there's a book i Want to read, that has been on my radar even before i wrote the Royalty Tropes Post, but has now been so very loudly hyped up in the tags of it i'm worried i'll get dissappointed..... i did this to myself i Understand but aaugugh.
how i study when my energy is low but my goals are high
i no longer wait to feel motivated.
as someone who's goals are super high, like becoming a doctor, living in a new york penthouse, going to an ivy league med school.
i don't have time to wait for motivation to start working on attaining my goals. some days i want my goals more than i have energy for them.
and that's fine.
⋆ what “low energy” actually means for me
my low energy isn't random, it comes from thinking all the time, consuming all the way, always having something open in my mind. even when i'm resting, i'm still processing. what i actually need in these moments is predictability. like familiar routines, gentle structure that tells my nervous system, "hey, you're safe enough to focus"
⋆ how i study when i feel drained
i lower the activation energy.
♡ — books already open, i like setting this up because it's the first step to surrounding myself with what i need to actually start
♡ — tabs preloaded. one of my favorite tasks. organizing my tabs into groups and naming them help me stay organized and make it less-distracting.
♡ — notes half-started. the date, time, topic, energy level etc
♡ — i start before i feel ready. i immediately start my Pomodoro timer. (i use flocus, but most of the time i like to use ambient/music Pomodoro's on youtube. and i just start, no thinking, no planning. just start
♡ — i keep sessions short so my brain doesn't panic. not 45 minutes, not 60 minutes, just 20-25 minutes and a 5-minute break always.
the goal is to make starting stupidly easy
♡ — one topic only. i have this strange addiction to multitasking. like right now as i'm writing this blog post, i'm also planning other parts of my brand, planning my study schedule tomorrow, and rebranding myself for 2026. yes.... but when it comes to studying, i choose one topic only,
♡ — i also set one clear outcome for each study session. like read, review, rewrite, finish ___ chapter. etc
my brain relaxes when it knows there's an ending, and a goal at the end of the session
i also like to keep my study environment more intimate during my low energy days
♡ — for my lighting choices, i hate using overhead lights when studying, so i like to use my desk lamp, or warm fairy lights
♡ — when i'm reading something i like everything silent, but sometimes rain ambience is really nice to listen to.
♡ — i loveeeee warm drinks, homemade coffee + caramel macchiato creamer. plus, i like setting the temperature to be cool, not too cold, not too warm.
i also don't like to change my study system during these days. i choose gentle study methods like
♡ — rereading with a pen in hand to annotate
♡ — active recall, but only a few questions
♡ — i also explain concepts out loud.
i learned to stop before i'm depleted. i end sessions while i still have a little energy left. i also leave something unfinished on purpose, so i can slowly return back later before the end of the day. this is how i build trust with myself.
i do not support toxic motivation, i will not push myself until i burnout of fall into depression. i stop when it feels kind.
⋆ what i don’t do anymore
♡ — i don't wait for motivation
♡ — i don't compare my pace to high energy days, because that isn't fair
♡ — i do NOT romanticize exhaustion
♡ — i stopped studying past mental saturation, never force yourself to consume information when you're depleted.
♡ — i no longer force long sessions, like i mentioned earlier in this post. i keep it to 20-25 minutes only, nothing beyond that.
♡ — i also don't turn one low-energy day into a story about failure. i used to do this a lot.
how i measure success now
♡ — i show up gently
♡ — i touch the material daily, at least once
♡ — i don't avoid the subject, even if i hate it
you do not need to suffer to be serious. these are all little reminders and tasks i've been doing this winter to just enjoy studying more. winter has always been a low-energy season for me, so keeping all this in mind whenever i focus on my academics has really changed a lot for me.
cherie’s note — take a shot everytime i used an emdash (—) fr. having family over this week, so posting is still going to be a little inconsistent but i'm trying! i missed you cuties. (◜ᴗ◝)
you barely had time to process how perfect it felt — how right it was to finally have rafe inside of you. how thick his cock felt inside of you, nice and full, your warm velvet walls morphing to fit snug around him. how it seemed to split you open in a way that made your mind dizzy, brain too foggy with the feeling of him so deep inside of you — before it all unraveled.
his hips stutter the second he bottoms out, his breath hitching sharp against your throat, one strong arm braced beside your head. his other hand is trembling where it clutches at your thigh, fingers digging into the soft flesh like he was struggling to hold himself together.
"f-fuck," he gasps, voice cracking. his eyes screw shut, "baby—i'm gonna—shit, i can't—"
you blink up at him through your lashes, flushed and dazed. your heart pounds from the stretch, and then the sudden stillness. "what?"
he buries his face in your neck, his whole body tensing against yours.
"rafe."
his hips twitch once — just once —and then he groans, low and broken and almost embarrassed, as you feel him spill inside of you before either of you have even moved. one deep thrust and he's done — the warm, sticky foreign feeling flooding your cunt for the very first time.
"fuck," he says again, softer now, like he's not even talking to you — more to himself, if anything. "fuck me, i'm so fucking sorry, baby."
he doesn't move. just stays there, breathing hard, his weight starting to sink heavier into you as the silence stretches. you can feel how wrecked he is, breathing uneven in small pants. his pulse races against his skin, eyes squeezing shut with a frustrated sigh.
"rafe..."
his voice comes out rough, barely above a whisper. "i didn't mean to. you were just—you felt so fucking good, and i couldn't help it. i—god, i swear i can go again—just, give me a minute—"
your kiss-swollen lips part, but no words come out — not at first. you're still catching your breath too, blinking through the haze of surprise and something softer, a little warmer. your thighs twitch around his waist, still trembling from the stretch, but it's not frustration that curls in your chest. it's something closer to disbelief.
he came — just from being inside of you. one thrust, and he fell apart.
he's still trying to hide, forehead pressed to your neck like maybe if he stays there long enough, hidden away from the world, the shame of it all might not eat him whole. like maybe you'd forget it even happened in the first place.
you thread your fingers through the damp hair at the nape of his neck, fingers gentle and steady. "hey," you murmur. "look at me."
he doesn't move.
you tug lightly, "rafe."
he lifts his head just enough for you to see his face, flushed red with embarrassment. lashes still a little damp, brows pinched with guilt. "you don't have to say it," he starts hoarsely. "i know it's—fuck, i ruined it."
your hand finds his cheek, thumb brushing the hot skin beneath his eye. he looks so different now — vulnerable. like every shred of masculinity within him had been crumbled to pieces as a result from a single mistake. "you didn't ruin anything."
his brows knit tighter, almost like he doesn't believe.
"rafe," you whisper, voice firmer now. "do you have any idea what it means that you lost control like that?"
he just stares at you, breathing uneven — cerulean eyes shifting over your face, trying his best to read your mind, predict what might happen next.
you offer a small, shaky smile. "you barely touched me. you felt me and came. that kind of—" you laugh once, still breathless. "—insane. kind of hot, actually."
he groans again, this time with more anguish than lust. "don't say that. i swear, give me like five minutes—maybe less—i just need—"
you press a kiss to the corner of his mouth before he has another chance to speak. "i'm not mad."
"but you didn't even—" he starts, eyes wide, ashamed.
"yet," you cut in, grinning softly. "you're gonna make it up to me, remember?"
his throat bobs as he swallows, gaze locked on yours, and you can see the shift in him — the hunger of the moment creeping back behind the guilt, bright blue eyes flooding with something dark. the desperation to fix it. to prove something.
I got carried away again... this was supposed to be a stupid dumb drabble based on @yummyrevivalfluid 's YouTuber Senku post. but then I couldn't stop, and then I wanted to get some of my other senku ideas out of the way, and then it just spiraled into this long, semi-serious fic.... so yeah, enjoy!
cws: slow burn, strangers to partners to lovers, friends to lovers, mutual pining, nerds in love, social media stuff, reader is a flirt, eventual relationship, senku is lowk OOC, he's also down bad (#needthat), kinda cringe ngl...
nsfw cws: first times, emotional sex, switch dynamics, fingering, handjob, wrap it before you tap it (they do not...), hair pulling (giving), very implied voice kink,pillow talk, lmk if I missed anything major!
12.5k words
When you first stumbled across Mecha Senku, it was because your college chemistry professor couldn’t explain ionic bonding properly even if their life depended on it. And honestly? That would’ve been fine. You weren’t failing or falling behind on anything. You were the kind of person who took the time to color-code your notes. With pretty pastel highlighters and calligraphy titles like your professor wasn't speaking at 60mph.
You visibly got annoyed when someone asked a question that had already been answered. Five minutes ago. Word for word. And you weren’t subtle about it either. The eye twitches. The sigh. In fact, you studied chapters ahead for fun! Call it being a try-hard, but it was just how you functioned. So when something didn’t click? When you didn’t understand something?
You spiraled. Productively, of course.
So here you are. 1:34AM. Snuggled up in your bed, lights off, blackout curtains drawn, and laptop open at full brightness as you scrolled YouTube, bleary-eyed and annoyed. The only light in the room is the faint blue glow of YouTube’s homepage and your will to academically succeed (read: suffer).
You typed “bond angles” into the search bar. Hit enter, and scrolled. Then a thumbnail caught your eye.
“Predicting Bond Angles – (VSEPR Theory but not boring)” Channel: Mecha Senku Runtime: 5:28
And then you heard it.
That voice. you practically drooled at your screen. It was soft and deep, yet raspy, like he talked too much—which he did—or didn’t care if he wore out his throat explaining the same concept fifteen times. And when he rambled? Oh god. When he got caught up on a tangent about orbital hybridization—when his voice cracked just slightly because his brain was going faster than his mouth?
Yeah, you were soaked.
Kidding.
...Maybe.
You pulled your blanket tighter around your shoulders like that would protect you. Like you weren’t voluntarily listening to this man monologue about VSEPR models like it was foreplay.
You tried to focus on the science. Really, you did. He even had good diagrams—clean visuals, clear examples, actual accuracy. It was kind of annoying how helpful it was, actually. Like, did he have to sound hot while also being smart?
You watched the entire thing.
Then another.
Then another.
Before you knew it, you were five videos deep. At 2:11AM.
Your poor, old, worn-down laptop was probably overheating from the sheer amount of your spiraling. You didn’t even care.
And then… there was that video.
A short one. Barely three minutes.
“Iodine Clock Reaction – Visual Chemistry in Real Time”
You clicked on it like you were possessed.
It was simple—two clear liquids, a few drops of starch, and a timer. You knew the experiment already. You’d seen it done a dozen times in lab. You’d even done it yourself. But somehow, when he did it, it was a cinematic masterpiece.
The camera was angled just right—focused tight on his gloved hands, the faint clink of glass, the gentle pour of the liquid. His voice low, casual, like he was walking you through a magic trick instead of an actual chemical reaction.
And then—the clamps.
He adjusted the glassware with the same energy you imagined he’d use to unbutton his lab coat (which you have no idea why your thoughts immediately ran there)—methodical, focused, and totally unaware of the damage he was doing to your sanity. Forearms flexing, veins shifting, wrist angled just slightly—You blinked. Rewound ten seconds. Then watched it again.
Something dark and sinister bloomed in your chest. Something carnal. Unholy. You buried half your face in your pillow and made a sound that can only be described as a blowdryer on max output immediately followed by a deep, guttural moan. Like your soul was trying to evacuate your body in protest—but got stuck halfway out, sobbing.
You didn’t even know you had a thing for forearms.
Yet here you are. You were a mess. A high-functioning, academically driven, chemically confused mess, replaying a three-minute video about reaction rates like it was an award winning movie. Like it wasn’t educational.
“This is fine. I’m still learning.” You whispered to yourself
You weren’t.
At least, not about chemistry.
Extra notes about mecha senku!
Certified yapper; it gets so bad he just add timestamps to when he gets back on topic
Always says that stupid little catchphrase— “this is exhilarating, get excited” he can’t help himself, its like second nature
While editing his experiment videos, he add little text boxes that say “*item* acquired” ( like in the anime)
That comes in handy later
⋆.⌬ ˚𒉭 ⋆
At first, it was a side project. Something to kill time between lectures, experiments, and tutoring sessions with students who couldn’t tell a mole from a molecule if their GPA depended on it. He kept the uploads short. Clean. No face, no fluff. Just experiments and explanations—combustion, osmosis, acid-base reactions. The basic building blocks of chemistry and physics, broken down in that signature tone of his: concise, confident, and just slightly condescending.
Naturally, people loved it.
Especially college students. Especially the ones who’d seen too many dead-eyed professors stumble through half-baked PowerPoints that they repurposed over the past 5 decades and somehow still made them boring.
He didn’t need gimmicks. Just science.
And, apparently, his voice.
The comments were... something. He ignored them, mostly. Or at least, tried to.
But even he had limits.
@lo1itado11: FLASH US!!!
@freakwy: ong WE all cracking
Username: i will combust and it won’t be a controlled reaction.
Anotherusername: i can literally get off to his voice rn bro omg…
He sighed, deeply. Then dragged a hand through his loosely tied-up hair, fingers threading through strands that refused to stay neat. He didn’t even bother hiding the twitch in his left eye.
Degenerates. All of them.
Still, every new upload got thousands of views in under an hour. Every deep dive request was more unhinged than the last. And while he could ignore the thirst comments, he couldn’t deny the numbers.
His channel was growing. Fast. And if someone asked him to demonstrate a specific experiment?
Well.
He was a scientist.
And who was he to deny a request in the name of scientific curiosity?
⋆.⌬ ˚𒉭 ⋆
Now, Senku wasn’t exactly an avid social media user.
Sure, he had all the apps downloaded—after relentless badgering from Gen and Ryusui, who had both made it their mission to pressure him into being “normal” for once.
Senku used Instagram occasionally, mostly to lurk. To like Taiju’s blurry gym selfies. To comment “inaccurate” under Chrome’s chaotic science photo dumps—half of which somehow included a blurry photo of him.
Nothing on his own feed, though. His personal account was private, untouched, maxed out at like 26 followers—half of which were probably bots, and one was definitely just Ryusui’s alt.
However, he was used to getting notifications on his side account. His real one. The one that mattered.
@/mecha.senku.
So when he got a ping from TikTok, he didn’t think much of it. Just a red-and-white flash in the corner of his screen as he walked past a group of undergrads in the quad, huddled around a phone, laughing. Loudly.
Then it happened again. Another ping. Then another.
People tagging him in the same comment section. Spamming him.
Weird.
It wasn’t until after his lecture, holed up in the farthest corner of the campus library, headphones in, laptop open, coffee cooling rapidly at his elbow, half-forgotten.
The notification trail led to a single video.
At first glance, it was just a cake.
A badly decorated one at that—a war crime in the form of buttercream—uneven icing, no symmetry, and piped text that looked like it was written mid-seizure. He could’ve done better blindfolded. He was about to swipe away.
Until he saw the video thumbnail again.
He squinted. Froze. Looked closer.
It was you.
Holding a handful of what looked like paper-taped sticks. Your fingers curled delicately around them, like you’d spent time choosing each one. The video hadn’t even started yet and it was already climbing in views, the likes ticking like a metronome. The top comment had nearly eighty thousand likes.
@/semioli: “I KNEW YOU’D PUT HIM FIRST OMFG”
Senku blinked. Then, almost reluctantly, pressed play.
“Okay, so this is my ‘Hear Me Out’ cake,” you said with a breathless little laugh, voice rich with amusement and just the right touch of self-deprecation. “Please don’t judge…”
You laughed nervously at the camera, your voice familiar in the way ambient noise becomes addictive. He knew you—kind of. You were popular, at least on campus. Friendly with everyone. Smart. You asked questions in class that weren’t dumb, which was rare. People actually listened when you talked.
But he never—not once—imagined you listened to him.
Until the moment your fingers—painted nails and all—planted the first stick dead center into the cake. His channel logo. Bright. Unmistakable. Front and center.
Senku sat still. Very still. His breath caught somewhere in the back of his throat.
“I don’t know what it is about him,” you went on, eyes wide and glittering like you couldn’t believe what you were admitting, “but I feel a carnal type of desire whenever I hear his voice.”
Silence.
Real, gut-wrenching silence.
Senku just stared at the screen. One brow lifted. Lips parted slightly. Blinking. Nothing.
“…What.”
It wasn’t like he hadn’t heard shit like that before. He had. The comments under his videos were riddled with deranged confessionals and late-night voice-induced breakdowns. He’d seen them. Sighed at them. Maybe rolled his eyes on occasion.
But something about hearing you say that—out loud—while staring directly into the camera, shoving his logo into a cake like it was the most natural thing in the world…Now he’s reading the rest of the comments, most of which you had liked.
“his voice scratches my brain in just the right spot i can’t explain it.”
“if he ever does a face reveal it’s over for all of us.”
“whoever he is irl i hope he’s single bc i’m mentally married to him already.”
“i can’t even watch his videos in public anymore istg.”
A laugh, airy and sharp, passed out through his nose.
It was barely even a sound, just air. His head tilted back slowly against the chair, bones creaking lazily. One hand reached up, dragging through his hair—half-loose from the shitty tie job he’d done earlier. He didn’t even realize he was smirking. Eyes narrowed. Lashes lowered. Something wicked curled across his face, subtle but steeped in ego.
So.
You were into him.
And you didn’t even know that he sat two rows behind you in lecture. That the guy scribbling thermodynamic equations while you twirled your pen and tapped your knee was the same voice that apparently haunted your dreams.
Interesting.
Very, very interesting.
Senku closed the tab. Then reopened it not even ten seconds later, still somehow thinking his sleep deprivation was finally catching up to him. Big mistake.
You were still there—smiling at the camera, laughing like you hadn’t just shoved a stick into a cake bearing his logo and said you felt a “carnal desire” whenever you heard his voice.
He stared at the screen like it personally offended him. It didn’t. Not really. The offense was fake—just a weak cover for something worse, something much more humiliating.
You were attractive. That much had always been obvious.
He had eyes, didn’t he?
He wasn’t blind. He noticed things. Like the way you always had some elaborate doodle in the margins of your notebook that changed depending on your current hyperfixation. Like how you spoke with your hands, too fast sometimes, expressive. Like how your voice always had a bit of a lilt when you were excited about something, like you were trying not to talk over yourself. Like how you liked sitting near the window in lecture, even if it made it harder to see the board.
He noticed everything.
Which was the problem.
Because now he couldn’t stop noticing.
Your face. Your voice. Your laugh.
And the worst part?
You were smart.
Not smart like “gets good grades.” That wasn’t hard. No—smart like engaged. Curious. Your own brand of chaotic genius that showed up in how you argued with professors and picked at theories like they were complex puzzles meant for your hands alone.
You were confident. Passionate. Sharp.
You were…
Fuck.
He sat back in his chair and rubbed his face with both hands, groaning.
He didn’t do this. He didn’t get… distracted. He didn’t get flustered. Romance wasn’t even on the table. It was too messy. Too emotional. Too inefficient. He had research. He had goals. The last thing he needed was—
Another notification.
He glanced over. More tags. More people replying to your video.
More people joking, “@mecha.senku bro SAY SOMETHING!!! WE KNOW YOU SEE THIS.”
He hovered. His cursor blinking over the comment section.
He shouldn’t. There was no reason to. There was no benefit. No scientific purpose. No—He cracked his knuckles once. Took a slow breath. And typed.
@mecha.senku: Just a hear me out huh?
He pressed enter, then shut the laptop.
And immediately regretted everything.
Because within 30 seconds, the comment had over 2 thousand likes. The reply threads birthing entire romance novels in real time.
“OH MY GOD HE COMMENTED OH MY GOD OH MY—”
“HE KNOWS. HE FUCKING KNOWS.
“NAH??? THE MAN HIMSELF??? NO WAY”
“@y/n GIRL U NEED TO WAKE UP RN”
Every five seconds, your phone buzzes.
Buzz.
Buzz.
BuzzBuzzBuzz.
It starts slow—innocent. A like here. A tag there. Then, as if the universe pulled a lever, it turns into an avalanche. Your screen lights up like it’s trying to melt in your hand. TikTok. Twitter. Instagram. Even people from your group project in history are texting you like girl what the actual fuck did you DO?
You’re sitting cross-legged on your bed, charger barely keeping up, blanket wrapped around your shoulders like it can protect you from the moment. Your face is hot. Your jaw is slack. Your soul? Practically nonexistent.
You stare at the screen in disbelief.
Right there, in the comments, bolded like the laws of physics decided to write you a personalized romance book:
@/mecha.senku: just a hear me out huh
You blinked once. Then twice. Rubbed your eyes. Because—no. No way.
There’s absolutely no way that the literal voice of your academic downfall and emotional spiral just casually acknowledged the fact that you want to climb him like a fucking molecular structure.
Your mouth opens. Nothing comes out. You double-tap your phone by accident. Scroll. Scroll again. Scroll back. It's still there. You suck in a breath like it's going to help. It doesn't.
Your room spins a little—not in a dizzy way, more like the fabric of reality is reconfiguring around your phone screen. Like you’ve accidentally made a deal with a god and now the god is texting you back. Casually. In lowercase.
Your body chooses to react the only way it knows how—by laughing. Not normal laughing. That kind of panicked, unhinged, screeching laugh that sounds like it’s being wrung out of you like a wet rag. A noise clawing its way up your throat as you slowly tip sideways, dramatic as hell, into the mattress.
“Wow,” you say out loud to your empty room, chest rising and falling, heart jackhammering somewhere behind your ribs. “No way. This is such a crazy-ass dream…” Your voice cracks at the end. You sound borderline delirious.
But the comment is still there. Pinned by the original creator. Which is you.
You just close your eyes. Face-down into your pillow.
Your dignity? Gone.
Your supposed crush? Apparently omniscient.
Your life? Ruined. Maybe. Probably.
But your phone’s still vibrating under your thigh like it’s trying to combust.
And yeah. You’re never going to be normal about this again.
⋆.⌬ ˚𒉭 ⋆
It’s a few days later when you finally have biochem again.
Your professor had sent out an email at the end of last class—something about paying attention to the partner list for the next lab. You hadn’t even looked. Too busy hyperventilating over the Mecha Senku situation. Too busy swiping through your phone at 1 a.m., rereading that comment like it might suddenly disappear, or—worse—turn into something more incriminating.
You didn’t sleep much. Or at all. You just kinda laid there, vibrating at a frequency only dogs could decipher, while mentally reviewing every second of that video and every stupid thing you’d ever said about his voice.
So when your professor calls out your name and tells you to head to the back bench to meet your assigned partner, you’re still in a daze. You adjust your lab coat, swipe lip balm on with hands that are definitely not still shaking, and make your way to the station with the dull dread of someone walking to their own execution.
And then you see him.
Senku Ishigami.
Hair pulled into that slightly messy half-up style he always wears. Safety goggles already on, sleeves rolled up, already gloved. He doesn’t look up at first—he’s swabbing the inside of a petri dish with a level of focus you reserve only for exams and existential dissociations. Then he glances at you, just a quick flick of the eyes.
“Hey,” he says, voice low, casual. A little rough around the edges, like he just got over a cold or hadn’t talked to anyone in hours.
Your spine locks. You blink. Hard.
“Hi,” you manage, but it comes out thinner than you mean it to—stretched at the edges, fraying like an old thread. “You’re… my partner?”
He glances at the roster sheet clipped to the bench as if just now confirming something he already knew. “Looks like it.” There’s the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth—barely a smirk, more like a thought trying to become one. “Hope you’re decent with a microscope.”
You nod. Too fast. Too eager. Like your neck forgot how to move naturally. You try to smile like this is fine. Like this is normal. Like this isn’t currently short-circuiting every neuron in your academic-functioning brain.
You’ve never really spoken to Senku Ishigami before. Not really. Maybe a passing nod in the hallway. A blink-and-you-miss-it smile between lecture shifts. A polite “excuse me” when your bags bumped in the lab supply room once. But that was it. That was the whole sum of your direct interactions.
Everything else was observation. Safe distance admiration. Seeing him carry entire study groups with nothing but a half-dry marker and that ever-focused look in his eye. Taking note of how he argued with professors—calm, surgical, relentless—and somehow still walked out of every debate not only correct, but respected.
You admired him from afar. Kinda academically. Kinda not. (mostly not.)
But you’re a girl dedicated to her degree. A girl with goals, with caffeine basically in your bloodstream and deadlines stitched into the fabric of your week. You don’t get distracted. Not by things like this. Not by people like him. Or at least you didn’t. Until now.
Because working with him shouldn’t be this bad. Shouldn’t feel like the center of gravity shifted slightly under your feet, like the air got thinner and thicker all at once.
Except he rolls his sleeves up higher. Forearms peaking out. The lean muscle dusted in faint freckles, veins running like undercurrents
And then—God. The way he adjusts the microscope. Methodical. Controlled. His fingers moving like he’s done this a thousand times and still treats the equipment like it’s breakable—which it is, so you have no idea why him treating it as such is doing something to you—it all starts to blur together in your head.
You blink again. Swallow hard. And then you start to think back.
His voice.
That same voice. The cadence is exact. Steady and sharp with a rasp that scrapes along your spine in the worst/best way. A quiet breathless ramble as he explains the agar base—like the information is too much to simply stay in his head, like he forgets other people are listening. That subtle catch on certain consonants. That dry, low huff of amusement when your glove doesn’t go on right and you curse under your breath.
And then his hands.
Long fingers. Familiar motions. The way he handles the petri dish with practiced ease, adjusts the swabs like he’s composing something. You know those hands. You’ve seen them before. Over and over. In reaction videos. In slow motion clips, 0.25x speed. In the YouTube comments people timestamp for “scientific purposes.”
You freeze.
Fully. Completely paralyzed in real time like someone hit pause on your central nervous system. The classroom noise goes muffled. Muted. The hum of fluorescent lights above you turns sharp and migraine inducing bright. Your pulse is in your mouth now—behind your eyes, in your fingertips.
Because you’re looking at him. Really looking.
And it hits you like a truck doing 90 in a 60.
That’s him.
That’s him.
Your biochem lab partner. Senku Ishigami.
Is Mecha Senku. The, Mecha Senku.
And he knows. Oh, he knows.
He’s not even looking at you right now, but you swear—swear—there’s the faintest curve at the edge of his mouth. A smirk barely there, as he slides a sample onto the tray like he didn’t just casually detonate your grasp on reality.
“Oh my god,” you breathe. Not loud. But not quiet, either.
He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t react. Doesn’t so much as flinch. But you feel it. The moment it registers. The moment he knows that you know. Because the corner of his mouth twitches higher. Just a little. Just enough to catch onto. And then—still not looking at you, still pretending to be invested in his perfectly aligned swab placement, voice smooth and clinical like this is just another lab session—he says,
“Something wrong?”
You want to bang your head on the table.
Instead, you choke, swallow whatever dignity you had left, and squeak out,
“No. Nope. All good. Just… thinking.”
He hums, low and amused, like he already knows what you’re thinking about.
You're going to die here. Right next to your science tutor YouTuber crush who is also your real-life lab partner crush—for completely unrelated reasons—who has definitely, 1000% seen the video where you said hearing his voice makes you feel like your guts are being spiritually rearranged.
God.
You are so unbelievably, irreparably screwed.
⋆.⌬ ˚𒉭 ⋆
It doesn’t happen right away.
In fact, it almost doesn’t happen at all.
Because after the Mecha Senku revelation, after the comment, after the lab, after the video—you basically short-circuit. You try to act normal in the days that follow. You show up to class. Try to pretend like it’s no big deal that your anonymous science tutor crush is also your lab partner who is also your mutual…acquaintence? Friend? You didn't know which term you fell under in this situation. You tell yourself it’s fine. It’s not weird. You’re being mature about this.
And then he likes one of your posts. One of your older ones. A video from 3 months ago where you’re ranting about a series that you were into at the time while getting ready for the day. It was a stupid, pointless video. One which he had no reason to like. But he did.
That’s when you panic.
Not in public. But you lie in bed again at 2AM, staring at your screen like it might suddenly catch on fire. He’s watching your content. On purpose. He’s scrolling. Deep enough to find something from weeks ago, which means he’s either curious, bored, or—God forbid—interested.
You stop posting for three days.
Not out of pride. Not even out of posting strategy. Just fear. Raw, buzzing fear that anything you say or do will somehow make this whole situation worse. You delete a draft. Then another. Then six more. Your camera roll becomes a graveyard of half-filmed attempts at being funny or cute or sweet or not on the verge of a breakdown. But nothing feels right.
And meanwhile, Senku is being maddeningly normal.
He shows up to lab on time. Speaks when necessary. Makes the occasional snide remark when a burner malfunctions or a pH test fails. He doesn’t bring up the video. Doesn’t mention the TikTok. Doesn’t acknowledge the fact that you both know that this is like some weird fucked up romcom scenario that immediately got put on Tubi for its low budget. He just acts like… himself. Detached, sharp-tongued, observant, and unbothered. You, on the other hand, are barely holding it together every time he passes you a report sheet.
The dam doesn’t break until two weeks later.
You’re walking out of lecture, halfway through stuffing your notes into your bag with a granola bar half-eaten in your mouth when you hear someone fall into step beside you. Quietly synced with your rhythm, like they’d been waiting for the right second to align.
You glance over.
Senku.
Of course it’s Senku. His sweater sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Satchel strap slung lazy across his chest, and a half drunk energy drink swished in his hand. His expression is unreadable, somewhere between tired and calculating, but the fact that he’s here, walking beside you unprompted, is enough to make you question every single one of your life choices.
You’re not sure if you should say something first. Or if you should pretend not to notice the way your posture stiffens whenever he's in your general vicinity. You take another glance at him through your peripheral vision.
He still has that same unreadable expression on his face—bored, maybe. Or focused. Or just better at masking than you are. He doesn’t say anything right away, and you’re half-preparing yourself for some comment about glycolysis pathways or the upcoming quiz that you’ve been dreading over.
But then he exhales through his nose and says, “I’ve been thinking.”
Which is a terrifying sentence coming from someone who does more thinking in one day than most people do in an entire semester.
Your gaze doesn’t stray but you raise an eyebrow. “About…?”
He pauses for a beat. A way too long beat. Long enough to make your stomach drop. Then, casually: “A collab.”
You blink. “What?”
“A video,” he clarifies, like this is something completely normal that happens all the time. “A joint one. On your account. Or mine, doesn't matter to me. Mutually beneficial, wider audience reach, strategic engagement—pick whatever reason you want.”
You stop walking. He doesn’t.
“Wait,” you say, catching up. “You mean, like… a TikTok?”
He shrugs. “Sure. That’s your area. Whatever gets views. I figure if everyone is already suspecting something, I might as well do a face reveal while I’m at it.”
Silence. Pure, deafening silence. You can’t even think of what to say. Your mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.
Because it’s not just the words—it’s the way he says them. Like it’s no big deal. Like the internet hasn’t been begging for a glimpse of his face since his third viral video. Like he hasn’t been a literal science cryptid for the past three years and now he’s just… casually deciding to unmask like it’s just something to check off on his bucket list.
“Why now?” you ask, finally. Your voice sounds weird in your own throat.
Senku lifts a shoulder, a faint smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth like he’s trying to suppress it.
“Felt like the right time,” he says, glancing at you out of the corner of his eye. “Besides, you’ve already done the hard part.”
You blink. “The hard part?”
He hums, nodding once. “Making me realize it’s not that deep.”
You blink again, brain buffering like it just hit a patch of missing code. “Wait… what?”
He shrugs again, like it’s nothing. Like this isn’t the culmination of literal years of silence and mystery and curated anonymity. “People’ve been asking for a face reveal since the beginning. I always told myself it wasn’t worth it. Kept saying it didn’t matter, that it’d just mess things up. But then you…” He pauses, and there’s this barely-there curve at the corner of his mouth. Not a smile—something quieter. More dangerous. “You made it feel kind of… harmless.”
Your pulse stutters. Your stomach flips. You don’t even have time to brace for what’s next.
“I mean, it’s not every day someone from your school logs online just to say she practically gets off to—”
You don’t let him finish. You physically can’t. Your hands are already flying up, face buried before your brain fully catches up, a sound of absolute mortification ripping out of your throat.
“Oh my God,” you groan, fingers pressing into your temples like you can massage the memory out of existence. “Please don’t say it like that. This is already, embarrassing enough as it is, The whole video was like a public humiliation ritual”
He lets out a chuckle at that. Way too satisfied with your reaction. Like he predicted it. When you don’t continue further he decides to speak up again.
“Think about it,” he says before splitting off toward his next class. “You pick the trend. I’ll show up.”
And just like that, he’s gone.
⋆.⌬ ˚𒉭 ⋆
You kind of forget about the whole thing.
Not on purpose, of course. It’s just that coursework piles up, assignments stack on top of quizzes that stack on top of projects, and somewhere between stressing over due dates and wanting to evaporate from existence after another surprise pop lab, the entire conversation with Senku slips to the back burner. Not in a “never doing that” way, but more like… “I will emotionally process this after midterms or death, whichever comes first.” kind of way.
There’s just never a good moment to circle back and be like, “Hey… remember that video idea you volunteered for? Wanna hang out and pretend we’re not both chronically online and know what we’re doing?”
Yeah, no. No way.
But then the first break in your schedule opens up—a blessed, random Sunday with no looming assignments due at 11:59, no labs, no back-to-back lectures sucking the soul from your body—and before you can talk yourself out of it, you’re typing a text.
It’s short, simple, and only took you about seven drafts before you finally sent it.
hey, i got a day off and i saw this new exhibit at the museum. thought it’d be nice.
You follow it up fast, like too fast:
for the collab that is!
Smooth. Very smooth.
He replies six minutes later.
sure. what day?
That’s it. That’s the whole text. Dry. Short. And so to the point it makes you start to question if he even wants to go, but you’ll take your chances. You send him the info—location, hours, all that—and hope for the best. Hope you don’t show up alone. Hope you don’t sit around pretending not to be stood up for a date that isn’t a date but still kind of feels like one.
But of course, who would Senku Ishigami be if not maddeningly consistent? If not a man ruthlessly punctual, stubbornly dependable, and irritatingly true to his word?
He’s already there when you arrive.
Not just there— but early. Waiting outside like it’s the most natural thing in the world, casually leaned against a concrete planter with one hand in his pocket and the other scrolling aimlessly on his phone. He’s not dressed up, exactly, but there’s something about his fit that feels intentional. Dark gray-beige slacks. Cream button-up shirt, top button undone. Black cardigan layered over it. Loose tie slung around his neck—totally optional, probably just for the aesthetic. Hair half-up in that signature man-bun style, the front strands framing his face.
You stop short a few paces away, your brain stalling mid-thought as your gaze continues to flicker up and down his form.
Because you? You are wearing a plaid skirt, a ruffled cream blouse, stockings, and boots that are way too tall to pretend you didn’t also plan your outfit, and a tote bag that’s got absolutely nothing useful inside besides your phone, wallet, lip gloss, and an emotional support water bottle.
Which is exactly when you notice it.
The colors. The textures. The vibe.
Oh my god.
You blurt it out before you can stop yourself, stepping the last few feet toward him like you weren’t just frozen in place two seconds ago. “We’re kind of matching.”
Senku glances up, and there it is. That thing he does. The slow, calculated glance from the hem of your skirt to your blouse to the edge of your bag and back up again, all while maintaining that unreadable expression. Like he’s gathering data. Like your outfit’s a puzzle he’s solving in real-time. His mouth twitches, just slightly, into something that toes the line between smug and genuinely amused.
“Yeah, I guess so…” He shifts his weight, pocketing his phone. “You look nice.”
You blink. Buffering. “You—uh. You too! I mean, not that I was—uh, yeah, thanks. You look good too.” You internally wince. Recover. “I hope you weren’t waiting out here long?”
He shakes his head, “Not really. Got here early on purpose.”
You nod, awkward and a little breathless, trying desperately not to read too much into it. You glance toward the entrance, mostly just to distract yourself in something that’s not his facial structure or the way the light catches on the slope of his nose.
“Should we… go in?” you ask, gesturing toward the doors. He hums, a quiet sound, like he's still mildly amused, and nods, stepping in beside you. Not ahead. Not behind. Right beside.
You scan your tickets at the entrance, hands just barely steady, and try not to overanalyze the exact distance between your shoulders. You try not to notice the faint smell of something clean and earthy—maybe his shampoo? Maybe something herbal?—that drifts off of him every time he turns to speak. You try, in vain, to be normal.
The museum’s quiet. Dim lighting. Cool air. Echoes of hushed conversations and soft-soled shoes against the polished floors. The first exhibit is drowned in amber lighting and filled with fossils in glass cases. You both drift to the same one without speaking, reading the plaque in tandem, standing so close your elbows almost brush.
He speaks first.
“Cretaceous, huh,” he says, voice low and a little warm, like he’s half-talking to himself. “Not exactly cutting edge, but still cool.”
You blink at him. “Are you—are you seriously judging the dinosaur bones right now?”
He glances at you. “Just saying, there’s been more interesting finds. I’d rather see a well-preserved stromatolite, personally.”
You snort. Actually snort, and he grins, which is possibly the worst thing he could do because now you’re staring at his lips and—
“God, you’re such a nerd,” you mutter, grinning before you can help it.
“And you’re not?” He raises an eyebrow, tilting his head slightly as if daring you to lie.
You scoff, turning back to the plaque like you can hide behind a block of educational text. “Yeah, okay, fair. But at least I pretend to be normal in public.”
“Mm. Is that what this is?” he says, and he doesn’t even try to hide the smile this time. It’s subtle, just a twitch at the corners of his mouth, but it makes your stomach do a little flip anyway.
You don’t answer. Not right away. You’re too busy trying not to combust.
You keep walking, slowly, drifting from case to case. The exhibits start to blur together after a while—early mammals, glacial imprints, fossilized flora—because your brain is short-circuiting every time his voice dips a little lower to point something out, or his hand lifts to gesture near your shoulder, or his sleeve brushes your arm.
You can tell he knows it, too. Maybe not the full extent of your internal spiral, but enough to sadistically enjoy how flustered you get. He’s not smug about it, nor cruel. Just quietly observant. Like he’s keeping a mental note every time your breath hitches a little or you laugh a beat too fast.
Somewhere between the meteorite collection and the preserved taxidermy wing (which he naturally had opinions about), you start filming. Nothing extravagant. Just quick clips on your phone—soft pans over the displays. He doesn’t comment, doesn’t shy away when the camera catches his shoulder or the back of his hand. Just lets you do your thing.
You’re halfway through the museum when your feet start to ache (your fault for wearing boots with no sole support) and your stomach lets out the saddest, weakest little growl. Senku hears it, of course. He doesn’t say anything—just jerks his chin toward the small, in-museum café tucked into the corner past the rotating exhibit, and heads that way without needing a response.
You order something simple. He does the same, and somehow, magically beats you to pulling out your wallet and paying. And then you both end up at a tiny table tucked near the window, warm afternoon light refracting through the glass and shining just right. You’re pulling your phone out again before you can really think about it.
He raises an eyebrow when he sees you tying—and failing—to discretely smile at your phone.
“I know that face,” he says, stirring his coffee. “What are you scheming?”
You grin, wide and sweet and a little mischievous. “You said I could pick the trend.”
“Unfortunately,” he mutters, setting down his cup.
You show him the audio.
He watches the sample once. Then again. Then nods. “Got it.”
You give him a quick breakdown anyway—“Ok so basically we just shake hands. So you would film me first to ‘My name is Pink, and I’m really glad to meet you.’ Then you do ‘You’re recommended to me by some people.’ Then back to me: ‘Hey, ooh, is this illegal?’ And you finish it: ‘Hey, ooh, it feels illegal?’ You got that? ”
Senku just gives you that flat, unimpressed look, the one that makes it impossible to tell if he’s judging you or already planning your execution in terrifying detail.
“Simple enough,” he says. “Let’s get it over with.”
You record it in pieces. The lighting’s good, the cafe’s not too crowded, and somehow, despite the secondhand embarrassment threatening to combust your entire being, you pull it off. You film each other, trade off holding the phone, and try your hardest not to start laughing as you record Senku's deadpan face. By the time it’s done, your face hurts from holding back a smile, and Senku looks a little too smug for someone who just debuted on the internet via meme format.
You save the clips to your phone, already planning how to edit it later.
You both take your time finishing your drinks after that—talking more now. About the exhibit, about the parts you skipped, about other museums you like. The vibe’s different. It’s looser, comfortable in a way you didn’t fully expect to get this quickly. He’s still sarcastic, still has that flat tone and know-it-all quips, but now he says your name a little softer. Looks at you a little longer when you talk.
Eventually, you both stand, a little reluctant but you both know you should leave before it gets too dark. The sun’s setting once you step outside the museum, casting everything in that amber-gold glow again, and it makes his profile look unfairly cinematic as he stretches.
“You’re surprisingly tolerable company,” he says as you walk out together.
You scoff. “Wow. Thanks. I’ll be sure to put that in my LinkedIn endorsements.”
“I’m just saying,” he replies, glancing at you, “You’re not as obnoxious as most people.”
You bump your shoulder into his. “Aw, you like me.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You implied it.”
He doesn’t argue with that, which might be worse.
The walk back is slow. Neither of you really rushing, just sort of drifting through the early evening like you're trying to stretch out the time you have together. Somewhere between chatting about your favorite childhood shows and bickering over whose major has more long-term debt attached to it (his argument: “You can’t put a price on revolutionizing orbital propulsion”), it hits you how easy this is.
And more dangerously—how fun. You can’t remember the last time someone made you feel this keyed-in without even trying. Like your brains are constantly sparking against each other like flint and steel.
Then he says something offhanded. Something completely innocent. He’s explaining something about a propulsion system prototype—specifically, fluid resistance and force ratios.
“It’s all about tension and release,” he says, absently adjusting his sleeves as he walks. “That’s how you maintain velocity without risking collapse.”
You glance at him sideways, smile sinisterly curling at the corners. “Mm. I’ve got some tension I’m sure you could release.”
He stops. Stops walking. Like his operating system just force-quit.
“…What?”
You keep walking a few paces before turning to look back at him, mock-innocent. “What? I’m just being honest. You should be more careful with that mouth of yours, Ishigami. You’ll feed into the online delusions.”
He blinks once. Twice. Visibly buffering. You can see it—like the gears in his big science brain just misfired, unable to reconcile engineering terminology with whatever the hell that was. His ears go a little pink—barely there, but enough to clock if you’re looking for it. Which, obviously, you are.
He clears his throat, and mutters something under his breath about “not being responsible for your interpretations.”
But he keeps talking after that. He can't help it now. Neither of you can. The conversation never drops again, not even as you split off at the corner of campus, your fingers still curled around your phone like it's holding the rest of the evening in its little glowing blue-light screen.
You go home buzzing. Not from the caffeine. Not even from the TikTok you’re already editing. But from him.
Because if there’s one thing that’s true about you—it’s that once you start liking someone?
Oh, they never get to rest.
Extra notes time again! || Sorry I really didn't feel like writing out the trend and like the comments and stuff again… I physically cant think like that anymore
Anyway! Both your respective fans go crazy when the initial collab drops
Comments and dm’s begging you guys to post together more—and I mean, who are you to deny the fans?
You make appearances in all of his videos where he “needs” an extra pair of hands
And he’s always seen in your “what i do in a day” videos or weekly vlogs
The tension on camera is undeniable and everyone is always asking if there's something going on, but neither of you ever respond.
⋆.⌬ ˚𒉭 ⋆
After that, you two just… keep hanging out. Off campus, mostly. Call them dates, call them… whatever—no one’s really labeling it, but they keep happening. Even in a group, you and Senku have your own orbit. It starts with subtle things. Shared glances, half-smirks, a sarcastic “oh really?” muttered under your breath every time he says something too smug. He always responds with a coy, “Don’t look at me like that unless you want something,” and you always raise a brow and say, “Maybe I do.”
You’re both like that.
Witty. Sharp. Teasing.
During stargazing, you’re lying side-by-side on a scratchy old blanket, staring up at the sky when he starts pointing out constellations, spouting off facts like an open textbook. You interrupt mid-sentence with, “Is this your way of seducing me? Because it’s working.”
He glances at you sideways. Doesn’t even pause. “You’re the one lying next to me under the stars. I’d say the seduction’s mutual.”
And at the beach? The energy’s dialed up even more.
You’re in a bikini under his oversized button-up, hair still damp from taking a dunk in the ocean, when you say something cheeky like, “You’ve been watching me all day. Just admit it.”
He doesn’t even blink, much less looks at you. “I’m studying gravitational pull in action.”
“Oh?” you hum sweetly. “Like, my body’s gravitational pull?”
“I meant the tide,” he deadpans. “But your ego has its own orbit, so sure.”
You throw a handful of sand at him. He dodges. Barely. And then throws a precise, infuriatingly accurate clump right at your ankle.
Even when your schedules are packed, you somehow always find time to circle back to each other.
There’s never been a conversation about what it is between you, but neither of you need one. You’ve both carved a little space into each other’s lives now—distinct, irreplaceable, and entirely yours. No one else quite fits the shape.
So it’s no surprise that you spend a lot of time in each other’s dorm—or in this case, Senku’s off-campus apartment. Sometimes for studying when the library’s full, but mostly just to hang out in the comfort of each other's presence.
You’re dressed in low-rise sweats and a tank top, now buried beneath one of Senku’s old sweaters. The one he threw at your head earlier after you started loudly complaining about the cold. The sleeves cover your hands, and the collar’s stretched from years of wear. It smells like detergent and something vaguely medicinal—like tea tree or menthol or maybe him.
He’s at his desk, deep into some spreadsheet or CAD model, muttering to himself about air resistance. You’re flat on his bed, legs swinging, phone held above your face as you scroll through TikTok with the sound barely audible. Every now and then you giggle. Sometimes you send him one. Sometimes he looks away from his screen to actually watch it.
The silence isn’t awkward. It never is with him. Just the quiet clack of his keyboard, the soft hum of his laptop fan, and whatever sound bytes your phone decides to throw at you next. It’s routine by now. Domestic, in a weird way.
He leans back in his chair eventually, spinning halfway to glance at you. “Hey,” he says, like he didn’t just finish modeling an entire turbine blade. “In class the other day—when Takahashi brought up reward pathways—you didn’t say anything. You disagree with the textbook stuff?”
You glance over your phone, one brow raised. “What, the dopamine bit?”
He nods. “And the serotonin model. You looked like you were biting your tongue.”
You shift onto your side, propping yourself up on your elbow. “I mean, yeah. Kinda. The textbook oversimplifies it. Dopamine’s not just a ‘pleasure’ chemical. It’s tied to motivation, reinforcement, emotional memory—like, the anticipation of reward, not just the reward itself.”
He’s still watching you. “Go on.”
And that’s all the permission you need. You sit up straighter, words spilling out like second nature. You talk with your hands, tangents spiraling into other tangents—sliding effortlessly into a topic you’ve buried yourself in for years. Limbic circuitry, behavioral loops, cortisol inhibition. You explain how physical touch spikes oxytocin and drops heart rate variability, how endorphins are natural painkillers, how the brain is wired to crave proximity.
Senku’s not even pretending to work anymore. His laptop’s still open, screen glowing against the side of his face, but his eyes are all on you—sharp, focused, borderline amused.
He hums. “So… theoretically,” he says, tapping his pen against his lip, “if someone were, say, stressed. Touch could help regulate that.”
“Yeah,” you nod, without hesitation. “That’s why hugging works. Holding hands, even brief skin contact; it’s all connected to emotional regulation. Even something like—”
You pause. Shouldn’t say it. But do anyway.
“—making out.”
There’s a pause. One beat. Two.
You glance at him. He’s still watching you, face unreadable. “Making out?” he repeats slowly.
You shrug, casual. “I’m just saying. High dopamine, high oxytocin, a little adrenaline from the novelty? Basically a neurochemical cocktail.”
His head tilts, expression unreadable. Then, like it’s the most normal thing in the world:
“Wanna try it?”
Your brain blanks. “What?”
“You’re the one who brought it up.” He says it flatly. Almost like he’s bored. But there’s a twitch at the corner of his mouth, and his eyes haven’t moved from yours once. “For science. Of course.”
You stare at him. “You’re not serious.”
He shifts to stand, lazy and unbothered. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
And then he’s walking over, bracing a knee on the mattress beside you. You stay frozen. Your heart is in your throat. Or maybe your stomach. It’s hard to tell with the way it’s pounding. He leans in just enough that you can feel his breath, hovering, giving you a chance to pull away.
You don’t.
And that’s all it takes.
The kiss is warm. Careful at first. Testing. You breathe out against his mouth, one hand finding the front of his hoodie and fisting it without thinking. He shifts, deeper into it, his weight pressing into the mattress as he moves over you. Still careful, but less hesitant now. Focused. Like he's calculating every angle, and still surprised by the result.
His hand finds your waist. Yours slide up to his neck.
You’re not sure when it stopped feeling like a joke. But it doesn’t feel like one now.
He shifts again, weight fully settling over you, a knee anchoring beside your hip as he deepens the kiss. His hands are warm—calloused in the way only someone who spends too long with tools and lab equipment can be—sliding up beneath the hem of his own sweater draped over you. Fingers brushing your bare skin tentatively, like he’s cataloging each reaction, each hitch in your breath.
Your arms move to curl up around his neck, pulling him closer, and your fingers find his hair. Tugging gently, then a little harder. He exhales into your mouth like it startled him.
You smile into the kiss—just a little. And he kisses you harder.
There’s something methodical in the way he touches you, like he’s studying even now. Testing reactions. Adjusting accordingly. But it’s not the detached, cold type of analyzing. It’s quiet intention, attentive hunger. The kind that says he doesn’t let himself want things often. But he wants this.
Wants you.
The sweater slips slightly off your shoulder. His palm follows the curve of your spine like it’s a path he’s memorizing. You’re already pulling him back down the moment he shifts to rise, needing more—needing him. He goes willingly. He always does.
His lips hover near your neck, and when he finally presses them there, it’s with purpose. A mark, claiming. You feel the heat it brings you all the way down to your core.
“You react so easily,” he murmurs, voice low and smooth, like he’s more fascinated than surprised. “Like your body’s just waiting for me to touch it.”
You hate how right he is. Or maybe you don’t. Not when his hands are gliding down, lower and lower, caressing the skin of your ribs to your hips.
⋆.⌬ ˚𒉭 ⋆
Senku almost feels bad for baiting you with that question earlier. Almost. If it weren't for the way you were staring up at him, all teary eyed, lips swollen and neck marked—courtesy of him, of course—he’d probably apologize. But he has you exactly where he's been wanting you, and you’re definitely not complaining, if the way you're squeezing around his fingers have any say in the matter.
“Fuck… you're tightening up. Are you close already?” he’s cooing down at you, eyes gleaming with a sort of sadistic look, his lips curled into a smirk.
You can't even respond, it's pathetic really, your brain is already turned to mush and he's barely even touched you. You tear your gaze away from him. Your legs are shaking, twitching uselessly at your sides, and you can feel just how wet you are, can hear it every time his fingers sink deeper into you.
Why did he have to be so good at this?
“You’re really that sensitive, huh?” he mummers, dragging his thumb just barely over your clit and he chuckles when your body jerks forward. Your thighs try to close but he’s already in between them, his other hand prying them open, keeping you exposed and needy under his touch.
He’s transfixed on the sight of you. Watching every twitch of your hips, every spasm in your thighs, every time your walls clench around his fingers, the way your eyes roll back when his fingers prod at a particularly sensitive spot. And, of course, the way you bite down on the back of your hand in an attempt to muffle the sounds spilling out of your mouth.
God, it turned him on in more ways than he possibly imagined.
Senku leaned in, his lips brushing the shell of your ear, just to watch the way you squirm. “C'mon,” he breathes, his voice barely above a whisper, “don’t hide from me. I want to hear everything.”
You whimper at that—a soft, choked sound, and he feels it all the way down. His cock throbs in his pants, neglected, untouched, but he doesn’t care about that right now. Now when this is happening. Not when you’re this responsive, this wrecked just from his fingers. And so… Senku moans. Deep and guttural like your reaction does something to him. Like watching you get off is more satisfying than touching himself could ever be.
The way your body moves against his hand is erratic now, your hips shifting up to match the pace of his thrusts, trembling on the edge. He can feel it in the way your walls flutter around him, can see it in the way your lashes are soaked with tears, the way you jerk with each slow curl of his fingers.
You’re close. So, so close.
So he gives it to you—just the right rhythm, the right amount of pressure, and that voice again, like a switch flipped inside of him:
“Go on, baby, it’s okay. Be a good girl and come for me.”
And you do. Practically sobbing into the sheets as your body shudders around him. Your muscles tighten,back arching off the bed, and breath hitching in your throat before it spills out in a loud, desperate moan. And Senku swears he almost loses it just watching you. Watching what he did to you.
“Fuck, that's it… just like that.” He’s a little breathless now, still working you through it, fingers moving gently as you shake and throb beneath him, blissed-out and absolutely ruined. Even as he pulls his digits out, and licks them clean, your body still hasn't stopped twitching.
You're sprawled out beneath him, brain soft and heavy, your thighs sticky, your chest heaving. There's a buzz under your skin you can't seem to shake—like your body hasn't figured out the comedown yet. Like you're still coiled tight, waiting to snap again.
Senku's still above you, propped on one elbow, eyes dragging slowly over your face like he's trying to memorize the exact expression you're wearing—ruined, flushed, lips parted, still trying to catch your breath.
And when he speaks again, his voice is low and rough, the edge of smugness barely masking the heat beneath it. "You should see yourself right now." He leans closer, nose brushing yours, lips just barely hovering. "You came so hard, baby."
You should roll your eyes. Should say something back. But instead, you kiss him. It's clumsy at first—your hands reaching for him, fisting into the front of his shirt, dragging him down with more desperation than you meant to show. But he goes down willingly, groaning into your mouth like he's been waiting for it, like he's starving for you.
His lips are warm and soft, and when his tongue brushes against yours, something in you snaps. You moan into it, tugging him down even closer, legs shifting to wrap around him until he’s fully on top of you, pressed chest to chest.
The kiss turns filthy fast. Sloppy. Hungry. You taste yourself on his tongue, feel his teeth graze your bottom lip, and when you break apart for air, there's a thin string of saliva still connecting the two of you.
Senku stares down at you, his lips pink and wet, eyes dark with an unmistakable desire. But you don’t say anything. You just drag him back down and kiss him again. And this time, you take control.
You find the strength to gently shove his shoulder. A silent request for him to switch positions, this time with you on top. Your hands slip between your bodies, fingers tugging at his waistband, undoing buttons and zippers with trembling precision. You don't rush it, you don’t even speak. You just stare down at him, eyes locked on his, and you let your palm glide over the front of his boxers—feel how hard he is. How long he’s been holding back.
"You didn't touch yourself," you whispered against his jaw, lips ghosting down to his neck. You kiss the column of his throat. You can feel his adam's apple bob under your mouth. "You just... watched me."
Senku shudders, eyes fluttering shut as he hisses through his teeth. "Of course I did," he says, voice low, breath hitching when your hand dips beneath the fabric and wraps around him. "You think I could look away from you like that?"
You smile into his skin, lips dragging over his pulse point, before licking a small stripe against it, warm and possessive. "Then you're gonna let me return the favor."
He tries to say something, probably a snarky comment, or some teasing remark, but it dies in his throat the second you stroke him. Thumb pressing over the tip, spreading the pre-cum, watching his face go soft and slack and honest. His cock twitches in your hand, and he groans-deep and low, like he's trying to keep quiet and failing.
"You're so responsive,” you murmur, voice dipped in faux sweetness. "Bet I could make you come just like this—barely even touching you."
His head rolls back as he nods.
"You'd let me?"
"F-fuck," he breathes, biting down on a groan as your pace picks up, "I'd let you do anything right now."
And there it is-that crack in his composure. The unraveling. You've got him now, pinned under you. Your hands, your voice, your mouth ghosting back up to kiss him again while you work him with steady, torturous strokes. And you swear he looks like he's about to lose it just from that.
"You're close," you whisper, forehead pressed to his, your hand never stopping. "Aren't you?"
He nods again, faster this time, eyes wide, and dazed. You find him beautiful like this.
“it’s okay,” you whisper, kissing the corner of his mouth, “Come for me, and don't look away."
He doesn't.
You watch each other the whole time-while his body tenses, his breath catches, and he spills into your hand with a whine—it’s with your name on his lips. And even after, when he's still trembling, breath ragged, forehead resting against yours, he kisses you again.
It’s softer now. Slower, more sensual. Like he’s trying to catch up to everything that just happened.
You climb up to adjust your position, shifting in his lap to properly straddle him, and feel him twitch beneath you. The air thickens again. You start to move—slow, subtle grind that makes both of you gasp.
“Is this okay?” you murmur, lips brushing his. “We don’t have to…”
His hands find your hips, tentative, but firm enough to tell you he doesn’t want you to stop. “Y-yeah,” he swallows hard. “Just—condom. They’re in the nightstand.” he adds, voice barely above a rasp.
You pause, looking down at him, your hair falling into his face as your lips curl in a slow, nervous smile. “I kind of just want to feel you,” you say softly. “Just you.”
His breath catches, and his grip on your hips tighten. “You’re gonna ruin me,” he mutters, tone somewhere between a joke and the truth.
“I’m on the pill,” you say, brushing your thumb along his cheek. “And I haven’t been with anyone. Not since we started hanging out…”
His gaze locks with yours—surprised, a little shy. “Me neither.”
There’s a beat. Neither of you says it—what this means, or where it’s going—but you don’t need to. Not right now.
You lean in and kiss him again, deeper this time, while he lets you settle over him fully. And when he finally lets go of whatever he’s been holding back, it’s not a fall. It’s a full body surrender.
You shift your hips, sliding your hand between your bodies. Senku watches you, wide eyed and panting, as your fingers wrap around him once more. He’s still hard, heavy and warm in your hand, and the sound he makes when you stroke him again makes your head spin.
His hands tense on your thighs. "God," he whispers, barely holding on. "You-you don't have to—"
"I know," you say softly, guiding him to where you want him. "I want to."
You angle yourself, breath catching as you line him up. He sucks in a sharp breath, eyes locked on where your bodies meet, like he can't believe this is happening.
And when you start to sink down—inch by inch, taking your time—his head falls back against the pillow, lips parted, throat working like he's trying to remember how to breathe.
You stop halfway, adjusting your hips, one hand braced against his chest. He feels so good stretching you open like this. You look down at him.
He nods, frantic, his voice almost breaking.
"Yeah. Just—don't stop. Please."
You don't.
You ease down the rest of the way, and when you're fully seated, hips flush to his, both of you just stay there for a second, gasping, trembling, overwhelmed. And when you finally start to move; the slow, steady rolls of your hips—his hands come up to grip your waist like he's afraid he might actually fall apart under you.
At first, it’s easy to stay in control. You set the pace, savor the friction, chase the tension building in your belly.
But it doesn’t last.
Your thighs start to burn, trembling with the effort, barely cooperating anymore. Every bounce turns sluggish, your movements dragged down by the growing heat in your limbs—but you're still moving. Still trying. Because he's looking at you like that.
Senku's laid out beneath you, hair a mess, lips kiss-bitten, and pupils blown so wide there’s barely a sliver of red left. And he’s watching you. His gaze is steady, and intense—like he sees everything. Like he’s not the one unraveling here. You are.
And through the fog in your head, it hits you that he’s smiling.
Not mockingly, just this small, breathless grin, like you’re an experiment he doesn’t want to stop testing. And the way he says your name, low, and rough, like he’s been holding in his mouth for months, sends heat crashing right through your core.
You try to keep moving, but your body stutters. Your breath shudders.
He doesn’t move. He doesn’t have to.
He just says, “You're falling apart, aren’t you?”
You don’t answer. You can’t. And then he speaks again, a little more sure this time.
"That's it, baby. You're doing so good for me... just like that."
His voice—God, his voice. It's low and thick and soaked in wonder, like he can’t believe this is real. Like he can’t believe it’s you. You nearly fold right there.
The noise you make is somewhere between a sob and a moan, your hands scrambling against his chest like you need something to anchor you, or maybe just him. Your whole body pulses at his words like they hit deeper than anything else, heat unraveling inside you faster than you can hold it together.
"F-Fuck, Senku..." you whimper, blinking through tears, hips faltering as you try to keep the rhythm. "I c-can't—"
"Yes, you can," he murmurs, fingers tightening just a little on your thighs, just enough to remind you he's there, guiding you, grounding. Not pushing—never pushing. Just wanting. "You're already doing it.”
His voice dips again, breathless. “Look at you..."
It’s awe. Pure, undiluted pleasure. Every word that falls from his lips sounds like it’s unraveling him as much as it is you. And somehow, that’s what undoes you more than anything
You bury your face into his neck, because if you look at him again you'll crumble-and maybe that's the point. Maybe that's what he wants. To break you down, piece by piece, until you're too far gone to think about anything but how good he makes you feel.
And God, he is breaking you.
He drags one hand up your back, fingers threading through your hair, just to keep you close. He needs you close. Needs you to feel how much he's coming apart beneath you. He's grounding you, ruining you, worshipping you with every tremble in his touch.
"Just one more," he whispers, lips brushing your ear. His voice is strained, like he's barely holding on. “Just give me one more…”
He's losing control fast. Your soft, whiny little sounds are killing him. Every breathy moan, every gasp, every whimper—you're driving him insane, and maybe, just maybe, that's what gives him away.
The way his voice breaks when he speaks again.
"God-you feel so good," he chokes out, hips stuttering beneath you. "You're so—fuck, you're perfect around me, I can't—"
He whines-actually whines—a raw, desperate sound ripped straight from his throat, like he doesn't know how to hold it back anymore.
"I c-can't stop," he breathes, hips twitching up into you without rhythm now. "You're—you're making me crazy—how are you so fucking—tight—?”
You make another sound—desperate and broken—and he feels it. The way you clench around him, the way your whole body answers before your mind can even catch up.
And then, softer-almost pleading:
"Let me hear you when you come, yeah?"
You whine—God, you whine—and he groans, like the sound physically does something to him. His hands are shaking now, trying to hold you steady while everything inside him unravels.
The way you look, the way you sound, the way you're still trying to ride it out, still trying to give him what he wants even as you fall apart on top of him. It's too much.
And he wants more.
Your name falls from his lips again-raw, reverent, broken at the edges-and it hits you deeper than anything else has all night.
You try to keep moving, but your body betrays you. Your hips falter, your thighs tremble, and your forehead presses against his collarbone, like hiding might save you—but it doesn't. He's still looking right at you, and God, he's still talking.
"Just like that... you're so—fuck, you're so perfect like this."
His voice is breathless, thick with disbelief and need. "I can feel you... every time you move, I-shit—"
And maybe you don't mean to do it. Maybe you're just grabbing onto something—anything—to stay grounded. But your fingers slide up into his hair, tugging just a little. And he moans.
Full-bodied. High-pitched, desperate, absolutely shameless. His eyes slam shut. His hips jerk up into you with no rhythm, just want. "Shit–do that again—" he gasps, voice cracking. "Please–fuck—!"
So you do.
You fist your hand in the mess of his pale strands and pull.
He falls apart.
"God—I'm–fuck, I'm coming—" The words are slurred, ruined, his face pressed into your hair as he bucks into you once, twice, and then spills inside you with a choked-off moan. His hands fly to your hips, gripping tight, like he's trying to keep you locked to him, like if he lets go for even a second he'll die.
You're already shaking, breath stolen out of your lungs, your own release crashing through you. You sob into his hair, overwhelmed, while he trembles beneath you, hands still gripping, body still twitching.
When you finally still, everything is quiet. Just your breathing, his heartbeat, frantic against your chest. Your fingers are still tangled in his hair. And he hasn't stopped shaking.
You don’t move for a long moment. You just melt into him, limp and boneless, your forehead pressed to his shoulder, your chest rising and falling against his. He’s still inside you, still warm, still twitching faintly with aftershocks. And even though your muscles are shaking and your skin is flushed and sticky, all you can do is breathe.
Senku doesn’t speak right away either. He wraps his arms around you, his hold is loose at first—like he’s not sure he’s allowed—and then tighter, like he can’t help it. Like letting go now would undo him. His voice is hoarse when he finally whispers, “You okay?”
You nod into his neck, barely moving. “Yeah. You?”
He lets out a shaky breath, something between a laugh and a sigh. “I think I’m still alive.” He says. “But barely.”
You smile, eyes closed, cheek pressed to his skin. “Was that…?”
“Yes,” he says instantly, like you needing to ask the question is absurd. “Don’t even finish that sentence.”
You laugh softly and feel him grin against your temple. There’s a pause—comfortable, heavy with the weight of what just happened—and then he shifts, brushing your hair gently away from your face.
“I didn’t… hurt you, or anything?”
“No,” you murmur. “You were perfect. Seriously.”
You finally lift your head, just enough to look at him. His hair’s a mess, his cheeks are still flushed, and his eyes are glassy—but he’s smiling. Soft. Uncertain. Happy. And for a moment, he’s not the genius, not the scientist, not the voice behind a screen.
He’s just a boy, flushed and messy, still a little out of breath, and completely, irreversibly gone for you.
You lean down and kiss him once—just a press of lips. Nothing more. Then you collapse on top of him again with a soft groan.
“We should probably clean up,” you mumble into his chest.
He hums. “Eventually.”
Neither of you moves.
⋆.⌬ ˚𒉭 ⋆
Later, you do get up—clean up, change, all that boring post-mindblowing-sex routine—but it’s quiet. Natural. And once you're both back in bed, it’s like gravity pulls you together again without even trying.
The room’s quiet, warm, filled with the soft hum of your joined breathing. Your legs are tangled beneath the sheets, and your head is tucked under his chin, chest rising and falling against his.
Senku’s still. His hand hasn’t moved from your back, fingers lazily tracing the curve of your spine like he doesn’t know how to not be touching you now.
And then, without looking at you, he says quietly:
“…So is this the part where we pretend that never happened?”
You blink. “…Do you want to pretend that never happened?”
He’s silent for a moment too long.
“No,” he admits. “Not even a little.”
You shift just enough to look up at him. His hair’s still messy, cheeks still faintly pink,and there's a light trace of sweat on his temple, but his eyes are sharp, focused on you now in a way that makes your breath hitch.
“I’m not exactly…” He hesitates, frowning slightly. “Good at this stuff.”
You smile. “Sex?”
“No. Well—” His ears go red. “That too. But I meant… this. Whatever this is. Relationships. Wanting someone this much. Letting them in.”
You don’t say anything right away. Just reach up, gently brushing some of his hair out of his face.
“Senku,” you murmur, soft and certain, “you don’t have to be good at it. We’re figuring it out together.”
He swallows, throat tight. “…You’re not gonna run when you realize I’m not exactly the most conventional partner?”
You blink, lips twitching. “After what just happened? I’m definitely not running. I can barely walk.”
He huffs—almost a laugh. Then finally, finally, he meets your eyes again. Really meets them.
“And besides,” you add softly, “I knew how you were before all of this. I’m your friend first, always. I love you just the way you are.”
“I didn’t mean to fall for you,” he says, blunt in that way only Senku can be. You were just… there. Constant. Loud. Infuriatingly smart. Always messing with my things, always in my space.”
You raise an eyebrow. “You’re digging a really deep hole right now.”
He exhales—short, almost a laugh. “Yeah, well. Then one day I realized I didn’t want any of it to stop. I didn’t want you to stop. I think that scared me more than anything.”
Your lips twitch. “You call that romantic?”
“I’m a scientist,” he deadpans. “Not a poet.”
You grin, pushing up slightly so you can lean over him, your hands braced on either side of his head.
“Well,” you murmur, eyes soft, “guess I’ll have to be the romantic one.”
His eyes flicker to your lips, then back to your gaze.
“You always were.”
You lean in and kiss him—slow, like it’s not a first or a second or a tenth, but something you’ve always had the right to do. He kisses back like he’s finally letting himself want you out loud. When you pull away, you rest your forehead against his again, noses brushing. His hands drift to your waist under the blanket, not trying anything, just holding.
“…So,” you say softly. “What do we call this now?”
He hums thoughtfully. “An unplanned but highly successful chemical reaction?”
You snort. “Try again, scientist.”
His mouth quirks. “Girlfriend acquired?”
You blink. “Did you just say that like you unlocked an achievement?”
“I say that every time I make something new in the lab,” he says, matter-of-factly. “Why would this be any different?”
You roll your eyes, but your heart is doing dangerous things in your chest. “God, you’re such a dork.”He shrugs under you. “Yeah. But I’m your dork now. Apparently.”
Ignore the lowk OOC last line… genuinely couldn't find another way to end this quickly
ANYWAY BACK TO THE EXTRA NOTES!
You guys both go kind of MIA for a while; one second you’re posting like normal, sometimes popping up on each other's page, then just… radio silence.
Fans lost their minds, and during your time away, they start making these crazy long theories trying to explain what they think happened to the both of you to fill the void.
Literally ranging from, "He's secretly a serial killer and she was the last victim so he deleted his digital footprint to evade capture.”
“They eloped in the mountains. She’s pregnant. They’re living off the grid with goats.”
“She accidentally killed him during an experiment and is covering it up.”
All of these are objectively incorrect.
In reality? You’re working through your first relationship, and when you’re ready, you’ll both be back.
an: can't blame anyone but yk I gotta be rude to my kitten whiskers bella... already tagged her though so sigh... anyways this was supposed be DAYS ago but I kept adding more stuff. this is the cycle of my life , I can not shut up for the life of me.
I also haven't written smut in a while (can you tell?) so if its bad.. yeah, I tried my best fr. lowk a closeted freak ONG do not leave me in a room with Senku he WILL end up pregnant.
Summary: Jack comes over after shift, and for once, it is not because of sex. He remembers the smoke detector you complained about once. He shows up with batteries, fixes it like it's nothing, and somehow makes your apartment feel even more dangerous than his townhouse. Because Jack has started taking up space everywhere. His coffee in your kitchen. His charger beside your bed. His toothbrush in your bathroom. His shirt is in your laundry. And then he touches you like you matter. But after a brutal pediatric case leaves you shaken, you reach for him in a way that has nothing to do with heat. You reach for safety. For his house. His bed. His steady voice. His arms.
And Jack shows you exactly where the line is.
Warnings: Explicit sexual content, oral sex, condom use, reader on top, emotionally intimate sex, friends-with-benefits/casual arrangement, domestic intimacy, Jack being careful in ways that hurt, prosthetic leg mentioned/removed in a casual domestic context, pediatric medical emergency, child in respiratory distress, near-loss of a child patient, blood mention, emotional exhaustion, rejection, angst, Reader realizing she deserves more than crumbs of affection.
Author's Note:
Welcome back to Nothing Casual, where Jack Abbot continues his reign of emotional terrorism by fixing a smoke detector, switching laundry, keeping his toothbrush in Reader’s bathroom, and then somehow acting like this is all still casual. This chapter is where the cracks really start showing. There is heat, because of course there is. These two are very good at using sex to avoid having an actual conversation. But the real damage in this chapter comes from the domestic stuff: the coffee, the laundry, the quiet ways Jack shows up, and the way she starts realizing that all those little pieces of care have made her feel safe with him. And then she actually needs that safety. That’s when everything starts to hurt.
Also, Robby is here being a chaos gremlin with a candy bar, because even in emotional devastation, we deserve snacks.
Xoxo, Del
MDNI 18+
Previous Part(s): | Chpt. 1 |
Chapter Two: Crumbs
The smoke detector chirped at 2:17 p.m.
At first, you thought you had imagined it. You were buried too deep in sleep to make sense of anything quickly, body heavy beneath the sheets, hair somehow still damp from the shower you had barely survived after shift. The room was dim, blinds half-closed against the afternoon light, your apartment quiet as you were trying to sleep off a night shift.
Then, from the hall outside your bedroom—
Chirp.
You opened one eye. “No.” Silence. You closed your eyes again.
Chirp.
You stared at the ceiling. There were many things you could handle. Blood. Vomit. Angry family members. Drunk men with opinions. Doctors who forgot nurses had more than two hands.
You could not handle a smoke detector with a dying battery.
Not today.
Not when your body was exhausted, and your brain refused to turn off. Not when your apartment already felt too quiet after the last time you had slept in Jack’s bed, too still without the creak of his old townhouse stairs, too yours in a way that somehow felt less restful than it should have. You rolled onto your side and grabbed your phone. There was a text waiting.
Jack:
Are you awake?
Your heart did one stupid, immediate thing in your chest. Of course it did. You blinked at the screen, still half-buried in your pillow, hair damp at the ends from your shower, bare legs tangled in the sheet. You should have waited before answering. Made yourself less available. Less predictable. Less whatever you had become when Jack Abbot’s name appeared on your phone.
Instead, you typed back:
You:
Yeah.
His reply came almost immediately.
Jack:
Can I come over?
You stared at it. Four words this time. Not come over. Not the usual blunt, post-shift directive that made heat gather low in your stomach before you could decide to be smart.
Can I come over?
Still, your body understood before your brain caught up. You looked toward your bedroom door, toward the hallway, toward the apartment that had already started betraying you in small, quiet ways. His charger was still plugged into the outlet beside your bed.
On his side.
Not that he had a side.
Except he did, apparently, because every time he stayed over, he took the side closest to the door without saying anything about it. The charger had appeared there three weeks ago after he complained once about his phone dying during an on-call check-in, and then it had stayed. In your bathroom cabinet, his deodorant sat beside your moisturizer. His toothbrush leaned next to yours in the cup by the sink. In your kitchen, a bag of coffee beans he liked was clipped shut on the counter because he hated the brand you bought, and had solved that problem by bringing his own without asking if he should.
One of his black shirts was in your laundry basket.
Jack Abbot had been taking up space in your apartment so gradually you had almost convinced yourself it was accidental.
The smoke detector chirped again.
You flinched. Then you looked back down at the phone.
You:
Yeah. Door’s unlocked.
You set the phone face down on the mattress, then immediately picked it back up and checked the thread again, as if the words might have changed.
They hadn’t.
Can I come over?
Your stomach warmed despite yourself. You were tired. You should have told him no. You should have said you needed sleep, because you did. You should have let the smoke detector chirp itself into madness and dealt with it after your body remembered how to function. Instead, you got out of bed. You changed into sleep shorts and an oversized T-shirt that did not belong to him, because apparently, you still had some survival instincts left. You brushed your hair back. You checked the bathroom mirror and told yourself you were not trying to look like anything.
The smoke detector chirped.
“You are on borrowed time,” you told it.
By the time Jack knocked once and opened the door, you were standing in the kitchen with your arms crossed, pretending you had not been listening for his footsteps in the hall. He stepped inside wearing jeans, a dark hoodie, and the same tired expression he always had after night shifts, the one that made him look carved down to bone and patience. His hair was still a little damp, like he had showered and then given up on sleep too.
Your gaze dropped to his hands.
Batteries. A small screwdriver.
You blinked.
Jack shut the door behind him. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
His eyes moved over your face. Then down to your T-shirt, your bare legs, your feet on the kitchen tile. Not slow. Not obvious. Enough. Heat stirred anyway.
Then he lifted the batteries slightly. “Smoke detector.”
You stared at him. “What?”
“You said it was chirping.” He replied.
You blink again, “I said that yesterday.”
“At work.” Jack glanced toward the hall as the smoke detector chirped again, perfectly on cue. His mouth tightened. “Still is.”
You looked at the batteries in his hand, then back at him. He had remembered. Not because you had asked him to. Not because you had texted him in dramatic distress. Not because it was a big deal. You had mentioned it once near the nurses’ station while pouring bad coffee into a paper cup, sleep-deprived and annoyed, something about ripping it off the ceiling if it chirped one more time.
Jack had apparently heard that.
Remembered it.
Come over to fix it.
Your chest tightened in a way that felt deeply inconvenient. “You came over for my smoke detector?”
Jack looked at you like the answer was obvious. “It’s been bugging you.”
“It wasn’t an emergency.” You murmur.
His gaze flicked up the hall again. “It was going to become one.”
You almost smiled.
Almost.
That was the problem with Jack. He did not bring flowers. He did not make speeches. He did not say things that could be held up to the light and examined.
He showed up with batteries.
He walked down your hallway like he knew the route because he did. He dragged one of your kitchen chairs beneath the smoke detector and stepped up with the same quiet competence he brought into every room, every crisis, every impossible hour of the shift.
You leaned against the wall and watched him work.
You shouldn’t have.
There was nothing especially intimate about a man changing a battery.
Except it was Jack.
Except his hoodie rode up slightly when he lifted his arms, showing a narrow strip of skin above his waistband. Except his jaw was shadowed and his hair was still damp, and he was standing in your apartment, fixing something you had complained about once.
Except his toothbrush was in your bathroom, his shirt was in your laundry, and his coffee was in your kitchen.
Except this was starting to look an awful lot like a life in pieces neither of you had agreed to assemble.
The smoke detector opened with a small plastic click. Jack changed the battery, tested it, then snapped the cover back into place. The apartment went quiet. Completely quiet. No chirp. No washer. No hospital noise. No easy explanation for why your throat felt tight.
Jack stepped down from the chair and set the screwdriver on the counter. “There.”
You looked at him. The silence after the chirping was almost worse. “How can I ever thank you?” you asked.
His eyes came to yours. The sentence was light. Teasing. Familiar enough to be safe. Or it should have been.
Jack’s expression barely changed, but his eyes did. “You could stop threatening to dismantle safety equipment.”
Your brow furrows, “That was one time.”
“It was specific.” He shrugged a shoulder.
You stepped closer. “I had other ideas.”
The air shifted. There it was. The thing both of you knew how to do. The door you could open when everything else started feeling too close. Heat was easier than gratitude. Want was easier than saying, You remembered something small, and it mattered to me.
Jack watched you cross the kitchen. He did not move away.
Your fingers slipped to his belt.
Jack caught your wrist. Not hard. Just enough.
You looked up.
His gaze had gone dark, but his voice stayed low. “Not as payment.”
Your chest tightened. There he was again. Careful in the places that made it worse. “Then what?” you asked.
Jack’s thumb moved once over your pulse. “Because you want to.”
The words went through you so cleanly, you almost hated him for them. For the restraint. For the care. For the way he could make something filthy feel honest, and still refuse to name anything about it.
Your fingers flexed under his hand. “I want to.”
Jack held your gaze for one beat. Then he let go. You took his hand and pulled him toward your bedroom.
He followed.
The apartment felt different with him behind you. Smaller. Warmer. Too aware of him. The charger by your bed was still plugged into the wall, cord coiled loosely on what had become his side. Your laundry basket sat near the closet door, one black T-shirt visible on top. You saw Jack glance at it, then away. Not embarrassed. Not pleased. Just noticing. Jack always noticed.
You turned before you could let yourself think too long about that and pushed him gently back onto the bed. He sat first, then moved with practiced ease, removing his prosthetic and setting it within reach beside the bed without making a thing of it. No pause. No performance. Just another private rhythm he trusted you not to turn into something fragile.
Then he lay back, eyes on yours.
You climbed over him. His hands came to your hips immediately. Loose, at first. Letting you decide. That almost undid you. You kissed him hard enough to avoid whatever was rising in your chest. Jack answered, one hand sliding up your back, the other still at your hip, steadying but not steering.
Your shirt came off first.
Jack helped only when you let him, his fingers brushing your ribs as the fabric lifted over your head and landed somewhere near the foot of the bed. His gaze moved over you, dark and focused, and for one second, neither of you breathed quite right. Then your hands were on his hoodie. He sat up enough for you to pull it over his head. His T-shirt followed. Your palms found warm skin, the hard line of his shoulders, the scarred, familiar places you knew too well for someone you were still pretending not to love.
Jack’s jaw tightened when your nails dragged lightly down his chest.
Your shorts went next. He watched you slide them down your thighs, his hands flexing once against the sheets like he was making himself wait. Still letting you choose. Still careful. Still making it worse.
You moved back over him, bare skin against his, and his breath caught.
Your mouth moved over his, his jaw, the rough line of his throat. His breathing changed beneath you, deepening, catching, but he did not take over.
You shifted lower, fingers going to his waistband.
Jack’s hand found your wrist again. Not hard. Just enough.
Your eyes lifted.
His jaw was tight now. His control was thinning; you could feel it under your palm, in the tension of his body beneath yours.
“I said not as payment,” he said.
“This isn’t payment.” You answer.
His gaze held yours.
You did not soften it. You did not make it a joke. “I want to.”
Jack’s fingers loosened around your wrist. For one second, neither of you moved.
Then he let go.
You moved lower before he could say anything else. Jack watched you settle between his thighs, his breathing already uneven, his body still carrying the tension from the kitchen, the smoke detector, your hand at his belt. He was already half-hard from the way you had looked at him earlier, all quiet intent and darkening eyes and the kind of want neither of you knew how to leave alone.
Your fingers wrapped around the base of him.
Jack’s hands clenched in the sheets.
You leaned in and dragged the flat of your tongue along the underside in one slow, deliberate stroke.
His abs tightened visibly.
That did something to you.
Not just the way his body answered. Not just the heat of him, the weight of him in your hand, the rough sound he tried to swallow before it could become too much.
It was the fact that he let you see it.
Jack, steady and guarded and careful, Jack, lying in your bed with his control thinning beneath your mouth. One of his hands lifted toward your hair, then stopped short. Hovered. Pulled back. Your chest tightened even as heat moved through you. Still careful. Still trying not to take what you had not given.
You took him deeper.
His breath caught hard.
Your lips sealed around him, wet and warm, your tongue working in slow, lazy circles as you watched the fracture happen piece by piece. His head tipped back against the pillows, throat exposed, jaw clenched so hard a muscle ticked beneath the skin.
You knew that jaw. You knew that restraint. You knew exactly what it meant when it started to fail. His breathing turned rougher, short exhales that caught on your name without quite forming it. You felt the tremor in his thighs, the way his hips fought not to push up. The way every part of him wanted, and every part of him was trying to be good about it.
The ache of that went right through you.
Because this was what he did.
He made restraint look like care.
He made wanting you feel safe.
“Fuck,” he muttered, voice low and frayed. “Don’t stop.”
Almost a plea. Almost. Still, Jack enough to hold the shape of control around it, but barely. Your pulse throbbed hotter at the sound. At the sight of him like this. Steady, guarded Jack Abbot coming undone because of your mouth, because of your hands, because you were allowed this close to him in your bed with his charger plugged into the wall and his toothbrush in your bathroom.
You were allowed so much of him.
Just not the part you were starting to want most.
You took him deeper again, and this time his hand found your hair. His fingers threaded through it, not pushing. Not forcing. Just holding on. His hips shifted once beneath you, helpless and restrained all at once. You felt him swell against your tongue. Felt how close he was. Jack’s breath broke.
You pulled away.
His eyes opened immediately.
He stared down at you, wrecked and confused, chest heaving, lips parted around a breath he had not gotten back yet. For one second, something raw crossed his face. Not anger. Not frustration.
Almost betrayal. His body had already trusted the fall. You had changed the direction. Then he caught himself. Of course he did.
You reached for the nightstand without looking away from him. The foil tore loudly in the quiet room. Jack’s gaze dropped to your hands as you rolled the condom down his length with slow, deliberate strokes. His stomach tightened again, his head falling back for half a second before he forced his eyes open and looked at you.
Like he did not want to miss a single part of this.
Like watching you want him mattered.
You climbed over him, knees bracketing his hips. Jack’s hands came to your waist. Loose. Waiting. Letting you choose. That almost undid you more than if he had grabbed you. You sank down onto him in one steady glide, and the sound that came out of him was guttural, dragged from somewhere deep and unguarded.
For a second, you could not move. Neither of you could. You were full of him, your hands braced on his chest, his palms warm and open at your waist, the air between you heavy with everything neither of you would say.
Then you started to move. Slow at first. A careful roll of your hips. Another. The rhythm building in your body before your thoughts could catch up.
Jack watched you like he was losing another piece of himself every time you rose and sank back down. His gaze moved over your face, your mouth, your chest, then back to your eyes, dark and fixed and devastatingly focused.
His fingers flexed at your hips. Still not taking over. Still letting you have him. That was worse.
You had meant to make this dirty. Easy. Something both of you knew how to survive.
But Jack was looking at you like there was nothing casual about the way you moved over him. Like he could see every thought you were trying not to have.
It was too much.
Your eyes dropped. Just for a second. Long enough to find the safer place: his chest beneath your hands, the sheets twisted under his body, anywhere but his face.
Jack’s thumbs stilled at your hips.
Then his voice came low and rough beneath you. “Look at me.”
Your rhythm faltered. Not because it was filthy.
Because it wasn’t.
Because he had noticed you leaving the moment before you had even fully left it.
You lifted your eyes back to his.
Jack’s face changed, just barely. Something tender and dangerous moved through the heat, there and gone too quickly to accuse.
Then he sat up.
Suddenly, he was everywhere.
His arm banded around your back, pulling your chest flush to his. His mouth found your neck, hot and open, then lower, dragging over your collarbone, your chest, every place he could reach as if he had all the time in the world to learn you and no intention of wasting a second.
You wrapped your arms around his shoulders. His hand moved up your spine, broad and steady, holding you close while you kept moving over him. The pace shifted, not slower exactly, but deeper. More intimate. Less like chasing release and more like neither of you knew how to stop touching once you had started.
Jack’s mouth came back to your throat. “You’re beautiful,” he said.
Your breath caught.
The words landed wrong.
Or maybe they landed exactly right.
They did not sound like dirty talk. They did not sound like something said because bodies were moving, and heat made liars out of people. They sounded like Jack had looked at you and forgotten, for one dangerous second, that there were things he did not say.
You went still enough for him to notice.
His hand spread across your back. He looked up at you. Really looked.
Your chest tightened so hard it almost hurt.
Then Jack pulled you down and kissed you. Not filthy. Not rushed. A kiss that made everything worse. Because it was careful. Because it was deep. Because his hand cradled the back of your head and his mouth moved against yours like he had no idea how much damage tenderness could do when it came from him.
You moved again, and he moved with you.
His hands found your hips now, guiding, not taking. His breath broke against your mouth. Yours broke back. The room narrowed to the heat between your bodies, the creak of your bed, the rough slide of skin, the way Jack held you like he could feel every place you were trying not to fall apart.
His hand slipped between you. Your rhythm stuttered. Jack caught it immediately, mouth brushing your jaw as his fingers found you with devastating accuracy. Not rushed. Not careless. Even now, even with his body tense beneath yours and his breath coming apart against your skin, he was still paying attention.
“Jack—”
“I know,” he said, voice rough. “I know. Keep going.”
You tried.
God, you tried.
But his fingers moved in tight, practiced circles while you rode him, and every roll of your hips drove him deeper, dragged you harder against his hand. It was too much. Him under you. Him inside you. Him touching you like he knew exactly where you ended and where you broke. Your hands tightened on his shoulders. Jack’s other arm locked around your back, holding you there, chest to chest, his mouth open against your throat.
“That’s it,” he murmured. “Let me have it.”
You shattered. The orgasm tore through you hard enough that your body folded into his, your face buried against his neck, your breath breaking on his name. Jack held you through it, fingers slowing but not leaving you, his body going rigid beneath yours as he felt you come apart around him.
“Fuck,” he breathed.
His control went with you. You felt it happen. The sharp inhale. The hard flex of his hands. The way his hips drove up once, deeper, his whole body tightening as he followed you over. His mouth found yours in a broken kiss, more breath than anything, and he came with a low, wrecked sound against your lips.
Neither of you moved. Your forehead rested against his. One hand spread over your spine, the other moved to cup your face. His breathing shook through him, uneven and warm against your mouth.
Then Jack moved. Slowly. Carefully.
He rolled you to the side with him, one arm still wrapped around your back, guiding you down against the mattress like he was afraid to let the moment break too sharply. Your body followed because it knew him. Because it trusted him. Because apparently that was another dangerous thing you had started doing without permission.
You expected him to pull away.
To breathe. To recover. To put the room back together like he normally does.
Instead, Jack kissed you.
Not hard. Not hungry. Not the kind of kiss that led anywhere. One long, tender kiss, his hand at the side of your face, his thumb against your cheek, his mouth moving over yours like he had forgotten there was no reason to be gentle now.
It surprised you so much that your chest hurt.
The heat you could understand. The dirty talk. The wanting. The way he lost control under your hands. All of that belonged to the arrangement. All of that had a place to go.
This didn’t.
This kiss had nowhere safe to land.
Jack’s mouth slowed against yours, soft and careful, and for one terrifying second, you let yourself kiss him back like it meant something.
When he finally pulled away, he did not go far. His forehead rested near yours. His hand was still on your face. You stared at him, breath uneven, heart doing something humiliating beneath your ribs.
Jack’s eyes opened.
Whatever he saw in your face made his own expression shift. Barely. Enough. Then his thumb moved once along your cheek, and he let you go.
For a few minutes, you let yourself be stupid. You let yourself pretend this was a thing people could have without wanting more. A man in your bed. His mouth against your hair. His hand on your spine. His toothbrush in your bathroom, his charger is beside your bed, and his coffee in your kitchen.
You let yourself pretend none of it was building a home inside you.
Then the bathroom became an excuse. “I’m going to clean up,” you murmured.
Jack stilled for a moment, then nodded once. “Yeah.”
You took your clothes from the floor and went into the bathroom without looking back. That was safer. The bathroom cabinet was still open from earlier. His deodorant sat beside your moisturizer. His toothbrush leaned against yours in the cup by the sink. Two toothbrushes. One medicine cabinet. You cleaned up slowly, giving yourself time to put your face back together. Your body still felt warm from him. Your lips felt tender. Your chest felt worse.
It was one thing for Jack to want you.
It was another for him to look at you like that in your own bed and call you beautiful, like he had not meant to give you something you would have to carry. You turned off the faucet.
That was when you heard it. A soft sound down the hall. The laundry closet. The washer door opening. Wet fabric shifting.
You froze.
Then you opened the bathroom door. Jack was in the narrow hallway near your laundry closet, shirtless, hair mussed from your hands, jeans riding low on his hips. He had one of your wet towels in his hand and was transferring clothes from the washer to the dryer with the same grim focus he brought to trauma protocols. Your black leggings. A pair of socks. Scrubs. You stood there, barefoot and clean and still shaky in ways you did not want to examine.
You leaned against the doorframe. “You didn’t have to do that.”
He put the towel into the dryer and reached for the lint trap. “I heard it go off.”
As if that explained anything.
As if he had not just changed your smoke detector, kissed you in your bed, called you beautiful, and then started switching your laundry because he heard the washer finish.
As if this was not exactly the kind of thing that made casual feel like a lie.
You watched him close the dryer door. The apartment had gone quiet around him. No chirping. No washer. No easy joke to hide behind. Just Jack, making himself useful in your life like he had never once considered what it would do to you when he left. He pressed the start button. The dryer rumbled to life.
Then he turned back to you. “What?” he asked.
You shook your head. “Nothing.”
But it was not nothing.
It was the toothbrush. The charger. The coffee. The shirt in your laundry. The smoke detector. His hands on your body. His voice saying beautiful. The dryer humming behind him because Jack Abbot had heard a domestic sound in your apartment and answered it like he belonged there.
You pushed away from the doorframe before your face could give you away. “Coffee?” you asked, because apparently you had learned from him.
Jack’s mouth moved faintly. “Yeah,” he said. “Coffee’s good.”
You walked toward the kitchen. He followed.
And the worst part was how easy it was to let him.
By 6:52 p.m., you had convinced yourself you were fine. Mostly. Your smoke detector had not chirped once since Jack left your apartment, which should have been a relief. Instead, the quiet had followed you around for the rest of the afternoon like a second heartbeat. No chirp from the hallway. No washer buzzing because Jack had switched your laundry before you could get to it. No excuse to text him. No reason to stand in your bathroom and look at the two toothbrushes in the cup beside the sink. Just quiet.
And the smell of his coffee in your travel mug. That, you told yourself firmly as you walked through the employee entrance, was not symbolic. It was caffeine. Caffeine was a survival tool. A workplace necessity. A professional resource. If Jack Abbot happened to have better coffee beans than the burnt, bitter nonsense you had been buying from the grocery store near your apartment, that was not emotional.
It was quality control.
You lifted the mug to your mouth as you crossed into the ER. Shift change was already doing what shift change did best: making the department sound like three different conversations, two printers, and one impending disaster stacked on top of each other. The day shift was trying to leave. The night shift was trying to figure out what kind of mess it had inherited. Someone was arguing gently but firmly with the pharmacy on the phone. A patient down the hall was demanding a sandwich with the passion of a man who had discovered civil rights.
Normal. Good. Normal was useful.
You clipped your badge into place and headed toward the nurses’ station, travel mug warm in your hand, hair still slightly damp at the nape from the shower you had taken after Jack left. Your body felt too aware of itself. Too aware of him. Of your bed. Of his mouth. Of the way he had rolled you gently to your side afterward and kissed you like the sex was over, but wanting you somehow was not.
You took another drink of coffee. Bad idea. It tasted like him. Not literally. Obviously not literally. It was coffee. Dark roast. Smooth. Slightly nutty. Annoyingly good. Still. Your fingers tightened around the mug.
At the central station, Jack was already there. Dark scrubs. Badge clipped neatly. Hair still just damp enough to betray that he had gone home and showered too, though apparently not slept much, judging by the faint shadow under his eyes. He stood with one hand braced on the counter, reading over the board while Lena ran through open rooms. Professional. Contained.
Impossible to read.
Which was rude, considering you had seen him come apart in your bed less than four hours ago. You looked away first.
That felt like a small victory until you realized he had not looked at all.
“We are light on beds and heavy on opinions,” Lena said, handing you the assignment sheet.
“So a normal Tuesday,” you said.
“Unfortunately.”
You scanned the rooms, grateful for something concrete. Room four is waiting for repeat labs. Room seven detox watch. Room nine abdominal pain, CT pending. Room twelve elderly fall, family en route. Work. You knew how to do work.
You were still reading when Jack moved closer.
Not close-close. Not anything anyone else would notice. Just beside the counter, angled enough that his voice would not carry over the noise of the shift change.
His gaze dropped to your travel mug. “I knew you’d like my brand better than the crap you were buying.”
You looked up at him. There it was. Barely anything on his face. Maybe the smallest edge at the corner of his mouth. Maybe nothing. Jack could be smug with fewer facial muscles than anyone you had ever met.
“You don’t know if this is your coffee.” You reply.
He gave you a look. Flat. Unimpressed. Very Jack. You took another sip out of pure stubbornness. His eyebrow moved. Barely.
You lowered the mug. “Fine,” you said. “Maybe it’s your coffee.”
His mouth curved. Not much. Enough. A smirk, if Jack Abbot could be accused of something like being undisciplined.
Your pulse betrayed you immediately.
“I rest my case,” he said.
You opened your mouth to argue, because arguing about coffee was safer than thinking about the fact that he knew what your kitchen looked like, what your bed felt like, how your voice sounded when you were trying not to fall apart.
Something landed on the counter in front of you. Your favorite candy bar. You stopped.
Slowly, you looked down.
Then up.
Robby stood on the other side of the workstation with his backpack slung over one shoulder and his jacket half-zipped, clearly on his way out and just as clearly incapable of leaving before inserting himself into someone else’s business. Day-shift ER chief. Attending. Chaos gremlin in expensive sneakers.
You stared at the candy bar. “Is that—”
“Don’t make it weird,” Robby said immediately.
Your face broke into a smile before you could stop it. “Robby.”
Robby looked at you. “It was an accident.”
“This is my favorite.” You replied.
“Allegedly.” He leaned one elbow on the counter, already committed to the lie. “I bought mine, and that one fell too. Vending machine error. Very tragic. Very binding.”
You held up the candy bar, “You bought this for me.”
Robby looked scandalized, “I did no such thing.”
You picked it up, still smiling. “Thank you.”
Robby looked briefly uncomfortable with the sincerity, which was how you knew it had landed. “Yeah, well.” He tugged at the strap of his backpack. “Night shift deserves hazard pay and chocolate. Since administration refuses to provide either, I’m doing grassroots labor support.”
Your laugh came soft and tired and real.
Jack looked down at the chart in front of him.
You were too busy smiling at Robby to notice the way his hand stilled around his pen. It should not have mattered. It was a candy bar. A vending machine candy bar, Robby was pretending very badly not to have bought for you on purpose. But Robby could do that. He could hand you chocolate in the middle of the ER and make you smile where everyone could see. He could remember something small about you and make it obvious. He could be kind out loud, careless with it, easy in a way that cost him nothing.
Jack remembered things, too.
He remembered your coffee. Your smoke detector. The way you took your first breath after waking. The place behind your ear that made your whole body go quiet. The sound you made when you were overwhelmed and trying to hide it.
He kept all of it behind closed doors.
You held up the candy bar. “You’re very generous for a man who terrifies residents for sport.”
Robby put a hand to his chest. “I educate residents.”
“You made one cry over potassium last week.” You pointed out.
Robby shrugged, “That was growth.”
Jack’s mouth twitched before he could fully stop it. Robby caught it.
His eyes narrowed with immediate interest. “Was that a smile?”
“No,” Jack said.
“That was almost a smile,” Robby said.
Jack narrowed his eyes, “It wasn’t.”
“It was medically significant.” Robby insisted.
“Go home, Robby,” Jack replied.
Robby pointed at him. “Hostile. Defensive. Probably under-caffeinated.”
“He’s had coffee,” you said before you could stop yourself.
Jack looked at you. So did Robby. The silence lasted half a second too long. Then Robby’s gaze dropped to your travel mug, flicked to Jack, and came back to you with the kind of delighted horror that meant he had just found a loose thread and intended to make it everyone’s problem.
“Oh,” he said.
You unwrapped the candy bar aggressively. “Don’t.”
Robby’s eyes are wide. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You said ‘oh.’” You say to him, breaking off a piece of chocolate.
Robby turned to you, “That’s a vowel. You can’t criminalize vowels.”
“Watch me.” You reply with a challenging look in your eyes.
Robby grinned, but his eyes stayed sharper than his smile.
Jack had gone very still beside you.
Not obviously. Not enough for anyone else to notice. But you felt the shift anyway, the way he pulled back without moving. Professional distance clicking into place over something neither of you had meant to show.
Robby glanced between you one more time. Then, mercifully, he let it go for now.
“I’m leaving,” he announced. “Before night shift infects me with whatever this is.”
“Goodbye, Robby,” you said.
He pointed at the candy bar. “Eat that before one of your patients steals it or Abbot judges it nutritionally.”
Jack answered instantly, “I don’t care what she eats.”
Robby looked at him. You looked at him, too. Jack’s jaw shifted once. Then he looked back at the board.
Robby’s smile went slow. “Oh, this is fantastic.”
“Home,” Jack said, without looking at him.
“Going,” Robby said, backing away. He disappeared toward the exit, still smiling as he had just watched the first five minutes of a movie he absolutely planned to finish. You watched him go, candy bar in hand, warmth sitting unexpectedly under your ribs. Robby was easy. Not simple. Not shallow. He noticed more than he let on, and he used jokes the way other people used a stethoscope, pressing lightly until he found the tender place. But he was easy to care about in public. Easy to laugh with. Easy to accept kindness from because the kindness did not need hiding. You could say thank you to Robby and mean it. You could smile at him across a workstation.
Jack shifted beside you. The air changed again. You looked down at your assignment sheet, suddenly aware of the travel mug in your hand, the coffee inside it, the way Jack’s gaze had dropped to it like recognition.
“Room nine’s CT is back,” he said. Work voice. Attending voice. The one with clean edges.
You took the offering because you needed it too. “Appendix?”
He nodded once, “Looks like it.”
“I’ll call report when surgery accepts.” You replied.
For one second, the rhythm was there again. Not sexual. Not domestic. Clinical. The two of you moving around the same problem from different sides, knowing where the other would step before they did it. It was another kind of intimacy, maybe. A safer one. The kind you could use in public. Then the radio crackled at the charge desk. Lena lifted a hand, and the department sharpened. “Medic four inbound. Pediatric respiratory distress. Seven-year-old male. History of asthma. Sats in the eighties despite treatment en route. ETA four minutes.”
Everything in the ER changed shape. The candy bar in your hand suddenly felt absurd. You set it down beside your travel mug.
Jack was already moving. “Room two,” he said.
“On it.” Your voice was steady because it had to be. You grabbed gloves. Someone called respiratory. Lena cleared the room while another nurse pulled pediatric supplies. The automatic doors at the ambulance bay hissed open and closed as if the building itself had started breathing faster. Jack reached for a gown. You did the same. For one brief second, his shoulder brushed yours at the sink. Neither of you looked at the other. There was no room now for coffee. Or smoke detectors. Or toothbrushes. Or the way his mouth had felt when he kissed you after. There was only the sharp cry of a terrified mother as the ambulance doors opened. A stretcher. A small body. A child struggling for air. You stepped forward. Nurse first.
Everything else later.
The ambulance bay doors opened with a rush of cold air and panic. That was the first thing you noticed. Not the stretcher. Not the medic walking fast beside it. Not Jack stepping into the room with his shoulders squared and his hands already gloved. The panic. It came in ahead of everyone else, sharp and living, carried in the broken sound of a mother’s voice.
“Please, he was fine this morning. He was fine. He just had a cough.”
Then the stretcher crossed the threshold, and the room narrowed. Seven years old, maybe. Small enough that the sheets swallowed him. Blue dinosaur pajama pants. One sock was halfway off his foot. Oxygen mask fogging over his face with every shallow, frantic breath. Noah, the medic said. Seven-year-old male. History of asthma. Cold symptoms for two days. Worsening respiratory distress. Nebs en route. Sats are still low.
You moved before the report finished. Nurse first.
Everything else later.
“Hey, Noah.” Your voice came out calm, which felt like a small miracle, considering the sound his breathing made. “I’m right here. You don’t have to talk, okay? Just look at me if you can.”
His eyes found yours over the mask. Huge. Wet. Terrified.
Your chest tightened. You smiled anyway. “There you go. Good job. We’re going to help.”
Jack’s voice cut through the room, low and level. “Transfer on three.”
Not loud. Jack never needed loud. Everyone heard him anyway. One, two, three. The team moved him from the stretcher to the bed. You reached for leads, pulse ox, and blood pressure cuff. Respiratory slid in beside you with equipment. Someone pulled pediatric supplies. The monitor beeped, numbers flickering, too low, too fast, too bright. Noah’s mother hovered at the edge of the room, one hand over her mouth, the other gripping the strap of her purse like it was the only thing keeping her upright.
“Mom,” Noah rasped. Barely a word. Barely air.
His mother made a sound you felt in your spine. You looked over your shoulder. “Mom, come here.”
She blinked at you.
“Right here by his head,” you said, already making room for her. “Where he can see you.”
She trembled, “I don’t want to be in the way.”
“You won’t be.” You caught her eyes and held them. “He needs to see you. Talk to him. Let him know you’re here.”
Her face crumpled. Then she stepped forward.
Jack glanced up once, just once, from the foot of the bed. You saw him see it. Then he was back in the case. “Continuous neb,” he said. “IV access. Steroids. Respiratory: I want high-flow ready. Let’s get peds ICU on the line.”
You were already reaching for the IV kit. Noah’s arm was small under your hand. Too small. You hated pediatric IVs. Not because you couldn’t do them. You could. You were good at them. You hated the way a child’s fear made the room feel too honest. Adults could swear at you. Bargain with you. Pretend they were fine. Kids looked right at you and let terror sit on their faces because they did not yet know how to hide it.
“You’re doing great, Noah,” you told him.
His mother stroked his hair with shaking fingers. “You’re okay, baby. You’re okay. Mommy’s right here.”
Noah tried to breathe. His whole chest worked for it. Every rib. Every muscle. His shoulders lifted with each breath like his body was trying to climb out of itself to find air. The IV flashed.
You secured it, taped it, flushed it, your hands steady because they had to be. “IV’s good.”
Jack nodded. “Mag.”
The room moved around him. Orders. Hands. Plastic. Tubing. Albuterol mist. The soft hiss of oxygen. His mother’s voice, trembling but there. “You’re doing it, honey. Look at me. Look at Mommy.”
Noah’s eyes fluttered. Your stomach dropped. Not dramatically. Just a clean, cold drop.
Because the wheezing changed, it got quieter. People thought quiet was good. Quiet was not always good.
Jack heard it too. You knew because his expression shifted by nothing at all. That was how you knew.
“He’s tiring,” Jack said.
The room went sharper. Noah’s mother looked at him. “What does that mean?”
No one answered fast enough. So you did. “It means he’s working really hard,” you said, keeping your hands moving, keeping your voice even. “We’re going to help his lungs do less work.”
“Is he—” Her voice broke. “Is he going to be okay?”
You could not lie to her. You would not. Jack was already reaching for another step, another option, another line between Noah and the edge. “We’re getting everything ready,” you said. “That means we have options. Right now, he is still here with us, and we are right here with him.”
Jack looked at you again. Only a fraction. Then he said, “Prepare airway. If he drops further or tires more, we intubate.”
Noah’s mother made a sound like the floor had disappeared. Your own breath tried to catch. You did not let it. You reached for supplies. Tape. Syringes. Tubing. Everything familiar. Everything awful.
Noah’s small fingers curled weakly around the sheet. “Mom,” he whispered.
His mother bent over him immediately. “I’m here. I’m here, baby.”
You swallowed around the hard thing in your throat. “She’s right here,” you said, because maybe he needed more than one voice telling him. Maybe his frightened little brain needed the room to agree on the most important fact. “She’s right here, Noah.”
His eyes shifted toward you. For one second, they held. And you saw it. The fear. The plea. The small, unbearable trust of a child looking at the adults in the room and believing you could fix what was happening to him.
You wanted to promise.
You wanted to say yes, absolutely, we have you, nothing bad will happen here.
You knew better.
So you worked.
The next few minutes happened in fragments.
Jack’s voice. Respiratory at the head of the bed. The monitor alarm. Noah’s mother was crying softly while she kept telling him he was brave. Your gloved hand adjusting tape. A smear of blood near the IV site before you caught it with gauze.
Jack said, “Again,” in that steady voice.
Noah’s chest is rising too fast. Then slower. Then better. Not good. Better. The numbers climbed in pieces. Eighty-eight. Ninety. Ninety-two.
You did not trust it at first. No one did. The room stayed tight, waiting. Jack listened to Noah’s lungs, face unreadable, stethoscope moving over a chest that was finally not fighting quite so hard. “He’s moving more air,” he said.
Respiratory nodded. “Better exchange.”
Noah’s mother started crying harder. Relief, you knew, could look almost identical to terror when it first arrived. You handed her a tissue without her having to ask. She took it with shaking fingers. “Thank you. Thank you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
You shook your head, “You don’t have to apologize.”
“I didn’t know it was this bad.” She said, shaking.
“You brought him in,” you said. “That matters.”
She pressed the tissue to her mouth and nodded like she was trying to believe you. Noah’s eyes were half-open now, still scared, still exhausted, but not panicked in the same animal way.
You leaned closer. “Hey, bud.” His gaze found yours, exhausted and glassy above the oxygen mask. “You were so brave, Noah.”
For a second, he only looked at you. Then his mouth moved behind the mask. Not much. Barely a smile.
But enough.
Your chest cracked around it.
His small hand shifted against the sheet, fingers searching weakly until they found yours. You took his hand carefully. His grip was tired. Too light. Still there.
“Yeah,” you whispered, your voice somehow steady. “I’m right here, so is your mom.”
His mother let out a broken sound, half sob, half exhale of relief. Noah’s eyes moved toward her.
You smiled. “She’s right there. Told you.”
He blinked slowly.
The crisis loosened by degrees. Not gone. Never gone. But the room began to breathe again. PICU accepted him. Transport would come when he was stable enough to move. The airway supplies stayed ready but unused. The intubation kit remained unopened on the tray, a threat that had come close enough to leave fingerprints. Eventually, there was nothing left for you to do in the room except the next thing. There was always a next thing.
You stepped out into the hall. The department noise hit you all at once. Phones. Monitors. Someone is laughing too loudly near the med room. A call light chiming. A patient asking for discharge papers. The ordinary, relentless churn of an ER that had already started moving on because that was what ERs did.
Your body did not move on with it. You looked down. There was blood on your shoe. Not much. Just a thin red smear near the sole where the IV gauze had slipped for half a second before you caught it.
You stared at it.
Your hands were steady.
Your breathing was not.
You flexed your fingers once. Twice.
Behind you, the door to room two opened.
Jack stepped out.
He stripped off his gloves and tossed them into the trash. His face was the same as it always was after a close call: controlled, focused, already moving through the next steps in his head.
Then his gaze dropped to your shoe. Back to your face. He saw too much. Of course he did.
“You good?”
There were many answers to that question. No. Not yet. I can still hear his mother. I keep seeing his hand on the sheet. He looked at me like I could save him, and for one second, I wasn’t sure we could.
You said, “Yeah.”
Jack looked at you. Just looked. The lie sat between you, thin and useless. He did not call it out. That might have been kinder. Instead, he reached to the counter beside him, picked up a sealed bottle of water, and set it in front of you. “Take a minute.”
“I’m fine.” You say instantly.
“I didn’t ask if you were fine.” He answered gently.
Your throat tightened. Wrong moment. Wrong place. Jack, saying exactly the kind of careful thing that made it impossible to remember he was not yours. You picked up the water because refusing it would have taken more energy than you had. Jack’s eyes stayed on yours for one beat longer. Then Lena called his name from the desk, and he turned away.
Work did not wait. You twisted the cap off the bottle and took a drink. Your hand shook once. Just once. You made it stop.
Across the hall, Noah’s mother was still murmuring to him through tears. You could hear her voice through the half-open door. Mommy’s right here. Mommy’s right here. The words lodged somewhere behind your ribs.
You went back to work. Room nine still needs a report. Room four wanted discharge paperwork. Room seven had pulled out an IV and was insisting it had happened “spiritually, not physically.” Someone vomited in triage. Someone else yelled because the vending machine took their dollar. The night kept going. You kept going with it. That was what you did. You charted. You medicated. You called. You cleaned. You answered the same question from the same family member four different ways because fear made people forget. You ate half the candy bar Robby had given you at 3:08 a.m., standing in the med room with one hip against the counter, tasting chocolate and exhaustion and the metallic ghost of adrenaline.
Jack passed you twice after that.
Once, near the supply cart, his hand brushed the edge of the shelf beside yours, stopping before it touched you. Once, at the board, his eyes found your face and left too quickly. You were grateful.
You hated that.
By the time the shift ended, the sky outside had gone pale again. Morning pressed against the windows in that watery Pittsburgh way, gray and tired and too honest. You changed your shoes in the locker room because you could no longer look at the blood smear. You put the candy bar wrapper in the trash. You washed your hands even though you had already washed them a hundred times.
Then you walked to your car. The parking garage was cold. Your footsteps echoed. You got into the driver’s seat, shut the door, and sat there with both hands on the wheel. For a moment, you did not move. You did not want to go home. Your apartment would be quiet. The smoke detector no longer chirped because Jack had fixed it. Your laundry would be dry because Jack had switched it. His toothbrush would be in your bathroom. His charger would be beside your bed. His coffee would be in your kitchen.
And none of that would be enough.
Not after tonight.
Not after Noah’s small hand clutched yours. Not after his mother saying he was fine this morning, like a prayer that had failed her. Not after Jack’s voice saying prepare airway and the way your body had gone cold because for one second you had thought you might watch a child slip too far away to reach.
You did not want sex.
That was almost funny, in a bitter, exhausted way.
You did not want Jack’s mouth, his hands, or the heat you both used like a language when everything else got too close.
You wanted his townhouse.
That was the humiliating truth of it.
You wanted the old brick steps. The porch light. The door that stuck when the weather changed. The quiet creak of the staircase under his weight. You wanted his bed with the curtains drawn and the sheets that smelled like him. You wanted his arm around your waist. His chest against your back. His familiar presence in the dark, solid and warm and steady enough to borrow.
You wanted his voice near your ear. Low. Certain.
“I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
He did not even have to say it exactly like that. Jack probably wouldn’t. Jack would put water beside the bed. He would pull the blanket over your shoulder. He would rest a hand on your hip and let the quiet do the work. He would notice if you were cold. He would notice if you were shaking. He would know not to ask too many questions. You wanted that. You wanted him. Not the arrangement. Not the heat.
Him.
Your eyes burned. You blinked hard and reached for your phone before you could talk yourself out of it. The text thread was still there. Of course it was. His last message from earlier had been short. Practical. Nothing you could hold against him.
You typed:
You:
Are you going home?
You stared at it. Then you sent it. The three dots appeared after almost a minute. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Jack:
Yeah.
Your thumb hovered over the keyboard. This was the line. You knew it before you crossed it. You were so tired of knowing better.
You typed:
You:
Can I come over for a little while?
No joke. No flirtation. No easy door back into sex. Just the ask. Just your exhaustion, your fear, your need sitting naked in six words. You watched the screen. The garage hummed around you. Somewhere below, a car alarm chirped once and went silent. Your hands had started to shake again, so you tightened your grip on the phone until they stopped. Three dots appeared. You held your breath. They disappeared. Then appeared again. For one awful second, you let yourself imagine it.
The screen blurred. You blinked once. Then again. Not today. I’m beat. Sorry.
You sat very still in the driver’s seat, phone glowing in your hand, Noah’s mother’s voice still caught in your chest. It was fine. It had to be fine. Jack was allowed to be tired. He had worked the same shift. He had been in the same room. He had stood at the foot of the bed and carried the same almost loss in his own body. He did not owe you his morning. He did not owe you his bed. He did not owe you a place to fall apart. That was not what this was. You knew that. You knew.
Still, the hurt opened anyway. Small. Clean. Mortifying.
You swallowed around it and typed with fingers that felt too cold.
You:
Okay.
You stared at the word. Then you added:
You:
Get some sleep.
Because apparently, even hurt had not made you less pathetic. You sent it.
Jack did not answer.
For a while, you sat there with the engine off and the garage cold around you, trying to convince yourself you had not just asked for something you had no right to want. Then you put the phone facedown on the passenger seat. You started the car. And you drove home to the apartment where Jack’s smoke detector was silent, his coffee waited in your kitchen, and his toothbrush stood beside yours like evidence of a promise he had never made.
That evening, you came in early. Not because you were eager. Because your apartment had been too quiet again, the smoke detector stayed silent. Your laundry sat folded on top of the dryer because you had not had the energy to put it away. Jack’s shirt was still mixed in with your things, clean now, black cotton folded between your scrub pants and a pair of socks, as if it belonged there. His toothbrush was still in your bathroom. His charger was still plugged in beside your bed. His coffee was still in your kitchen. All of it stayed. He did not.
That was dramatic, you told yourself as you drove to the hospital with one hand on the wheel and the other wrapped around your travel mug. Dramatic and unfair. Jack had not promised to come over. Jack had not promised anything at all. He had said he was tired because he was tired. He had worked the same shift you had. He had stood in the same room with Noah and his mother and the unopened airway kit. He was allowed to go home. He was allowed to sleep. He was allowed to say no. You knew all of that. Knowing did not make your chest feel any less hollow.
By the time you reached the ER, you had packed the feeling away in the same place you put everything else that did not help during a shift. Behind your ribs. Under your badge. Somewhere quiet enough that you could still do your job. The department was loud when you walked in. Good. Noise helped. Noise gave your brain places to go that were not Jack’s unanswered text. Not the way you had sat in the parking garage with your phone glowing in your hand. Not the humiliating little hope you had felt before his reply came through.
Not today. I’m beat. Sorry.
You clipped your badge to your scrub top and stepped toward the nurses’ station. “Okay,” you said under your breath. “Normal.”
The universe, apparently, took that as a challenge. Robby was at the central desk, sleeves pushed up, backpack on the floor by his feet, finishing something on the computer with the offended focus of a man who had been punished twice: once by administration and once by patients. He looked up when you came in. His eyes narrowed.
“Oh, good,” he said. “Night shift has arrived to inherit my problems.”
You sighed, “You say that like your problems don’t follow you home.”
“They do, but at home I can ignore them in sweatpants,” Robby replied.
You set your bag beneath the counter. “That’s emotionally healthy.”
“I had an administrative meeting this morning. My emotional health is none of your business.” Robby said.
Despite yourself, your mouth moved. Not quite a laugh. Close enough. Robby noticed, because Robby noticed more than he had any right to. His gaze flicked over your face. “You look tired.”
You exhaled, “I work nights.”
“You look extra tired.” Robby tried again.
You pressed your lips together, “I had a shift.”
“We all have shifts,” Robby mumbled.
You gave him a look. He lifted both hands. “Right. Sorry. Forgot nurses are scarier than doctors when sleep deprived.”
You pointed at him, “Excellent survival instinct.”
“I’m evolving.” He clicked something on the computer, then leaned back in the chair, studying you with an expression that had gone a little too gentle under the nonsense. “How’s the kid from last night?”
The question hit softer than you expected and harder than you wanted. You looked down at the papers on the counter. “PICU admitted him. Last I heard, he was stable.”
Robby nodded, “Good.”
“Yeah.” You answered. There was a pause. Not awkward, exactly. Just full. Robby let it sit for a second, then cleared his throat in the exaggerated way people did when they were trying to step back from sincerity before it got on their shoes.
“So,” he said conversationally, “I had an admin meeting this morning and still somehow ended up listening to Abbot brood into pancakes after his shift, so I feel like I provided community service.”
Your hand stilled on the assignment sheet. The words went in slowly. Not because they were complicated. Because some part of you tried, very kindly and very stupidly, to make them mean something else.
Robby kept talking, unaware for one disastrous second that he had just opened something sharp. “Breakfast was my idea, technically. I was already awake, against my will. Shen came too for about five minutes, stole half my hash browns, and left. Ellis said she was too smart to socialize with physicians before noon, which was rude but not incorrect.”
You looked at him.
Robby stopped. His face changed. Not dramatically. Robby was too quick for that. Too practiced at turning a room before anyone noticed where the floor had cracked.
But the humor left his eyes. “Oh,” he said.
You blinked once. “What?”
He sat up a little. “I just stepped on something.”
“No.” Your voice came out too fast. Too bright. “No, you’re fine.”
Robby did not believe you. You knew because his expression stayed open in the way kind people looked when they knew better than to reach for a bruise in public.
“It was just breakfast,” he said carefully.
You nodded. “Yeah.” The word was easy. Small. Manageable.
Everything else was not.
Jack had been tired.
He had been too tired for you.
Too tired for your shaky hands in the parking garage. Too tired for Noah’s mother’s voice caught in your throat. Too tired for you to sit on his couch without trying to make it sex. Too tired for his bed and his steady breathing and the old, quiet safety of his house.
But not too tired for breakfast.
Not too tired for Robby.
Not too tired for pancakes, and hash browns, and whatever version of himself could sit under diner lights and be exhausted in a way that did not ask anything dangerous of him.
It was different.
That was the part that hurt.
Because you understood the difference immediately.
Robby was easy. Shen was easy. Breakfast was easy.
You were not.
You stood there with the assignment sheet in your hand, hearing Noah say Mom in that thin, airless voice. Feeling his small fingers searching weakly for yours. Remembering the exact second your phone lit up in the parking garage and you let yourself imagine Jack’s door opening.
You had not wanted much.
That was the humiliating thing.
You had not wanted a promise. You had not wanted an explanation for every toothbrush and every cup of coffee and every shirt left in the laundry. You had not wanted him to name the thing both of you kept stepping around. You had wanted to be somewhere you felt safe. You had wanted him.
And he had gone to breakfast.
Your throat tightened. You looked away from Robby before your face could do anything unforgivable. “I’m going to check my rooms,” you said.
“Hey.” His voice softened. “You okay?”
There it was again. The question everyone asked when the answer was already showing.
You made yourself smile. It felt awful. “Yeah. Just tired.”
Robby held your gaze. For one second, you thought he might push. He didn’t. “Okay,” he said quietly.
You appreciated him for that almost as much as you hated the need to be appreciated. You walked away before he could see your eyes burn. The supply room was empty.
Thank God.
You stepped inside and let the door fall almost shut behind you. Not closed. You were still on shift. Still reachable. Still a nurse before anything else. But for one second, you let your hand brace against the metal shelf. Your breath came in once. Shallow. Then again.
The tear slipped out before you could stop it.
One. Small. Furious.
You wiped it away so hard your skin stung. “No,” you whispered.
Not here. Not over this. Not over a man who had never promised you anything except text me when you get home, and good and sleep, and come over.
Your jaw tightened. That was the problem, wasn’t it?
He had never promised more.
He had just acted like more in every way that mattered.
He fixed your smoke detector. He switched your laundry. He kept his toothbrush in your bathroom and his coffee in your kitchen. He kissed you after sex as if the tenderness had nowhere else to go. He watched you drink water before you drove home. He stood in doorways until he knew you were safe.
And then, when you reached for him with both hands full of fear, he had reminded you without saying it that none of those things counted.
Not enough.
Not like that.
You pressed the heel of your hand to your sternum, trying to force the ache back into a shape you could work around.
You loved him.
The thought arrived without permission.
Clean. Terrible.
Obvious in a way that made you feel foolish for not naming it sooner.
You loved him.
Not because of the sex, though God, the sex had made it easier to stay stupid. Not because of the coffee or the sweatshirt or the way he said your name when he was close to losing control.
You loved him because he made room.
And you had mistaken the room for a place to belong.
Another tear threatened.
You swallowed it. No. You were not doing this here. You were not going to bleed out quietly in a supply room over crumbs of affection and call it a meal.
Because that was what they were, weren’t they?
The coffee. The laundry. The water. The careful kisses. The smoke detector. The toothbrush. His hand at your hip.
Crumbs.
Beautiful crumbs. Warm crumbs. Crumbs he gave you, then denied were anything close to bread.
You deserved more than that.
The thought shook through you harder than the crying had.
You deserved more. Not because Jack was cruel. That would have been easier. Cruel would have given you something clean to hate. Jack was not cruel. Jack was careful and generous and devastating in all the wrong directions. Jack could care for you in the aftermath. He could want you in the morning. He could make room for your body, your coffee, your toothbrush, your sleep-heavy silence.
He just could not make room for your need.
And maybe that was the answer.
Maybe that was the thing you had been trying not to understand.
You wiped under your other eye before anything could fall.
Then you straightened.
The ER kept moving outside the door. Phones ringing. Feet rushing past. Someone was laughing by the med room because the night had not gotten to them yet. You breathed in. Out.
Nurse first.
Everything else later.
You opened the supply room door and stepped back into the hall. Across the department, Jack stood at the board, one hand braced on the counter, head bent toward a chart. Professional. Contained. Unreadable. Your chest hurt when you looked at him. That was not new. What was new was the small, terrible clarity underneath it.
Loving him did not mean you had to keep surviving on what he was willing to leave behind.
SUMMARY:It's only Day 5 of filming for Walker, and he's been secretly dating someone. The secret explodes when his phone flips over on the trailer couch, revealing a bright, candid photo of The Reader as his lock screen
Leah spots it first and immediately calls him out. Dior, Aryan, and Charlie join the interrogation circle, demanding to know all the details about the mystery partner. Walker is busted and agrees to spill the tea, but not before Charlie delivers the perfect deadpan line about him being "that guy" who keeps secrets from the demigod squad.
⚠️ Warning
Rated: G (General Audiences) – Just pure, unadulterated, chaotic fluff. No major warnings, unless you consider an excessive use of caps lock and emojis a hazard. Prepare for high levels of sarcasm and teasing.
☕ A/N (Author's Note)
Hiiiiii! I’ve been obsessed with the PJO cast and their whole vibe! This is inspired by the sheer amount of soft content they post, and the idea of Walker just accidentally outing his private life via his lock screen is too good to pass up. Think found family chaos meeting first meeting jitters. Hope you enjoy this little piece of brain rot! Don't forget to reblog with your favorite PJO quote! 💖
The air in the shared trailer felt thick with the low, pleasant hum of tired post-lunch energy and the faint smell of Vancouver rain mixed with catering pizza. Walker, still half-wearing his orange Camp Half-Blood shirt from the last scene, was sprawled across a couch cushion, utterly engrossed in a particularly heated game on his phone.
Across the small table, Leah Sava Jeffries was reviewing lines, perched on the edge of her seat like a perfectly coiffed, miniature Annabeth. Aryan Simhadri was attempting (and failing) to braid a knot out of a stray rope they’d snagged from the props department, and Charlie Bushnell was silently munching on a bag of Sour Patch Kids, occasionally offering a philosophical nod when someone spoke. Dior Goodjohn was flipping through a magazine, her energy a cool, composed contrast to the surrounding mess.
"Okay, okay, I need ten more seconds!" Walker groaned, his brow furrowed in concentration. "Leah, I swear, if you beat my score again I'm going to start calling you Clarisse off-set."
Leah just smirked, not looking up from her script. "Good luck, Perce. You’re too slow."
With a final, frustrated sigh, Walker’s in-game character met a predictably tragic end. He tossed his phone onto the couch beside him, face down, and ran a hand through his damp, dark hair.
"It’s rigged," he declared, flopping back dramatically. "I'm going outside for air before I lose my mind."
As he pushed himself up and headed for the trailer door, the movement of the couch shifted the phone. It slid a few inches, flipped over, and landed with the screen facing perfectly toward the small table.
Silence fell, sudden and absolute.
Leah, having just lifted her head to take a sip of water, froze. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the bright, beaming image now illuminated in the semi-dark trailer.
It wasn't a screenshot of a movie poster. It wasn't a selfie of Walker making a goofy face.
It was you.
You were sitting on a boardwalk railing sun-drenched and lau ghinghead tipped back with the most genuine, effortless joy. Walker’s arm was draped awkwardly over your shoulder, looking half-surprised and completely smitten. It was one of those perfect, candid, summer photos that looked like it was taken five seconds before a kiss.
Leah squinted, then let out a sharp, high-pitched gasp that made Aryan nearly swallow his knot of rope.
"Walker! Who is that?" Leah demanded, pointing a dramatic finger at the phone.
Walker, whose hand was already on the door handle, turned around, confusion etched on his face. "Who is who?"
He followed her pointing finger to his phone, and his eyes went wide with pure, unadulterated panic.
"Oh," he whispered, suddenly looking like he'd been caught stealing Zeus's master bolt. "That… uh…"
Dior immediately dropped her magazine. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table, her expression shifting from casual interest to laser focus.
"Is that… your girlfriend, Walker?" Dior’s voice was dangerously low, laced with the exact same tone she used on set right before Clarisse leveled an insult at Percy.
Aryan, who had managed to untangle his rope, looked genuinely shocked. "Dude! You have a partner? And you didn't tell us??"
Walker took a step back from the door, defeated. He was trapped. The Percy Jackson cast had just formed a perfect, four-person interrogation circle around him.
"Look, I was gonna bring it up, okay?" Walker mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. "It’s only my fifth day! I didn’t want to be that guy."
Charlie, who hadn’t moved from his spot, slowly took a sip of his soda, then delivered the perfect, casual blow.
💬 charlie: "too late, man. you're already 'that guy' who keeps secrets from the demigod squad."
Walker buried his face in his hands. He was officially busted.
"Who is she? What's her name? Is she coming to visit? Spill!" Leah insisted, grabbing his phone before he could swipe to turn the screen off. She held it up for Aryan and Dior to admire.
Dior nodded. "Yeah, this is a major upgrade from the stock photos." She looked back at Walker, a predatory grin spreading across her face. "Now, tell us everything. Start from the beginning. No detail is too small."
Walker sighed, a small smile finally escaping as he thought about you. "Okay, fine. But you guys have to promise not to freak her out when she finally gets here."
"No promises," Leah sang, already texting in a group chat they definitely hadn't invited him to yet.
A/N:this was inspired by another author please tag them in the comments because i genuinly dont know where there account went idk but anyways byeeee guys leave a voice message after the beep *beeeeeeeeep*
Pairing: for this part george Russell x Reader(y/n)
Warnings: pregnancy, angst, mad george, bad words, arguing, mention of abortion (i believe that is a woman’s right)
Summary: Bound by a flawless Monaco romance, you and F1 star George Russell have the perfect life—until a failed birth control test leaves you pregnant with the child of a man whose brutal championship ambition labels a baby his ultimate downfall. Trapped in the high-stakes paddock, you must hide a secret that could destroy his lifelong dream in a single breath.
Requested: No
Requests open
Word count: 5207
Author’s note:
Masterlist
Previous Part || Next Part
The hospitality suite of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team was a masterpiece of temporary architecture. It was a three-story monolith of tinted glass, brushed steel, and soundproofed panels, erected in the heart of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya paddock. Inside, it smelled of expensive leather, freshly pressed team kit, and the sharp, clean scent of high-end catering. Outside, the world was a cacophony of air guns, roaring power units, and the relentless, low-frequency hum of thousands of people moving with singular, frantic purpose.
You sat at the corner table of the private driver’s lounge on the third floor, staring out through the one-way glass at the paddock below.
Down there, the world was simple. Down there, people knew their variables. If a car understeered, you adjusted the front wing flap angle. If the tires overheated, you managed the surface degradation through the diff settings. Everything had a metric. Everything had a dedicated engineer whose sole purpose in life was to find a solution to the problem.
But there was no engineer for the quiet, catastrophic storm brewing inside your own body.
Your hands were tucked between your knees, partly to keep them from shaking and partly because they were ice-cold. The leaden, suffocating weight of the secret had grown heavier over the last twenty-four hours. George had finished the Grand Prix in second place, a brilliant, gritty drive that had brought him within a mere five points of the championship lead. The team had been ecstatic. The garage had been a riot of high-fives, sprayed champagne, and backslapping.
And you had been there, playing your part perfectly. You had smiled for the cameras, hugged Toto, given George a breathless, celebratory kiss when he climbed out of the car, and stood by his side during the endless media loops. You had worn the mask so well that it felt as though it had been stapled to your skin.
But now, the adrenaline of the race weekend was draining away, leaving behind a raw, hollow exhaustion that made your chest ache.
The door to the lounge clicked open, and the silence was instantly broken by the sound of George’s voice. He was talking to his media officer, his tone bright, rapid, and sharp with the post-race high that always lasted for hours after a podium finish.
"Yeah, make sure we emphasize the tire management in the second stint," George was saying, his hand gesturing emphatically as he walked into the room. "The degradation on the softs was much better than we anticipated. If we carry that into Monaco, we’re in a fantastic position."
"Will do, George. Enjoy the post-race dinner," the media officer said, offering a polite nod before closing the door behind her.
George turned to you, his eyes bright, his face still flushed from the heat of the cockpit and the rush of the podium ceremony. He looked entirely alive, vibrating with the kind of absolute certainty that only comes from knowing you are one of the best in the world at what you do.
"God, I'm starving," he sighed, unzipping his team jacket and tossing it onto the leather sofa. He walked over to you, leaning down to press a firm, warm kiss to the top of your head. "The debrief went on forever, but Toto is over the moon. The upgrades worked exactly as the tunnel predicted. We have a genuine championship car, darling. A genuine shot."
"I'm so proud of you, George," you whispered, your voice sounding thin, even to your own ears. You forced your eyes to meet his, trying to project the absolute devotion he expected, the devotion you had always given him so freely.
"I couldn't do it without you," he said, and the terrifying thing was that he meant it. He looked at you with a fierce, possessive love that made your throat tighten. "You're my rock. When everything else out there is complete chaos, I look at you in the garage and I know exactly who I am and what I'm fighting for."
Every word he spoke felt like a beautifully wrapped gift that contained a razor blade. He loved you because you were his anchor, because you kept his world stable, because you didn't create complications in a life that required absolute, razor-sharp focus. You were the perfect partner for a future World Champion because you didn't demand anything that would pull his eyes off the apex.
"Come on," George said, clapping his hands together, his boyish charm radiating through his exhaustion. "The catering team went all out for the post-race celebration. I asked them to set up a private spread for us up here before we head to the airport. Your absolute favorite."
He walked over to the side sideboard, where a massive, pristine platter had been delivered moments before.
Your stomach did a violent, sickening flip before you even saw it.
It was a masterpiece of high-end Japanese culinary art. A sprawling, ice-chilled black slate covered in the finest bluefin tuna sashimi, delicate rolls of spicy salmon, unagi nigiri glistening with sweet soy glaze, and mounds of fresh, pale-green wasabi. Beside the platter sat a perfectly chilled bottle of vintage Prosecco, condensation tracking down the green glass into a silver bucket of crushed ice.
It was your ultimate meal. For three years, this had been your traditional celebration after a successful race weekend. George would log his macros meticulously, but he would always allow you to indulge, pouring your wine, laughing as you tried to eat a massive roll in a single bite, watching you with an affectionate, relaxed warmth that he only showed when the garage doors were shut.
"Look at that," George said, pouring a pale, bubbling stream of Prosecco into two crystal flutes. The sharp, yeasty, alcoholic scent of the sparkling wine drifted across the small room, hitting your nostrils like a physical blow. "They flew the fish in from Tsukiji this morning. Only the best for the team. Here you go, darling. A toast to second place, and to closing the gap."
He held out the glass to you, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
You stared at the bubbling liquid. Your mouth went completely dry, a metallic, sour taste pooling at the back of your throat. The smell of the raw fish, rich and oceanic, was suddenly suffocating, filling the small lounge until you felt as though you couldn't breathe.
"I... I'm okay for now, George," you said softly, keeping your hands tucked firmly into the pockets of your hoodie so he wouldn't see them shaking. "You go ahead."
George blinked, his hand remaining extended in the air, the crystal flute catching the fluorescent light of the lounge. His brow furrowed in slight confusion. "What do you mean? It's your favorite. You’ve been talking about having a proper glass of wine and sushi all week."
"I'm just not that hungry right now," you lied, the words tasting like ash in your mouth. "My stomach is a bit turned over from the heat in the paddock today. I'll just have some water."
George set his glass down on the table with a soft, distinct clink. The easy, post-race warmth in his demeanor slightly receded, replaced by that keen, analytical look he used when a data trace didn't make sense. He looked at the platter of raw fish, then at the untasted wine, and finally back at your face.
"You've been 'off' for three weeks," he said, his voice dropping an octave, losing its boyish light. He walked closer, stepping into your personal space, his eyes scanning your pale skin, the dark circles you had tried so hard to hide with concealer, the way your posture was hunched, protectively curled inward. "First it was the espresso in Monaco. Then you couldn't finish your dinner on Thursday. Now you’re turning down Tsukiji fish and vintage wine? Darling, what is going on with you? Are you sick? Truly?"
"I told you, George, I'm just tired," you said, your voice rising in a slight pitch of panic. You stood up from the chair, wanting to create distance, but your head swam with a sudden, vicious wave of vertigo. You had to grip the edge of the table to steady yourself.
"You're not just tired," George said, his tone shifting from concern to a strange, defensive sharpness. He didn't move toward you to comfort you; instead, he stood his ground, his shoulders squaring under his team shirt. "You're acting completely detached. You've been asking me these bizarre, hypothetical questions about having a family, about what would happen if things changed... and now you're refusing to eat, you're looking at me like you're terrified of me, and you're avoiding a celebration we've shared since our Williams days."
He stepped closer, his blue eyes locking onto yours with an intensity that felt entirely interrogative.
"What are you not telling me?" he asked, his voice low, clipped, and dangerous. "Are you unhappy? Is there something wrong with us? Because if you're pulling away from me right now, in the middle of the most critical part of my career, I need to know why."
The sheer irony of his words—the absolute, blinding selfishness of his perspective—shattered something fragile inside your chest. He thought you were pulling away from him. He thought your illness, your silence, your profound distress was a threat to his stability, his career, his perfect little ecosystem.
"It's not about us being unhappy, George," you whispered, the first tear spilling over your lower lid, burning hot against your cold skin.
"Then what is it?" he snapped, his impatience finally breaking through the PR-trained exterior. "Spell it out for me, because I am too exhausted to play guessing games after driving sixty-six laps at the limit."
You looked at him. You looked at the perfect, pristine, untouchable George Russell. The man who had a definitive answer for every strategy call, the man who had told you three nights ago that a child would be a massive distraction and a definitive no.
You closed your eyes, took a deep, shuddering breath that smelled entirely of raw fish and sparkling wine, and let the truth fall into the space between you like a bomb.
"I'm pregnant, George."
The silence that followed was not a normal silence. It was the kind of heavy, pressurized vacuum that occurs right before a massive pressure chamber ruptures.
The low hum of the paddock outside seemed to instantly vanish. The ticking of the small wall clock became deafening. George froze entirely, his body locking into a rigid, unnatural stillness. The color drained from his face so fast it looked as though he had been struck. His eyes, usually so sharp and expressive, became completely blank, wide and unblinking as his brain scrambled to process a piece of data that lay completely outside his calculated matrix.
He stared at you. He looked at your face, your trembling lips, the tears tracking through your makeup, and then his gaze dropped slowly, terrifyingly, to your stomach.
"What?" he whispered. The word didn't sound like him. It was a hollow, breathless rasp.
"I'm pregnant," you repeated, your voice stronger this time, carrying the raw, bleeding weight of the reality you had been carrying alone for days. "The protection failed. In Spa. The night after the podium. I... I took two tests while you were in Brackley last week. They were both positive. I'm about six weeks along."
George didn't move. He stood there, looking at you as if you were a stranger speaking a language he had never heard before. Then, slowly, the shock began to curdle. You could see the exact moment the realization hit him, the exact moment his brain connected your symptoms, your questions, and your tears over the past weeks into a definitive, unavoidable truth.
He didn't take you in his arms. He didn't tell you it was going to be okay.
Instead, he took two steps backward, away from you, his hands rising to grip his own hair, pulling at the short brown strands as a sharp, angry breath hissed through his teeth.
"No," he muttered, his voice shaking with a sudden, volatile current of denial. "No, no, no. That's... that's impossible. We were careful. We're always careful. You told me we were fine."
"The protection failed, George!" you cried out, the frustration and fear that you had suppressed for days finally bursting through your resolve. "It was raining, we were rushed, it was a split second of a mistake! It happens! It happened to us!"
"Right now?" George’s voice cracked, turning into a harsh, defensive roar that echoed off the glass walls of the lounge. He spun around, his back to you, slamming both hands down onto the marble sideboard, making the platter of sushi and the flutes of Prosecco rattle violently. "Right now?! Of all the times, of all the seasons, of all the months in my entire life... now?!"
The raw fury in his voice made you flinch, stepping back until your spine hit the glass window.
"George..."
He spun back around to face you, and his expression made your heart drop into your stomach. The man you loved, the gentle, protective partner who held you so softly in the dark, was entirely gone. In his place stood a terrified, furious athlete whose entire world had just been derailed by an uncalculated variable. His face was flushed, his jaw clamped so tight the muscles were jumping, his eyes flashing with a dangerous, cornered-animal panic.
"Is this why you were asking me those questions?" he demanded, his voice dropping into a venomous, accusatory register. He stepped toward you, pointing a trembling finger at your face. "In Monaco? On Thursday night? You already knew! You sat there, watching me eat, watching me prepare for a race, knowing this, and you played games with me? You tested me?!"
"I didn't play games!" you sobbed, the tears pouring freely now, your chest heaving as the angst and isolation of the past week completely crushed you. "I was terrified, George! I wanted to know where your head was! I wanted to see if there was any room for me, for us, before I told you something that I knew would scare you!"
"Scare me?!" George shouted, his chest heaving under his team polo shirt, his aristocratic composure entirely shattered. "You haven't just scared me, you’ve completely ruined my focus! You’ve put a bullet in the middle of my championship season! I told you, I literally told you three nights ago, that a child right now would be a definitive no! I told you it would be irresponsible, that it would be a massive distraction, and you stood there knowing you were already carrying it?!"
"Don't call our child a distraction!" you screamed back, the word tearing out of your throat with a raw, primal agony. You had spent three years being the quiet one, the supportive one, the one who stepped into the shadows so he could have the spotlight. But you would not let him reduce the life inside you to a negative metric on a telemetry screen. "It is a baby, George! It is a human life! It is our family! How can you stand there and look at me with so much hatred for something we created together?!"
"I don't hate you!" George roared, his voice cracking with the sheer volume of his panic, his hands flying through the air as he paced the small room like a trapped beast. "But I hate the timing! I hate that you kept this from me for a week while I was driving a car at 200 miles an hour! Do you have any idea what this does to a driver's head? Do you have any concept of the mental margins required to compete at this level? If I am thinking about nappies, and doctors, and PR disasters while I am trying to out-brake Max Verstappen into Turn 1, I am going to crash the bloody car!"
"Then don't think about it on the track!" you wept, your hands gripping your own elbows, trying to hold yourself together as your world splintered into sharp, un-reconstructible pieces. "I didn't choose the timing, George! Do you think I wanted this right now? Do you think I wanted to spend the last three weeks dry-heaving in hotel bathrooms, hiding tests from the media, and listening to my boyfriend tell me that a family with me would be a 'mistake'?! I have been completely alone in this! I have been drowning, and you didn't even notice because you were too busy looking at your bloody lap times!"
"Because my lap times are our entire life!" George yelled, stepping directly into your space, his face inches from yours, his breath hot against your skin. The proximity was terrifying; he looked so large, so imposing, his lean athletic frame vibrating with a desperate, furious energy. "Everything we have, this apartment in Monaco, this lifestyle, this future, it is all paid for by those lap times! If I drop the ball now, if Mercedes loses faith in my ability to lead this team because I'm distracted by a domestic crisis, it's over! The contract negotiations, the legacy, everything I have sacrificed my entire childhood for... gone!"
He turned away from you, running his hands over his face, his breathing ragged and shallow. He looked at the platter of sushi, the sight of it seemingly making him sick now.
"You should have told me immediately," he muttered, his tone shifting into a cold, transactional bitterness that hurt worse than the shouting. "The moment you suspected. You shouldn't have let me go out there for Free Practice, for Qualifying, for the Race, with this ghost hanging over us. It was incredibly selfish of you."
The word selfish felt like a physical strike to your sternum. It took your breath away, leaving you gasping for air in the air-conditioned cold of the lounge.
"Selfish?" you whispered, your voice trembling so hard it could barely carry the weight of the word. "You are calling me selfish? I protected you, George. I kept it inside so you could have your perfect race weekend. I suffered in silence so you could stand on that podium and smile for your sponsors. And the moment I tell you the truth, the moment I ask for a shred of comfort, a shred of partnership, your only concern is your legacy?"
You looked at him, and for the first time in three years, the illusion of the "dream" relationship completely vanished. You saw the truth. You saw the terrifying, unyielding core of a top-tier racing driver. To win, they had to be sociopathic in their focus. They had to eliminate every variable, every vulnerability, every human emotion that didn't contribute to the pursuit of speed.
And right now, you and your unborn child were a vulnerability. You were an anomaly in the data.
"What do you want to do, George?" you asked, your voice suddenly dropping into a flat, terrifyingly calm register. The tears had stopped falling; your eyes felt dry, hot, and empty. "Tell me. Since you have an answer for everything. What is the team strategy for this? What does Toto suggest we do with a positive pregnancy test?"
George stopped his pacing. He stood in the center of the room, his back to you, his shoulders hunched. The silence crept back into the space, heavy and suffocating.
When he spoke, his voice was low, monotone, and entirely devoid of the warmth that had once defined your life.
"We can't have it," he said.
The air inside the driver’s lounge didn’t just feel cold anymore; it felt sharp, like inhaling powdered glass.
The plate of Tsukiji fish sat beneath the fluorescent lights, its sleek, pink-and-white flesh suddenly looking like a corpse on a slab. The bubbles in the two glasses of Prosecco had died, leaving the liquid flat, stagnant, and amber. He stood with his arms slightly away from his sides, his chest rising and falling in short, violent jerks, his eyes fixed on you with a terrifying blend of absolute panic and a dark, territorial fury.
He wasn't just a man who had received bad news. He looked like an empire builder who had just watched his cornerstone crack in half.
"Say something," he commanded. The boyish lilt that usually softened his Kings Lynn accent was entirely gone, replaced by a low, gravelly rasp that felt like iron dragging over concrete. "Don't just look at me like I’m a monster for stating the bleeding obvious. Say something."
You couldn't. Your tongue felt like a dry weight in your mouth, glued to the roof by the taste of stomach acid and bile. You looked down at your hands, which were clenched so tightly into the fabric of your hoodie that your knuckles were stark, bloodless white points.
"You want me to get rid of it," you whispered. The words didn't even sound human. They came from a dark, hollow cave deep inside your throat.
"I want you to be rational!" George roared. The sheer volume of his voice slammed into the small, glass-walled room, vibrating the cabinet doors behind him. He took three massive, aggressive strides toward you, his taller frame completely blocking out the light from the paddock window, casting you in his shadow. "Do you think I’m enjoying this? Do you think this is what I wanted to handle five minutes after getting off a podium? I am trying to save our lives! I am trying to save everything we have spent three fucking years building!"
"Our lives?" You looked up, and the look in your eyes must have been horrific, because George actually stopped his advance, his jaw twitching violently. "You mean your championship. You mean your clean PR record. You mean your perfect, sterile, untouchable little world where nothing ever goes wrong unless a front wing flap fails."
"Don't you dare minimize what I do!" he barked, his face turning a dangerous, mottled red, a thick vein on his neck pulsing beneath the collar of his Mercedes kit. He slammed his fist onto the leather back of the sofa, the thud heavy and resonant. "Don't you dare sit there and act like this is just a game to me! This is my life’s work! If I lose focus now, if the media gets a hold of this, 'George Russell’s domestic crisis, George Russell’s accidental pregnancy', the vultures will tear me apart before the summer break! The team will look at me and see a liability, not a leader!"
"A liability," you breathed, a tear finally cutting a clean line through the dust and dried sweat on your cheek. "That's all this is to you. A mistake on a data sheet. A track limit violation."
"Yes!" George shouted, his eyes wide, flashing with a manic, cornered anger that you had never seen in him before. He was entirely unspooled, the PR veneer ripped away to reveal the raw, ugly, unyielding selfishness of a top-tier athlete. "In the context of this season? In the context of my career? Yes, it is a catastrophic mistake! And the fact that you’re sitting there, looking at me with those pathetic, accusing eyes like you had nothing to do with it, like you didn’t keep it from me for a week, makes me bloody furious!"
He stepped even closer, his shadow swallowing you whole against the window. He didn't touch you, he looked too angry to touch you, as if his hands would leave bruises if he let them close around your skin, but his proximity was an assault of its own. He smelled of the podium champagne, bitter and stale, and the sharp, hot sweat of a man who had just spent two hours wrestling a carbon-fiber beast at 200 miles an hour.
"Why didn't you tell me last Sunday?" he hissed, his voice dropping into a venomous, quiet register that was somehow worse than the shouting. "When we were in Monaco. Before I flew to Brackley. Why did you let me sit in that simulator for forty hours, looking at telemetry, while you were carrying this... this time bomb around?"
"Because I knew you would react like this!" you screamed back, your voice cracking, the agony finally fracturing your restraint. You stood up, forcing yourself into his space, your small frame trembling with the sheer force of your heartbreak. "Look at yourself, George! Look at the look on your face! You look like you want to kill me! You look like you hate me for having a body that can get pregnant! I was terrified! I wanted to see if there was a single, solitary ounce of the man I loved left inside that team uniform, or if you had completely turned into a machine!"
"And what did you find?" he sneered, his lips curling into a cruel, defensive smirk that made your stomach completely die. "Did you find out that I’m a man who wants to win? Did you find out that I’m not some romantic idiot who thinks a baby solves everything? I am twenty-eight years old, and I am five points off the championship lead. I don't have time for your little loyalty tests! I don't have time for your drama!"
"It's not drama, it's our child!" You reached out, your open palm striking his chest, hard enough to make a wet, smacking sound against the synthetic fabric of his shirt. He didn't even flinch. He stood there like a statue of granite, his eyes drilling into yours with cold, dark contempt. "It’s a living thing inside me, George! And you’re talking about it like it’s a bad set of tires we can just throw into the back of the garage and forget about!"
"Because it has to be handled!" he roared back, grabbing your wrist before you could strike him again. His grip wasn't meant to hurt, but it was unyielding, iron-hard, his fingers locking around your small bones like a pair of handcuffs. "Listen to me! If you think for one second that I am going to let this derail my life, you are completely out of your mind. I will not be the driver who threw away a world title because he couldn't keep his private life under control. Do you understand me? I will not do it."
You stared down at his hand on your wrist. The skin was rough, calloused from the steering wheel, the hand that had held you so gently when you were crying over your grandmother’s death, the hand that had traced your spine in the quiet of the Monaco mornings.
Now, it felt like the hand of a jailer.
"Let go of me," you whispered, the coldness returning to your voice, a dead, gray winter settling over your heart.
George looked down at his own fingers, as if surprised by what he was doing. He released you instantly, taking a step back, his chest heaving as he rubbed his face with both hands, a dry, choked sound escaping his throat. But the anger didn't leave him; it just hardened, turning from a flame into a block of black ice.
"The clinic in Zurich is private," he said, his voice entirely transactional now, his tone flat and administrative. "I’ll have my personal assistant book the appointment under a pseudonym. We’ll take a private charter on Tuesday morning. You’ll be back in the apartment by Wednesday night. No one will ever know."
You looked at him, really looked at him, through the blur of your tears.
This was the man everyone dreamed of having. This was the golden boy of the paddock, the articulate, polite, perfectly styled driver that young girls had posters of on their walls and sponsors poured millions into. This was the man who had knelt on the floor of your kitchen two months ago to help you clean up a broken jar of honey, laughing as he wiped your sticky toes with a paper towel.
He was gone. The cockpit had eaten him alive. The championship had consumed whatever soul he had left, leaving nothing but an empty shell driven by lap times and sector pieces.
"No," you said.
The word was small. It didn't have the volume of his shouts, but it had the weight of an anchor dropping into the deepest trench of the ocean.
George’s hands dropped from his face. His brow twitched, his eyes narrowing into two sharp, dangerous slits. "What do you mean, no?"
"I am not going to Switzerland," you said, your voice steady now, iron-clad in its despair. "I am not going to erase this because it's inconvenient for your career. I am going to keep this baby, George. With or without you. But i can now see that it will be without you."
The silence that followed this time was violent.
You could actually hear the air conditioning unit in the ceiling clicking, the distant, muffled sound of a mechanic dropping a wheel gun in the pit lane below. George’s face went through three distinct shifts of color—from the red of his fury, to a sickly, pale yellow of sheer terror, and finally into a dark, purple rage that looked almost lethal.
"You're threatening me," he whispered, his voice trembling so hard the words almost broke apart. "You're trying to destroy me."
"I am trying to survive you," you said, reaching down to grab your bag from the floor. Your body felt like it was made of old wood, creaking and fragile, but you forced your legs to move. "I am trying to protect the only thing in this room that actually matters."
"If you walk out of that door," George said, his voice dropping into a register that made the hair on your arms stand up, "if you go to the media, if you make a scene out of this-"
"I’m not going to the media, George," you said, stopping at the door, your hand resting on the cold steel handle. You didn't turn back to look at him. You couldn't bear to see the hatred in his face for another second. "I don't want their money, and I don't want your money. I don't want anything from you ever again. You can have your championship. You can have your five points. You can have your empty apartment in Monaco."
"Don't you walk away from me!" he screamed, his voice breaking entirely, turning into a raw, ugly shriek of absolute, impotent rage. "You owe me! We are a team! You don't get to make this decision on your own! You don't get to ruin my life!"
Behind you, there was a loud, shattering crash as George kicked the sideboard, his heavy racing boot splintering the wood, sending the platter of Tsukiji fish and the two crystal glasses of Prosecco flying across the room. The glass shattered against the wall, a sharp, explosive sound that signaled the absolute, irrevocable end of everything you had ever known.
You pulled the door open and stepped out into the bright, noisy corridor of the Mercedes hospitality building, the smell of raw fish and broken glass clinging to your clothes like soot from a fire. You didn't look back as the door clicked shut behind you, sealing the future World Champion inside his own golden, screaming cage.
