summary: What begins as a hospital-wide power outage leaves you trapped in a supply closet with your emotionally unavailable attending. But when the lights come back on, what lingers between you can’t be shut off so easily.
genre/notes: forced proximity, slow burn, panic attack + trauma comfort, domestic fluff, my fave kind of intimacy, mutual pining, humor/crack, soft!Jack that can't flirt for shit, idiots in love but neither of them will admit it, you discover you have a praise kink in the most inconvenient of ways, jack abbot on his knees—literally
warnings: references to trauma, depiction of a panic attack, mentions of grief and burnout, implied but not explicit smut
word count: ~ 7.2k
a/n: down bad for whipped Jack Abbot. p.s., thank you to everyone who reblogs/replies/takes the time to read my brain vomit, i appreciate you more than you know ㅠㅠ <3
You had just turned to ask Jack if he could grab another tray of 32 French chest tubes when the lights cut out.
One second, the supply closet was bathed in its usual flickering overhead light—and the next, everything dropped into darkness. Sharp. Sudden.
You froze, one hand on the bin. Jack swore behind you.
"Shit," he muttered, somewhere just inside the door. The backup emergency lights flickered red from the hallway, but barely touched the cramped space around you.
Then the intercom crackled overhead: Code Yellow. Facility-wide outage. All staff remain on current floors. Secure all medications and patients.
The door clicked shut behind him.
Automatic lock.
You turned just as Jack tried the handle. It didn’t budge.
He sighed. "Well. That’s one way to guarantee a five-minute break."
You looked at him sharply, but he was already scanning the room, looking for anything useful, keeping his voice light.
"Guess we’re stuck for a bit," he added.
You didn’t respond. You couldn’t. The air felt too tight in your lungs, too warm all of a sudden.
Because now, the supply closet didn’t just feel small.
It felt like it was closing in.
It had been a normal day.
Or as normal as anything ever was around here—high-pressure shifts balanced by the strange rhythm you and Jack had settled into over the past few years. You worked together well—efficient, quick to anticipate each other's needs, almost telepathic during traumas. Partners in crime, someone had once joked. Probably Robby.
You’d learned how to read his silences—the kind that weren’t dismissive but deliberate, like he was giving you space without needing to say it aloud. He’d learned how to decode your muttered curses and side glances, how to step in behind you without crowding, how to let his shoulder bump yours during charting when words failed you both.
There was a kind of ease between you, a rhythm that didn’t require explanation. He’d hand you tools before you asked for them. You’d finish his sentences when he gave consults. Even in chaos, your partnership felt oddly... quiet. Intimate, in a way that crept in slowly, like warmth from a mug clasped between two hands after a long shift.
When you were paired on trauma, nurses and med students stopped asking who was lead. They knew you moved as one.
People had started to notice—how the two of you always seemed to stay overtime on the same days, how Jack would make dry, cutting jokes around others but soften them just enough when talking to you. Robby, in particular, teased him about it relentlessly.
"Jack, blink twice if this is you flirting," he’d once called across the ER after Jack mumbled, "Great work Dr. L/N," while watching you tie off a flawless stitch or nailing a differential.
Jack huffed. "It’s efficient. She's efficient."
"God, you’re hopeless," Robby laughed.
"She’s my best resident," Jack shot back, like it explained everything. Like it wasn’t a deflection.
You snorted into your coffee. "You say that like it’s not the fifth time this week."
Jack, without missing a beat: "That’s because it’s true. I value consistency."
He was awful at flirting—stiff and dry and chronically understated—but you’d grown to read the fondness buried in the flat delivery.
Like the morning he handed you your favorite protein bar without a word and then said, as you blinked at him, "Don’t faint. You’ll ruin my numbers."
Or the time he stood outside your call room after a brutal night shift, coffee in hand, and muttered, "You deserve a nap, but I guess you’ll have to settle for caffeine and my sparkling company."
He always made sure to loop you in on the interesting cases—"Figure it’s good for your development," he’d say. But then linger just a little too long after rounds, just to hear your thoughts.
And when you were quiet too long, when something in you withdrew, he never asked outright. Just gave you space—and a clipboard he’d pre-filled, or a shift swap you hadn’t requested, or the gentlest, "You good?" when you passed each other by the scrub sinks.
And now, here you were. Trapped in a closet with the man who rarely made jokes—and never blushed—except when you were around.
Now, you were stuck. Together.
The air felt thin but simultaneously stuffed to the brim.
Jack turned on his penlight, sweeping the beam across the room. "We’re fine," he said, calm and certain. "Generator will kick in soon."
You nodded. Tried to match his steadiness. Failed.
The closet was small. Smaller than it had ever felt before.
The walls crept in.
You didn’t notice the way your hands started to shake until he said your name.
Your vision tunneled. The room blurred at the edges, corners shrinking in like someone was folding the walls inward. The air felt heavy, every breath catching at the top of your throat before it could sink deep enough to matter. It felt like someone had filled your veins with liquid lead, your entire body suddenly weighing too much to hold upright. You staggered back a step, hand scrambling blindly for something to anchor you—shelf, handle, Jack. Your heart was pounding—loud, ragged, out of sync with time itself.
You tried to swallow. Couldn’t.
Sweat prickled your scalp. Your fingers tingled, every nerve on fire. Your knees gave out beneath you, and you crumbled to the floor—head buried between your knees, hands clasped behind your neck, trying to fold yourself into a singularity. Anything to disappear. Anything to slip away from this moment and the way it pressed in on all sides. There was no exit. No sound but your own spiraling thoughts and the slow, careful way Jack said your name again.
You blinked. Your eyes wouldn’t focus.
"Hey," Jack coaxed, his voice cutting through the static—low and steady, somehow still distant. His full attention was on you now, gaze locked in, unmoving. "Breathe."
You couldn’t.
It hit like a wave—sharp and silent, rising in your chest like pressure, no space, no air, no exit.
Jack’s hands found your shoulders. "I’ve got you. You’re okay. Stay with me, yeah?"
He crouched in front of you, grounding you with steady pressure and careful, deliberate calm. His hands—firm, callused, the kind that had seen years of split-second decisions and endless sutures—gripped your upper arms with a touch that was impossibly gentle. Like he could mold you back into yourself with his palms alone. His thumbs brushed lightly, not demanding, just present. Just there.
"Can you breathe with me?" he asked. "In for four. Okay? One, two, three…"
You tried. You really did.
Your chest still felt locked, ribs tight around panic like a vice, but his voice—low and even—threaded through the chaos.
"Out for four," he murmured, exhaling slowly, deliberately, like the sound alone could show your body how to follow. "Good. Just like that."
The faint light dimmed between you, casting his face in half-shadow. He was close now—close enough for you to catch the scent of antiseptic and something warm underneath, something that reminded you of winter nights and clean laundry.
"You’re here," he said again, softer this time. "You’re safe. Nothing’s coming. You’ve got space."
You reached out blindly, fingers finding the edge of his sleeve and clutching it like a lifeline.
"Good girl," Jack said softly, instinctively, like it slipped out without permission.
Your brain short-circuited. Of all things, in all moments—that was what hooked your attention. You let out a strangled little laugh, shaky and almost hysterical. "Fucking hell," you murmured, pressing your face into your arm. "Why is that what got me breathing again?"
Jack blinked, startled for a second—then let out the smallest huff of relief, like he was holding back a smirk. "Hey, if it works, I’ll say it again," he said, a thread of warmth sneaking into his voice.
You groaned, half-burying your face in your elbow. "Please don’t."
He was still crouched in front of you, his tone gentler now, teasing on purpose, like he was giving you something else to hold onto. "Admit it—you just wanted to hear me say something nice for once."
"Jack," you warned, half-laughing, half-crying.
"You’re doing great," he said quietly, real again. "You’re okay. I’ve got you."
And eventually—one shaky inhale at a time—your lungs obeyed.
When the power came back on, you stood side-by-side in the wash of fluorescent light, blinking against it.
You were still trembling faintly, your breaths shallow but more even now. Jack didn’t step away. Not right away.
"Feeling better?" he asked, voice low, steady.
You nodded, not trusting your voice.
Jack stood slowly, offering a hand. You took it, letting him pull you up. His grip lingered just a second longer than necessary.
Then he tried, awkwardly, to lighten the mood. "If calling you a good girl was really all it took, then I’ve been severely underutilizing my motivational toolkit."
You let out a startled laugh, breath catching mid-sound. "Jesus, don’t start."
He gave you a crooked smile—relieved, even if the corners of it were still tight with concern. "Whatever works, right? Next time I’ll try it with more enthusiasm."
"Next time?" Your eyes widened like saucers—absolutely flabbergasted, half-tempted to dissolve into laughter or hit him with the nearest supply tray.
He shrugged, another smug grin threatening to cross his lips. "Just saying. If you’re going to unravel in a closet, might as well do it with someone who knows where to find the defibrillator."
You rolled your eyes but didn’t let go of his hand until the light flickered again.
Only then did you both step apart.
You didn’t say much.
He didn’t ask you to.
You’d made it as far as the locker room before the adrenaline crash hit. You rinsed your face, changed into sweats, and shoved your scrubs into your bag with trembling fingers. Jack had walked you out of the department without a word, just a hand hovering near your lower back.
"Thanks," you said quietly, as you scanned out. "For earlier."
Jack shook his head, like it was nothing. "You don’t need to thank me."
"Still," you said. "Just… please don’t mention it to anyone?"
He looked over at you, mouth twitching at the corner. "Mention what?"
That made you laugh—brief, breathless. "Right."
You parted ways near the waiting room, sharing your usual post-shift goodbyes.
Or so you thought.
Jack had been about to leave when he saw you—doubling back through the double doors, slipping through the staff-only entrance and back into the ER.
His brow furrowed.
He hesitated, then turned to follow.
The corridor was quiet. Most of the day shift hadn’t arrived yet, and the call room hallway echoed faintly under his footsteps. He paused outside the on-call room and knocked once, gently. When there was no response, he eased the door open.
The room was cramped and windowless, just enough space for a narrow bunk bed and a scuffed metal chair in the corner. The mattress dipped in the middle, the kind of sag that never quite let you forget your own weight. The attached bathroom offered a stall that barely passed for a shower—low pressure, eternally lukewarm, and loud enough to make you question whether it was working or crying for help. It felt more like a last resort than a place to rest.
Your bag was on the bed. Half-unpacked. Toothbrush laid out. Socks tucked into the corner. Like you were staying in a hotel. Like you’d been staying here.
He was still standing there when the bathroom door cracked open and you stepped out—hair damp, towel knotted tightly around your torso.
You both froze.
Your eyes widened. Jack’s went comically wide before he spun around on instinct, shielding his eyes like it was second nature. "Shit—sorry, I didn’t—"
"What are you doing here?" you asked at the exact same time he blurted, "What are you doing here?"
The silence that followed was deafening.
Jack cleared his throat, ears bright red. "I… saw you come back in. Just wanted to check."
You were still standing in place like a deer in headlights, towel clutched in a death grip.
Jack rubbed the back of his neck, eyes very pointedly still on the wall, as if the peeling paint had suddenly become the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen.
Fingers clenched around the edge of the towel, embarrassment prickled across your chest like static. "One second," you murmured, disappearing back into the bathroom before either of you could say anything more.
A minute later, the door creaked open and you stepped out again—now wrapped in an oversized hoodie and soft, baggy sweatpants that made you look small, almost swallowed whole by comfort. Jack’s brain did something deeply inconvenient at the sight.
You lingered in the doorway, sleeves tugged down over your hands, damp hair framing your face. "You can look now," you said, voice softer this time.
Jack didn’t move at first. He shifted his weight, cleared his throat in a way that sounded more like a stall tactic than anything physiological. Only after a beat did he finally turn, cautiously, eyes flicking up to meet yours.
He caught himself staring. Made a mental note not to think about it later. Failed almost immediately.
A breath left your lungs, quieter than the room deserved. You crossed to the bunk and sat down on the edge, fingers fidgeting with the seam of your sweatpants. "You can sit, if you want," you said, barely above a whisper.
The mattress shifted a second later as Jack lowered himself beside you, careful, slow—like he wasn’t sure how close he was allowed to get. His knee brushed yours. He didn’t move it. You didn't pull away.
Your eyes fluttered shut, a long exhale dragging out of you like it had been caught behind your ribs all night. "I’ve been staying here," you said finally. "Not every night. Just... enough of them."
You looked over at him, then down at your hands. "It’s not about work. I just... I didn’t want to go back to an empty place and hear it echo. Didn’t want to hear myself think. Breathe. This place—at least there’s always noise. Even if it’s bad, it’s something."
That made him pause.
"I don’t want to be alone..." you added, quieter.
Jack was quiet for a moment, then nodded once, slow. "Why didn’t you tell me?" he asked, voice quieter than before. "You know I’m always here for you."
You looked down at your lap. "I didn’t want to be a burden."
Your fingers twitched, and before you realized it, you’d started picking at a loose thread along your cuff. Jack’s hands came up gently, catching yours before you could do more than graze your skin. He held them between his palms—warm, steady. Soothing.
His thumbs brushed over your knuckles. "You never have to earn being cared about," he said softly. "Not with me."
A few moments passed in silence. He still hadn’t let go of your hand.
Then, quietly, Jack reached into his pocket.
And handed you a key.
"I have a spare room," he said, voice low. "No expectations. No questions. Just… if you need it."
You stared at the key. Then at him.
He still didn’t look away, even as his voice gentled. "Don’t sleep here. Not if it hurts."
You took the key.
Not right away—but you did. Slipped it into the front pocket of your hoodie like it might vanish otherwise, like the metal might burn a hole through the fabric if you held it too long.
Jack didn’t press. Didn’t ask for promises.
He stood to leave and paused in the doorway.
"I’ll leave the light on," he said. "Just in case."
You didn’t answer right away. Just nodded, barely, and stared at the key in your lap long after the door shut behind him.
The call room was quiet after he left.
Too quiet.
You stared at the key until your fingers itched, then tucked it beneath your pillow like it needed protecting—from you, from the space, from the hollow echo of loneliness that filled the room once Jack was gone.
You didn’t sleep that night. Not really.
And two days later—after another long shift, after you’d showered in the same miserable excuse for plumbing, after you’d sat cross-legged on the cot trying to convince yourself to just go home—you took the key out of your pocket.
You didn’t text him.
You just went.
The last time you'd been to his place was different. Less quiet. More raw.
It was the night after a shift that left the entire ER shell-shocked. You'd both ended up at Jack’s apartment with takeout containers and too much to drink. You’d lost a kid—ten years old, blunt trauma, thirty-eight minutes of resuscitation, and it still wasn’t enough. Jack had lost a veteran. OD. The kind of case that stuck to his ribs.
He’d handed you a beer without a word. The two of you had sat on opposite ends of his couch, silence stretching between you like a third presence until you broke it with a hoarse, "I keep hearing his mother scream."
Jack didn’t look away. "I keep thinking I should’ve caught it sooner."
The conversation didn’t get lighter. But it got easier.
At some point, you’d both ended up sitting on the floor, backs against the couch, knees bent and shoulders almost brushing.
He told you about Iraq. About the first time he held pressure on someone’s chest and knew it wouldn’t matter.
You told him about your first code as an intern and the way it rewired something you’ve never quite gotten back.
He didn’t touch you. Didn’t need to. Just passed you another drink and said, "I’m glad you were there today."
And for a while, it was enough—being there, even if neither of you knew how to say why.
You’d gotten absolutely wasted that night. The kind of drunk that swung from giggles to tears and back again. Somewhere between your third drink and fourth emotional whiplash, you started dancing around his living room barefoot, music crackling from his ancient Bluetooth speaker. Tears for Fears was playing—Everybody Wants to Rule the World—and you twirled with your arms raised like the only way to survive grief was to outpace it.
Jack watched from the floor, amused. Smiling to himself. Maybe a little enamored.
You beckoned him up with exaggerated jazz hands. "C’mon, dance with me."
He shook his head, raising both palms. "No one needs to see that."
You marched over, grabbed his hands, and tugged hard enough to get him upright. He stumbled, laughing under his breath, and let you spin him like a carousel horse. It wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t even really dancing. But it was you—vivid and loud and alive—and something in him ached with the sight of it.
He didn’t say anything that night.
But the way he looked at you said enough.
You were still holding his hands from the dance, your breathing slowing, your laughter softening into something tender. The overhead light had gone dim, the playlist shifting into quieter melodies, but you didn’t let go. Your fingers stayed laced behind his neck, your forehead nearly resting against his chest.
Jack’s palms found your waist—not possessive, just steady. Grounding. His thumbs pressed gently against your sides, and for a moment, you swayed in place like the world wasn’t full of ghosts. You were sobering up, but not rushing. Not running.
You hadn’t meant for the dance to turn into this. But he didn’t step away.
Didn’t look away either.
Just held you, as if the act itself might keep you both tethered to something real.
You woke the next morning to the sound of soft clinking—metal against ceramic, a pan being set down gently on the stovetop.
The smell of coffee drifted in first. Then eggs. Something buttery. Your head pounded—dull, insistent—but your body felt warm under the blanket someone had pulled up around your shoulders during the night.
Padding quietly down the hall, you peeked into the kitchen.
Jack stood at the stove, hair ever so slightly tousled from sleep, wearing the same faded t-shirt and a pair of plaid pajama pants that made your chest ache with something you couldn’t name. He hadn’t seen you yet—was humming under his breath, absently stirring a pan with practiced rhythm.
You leaned against the doorframe.
"Are you seriously making breakfast?"
He turned, eyes crinkling. "You say that like it’s not a medically necessary intervention."
You snorted, stepping in. "You’re using a cast iron. I didn’t even know you owned one."
"Don’t tell Robby. He thinks I survive on rage and vending machine coffee."
You slid onto one of the stools, blinking blearily against the light. Jack set a mug in front of you without being asked—just the way you liked it. Just like always.
"You were a menace last night," he said lightly, pouring eggs into the pan.
You groaned, cupping your hands around the mug. "Oh god. Please don’t recap."
He grinned. "No promises. But the dance moves were impressive. You almost took me out during that one twirl."
"That’s because you wouldn’t dance with me!"
"I was trying to protect my knees."
You laughed, head tipping back slightly. Jack just watched you, eyes soft, like the sound of it made something settle inside him.
And for a moment, the silence that settled between you wasn’t hollow at all.
It was full.
If only tonight's circumstances were different.
Jack opened the door in sweatpants and a black v-neck that looked older than his medical degree. He blinked when he saw you—then smiled, just a little. Not wide. Not obvious. But real. The kind of expression that said he hadn’t realized how much he’d wanted to see you until you were there.
He said nothing.
After a slow smile: "Didn’t expect to see you again so soon," he said lightly, trying to break the ice. "Unless you’re here to critique my towel-folding technique."
Lifting your hand slowly, the key warm against your skin, you tilted your head with a deadpan expression. "Wouldn’t dream of it," you said, tone dry—almost too dry—but not quite hiding the twitch of a smile. Jack’s mouth quirked at the corner.
Then you held the key out fully, and he stepped aside without a word.
"Spare room’s on the left," he said. “Bathroom’s across from it. The towels are clean. I think."
You smiled, a little helplessly. "Thanks."
Jack’s voice was soft behind you. "That was a joke, by the way. The towel thing."
You turned slightly. "What?"
He shrugged, almost sheepish. "Trying to lighten the mood," he said, rubbing the back of his neck and looking anywhere but at you. "Make it... easier. Or, y'know. Less weird. That was the goal."
The admission caught you off guard. Jack Abbot had a tendency to ramble when he was nervous, and this was definitely that.
You didn’t say anything right away, but your smile—this time—was a little steadier. A little sweeter.
"Careful, Jack," you murmured, feigning seriousness. "If you keep being charming, I might start expecting it."
He looked like he wanted to say something else. His mouth opened, then closed again as he rubbed the back of his neck, clearly debating whether to double down or play it cool.
"Guess I’ll go work on my stand-up material," he mumbled, half under his breath.
You bit back a laugh.
He ran a hand through his hair again—classic stall tactic—then finally nodded and disappeared into the kitchen.
The room he offered you was small, clearly unused, but tidy in a way that suggested recent care. A folded towel sat at the foot of the bed. A new toothbrush—still in its packaging—rested on the nightstand. The faint scent of cedar lingered in the air, mixing with the soft clean trace of his detergent. The air had that faint freshness of a recently opened window, and the corners were free of dust. Someone had aired it out. Someone had taken the time to make space—room that hadn’t existed before, cleared just enough to let another person in.
You set your bag down and sat on the edge of the bed, fingers brushing over the blanket. Everything felt soft. Considered. You stared at the corner of the room like it might give you answers.
It didn’t.
But it didn’t feel like a hospital either.
You took your time in the shower, letting the heat soak into your skin until the mirror fogged over and your thoughts slowed just enough to feel manageable. Jack's body wash smelled different on you—deeper, warmer somehow—and the scent clung faintly to your skin as you pulled on the softest clothes you had packed: shorts and an oversized shirt you barely remembered grabbing.
When you stepped out of the guest room, damp hair still clinging to your neck, the smell of garlic and something gently sizzling greeted you first. Jack was in the kitchen, stirring a pot with practiced ease, the kind of domestic ease that tugged at something inside you.
He turned when he heard your footsteps—and froze for a beat too long.
His eyes swept over you and caught on your hair, your shirt, the visible curve of your collarbone, the quietness about you that hadn't been there earlier. He blinked, clearly trying to recover, and failed miserably.
"Hey," you said gently, brushing some damp strands behind your ear. "Need help with anything?"
Jack cleared his throat—once, then again—and turned back to the stove, ears visibly reddening. "I think I’m good," he said. "Unless you want to make sure I don’t burn the rice."
You crossed the room and leaned against the counter next to him, still slightly bashful yourself. The scent of his soap clung to your sleeves, and Jack caught a trace of it on the air. He said nothing—but stirred a little slower. A little more carefully.
"Your apartment’s just as nice as I remembered," you said, soft and genuine, fingers brushing the edge of the countertop.
Jack glanced over at you, a flicker of something warm behind his eyes. "You mean the sterile surfaces and suspiciously outdated spice rack?"
You gave him a knowing smile. "I mean the parts that feel like you."
That stopped him for a second. His stirring slowed to a halt. He looked back down at the pot, a faint smile ghosting over his lips.
"Careful," he murmured, voice low. "If you keep saying things like that, I might start thinking you actually like me."
You nudged his elbow gently. "I might. Don’t let it go to your head."
He smiled to himself, the kind of expression that didn't need to be seen to be felt. And in the soft space between those words, something settled. Easier. Closer.
Dinner was simple—pan-seared salmon, rice, roasted vegetables. Nothing fancy, but everything assembled with care. Jack Abbot, it turned out, could cook.
You said so after the first bite—and let out a soft, involuntary moan. Jack froze mid-chew, raised a brow, and gave you a look.
"Wow," he said dryly, lips twitching. "Should I be offended or flattered?"
You felt heat rise across your cheeks, laughing as you covered your mouth with your napkin. "Don't tell me you're jealous of a piece of salmon?"
He grinned. "I’m a man of many talents," he said dryly, passing you the pepper mill. "Just don’t ask me to bake."
You smiled over your glass of water, a little more relaxed now. "No offense, but I didn’t exactly have ‘culinary savant’ on my Jack Abbot bingo card."
He shot you a look. "What was on the card?"
You hummed, pretending to think. "Chronic insomniac. Secret softie. Closet hoarder of protein bars. Dad joke connoisseur."
Jack snorted, setting down his fork. "You’re lucky the salmon’s good or I’d be deeply offended."
You grinned. "So you admit it."
And he did—not in words, but in the way his gaze lingered a moment too long across the table. In the way he refilled your glass as soon as it dipped below halfway. In the quiet, sheepish curve of his smile when you caught him looking. In the way his laugh lost its usual edge and softened, like maybe—just maybe—he could get used to this.
After dinner, you moved to the sink before Jack could protest. He tried, weakly, something about guests and hospitality, but you waved him off and started rinsing plates.
Jack came up behind you, handing over dishes one by one as you scrubbed and loaded them into the dishwasher to dry. His presence was warm at your back, the occasional graze of his hand or arm sending tiny shivers up your spine. The silence between you was companionable, laced with unspoken things neither of you quite knew how to name.
"You’re seriously not gonna let me help?" he asked, bumping your hip with his.
"This is letting you help," you shot back. "You’re the designated passer."
"Such a glamorous title," he murmured, his voice low near your ear. "Do I get a badge?"
You glanced at him over your shoulder, a smile tugging at your lips. "Only if you survive the suds.
Jack leaned in just as you turned back to the sink, and for a moment, your arms brushed, your shoulders aligned. His gaze lingered on you again—your profile, your damp hair starting to curl at the edges, the stretch of your shirt down your back.
You glanced back at him, close enough now to kiss, breath caught halfway between surprise and anticipation when—
Jack dipped his finger into the soap bubbles and tapped the tip of your nose.
You blinked, stunned. "Did you just—"
Jack held your wide-eyed gaze a beat longer, then said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world, "Nice look, Bubbles."
And the dam broke. You laughed, bright and unguarded, flicking water in his direction.
He dodged each droplet as best he could with a grin, triumphant. "I stand by my methods."
You scooped a pile of bubbles into your hand with deliberate menace.
Jack immediately backed away, holding both palms up like he was under arrest. "No. No no no—"
You grinned, nodding slowly with mock gravity. The chase ensued. He darted around the counter, nearly tripping on the rug as you chased after him, suds in hand and laughter trailing like a siren’s call. He was fast—but you were relentless.
"Truce!" he yelped, dropping to his knees in front of you, hands held high in mock surrender.
You smirked, one brow raised. "Hmm. I don’t know… this feels like a trap."
Jack looked up at you with wide, pleading eyes. "Mercy. Have mercy. I’ll do whatever you want—just don’t soap me."
You hummed, pretending to consider it. "Anything?"
"Within reason. And dignity. Maybe." He started lowering his hands.
You tilted your head, letting the moment draw out. Jack watched you carefully, breath held, the corners of his mouth twitching.
"I mean…" he started. "If praise is your thing, you’re doing a fantastic job intimidating me right now."
Your mouth parted, stunned. "Did you just—"
Jack smirked, sensing an opening. "You excel at it. Really. Top tier menace."
You laughed, nearly doubling over. "Oh my god. You’re the worst." The bubbles had dissipated by now, leaving you with only damp hands.
"And yet, here you are," he said, still kneeling, still grinning.
You shook your head, stray droplets slipping from your hand, your laughter easing into something softer. "Get up, you idiot."
But Jack didn’t—not right away. Still on his knees, he inched closer, crawling forward with slow, deliberate grace. His hands found your thighs, resting there gently, like a prayer. Thumbs stroked the place where skin met fabric, featherlight and reverent.
"I mean it," he said, voice quieter now, almost solemn. "You terrify me."
Your breath caught.
"In the best way," he added, gaze lifting. "You walk into a trauma bay like you own it. You fight like hell for your patients. You get under my skin without even trying."
His hands slid up slowly, still gentle, still hesitant, like waiting for permission. "Sometimes I think the only thing I believe in anymore is you."
Your heart thudded. Your hands, still damp, twitched against your sides.
"You deserve to be worshipped," he murmured, and that was when your knees nearly buckled.
The joke was long forgotten. The laughter faded. All that was left was the way Jack looked at you now—like he wasn’t afraid of the quiet anymore.
His hands had made a slow, reverent climb to your bare skin, thumbs sweeping small, anchoring circles into your skin. You felt the heat of him everywhere, your body taut with anticipation, nerves stretched thin. He didn’t rush. Just looked up at you, drinking in every unsteady breath, every flicker of hesitation in your gaze.
"You’re shaking," he murmured, voice low. If you weren't so dazed, you could've sworn you heard a shadow of amusement. "You want to stop?"
You shook your head—barely—and he nodded like he understood something sacred.
"I want you to feel good," he said softly, leaning in to press the lightest kiss to your thigh, just below the hem of your shirt. "I want to take my time with you. If you’ll let me?"
The question lodged in your chest like a plea. You couldn’t speak, only nodded, and his hands flexed slightly in response.
Jack stood first, rising fluidly, eyes never leaving yours. As he straightened, your hands found his hair, fingers threading through the soft strands at the base of his neck. That was all it took—the smallest pull, the softest touch—and the space between you collapsed.
Not in chaos, not in desperation, but in something careful. Like reverence wrapped in desire. Like he’d been waiting for this, quietly, for longer than he dared admit.
And when his lips met yours, it was a live wire.
Deep. Soft. Unapologetically tender.
But it didn’t stay chaste. Jack’s hands found your hips, drawing you closer, fitting your bodies together like a secret only the two of you knew how to keep. His tongue brushed yours in a slow, exploratory sweep, and you gasped against his mouth, fingers fisting in the back of his shirt.
The kiss turned hungry, molten—slow-burning restraint giving way to a need you both had held too tightly for too long. Jack’s hand slid beneath the hem of your shirt, tracing the curve of your spine, and you arched into him, a quiet gasp slipping free.
"Tell me if you want me to stop," he murmured between kisses, voice thick, reverent.
You pulled back just enough to whisper, "Don’t you dare."
That was all he needed.
And when he kissed you again, it was like promise and prayer and everything you hadn’t let yourself want until now.
His hands moved with aching care—one sliding up your spine to cradle the back of your neck, the other splaying wide at your waist, pulling you flush against him. The heat between you was slow and encompassing, more smolder than spark, until it wasn’t—until it ignited all at once.
Jack walked you backward until your hips bumped the counter, and he pressed into the space you gave him, forehead resting against yours. "You undo me," he whispered, breath trembling against your lips. "Every single time."
You were already breathless, clinging to his shirt, heart pounding in your throat.
His mouth found yours again, deeper this time, hands exploring—confident now, reverent, like he was learning every part of you for the first time and never wanted to forget. You moaned softly into the kiss, and Jack cursed under his breath, low and ragged, like the sound had torn through his composure.
And then there was no more space. No more distance. Just heat, and hunger, and the slow unraveling of restraint as Jack lifted you gently onto the counter, your knees parting for him, his name spilling from your lips like a secret.
You kissed like the world was ending. Like this was your only chance to get it right. He needed to feel you pressed against him to believe it wasn’t just a dream.
The kiss deepened, urgent and breathless, until Jack was devouring every sound you made, like he could live off the way you whimpered into his mouth. He groaned low in his throat when your nails scraped lightly down his back, your body arching into his hands like instinct.
He touched you like a man memorizing, devout and thorough—hands mapping the curve of your waist, mouth dragging heat across your throat. He tasted sweat and shampoo and you, and that alone nearly undid him. You felt the tension coil in his spine, the restraint he was holding like a dam, every movement deliberate.
"God," he rasped, lips at your ear, "you have no idea what you do to me."
And when you gasped again, hips shifting, he exhaled a shaky breath like he was trying not to fall apart just from the sound.
"You smell like my soap," he murmured with a rough chuckle, nosing along your jaw. "But you still taste like you."
You whimpered, and he kissed you again—harder now, letting the hunger break through, swallowing your reaction like a man starved.
He praised you in murmured fragments, over and over, voice low and wrecked.
Beautiful.
Brave.
So fucking good.
Mine.
Each word making your skin feel like it was glowing beneath his hands.
And when he finally took you to bed, it wasn’t rushed or careless—it was everything he hadn’t said before now, every ounce of feeling poured into his mouth on your skin, every whispered breath of worship like he was praying into the hollow of your throat.
Jack kissed you like he needed to memorize the taste of every sound you made, like your skin was the answer to every question he’d never asked out loud. His hands roamed slowly, confidently, with that same quiet focus he wore in trauma bays—except now it was all for you. Every inch of you. His mouth lingered at your collarbone, your ribs, the soft curve of your stomach—pressing his devotion into the places you tried to hide.
You felt undone by how gently he worshipped you, how much he wanted—not just your body, but your breath, your closeness, your everything. He murmured praise against your skin like it was sacred, like you were something holy in his arms.
And when he finally moved over you, hands braced on either side of your head, eyes searching yours like he was asking permission one more time—you nodded.
He exhaled like it hurt to hold back. Then gave you everything.
Every kiss was a promise, every touch a confession. He moved with aching tenderness, like he was trying to memorize the feel of you beneath him, like this wasn’t just sex but something divine. You clung to him, nails digging into his shoulders, breath catching in your throat with every thrust. It wasn’t fast or frantic—it was slow, overwhelming, unbearably close.
He whispered your name like a prayer, forehead pressed to yours, and when you finally came apart beneath him, he followed soon after—undone by the way you sang his name like it was the only thing tethering you to this world.
Later, tangled in blankets and the afterglow, Jack pulled you closer without a word. One hand splayed wide against your back, the other curled around your fingers like he wasn’t ready to let you go—not now, maybe not ever. You buried your face into the crook of his neck, breathing in the warmth of him, the scent of skin and comfort and safety.
"I’m gonna need you to stop making that noise when you taste food," he murmured eventually, voice sleep-thick and amused.
You huffed a laugh into his shoulder. "Or what?"
"I’ll marry you on the spot. No warning. Just a salmon fillet and a ring pop."
Your laughter shook the bed.
Jack smirked, the ghost of a tease already forming. "If I’d known praise got you going, I’d have started ages ago."
You swatted at his chest, heat blooming across your cheeks. "Don’t you dare weaponize this."
He grinned into your hair, voice low and wrecked and entirely too fond. "Too late. I’m gonna ruin you with kindness."
You huffed, hiding your face in his shoulder.
Jack chuckled and pulled you closer.
You were never going to live this down. And maybe, just maybe, you didn’t want to.
Because Jack Abbot being a secret softie had officially made its triumphant return to your bingo card—and if you were being honest, it had probably been the center square since day one.
"You know," you murmured against his chest, lips curving into a grin, "for someone who acts so stoic at work, you sure have a lot of secrets."
Jack stirred slightly, arm tightening around your waist. "Yeah? Like what?"
You propped yourself up on one elbow, counting off on your fingers. "Total softie. Great cook. An absolute sex god."
Jack groaned into your shoulder, bashful. "Jesus."
"I'm just saying," you teased. "If there’s a hidden talent for needlepoint or poetry, now would be the time to confess."
He lifted his head, eyes heavy with sleep and amusement. "I used to write really bad song lyrics in middle school. That count?"
You laughed, light and easy, your fingers tracing idle circles on his chest. "God, I bet they were terrible."
Jack smirked. "You’ll never know."
"I’ll find them," you said with mock determination. "I’ll unearth them. Just wait."
He kissed your forehead, chuckling softly. "I’m terrified."
And he was—just not of you. Only of how much he wanted this to last.
Jack smiled into your hair, pressing a kiss to your temple. "You're incredible, you know that?"
You shook your head, bashful, eyes cast toward the sheets—but Jack didn’t let it slide. His hand curled tighter around yours, his voice still soft but firm. "Hey. I meant that. You are."
When you didn’t answer right away, he leaned in a little closer, his thumb brushing along your wrist. "I need you to hear it. And believe it. You’re—extraordinary."
The earnestness in his voice left you no room to hide. Slowly, your eyes lifted to meet his.
Jack held your gaze like a promise. "Say okay."
"Okay," you whispered, cheeks burning.
He smiled again, slower this time, and kissed your temple once more. "Good girl."
You didn’t answer—just smiled you were on cloud nine and squeezed his hand a little tighter.
Outside, the city was quiet. Inside, you drifted in and out of sleep wrapped in warm limbs and steadier breath, heart finally quiet for the first time in days. Jack’s hand never left yours, his thumb tracing lazy, grounding circles over your knuckles like he needed the reassurance just as much as you did.
Your limbs were tangled with his beneath the softened hush of early morning, the sheets kicked messily down to the foot of the bed. Skin to skin, steady breathing, fingers still loosely clasped where they had found each other in the dark. He shifted just enough to press a kiss to your shoulder, murmured something you didn’t quite catch—but it didn’t matter. The weight of the night had passed. What remained was warmth. Stillness. Something whole.
You fell asleep like that, curled into each other without pretense. Closer than you'd ever planned, safer than you thought possible. And for the first time in what felt like ages, the quiet wasn’t heavy.
fwb!nerdjo has a habit of conveniently "forgetting" his lecture notes or wallet in your dorm room. Always a flimsy pretext to visit you in the late evenings, when you inevitably open the door in your most scandalous set of satin Victoria's Secret pyjamas.
fwb!nerdjo keeps mental tabs on every hobby your ADHD brain impulsively decides to pick up, nonchalantly slipping supplies he found at Michael’s into your bag when you're not looking. You find it endearing, right up until you've abandoned a quarter of those hobbies, and your cramped dorm closet is now a graveyard of never-used-before craft tools.
fwb!nerdjo insists he'd rather play Tomodachi Life solo than queue up for a Valorant match with you, one that would “tank” his rank. Truthfully, he just wants you to see how hard your in-game character has fallen for him. (He's Bronze 3 to begin with, and routinely bottom-frags in Valo)
fwb!nerdjo has such archaic taste in music that he unironically googles Spotify's Top 100 before karaoke night, just to avoid embarrassing himself in front of your "cooler" friends. It doesn't matter – his off-key singing steals the spotlight anyway.
fwb!nerdjo has a talent for making you feel stupid and horny in the same breath. When you study together, he'll attack your mistakes with the brightest highlighter he owns, only to lean in and murmur "my smart, sexy girl" against your ear the second you finally solve the statistics problem.
fwb!nerdjo wears oversized hoodies every single day, swallowing his frame whole, but he always finds a way to remind you he's built like the frat guys, if not better, conveniently stretching in front of you just long enough for you to catch his snowy happy trail and the deep cut of his V line.
fwb!nerdjo loves coding with you curled in his lap, your back against his chest, insisting you work like a weighted blanket that keeps him warm while he debugs. (You can feel his hard on, and he's called the wrong function for the tenth time now, and it's not because the code is hard)
fwb!nerdjo has a strange fascination with your makeup routine, watching you blend foundation with the quiet focus of a cat, studying the product labels like he might use them himself. When you offered, he swore he was only curious. Apparently, he just couldn't figure out how your lipstick survived a full, filthy makeout session still perfectly cherry and glossed.
fwb!nerdjo loves it when you wear his glasses while you ride him. It's absurd, honestly. He's blind without them, and your eyesight isn't much better, but he swears his glasses get him there faster. You've started noticing exactly how often he aims his release at the glasses, too, shamelessly.
fwb!nerdjo hates that you two have never put a label on this. He especially hates when his twin, Fratjo, oversteps and flirts with you in the open. And if he catches you flirting back, he takes it out on you by punishing you to come five times in a row, until you're begging him to stop.
fwb!nerdjo loves when you stumble back to his dorm room, mascara streaked down your cheeks, slurring a drunken confession of love you'll never bring up sober. He cleans up your mess, helps you change, and holds you tight until you fall asleep in his arms, thumb tracing slow circles on your cheek, already certain neither of you will mention it in the morning.
a/n: nerdjo is NOT shy i'm sorry, i don't agree with how some people write him
nerdjo is a pervy freak who just hides it under his 'holier than thou' and 'oh im so awkward and unc' persona
he needs to clean those cum stained glasses properly though eugh (he doesn't - he just wipes it over your freshly laundered clothes so you can always smell him 😼)
Additional Tags: Adrian's birthday, fluff, smut, angst, whump if you squint, Adrian needs a hug, and a good fuck- WHO SAID THAT!?, p in v sex, creampie (wrap it before you tap it guys), feelings <3
A/N: Rising out of my grave to deliver this one lmao. I honestly just lost all desire to write lol, no real excuse, but I'm back for this one, and no promises for the future lowk bc idk if I'll be able to keep ts up. I think everyone is lowk super ooc, but I haven't watched the show in a while so mb ig
Judging by the number of times I write a tech-savvy reader, you would think I like science. That is absolutely not true, I just think it's neat stuff
Anyways, my birthday is tomorrow, which is pretty cool lowk, bc I fucking love Adrian if you couldn't already tell by my acct literally all just Adrian fics lmao. I promise I like other things, I swear. Widow's Bay slaps, actually. Anyways, here's the fic :D
You were Checkmate's new hire, coming onto the team a few months after starting. You believed in their mission and saw the potential in what they were trying to accomplish. So you packed your bags and headed to a small Washington town. Very little was communicated about the work, just that you would be "valued for your tech development skills." Whatever that meant…
Your first day was pretty slow, all things considered. A lot of paperwork from a mission finished a few days ago. That left you a bit of time to acclimatize yourself to the interesting characters surrounding you as you set up your desk. Across from you sat a guy named Adrian Chase. He craned his neck to see over the barrier between you guys. You gave him a small smile and a wave, and he smiled back, his green eyes showing nothing but delight.
You had spent a bit of time talking to Economos due to your tech job. He showed you around the place and warned you about some of his coworkers.
"Chris can be kind of a jerk, but Emilia says he's getting better. I think she has to defend him. Probably for her own amusement, to be honest." You nod along as he shows you the lab.
"Adrian Chase can be… weird. He gets all his shit done, but it's his recklessness that gets us in trouble. He's a good shot, though, all things considered. Probably his only redeemable quality." Economos jokes.
"Was that the guy across from me?"
"Mhm." Economos grabs a stray Cheeto bag sitting on the table and throws it away.
"Nobody really uses this room. I'm more of a tech guy, and Adrian's got his own space. Just tell people to clean up, and they might. Nobody's a true asshole here, just lazy." You laugh as you eye up the tools on the tables and the wall. This was going to be a great job.
The work seemed easy enough. Intel work, coding a few things. Free time to let you work on your weapon prototypes if you're lucky. You beamed at the opportunity to test them out in the special facility in the office building that Economos showed you on your first day. You usually have to haul your stuff out into the forest to get a chance to test your stuff out, but no longer.
That's how you got close to Adrian. You were working in the small lab outside of the testing facility, your safety goggles clinging to your face and your hair all messy from frustration at the weakness of the power beam. This was a new weapon for Ads; she wanted to join some of the action up front and personal. This time with a bit more protection. You made a note after hearing about the helmet incident with the "butterfly invasion" that you tried to comprehend after hearing the myriad stories the team told you. This was a difficult weapon design, with shooting mechanics that used energy instead of bullets. Kind of like the—
"Guys from Ghostbusters?" Adrian shocked you out of your focus with how fast his hand came up excitedly to point at your new machine. You jumped.
"Sorry, Adrian. I didn't see you there." You smiled and set the machine down.
"You're fine. Uh— shit. It's all good. I was asking about what you were making because it sounded like the proton packs from Ghostbusters from how Economos described it."
"Maybe. I haven't really seen it."
"You haven't?" Adrian's glasses slipped to the end of his nose as he was dumbfounded by the notion that somebody hadn't seen Ghostbusters!
"Yeah, I was more of a comics kid." You picked up your screwdriver again so you could dismantle some of the machine that started to spark earlier.
"Oh yeah, me too—" Adrian tries and fails to rest his hand on the lab table, toppling over himself and cutting himself on the side of his arm against the table.
"Oh shit, are you ok?!" You run to him. It's a considerable gash. The sharp metal corner of the table was unforgiving.
Adrian hisses, clutching his arm to stop the blood. "Yeah, all good, don't worry. This is not as bad as the pinky toe incident—" he starts to laugh and brush it off, trying not to look like he's in pain, but you're already getting some gauze.
"It looks like it." Sarcasm drips from your voice. You lower yourself to get eye-level with the gash, and Adrian just stares at you, unable to look away from your brow furrowing in concentration and your lip being gently bitten as you keep grabbing towels to clean up the blood.
"I don't know why we even have such a hazard in our office." Adrian jokes.
"It's magnetic for the smaller pieces that could otherwise be knocked over from reckless play in the lab." You eye him from where you are below. He shuts up. Oh no, you hate him. You think he's stupid and incompetent, like everyone else does. There goes first impressions. He can't help the faint blush dusting his cheeks, though, as your firm grip keeps his arm from moving at all. You're still helping him, even if he fucked up big time.
"Just make sure you're careful the next time you come in." You let a small smirk creep up your face as you pat his newly bandaged arm.
"Uh, thanks! That was really chill of you."
'Chill'????? What a stupid word to use.
"It's no problem." You get up from the floor back to standing, not quite eye level. "I just appreciate lab safety." You give a small laugh.
"Yeah, I usually do too, just got distracted…" fuck! "By you not having seen Ghostbusters before."
"Well, maybe you'll have to show me sometime." You smile at him and pat his shoulder.
Wait. What?
"Yeah, sure." He grins.
That's how you ended up doing weekly movie nights. He'd bring a nerdy movie for you both to watch, and you'd supply the snacks. Just normal coworker things.
You would make sure your apartment was clean down to the last throw pillow on your bed. He would try not to move when your shoulders would touch. You both would try not to think about the way your heads would be resting on each other by the end of the night, eyelids lazily dropping as the credits roll.
You would try not to stare too much at his smile when a funny part came on, his eyes scrunching up, making his glasses shift on his face. The dorky way he would push them back up with his pointer finger on the bridge like a meme or something.
"Dude, she likes you!" Fleury tried to convince Adrian.
The gang was out for a small birthday celebration for Adrian's birthday. Adrian had told you about his past birthdays. Filled with family arguments and no party attendees. Gut always smashed his face into his cake, once with candles, which was a whole ordeal that left a few small burns in his hair and on his cheek. Your eyes watered a bit at his story. What kind of dipshit kids lived in Evergreen??? You made it your plan to make this a great 35th birthday.
"Yeah, I like the movie nights too! I have great picks."
"Fuck. You're so dense." Chris runs his hand over his face after a twenty-minute discourse between the guys.
"NO! She wants to fuck you." Rip gestures at him.
"Ohhhh sure. You're just trying to make me look stupid in front of everyone again. That shit's not happening twice."
"Yeah, why are you helping him?" Emilia questions over at their group. You're in the bathroom right now. Perfect time to catch up on the gossip.
"Because I have to sit with the tension every time I'm in the training room. Adrian keeps staring at her through the window of the lab. Why do we even have a window between those walls?"
"That's not happening. I have my visor on, you shouldn't be able to see through it that well."
"I can see the way your head turns, dipshit."
"HEY! Don't you fucking call me that!" Adrian starts to get up, readying his fists, but Chris pushes him back down.
"Not now." Adrian's glasses slip down his face and onto the floor, probably cracked, but Chris's grip is hard on his shoulder, and he is not about to actually fight his best friend. Both because he's his best friend—duh—but also because he probably couldn't take him here if he wanted to with two drinks already down.
"Adrian, as much as Rip loves to see you make a fool out of yourself, he's actually telling the truth," Ads juts in.
"I don't know, guys, it seems a bit far from the truth." He folds his arms over his chest in a pout.
"Well, clearly you like her." Ads states.
"As a friend."
"Those are not friendly eyes across the office floor." Fleury interrupts.
"What?"
"Never mind. You just have to talk to her." Ads rests a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
"I don't know what I would say!"
"Well, you better think of it fast, because I'm getting grossed out by your middle school crush." Adrian glares at Rip.
"You're an asshole."
"That's the point."
"I just think she's cool! Like, she makes me feel cool too! That's what friends do! And it's not like I haven't thought about her, but that is normal—"
"What do you mean, 'thought about her'?" Emilia cuts him off.
"I dunno, like wet dreams?" He says almost too loudly.
"Fuck, dude, time and place!" Economos slaps Adrian's arm.
"Hey! Uncool, I just hurt myself on a table, dude!" Adrian glares at Economos as he grips his forearm.
"Yeah, two weeks ago. Don't you have that mutant thing where you heal super quickly?"
"Hey guys, everything ok?" You furrow your brows at the awkward positioning of everyone leaning towards Adrian while Chris holds him against the chair. "Where are your glasses?"
"They fell." Adrian pushes Chris's hand off his shoulder to grab them quickly. They're not as damaged as they could be, but one of the arms is cracked off, and a lens is cracked on one side.
"Oh, I can fix those at home if you want." You reach your hand over to take the glasses.
"Uh, that's fine, I got some stuff at home. Plus, I would probably have to come home with you, and that would look weird." Chris's jaw drops.
"Aw, ok. Are you sure you can see with them for your drive home?"
"Yeah, Adrian, just let her fix 'em. It wouldn't be safe for you." Chris snatches the glasses out of his hands. Adrian's eyes go wide as he gives Chris a questioning look. He just pats his head in return.
"I don't want you fussing over them. It's kind of a bitch sometimes fixing them."
"I know, that's why I wear contacts most of the time." You casually reply.
"What?"
"Yeah, it's easier for me with the goggles in the lab. Lab safety." You dorkily lift your pointer finger up. You've begun to feel like you can let go a bit of the professional persona around your new coworkers, allowing you to act a little dorky sometimes. Sometimes.
Adrian lets out a loud laugh at that, and it would almost seem forced if you hadn't heard him laugh like that all the time at what you say. You figured it was actually genuine when you heard him laugh like that at the movies he picked out.
The rest of the group goes back to talking, and Adrian makes space next to his chair for you to sit next to him. He loves watching you let go, letting loose, and laughing with everyone. Your hair is a little messy, this time from having a few drinks. Your eyes are constantly scrunched up while you smile at whatever somebody says. He's just sitting there dumbly, watching you with unbridled reverence while you—somehow—obliviously laugh with the rest of the group.
As the night winds down, you hang back with Adrian while everyone says bye to each other.
"Happy birthday, dude," Fleury says, smashing his hair down, frizzing it out.
"Thanks for coming, guys. This was awesome." Adrian grins. He's had a few drinks, but they've gotten to him a little. He let himself go just because you said you would drive him to your place. He'd stay sober if he were driving later, obviously. Plus, he could sober up at your place before leaving. All planned out, no awkward moments.
"I got you something. It's in the car. Do you want to open it there?" You nudge him.
"Really!?" He was shocked. That never really happens. He's a grown man, his mom told him on his twentieth birthday. Of course, she did get him some things, but it was never Pokémon cards anymore.
"Yeah, of course, dude." You smile and lead him to your car after the last of the team leaves the bar.
"You really didn't have to." He tries not to show much of what he's feeling now—a mix of shock, awe, happiness, and sadness all in one.
"I thought it'd be nice." You finally get to your car, sliding into the seat. You hand him a small bag. It was plain teal, but it was still very nice. He knew his mom would make him keep it anyway, but he was already planning on keeping it—because it's his favorite color, of course, nothing more.
"What is it?"
"Open it." You smile at him, eagerly waiting for his reaction. He reaches between the tissue paper to get to the two small objects at the bottom.
"I know it's not the coolest thing in the world, but I saw it at the mall, and I was like, 'Adrian would love this.' And I know you might already have it, and if you do, that's my bad, you can probably return it or swap it or something." You ramble as he pulls out a small spider beanie baby. His face doesn't show any clear emotion. He sets it to the side and grabs the other thing. A teal glasses holder that snaps shut with a button and can attach to a belt—his utility to be exact.
"Yeah, I mean, you like teal, and it always looks like you're smashing your glasses into that small compartment on the side of your leg. They looked a little scratched up from the material inside, too, so I just thought it would be nice to have something nicer to put your glasses in. You know I would know now," you laugh at that. He just sits dumbstruck beside you. His breathing gets a bit heavy.
"Adrian, are you ok?" He's snapped out of his state.
"Oh, yeah, uh, I'm ok." His voice wobbles a bit as you lean a bit closer to get a read on his emotions.
"Do you like them?"
"I—yeah. It's— awesome." He internally winces at his word choice. You just beam at him.
"Awesome," you reply sweetly.
Adrian is overcome with emotion at this point—way too much than he usually knows how to handle. He wrings his fists for a few seconds before they shoot up to your face. He smashes yours onto his, a wild tangle of skin and teeth. Your eyes shoot wide before you realize what's happening. You melt into his touch and bring your arms to sling around his neck, deepening the kiss. It's a bit awkward with the middle console between you both, but nonetheless, it was nice. Adrian pulls away after a bit with a big gasp for air.
"Holy shit," he breathes as if he wasn't the one who just initiated it. His eyes are blown wide as he takes you in again with the neon lights streaming in through the car windows, your face drowning in pink and green. Your eyes, however, stay glued to his. Your mouth stays parted as he studies your face, waiting to see who will make the next move.
Before you lose the momentum, you dive back in, the kiss slower, making sure to take your time. See what movements make him squirm, which ones pull out small moans. You bite his lower lip, and he actually whimpers.
"Sorry," he whimpers against your lips. You just hum and keep going, your hands smoothing over his back. That's when you feel something wet on your cheek. You pull back, eyes refocusing on his face. That's when you see small trails of shiny tears streaking his cheek, the lighting outside making the sheen even more apparent.
"Are you ok?" You cup his cheek, wiping the tears away with your thumbs.
"Yeah, I'm all good." He murmurs and tries to kiss you back. You pull back, waiting for him to answer.
"Did you not like it?" His face falls. "Ohhh, shit. Fuck, they were wrong. Why was I so stupid?" Adrian grasps at his hair, his eyes squeezing shut.
"No, no, no, you were just crying. I was worried." Your face softens all the way now.
"Oh, uh, sorry. Yeah, I'm ok. Don't even worry about it." He tries to joke it off. Your face tilts to the side in skepticism. "Nobody's ever been as thoughtful like that before."
"Adrian, I just met you. You mean to tell me these are the best gifts you've ever received?" You smirk sarcastically until you realize he's not joking. You go in for another hug. No words came out. Just small circles rubbed into his back as he tries to gain composure again.
"Whew, sorry. I don't know what that was. Must be those drinks." He pulls back, trying to smirk with his lips wobbling, adjusting and fidgeting in his seat. You just look at him, feeling like you might be the one to cry. "We, uh, we don't have to go to your house."
"Let's go." You smile at him one last time before putting your car in reverse and pulling out of the parking lot.
The car ride is quiet. Not exactly uncomfortable, but charged. Like something is practically burning from how high both of your emotions are running. Adrian's eyes glance over at you a few times, trying to be discreet. He bites his lip with anticipation. He'd been to your house a million times before; it's not like it's unfamiliar. But with the energy coursing through the car, he was uncharacteristically anxious.
As you park, you let out a long sigh and get out. Adrian follows, and you get to the door to unlock it. You're both still silent as you unlock the door. Once you reach the threshold and shake your shoes off, your eyes meet Adrian's as he awkwardly sheds his jacket. It shouldn't be as hot as it is, but you find yourself crowding him against the wall with your lips on his in an instant. He grips your hips as you try not to just shamelessly grind on his leg.
"I'm so happy this is happening. You have no idea how much I've thought about shit like this," he says in between kisses.
"You've thought about this?" You ask as your lips travel up his jaw to his ear and down his neck.
"Mhm, a lot since those movie nights—" he's cut off by the feeling of you sucking on the juncture between his neck and shoulder. His hand reaches to grip the back of your head as he whines out into your entryway. You break away with a look of reverence, practically running to the bedroom.
You start undoing his belt as he plays with the hem of your shirt. Once you finally free the belt, you lift your hands away so he can pull your shirt over your head. Adrian quietly takes your frame in, standing just a foot away from you. His hands shake just slightly, his eyes not knowing where to look.
"You can look, it's ok," you reassure him, slowly stepping closer. Your hands reach for his shirt this time, and he lets you pull it over his head, his hair once again a tangle of dirty blonde. You beam at his disheveled state and bring him to the edge of the bed. You both are a mess of hands groping and sliding off clothes. Adrian's hands massage your ass through the fabric of your underwear as you rub your hands up and down his chest and kiss his already swollen lips. He smiles through this, growing harder and harder as your movements become slower, more sensual. You can feel him through the layers of fabric. He's definitely larger than average. He feels heavy; there's a weight to it. You cup him through his jeans, and he gasps, fingers digging into your skin.
He finally slides his fingers against the lace of your panties, and you gasp.
"Is this ok?" He looks up at you with his puppy eyes. You nod, and he slides them down ever so gently, taking everything in. "I wanna make this good for you."
"It's your birthday," you smirk, pushing him down and starting to peel his pants down his legs as he did to you. He nods dumbly. You grab your underwear from where it dangles from your ankle and throw it on his chest. He grabs them quickly and unashamedly pushes them into his pocket before you pull his pants fully down to his ankles. You quickly get his boxers off too and drink in the sight of him below you, hard and ready for you to do anything you desire. He'd let you.
You watch as his cock throbs, the red tip glistening with wetness as he lies there staring at you.
You start by crawling onto the bed and sitting on his thighs just below his groin. You purposefully bring your fingers towards his length as he holds his breath. You watch as his eyes dance between your hand and your face, not knowing which he should actually be looking at.
"You said you've thought about me." Your voice broke the silence hanging between you, making him jump just a bit as your hand started making slow motions around his cock. "Is this what you meant?"
"I—uh—I don't know how to answer that." His voice breaks a bit as you run a finger over his tip, collecting the pre pearling there and bringing it to your lips to taste. "F-fuck!" He whines.
"You can say it. I won't be mad. Quite the opposite, in fact." You feel him throb beneath you.
"I-I just thought of you like, be-below me, or sitting on my face, running your hands through my hair and telling me how good I am."
"You're such a good boy, Adrian." You take his words and run with them. You start grinding on his legs as you lazily stroke him. He lies there, writhing in your touch as you start going faster, a loose fist going all the way up and down. "Such a cute birthday boy." Your grin makes him stutter.
"W-w-wait! I don't wanna cum yet!"
"You don't?" Your question is more condescending than anything.
"C-can I-uh." He starts to sputter as you stop your ministrations.
"Can you what? Use your big words." You are having way too much fun with him in this state.
"I don't want you to think I'm a bad feminist." You could laugh, but you didn't want to make him feel stupid. Not when you wanted him so bad.
"Don't worry, tonight is about you." Adrian takes some time to think it over even after your confirmation, and you just sit there, watching him squirm.
"Can I cum inside you?" He blurts out. "I-I've been tested and stuff, I'm all clean." His brows lift, looking up at you for encouragement.
"Yeah, I got an IUD, don't worry."
"O-ok," he says, but doesn't move. You decide to take more charge and move above him, so you're hovering over him.
"Please." His voice is soft, barely a whisper. You kiss him deeply as you sink down, moaning into his mouth as his tongue licks through your lips. You clench around him as you finally settle flush against his hips. He squeezes his eyes shut as you get used to the stretch.
"Fuck I didn't prepare you before!" Adrian hits his fists against the sheets as if he wasn't eight inches deep in you.
"It's fine, baby, you feel so good," you say with a roll of your hips. Adrian's head hits the headboard as you grind against him, slowly picking up the pace. His hands glide to your thighs as you rock back and forth, reveling in the stretch of his thick cock.
"Adrian, you feel so good." You throw your head back as you start bouncing on him. He shakily moves his fingers to your clit and starts rubbing. You let out a groan as you try to keep your pace, but Adrian circles your clit at a devastating pace.
"I-I'm gonna cum!" He arches his back, his legs stuttering just a bit as he climaxes with you. Your grip on his cock brings him to the edge as you moan with abandon. You start to see stars as your vision whites out, and you collapse on Adrian's chest. Your breathing matches his as you topple next to him.
"Well, which present was your favorite?" Your laugh comes out breathy.
It takes a bit for Adrian to respond, and you almost think he's gone to sleep before he answers: "You."
You can hear the ecstasy-filled grin he gives as you shift over to wrap your arms around him. He does the same. You both fall asleep in each other's arms, breaths slowing into a peaceful rhythm.
Hot spring/bath, plus a furnace or heater sort of buildings? Possibly to help the followers stay warm in the blizzards
This appears to be a Barn(?) of some sort, I'm assuming. With ropes stemming from it to mark off an area and a grass trough(?) nearby, I'll assume this to be a place where cattle and beasties are kept
Like these guys!
Not sure what this building is. Appears to have some sort of billboard with paper tacked to it, maybe flyers or missions of some sort. Wondering if this has anything to do with missionaries or the jobs you give your followers, or maybe a new mechanic entirely.
Work building??? There's an image of tools on the front, and I see rocks and wood stored to the side. Are we making tools for followers? Or is this another building to produce a specific material we need in order to build certain things, like the refinery does?
WOLF GOD STATUE AND WOLD ENEMIES. WINTER BIOME.
THAT...Or possibly winter taking over OTHER biomes, maybe after we (us as the Lamb) triggers an event in game that causes the seasons to start shifting. I don't know if that would be the case but it would add a fun time-reliant aspect to the game.
So we've seen two area biomes, the winter one and this, which is very dark and full of gore. Judging by the chains in the background and the overall aesthetic, this might be?? The Afterlife??? The appearances are very death-coded. Are we going into Narinder's domain?
Edit: OR this is the rot that happens when you redeem a sheep's soul! Which means there are consequences to trying to save the Lamb's souls. Oh Man We Love Pain
A NEW GOD(?): MARCHOSIAS
Well, we already understand that the mountain is where they've made their home, but whether or not that was actually their home to take is up for debate. Especially since we have Yngya, who is seemenly trapped(?) or lost upon the mountain. I wonder if Marchosias has anything to do with that, or our former bishops did.
Also, this guy doesn't have a crown, which I wonder if it makes them a god at all.
Last but not least: Yngyna, The God of the Lambs
They appear to be wearing a crown we've never seen before. The symbols on them ressemble snowflakes, and considering they are mentioned in the lore of the game that when they are gone (asleep or dead, not sure) that the seasons no longer change, it comes to wonder if this is a god that is not just of Lambs but of winter, or seasons in general. In that case, would it make lore sense that the Lambs worshiped the seasons? They would worship winter? Or is it a side thing?
Who is this god, anyway? Were they a sheep those acended to godhood just as our main protagonist? Were they created that way, already a god for the sheep population of this earth? Or is that information we're left to speculate on our own?
Considering that seasons are returning, and the trailers showing the frozen oceans and the map expanding, I'd like to think that OUR Lamb, with their power of ressurection, is essentially being called to revive this dead god. Or at the least, wake them from the slumber theyre trapped in, in a mission to bring back the Lambs. But how would Ygnya feel about a new Lamb god? OUR Lamb god, God of Death.
Summary: When Rafe heads off to work, you give him a parting view he can’t ignore and and it earns you more than just a second glance.
Warnings: smut 😛
Word count: 1,035
A/n: inspired by a TikTok that I saw on TikTok and thought it was so Rafe coded
MASTERLIST
The sun had barely risen. You were already dressed, or rather, not dressed, in a delicate silk robe that barely kissed the tops of your thighs, swaying open in the warm breeze. Coffee cup in hand, you leaned against the white-painted porch column, barefoot and waiting.
Inside, you’d heard the low rumble of his voice, grumbling about missing tools and a tight deadline. Rafe had been up since just before six, slamming around the kitchen shirtless, steel-toed boots heavy against the hardwood as he moved. A dark green t-shirt clung to his chest, work jeans riding low on his hips, tool belt slung lazily in the bed of the truck.
He finally emerged from the side door, slinging his thermos into the truck’s cab and adjusting his cap. His jaw was tight but the second his eyes landed on you, he softened. “Better put on somethin’ before the whole neighborhood gets a show, sweetheart,” he called teasingly as he walked towards his truck, a smirk on his lips.
That dimple you loved peeked out, the corner of his mouth twitching as his gaze dipped low over your exposed legs. You just smiled sweetly, took a sip of your coffee, and shrugged. “Aren’t you the only one lucky enough to get a show?” He chuckled and climbed in, engine roaring to life, tires crunching over the gravel as he started to back down your private driveway.
You watched him through thick lashes, hip hitched against the railing. You gave a small wave with your coffee cup as he pulled away, wheels crunching softly down the long gravel driveway. You didn’t move. Just leaned a little more into the column, letting the robe slip slightly off your shoulder, knowing he’d glance back one last time in the side mirror.
You caught the twitch in the brake lights. Perfect. And then—just as he passed the exact spot where you always stood every morning to wave him goodbye, you struck. In one smooth motion, your robe dropped open. You lifted your shirt up, high enough to bare your breasts to the morning air—bare, soft, nipples already hard from the teasing breeze.
Sunlight bathed you in warm light, highlighting every curve, every inch of exposed skin.Pure sin wrapped in silk. You stood still. Unbothered. Unashamed. And you knew the second he saw. Sunlight bathed you in warm light, highlighting every curve, every inch of exposed skin.Pure sin wrapped in silk. You stood still. Unbothered. Unashamed. And you knew the second he saw.
The truck didn’t even make it to the bend. The brake lights slammed red. A full stop. Then silence. You could hear the engine idling like even the truck didn’t know what to do next. Then the reverse lights flashed on. The tires crunched furiously against the gravel as he reversed hard, like he was dragging himself back from a cliff.
Dust kicked up behind him, the whole front end of the truck lurching with speed until it rolled right back into place at the base of the porch steps. The truck door swung open with force. Rafe stepped out—no, stormed out—booted feet thudding over the gravel, eyes locked on you like a hunter zeroing in. He said nothing at first.
Just stood at the bottom of the steps, jaw clenched, eyes blazing, chest rising and falling beneath that snug green tee. His hand was still on the truck door, knuckles white. Then his gaze dragged slowly—intently—up your body. From your bare thighs, to your stomach, to your breasts still fully exposed under the thin morning light.
“Are you outta your fuckin’ mind?” You tilted your head, that innocent little smile tugging at your lips. “Maybe.” His jaw ticked, a vein twitching in his neck. Then he growled, low and rough. “Get in the house.” You raised a brow. “I thought you had to get to work, baby.” “Bedroom. Now.” “Make me.” That was all it took.
He stepped into your space with the kind of intensity that made your thighs clench, his calloused hand sliding around the back of your neck, fingers tightening just enough to make your breath hitch. His other hand tugged the robe the rest of the way off your shoulders, letting it fall uselessly to the floorboards.
“You just bared your fuckin’ tits to me at seven in the goddamn morning and you think I’m just gonna drive off? Nah,” he muttered, voice gravelly, thick with arousal. “You want attention, princess? You got it. Now get inside before I bend you over the railing.”
You swallowed hard, arousal pooling low in your belly, and turned wordlessly on bare feet, sauntering toward the front door. Rafe followed close behind, every step heavy, possessive. You could feel the heat of him, his desire radiating off him like a furnace.
The second you crossed the threshold, he caught your wrist, spun you around, and pressed you flat against the wall of the hallway. “Rafe—” “You want to act like a fuckin’ brat,” he murmured, kissing down your neck as his hand slid between your legs, “then I’ll treat you like one.” You moaned as his fingers slid against you—rough, practiced, confident.
He knew every inch of your body, every place to touch, every way to make you beg. “Didn’t think you had the balls to tease me before a pour,” he said, one hand gripping your jaw, forcing you to look up at him. “But now I gotta deal with this before I can even think straight.”
You gasped, arching into him. “Maybe you should stay home today.” He laughed darkly, unbuckling his belt with one hand. “Yeah, maybe I should.”
I cannot do it justice so I leave it in your capable, amazing, stupendous hands.
Anything for you bestie
Trust Me
Ryland Grace/teacher!Reader | Explicit, MDNI | ~13.3k words
Tags: praise kink, soft dom, brat taming, established relationship, reverse psychology as foreplay, wellness whiteboard, elementary school teachers AU, sequel to make me, oral sex, penetrative sex
The school installs a wellness whiteboard. He tells you to drink water. You will not be drinking water. You were going to, but he told you to, so now you won't. He has a PhD and the patience of a man who has been doing the math on you for months. You have a spice rack you alphabetized for no reason and a stray cat named Rocky.
If you haven't already, I'd advise reading Make Me first before you dive into this, linked below - but that's a recommendation not an ask, because I would never ask you to do something and expect you to listen dear reader...
[ cross posted on Ao3 ] [ Make Me/ Ao3] [Make Me/ tumblr] [ fic masterlist here ]
The whiteboard arrives on a Tuesday, which should have been everyone's first warning.
It is wheeled into the staff meeting by the district wellness coordinator, a woman named Pam who does not work at this school and will never be seen again after today, and it has a laminated header that says TEAM HEALTHY HABITS in a font that is trying very hard to look fun. There are columns. There are little magnetic stars. There is, God help you all, a QR code.
"So," Pam says, "the district's rolling this out at every site this quarter. Water intake, step count, sleep hours if you want to self report. Totally optional, totally just for fun, friendly competition, no pressure."
Gary, from the back row, says, "mm," in a tone that suggests he has heard the words no pressure before and does not believe them.
"There's a small prize at the end of the month," Pam adds. "Gift card. Nothing crazy."
Dale, by the door, goes very still in the specific way of a man doing quiet mental arithmetic.
You are sitting between Brenda and an empty chair that Ryland has not gotten to yet because he stopped to help Pam carry in a second whiteboard easel nobody asked for, because of course he did, because the man cannot walk past a woman struggling with classroom equipment without turning into a golden retriever with a graduate degree.
He sits down next to you a minute later, slightly out of breath, glasses crooked.
"That thing's heavier than it looks," he says, to you, delighted, like he's just discovered something about the nature of the universe. "Also there's a QR code. Did you see the QR code?"
"I saw the QR code, Grace."
"You scan it and it logs your water automatically. That's so smart. That's genuinely so smart."
"It's a water tracker."
"It's a good water tracker."
Across the room, Alvarez says, without looking up from her clipboard, "we will not be doing team building exercises around the whiteboard," which nobody asked her about but which she clearly felt needed saying preemptively, the way you'd childproof an outlet before the baby's even born.
Dana, from two rows up, turns around in her chair. "This is absolutely a surveillance tool," she says, to the room in general. "I want that on record. This is a system designed to normalize the monitoring of bodily autonomy in a professional setting. They start with water intake, then it's step counts, then it's sleep data, and before you know it we're living in a panopticon built by a woman named Pam with a laminator and a dream. I'm participating, but I want it known that I see the architecture."
"It's a whiteboard, Dana," says Tom, who is still in his gym shorts and has what appears to be a small twig in his hair.
"That's what they said about CCTV, Tom. Anyway, does anyone know if the art supply order came in? I need more burnt sienna."
"I found a worm today," Tom says, apropos of nothing, mostly to himself. "A kid found a worm and then eleven other kids needed to see the worm. I did four thousand steps just standing near the worm."
Gary, without looking up, says, "that tracks," and goes back to his coffee.
Pam claps her hands together in the universal gesture of a woman trying to reclaim a room. "Okay! So! Columns are labeled, stars go up daily, and remember, this is just for fun and community building, not a competition."
"It's a competition," Brenda says quietly, to you, out of the side of her mouth. "It is extremely a competition."
"Obviously," you say.
Ryland, meanwhile, has already produced a pen from somewhere, uncapped it, and is looking at the whiteboard with the expression of a man mentally drafting a spreadsheet.
"I could color code mine," he says. "Blue for water, green for steps. Do we know if sleep is cumulative or nightly average, because that changes the—"
"Grace."
"What."
"It's a laminated poster with stickers."
"It's a system, and systems can be optimized."
You stare at him. He stares back, guileless, thrilled, a man who peaked emotionally at the invention of the spreadsheet and never came down.
Later, after the meeting breaks and everyone is filing out past the whiteboard to write their names in the first column, he catches your elbow, gentle, and leans in.
"You should probably grab some water before next period," he says. "You didn't have any at lunch."
He says it easily. He says it the way he'd mention the weather. He is not thinking about it at all, you can tell, because he's already looking past you at Pam's second easel, calculating something about star placement.
You had, in fact, been about to get water. There was a bottle in your bag. You had a whole plan.
The plan is now dead. You killed it yourself, on purpose, the second the sentence left his mouth, and you feel something in your chest go tight and stupid and familiar, the same feeling you used to get watching him grade with a pen behind his ear, except now it's aimed at a plastic water bottle you have decided, out of nowhere, to hate.
"I'm fine," you say.
"Okay," he says, easy, already walking off toward his classroom, already thinking about something else entirely. "Just saying, staying hydrated's good for you."
You watch him go. You look at the water bottle in your bag.
You do not drink it.
Brenda, materializing at your shoulder with the timing of a woman who has been waiting her whole life for a moment like this, follows your eyeline to Ryland's retreating back, then to your face.
"Oh no," she says, with real feeling. "Oh, sweetie. Here we go again."
—
By Thursday the whiteboard has stars on it. Not many. Enough to establish that a war is happening.
You arrive Thursday morning already annoyed at a water bottle, which is not a sentence you ever expected to be true about your own life, and you find Ryland at the coffee machine, sleeves pushed up, humming something with no tune, a fresh column of stars next to his name like he's been personally knighted by Pam's laminate.
"Morning, Mr. Grace," you say, sweet as anything, mostly to see what it does to his face.
He turns around. He considers you for a second with the mild, delighted patience of a man who has been waiting for you to start something.
"Dr. Grace," he says. "If we're being accurate."
"Nobody's being accurate. It's eight in the morning."
"I have a PhD."
"You once spent forty minutes explaining photosynthesis using a burrito."
"I teach them cellular respiration using a burrito, and I have a doctorate, so if you're going to be difficult about my name you should at least be difficult about the correct one."
"Fine. Dr. Grace." You let it sit there a second, testing the shape of it in your mouth. It does something to his face you weren't fully prepared for, a little flush at the collar, gone as fast as it arrived, filed away for later the way he files everything. "Happy?"
"Thrilled," he says, and means it, and pours you a coffee without being asked, which is somehow the most annoying thing he's done all week, because you wanted that too, and now it's just a thing he did for you instead of a thing you got for yourself, and you can't even be mad about it out loud because he didn't tell you to do anything, he just did it, quiet and easy, the absolute menace.
You drink the coffee. You do not drink the water.
By lunchtime, Dana has cornered four separate teachers to explain that the whiteboard represents, in her words, "the gamification of compliance in a late-capitalist workplace," before asking if anyone wanted to split a muffin from the vending machine. Tom has lost a shoe somewhere near the kickball field and has decided, philosophically, to simply finish the day in one sock, and Gary has said the words "I give it two weeks" to no one in particular while refilling his coffee for the third time, which everyone agrees is either about the whiteboard or about his marriage and nobody's asking which.
You find Dale and Brenda by the supply closet, heads together, and you would not have thought anything of it except that Dale startles so hard when he sees you that he drops a sticky note, and Brenda, with the reflexes of a woman who has done this before, steps on it.
"What was that."
"Nothing," Brenda says.
"Dale."
"Nothing," Dale agrees, with the conviction of a man who has never once successfully lied to anyone in his life.
You look at the sticky note under Brenda's shoe. You look at Brenda. You look at Dale, who is now examining the ceiling tiles with great interest.
"What are you two doing."
"Collaborating," Brenda says.
"On what."
"Staff morale."
"Brenda."
"Dale and I have discovered a shared interest in data collection."
"That's not better. That's worse." You look at the sticky note again. You look at the way Dale's hand is still hovering near his pocket, like a man who was mid-update when he got caught. You look at Brenda's shoe, planted with a confidence that suggests this is not the first time she's had to hide evidence with a loafer. "Is that a bet."
"It's not a bet," Brenda says, at the exact moment Dale says, "it's a friendly wager," and they look at each other with the horror of two people who have just, independently, blown the whole operation.
"On what," you say, although you already know, you have known since the word wager left Dale's mouth, you have known since the whiteboard arrived, you have possibly known since the meeting where Ryland got excited about a QR code.
Brenda sighs, peels her shoe off the sticky note, and hands it over with the resignation of a woman surrendering evidence.
You read it. It has two columns. One says GRACE and the other says your name, and there are tally marks under both, and dates, and what appears to be an odds system Dale has clearly put real thought into, because there's a note in the margin that just says vending machine snacks, all of them, winner's choice.
"You're betting on us."
"We're betting on the whiteboard," Brenda says. "Technically."
"You wrote our names on it. With tally marks. And a prize."
"For organizational purposes."
"Brenda."
"Dale started it."
"I did not start it," Dale says, wounded, "you texted me first."
"That's not the same as starting it, Dale, that's just logistics."
You hold the sticky note. You think about handing it back. You think, briefly, about being genuinely annoyed, and then you think about the fact that Dale has apparently been tracking this with real methodology, dates and tallies and a snack based prize pool, and something about the sheer commitment of it short circuits the annoyance into something closer to affection.
"Who's winning," you ask, because you are only human.
Dale and Brenda exchange a look.
"Him," they say, at the same time, with zero hesitation, and you hand the sticky note back and walk away without dignifying that with a response, mostly because you don't currently have one.
—
The staff room at lunch on Thursday is the fullest it's been since the whiteboard arrived, which is either a coincidence or evidence that the faculty of this school have collectively decided that whatever is happening between you and Ryland Grace is better than anything on television.
You suspect the latter.
Dana is at the microwave, heating something that smells aggressively of turmeric, and explaining to Tom, who did not ask, that the whiteboard's star system is "functionally identical to a social credit score if you think about it for even one second, Tom, this is how it starts, they quantify your behavior, they rank you against your peers, they create a visual hierarchy of compliance and call it wellness, and the next thing you know you're drinking eight glasses of water a day because a laminated poster told you to and you've forgotten that you ever had free will." Tom is nodding along with the polite focus of a man who has not thought about it for even one second and is mostly just waiting for the microwave. "Anyway I brought hummus if anyone wants some."
Gary is in his chair. Gary is always in his chair. Gary has a coffee and a newspaper and the particular stillness of a man who has been teaching long enough to become furniture.
Brenda is next to you. Brenda is always next to you now, in the same way that a nature documentarian is always next to the animal they're filming. Close enough to observe. Far enough not to spook the subject.
Ryland comes in late. He has chalk dust on his elbow and something that might be glitter in his hair, which suggests his last period involved either an art crossover or a very ambitious science demonstration, and knowing him it was somehow both.
He sees you. He sits across from you, eye contact territory, and sets his lunch down and starts unwrapping it with the focused precision of a man defusing a device.
"Hi," he says.
"Hi."
He glances at your water bottle. Full. Same level as this morning. He opens his mouth.
"Don't," you say.
He closes his mouth.
"Don't say it."
"I wasn't going to say anything."
"You were going to say something about the water bottle."
"I was going to ask how your morning was."
"No you weren't."
"I was. How was your morning."
"Fine."
"Great. You should drink some water."
"Grace."
"What. I'm being supportive. The whiteboard is right there. You don't have a single star this week. I have fourteen. Fourteen stars. I color coded them."
"Nobody asked you to color code them."
"The system benefits from color coding."
"The system is a laminated poster, Grace."
"And it looks great color coded."
Dana, from the microwave, turns around. "Is this a bit," she says, to the room. "Or is this real. I genuinely can't tell anymore."
"It's real," Brenda says, not looking up from her phone.
"It's not real," you say. "It's a water bottle."
"It is not just a water bottle," Dana says, turning fully now, abandoning her turmeric. "What I am watching right now is a textbook demonstration of how systems of compliance infiltrate interpersonal dynamics. He is using wellness language to exert soft control over your hydration choices, and you are resisting because on some level you understand that acquiescence to even a benign request normalizes the surrender of bodily autonomy, and honestly? It's kind of beautiful in a deeply dysfunctional way. Like watching two magnets repel each other into a relationship. Anyway has anyone seen my phone charger, I think a fourth grader took it."
Tom, who has been following this exchange with the gentle confusion of a golden retriever watching a card trick, says, "I think it's sweet."
Everyone looks at Tom.
"What?" Tom says. "He cares about her hydration. That's nice."
"Tom," Brenda says, gently. "Sweetie. It's not about the hydration."
"It's a little about the hydration," Tom says, uncertain now.
"It is not even slightly about the hydration," Gary says, from behind his newspaper, and turns a page.
Ryland, who has been sitting through this entire exchange eating his sandwich with the serene composure of a man who either cannot hear the conversation happening about him or has chosen, strategically, to pretend he cannot, finishes chewing and says, "does anyone want my apple."
Nobody responds. He puts the apple on the table between you. He does not push it toward you. He does not mention it again. He goes back to his sandwich.
You eat the apple seven minutes later when you think nobody is watching.
Everybody is watching.
Dale, under the table, makes a small mark on something you cannot see but can certainly guess at. Brenda, next to him, leans over to check it, nods once, and returns to her phone.
"I want it on record," Dana says, standing up to retrieve her turmeric, "that I called this on day one. Surveillance tool. Willing participants in our own quantification. This is Foucault. Does anyone want the rest of this hummus, it's going to go bad over the weekend."
"You're the experiment too, Dana," Gary says. "You drank six glasses yesterday."
"I drank six glasses because I like winning, Gary. My participation is an act of subversion from within. I am accelerating the contradictions."
"Is there a difference."
"There is a massive difference and I don't have time to explain it right now because I have a parent pickup in four minutes. But yes. Massive."
"Dana, you're scaring Tom," Brenda says, not looking up.
"I'm not scared," Tom says, a little scared. "I just don't know what accelerating the contradictions means and I don't want to ask."
The bell goes. Everyone starts packing up. Ryland stands, collects his lunch trash, and pauses by your chair on his way out. He leans down. He is close enough that you can smell the chalk and the coffee and whatever detergent he uses on those ridiculous t-shirts.
"You ate the apple," he says, low, just for you.
"I was hungry."
"Mm-hm."
"It had nothing to do with you."
"Of course not."
He straightens up. He walks out. You watch him go and you hear, very distinctly, Brenda exhale through her nose in the particular way that means she is composing a eulogy for your dignity.
"Sweetie," Brenda says.
"Don't."
"You ate the apple."
"I know I ate the apple, Brenda."
"In front of everyone."
"I know it was in front of everyone."
"Dale just moved you down a point."
"I don't want to know about the points."
"You're still losing."
"I said I don't want to know."
Brenda pats your shoulder once, with great affection and absolutely no pity whatsoever, and leaves.
You sit in the empty staff room and you look at the whiteboard and you look at his column of gold stars and you look at your own column, which is sparse and embarrassing and tells the story of a woman who would rather be thirsty than be told to drink, and you think: I am being outlasted by a man who unironically color codes his hydration and I have no one to blame but myself.
The apple core is still on the table. You throw it away. You do not drink any water for the rest of the afternoon.
—
It follows you home. This is the part nobody warns you about.
You know, rationally, that the whiteboard is a laminated poster in a staff room forty minutes away and has no jurisdiction over your kitchen. Your kitchen does not have a QR code. Your kitchen does not have Pam in it. And yet.
Ryland is over Friday night, feet up on your coffee table in socks that do not match, working through a stack of grading with the same low hum he always has going, and at some point he glances up and says, easy, not even really looking at you, "you should eat something, you've had like four crackers since noon."
You had, in fact, been about to make yourself a sandwich. There was bread. There was a plan.
"I'm not hungry," you say, and immediately hate yourself, because you are extremely hungry, you have been hungry for an hour, you were one sentence away from turkey and provolone and now apparently you're just going to sit here starving out of principle like a woman staging a hunger strike against a man who brought you flowers on Tuesday for no reason.
He looks up properly now. Something in his face does a small recalibration, the kind he does when a lab result doesn't match his hypothesis.
"Okay," he says, mild, and goes back to grading, and does not mention it again, which is somehow worse than if he'd pushed, because now you're sitting across from a man not eating a sandwich you desperately want purely to win an argument he doesn't know you're having.
Twenty minutes later your stomach makes a sound loud enough that Rocky, the stray cat who has been visiting your porch since September and who you are absolutely not feeding, would probably hear it from outside.
Ryland does not look up. He does, however, get up a minute later, walk into your kitchen, and start making a sandwich. Your sandwich. He knows exactly how you like it, which is its own small horror, and he sets it on a plate in front of you without a word and goes back to his stack of papers like nothing happened.
You eat the sandwich. You do not say thank you, on principle, which you are aware makes no sense, because he didn't tell you to eat it, he just made it and put it there, quiet and infuriating, the absolute menace.
"This doesn't mean anything," you say, mouth half full.
"Sure," he says, not looking up, the corner of his mouth doing the thing.
—
It keeps happening. Not dramatically. In small, stupid ways that you'd be embarrassed to describe out loud to anyone, possibly including a therapist.
He says take your shoes off, you've been standing all day, and you stay in your shoes for forty-five minutes out of pure spite, wincing the whole time, until you can quietly kick them off once he's in the other room and pretend it was your idea.
He says come sit with me, and you find something urgent to do in the kitchen that does not exist, alphabetizing a spice rack you have never once alphabetized in your life, until he wanders in twenty minutes later, looks at the spice rack, looks at you, and says nothing, and you eventually end up on the couch anyway because you wanted to be there the entire time and the spice rack was never going to hold up as a bit.
He says let me grab that, you look tired, reaching for a grocery bag, and you physically wrestle him for a bag of oranges in your own doorway rather than admit your arms are shaking.
He starts to notice the shape of it. You can tell because he stops phrasing things as suggestions and starts phrasing them as observations instead, which is somehow worse, because there's nothing to refuse.
"You look tired," he says one night, not you should rest, not you need sleep, just a fact, laid down flat between you on the couch, and you have nothing to be contrary about because he hasn't asked you for anything, he's just noticed you, out loud, and it undoes something in your chest that a direct instruction never could.
You go to bed early that night. Your own idea. You're almost annoyed about it.
—
It takes him nine days after the sandwich to crack the code, which, for a man with a doctorate, feels like it should have been faster. But you suppose he had to collect enough data first. He's a scientist. He notices patterns.
He has, apparently, noticed a pattern.
You are in the staff room, not drinking water, performing the act of not drinking water with the quiet commitment of a woman who has turned dehydration into a personality, when he walks in, sets his bag down, looks at your full water bottle, looks at your face, and says:
"Don't drink that."
You look at him.
"I'm serious. It's been sitting there too long. It's probably warm. Room temperature water is basically a punishment."
You pick up the water bottle. You drink the entire thing in four long swallows while maintaining eye contact. It is, in fact, room temperature. It is, in fact, basically a punishment. You drink it anyway because he told you not to and your nervous system has apparently been programmed by a chaos agent with no long term planning skills.
He watches you do it. His face does not change. When you put the empty bottle down he nods once, small, like a man confirming a calculation, and goes back to unpacking his lunch.
You have just been managed. You are aware you have just been managed. The sandwich. The shoes. The spice rack. He sat on your couch and watched you refuse everything he offered and he filed every single instance and he has now, quietly, built a workaround.
"Did you just," you say.
"Mm."
"Grace."
"Mm."
"Did you just reverse psychology me into drinking water."
"I don't know what you're talking about." He unwraps his sandwich. "I was genuinely concerned about the temperature of your water. Room temperature is a breeding ground for bacteria, actually, above a certain threshold, and the staff room is consistently"
"You are lying to me with science right now."
"I would never lie to you with science. Science is sacred." He takes a bite of his sandwich. The corner of his mouth is doing the thing. "Also you should probably refill that. Since it's empty now. Or don't. Don't refill it. In fact, don't drink any more water today. It's bad for you. Definitely bad."
You get up. You walk to the water cooler. You fill the bottle. You drink half of it before you've even sat back down.
He says nothing. He eats his sandwich. He gets up, walks to the whiteboard, and puts a gold star in your column. He sits back down. He does not look at you. He is radiating the quiet, smug satisfaction of a man who has just discovered a fundamental law of physics and is choosing not to publish.
—
He gets better at it. Worse at it. Both. He gets more effective and less subtle simultaneously, which is a combination that should not be possible but which he manages with the same chaotic competence he brings to everything else.
"You definitely shouldn't stay after to help me set up the lab," he says on Wednesday, leaning against your doorframe with his arms crossed and a face carefully arranged into mild indifference. "I can handle it. Don't come."
You are in his lab thirty seconds after the final bell, moving beakers with the focused determination of a woman who has been told not to.
"Oh," he says, not looking up from the microscope he is calibrating. "You're here. Weird. I specifically said don't come."
"I'm here because I want to be here."
"Sure."
"I am here of my own free will."
"Absolutely."
"This has nothing to do with you telling me not to come."
"I believe you completely." He adjusts the focus knob. "While you're here, definitely don't organize those slides by date. It would be terrible if someone did that. Real shame."
You organize the slides by date. You organize them with the furious precision of a woman who knows exactly what is happening and cannot stop it, and he hums his tuneless hum behind you and does not say a single word about it, and the not saying is louder than anything he could have said.
By the end of the second week you have gained four stars on the whiteboard. Four. This is the most stars you have accumulated in the entire challenge and every single one of them was put there out of spite.
Dale has noticed. Dale has been updating the sticky note with the cautious optimism of a man watching a long shot start to close the gap. You catch him in the hallway on Friday, making a small mark, and he looks up at you with the expression of a man who has just discovered hope.
"You've had a strong week," he says. "The numbers are shifting."
"The numbers are not shifting, Dale, I drank water because"
You stop. Because the end of that sentence is because my boyfriend figured out how to trick me into basic self care by telling me not to do it, and that is not a sentence you are going to say out loud in a school hallway to the janitor.
"Because you're committed to wellness," Dale finishes for you, kindly, and makes another small mark on the sticky note, and walks away.
—
The problem with the reverse psychology, which becomes clear approximately one week into his experiment, is that you are not actually an idiot.
You figure it out. Of course you figure it out. Not the mechanism. You clocked the mechanism on day one. But you figure out that knowing the mechanism does not, apparently, make you immune to it. He says "don't come to the staff room, I'm eating lunch alone" and your body is in the staff room before your brain has finished processing the sentence. He says "you definitely don't need a jacket, it's warm" and you are wearing two jackets. The knowing does not fix the doing. The knowing just means you get to watch yourself fall for it in real time, which is, if anything, worse.
He texts you on a Thursday. One line. don't come try the staff room coffee, it's especially bad today.
You are in the staff room in under two minutes, drinking the worst coffee of your life, and he is sitting at the round table pretending to grade and not looking at you and the corner of his mouth is doing the thing and you want to scream.
"I hate you," you tell the coffee.
"Mm," says Ryland, not looking up.
Across the table, Gary takes a long sip of his own coffee, looks from you to Ryland and back again, and says, without any particular emphasis, "you two are the most exhausting people I have ever worked with," and goes back to his newspaper.
It is the most words Gary has said in a single sentence all semester. You and Ryland both look at him. He does not elaborate. He turns a page. The room absorbs it.
"He's right, you know," Brenda says, from somewhere behind you, because Brenda is always somewhere behind you. "You are exhausting. It's my favorite thing about you."
But the reverse psychology only works at school. It works on water bottles and granola bars and lab setup and whether or not you show up to the staff room. It does not work in your bedroom. He cannot text you don't come to bed and expect you to show up, because the bedroom is not the staff room and the stakes are not a water bottle and both of you know it.
The cheat code works on everything except the thing that matters. And you can see him starting to realize it, quietly, the way he realizes everything, by watching the data and letting the conclusion come to him sideways.
—
The first time it happens you don't even clock it as the same disease. It just feels like a normal Tuesday decision.
He comes up behind you at the sink, hands on your hips, mouth at the side of your neck, low and easy, the way he does when he wants something and thinks he's being subtle about wanting it, which he is not, he has never once in his life been subtle about anything.
"Come to bed," he says, into your hair.
You want to go to bed so badly it's almost embarrassing. You have been thinking about going to bed with this man since approximately third period. The dish in your hand is not even that dirty anymore. There is no reason to keep scrubbing it besides the fact that his mouth is on your neck and some deeply unwell part of your brain has just flagged this as an instruction.
"I'm doing the dishes," you say, to a dish that does not need you.
He goes still behind you. Not annoyed still. Recalibrating still, same as the sandwich, same as the shoes, and you feel him take a small step back, physically, like he's giving the moment room to breathe.
"Okay," he says.
He does not push. He kisses your shoulder once, easy, and goes to read on the couch, and you stand at the sink scrubbing a clean dish with the specific, hollow triumph of a woman who has just won a war nobody was fighting and lost something she actually wanted.
—
It gets worse before it gets better, which is, you are realizing, generally how it goes with you.
He starts being careful about it in a way that would almost be sweet if it weren't slowly killing you. He doesn't ask again that night. He doesn't ask the next morning either, not with words, not with hands, nothing that could be mistaken for pressure. He just exists near you, warm and easy, makes you coffee, laughs at something on his phone and reads you the headline, falls asleep with a hand loose on your stomach like it's the most natural thing in the world, like he's not thinking about it at all.
You are thinking about it constantly.
You try again on Thursday, tell yourself you'll fix it, you'll be normal, you climb into his lap on the couch with clear and obvious intentions and he kisses you back for exactly four seconds before he pulls away, gentle, and says, "hey. You okay?"
Which is somehow so much worse than if he'd just kept going. Because now you have to answer, and the honest answer is I am completely fine and also inexplicably furious about a sandwich from two weeks ago and possibly need to see someone about this, and you do not have the emotional bandwidth to explain that in a way that doesn't sound insane.
"I'm fine," you say instead, and get off his lap, and he lets you go, and you both pretend to watch the rest of the episode.
—
It is not that he stops touching you. He touches you constantly, easy and unbothered, a hand at the small of your back in the kitchen, his fingers finding yours on the couch, falling asleep tangled up in you like it's nothing. It's that he stops asking for anything past that, stops reaching for more, redirects every single time like he's got a switch in his head that flips the second your face does the thing it apparently does now.
You didn't know your face did a thing. You are learning a lot about your own face this week.
Brenda notices before you say a single word about it, because Brenda notices everything, and corners you by the copier on Friday with the particular expression of a woman who has been waiting patiently for an opening.
"You look like you're fighting a war," she says.
"I'm photocopying a worksheet."
"You're fighting a war and losing it to yourself, which is a very specific look, and I have seen it exactly once before, and it was on you, six months ago, right before you ate eight of that man's chips and pretended it was four."
"That doesn't make sense."
"It doesn't have to make sense, sweetie, it just has to be true." She takes the worksheet out of the copier for you because you have been standing there long enough that it's finished twice. "What's he done now."
"Nothing. He hasn't done anything."
"Mm."
"He's been perfect, actually. That's the problem."
Brenda looks at you for a long moment, the way you imagine she looks at a chart that isn't adding up.
"Oh, sweetie," she says, with the weary affection of a woman who has clearly seen this exact disease before, possibly in a mirror. "You're punishing yourself and calling it a personality trait."
You open your mouth to argue. Nothing comes out. This is, you are beginning to suspect, going to be a theme.
—
By the end of the month the whiteboard has become, unofficially, a shrine to Ryland Grace.
His column is a solid wall of gold stars, no gaps, color coded in a system only he understands, complete with a small hand drawn key in the corner that Pam definitely did not authorize and that nobody has the heart to erase. Dana has started referring to it as "the Grace situation" in a tone usually reserved for constitutional crises, and has twice been overheard comparing it to "what happened to public radio."
Alvarez announces the winner at the last staff meeting of the month with the enthusiasm of a woman reading a parking memo. "Congratulations to Mr. Grace," she says, not looking up from her clipboard, "for completing the challenge with what I am told is a perfect record. The district sent a gift card, which I did not expect, so. There's that."
The room claps. Ryland looks genuinely, catastrophically pleased, the way he looks when a lesson plan works exactly as designed, glasses sliding, hands doing a small excited thing on the table like he cannot quite contain it inside his own arms.
"I told you the QR code was smart," he says to you, under his breath, delighted, smug in the most harmless possible way, a golden retriever who has just been handed a ribbon.
You do not say anything. You are too busy staring at Dale, who has gone the color of old paper and is very quietly putting his head down on the table.
Brenda, next to him, is doing significantly better, mostly because Brenda apparently hedged.
"You bet on him," you say to her, "and you're smiling."
"I bet on him day one," Brenda says, serene. "Dale doubled down on you last week out of pity. Sweet, but financially reckless."
"I didn't even know there was still betting."
"There's always still betting."
Dale lifts his head just enough to make eye contact with you, wounded, betrayed by science itself. "I really thought the sandwich thing would turn it around," he says, mournful. "You were so close."
"You knew about the sandwich?"
"Everybody knew about the sandwich."
You do not have time to unpack that, because Ryland is now up front accepting his gift card from Alvarez with both hands like she's handing him a Nobel Prize, thanking her, thanking the district, thanking, incredibly, Pam, who is not present and will never know. He turns around to find you in the crowd and gives you a small private grin, the one that's just for you, pleased and a little smug and completely unaware of the size of the thing currently happening in your chest.
He earned every single one of those stars honestly. He drank the water. He took the stairs. He did not have to lie to himself about a single glass of anything, because wanting a thing and doing it were, for him, apparently the exact same action, no negotiation required, no invisible committee to consult first.
You look down at your own row on the whiteboard. Sparse. Embarrassing. A month of proof that you would rather be thirsty than obedient, even to yourself.
Somewhere in the middle of the applause, watching him beam at a fifteen dollar gift card like it's a diamond, something in you goes very quiet and very clear.
You did this to yourself. All of it. Every glass of water, every sandwich, every night you climbed off his lap because your own face gave you away. He never once made you do anything. He just existed, sincere and easy and completely undefended, and you turned every offer he made into a hill to die on.
He's still looking at you. Still smiling. Still has absolutely no idea.
You manage a smile back. It feels thin on your face. You're going to need to think about this later, somewhere that isn't a staff meeting, somewhere Brenda isn't already watching you with the expression of a woman who knows exactly what's coming.
—
It's a Tuesday, obviously. Everything happens on a Tuesday in this relationship, you're starting to suspect the universe has a system, or possibly a grudge.
The gift card is still sitting on his desk, propped up against his stapler like a trophy, fifteen whole dollars of dignity you don't currently possess. You have looked at it four times today already. This is not the behavior of a well person.
You're in the staff room getting terrible coffee, the same terrible coffee, brewed in the same mysterious way that suggests intentional sabotage, and Ryland is at the round table with a kid's scraped knee incident report and a stack of "team healthy habits" star stickers he's apparently been asked to hand out to students now too, because wellness has, at this point, colonized the entire building and shows no signs of a peace treaty.
A first grader is standing next to him. She has been crying. Not dramatically. Just the quiet, hiccuping kind, the kind that happens when a kid falls off the monkey bars and is more embarrassed than hurt.
"Okay," Ryland is saying, at her eye level, voice gone soft in a register you have never once heard him use on an adult, "so here's the thing about monkey bars. They are objectively evil. I want you to know that going in. I have fallen off monkey bars as a fully grown man with a doctorate."
The kid sniffles. "Really?"
"Twice. Same week. I don't want to talk about it." He pulls a tissue out of his pocket and holds it out. "Can you blow your nose for me?"
The kid takes the tissue. The kid blows her nose. No argument. No committee. No twenty minute detour through a spice rack. Just a small person, asked to do a small thing, doing it.
"Great job," Ryland says, warm and easy, like she's just done something genuinely impressive. "That was a really good nose blow. Excellent form. I'm giving you a star for that."
He sticks a star sticker on the back of her hand, gentle, unhurried, like there is nowhere else in the world he needs to be. "There. Scientifically verified brave person."
The kid looks at the sticker, looks at him, and beams, and wanders off to go tell somebody the news, and Ryland goes back to his scraped knee incident report like nothing happened, already halfway distracted by something else, completely unaware that he has just detonated something in your chest from across the room.
You watched the whole thing. You watched him ask. You watched her do it. You watched him praise her for doing it. The simplest possible loop. Ask, action, praise. And the kid didn't flinch, didn't argue, didn't organize a single spice rack. She just did what he asked and let someone tell her she did a good job, and it looked so easy, and you are standing in the staff room holding terrible coffee and wanting to cry about a tissue.
You have said no to him three times this week. You told him you were fine. You have spent weeks quietly starving yourself of things you wanted purely so you wouldn't have to be told to want them, and he has spent those same weeks being sweet to you anyway, unbothered, patient, handing out star stickers to devastated six year olds with the same soft voice he'd use on you if you'd just let him, and also winning fifteen dollars off you fair and square in the process.
You set your coffee down. You don't remember deciding to walk over. Your feet just do it, apparently done taking instructions from the committee.
"Hey," you say.
He looks up. Whatever's on your face makes something shift in his, fast, careful. "Hey. You okay?"
"No," you say, and it comes out smaller than you meant it to. "Can we talk. Tonight. At my place."
Something in him goes very still and very focused, the way he gets right before he solves a problem he's been quietly worrying at for days.
"Yeah," he says. "Of course."
—
You don't manage it gracefully. You had, on the drive home, a whole plan, something coherent and measured, a calm explanation of pattern recognition and self sabotage that made you sound like a woman who has her life together.
What actually comes out, the second he closes your front door, is: "I don't know why I keep saying no to things I want."
He doesn't say anything right away. He just looks at you, patient, waiting, giving you room the way he's been giving you room all week, and it's that exact patience that cracks you open.
"It's stupid," you say. "It's so stupid. You ask me to eat something and some horrible little switch in my brain flips and suddenly I'm starving myself out of spite. You ask me to come to bed and I do the dishes. I did the dishes, Ryland. I hate doing dishes."
"I know."
"You knew?"
"I've watched you avoid a sink for six months. You'd rather use paper plates for the rest of your natural life."
"That's not the point."
"I know. Keep going."
You keep going. It's messy and non-linear and mostly makes sense only to you, something about the whiteboard, something about how being told to do a thing you were already going to do makes the thing suddenly unbearable, something about how it followed you home and got into your kitchen and your bed and how much you hate that it worked on something as small as a sandwich.
"And I wanted the sandwich," you say, which is, embarrassingly, the point where your voice actually breaks. "I wanted the sandwich so much."
He crosses the room. He doesn't say anything clever. He just pulls you in, both arms, solid and warm, and you stand there in your own hallway with your face against his shoulder feeling like an idiot about a turkey and provolone sandwich from three weeks ago.
He holds you for a long time. He does not, at any point, tell you it's okay, which you are grateful for, because it is not okay, it is deeply and specifically not okay, and he knows that, and he is just standing there with you inside it.
"Okay," he says, eventually, into your hair. "Can I ask you something."
"Yeah."
"What do you need. Right now. Not what you think you should say. What do you actually need."
You open your mouth.
Nothing comes out.
You close your mouth. You open it again. You stand there in his arms doing an excellent impression of a woman buffering, and the frustration of it, the genuine frustration, hits you so hard your eyes sting, because you don't know. You have spent so long refusing things that the wanting has gone blurry, like staring at a word until it stops looking like a word, and now he's asking you to read it and you can't.
"I don't know," you say, and you hate how it sounds. Small. Honest. Terrible.
He doesn't flinch. He doesn't try to fix it. He just nods, like that was a perfectly acceptable answer, and kisses the top of your head, and says, "Okay. Stay here."
He goes to your kitchen. You hear the tap run. He comes back with a glass of water.
A glass of water.
You look at it. You look at him. He is standing in your hallway holding a glass of water with the calm, unhurried patience of a man who has been thinking about this exact moment for longer than you have, and you understand, suddenly, what he's doing, and your whole body goes still.
"Drink it," he says. Soft. An instruction, but one that sounds like a question.
"I." You stop. The no is right there, right at the top of your throat, mechanical, autonomic, the same no that killed the sandwich and the shoes and three separate evenings you wanted and didn't let yourself have. You can feel it sitting there like a reflex, and he can see it, you know he can see it, because his face does not change at all.
"Trust me," he says.
Two words. He says them the way he says okay to a scared kid, the way he says keep going when you're mid-sentence and losing your nerve, the way he said yeah, of course in the staff room this afternoon. No pressure. No angle. Just him, standing there, asking you to do the smallest possible thing, and meaning it.
You take the glass.
You drink it.
It's water. It's just water. It tastes like nothing. Your hands are shaking and it's just tap water in a glass he got from your own cupboard and you drink the whole thing in one go because if you stop you will lose your nerve, and when you lower the empty glass your eyes are wet and you don't know why.
"There you go," he says. Quiet. Warm. "That's it. You did it."
Something happens in your body.
It starts in your chest. A loosening. Like a knot you didn't know was there has just been cut, not untied, cut, and the relief of it moves through you in a wave that hits your stomach, your knees, the backs of your hands, the base of your spine. Your breath catches. Your skin goes hot. You are standing in your hallway having a full physiological response to a man telling you that you drank a glass of water correctly, and the response is not subtle, it is not ambiguous, it is your entire nervous system saying oh. Oh, that. More of that. Please.
He sees it. He sees all of it. He is watching your face the way he watches a reaction in a beaker, quiet and focused and completely still, and whatever he sees there makes his eyes go dark in a way you have not seen since the first time, since the afternoon he turned you around in this exact hallway and put his mouth at your ear.
He takes the empty glass out of your hand. He sets it on the hall table. He doesn't ask. He doesn't check. He just takes your hand and walks you down the hall, steady, unhurried, because he has apparently been solving this equation in his head for weeks and has just, quietly, arrived at the answer.
In the bedroom he sits you on the edge of the bed. He stands in front of you and tips your chin up with two fingers and looks at your face like he's reading something complicated and wonderful.
"Do you know how brave that was," he says.
"It's a glass of water, Grace."
"You told me you didn't know what you needed. Out loud. To my face. And then you drank something I handed you without arguing about it for the first time in a month." His thumb traces along your jaw. "That's not a glass of water. That's you letting someone help you. That's the bravest thing I've ever seen you do, and I watched you call my teaching lazy in front of the whole department."
You make a sound that is half a laugh and half something that is not a laugh.
"And I am so in love with you," he says, like it's the next line in the same sentence, like it belongs there, like it was never going to go anywhere else.
You go completely still.
He doesn't take it back. He doesn't soften it. He just stands there with his hand at your jaw, looking down at you, and lets it land.
"Ryland."
"Mm-hm."
"Did you just."
"Yeah."
"While I'm crying about a glass of water."
"Seemed like the right moment."
"That is the worst timing of any."
"Mm-hm."
He pulls back. Just enough to look at you. His hand is still at your jaw and his face is close and his eyes are serious underneath the everything else.
"Hey," he says. "I need you to tell me what you want to happen next. No wrong answer. We can stay right here. We can go to sleep. We can talk about the whiteboard for three hours. Whatever you want."
"I want you," you say, and it comes out so fast it surprises both of you. "I want you, Ryland. Please. I'm not saying no tonight."
Something in his face settles. Not relief exactly. More like a lock clicking open.
"Okay," he says. Soft. Sure. "Okay. Come here."
He kisses you. He is standing and you are sitting on the edge of the bed and he kisses you slow, thorough, the kind of kiss that has a thesis statement, and his hands move from your jaw to your hair to the buttons of your shirt.
You reach for his collar and he catches your wrist, gentle.
"Not yet," he says against your mouth. "Let me. You're letting me tonight, remember?"
"I don't remember agreeing to that."
"You drank the water."
"That was water, not a binding contract."
"It was a little bit of a binding contract." He undoes the first button. He leans down and presses his mouth to the skin it reveals, just below your collarbone, and says against it, "you're so good at this when you stop fighting it."
Your breath catches. He hears it. He undoes the second button.
"See?" Soft. His lips moving down. "You just have to let it happen."
Something in your stomach drops. Not unpleasant. The opposite of unpleasant. A warm, liquid loosening that spreads downward, and you are suddenly aware of every inch of skin his mouth hasn't touched yet.
Third button. His mouth at the center of your chest, warm, unhurried. "You just have to sit there and be good for me and let me take care of you."
Your breath leaves your body in a way that is not voluntary. Good for me lands somewhere south of your ribcage and stays there, pulsing, and your fingers grip the edge of the bed because your hands need to be doing something or they're going to be in his hair and you were told not yet.
"Grace."
"Mm-hm."
"If you keep talking like that I'm going to."
"Going to what."
"I don't know. Something. Combust."
"Noted. I'll keep talking then." Fourth button. He pushes the shirt open and runs both hands down your sides, slow, thumbs tracing your ribs, and looks at you with that same focused quiet, and says, "you're so beautiful. You know that, right? You know I think that."
"You've mentioned it."
"I haven't mentioned it enough. I should mention it more. I should mention it constantly. I should get a whiteboard." He pushes the shirt off your shoulders and it drops behind you on the bed. "There. That was easy. Was that easy?"
"Yes."
"See how easy that was? You didn't even argue about it."
"I'm considering arguing retroactively."
"Too late. You already let me." He kisses your shoulder. "You're doing so well."
The praise is stacking up in your body like voltage. Each one lands a little lower than the last, chest to stomach to the base of your spine, and you can feel yourself getting wet, which is absurd, which is clinically absurd, because he has done nothing except unbutton your shirt and tell you that you're good at drinking water, and your body has decided that this is apparently enough to work with.
"Lie back," he says.
You lie back. You do it without arguing. The ease of it makes your breath catch, and he notices, because he always notices.
"There," he says, soft. "See? You don't have to fight everything."
"I like fighting everything."
"I know you do." He leans down and kisses your stomach, just below your navel. "But you don't have to fight me." His fingers hook into the waistband of your skirt. "Can I take this off."
"Yes."
"Yes what."
"Yes, Dr. Grace."
His whole face goes red. From the collar up, fast, the same flush you clocked at the coffee machine except this time there is nowhere for it to hide. But his mouth is doing the thing, the millimetre thing, and his eyes are bright, and you can see him filing it, logging it, adding it to whatever private catalogue he keeps of ways you have ruined him.
"Oh," he says, quiet, almost fond. "So you can still do that. Good to know. Good to know that's still in there somewhere."
"I contain multitudes."
"You contain problems." He leans down and says it against your hip. "And I am going to deal with every single one of them." His fingers hook into the waistband properly now. "A month of fighting me on everything and now you're just saying yes and letting me have this and that is." He pulls the skirt down over your hips, slow. "Genuinely." Down your thighs. "The hottest thing." Off your ankles. "You have ever done."
"I said three words."
"You said the right three words." He drops the skirt off the side of the bed. He runs both hands up your thighs, slow, thumbs tracing the inside, and you can feel how close his hands are to where you need them, and he is taking his time, and you are going to lose your mind.
He hooks his fingers into your underwear and pulls them down, slow, and you lift your hips for him and he says, soft, "good, that's it," and the sound you make is not language. He drops them off the side of the bed.
He stands back. He looks at you. You are lying on your own bed in nothing and he is fully dressed and looking at you with the calm, focused patience of a man conducting an experiment he has been designing in his head for weeks.
"You're incredible," he says. Simple. Like a fact. "You're incredible and you fought me about a sandwich."
"Can we stop talking about the sandwich."
"We will never stop talking about the sandwich." He runs one hand along the outside of your thigh, light, considering. "Sit up."
You sit up.
"I want to try something," he says. "And I want you to tell me if it's okay."
"Okay."
"I think you want to be told what to do," he says. "I think you want me to give you clear, simple instructions, and then tell you when you've done them right." He is looking at you with his glasses sliding down his nose and his face flushed and his voice steady in a way that is clearly costing him a lot to maintain. "And I think, based on the last twenty minutes, if I told you to get on your knees and put your mouth on me and I walked you through every step of it, you'd like that. A lot."
Your mouth goes dry. Your whole body goes hot. Something between your hips clenches so hard your thighs press together, involuntary, and he sees it, of course he sees it, and you watch him clock that tiny movement and file it with the same quiet satisfaction he gets from a hypothesis confirmed. He has just, out loud, in your bedroom, described the exact shape of the thing you did not know how to ask for, and he has done it on the first try, and you are going to need a minute but you do not have a minute because he is looking at you and waiting. You nod before you've finished processing the sentence.
"Words," he says.
"Yes. Yes, Ryland, please."
"Good." He is already pulling his shirt off over his head, same chest, same soft middle, same grey in the chest hair, and his hands go to his belt and he undoes it and pushes his pants and boxers down together and steps out of them, and you watch him, all of him, and you are aware that you are staring and you do not care.
He is hard. He has been hard, probably since the hallway, probably since the water glass, and the fact that he has been this hard the entire time he was patiently undressing you and praising you and keeping his voice even does something to your brain that rearranges several priorities.
He sits on the edge of the bed next to you. He leans back on his hands. He looks at you.
"Come here," he says. Soft.
You slide off the bed. You kneel between his legs. You look up at him and he looks down at you and his face does something complicated and tender and slightly wrecked.
"Start slow," he says. "Just your hand first. Get used to me."
You wrap your hand around him. He is warm and hard and the sound he makes when you touch him, a sharp inhale through his nose, tells you that the patience has been a very expensive performance. You stroke him, slow, watching his face.
"Good," he says, and his voice has gone rough. "That's good. A little tighter. Yeah. Like that."
You tighten your grip. You stroke him again, slow, root to tip, and his hips shift on the bed, just slightly, involuntary, and the involuntary part of it makes your stomach flip.
"Now your mouth," he says. "Just the tip. Slow."
You lean in. You put your mouth on him, just the head, your lips closing around him, and the sound he makes is not the teacher voice and is not the patient voice and is not any voice you have heard him use before.
"Good," he says, immediately, like a reflex. "That's good. Just like that. Stay right there."
The good hits you low in your stomach. You feel yourself clench around nothing, feel the wetness between your thighs get worse, and you haven't even moved yet. You are on your knees with your mouth on him and the word good is doing more to you than most people's hands have ever done and you are going to have to live with that information for the rest of your life.
You take him a little deeper. Slow. Your tongue traces the underside and his hips shift on the bed, involuntary, and his hand comes to the back of your head, not pushing, just resting there, his fingers threading into your hair.
"That's perfect," he says, and his voice has gone rough. "You're perfect. A little more. Just like that."
You're perfect makes your thighs press together again. He can't see it from this angle but your body doesn't care, your body is responding to his voice like it's a direct line to your nervous system, and you take him deeper, relaxing your jaw, letting him slide further into your mouth, and the sound he makes is raw and broken and it goes through you like a hand down your spine.
"God," he breathes. "You feel. That's so good. You're so good at this."
You moan around him. You can't help it. The praise is hitting you faster than you can process it, each one landing between your legs like a pulse, and the moan vibrates through him and his hand tightens in your hair and his hips jerk up and he says, "fuck," under his breath, which is the second time you have ever heard him swear and which does the same devastating thing it did the first time.
"Sorry," he says, breathless. "Sorry, I didn't mean to. You just. Your mouth is."
You pull off just enough to say, "tell me what to do next."
His eyes go dark. His hand flexes in your hair.
"Your hand," he says. "Wrap your hand around the base. Yeah. Like that. Now both. Mouth and hand together. Slow."
You do it. You stroke him and suck him at the same time, finding a rhythm, and his head tips back before he catches himself and brings it forward again because he apparently needs to watch, and the watching is making you wetter, and the wetter you get the more desperate your mouth gets, and the more desperate your mouth gets the more he talks.
"That's it. That's so good. You're doing so well. A little tighter with your hand. Yeah. God. Yeah, just like that."
Every instruction followed by praise. Every praise landing in your body like a reward. You are dripping now, you can feel it on the insides of your thighs, and he hasn't touched you below the neck, and the cycle is feeding itself, his voice making you desperate, your desperation making you eager, your eagerness making him lose his composure, his lost composure making his praise rougher and more honest, and the rougher honesty of it making you desperate all over again.
"Deeper," he says. "If you can. You don't have to."
You take him as deep as you can. You relax your throat and let him slide in and his hand grips your hair properly now, a real grip, and the sound he makes is guttural and wrecked.
"Good girl," he says, rough, barely a voice anymore. "Good girl, that's. God. That's so good."
Good girl while he's in your mouth is a different thing entirely. Good girl while he's in your mouth and his hand is in your hair and his voice is shaking goes through you like electricity, and you make a sound around him that is not dignified and not quiet and he says it again, "good girl, you're so good," and his hips are moving now, shallow, careful, letting you set the pace but unable to stay still anymore.
"Okay," he says, ragged, "okay, slow down, slow, I need you to slow down or this is going to be over before I."
You slow down. You ease off to just the tip, your tongue tracing the underside, and you look up at him.
He is looking down at you. His glasses are fogged. His chest is heaving. His hand is in your hair and his mouth is open and he is looking at you like you are the only thing left in the world, and you hold the eye contact, deliberately, your lips still around him, your tongue still moving, and you watch his face come apart in real time.
His hand tightens in your hair. Not pulling. Holding on. Like you are the thing keeping him upright.
You have never, in your entire life, felt this powerful on your knees. You are below him and you are looking up at him and he is completely, utterly, yours, and the expression on his face is like you have just solved a problem he's been working on for years and the solution was you, here, exactly like this.
"Come up here," he says. "Please. I need you up here."
You pull off him. You wipe your mouth with the back of your hand. You climb up onto the bed and he catches you and pulls you into his lap, facing him, your knees on either side of his hips, and the position puts you chest to chest, face to face, nowhere to hide from any of it.
"Hi," he says, looking up at you.
"Hi."
"Condom. Wallet. One second."
"You still keep them in your wallet?"
"I am an optimist with a very specific belief system."
He reaches behind him, fumbles for his jeans on the floor, retrieves the wallet, retrieves the condom. He tears it open and rolls it on with one hand while the other stays on your hip, keeping you close, keeping you in his lap, and the multitasking should not be as attractive as it is.
"Okay," he says. He puts both hands on your hips. He looks up at you. "This is you. Your pace. You decide how fast, how deep, everything. I'm just going to be here. Telling you things."
"What kind of things."
"Good things."
He heard you. He has been hearing you all night, every small admission, every please, every yes, and he has been keeping all of it, and now he's handing it back to you in the shape of a question he already knows the answer to.
You reach down between you. You take him in your hand and line him up and you feel him right there, pressing against you, and you look at his face and his hands tighten on your hips and he says, very quietly, "whenever you're ready."
You sink down onto him.
Slow. You take him slow because you want to feel every inch of it and because his face is right there and you can watch every single thing it does as you take him in, and what it does is extraordinary. His mouth falls open. His eyes go half closed. His fingers dig into your hips. He makes a sound that is mostly air and partly a word that might be your name and might be God and might be both.
"Good," he manages, when you are all the way down, when he is all the way inside you and you are sitting in his lap with your foreheads almost touching. "That's. Good. I can't think when you're."
"Then don't think."
Neither of you moves. Neither of you breathes. He is looking at you from below with his mouth open and his hands gripping your hips and his glasses long gone and you can feel him everywhere. His hands are on your hips and your hands are on his shoulders and you are so close you can see the exact shade his eyes go when he's trying to hold himself together.
You move.
You lift your hips and sink back down, slow, testing the angle, and the sound he makes goes straight through you. You do it again. You find a rhythm, slow and deep, your thighs doing the work, and his hands guide your hips but they don't control them, and his face is tipped up toward yours and he is watching you with the most open, most focused, most completely undone expression you have ever seen.
"There you go," he says, low. "That's it. Just like that. You feel so good."
"Ryland."
"I'm here. I'm right here. Keep going."
You keep going. You pick up the pace, just a little, shifting your hips until you find the angle that makes your breath catch, and he sees it happen on your face before you can hide it, and his hands tighten on your hips and he says, "there, stay right there, that's the one," and you stay, and the pleasure is building in a slow deep wave that starts where he's inside you and radiates outward.
"You're so beautiful," he says, looking up at you. "You're so beautiful and you're being so good and I need you to know that. I need you to hear it."
You try to say something back. What comes out is a sound that isn't a word, just air and want, and your hips grind down against him involuntarily, and he groans and grips your hips harder.
"Good." His hips start moving underneath you, meeting your rhythm, pushing deeper on the downstroke, and the combination of your movement and his sends a shock through you that makes you grab his shoulders harder.
"Ryland, I'm."
"I know." His fingers find your clit, precise, focused, and the first touch makes you jolt in his lap. "I know you are."
You are right there. You are right at the edge and his fingers are working you in tight steady circles and his hips are pushing up into you and his mouth is at your ear and you are going to come, you are going to come in his lap in about four seconds and your whole body is tightening around him and.
"Stop," he says.
You make a sound. It is not a word. It is the sound of a woman whose entire nervous system has just been asked to do something impossible.
"Stop moving. Hold still for me."
You stop. You stop moving. You are shaking and full of him and right at the edge and you stop, and the whine that comes out of you is the most pathetic sound you have ever made in your life, a desperate, high, wordless thing that you would be mortified by if you had any dignity left, which you do not, because your dignity is somewhere on the floor with your underwear.
"Good," he says, into your ear. Soft. Devastated. "Good. That's so good. You stopped. You actually stopped."
"I hate you," you say, shaking.
"You don't."
"I really, really hate you."
"Mm-hm." He kisses the side of your neck. He is not moving. He is buried in you to the hilt and he is not moving, and you can feel yourself clenching around him in small involuntary pulses, your body trying to chase something it can't reach without friction, without movement, without any of the things he has just taken away. You squeeze around him and it's not enough. You tilt your hips, barely, and his hand presses you still. His fingers have pulled away from your clit and are resting on your thigh, light, doing nothing. "You just did the hardest thing I've asked you to do all night. Do you know that?"
"I'm aware."
"I told you to stop and you stopped. A month ago you would have kept going just to spite me."
"A month ago I would have." You swallow. Your voice is thin. "Been right to."
He laughs. He laughs soft and warm against your neck and his arms tighten around you and for a second you are just two people sitting in the middle of a bed, breathing, connected, still.
"I'm going to move you now," he says. "Is that okay?"
"Yes."
"Yes what."
"Yes, Ryland, please, for the love of God."
He lifts you off him. You make a sound at the loss of him that you will deny later. He guides you forward, gentle, both hands on your hips, and you go, you go where he puts you, on your hands and knees on the bed, and you feel him behind you, and the shift in position is so different from everything that came before that your brain has to recalibrate.
You can't see his face. You can only feel him. His hands on your hips. His thighs behind yours. And then his mouth, pressing a kiss to the top of your spine.
"You've been so good," he says, against your skin. He kisses down. One vertebra at a time. Slow. "You've been so good for me tonight."
Another kiss, lower. Between your shoulder blades.
"You drank the water." Lower. The middle of your back. "You let me undress you." Lower. The dip of your waist. "You got on your knees for me." Lower. The base of your spine. "You stopped when I told you to stop."
"Ryland."
"You don't have to work anymore." His mouth is at the small of your back and his hands are on your hips and his voice is low and steady and sure. "You did so well. You did everything I asked. Now I'm going to give you what you need, and you're just going to feel it. Okay?"
"Okay."
"Okay what."
"Okay, Ryland."
"Good girl."
He lines himself up. You feel him press against you, and then he pushes in, slow, and the angle is different from this position, deeper, fuller, and you drop your head and make a sound into the pillow that has no name.
"There," he says, behind you, his hands firm on your hips. "There you go. Just feel it."
He starts to move. Slow at first, the same patience, but it doesn't stay slow for long. He picks up the pace and the angle is hitting something deep and relentless and his hands are gripping your hips and pulling you back onto him with each thrust, and you can hear him, you can hear his breathing go ragged and his voice go rough, and you cannot see his face but you can hear everything.
"You feel incredible," he says, and his voice is wrecked. "You feel. God. I have been thinking about this for weeks."
"Harder," you say into the pillow, and then, before the old reflex can ruin it, "please. Harder, please, Ryland."
"That's so good," he says, broken. "You asked so nicely."
The praise hits you like a fist. Your arms give out and you drop to your elbows, forehead against the sheets, and a sound comes out of you that is raw and desperate and has his name somewhere inside it. You can feel yourself clenching around him, involuntary, rhythmic, your body responding to his voice the way it's been responding all night, and you are so wet you can feel it on your thighs and you are shaking and he hasn't even started moving yet.
And then he gives it to you. Harder. His hips snapping against you, and one hand slides up your spine and presses flat between your shoulder blades, holding you down, gentle, firm, and the held-down feeling combined with the praise combined with the depth of him makes you cry out into the pillow, a sound you didn't know you had in you, and his hand presses you down a little firmer in response, like he's saying I know, I've got you, stay right there, without using a single word.
His other hand slides around your hip. His fingers find your clit from behind, precise, and the sound you make is loud and shapeless and you don't care.
"Come on, sweetheart," he says, behind you, above you, his voice the only thing in the room. "You've been so brave. You've been so good. Let go for me."
"Tell me," you say, and your voice is muffled in the pillow, barely there. "Tell me I'm."
"You're good," he says, immediate, sure, like the word has stopped being a reward and started being a fact. "You're so good. Good girl. Come on. I've got you."
You come with your face in the pillow and his hand between your legs and him deep inside you, and the orgasm is different from this angle, longer, heavier, something that rolls through you from the base of your spine outward, and he works you through it, his fingers steady, his hips slowing but not stopping, his voice low and constant behind you, good, that's it, good girl, there you go, I've got you, you're so good, until you are boneless and shaking and gripping the sheets with both hands.
He slows down. He leans over you. His chest against your back. His mouth at your ear. He is still inside you, still hard, still moving, barely, slow rolls of his hips.
"One more thing," he says, soft, into your ear. "Can you do one more thing for me."
"Yes."
"Stay right here. Just like this. I'm close."
"Yes. Ryland. Yes."
He picks the pace back up. His hands are back on your hips and he is not patient anymore, he is not careful, he is a man at the end of something, and you can hear it in his breathing and feel it in his rhythm going ragged and you turn your head to the side, just enough, and you say it.
"You're so good," you say.
His whole body stutters.
"You're so good, Ryland." You say it into the pillow, muffled, but loud enough. You say it like you mean it, because you do, because it is the truest thing you have said all night. "You're so good to me."
His rhythm breaks. His breathing breaks. You can feel him shaking against you and you understand that nobody has said this to him before, not like this, not while he's inside someone, not while his whole body is open and undefended, and the sound he makes is raw and wrecked and yours.
"Good boy," you say, very softly, and you feel the exact moment it lands, the exact moment his whole body goes rigid, and he comes with his face pressed between your shoulder blades and a sound that shakes through both of you, his hips pushing deep into you one last time, his hands gripping your hips hard enough that there will be marks tomorrow.
He goes still.
He is draped over your back, breathing like he's just run something. His face is between your shoulder blades and his hands are still on your hips and you are both just breathing. After a long moment he presses a kiss to the back of your neck, slow, and eases out of you, careful, and you both collapse sideways onto the bed in a graceless tangle of limbs.
He pulls you into him. Your back against his chest. His arms around you. His mouth at the top of your spine.
He is quiet for a long time. Then:
"I can't believe you did that," he says.
"Mm-hm."
"You actually."
"I did."
"You said."
"I know what I said."
He stares at the ceiling. A slow, disbelieving grin spreads across his face, the kind that starts at the corner of his mouth and takes over the whole operation, and he starts to laugh, helpless, delighted.
"I cannot believe you," he says.
"Turnabout."
"I cannot believe you just did that to me."
"Fair play, Grace."
"Fair play." He pulls you tighter against him. "God. Fair play."
"For the record," he says, into your hair, "I have also been having a very bad month."
"You won the whiteboard."
"I won the whiteboard and lost you for a month, it was a terrible trade, the gift card is fifteen dollars, it's not even enough for lunch."
You laugh. He laughs into your hair. He pulls you closer.
"You drank the water," he says.
"I drank the water."
"Without arguing."
"Without arguing."
"I'm very proud of you."
"Shut up."
"No."
You close your eyes. You let him hold you. Outside it is dark and your hallway still has an empty glass on the table and somewhere in a staff room across town there is a whiteboard with his name all over it, and you are lying in your own bed being held by a man who handed you a glass of water and meant the whole world by it, and you are, for the first time in a month, not thirsty.
"Ryland."
"Mm."
"I love you too. For the record."
"I know," he says, into your hair, pleased and warm and not at all surprised.
stranger things wasn’t just borrowing 80s aesthetics; it was operating inside a codified cinematic language where certain tropes have fixed, historically stable meanings. the duffers are fluent in that language, and the show deploys romance specific tools around byler with a level of precision that makes any “just friends” interpretation fall apart the moment you actually look at the form.
the shot language is the first signal. when the camera goes hyper subjective on mike and will, lingering close ups, shallow depth of field, soft lighting that isolates them from the world, that’s not how 80s cinema frames platonic bonds. that’s how it frames unspoken desire. the form is articulating what the characters can’t yet say.
the blocking reinforces it. mike and will are repeatedly carved out of the ensemble at key emotional moments, placed in tight two shots where the rest of the cast disappears. that’s a classic romantic isolation technique: the world falls away so the audience understands that this relationship is being foregrounded. if the intention were platonic, the staging would be looser, more casual, more integrated into the group. but stranger things keeps creating pockets of intimacy around them, and that’s a choice with genre specific meaning.
the interrupted confession structure is another unmistakable romantic marker. in 80s cinema, that trope is used to delay a romantic revelation, not to hint at friendship. the emotional swell, the tightening frame, the vulnerability, and then the interruption. stranger things replicates that pattern beat for beat with mike and will. that’s intertextuality, not coincidence.
and then you add the “i need you” beats, which in this cinematic dialect are declarations of emotional primacy. paired with slowed pacing and intimate framing, they’re structurally romantic. the show uses them exactly that way.
and into that context, you place the “hawkins is not the same without you” scene, and you stage it alone, just the two of them, with the camera giving them space to breathe. that’s already romantic coding. but then the performances take it even further. the looks they share, the way both of them start to tear up, the way their faces soften, the way they exchange that small, fragile, intimate smile, that is not how 80s cinema codes platonic emotion. that is the micro acting of a romantic beat. it’s the moment where the emotional truth leaks through the cracks. in this genre, that kind of shared, trembling smile is the pre confession moment. it’s the “we’re both feeling this but neither of us can say it yet” beat.
because again: context matters. “hawkins is not the same without you” spoken in a crowded room, tossed off casually, could plausibly sit in a platonic register. but stranger things doesn’t do that. it isolates them. it slows down. it lets the emotional weight settle. and then it gives them that look, that soft, tear rimmed, intimate smile that 80s films use to signal romantic reciprocity before the characters themselves realise it.
and this is where the bafflement becomes unavoidable: if byler isn’t meant to be read romantically, why is the show so rigorously committed to using romance specific cinematic language? why deploy the exact tropes, yearning close ups, romantic isolation, confession interruptions, emotionally loaded “i need you” beats, a private “hawkins is not the same without you” moment, and that shared tearful smile, if the intended reading is “just friends”? filmmakers don’t accidentally reconstruct a genre’s entire romantic toolkit with this level of deliberate craft.
so to me, the question shouldn’t be “why do people read byler romantically?” the question should be “why would a show that is so clearly fluent in 80s cinematic grammar write mike and will in the language of romance, right down to the micro expressions, if the intended reading were platonic?” once you recognise the grammar, the sentence they’re writing is not ambiguous. and from a film and television standpoint, the idea that all of this is unintentional is what’s truly baffling.
