared."
he hums in disapproval, shaking his head. "i still don't like it. i don't like how you didn't want to wait for me."
"choso, you knew how much i've been wanting to come here for their grand opening. i was gonna go with or without you. the way things turned out, i had to go without you."
"i would have waited for you to go to any store."
"i'm not you, choso. i didn't want to wait for you to be done hanging with some girl-"
"hanging? we were working."
"i don't care. you left me to be with her and it hurt my feelings."
"it hurts my feelings that you did something that was meant for us with another guy."
"like you don't do the same with yuki?"
"i don't. we work together."
"but you always have to go off with her when we're about to do something."
"i do what the sorcerers tell me to do, (y/n)."
"so you wouldn't feel a way if i was always out partnered up with some guy for work? if he always called me saying that he needed me during to worst possible times?"
"i would not like it, but that's not the same as you choosing to spend time with someone outside of work to get back at me."
"it feels the same."
choso no longer wants to continue on with this out in the open. he reaches for your wrist, tugging you slightly. "we're going home."
you try to pull your arm from his grasp, but it's no use. "i don't want to go home! let go of me."
he turns back to give you a harsh look, one so foreign to you on his soft features. you pause. "we're going."
the two of you fight some more when you get back home, caught up in the hectic cycle of your first dispute. it ends eventually with the two of you storming off into different directions, followed by tears that the both of you shed in private.
in the silence, you're both hit with the awfulness of arguing with one another, as it is such a strange, new thing to you. it feels ten times worse now that it is over.
choso was right. you were being mean. you knowingly weaponized choso's vulnerability to use it against him, and you got the reaction that you wanted, but you still do not feel any better about how the day went. you were miserable when you went to that bakery by yourself, moping as your mind swarmed with images of your boyfriend and his pretty blonde partner together while you were left to fend for yourself. in truth, your high school friend had saved you, and the urge to get revenge for how choso made you feel surpassed any semblance of logic as you snapped that picture and pressed send.
it wasn't planned. you just did it.
it doesn't take much to get choso wound up emotionally, and you know it, but this anger of his was new. and it spun your mind around in circles, then before you even knew it, you were fighting.
you wish you could take it back. the whole reason why you did any of this was to get his attention, and you got it, but now what? your boyfriend is angry with you for the first time ever, and suddenly, your resolve does not seem as pressing as the aforementioned matter.
all you wanted was to spend the day with your boyfriend, and you lost it when you couldn't even get that.
but that was no reason for you to do what you did. you can see that now.
"choso?"
the soft call of his name brings choso's head turning on a swivel as you stand bashfully in the doorway. you sniff hard as you fiddle with a piece of paper you found on your floor.
the brunette looks at you with big eyes, his anger, too, long gone. and he waits.
you breathe in sharp. "i'm really sorry. i hated arguing with you. i shouldn't have made you feel like i was replacing you or like i was gonna leave you. i just got so upset about today. it was no one's fault but i blamed you. and i'm sorry. i shouldn't have said all that about you and yuki, either. i didn't know how else to express what i was feeling. i really wanted to spend time with you. i didn't have nearly as much of a good time as i would have if you were there. the pastries weren't even that good. i love you... i got carried away."
before you can blink, choso has already scrambled to his feet and tugged you into a tight hug. he buries his face in the crook of your neck and presses your body to his tightly, screwing his eyes tight with a shuddering exhale.
the second choso hears an apology, he doesn't care anymore. he's just happy that this can finally end. that you're back to your sweet self, and choso has nothing more to worry about. all he wants now is you.
he doesn't say anything. he just holds you tight. a whimper slips from him when you hug back, breathing him in deeply as you nuzzle your face against him.
"i'm sorry, cho," you say weakly into the fabric of his chest. he hugs you tighter.
toji fushiguro:
arguing with toji is... common.
toji fushiguro does not back down from a challenge. he never has. he's never had any reason to. he talks a lot of shit, and he's able to back it up with those remarkable gifts he carries. as far as toji is concerned, he is superior to every other non sorcerer there is. hell, he might as well be humanity's symbol of perseverance. he fights, and he fights willingly.
and as much as you love toji, you love him through his crudeness, his snarkiness, his disrespectful attitude that tends to come to the surface when he's spent and worn.
if the two of you are being honest, you argue probably more than the average couple. there's something about the sway of it, the rhythm it carries, how breezily it flows between the two of you. you don't necessarily like to argue, but arguments find you like you're their home. like they were made for the two of you to engage in, therefore, you fall into this back and forth quiet often. half the time, you aren't even sure why.
being with toji is like constantly living within some kind of arena. energy is high at all times, a constant buzz underlying your emboldened passions. you're entertained day in and day out, tossed around by your opponent in bed so often, you find that your legs have trouble keeping you standing when the two of you are through. you and toji both like competition, and you go head to head with each other as much as possible. most of the time, it's heated, exciting tension. the other times, its just shouting, trying to be heard over top of the other. two stubborn, hardheaded, sore losers fighting to win.
you like the fire that carries the two of you. you like how it burns so brightly between you, having yet to diminish over the years you've known each other and been together. when you and toji fight, you fight for yourselves, for your relationship. fighting, in your opinions, is a sign of strength, a sign of diversity within your conjoined lives. it's a sign that the two of you care enough about your bond and about each other to stand ten toes down as you fight about whatever nonsense it is you're on about now until either one of you yields by winning, walking off, or jumping the other one's bones.
toji does not like being wrong. even if he knows he is, he'll still give you a hard time. that's just the kind of man that he is. he's not going to admit that he could have done something differently until he's learned some kind of lesson, and usually that lesson comes when you've shut him out completely by giving him the silent treatment for as long as you possibly can, longer than he had believed you would last.
there's one thing toji hates more than being wrong, and it's you paying him no mind, acting like he isn't right next to you, greeting him with silence when he asks you a question. he can't fucking stand it when you do that. it drives him crazy, and the only way he really knows how to fix that is with how he fixes most of your problems - by fucking them out of you.
but then, there are times when the words are too harsh for sexual reconciliation. insults fly that meant nothing but landed like everything, and the space between you grows with something colder than fire. those moments, when the arguments are real and bruising, the two of you do not always reach the same, affectionate conclusions.
"christ, girl," toji seethes, rolling his eyes to his skull as he tosses his head back with exasperation. he's lounging on your couch with his legs crossed and arms outstretched on the cushions behind him. maybe forty five or so minutes have passed since the two of you have gotten into it, and the vibe between you feels off. like no amount of sex or cuddling can save you from the direction this is headed. "y're always finding some shit to be mad about. don't you ever get tired?"
"tired of you?" you snap, standing next to the coffee table before him. "yeah, all the fucking time."
"you think i don't get tired of your moanin'?"
"too damn bad, fushiguro, you're stuck with my moaning forever. what are you gonna do about it?"
ivy hues hold yours with slimming severity. "keep talkin' and find out."
"fuck you. you don't get to fuck me after all this shit you put me through tonight."
toji turns out one of his palms, quirking one side of his mouth as if to question your wellbing nonverbally. "the fuck are you on about? i ain't do shit to you."
"yes you did, toji! why do you think we're fighting now?"
"'cause y're a goddamn pain."
you groan, searching around you for the nearest object, which happens to be a crumpled napkin sitting atop the table surface. you reach over and lunge the paper at toji's face, watching as it bounces off of his chest and rolls down his massive frame, onto the floor. the ebony haired assassin glares up at you, as if to dare you to throw something else.
"throwing shit now, huh?" he raises a brow.
"you're lucky it was just a napkin and not a rock."
"will ya give it a rest already?" your boyfriend sneers. "all i said was that you aren't cut out for any life like mine. what's the big deal? you're mad 'cause i told the truth?"
"it wasn't just that," you chuckled, eyes blown as you swipe your hand over your chin. "you said it like you think i could never be able to lift a finger on my own, let alone do something like that."
"you know i ain't mean it like that," he exhales, annoyed.
"then why say it like you meant it like that?" you question. "i can handle myself fine, fushiguro. you think i can't take care of myself?"
"nah. i don't think you can handle an assassin's job. much less mine. i'm already two times your size doll, and that don't even account for our difference in skillsets."
"obviously i can't be like you. nobody can be like you. but we're not just talking about how you operate, we're talking about people who fight and kill for a living as a whole."
"why are you so damn worried about bein' qualified to be an assassin?"
"since my boyfriend made it very clear that he doesn't believe i'm capable of doing anything on my own!"
"i do think you can do shit on your own, (y/n). that's not what i said."
"you're lying."
"y're actin' like a lunatic."
toji rises carelessly to his feet with a grunt, hands pressing into his knees, and you take the opportunity to toss another napkin at him. this time, it bounces off his head and goes flying into another direction. toji's face flattens as he stares down at you like you're a pest.
"and you're acting like a dick!" you counter. "no, you're not acting like one. you just are one."
"you done yet?" he squints his eyes. "you get that shit out of your bratty fuckin' system?"
"don't talk to me like what i'm saying doesn't matter."
"well, it's hard to listen to ya when you're spouting all this nonsense, darlin'."
"it's not nonsense!" you march over to him and block his path when you see him begin to turn away to walk off. toji clicks his tongue, looking off with irritation as you hold him hostage. "why don't you think i could train to do something like be an assassin? i was a great sorcerer."
"do you hear how stupid this conversation sounds? we're arguin' about hypotheticals."
"hypotheticals lead to truths, and you don't believe in me."
"you're nuts."
"you're a liar."
"so what if i don't believe in you, eh?" he lifts a fist to his hip and tilts his head with cloudy eyes. "what're you gonna do? your world gonna end?"
you gasp. "so you admit it. you admit you think i'm weak."
"for the love of - just move." he goes to step around you, but you step in his way again. "move, before i make you."
"you'd like that, wouldn't you? proving how fragile you think i am by picking me up and forcing me out of the way."
"the only reason i'd like doing that would be because i'd finally get some fuckin' peace and quiet." toji goes to move around you again, but you block him once more, leading his temper to burst. "(y/n), the fuck is your problem?"
"my problem is that i know exactly what you were trying to say about me, but now you don't have the balls to stand on it."
"you're tryin' really hard to get your feelings hurt. let it go."
"i'm not letting shit go until i hear you say it."
"i'm tellin' ya now, you don't want to hear what i have to say."
"oh i promise you, i really do."
toji is immovable before you, glowering down at you with lazy eyes and formiddable stillness. he's giving you the chance to back out before he says something that he can't take back, before his words become so mean that the argument takes a hard left turn.
in these moments, when toji's agitated and tired, he does not really care what comes out of his mouth. with you, ordinarily, he's gentler in a rugged kind of way. he'll still talk his shit, but he'll do so with a humor and sappiness that is nowhere to be found right now. he's sweet on you, careful with you, thoughtful with you, and while his love for you would never change or be swayed by something so damn stupid, it's hard to find those remnants of him when he gets in a bad mood.
he loves you to death, but right now, all he can hear is the way your mouthing off at him senselessly, fighting hard over something that toji would never in a million years think of allowing you to do. sure, you're not being serious about turning your life around to go back to doing dangerous work, but the very thought of it grinds his goddamn gears, for that's not the kind of life you need to be living. this, this calmness, this steadiness you've built with toji is good, it's right, it's where you're meant to be. the dark haired man will be damned if you set foot back into that kind of life after you'd successfully escaped it, returning to the risk of death that toji can not afford to fathom.
after all, it had been a life threatening experience that made you want to turn your life around, away from constant risk.
so fuck no, toji does not think you're cut out for it. he doesn't want you to be cut out for it. you're his woman now. you have a life. you're loved. if you think he wants you even so much as touching another weapon to fight, you've got another damn thing coming.
"leave it," he sneers. "it's the last time i'm tellin' ya."
"psh. coward."
you're playing with fucking fire.
toji narrows his eyes at you in disbelief. "you think so?" he dares you.
you cross your arms, eyes pointed. "yep. you're a coward, toji."
oooh, and it's enough to make toji completely forget that you have feelings he should protect. now that you've pushed the right buttons, he's dropping the filter and talking freely.
"says the girl who chickened out of sorcery."
all of the air within the room seems to shrink up as your face falls in shock, reeling. "...are you serious?" your voice is lower, quiter now. "you're throwing that back in my face?"
toji shrugs. "i'm not the one who kept pushin'. you wanted what i think, so here it is."
"i got injured you fucking asshole," you emphasis your last word with a shove to his pec, one that does nothing to move him or throw him off balance. "how dare you say i chickened out?"
"you healed and ya didn't wanna go back. what else do ya call it?"
your mouth drops with incredulity, doing your best to combat the way your heart has sunk with grief. toji knows that this is a difficult topic for you, which is likely why you feel so offended by the prospect of him refusing to believe that you could return to that kind of life. hearing him express the fact that he feels that you are not brave, that the reason for you backing away had not been valid enough, whether it's true or he's trying to hurt you or what, it insults you.
especially because toji knows that you were a damn good sorcerer. that you put your heart and soul into your work before blooming love, a desire for a conjoined future, and the daunting reality that the universe allowed you to live simply by chance rather than by fate after a mission gone horribly wrong, swayed your motivations, and you took your opening. your one and only chance to live a normal life was seized, and you don't regret that decision for a second.
nevertheless, you still experience doubts. you still play that day over in your mind, thinking about how if you had never gotten hurt, you never would have left the field. you could have been dead by now. or not. you'll never know. but there are times when you yearn for that purpose again, for that action, that thrill, even though you know that you went down the right path.
toji knows you aren't weak. or at least, you've always desperately hoped that he doesn't believe that you are. you feel that you have always had that underlying insecurity, the lurking fear that your boyfriend thinks little of you. that you do not stand out in his eyes, that you are not strong enough, exciting enough. you fear the way he judges your life choices, if he does at all, and you're greatest insecurity comes to life in his words. in his glare.
you thought you wanted the truth, but this fucking hurts.
and toji isn't teling you the truth. of course he's not. he doesn't think you're weak. he doesn't think you're a coward for choosing life instead of death. he respects, honors, and fucking thanks your decision to have left like no other, as the real reason behind his malice is the fact that he does not want to you die or disappear on him.
plus, you've been working his last nerve all night.
he just wants to teach you a lesson, is all. but he takes it too far.
"i'm not a coward," you grit, tightening your fists.
"sure ya aren't," he smirks. "you aren't cut out for this shit, girlie. it's not for you anymore. you couldn't cut it, so like your old man said, let it be."
"fuck you, toji," you jab an angry finger at him.
"i thought you didn't wanna do that tonight, darlin?" his smirk grows, baiting you into a bigger reaction, and he gets just that.
"i hate you," you shout.
ouch.
toji doesn't let it show how much that stung. "yeah, yeah," he murmurs as his smile dwindes. "i've heard it all before."
"if you think i'm so fucking weak and useless, then why the hell did you stay with me? you should have just left me the fuck alone."
you're gone with a shoulder check, the quick swipe and jingle of keys, and the slamming of the front door. in the moment, toji does not think to follow you. he merely rolls his eyes and continues on with his business, acting first as though this will blow over soon, as though this argument hadn't been one of your bigger onces, as though his heart isn't aching at the sound of your voice crying out that you hate him.
by the second and third hour of your absence, toji is restless. he hasn't heard a thing from you. you haven't texted, called, turned your location back on, or anything. you vanished, and you clipped off any line of contact between the two of you. you're gone, and toji grows anxious in the silence that you have left behind.
the ivy eyed man does not like not knowing what is happening. he does not like not being able to have his eyes on you, not being able to check in with you, to talk to you, to see you. what if you're hurt? what if you don't come back? what if toji broke something in you that is unfixable, all because he wanted to get you to shut up? all because he hates even thinking about you putting yourself back into harm's way?
he should have corrected you when you left. he doesn't think you're weak and useless like you said. he would never think such things of you. the way you have him wrapped around your pretty little finger, the way you're able to juggle work, helping look after his kids, cooking for everyone, filling the home with love and warmth all at once, the way you keep your eyes ahead of you instead of on the past, pushing through the traumas of your previous occupation to be present, are all tells of your great strength. your tenacity. your passion.
those are just a few of the reasons why toji fell so hard for you, and to lie about that so boldly to your face... well, it was sure to hit you hard. he knew it would, but what he did not considere was how hard it would hit him in turn. like a boomerang effect, or deserved karma.
toji knows he's an asshole. he knows he hardly deserves you. he knows he's not good at expressing his fears, the things that haunt him, the truths much harder to admit than the 'i love yous' that come so easily.
and sometimes, it's just easier to fall into that negative title than it is to breathe life into the things he does not want to accept.
when night comes around, and you're still not back, toji's calling you over and over, wandering the streets to look for you. his concern is growing by the second. he gets it. you're angry, but he hopes that's all it is and you're somewhere safe. he wishes you'd at least tell him you're safe.
he is soon nauseous with fear, increasingly desperate to find you, when he finally spots you across the way, sitting on a vacant park swing.
the moment he sees you, his heart is exhaling and he's running to you. "the hell is wrong with you?" he barks, bending over to gather your shoulders in his hands once he reaches you, stilling you on the swing as you look up at him with wide eyes. "i've been callin' you for fuckin' hours! i didn't know where the hell you went. it's dark out, girl, what the fuck are ya doin? are you tryin' to give me a heart attack?"
you look over his face emptily, and in the darkness, toji can make out the sparkle of tears dotting your lashes. he pauses.
"you don't need to come running to me. i'm not some fragile thing you need to protect. i'm fine."
your tone is cold, void of that fire it had earlier. now, you just sound so sad. "(y/n), come on," toji breathes out. "i wasn't worried 'cause i think y're weak-"
"you said it yourself that you do. there's no need to keep denying it. you look down on me because i stopped being a sorcerer. you don't think i could do anything like that ever again, and it's cool. i get it. what i don't get is how you could love someone you view like that. are you lying to me about that to?"
"alright, slow it down," toji shakes his head, dropping down to a crouch before you. "we ain't gonna jump to conclusions all night."
"i'm not. you said it yourself."
"that i don't love you? that's bullshit, babe."
"that you think i'm a weak coward. so you must be thinking other things like that. it's only logical."
"this crap is everything but logical," he grunts. "when i said all that shit, i wasn't being for real."
"sure, whatever," you tch with the roll of your eyes, pushing past him to stand up and walk toward the playground balance beam. you don't hear toji follow you, but you know he's there as you step onto the metal with outstretched arms, eyes stinging.
"i'm serious," you hear him say just behind you as you put one foot in front of the other, brows furrowed hard. "i don't think that shit about you doll."
"then it's even fucking crazier that you would say some shit like that to me, toji," you scoff.
"what do you want from me?" he rounds the beam so that he's waiting at the end of it, facing you as you walk down. "you weren't gonna stop until i said what you were thinkin' about yourself in your head! you wanted me to agree with whatever the fuck y're lyin' to yourself about, so i did."
you stop in your tracks, keeping your balance. "because genuinely what else was i supposed to think when you first said that you didn't think i could do what you people do?"
"that i don't want ya to get fuckin' hurt? that i don't want you repeating something that already happened?"
"sorcerers, assassins, whoever the fuck get hurt all the time. so what?"
"don't be hypocrite. you left after that shit happened to you."
"i did! but that doesn't mean i didn't know the risks! that doesn't mean i hadn't gotten hurt before! just 'cause i left doesn't mean i couldn't do that shit again with my eyes closed!"
"i fuckin' know that, (y/n)!"
"then what's the problem?!"
"i don't want you to die, that's the problem!"
"i'm not gonna die! i'm not even serious about going back!"
"i don't care! i almost lost you once, girl, i ain't gonna let there be a second time!"
you freeze, stunned into silence by the sheer zeal carrying his confession to you, and your arms slowly melt down to your sides as you maintain perfect balance thoughtlessly.
toji exhales, threading his veiny hand through his messy locks as he searches the ground as though it will give him answers, will help him with what to say next. the corner of his mouth creases as he presses his lips together, eyes sunken like a gaping wound.
"i get it. i shouldn't have said all that shit to you. i shouldn't have let you get to me like that. but fuck, (y/n), i clearly don't think that way about you. i'm crazy about you. even if i didn't agree with the choice you made, which i do, would still respect ya."
"how am i supposed to know that if you just told me otherwise?" you ask softly.
"i've been tellin' ya for years that i'm proud of you."
"that's different from right now. from what you said today."
"i-" toji clenchs his jaw. "you got a point. y're right. i get it. 'shouldn't have said any of it. none of it was true. i was just angry."
you stare at him silently, and toji caves.
"i'm sorry," he swallows hard, softening. "i'm sorry, doll."
"you should be," you look down.
"i am," he starts to move around again, approaching you from the side as you turn to look up at him. even with you elavated on the beam, he still towers over you. "had me losin' my mind when i couldn't find you. when i hadn't heard from you," he frowns. "be pissed all you want, but don't do that shit again. i don't care how mad you are at me, you turn that location on and send me a text. that shit is dangerous."
"but i was-"
"i don't. care," he punches each word. "don't go doubting how crazy i'll get behind you, doll. i worry about ya like i worry about my own kids. it ain't because i don't think you can handle yourself. it's 'cause i love you. i'm sorry i made you start to think otherwise. that's one thing you should never question. but seriously, don't do stupid shit like ignoring my calls when your out at night. it's pitch dark out here. i don't care how strong you are, i'm not for it."
you want to combat him more, but the look on his face shows you that he is not joking, that he is dead serious about your safety, so you choose not to poke the bear any further tonight. "fine," you grumble.
"yeah?" he lifts a large hand to hold your hip, rolling his thumb over the curve of it. your mouth twitches, and you duck your head to look away as toji comes into you. "i love you, doll. i always will. 'm sorry. i don't wanna lose ya."
you feel your eyes well with tears as you bite down hard on your teeth. your nose flares involunitarily as you fidget, the opposing warmth of your boyfriend sinking over you in a time you need it most, deep down - a time where you began to doubt this tenderness, this sweetness, this love that you cherish so fiercely, no matter how angry you are with each other.
the ebony haired man leans in to kiss your forehead gingerly. you close your eyes when his lips meet your skin, and you release a breath you didn't know you were holding.
when toji pulls away, he looks down at you tenderly. "you don't hate me, girlie, do ya?"
you lift your teary eyes with a confused expression before you remember that you had declared such a thing to his face in the heat of the argument. you sigh. "sometimes."
"come on," his other hand comes to your other hip. "throw me a rope."
you roll your eyes. "no. i don't hate you. you just deserved to hear it."
"mmm, and it stung like it was meant to."
you purse your lips. "sorry."
your apologize comes out as a snap, and toji almost laughs. "you still angry?"
you think about it. "yeah. you were a dick."
"alright," he sighs, turning to bend his knees and hunch his back, holding out his arms toward you. "you can be angry at me in the house. get on."
you stare at his back for a moment, leg bouncing. toji turns to his shoulder, quirking a brow.
"not a request, doll. we got more arguin' to do. can't do it on an empty stomach either."
you huff, eventually obliging as you climb onto your boyfriend's broad back. you wrap your arms around his neck as he hoists you up, locking his arms under your thighs.
he tilts his head to you, your nose brushing his cheek. "good?" he asks lowly.
you hum. "yeah."
he hoists you up again, ensuring that you are secure, before starting to walk. you rest your chin against his shoulder with an exhale through your nose, tilting your head against toji's neck as you look to the sky.
"i love you, too," you mumble abruptly mid walk, and toji hums.
arguments with toji may get nasty, and he may say rude things, but in the end, there's nothing the two of you aren't willing to work on in order to get stronger. you're just competitive like that.
ryomen sukuna:
surprisingly enough, arguments between you and ryomen don't happen all that often.
the two of you bicker frequently, going back and forth about little things, often because you are having little disputes about your contrasting understandings of either of your habits or traditions. the king of curses is often poking questions or fun at the undeniably human things that you do, like thinking you'll help contribute to chores when sukuna will literally curse an entire population before he allows you to do such things, or expecting him to subconsciously understand and empathize with your emotions or reactions that he literally does not comprehend or care to comprehend.
but those are normal, every day occurences. harmless (hopefully), yet lengthy conversations about things either of you are learning about the other. neither of you really take things like that seriously.
and though sukuna has the ability to make you angry quite frequently, you don't really seek out arguments with him, because it isn't often the kind of angry that makes you blind with rage, but the kind in which your love for his unique insanity pesters you the most. if you're feeling such a way, you'll give him a little eye roll and let it be known, and the salmon haired curse handles it by either teasing you, fucking you, or demanding you to tell him what is pestering you.
at the end of the day, those moments are never enough for you to dare to argue with the king of curses. unfortunately, you know that you would lose. and you can envision a couple of ways how.
your boyfriend isn't the type you typically want to enrage. you're not scared of him by any means, but you know him incredibly well. sukuna doesn't argue with you because there is not any reason to. you both have mouths, you both can speak. conflict does not always have to end in some loud match that would only infuriate him more.
sukuna is the type that tolerates absolutely no nonsense from anyone. while you are the woman he has grown to love, and the woman he intends to have by his side until the rest of time, he tolerates your attitude enough because he knows that you aren't going to cause a big commoton when it all comes down to it. arguing, in sukuna's a opinion, is fruitless. and childish.
he has the power. he controls how things go, and to think that he would allow such things to transpire between you on an ordinary basis is laughable.
sukuna is big on words. he's big on unapologetic bluntness. he's big on solving things within a matter of minutes or seconds when issues do arrive. he is not the type to enjoy wasting time on running around in circles with you in conversation.
and though you are in love with a brute, a beast, a monster, life with sukuna otherwise is rather calm. he takes care of you. he elevates your way of living like it's your birthright, and you can't say that you have many complaints when you exist in such luxury under his terrific care - terrific as in the very thought of how vigilantly he cares for you is terrifying.
you're not a pushover. the two of you talk and talk like two adults about things all the time. you never hide how you feel. you call him out when he says offensive things. he lets you click your tongue and scoff when you don't agree with him. but it's fine. it's whatever. you rarely ever get angry enough to pick a fight with him.
but... when you do...
it really does not end well.
because why argue? with fucking sukuna of all people?
the being who snaps his fingers to split someone's body open without a single second of hesitation? the being whose eye twitches when he even so much as thinks someone is looking at you the wrong way in public? the being who marks his possession over you in the visible, open spaces of your skin so that everyone who glances as you knows that you are undeniably, aggressively, proudly taken? the being who has no time, whatsoever, for any semblance of absurdity?
really, you don't know what you think is going to happen.
when sukuna does pinch a nerve, when his words have come across a bit too carelessly or his countenance has left you feeling displaced, you don't hold back. you don't try to hide it or overcome it. you just start mouthing off. snapping. throwing out something bitchy that only sukuna could handle, and the room all but completely stills.
and you don't care. you really don't as something that sukuna says lowly gets you going even more, because why would you start caring now, of all times? sukuna's given you enough freedom and comfort for you to feel safe doing such a thing, when the servants who have frozen solid in their places upon overhearing you wonder how you aren't dead yet, how much sukuna truly loves you let you speak to him in such a way.
when that happens, your arguments usually start with ryomen eying you with a deadly gaze as he responds to you with low, gravelly warnings, and grimaces like he does not even know who he is looking at. you're so aggravating when you get angry with him like this, and that patience of his that has built such remarkable immunity over the years of being with you is wearing thinner, and thinner, and you don't even realize how fucked you are as the string frays alarmingly fast.
and then, before you know it, it snaps. he's stooping to your level, saying the most heinous things with a smoothness that chips away at you, that reminds you just how easy it is for sukuna to be callous.
you could never win an argument with sukuna, because if you aim to hit him low, he aims to drop to the very depths of hell to strike you lower. the curse does not have anything to lose. he does not have to protect you from the consequences of your own actions. he does not have to coddle you and feed you delusions to only make you think that this is okay and you should do it more often.
no, he reciprocates your energy with a chilling vengeance, making sure that this ends with you regretting even daring to speak out of turn to him in the first place.
and you always do. for whenever sukuna looks you dead in the eye, and with a straight face speaks so clearly and insultingly, with such heartless vulgarity, like it isn't even hard for him to do so despite claiming to care for you, tears spring to your eyes automatically. like a trigger has been pulled. your eyes cloud with blurring with water that spills like a broken faucet.
sukuna's crimson eyes glance at the tears like they don't mean a thing to him, and yet, he looked the moment he noticed. and he struggles to look away, bringing his eyes back up to yours after a solid few seconds of staring.
he acts unmoved. untouched by the sight. he acts like your tears are a pestilence, like they're a pity to be seen. he utilizes them as proof that you shouldn't have gone and started a fight that you could never finish.
he acts like he doesn't care how the pearls stain your face as they trickle down past your chin. he doesn't care how your glossy eyes look up at him with the stubborness you cling to, past the heartbreak in your trembling gaze. he tries to look past it. he tries not to see it. he tries to hold onto that mask of cruelness that had worked so effectively. tries not to let such power fold under the pressure of your broken gaze and trembling lips, as you try to hold it all back without success.
he really tries. but no matter his roots, sukuna can not help the way his heart shakes for you when he sees that he has made you cry once again. he can't stand when you cry. he hates the way it makes him feel, how weak it renders him on your behalf.
hell, he wouldn't have had to get to this point if you hadn't started the fight. it's your fault. he chooses to blame you in order to dull the blow of his responsibility, but it is no use when you walk away silently, locking yourself away inside of the library, claiming the territory as your own.
you've always loved that room. he did not realize how much you would when he had it built for you. he supposes it is some sort of comfort to you now, which is why you retreat there instead of your bedroom. you're claiming a space, one that you remind belongs to you as much as it belongs to him.
i have a right to be here. don't treat me like i don't.
he can practically hear your words in the way the door closes with a tightness behind you, clicking with the adamance of the lock.
what is important, for you and sukuna, however, is not always the argument itself, as those are always destined to plummet into the wrong direaction. what is important, for you especially, is how you reconcile. how you return from such a place of hostility. how to trust sukuna once more as your partner and not some tyrant who rules over your behavior with a tight collar.
and sukuna is infamously terrible with words. he loves you with his presence, his protection, his actions, but he does not often speak of his affections. it's just not something the king of curses is quite equipped to do.
nevertheless, you put him to work. you force him into spaces that he hates being in, that he never thought he would be in before, and you re-establish your control as the woman who is able to reduce him to such humility.
standing before the library doors, ryomen knows better than to speak to you brashly, though every bone in his body is screaming at him to do so out of instinct, out of discomfort. why the hell did you have to go and cry on him? now he has to go and fix things because his chest won't stop tightening at the memory of those tears on your face, and he doesn't know how without the possibility of making things worse.
sukuna always makes these kinds of things worse.
it's why he prefers teasing. it's why he prefers fucking. ryomen is not an emotional being. he knows he loves you, and that's it. that's all you get from him. that security and the physical care and promise that comes with it. not apologies. not big, tear jerking confessions of love. not verbal reassurance - not when he's at fault.
so instead of speaking, he merely turns and presses his broad back to the door, slumping down the surface into a cross-legged position. his head knocks back against it as he glares ahead into nothing. just waiting. just there.
you heard him move against it a while ago, startled by the noise. you let hours pass, and you still do not here any motion. having long cried your eyes out, you slowly step toward the door with a gentle hand to the surface, pressing your ear flat against it to listen.
"must you insist upon making me wait any longer?"
the rumble of his voice startles you, and you jump away. your skin warms when you realize you've been caught.
you decide not to speak, remaining silent as you cross your arms. you hear him exhale loudly. "very well. brat," you hear him grumble the name, and you glare into his head past the door. "fix your face."
you shiver, face dropping as you question how in the hell he knew you were looking at him like that.
you huff, shuffling back toward the door to sit down against it, bringing your knees to your chest as you now want to see just how long sukuna is willing to wait in silence for you.
another hour passes, then some thirty minutes, and you turn your head. curious. lonely. sad.
"ryomen?" you call his name. you only use his name like that when you're serious, instead of calling him ryo or kuna.
you aren't sure if he's still there, and you are quick to decide that he is not, when his voice speaks up.
"what?"
you blink, truly shocked. "you haven't moved." your words come out as something between an observation and a question. you aren't sure which.
"nor have you."
"yeah, but... i didn't... tell you to wait for me."
"do not speak to me like i am a fool. i am well aware. i do as i please."
his words are calm, but a bit snippy, and you angle your brows on instinct. "then why are you still here?"
there's a beat. "did you not hear when i said that i do as i please?"
you suck your teeth, turning your head forward with your head knocked back. "alright, ryomen."
"you have not cooled down, i see."
"i did cool down, but the sound of your mouth pissed me off all over again."
"that is why i have been silent, woman. you called my name."
"i-" you pause before deflating. "yeah. i did," you admit aloud.
another moment of silence passes before sukuna speaks again. "was that all you had to say?"
"i don't know. i guess."
"will you be coming out soon?"
you exhale, thinking back to the way sukuna's words hit you. "i don't know," you answer honestly.
"...are you hungry?"
your stomach grumbles. "...i don't know."
"good lord. what do you know?" you can hear sukuna's tongue click, and you frown.
"i know that you're mean as fuck."
he hesitates. "perhaps," is all he says.
"perhaps?" you echo, turning your head to the door. "you are. not perhaps."
"alright," you imagine he's gritting his teeth and looking to the sky as if this is the very worst kind of torture for him. "i will resume silence until you are no longer angry."
"no you won't, ryomen, you made me feel like shit. why do you say the shit you say? do you realize how hurtful you can be? do you even care?"
"if i did not care, then i would not be sitting here after you dared to think that raising your voice at me was something i would tolerate."
"i didn't raise my voice at you-
"do not lie to me-"
"-i was just trying to-"
"-i know what you were doing."
you growl, turning your head forward with tightly crossed arms and outstretched legs after having talked over each other. "i don't care if you didn't like the way i was talking to you. there's better ways to handle things."
"you must not know how stubborn you are, woman."
"not more stubborn than you."
"impossible."
"whatever."
he groans. "why do you not listen unless i hurt you?"
you scrunch your face. "i'm not a pet, ryomen."
"i do not think of you as a pet."
"then why are you trying to train me into obedience?" you ask. "i get it. we don't argue, but i was pissed off and i wanted to argue. and your way of dealing with that was to break me down. like always."
"i do not always do such things. only when you get like that."
"still, i don't care how rare it is. i don't like it. you hurt me. and you don't even-"
"i do care," he interjects. "stop spreading lies."
"when you get like that, it really doesn't seem like it," you sigh, looking down at your hands in your lap. "like, at all. you say that stuff so easily. how can you talk like that to someone you love?"
sukuna no longer knows what to say. he never does when you ask him things like this. what is it he's supposed to say? how do you want him to react? what if his answers don't help?
of course he loves you. he wouldn't be with you if he didn't. he wouldn't put up with this. he wouldn't feel this way.
but he can't just come out and say it. how can he?
"you take my words much too harshly," he frowns.
"your words are harsh."
"what is it you wish of me?" he questions. "what will make this go away?"
"this won't just go away. you can't just make this disappear like you do with everything else. i'm going to be upset for a while."
"for what?"
"you really have to ask me that?" you shake your head. he doesn't say anything. "you fucked up. deal with it."
"(y/n)," he calls your name with a heavy sigh. "when will you be leaving the library?"
"i don't know if i will," you say. "i think... i may sleep in here tonight."
you look over the array of lounge chairs and sofas in the large room, deciding you'll be just fine dozing surrounded by stories you love. surrounded by something kind that sukuna did for you, reminding you that he's only like this during his very worst moments.
you expect more push back from your boyfriend, but he gives none. instead, you hear him shuffle as he stands, the door creaking behind you with the release of his weight.
"are you hungry?" he asks you again.
this time, you don't lie. "a little."
"i will have uraume bring your meals here until further notice."
"...okay."
you hear him begin to walk away, then pause. silence. "i will try not to speak to you in such a way, as long as you communicate instead of picking fights with me," he declares. "is that a deal?"
it is, but you don't want him to think so just yet. "maybe."
"tch," he clicks. "i shall... leave you be. come find me when you are ready to do so." another beat. "i apologize," he grits.
you almost laugh at how strained it is. "i'll see you tomorrow, ryomen."
he grumbles, and then he's gone. respecting your boundaries, something he's struggled through learning over the years and has finally begun to master.
and when the time comes for you to make up, when you've laid awake all night thinking about how complex sukuna is, how complex his values and his love for you are, you creep up the stairs and into his chambers early that morning.
he turns to look at you from where he sits propped up under silk sheets, curtains blowing around the creaked balcony door, morning sun pouring in through streams of gold. his chest is bare and the sheets hang low over his naked hips. he looks at you calmly, like he almost had not expected you to come so soon.
you blink at him, closing the door behind you gently. "i'm sorry for yelling at you," you apologize steadily. "it wasn't right. but neither was what you did."
the salmon haired curse only watches you with hypnotic ruby eyes, kissed by crisp dawn. he stretches an arm out, wordlessly beckoning you to him. you crawl over cool sheets, and sit with your knees folded under you as ryomen's arm snakes around your waist, holding your lower back.
"took all night for you to squeeze that out, hm?" his sleep laced voice teases lowly, and you push pitifully at his shoulder. his skin is warm.
"it's called taking space."
"i am aware. that is why i gave it to you."
your lips quirk up. "did you mean it? about not talking like that again if i don't start arguments?"
he looks up at you lazily, quirking a brow. "yes, or else i would not have said it."
"you think you can keep that promise?"
"as long as you do."
you press your lips together. "okay. deal."
you stretch your hand out as if to shake his. he looks down at it, back up at you, before securing your wrist in his grasp and yanking you over top of him. you yelp, landing over his large, rigid frame ungracefully.
fingers clasp around your face and tilt your head up. soft lips meet yours, a gentle contrast to the way he ordinarily kisses you, and you blink fuzziness away when he pulls back. "do not doubt that i care for you. doing so is doubting me, and i do not-"
"you don't tolerate it," you finish, leaning back down to peck his lips. he glares, but his eyes do not carry the same sharpness as they did yesterday. instead, they are warm. tender. "i know. i know."
Gerard Way witnesses 9/11 and as a consequence, starts My Chemical Romance
Stephanie Meyer sees My Chemical Romance and becomes inspired to write Twilight
Somewhere in Rio de Janeiro, a man by the name of Felipe Neto is so outraged by the Twilight movies that he makes a hate video about them that goes so viral he becomes one of Brazil's biggest YouTubers
His brother Luccas Neto rides off his fame and becomes a children's YouTuber
Across the Atlantic, Portuguese children become obsessed with his videos. Like the lusophone Jake Paul
Portuguese children watch his videos so fucking much that they begin talking like they're from Rio
Portuguese parents are horrified by the Brazilian Portuguese but can't make it stop
Brazilian Portuguese slowly eats alive the European Portuguese dialect
titsay
kianamaiart
areudirty
discoholicmusic
izzy806
tangentwithtanner
turnnoffyourmind
vaporwave
