summary you and jack have always been a hands-on, can’t-keep-your-hands-off-each-other kind of couple—until you decide to commit to a month-long “detox.” no sex, no touching, no shortcuts. jack feels like the least sought after man in the land. (ao3)
(inspired by sabrina carpenter’s my man on willpower (2025)!)
tags/warnings MDNI (18+) explicit sexual content, age gap (mid-20s / 50s), established relationship, living together, unprotected p in v, oral (f/m, m/f) handjobs (mutual), mentions of masturbation, praise & teasing, domestic, hospital/medical stuff / orthopaedics (r3), wellness / “spiritual” themes, r. can do splits, santos being santos (mentions of santos/garcia breakup), robby lowkey ur third lol, healthy, sane relationship, more romcom than angst (much less sad than the actual song) (written by a law student, not a doctor—medical accuracy idkher)
wc 16.5k words
“I’m sorry,” Jack says slowly, like he’s trying very hard to be reasonable, “I’m still… a little lost here—what exactly are you doing?”
You don’t turn around from the stove. You know that tone. Measured and suspicious. The same one he uses when a story from a patient doesn’t quite add up, or when he’s looking for you to notice what he has noticed in your words.
“I’m doing a detox,” you say, plating the pasta with unnecessary precision. “So—you know, yoga, no alcohol, no drugs, no screens, no shopping, no sex, no soda—”
“—right there,” he cuts in.
You pause, glancing over your shoulder. “…No soda?”
He doesn’t even blink. “No. The no sex.”
You turn back to the counter, like this is completely normal. “What, you can’t handle a month without sex?”
Jack doesn’t bite—doesn’t rise to it like someone your age would. He just watches you, lips pursed, arms folded, weight settled into one hip, expression flattening into something more deliberate.
“Not when it’s without you,” he says, simple.
You huff a small laugh, trying to shake off the way it lands somewhere inconvenient in your chest. “That’s flattering. That will get you very far.”
You slide his plate toward him. He doesn’t take it yet.
“It’s not like I won’t miss it,” you add, softer now. “Same as alcohol. Same as everything else.”
“Yeah,” he says, pushing off the counter finally, crossing the kitchen in a few easy steps. “Difference is alcohol’s not making you come in under ten minutes, and four times in an hour.”
You shoot him a look—sharp, immediate.
He shrugs, already reaching past you into the fridge like he didn’t just say that. “It’s a valid comparison.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“You love it,” he shrugged, knowing, grabbing the cheese. “Point is - you know, it’s a big difference.”
You try not to smile. You fail, a little.
“I just—” you sigh, taking the cheese from him, grating it over your pasta. “I want to do something that requires actual discipline. Reset a bit. Clear my head.”
“Hon,” he says, quieter now, leaning his shoulder against the counter beside you, close enough that his arm brushes yours, “you work ortho and you’re an R3. You’re up for thirty hours at a time, you operate on broken bones for fun, you look amazing, you’re healthy—what part of you needs more discipline?”
You glance at him. He’s looking at you properly now. Not teasing.
You soften a fraction. “It’s not about that.”
“Then what is it about?”
You hesitate. Just a second too long.
“…It’s just a month,” you settle on. “Four weeks. Thirty days. We’ll live.”
He studies you. You can feel it—clinical, almost. Like he’s trying to diagnose something you’re not saying out loud.
Then—
“And this is just penetration?” he asks.
You freeze.
Your silence is loud.
Jack exhales, slow, disbelieving, dragging a hand down over his mouth. “Goddamn.”
You busy yourself with the plates again. “It’s part of the program.”
“Program,” he repeats flatly. “Who the hell put you up to this?”
“Santos. and McKay. We all agreed to do it together.”
That earns you a look.
“…Santos,” he says, like he’s deeply reconsidering several life choices. “Of course this has Santos written all over it - getting you into a nun-cult thing.”
You laugh despite yourself, handing him his bowl. “It’s not a cult. It’s a detox.”
“It’s a sexless cult,” he mutters, taking the bowl.
You nudge his hip with yours. “You’ve survived longer droughts.”
“Yeah,” he shoots back immediately. “In the army.”
You grin. “Oh, here we go.”
“You’re really gonna do this to me?” he says, following you toward the couch. “Make the disabled veteran relive his worst years?”
“Your worst years were not lack of sex, be serious.”
“Debatable.”
You snort, dropping onto the couch, tucking your legs under you. He sits beside you, close—closer than necessary, knee knocking into yours, like he’s testing the boundaries of this already.
You hand him a fork.
“It’ll be good for us,” you say, softer now. “Builds character.”
He looks at you sidelong. “I have enough character.”
“You could always use more.”
“Yeah?” he murmurs.
His hand comes up—absent, habitual—resting warm at your knee, thumb brushing once, slow. Not even thinking about it. Your breath catches before you can stop it.
His mouth twitches, just slightly. Not quite a smile.
“…Fine. I’ll do whatever I can to support you in this… detox, thing,” he says.
You smile, even though his calloused hand is rubbing softly against your skin, warm, rough and inched maybe a little further onto your thigh. “I appreciate that.”
He leans back into the couch, finally picking up his fork, but his hand doesn’t move from your leg.
A pause.
Then—
“We can still watch Housewives?” he asks, like this is the real negotiation.
You let out a breath, tension cracking just enough to smile. “Housewives stays.”
“Right,” he nods. “Good. Thought you were gonna take everything from me.”
You roll your eyes, nudging him with your shoulder. “So you think you can handle this?”
“‘Course I can handle this.”
★★★
“I can’t handle this,” Jack says.
Robby doesn’t even look up as he checks his watch, pulling up his sleeves as they step outside, already smiling like he’s been waiting for this. “It’s just a month, man. Cool it.”
“It’s not just a month,” Jack shoots back, arms folded, pacing a tight line along the bay, outside the ED. “It’s a month without her. There’s a difference.”
Robby snorts. “Oh, I’m sure there is.”
“I’m serious,” Jack says, sharper now. “You don’t get it—you don’t—” he gestures vaguely, frustrated. “When you have her, she’s— she’s everything. It’s not just sex, it’s…. well, it is, but it's also more, it's... deeper? No, it's... you know, I mean—”
“—you were about to say something amazingly poetic and then ruined it,” Robby cuts in, amused.
“Yeah, well,” Jack mutters. “We have sex four to five times a week. Minimum three. And now?” He throws his hands up. “Nothing. She won’t even let me spoon her.”
Robby pauses.
Then looks up slowly.
“…Spooning.”
“Don’t,” Jack warns.
Robby’s grin breaks wide. “Jack Abbot. Spooning. Are you the big or little one? Or does it switch?”
“Oh, shut up.”
“That’s… wow,” Robby shakes his head, impressed. “It’s a cute image.”
Jack drags a hand over his face, already irritated. “Not even—nothing. It’s like I’m in a goddamn monastery.”
“Voluntarily celibate,” Robby nods. “Very spiritual of you.”
“I did not volunteer,” Jack snaps.
“You stayed,” Robby counters.
Jack glares at him, then looking out into the evening. “Where the hell are they? They said two minutes.”
“Relax,” Robby says, still enjoying this far too much. “Also— five times a week? Christ, having that kind of libido at your age?” He clicks his tongue, an exhale. “Impressive. You should get that checked out.”
“Forget that,” Jack mutters. “She’ll kill me if I’m talking about this.”
“Oh, so there’s still fear. Good. That’s healthy.”
Jack exhales sharply, jaw tight, eyes flicking back out toward the ambulance bay.
“How long’s it been since you two…?” Robby asks, vaguely gesturing, curious as to how his friend is already so wound up.
Jack hesitates.
“…Two days.”
There’s a beat.
Robby stares at him. “…Two days,” he repeats.
Jack doesn’t answer.
Robby lets out a disbelieving laugh, shaking his head. “You’re kidding me.”
“I wish I was.”
“You’re like this after two days?”
Jack shrugs, already keyed up. “Look, I mean, that is including any kind of touch and sexual actions, alright—”
“That’s pathetic,” Robby says, still grinning.
“I know,” Jack snaps, pacing again now, faster. “I know, it’s—this is ridiculous. She won’t even kiss me, barely hugs me. She’s… walking around like nothing’s changed—”
“Yeah,” Robby hums. “Almost like she’s not the one with the problem. Just let her ride this out. You expect her to put on a nun costume?”
Jack shoots him a look. “You're not helping.”
“I’m not trying to,” Robby says easily.
Jack exhales, running a hand through his silver waves, agitation sitting just under the surface now. He glances out again, scanning for lights, for movement.
“Where the hell are they?” he mutters. “They said two minutes.”
Robby straightens a fraction, checking his watch again. “Traffic, maybe—”
“Ambulance crashed!”
The shout cuts through the bay, and their conversation is finished quickly as they race out with nurses to help.
★★★
Jack Abbot was a strong man, in many respects.
He’d seen enough—done enough—to have a working relationship with pain, with loss, with the kind of things that hollow people out if they let it. He wasn’t perfect, but he was… steady. More emotionally literate than most men he knew—Robby included, which wasn’t exactly a high bar, but still.
He knew how to sit in discomfort. Knew how to carry it. Knew how to endure.
But this. This thing you were doing…
The thing about you was, he’d never really had to hold back before.
From the moment you’d settled into his life—properly, fully, toothbrush next to his, your things in his drawers, your presence in every corner of his apartment—he’d made a decision: you get all of him. Whatever he has, whatever he can give, whenever you want, it’s yours.
That includes the easy things. The soft things.
And yeah—sex too.
It wasn’t the foundation of your relationship. Not even close. Two years together, six months living side by side, working different departments, different hours—you loved each other in ways that had nothing to do with sex.
But – Christ. It didn’t hurt that the sex was very good.
And you—young, bright, all sharp edges and softness in the right places—you’d woken something up in him he hadn’t realised had gone quiet. Made him feel… not younger, exactly, but awake.
Kept him on his toes. Made him care, in small stupid ways—like going to the gym on his off days so he could keep up with you, so he didn’t feel like he was lagging behind when you dragged him out into the world.
You were tactile in a way that blurred the line between affection and need. Always finding him. You always managed to make him feel like the centre of any and all desires.
Hands on his arm when you passed. Fingers hooking into his belt loops when you walked past him in the kitchen. Leaning into him mid-conversation like gravity pulled you there. Curling into his side on the couch, half on top of him, legs tangled, absentmindedly tracing patterns over his chest like you didn’t even realise you were doing it.
You’d climb into his lap without asking. Kiss him just because you could. Start something in the middle of nowhere—half a joke, half not—just to see the way he’d react.
It didn’t go unnoticed. Robby had picked up on it within the first few weeks.
Some shitty bar down the road with shittier beer, end of shift, nothing special—and all Jack could do was watch you.
“The hell did you find her?” Robby asked, leaning against the bar, eyes flicking between Jack and where you were across the room, laughing too loud at something Ellis had said, drink loose in your hand.
Jack followed his line of sight without meaning to. It softened him, visibly.
“She found me,” he said, like that explained anything. Took a sip of his beer. “Cafeteria. First week at PTMC.”
Robby hummed, unconvinced. “Right. Of course she did.”
Jack shrugged, trying for casual. “She’s… enthusiastic.”
Robby glanced back at you, just in time to see the way your attention shifted mid-conversation—like something had tugged on you. Your eyes landed on Jack immediately.
Locked. And then—there it was. That smile. Not polite, not social. Specific.
“Yeah,” Robby muttered. “That’s one word for it.”
You were already moving.
Didn’t even finish whatever you were saying, just peeled off like the rest of the room had lost its relevance. Straight line to Jack, weaving through people without hesitation.
You slipped into his space like you belonged there, like you always had.
“Hi,” you said, bright, a little breathless. “Missed you.”
Jack blinked. “You’ve been gone fifteen minutes.”
“Felt longer,” you shrugged, already reaching for him—fingers brushing over his bicep, then squeezing, slow and appreciative, like you were reminding yourself he was real. “I love this shirt.”
Robby snorted into his drink. He knew that shirt. Cheap, slightly too tight on purpose. Jack had once tried to pretend it wasn’t a strategy. Apparently, it was working.
You didn’t move away. If anything, you leaned closer—hips brushing his, hand still on his arm, thumb dragging once like you couldn’t quite help it.
Robby watched the exact second Jack stopped pretending this wasn’t affecting him.
“You busy?” you asked, softer now.
You tilted your head, smiling like you already knew the answer.
Then you leaned in.
Close enough that Robby couldn’t hear, but not subtle about it either—your mouth brushing Jack’s ear, your hand tightening slightly on his arm as you murmured something low.
Whatever it was, Jack went still.Immediate. A shift. Shoulders tightening, breath catching, eyes dropping to you like he needed a second to recalibrate.
Robby raised a brow. You pulled back like nothing had happened, smile sweet, completely unbothered. Jack set his beer down.
“We’re heading out,” he said.
Robby stared at him. “You just got here.”
“Yeah,” Jack replied, already reaching for his jacket. “We’re done.”
Jack had called it the honeymoon phase. It wasn’t. It just… evolved.
You stayed exactly as enthusiastic as he’d first described—just more efficient about it. More integrated into the rhythm of your lives. Somehow worse, if you asked Robby.
And when you were stressed—which was often, given Ortho, given your hours, given you—it got worse. Or better, depending on who you asked.
You’d come home wired, exhausted, brain still running at full speed—and instead of shutting down, you’d go straight to him. Like he was the off-switch. Like being close to him, touching him, feeling him, was how you came back to yourself.
You didn’t overthink it. You didn’t ration it.
And now nothing. He’s not sure if he recognises you.
It’s not just the sex. That’s the worst of it, sure. The obvious absence. But it’s everything else that’s starting to wear on him. You’re thorough with it. Annoyingly disciplined.
★★★
Day Six.
He gets home just after eight in the morning, dead on his feet, the kind of tired that sits behind his eyes and dulls everything out.
The apartment’s not quiet. That’s the first thing.
The second— You.
On the floor in the lounge, in the middle of a yoga mat, moving through a pose like this is something you’ve always done. You quit yoga a year ago. Said it was boring. Said you couldn’t sit still long enough.
And yet here you are. And Santos is with you. Which is… its own problem. There’s a lot to unpack there.
Why does Santos know where you live?
Why is Santos doing yoga?
Why are you wearing that—some tight, soft, barely-there athleisure set that looks like it was designed specifically to make his life harder?
“Hi, baby!” you call, bright, easy, like nothing’s changed, as you both move into cobra.
“Gross,” Santos mutters under her breath.
“Hey, hon,” Jack says, voice rough with fatigue as he steps in, toeing off his shoes.
The coffee table’s been shoved aside, the TV playing some overly calm instructor guiding you through it like this is a wellness retreat instead of his living room.
He walks over anyway—automatic, like always. Bends down, aiming for your mouth—
—and you shift just slightly.
It’s subtle. Anyone else wouldn’t clock it. But he does.
His kiss lands on your cheek instead.
You don’t even break the pose.
“No kisses during yoga, interrupts my zen,” you remind him lightly.
A beat.
“Right,” he says, quieter. “Forgot about that.”
There’s the faintest pause—just enough to feel it.
“Feels like it’s all the time lately,” he adds under his breath. Then, correcting himself, “But—yeah. I get it.”
You hum, already moving out of cobra like nothing’s happened.
He straightens, slower now, glancing at Santos.
She rolls her eyes.
“Next pose,” she says flatly.
You shift without hesitation.
“You should shower, then have some breakfast,” you tell him gently, already moving into child’s pose. “I made oats. They’re in the fridge.”
“Oats?” he repeats. “Since when do you eat oats?”
“It’s good for your gut, heart health, digestion, blood sugar,” Santos answers, not looking up. “Cleansing in some cultures.”
Jack blinks at her. “…Right. I’ve been a doctor for twenty years. Think I’ve got gut health covered, Trinity.”
“I don’t think your army rations count as a gut health plan,” she shoots back.
You let out a small laugh into the mat.
“I thought you said oats were for Victorian children and farmers who hate themselves,” Jack adds to you.
“They are,” you mumble. “But these have honey and cinnamon.”
Santos chimes. “And spite.”
Jack just stares at the two of you for a second.
Looking at you—folded into the pose, calm, deliberate. Not reaching for him. Not pulling him down. Like he’s background noise.
“Okay,” he says finally, a little clipped. “You two… have fun.” He drags a hand over his face. “I’m gonna sleep for about five hours.”
He turns, already heading for the bedroom, shoulders a little tighter than when he walked in.
You glance up, watching him go.
There’s a beat of silence.
Santos shifts beside you into a side plank, already shaking slightly. “Jesus Christ.”
You follow, steady.
“He seems… stable,” she says.
“He’s a bit grumpy,” you reply. “We haven’t touched in nearly a week.”
Santos’s head snaps toward you. “So?”
“We’re touchy people.”
“Right,” she nods once. “I hate happy couples.”
You huff a quiet laugh.
“This was your idea, by the way,” you remind her.
“Yeah, and it’s a good one,” she says immediately. “I needed to not text Garcia at 2AM and ruin my life again.”
“You could just… not text her.”
Santos looks at you like you’ve said something deeply stupid. “Oh, yeah. Genius. Why didn’t I think of that?”
You smile slightly.
“She blocked me last night,” Santos adds, flat.
“Oh.”
“Yeah. ‘For her peace.’” She makes air quotes with one hand, nearly losing balance. “Which is crazy, because I’m incredibly peaceful.”
“Well, this detox thing is a great idea. You’ll cleanse yourself of her.”
“Evil lesbians are not for the weak.”
“Hon, where are those scented candles?” Jack calls from the hallway, voice carrying through the apartment.
“I threw them out,” you call back. “They release benzene. Cleansing, remember?”
There’s a pause.
“…Of course you did,” he mutters, just loud enough.
Santos snorts as you both move into the next stretch, threading your arm under your body.
“Bit much, isn’t it?” she says.
You exhale into the mat. “I am going to be so aggressively cleansed by the end of this, you’d consider me the Virgin Mary.”
★★★
Day Nine.
Virgin Mary, my ass.
That’s all Jack can think as he leans in the doorway for a second too long, watching you at the counter. Pink, ridiculous, barely-there panties.
The ones from Valentine’s. His t-shirt hanging off you like it belongs there, cut just high enough that every small shift of your hips flashes skin he knows too well. Music hums low from the radio—something easy, something you’re half-swaying to as you chop vegetables like this is just… normal.
He’s been up maybe five minutes. Has to leave in thirty. And he’s already half-hard. He pushes off the doorway anyway. Walks up behind you like muscle memory.
His arms come around you slow, familiar—settling over your waist, pulling you back into him. He feels the way you soften immediately, that slight melt into his chest like your body still knows him, even if you’re being… whatever this is.
You startle just a little, then relax.
“Hey,” you murmur, turning your head slightly as he drops his chin to your shoulder. “You’re up.”
“Mhm,” he hums, already pressing his mouth to your neck.
He doesn’t even pretend restraint. Just goes for it—slow, lazy kisses wherever he can reach, nosing along your skin, breathing you in like he’s been deprived, because he has.Which—he has.
“What’re you making?” he asks against you, voice rougher than he means it to be.
“Food prep,” you say, though it comes out softer than that. A little breath slipping through when he finds that spot under your ear.
“Shit—Jack,” you add, quieter now, the knife slowing in your hand. “You can’t.”
He smiles against your skin. Not nice about it.
“I can’t,” he repeats, low. “Or you can’t?”
His hands move without asking—sliding under the hem of his shirt on you, palms warm against your stomach first. Familiar. Testing.
You inhale sharply. He doesn’t stop. Just keeps going—slow, deliberate—up over your ribs, feeling the curve of you, the heat of your skin, until his hands settle over your chest. Not rough. Not greedy. Like he belongs there. Because he does. Or he did.
Your hand stills completely on the counter.
“Jack,” you say again, but it’s weaker this time. Less conviction, more breath.
He presses another kiss just below your ear, voice dropping.
“Been real good about this,” he murmurs. “Haven’t I?”
You don’t answer.
Because he has. You're not making it easy, after Santos suggested to have more fun with it. So, sure, you go for panties and shirt, maybe even the barely there nightgowns you bought a while back, feeling as he is completely still besides you in bed.
His touch shifts just slightly—not pushing, not crossing a line, but close enough to remind you exactly how easily he could.
Your head tips back a fraction before you catch yourself.
“No,” you say, firmer now, even as your body lags behind. “Nope. No, can’t. I’m staying cleansed. My book says even too much contact can make you unfocused.”
He exhales slowly, like he’s dragging himself back by force.
“Unfocused.. alright,” he mutters. “Whatever you want.”
But his hands don’t move right away. You finally set the knife down, turning in his arms so you’re facing him. Big mistake.
Because now you’re looking at him properly—sleep-rough, hair a mess, jaw shadowed, eyes still heavy but fixed on you like you’re the only thing in the room. And you know that look. You’ve felt what follows it.
“You should get a hobby,” you tell him quietly.
“Yeah?” he says, not looking away.
“Maybe pottery,” you shrug. “Something that isn’t being a SWAT medic and—” you hesitate just slightly, “—fucking me or whatever.”
His hands slide down your sides, slower this time. Reluctant.
“But I really like my hobbies,” he says, voice low, rough around the edges. “Especially fucking you, or whatever.”
The way he looks at you when he says it—like he’s imagining you in the most vulgar of situations—makes heat climb straight up your neck. You hate that it works.
He doesn’t move.
“Jack.”
“Just one kiss?” He asks.
You open your mouth to say yes, but you bite your lip and think for a second. You lean in pressing a deliberate kiss to his cheek, hand up to his neck, feeling how he melts under your touch.
You fingers briefly fidget with the grey curls at the nape of his neck, as his fingers dig slightly into your hips. You pull back.
“I’ll try pottery,” he mutters.
You smile—small, controlled. Infuriating. Then he lets you go. Barely.
You watch him walk off toward the bedroom, running a hand through his hair like he’s trying to shake it off, his own shirt fitted against him, rising, tight against his biceps, and the second he’s out of sight—
You exhale. Your grip tightens on the counter, head tipping forward for a second. This is... harder than you thought it’d be.
It’s him. The way he moves around you like it’s instinct. The way your body still answers before your brain catches up. The way one kiss feels like a warning.
If you touch him properly—if you let yourself lean into it even a little—you know exactly how it goes. There’s no halfway with him. There never has been. You've struggled to hold back with him.
You both work too hard, sleep too little. You orbit each other—shared meals, late-night TV, quiet mornings when they exist. He’s steady, solid, always there. And sex has always been part of that too.
You press your lips together, shaking your head slightly as you keep chopping, trying to focus. You should’ve fought harder on the point about no sex, but Santos seemed so pitiful, you don’t have the heart to tell her you broke or to lie.
Cleanse. Reset. Prove you’ve got discipline. Prove you’re not just running on impulse and instinct and whatever feels good in the moment. Focused...ness. All that.
It’s just you’ve never seen him like this. Not like this kind of worked up. Not this restless, this… needy. Your thighs press together instinctively, heat lingering, annoying and insistent.
“God,” you mutter under your breath, grabbing the knife again like that’ll ground you. “Pathetic.”
★★★
Day Twelve.
“I cannot tell if you’re being serious right now,” Robby says, standing beside Jack in the elevator as they head down from the roof.
Jack doesn’t even look at him. “It’s psychological warfare.”
Robby scoffs. “Oh my god.”
“I’m serious,” Jack insists, dragging a hand over his face. “I can’t think straight. It’s like… cognitive impairment. I should get tested.”
“You need to get a grip,” Robby replies.
“You don’t get it,” Jack mutters. “You haven’t had a relationship like this in—what, a decade? More? This isn’t casual. This is… routine. Structure. Stability.” He gestures vaguely. “We live together. We’ve got a system.”
“A system,” Robby repeats, flat.
“Yes,” Jack says, defensive. “And she’s dismantled it. Completely. No warning. Just—gone. Overnight. You know her, she's all over me usually. And I’m a touchy guy, man, I feel like a sunflower without sun. She is my sun.”
Robby exhales through his nose. “It’s been two weeks.”
“Twelve days,” Jack corrects. “That’s long enough to destabilise a man.”
The elevator dings. Doors open. A couple of nurses step in.
Jack lowers his voice, but not his intensity.
“She won’t even cuddle with me,” he mutters. “Do you understand that? Cuddling. Baseline intimacy. Gone. She almost slept on the couch the other night because she thought she might—”
He cuts himself off as one of the nurses glances over.
Jack exhales sharply, jaw ticking. “It’s like… all that energy I spent with her, is just… Like I’m all—”
“Do not say pent up,” Robby murmurs.
“I’m pent up, man,” Jack says anyway, under his breath. “I don’t—”
“Jesus Christ.”
“And she keeps wearing—”
“—and that’s our stop,” Robby cuts in quickly as the doors open.
They step out into the corridor, quieter now. Both hit the sanitiser on instinct.
Jack rubs his hands together, restless. “She’s doing it on purpose.”
“No, she isn’t.”
“She is,” Jack insists. “She knows exactly what I like. The shirts, the—lack of shirts. The shorts. The yoga. The fucking… tiny nightgowns. Sheer, too. Door open when she showers. It’s targeted.”
“Or,” Robby says, dry, “she’s a twenty-something woman existing in her own home.”
Jack ignores that. “And then—nothing. Won’t touch me. Won’t let me touch her. She kissed me on the cheek three days ago, and I was gonna… ruin my pants like an idiot. I feel like a teenager.”
Robby snorts. “You sound like one. She showers with the door open?”
“I’ve done tours,” Jack goes on, either ignoring or not hearing Robby’s query, quieter now, almost incredulous at himself. “I’ve been shot at. I’ve dealt with death at its worst. And somehow this is what’s got me pacing like a lunatic at three in the morning.”
Robby stops walking.
Grabs his shoulder.
“You hear yourself, right?”
“…Yeah,” Jack mutters. “Hearin' it.”
“Good,” Robby says. “Because it’s insane. And I’m tired of it, brother.”
Jack exhales, trying to reset—then his gaze shifts past Robby’s shoulder.
Locks. You.
At Central Four, mid-discussion with McKay and Mel, one hand braced lightly against a patient’s lower leg as you check the alignment on a fresh below-knee cast—thumbs pressing along the tibial crest, eyes flicking between the limb and the patient’s foot for perfusion. Focused. Calm. Explaining as you go, that steady, assured cadence you’ve grown into over the past couple years.
You look good. You always do, but—today is… worse. Yeah, he’s definitely pent up. Jack’s jaw tightens. Robby follows his line of sight, spots you, then looks back at him.
“You really look like a kicked puppy right now, bud.”
“Don’t.”
“I mean it,” Robby says. “It’s palpable.”
Jack exhales sharply. “I’ll be right back.”
“You aren’t going there.”
“I’m just gonna ask my girlfriend about her day.”
“No, you’re gonna say something deeply unprofessional to your girlfriend in the middle of a ward round,” Robby corrects. “While Shark is somewhere nearby, sensing weakness.”
“Right, ‘course, you’ve interrupted my plan to give her head in the middle of the ED,” Jack says, sarcastically, then a brief beat of thought. “God, If she asked me to I probably w-”
“-We need boundaries, man,” Robby says. “I don’t… You have fun with that.”
“Relax. It’s fine, we’re both clocking off now. Once she wraps up, we’re outta here.”
Jack glances back at you again. You laugh softly at something McKay says, adjusting the cast edge with careful fingers, smoothing it down. Your hand lingers just a second as you explain something to the patient—voice warm, easy, reassuring.
Mel nudges your shoulder, subtle, and tips her chin toward Jack.
You look up. Catch him. Smile. It’s small, but it lands.
Jack stiffens like he’s just been called to attention, gives you a tight nod—controlled, restrained—then abruptly turns and heads toward the station with Robby.
Robby snorts under his breath. “That was painful to watch.”
“I told you. Psychological warfare.”
McKay smirks a bit as she watches Jack retreat.
“What’s that about?” McKay murmurs, rolling her stool a little closer to the patient bed.
“Our detox program?” you say lightly, refocusing as you check distal circulation again. “Not a fan.” You glance to the patient. “Any numbness or tingling, ma’am?”
“No, love. Feels fine,” she says, half-distracted by her phone.
“Good,” you nod. “Let me know if that changes.”
McKay hums, folding her arms loosely. “Ah. The celibacy portion not going down well?”
You let out a quiet breath. “Not particularly. And I’m not being super easy on him about it either.”
“Yeah,” she says, dry. “Can’t imagine why.”
You suppress a smile, smoothing the cast. “Everything else is good, though. I’m committed now.”
“Mm,” McKay says. “Santos bullied us into it.”
“Santos encouraged it.”
“Santos got dumped and decided everyone else should suffer,” McKay corrects.
“That’s not—” you start, then pause. “…entirely inaccurate.”
Mel watches all of this with mild fascination, then looks back at the cast. “Um—can I try wrapping the next layer?”
You brighten a little. “Yeah, of course. Come here.”
You shift off the stool, making space. “Alright—support here,” you guide, hands hovering near hers. “Keep your tension even, don’t gap it.”
Mel nods seriously, concentrating.
McKay glances between you and the half-set cast, then back at you. “Are you feeling detoxed?”
You huff a quiet breath. “A little. More flexible, improved sleep, and a deeply irritated boyfriend.”
“Holistic wellness,” McKay deadpans.
You smile despite yourself. “And you?” you ask.
“Nope,” she sighs. “But Harrison’s loving the yoga mat, so at least someone’s thriving. And I wasn’t getting laid anyway, so—no real sacrifice on that front. But the no screens thing is doing wonders. I can feel my brain gaining another wrinkle.”
You snort softly, nudging Mel’s hand. “Smoother there—yeah, that’s it. Keep the overlap consistent.”
Mel adjusts, careful, precise, tongue just slightly between her teeth in concentration. McKay watches her for a second, then leans in a fraction closer to you, voice dropping just enough—
“He looks like he’s about five minutes from a breakdown.”
You don’t look over. “He’ll be fine.”
“Mm,” she hums. “He keeps looking at you between charts.”
“He always does that when I’m down here,” you say, a little softer.
“Yeah,” McKay replies. “Not like this.”
You ignore that, focusing instead on Mel’s technique. “Good—now just secure it there. Don’t pull too tight.”
Mel nods, finishing the wrap neatly. “Like that?”
“Perfect,” you say, genuinely pleased. “Nice work, Doctor King.”
Mel beams, small but proud. Behind you, you can feel it again—Jack’s attention, flicking back over, catching, lingering even when he forces it away.
You keep your eyes on the patient. But you’re aware of him. Constantly. And across the room, Jack shifts his weight, jaw tight, trying—and failing—not to look again.
Later, he finds you around the ED. You’re mid-conversation with Santos, focused, explaining something on the chart.
Jack walks up beside you, close enough that your arms brush. You don’t react. Don’t even break your sentence.
“…so we stabilise first, then reassess once imaging’s back—”
He waits. Nothing. Not even a glance. Santos clocks it immediately. Raises her brows.
“…Hi, Dr Abbot,” she says, dry.
You finally look up. “Oh—hey.”
He stares at you.
“…Hey, just... checking in,” he says, somewhat shy now.
You smile, polite. "All good here." Then turn straight back to Santos. “Anyway—like I was saying—”
He stands there for a second. Then another.
Robby, from across the station, watches the whole thing with poorly concealed amusement.
“…You gonna be okay?” he calls out.
Jack doesn’t look at him. “No,” he says flatly, before walking off.
★★★
Day Eighteen.
You’re supposed to be detoxing. Self-restraint. Discipline. Clarity.
Apparently, that also includes driving your boyfriend quietly insane in your living room.
“You need to be doing that right now?” Jack asks as he finally drops onto the couch, exhaustion dragging at him. Scrubs half-off, shirt discarded somewhere along the way before he drags a fresh one over his head, lazy, spent.
You don’t even look at him. “I can stop if you want,” you say, adjusting your stance—hands walking a little wider on the mat, hips tipping higher as you settle deeper into downward dog, covering a good half of the TV screen.
He watches the shift. The stretch. The way your shorts ride up just enough to be completely fucking useless.
He exhales slowly, dragging a hand over his face. “No, no—carry on. This is great. Very relaxing.”
You hum like you believe him. You don’t.
He leans back, head tipping against the couch as he reaches down, taking off his prosthetic with practiced ease, setting it aside. His body finally settles—but his eyes don’t.
They stay on you.
Track every adjustment.
You shift again—one leg lifting, extending behind you before you draw it through, slow, controlled, foot landing between your hands. Your back arches slightly as you ease into it. Jack’s jaw tightens.
“Park’s been on my ass lately,” you say, like this is normal conversation.
“Glad someone has,” Jack murmurs.
You shoot him a look.
“I’m sorry, baby, I’m just… distracted, I don’t know” He says, somewhat earnestly, dryly. “What is it about Shark?”
“He’s not as bad as you guys make him seem, he’s just got tunnel vision," You try, slowly repositioning. “But he can be such a dick sometimes. No concept of tact. I missed one chart the other day, and he ripped me a new one in front of the med students.”
And then you slide down. Slow. Controlled.
One leg extending forward, the other back, lowering into a full split like it’s nothing—hips sinking, spine straight, hands resting lightly on your thighs.
Jack actually goes still. That’s new.
“…Right,” he says, quieter now.
You keep talking. Like you haven’t just changed the entire atmosphere in the room.
“And I was gonna snap,” you continue, calm, measured, “but I did that breathing thing from the book. Actually worked. I didn’t react. I just… sat in it and breathed, five to two.”
“Yeah,” he says, voice a little rougher. “Looks like it’s working great.”
You shift out of it fluidly, folding in, then rolling onto your back—knees lifting, falling open as you stretch through your hips, one hand braced lightly on your stomach as you breathe through it.
Jack leans forward slightly before he catches himself, hand dragging over his jean clad thigh, like he’s trying to reset.
He’s trying to be good. You can see it.
Trying to sit still. Trying not to react. Trying not to reach for you.
You keep going anyway.
“So then Isla comes into the break room—did you know she’s getting divorced?” you say, drawing one knee closer, holding it there, breath catching just slightly at the stretch.
“Do you need help with that?” he asks, too quick.
“Nope,” you say immediately.
You don’t look at him.
Because you know exactly what that would do. You know exactly what this looks like from where he’s sitting. You know exactly what he’s thinking about, because you’re thinking about it too—the way he’s had you like this before, hands on you, holding you in place, your body not your own for a while.
You switch legs, pushing through it again, slower this time.
“Do you think he cheated?” you ask.
“Who?” His voice is tighter now.
“Isla’s husband.”
“Yeah,” he says after a beat. “Maybe.”
You let your leg drop, exhaling as you roll up, sitting back on your knees. Arms stretch overhead, spine lengthening, chest lifting.
Jack looks away this time.
Briefly.
Then back.
Like he can’t help it.
“I taught her the breathing thing,” you go on. “She calmed down immediately. I could totally pivot into this, you know. Wellness, mindfulness—”
“Yeah,” he cuts in, too fast. “You should absolutely do that.”
You glance at him now.
“Yeah, I’ll give up years of med school and fixing bones to teach whiny people how to lock in,” You joke.
“Whatever you want to do, baby,” He nods, eyes looking down at you on the floor, mind literally anywhere else.
“You look like a kicked dog right now. Was the yoga too much?”
“I’m fine,” he insists. “Robby said the same thing. Maybe I just have a pitiful face.”
You don’t disagree with that.
You look at him. Really look.
He’s not relaxed. Not even close. Shoulders tight despite the way he’s sitting, fingers flexing once against his knee like he needs something to do with them. His gaze flicks over you, then away, then back again like it’s a losing battle.
You stand, cross the room, and settle beside him, curling your feet under you so you’re facing him properly.
He immediately turns his head slightly away, like that helps.
“Thank you for putting up with this,” you murmur, softer now, even though it’s just the two of you. Then, almost casually—“Have you touched yourself at all?”
His inhale is sharp enough to answer before he does.
“No,” he says. Then, like he’s committing to honesty instead of dignity: “Figured we’re in this together. Minus… everything else. I can’t not do a line of cocaine before I go into work.”
That earns a small smile from you.
“Responsible of you,” you say.
“Have you?” He asks.
“Nope.”
“Are you struggling at all? Because it’s… you know, you… you really seem very comfortable with all this. This cleansing thing.”
You inhale sharply. “I’m doing great.” You lie.
“I feel like you’re forgetting how good our sex is,” He says.
You raise your brows, give it thought. “Or… I’m free from such… baseless temptations.”
“Baseless temptations had me eating you out for three hours, three times a week. Which in our line of work is a lot. And, at my age, a cardio workout.” He reminds.
Your tongue darts to your lips, eyes flicking away from him like it helps you regain control. It doesn’t.
“I should go,” you say, too casually. “Errands.”
Jack nods once, like he’s trying to behave. “Two more weeks.”
“Two more weeks,” you repeat.
You lean in and press a quick kiss to his cheek.
It’s small. Controlled. Safe.
Except it isn’t, because it’s the first real contact in ten days and your body reacts like it’s been starved of oxygen. Like you didn’t realise how much you were holding your breath until you finally touched him again.
He turns his head slightly before you fully pull away.
Just enough. Just enough to trap you in that in-between space—faces inches apart, his breath warm against your mouth, his eyes locked on yours like he’s waiting to see if you’ll fold, head tilted, just a bit, curious.
You shouldn’t.
You press your mouth to his. It’s chaste, sweet, PG. Lasts maybe three seconds, and it’s not long enough for him as you pull away, as if you’ve rewarded him, but he can’t help but be greedy when it comes to you.
“You can do better than that, baby,” he says quietly.
“Mm,” you reply, steadying yourself. “I can’t.”
A pause.
“Promise I won’t do anything,” he adds.
You look at him for a second too long.
Then you nod.
His hand comes up immediately, settling at the back of your head—gentle, anchoring, familiar in a way your body reacts to before your brain does, mouth agape. His thumb brushes your cheek once, slowly, briefly moves to your jaw and chin, over your bottom lip, your mouth opening, almost instinctually, but he moves it back to your cheek, not entertaining it further.
You kiss him again properly.
It starts off controlled—your mouth on his, testing, like you’re still trying to keep it within the rules you made for yourself. The moment he kisses back, the rules seem very silly. No hesitation, no easing in—just straight into it, like your bodies already know exactly what they’re doing, falling into step all over again.
Your hand lifts like you’re going to hold him off, going to stop it but it just hangs there uselessly, mid-air.
His mouth is on yours harder now, deeper, tongue sliding in like he’s done waiting for permission. Slow, but not gentle. Familiar in a way that makes your stomach drop—like your body reacts before your brain even catches up.
A small sound slips out of you without meaning to.
His hand at the back of your head tightens, fingers in your hair, not yanking but holding you exactly where he wants you. His other hand shifts at his crotch, you barely glance down at the corner of your eye, seeing as his palm moves over his hardening length beneath his jeans.
He exhales into your mouth, rough. “Damnit.”
You kiss him back harder, mouth opening more, his tongue dragging against yours again, slower this time but deeper, like he’s checking how far you’ll go if he just keeps pushing like this.
You make another sound—low, breathy—and he feels it immediately. You can tell by the way his hand tightens at the back of your neck, thumb pressing in like he’s grounding himself there, like he needs something solid to hold onto before he loses the plot completely.
“Mm—no more,” you manage, pulling back slightly, dazed. “No more. Errands. Oxygen. Meditation. Focus. Detox. Okay? Okay.”
“Okay,” he hums back, like he agrees, but he doesn’t move his eyes off you.
You’re both breathing heavier than you should be for a kiss that’s supposedly not doing anything.
He drags his tongue over his lips, slow, watching you properly now. Then his hand drops from your neck and he leans back a fraction—except he’s not actually done. He’s just shifting, exhaling through his nose like he’s trying to reset and failing.
You glance down.
He’s already adjusting himself, palming himself through his jeans, at the feeling and sight of you, far from subtle at all. His eyes flick between your face and your reaction like he’s half curious, half done pretending this isn’t affecting him.
You just stare for a second, hair slightly messier now from his grip, lips swollen, clearly trying to act normal and not really succeeding. Your eyes linger as you watch him become harder under the denim.
“Baseless temptation?” he echoes, dry, almost mocking, interested by your seeming entertainment.
“You’re ridiculous,” you mutter, swallowing, standing up like that fixes anything. “I’m going. Errands.”
“Mm,” he says, already unbuckling his belt properly now, like he’s given up on dignity for the moment. “That.”
You clear your throat, turning away too quickly. “Yeah. That.”
“Great detox, honey,” he calls after you, voice low, almost satisfied, like he’s both impressed and completely fucked by it.
You don’t look back when you walk out.
★★★
Day Twenty Two.
You were even stricter after your brief lapse on Day 18.
Santos had spiralled a bit after Garcia tried to re-enter her life—one text, then another, then a “just checking in” that meant absolutely nothing and everything at the same time. And Santos, for all her bite, was still soft where it counted. So she doubled down.
We resist.
You weren’t going to be the weak link in that. Not when she was white-knuckling her way through it.
So you didn’t argue. Didn’t say that your situation was devolving.
So. Yoga, reading, no screens—none of it was enough anymore. Not because you were failing, but because you’d started treating this like something to actually get through properly.
So you added structure.
Cooking, mostly. Proper cooking, technically normal, but now with a kind of performative discipline to it. Whole-food, vegetarian-heavy meals that smell intense enough to make Jack pause in the doorway like he’s trying to decide if he’s being punished or supported.
You explained something about how Santos had plenty of recipe choices, these were the best. He dreaded knowing the worst.
You’ve always cooked. So has he. It’s part of your relationship—easy, domestic, something you both fall back on without thinking.
But wow, the past three or four days have been a steady rotation of “cleansing” meals that are aggressively healthy in a way that feels almost personal and cruel.
You’ve also tightened everything else.
Early nights. Early mornings. You’re not avoiding him exactly—you’re just very efficient with your time now. No lingering in shared spaces. No sitting too close on the couch “by accident.” No hand brushing his back when you pass him in the hallway, even though that one clearly takes effort.
The hardest part was that you kept missing out on Housewives.
“Hon, you sure?” Jack had tried one night, hovering in the doorway. “It’s the mid-season finale.”
Pitch black room. Eye mask on.
“Tell me about it tomorrow,” you’d said.
He’d watched it alone. Hated it.
Even the small stuff has become intentional.
You’ve started drinking herbal tea that tastes like wet grass just to prove a point to yourself.
He’s started making coffee louder than necessary just to annoy you.
And still—you function.
You were both high-energy people—incapable of just sitting still without developing a new hobby or mild personality trait.
The apartment was proof: books half-read, yoga mats permanently out, easels you didn’t touch, Jack picking up SWAT shifts “for fun” like that’s a normal recreational activity.
And, historically, you’d had a very reliable outlet for all that excess energy. Now that’s been… aggressively decommissioned. So it lingers. In your body, in his shoulders, in the space between you—tight, charged, and just annoying enough to make everything feel a little harder than it needs to be.
The call comes down fast and ugly—trauma bay already prepped, voices sharp, movement tighter than usual.
Open tib-fib. High-energy. Motorcycle versus ute, no helmet.
You’re already pulling gloves on as you move, snapping them tight against your wrists, pace quick to match the rhythm of the room. Doctor Park is a step ahead of you—of course he is—already at the bedside, already assessing, already ten steps into the problem.
Robby and Jack linger to the side, Whitaker working the patient while they observe, supervise. Robby’s still here past his shift—because of course he is.
“Walk me through it,” Park says without looking at you.
“Mid-shaft tibial and fibular fracture, likely comminuted,” you reply immediately, eyes scanning. “Significant displacement. Possible vascular compromise—foot looks pale, delayed cap refill.”
“Good,” Park says shortly. “Check dorsalis pedis. Posterior tibial.”
You nod, moving in.
The leg is… bad. Angulated wrong, skin stretched too tight over something that shouldn’t be pressing there. Blood everywhere, soaked through layers Whitaker is trying—earnestly—to keep under control.
You don’t flinch. You tilt your head slightly, studying it like a problem you already want to solve, something in you clicking into place.
“Dorsalis pedis faint,” you say, fingers pressing in. “Posterior tibial—hard to appreciate.”
“Mm,” Park hums. “We reduce now.”
Behind Whitaker, Jack stands with his hands clasped behind his back, posture loose but attention razor sharp. Tracking everything—monitor, patient, Park.
You.
He hasn’t seen you all day. You left before he got home—left him in a cold bed, a note about oats, and absolutely nothing else. And now, every time he does see you, it feels deliberate. Like you’re making it harder.
Three weeks of this… discipline.
And now you’re here, calm, focused, humming under your breath like you haven’t been systematically ruining his life, like his muscles aren’t taut without getting to feel you under him or on him.
Jack’s jaw tightens.
“Traction,” Park says.
You nod, hands steady as you take hold above and below the fracture. “On you.”
“Now.”
You pull—firm, controlled. There’s a shift. A sickening, mechanical realignment as bone slides back into place.
Whitaker visibly winces.
“Better,” you murmur, almost satisfied.
Jack exhales through his nose. “Hold it,” he says, stepping in just slightly. “Pulse?”
Whitaker checks, brow furrowed. “Stronger. Still thready, but—better.”
“Good. Splint.”
You glance up—just briefly—and catch Jack already looking at you.
Not subtle. Not tonight. Something heavier in it. Sharper. Like he’s been holding onto something all shift and hasn’t decided where to put it.
You hold his gaze for half a second.
“Doctor,” you say, light.
He tilts his head a fraction. “Nice work,” he says, dry. Then, without missing a beat—“You leave that… green-orange situation in the fridge?”
You blink. “Are you—seriously?”
“I got four hours of sleep,” he shrugs. “I’m allowed one grievance.”
You briefly glance to Park who doesn’t seem to care or mind your minor chatter with Jack, looking at the monitors with a hardened gaze.
“It’s vegetable soup,” you say, adjusting your grip. “It’s good for you. Anti-inflammatory.”
Whitaker glances between you, confused. “Soup? Do you two live together?”
Jack ignores him completely. “Tastes like punishment.”
“Funny,” you say. “You seemed very into punishment a few weeks ago.”
Robby lets out a short, sharp laugh from the other side of the bed. “Oh, I’m awake now.”
“Not helpful,” Jack mutters, not even looking at him.
“You started it,” you shoot back, breath steady despite the strain in your arms. “Also, Robby likes my soup. Don’t you, Robinavitch?”
Robby raises both hands. “I’m not being... triangulated into whatever this is.”
“You’re making bone broth for my best friend now?” Jack goes on, like he didn’t hear that. “That’s where we’re at?”
“It’s not bone broth,” you correct. “And maybe I’d cook for you if you weren’t so moody—”
You cut yourself off, refocusing as the splint is brought in.
“Keep traction steady,” Jack says, tone snapping cleanly back to clinical—but there’s an edge under it now. “You’re drifting distal.”
You correct it immediately. “Better?”
“Yeah,” he nods. “Don’t let it shorten.”
Park finally glances back down, unimpressed. “If you’re both done flirting—”
“This is not flirting,” Jack and you say at the same time.
A beat.
Whitaker frowns. “…What is happening?”
Robby snorts. “I’ll tell you about it later. Celibacy ritual.”
“Robby,” Jack says, warning.
“What?” Robby shrugs. “I’m just saying. There’s context.”
“You told Robby?” you shoot at Jack.
He opens his mouth—
“I heard from Santos,” Robby cuts in, enjoying this far too much. “And McKay. Whole department knows you’ve gone monk mode.”
You scoff. “It’s not monk mode, it’s a detox.”
“Yeah,” Robby nods. “Abbot’s detoxing from joy, from what I can tell.”
Jack exhales sharply. “Can we focus?”
“You are the one who brought up soup. Besides, this guy’s gonna be fine. If he wasn’t, Shark here would’ve bit one of your heads off,” Robby shoots back.
Whitaker looks even more lost, Park stands off the side, giving Robby a brief glare before nodding back to you to continue.
“Angle your wrist,” you tell him, cutting through it. “You’re losing medial pressure.”
“Oh—right—sorry—”
“It’s fine. Just don’t let him bleed out.”
“Right. Yeah. Prefer that.”
Jack hovers just behind your shoulder now—close enough that you can feel the heat of him, the shift of his weight when you adjust yours.
He leans in slightly, voice low, for you.
“Breakfast tomorrow,” he murmurs. “Is it gonna be more… anti-inflammatory punishment?”
You don’t look at him. “Depends.”
“On?”
“How much you told Robby.”
He exhales a quiet, disbelieving breath, your words just for each other as the others get to work. “Just the basics. Nothing bad, just the weird bunny mask roleplay you’re into,” he jokes. “And I am not moody.”
“Debatable.”
“Reactionary to my dire circumstances some might say,” he mutters.
“You’re ridiculous.” You remark.
There’s the smallest pause. Then, softer, a bit quick, to make sure you know he means nothing bad by it—
“You look lovely, by the way. And I’d eat oxygen if you made it for me, promise. I love all your cleansing meals.”
You don’t respond to that. Not here, a small smile twitching at the corner of your lips.
“Secure it,” Park says, already moving on mentally. “Get him upstairs.”
You guide Whitaker through the final positioning, hands precise, controlled.
Jack steps back, watching you finish the job.
Still looking at you like that.
By the time you strip your gloves off, the room already shifting on, Robby’s watching you. Not subtle about it, an amused hint behind his tired eyes.
“When do you clock off?” you ask, tossing the gloves.
“An hour ago,” he says. “I stay for the live show now. Better than anything on TV.”
You huff. “How is he doing?”
Robby considers that, eyes narrowing like he’s actually weighing it up.
“Clinically?” he says. “Great. On top of it, always is. It’s annoying.”
“And not clinically?” you prompt.
He tilts his head. “Mm… a little rougher than usual,” he admits. “But he’s dramatic. You know ‘im.”
You grin. “Yeah, I do. It’s cute.”
“That’s certainly a word for it,” he mutters, jerking his chin subtly across the room. “Because he looks like he’s about to file a formal complaint with God.”
You follow the glance—Jack, shoulders tight, jaw set, mid-conversation with Park like he’s holding himself together out of sheer professionalism.
You look back, unfazed. “It’s temporary.”
Robby studies you for a beat, then huffs a laugh. “You’re enjoying this.”
You don’t even try to hide it. “A little bit. It’s fifty-fifty. It’s fun seeing him worked up, it’s annoying because we do have great sex. And I know that isn’t TMI for you because he tells me worse about your sex life.” You pause, then add, “Didn’t realise Hastings was so freaky.”
“Jesus,” Robby exhales, scratching at his beard. “You’ve been around him too long.”
“Occupational hazard,” you shrug.
He shakes his head, but there’s a smile tugging at it now despite himself.
There’s a small pause, then—more casually—
“Soup was good, by the way.”
You blink. “The vegetable one?”
“Yeah,” he nods. “Don’t tell him I said that.”
“He called it punishment.”
“He’s wrong,” Robby shrugs. “I had two bowls.”
You brighten, just a fraction. “See? Someone has taste.”
“Let’s not get carried away,” he says. “It’s still soup.”
You laugh under your breath.
He glances around, then back to you. “I think Shark’s already ditched you,” he adds, nodding toward the empty space where Park had been.
You swear quietly. “Fuck. Whatever. Nice seeing you.”
“You too,” he says, stepping aside.
You pass Jack on your way out, offering him a light, professional smile like nothing’s off at all.
“See you at home in a few hours.”
He watches you go, something unreadable flickering across his face.
“Love you,” he calls after you anyway, voice a little rough, arms folded as the room empties out.
“Love you too,” you say as you hurry out, not turning back.
You’re gone. Whitaker stands there for a second, still blood-specked, brain clearly lagging behind everything that just happened.
“I’m… still a bit confused about—” he gestures vaguely between where you were and where Jack is now, “—that.”
Jack shoots him a look. Then Robby. Then just shakes his head, already walking.
“Hey, what have you told her about me and Noelle?” Robby asks, following after, quiet, a bit antsy now.
Jack shakes his head immediately. “Nothing much, just the leash stuff you’re into. Anyway, I think you’re sleep deprived, man. Time to clock off, daywalkers.”
★★★
Day Twenty Nine.
“So, how’re we doing?” you ask, already halfway into the break room fridge like it’s part of your job description.
McKay and Santos are at the table with lunch. McKay looks as composed as ever—tired, but functional. Santos, on the other hand, looks like someone who has emotionally moved on from her entire relationship with Garcia but hasn’t informed her nervous system yet.
“Great,” Santos says immediately. Then, after a beat: “I stopped yoga.”
You glance over. “Why?”
“Pulled my calf,” she replies. “Turns out inner peace is physically unsafe.”
“Unfortunate,” you say, finding Jack’s labelled container and closing the fridge.
McKay watches you sit down. “That his lunch?”
“Yeah.”
“Doesn’t he need that later?” she asks.
“He’ll order takeout,” you say easily. “I’m doing him a favour. He keeps eating the stuff I make, even though I know he hates it, I think he thinks suffering is his virtue.”
Santos snorts. “He and Garcia would get along in a really unbearable way.”
You glance at her. “You miss her.”
She points at you with her fork. “Don’t.”
“You brought her up first.”
“That’s because you brought up food and suffering in the same sentence,” she shoots back. “It’s a trigger.”
McKay, calmly: “You both need to stop talking.”
You ignore her. You exhale, rubbing at your temple. You feel… weird. Wired. Like your body’s trying to replace one habit with ten others. You’ve thought about buying something three separate times this morning. Shoes, candles, a ridiculous blender you don’t need. You haven’t, obviously. Discipline. Wellness. Enlightenment.
“Where’s Robby?” you ask. “I can split this with him.”
“Talking to Gloria,” Santos says. “Looks like he’s in a mood. Snapped at Whitaker.”
“Great,” you mutter. “Two moody old attendings. Love that for you guys. I think Park might actually be more regulated than either of them.”
McKay doesn’t push it, just turns her attention back to you, calmer. “You’ve been very… consistent with this whole detox thing. Very controlled. Composed.”
Santos squints at you. “Almost spiritual, honestly. It’s impressive.”
You blink. “It’s just discipline.”
McKay hums. “Most people don’t call not having sex for a few weeks ‘discipline.’ They call it ‘being busy.’ Or just not having a high libido.”
You sigh, too quickly. “I’m just… glad it’s nearly over. I think Jack’s actually counting down the days.”
McKay tilts her head slightly at that but doesn’t bite yet, a slight purse in her lips. She makes eye contact with Santos. Santos bites back a smile. McKay begins to shake her head, as if reading her mind..
Santos, however, immediately does.
“So,” she says, leaning forward, “what’s he like?”
McKay shoots her a warning look over her fork.
“What?” Santos says, unbothered. “I’m curious. You thought of it too.”
“Like… personality-wise?” you try.
Santos waves a hand. “No. Don’t be boring.”
McKay mutters, “Oh God.”
Santos continues anyway, delighted now. “Like sex-wise. Come on. There has to be a reason he’s walking around like a man personally victimised by fucking… yoga and vegetables.”
You nearly choke. “Santos—”
“What?” she says. “I’m just saying. There’s clearly a secret here. He’s what, fifty-something? Night shift ED attending? You know how fucked you have to be to be the attending on night shift? Robby level fucked up. And you’re—” she gestures vaguely at you, “you. So either he’s got some hidden advantage or you’ve all been lying to yourselves.”
McKay, dry as ever: “Please stop talking.”
Santos ignores her. “Am I wrong?”
You stare at her.
“That’s not an answer,” she says.
McKay finally looks at you properly now, faintly amused despite herself. “You do not have to answer that.”
“I’m not going to answer that,” you say immediately.
Santos leans back, offended. “Okay, so it’s missionary.”
You blink. “And that's my cue to leave.”
“Doggy?” she tries. “Am I warm? Am I cold?”
You stand up. “I’m very happy for you and your recovery from Garcia, truly.”
McKay actually smiles now. “This is why I eat alone.”
Then, casually—
“Do you guys have threesomes with Robby?” Santos adds. “Got a vibe there.”
You don’t even hesitate. “Constantly. He’s actually the glue holding the relationship together. Into weird shit.”
McKay exhales through her nose.
Santos tilts her head. “I don’t believe you.”
“That sounds like a you problem. We host swinger parties, come by next Thursday if you want.”
Santos rolls her eyes, somewhat disappointed by your sarcasm. At that exact moment, Dana walks in. She stops, looks between all of you, then sighs.
“Oh no,” she says, immediately clocking the energy. “We having a party? What are youse talkin’ about in here?”
“Nothing,” McKay says instantly.
Santos says at the same time, “Abbot’s sex life. Featuring Robby, too.”
Dana physically recoils. “Oh Jesus Christ, why?”
You look at her like salvation. “Help.”
Dana points at Santos without hesitation. “No. Absolutely not. I’m not bein’ dragged into whatever this is.”
Then she looks at you, and her whole face softens a little. She gives you a nod, as if to ask if you’re well. You give a nod back, a small smile.
Dana claps once, decisive. “Alright. Trauma two. You two. Now. Move it.”
Santos groans. “You’re ruining my research.”
Dana points again. “Move. It. Out.”
★★★
Day Thirty Two.
Your schedules have always been a mess.
Some weeks you overlap perfectly—same shifts, same hours, brushing past each other in hallways, stealing five minutes in empty consult rooms, syncing like it’s easy. Other weeks, like this one, you exist on completely different timelines.
Park needs you flexible. Jack is the schedule. So you miss each other.
You leave just as he’s getting in. He leaves while you’re dead asleep. Nights bleed into days, days into nights, and suddenly it’s been forty-eight hours of doubles and you’ve communicated more through texts and post-it notes than actual words.
Eat something.
You too.
Left food in the fridge.
Miss you.
Jack finally makes it back into the apartment, adrenaline high shaking in his veins, excited to finally see you, feel you.
He shuts the door behind him, exhales—and then pauses.
“How are you cooking after working that long, baby?” he calls out, already loosening up as he moves toward the kitchen. “Challenge is over, I am going to give you the best damn head of your life and then cuddle like—”
“I’d cuddle with you,” Robby says from the stove, “but I’m busy right now. Preferably not the head part, though.”
Jack thinks for a moment, a slow nod.
“…You are not my girlfriend.”
Robby glances over his shoulder, unimpressed. “I like to think of us as work husbands, but yeah. Good observation.”
Jack just stares at him for a second, processing.
Then—“Why are you in my apartment?”
Robby sighs, turning back to the pot like this is his burden to bear. “This is not turning out well.”
He gestures vaguely at the spaghetti bolognese like it’s personally offended him.
“I followed her recipe,” he adds.
Jack moves further in, slower now, dropping his bag, still trying to catch up, somewhat antsy as he taps the counter repeatedly. “Where is she? She texted me she was home.”
“Shops,” Robby says. “Said she needed a few things. Asked me to start this because she didn’t wanna get changed and dirty her clothes, a surprise, or something.”
A beat.
“I think I’ve screwed this up,” he admits.
Jack sinks onto the stool at the island, scrubbing a hand over his face. “How do you fuck up spaghetti?”
Robby turns to him, dead serious. “Who puts that much sugar in a sauce?”
Jack doesn’t even hesitate. “She does. It’s good.”
Robby squints. “It feels offensive.”
“It’s not,” Jack mutters. “It’s… you know, balanced.”
Robby gestures at the pot again. “It’s dessert.”
Jack leans forward, peering into it like he’s assessing a trauma. “Did you reduce it?”
“…Did I what?”
Jack looks at him slowly. “Oh my God.”
“I stirred the thing, I don't know,” Robby defends.
“Yeah, I’m sure that helped,” Jack says dryly, already pushing himself up despite the protest in his leg. “Move.”
Robby steps aside with zero resistance. “Be my guest, chef.”
Jack takes over, grabbing a spoon, tasting it, making a face—not terrible, but not right.
“You didn’t salt it properly,” he says.
“I salted it.”
“You absolutely did not. I can even smell the absence of salt.”
Robby watches him work for a second, then glances at him sideways. “You look like shit, by the way.”
“Feel like it,” Jack mutters.
“You two haven’t seen each other?”
“Not properly.”
Robby nods once, like that explains everything. Then—casual, but not really—“Once you finally get laid and stop being so damn dramatic, I need help with Noelle. Bring your girl if you want, I told her the two of you’d meet. Tomorrow night?”
Jack doesn’t even look up. “My girl and I will be very busy, if all goes well, so, unlikely.”
“…I hate knowing things about you,” Robby mutters.
Jack huffs, stirring the sauce.
The front door clicks open. Both of them look up.
“Robby, you didn’t salt it—I can smell it,” you call out immediately as you step inside, toeing off your shoes.
“Salting it now, sweetheart,” Jack shoots back, not missing a beat. He flicks Robby a look. Robby scoffs.
You come in fully then, arms loaded with shopping bags—Victoria’s Secret, a couple of clothing stores, something small and overpriced in tissue paper. You were pretty keen to break that no shop rule, apparently.
“When’d you get back?” you ask.
“Five minutes ago,” Jack says, already moving toward you. “You walk? I would’ve picked you up.”
“I was trying to surprise you,” you say, smiling. “Robby wasn’t supposed to be part of it.”
“Shocking,” Robby mutters.
You barely register him—because Jack’s right there, closer now, and you really do not care about some cleansing shit anymore. You grab his shirt and pull him in, kissing him quick—warm, familiar, a little rushed like you’re making up for lost time in a single second.
You pull back just as fast.
“You look like shit,” you tell him, joking and dry.
“Yeah,” he says, softer now. “You look… really good.”
His hand slides up, brushing through your hair, lingering there a second longer than necessary.
You clear your throat, stepping away first. “Okay, how bad did he fuck the sauce?”
“I did not fuck the sauce that bad,” Robby says.
You move to the stove, peering in, grabbing a spoon. Taste. Pause.
“…It’s not that bad,” you admit. “Maybe a bit more sugar, not enough salt.”
Robby throws his hands up. “Of course it does. Why not throw chocolate in there while we’re at it?”
“Don’t tempt me,” you say lightly.
Robby exhales, grabbing his jacket. “Alright. I’m off. Dana’s gonna love that I delayed my shift because I was domestic here.”
“Tell her I said hi,” you call.
“I’m not telling her anything,” he mutters, heading out.
He pauses at the door, glances back at the two of you—at the way you’ve both unconsciously drifted closer again without noticing.
“Don’t give him a heart attack. At that age you never know,” he adds.
“Out!” Jack says.
Robby leaves.
The door shuts.
And just like that—
It’s quiet. No monitors. No pages. No interruptions. Just you and him. You don’t move at first, still standing by the stove, spoon in hand. He’s leaning against the island, watching you. Really watching you.
“Day Thirty Two, by the way,” he says.
“Really? Didn’t notice,” You shrug.
He nods, coming up besides you, watching as you stir the sauce.
“This is gonna take ages. He didn’t reduce anything. Useless,” You murmur, mostly sarcastic, as you look at it.
“Oh, you know Robby,” Jack sighs. “Can’t do anything right.”
You put the lid on top, lowering it to a simmer. You hum to yourself, feeling Jack’s eyes on you.
“C’mere,” he says.
You step in between his legs, your gaze dragging over him as his hands catch your waist, pulling you in. His grip is heavy, grounding, sliding over your hips like he’s relearning the shape of you after weeks of not touching.
“This alright?” he asks, quieter now—though his hand dips, squeezing your ass through the thin fabric of your dress.
You nod.
“Speak,” he adds, low.
“Yes.”
That does something to him. You see it—jaw tightening, breath shifting, his eyes darkening as they move over you slowly, deliberately. Chest. Lips. Eyes again.
“What am I gonna do with you?” he murmurs.
His hand comes up, sliding to the back of your neck, fingers spreading there, warm and steady. He tilts your face up, thumb brushing along your jaw, holding you in place like he’s taking his time deciding something.
You can’t quite read him. It’s too much at once.
His thumb drifts lower, pausing at your bottom lip. You hesitate—barely—but he notices.
“Go on,” he murmurs, giving a small nod.
You do. Tongue slow, tentative at first, wrapping your mouth around the digit, then steadier, your focus slipping as his breathing changes—subtle, but not enough to hide it. His shoulders pull back slightly, tension running through him like he’s holding himself in check.
He exhales, eyes still locked on you.
“Yeah,” he mutters under his breath.
“Want another?” he asks after a second, voice rougher now.
“Mhm.”
He moves his index and middle, thumb dropped to your chin, your saliva coating your jaw slightly as you suck the digits. He watches you for a beat longer, like he’s considering pushing it further—then drags his hand away instead, jaw tightening again.
“Bedroom,” he says, quieter, but it lands just as firm.
His other hand slides down your side, lifting the hem of your dress just enough to make his gaze dip—brief, restrained—before he turns you, your back to his chest, guiding you away.
“I’m running on an adrenaline high from work, I’m gonna fuck you, then we’re gonna cuddle and sleep for twelve hours,” he adds, voice low behind you. “That sound good to you?”
You turn your head, looking at him behind you. “Love you too,” You give him a quick kiss to his lips, feeling him smile from that.
You head down the hall, already pulling the dress up and over your head, not looking back—but you can feel his eyes on you until you disappear.
Behind you, the stove clicks off.
A second later, you hear him move—quick now, like whatever control he had left is running out.
“You know, I was talking to Santos about our whole… challenge,” you start, slipping your dress off and draping it over the chair. You catch your reflection in the mirror, thumb swiping under your eye to fix the faint smudge of mascara. “Turns out she lasted all of ten days before she slept with Garcia.”
He huffs a quiet breath against your shoulder, voice rough where it meets your skin. “So all that torture for nothing?”
“Torture’s dramatic,” you murmur, but there’s a smile tugging at it.
“You did it on purpose,” he counters, hand sliding up to cup your tit, squeezing through the fabric of your bra like he’s testing a theory he already knows the answer to. “Walkin’ around in those… stupid shorts, the yoga, that little nightgown—won’t even kiss me, won’t even touch me.” His thumb drags slow, deliberate. “You know what that does to a man? That kind of taunting?”
You let your head tip back against his shoulder, soft, unbothered on the surface even as your breath shifts. “I think I’ve got an idea.”
“Yeah?” His mouth finds the space under your ear, kisses turning slower, heavier—less rushed now, more deliberate. He sucks at your neck, groaning low when you push back into him, feeling the way he’s already half-hard under your touch.
You turn suddenly, hands braced on his shoulders, guiding him back until his knees hit the mattress. “I lied,” you admit, pressing him down to sit. “About not touching myself.”
His brows lift, something amused and dark flickering there as his hands move instinctively—reaching behind you, unclipping your bra with practiced ease. “You? Lie?” he mutters, watching as you pull it off and toss it aside. “What happened to Miss Wellness Mary Magdalene?”
You barely get a breath out before his hands are back on you, over your tits, fingers pinching at your nipples, rougher now, less patient—palming, shaping, like he’s reacquainting himself. His mouth follows, pressing to your tits, tongue warm, stubble dragging just enough to make you jolt.
“It’s bullshit,” you breathe, the words breaking as he closes his mouth around your nipples, the sensation sharp and grounding all at once. “I was miserable the whole time.”
“Yeah?”
“Mm. The vegetable soup was shit. I miss my phone. Yoga is boring. I like tequila,” you say, feeling his chuckle vibrate against your skin as he kisses over your sternum.
“What else?”
“I like sex,” you tell him, whimpering as his teeth drag over your nipple briefly, the sharp tug making your core clench. His other hand travels over your stomach to the pink panties, fidgeting with the sides of the material over your hip.
You climb onto him, knees spreading wide beside his thighs, your body hovering just above his. “I really like it when you touch me. I like touching you. I like when—” He cups your clothed pussy, his palm pressing firmly against the damp fabric.
“You like that?” he wonders, voice low and almost casual, watching as you moan at the contact, your arousal soaking through the panties instantly. “Speak, sweetheart.”
“You know I like that,” you gasp, grinding down against his hand instinctively.
He nods. “Damn right I do,” His fingers slip beneath the edge of your panties, tracing the slick folds of your pussy with deliberate slowness, teasing the entrance before pushing one thick digit inside you.
The intrusion is warm and welcome, stretching you just enough to make you clench around him. He curls it slowly, stroking that sensitive spot deep within your walls, the pad of his finger rubbing in firm, unhurried circles that make your thighs tremble and your breath hitch.
You rock against his hand, chasing the building pressure. He adds a second finger without warning, scissoring them gently to open you up, then pumping them in and out with deliberate thrusts—shallow at first, then deeper, his knuckles brushing your clit on every inward slide.
His thumb finds your clit, circling it with rough, insistent pressure, alternating between tight loops and light flicks that draw out breathy cries from your lips. The wet sounds of his fingers fucking you fill the room mingling with your moans as he watches your face intently, eyes dark with hunger, drinking in every twitch and gasp.
“How about this? You like it when I fuck you with my fingers?” he asks, his voice a gravelly rumble, free hand gripping your hip to steady your grinding.
“Mhm,” you whine, riding his hand harder now, your pussy fluttering around the invading digits as they twist and probe, hitting that spot again and again.
He slides in a third finger, gently stretching you out, the fullness making you gasp as he kisses at your neck, lips hot and sucking lightly on the skin. You moan into his mouth when he claims your lips in a messy kiss, tongues tangling as his fingers maintain their rhythm—curling, thrusting, spreading you wider with each pass.
He varies the pace, slowing to a torturous drag that lets you feel every ridge and vein on his fingers, then speeding up to plunge deep and fast, his palm slapping wetly against your mound.
“That’s right, atta girl, doin’ so well, aren’t you?” he murmurs against your throat, nipping at the pulse point while his thumb resumes those relentless circles on your clit, pressing harder now, building the ache into something electric.
He watches as you ride his fingers, your juices dripping down his wrist, the obscene squelch growing louder with every movement.
“What’d you think of when you touched yourself, honey? You thinka me?”
You nod frantically, words caught up in your moans, your walls clenching tighter around him. “Uh-huh,” you whine as he curls his fingers deeper into you, hooking them to stroke that bundle of nerves with precision, his other hand sliding up to pinch and roll your nipple, adding sparks of sensation everywhere.
He keeps you teetering, easing off just when you get close—pulling his fingers almost all the way out before slamming them back in, thumb pausing its circles to let the tension simmer. Then he ramps it up again, fingers pistoning faster, thumb vibrating against your swollen clit. Sweat beads on your skin, your breaths coming in short, desperate pants as the coil in your belly winds impossibly tight.
“C’mon, baby, let go f’me,” he murmurs, kissing at your neck with open-mouthed presses, his teeth grazing your earlobe.
He feels as you tense and tighten around his fingers, hips bucking erratically, thighs quivering you come undone, jaw agape as your body stills over him, warm and melting.
“You come when you touch yourself?” he asks, quieter now.
His hand leaves you, trailing over your hips as he guides you back onto the bed. You go easily, breath unsteady, the anticipation settling into something heavier as you lie there, bare and waiting.
You shake your head.
“You?” you ask, your hand drifting instinctively over yourself, fingers trailing over your core, testing the sensitivity, your eyes flicking back to him.
He gives a short shake of his head, rolling his neck once like he’s trying to keep himself together.
“Still got enough in you?” you murmur, a little teasing. “Or did that shift kill you?”
He huffs a breath—half laugh, half something tighter. “I’d find the energy,” he says, stepping out of his scrubs, not taking his eyes off you. “Don’t worry about that.”
You watch him move, slower now but deliberate, like he’s pacing himself instead of rushing it.
“You wanna take that off?” you start, glancing down to his prosthetic.
He follows your gaze, then looks back at you. “In a minute,” he says, already leaning over you again. “Wanna make sure I remember what you taste like first.”
He slides a pillow beneath your head, then gently eases your knees apart. You give a small nod. When his tongue traces slowly across your center, your body responds instantly—back arching, breath catching. His palm presses firmly against your stomach, keeping you anchored.
“Stay still f’me, can you, baby?” He murmurs against you, barely enough for you to hear.
You gasp his name between ragged breaths, managing to nod yes, your fingers threading through his salt-and-pepper curls. His mouth moves against you with deliberate patience—soft yet demanding—and your lungs empty completely, replaced by something molten and urgent.
“Atta girl, you feel good yeah, baby?” He hums.
You nod fast. Your thighs tremble against his shoulders as he tastes you with unhurried determination, as though time has ceased to exist beyond this bed, beyond this moment. When his tongue finds that perfect rhythm, that perfect spot, coherent thought dissolves into desperate pleas that barely form words.
He groans against your center, vibrating against you as you claw at his nape, nails digging into his sun-kissed, freckled skin with desperate urgency. “God, fuck, I missed this,” you say,
His tongue, slick and insistent, flicks against your clit, drawing out your orgasm with relentless precision. You feel the heat of your release coating his tongue, his lips, and he devours it hungrily, as if it's the sweetest nectar he's ever tasted.
“Please, please, fuck,” You mumble, brain foggy as his tongue sweeps over you with a kind of desperation of a starving man.
His fingers digging into your hips, holding you in place as he feasts on you. You can feel his hot breath against your sensitive flesh, his tongue delving into every crevice, every fold as you come undone, moans loud to the point where you throw your hand over your mouth, biting down into your palm.
You let out a shaky breath, head back as he kisses your inner thighs, gentle, stubble coated in your orgasm before he climbs back over you, kissing you, deep, as you taste yourself on his tongue.
“Once I wake up—after fucking you—obviously,” He murmurs against you, sloppy tongues colliding. “I’ll do that for three hours, until you can’t walk, alright?”
You moan at the thought, nodding. You believe him because he’s done it on many occasions. You think he just likes doing it to get you to go to sleep sometimes or knock you out and he can take care of you or something. That and he just entirely gets off on you.
“Fuck willpower,” He says against you as he briefly tests your folds with fingers over your sensitive clit, watching your mouth open in a small whine, lashes fluttering, another hand pulling your body even closer, as you wrap your legs around his waist. “Fuck being cleansed, alright?”
“Mm,” You say, watching as he swallows, you’re watching maybe the toll of his shift start to come back physically and you move your hands to his cheek, away from where’d he place them above your head.
You don’t say anything, just still him briefly, eyes wide, a nod, a check in. He nods, mouth twitching in a smile.
He hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his boxers, pushing them down with a practiced ease born from years of undressing after long shifts. His cock hard and eager, his breath hitching as you wrap your hand around his length, your touch sending electric shocks through him.
You spit into your palm, the wet sound echoing in the quiet room, and he groans, a low, guttural sound that vibrates through him. Your hand moves over his cock, slick and smooth, your fingers tracing the veins, your thumb rubbing over the sensitive head. He curses under his breath, a string of words that would make a sailor blush, his hips jerking forward, seeking more of your touch.
“Shit… fucking hell– You keep doing that this is gonna a lot quicker than I mentally planned for.” He tells you.
“What’d you mentally plan for?” You chuckle, a low, sultry sound that sends shivers down his spine, your hand never pausing in its slow, torturous rhythm.
“Well, six hours of foreplay,” he moves his cock over your pussy, gliding it over your folds, amused by your gasp of a moan. “Six hours of shower sex, kitchen, couch, each. Obviously six… emotionally… intelligent, beautiful conversation about life and marriage. Ever thought about wanting a third?”
“I don’t know, have you?” You murmur, watching as he taunts you as he moves his cock over your pussy, the head slipping through your folds, coating itself in your wetness. You gasp, your back arching, your hips lifting to meet him. He groans, his eyes fluttering closed, savoring the feel of you.
“Christ,” He murmurs, absentmindedly, then, with a slow, steady push, he slides into you, his cock filling you completely. You moan, your nails digging into his back, your body arching into his. “Maybe. I don’t know. We can talk about this later.”
He’s still for a moment, body hot and warm above you as his hand grips onto your hips. You let out a shaky breath and smile. “You alright there, old man?”
“Heavenly,” he says quite earnestly, leaning to kiss you down at your neck. “Missed this. God, it’s like you’re made for me. So goddamn perfect.”
You clench slightly at his words, hearing as he groans at that, vibrating against your skin. A moment passes before you start getting desperate for action.
“Please move, baby,” You ask, looking up at him with eagerness.
“‘Course, whatever you want, sweetheart,” He kisses your lips softly, before moving.
Pulling out slowly before sliding back in, his pace steady and sure. With each thrust, he swallows your moans with his kisses, his hands tangling in your hair, his body pressing you into the mattress. You can feel every inch of him, every ridge and vein, and it's perfect.
His tongue dances with yours, exploring your mouth, tasting you. His hand tangles in your hair, his grip firm but not painful, tilting your head back to deepen the kiss. You moan into his mouth, your body arching into his, your nails digging into his back.
He pulls back, his breath ragged, his eyes dark with desire. "You feel so good," he murmurs, his voice hoarse. "So fucking good."
You can only nod, your words lost in the pleasure that's coursing through your veins. He starts to move faster, his hips snapping forward, his cock sliding in and out of you with increasing urgency. You can feel the pleasure building, the tension coiling in your belly, your pussy clenching around him.
His hand travels from your hair to your face, cupping your cheek, keeping your eyes on him. You gasp, your eyes fluttering closed, your body arching into his touch. He groans, his cock twitching inside you at the sight of you losing yourself in his touch.
He gently moves two fingers down your chest and stomach, landing at your core, above where he fucks you. He circles your clit, his touch firm and steady, drawing tight circles that make your hips buck off the bed. You let out a low moan, your body tensing, your breath coming in short gasps.
He can see your arousal coating his cock, your slick gathering around the base, and it spurs him on. He leans down, his lips finding your ear. "You like that, don't you?" he murmurs, his voice low and rough. "You like feeling me stretch you, filling you up?"
“Yes, yes, mhm,” you try, nails moving from his back to his biceps, hard and taught beneath your touch.
He starts to move faster, his hips slamming into you, his cock sliding in and out of you with increasing urgency. You can feel the pleasure building, the tension coiling in your belly, your pussy clenching around him.
His weight edges off just enough, bracing more through his arms and left side, breath going a touch uneven where it presses against your shoulder. Not stopping—he’d push through it if you let him—but compensating. You feel it.
Your hands slide up his back, slower now, anchoring “Take it off, baby,” you murmur softly, glancing down toward the prosthetic. “You’ve had it on too long.”
He eases to a stop, controlled, careful not to jostle you as he shifts his weight fully off. You guide him back with you, hands steady at his sides, both of you moving without needing to overthink it—this part practiced, familiar.
He settles against the pillows with a small exhale, rolling his shoulder once as if resetting himself. You stay close, one hand resting at his hip, the other brushing briefly up his chest—grounding, not rushing him.
He reaches down, undoing the prosthetic with efficient movements, years of muscle memory. There’s no awkwardness to it, no self-consciousness—just a small release in his face as it comes free. You take it from him without comment, setting it at the foot of the bed like you always do.
“Better?” you ask, thumb tracing idly along his side.
He nods once, eyes flicking back to you, something softer under the edge of want. “Yeah. C’mere.”
You shift back over him, settling in close again, your knees bracketing his hips, easy and familiar. You lean down to kiss him, long and sweet, less immodest as your other ones, maybe. Just maybe, as his hands immediately find your ass, helping your back arch into him, cock still hard as you slide over it, folds wet and sensitive.
“God, you’re–” He groans as you bite at his bottom lip, pulling it back, as you kiss down his chest. “Gonna be the death of me.”
You lean down, your tongue flicking out to taste his skin, tracing a path down his chest, over his stomach, until you reach the V that leads to his cock. You look up at him, your eyes meeting his, and you can see the anticipation in them.
You take your time, your tongue sliding over his shaft, from base to tip, feeling him pulse under your touch.
“Great way to go,” he murmurs as he watches you.
You take him into your mouth, feeling him slide over your tongue, your lips stretching to accommodate him. He groans, his hand finding your hair, not pulling, just gripping, as you take him deeper, your mouth warm and wet. You can feel him, hard and throbbing, and you know he's close, with how his arms tighten and tense, fingers tighter on your scalp.
You pull back, your tongue flicking over the head of his cock, tasting the precum that beads at the tip. You sit back, straightening your spine, and look at him. His eyes are on you, hungry and intense.
You spit on his cock, watching as the saliva slides down his shaft, making it glisten in the soft light. You rise up, your knees bracketing his hips, and lower yourself onto him, feeling him slide into you, inch by inch.
“Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck,” you whimper as you settle on top, nails over his chest.
He groans, his hands finding your hips, holding you in place as he thrusts up into you. You can feel him, deep and hard, filling you completely. You start to move, your body rolling and grinding against him, your hips moving in a slow, steady rhythm.
His hands roam over your body, one staying on your hip, guiding your movements, the other trailing up your stomach, over your breasts, squeezing them, his thumb brushing over your nipple. You gasp, your head falling back.
His thumb circling your nipple, sending jolts of pleasure straight to your core. He starts to talk you through it, his voice slow and steady, a counterpoint to the fast, hard rhythm of your bodies. "You're so fucking beautiful, riding me like this. God- so tight and wet for me, aren’t you, sweetheart?"
His words send a shiver through you, your body tensing, your breath hitching in your throat.
“Yeah? Yeah, that’s right, that’s right," he mutters. “C’mon, baby, right there f’me, you’re doing so good.”
“Please,” you moan, hips grinding down against him.
“You need help, honey? Just ask,” He sits up, his chest pressing against yours, his breath hot on your neck. He reaches between you, his fingers finding your clit, rubbing tight circles over the sensitive bundle of nerves.
You whine, your body arching into his touch, your hips moving in time with his fingers.
“C’mon, words for me,” he says, breathing heavily against you as he finds himself closer to the edge at how you clench down on him, tight and warm.
“Wanna cum,” you pant, your body tense, your breath coming in short gasps.
“Again? So greedy,” he mocks. “Go ‘head, you can do it”
His words push you over the edge. You move, your body rolling and grinding against him, your hips moving in a fast, frantic rhythm. You can feel it, the pleasure snapping, your body convulsing, your nails digging into his back, your mouth open in a silent scream.
"Good girl," he groans, his body tensing, his cock pulsing inside you. He follows you, his release hot and hard, filling you completely.
You collapse onto his chest, your body spent, your heart pounding in your ears. He wraps his arms around you, holding you close, his body still trembling with the aftermath. You can feel his heart beating in time with yours, and you know, in this moment, everything is right.
You stay there a little longer than you mean to, half sprawled over him, your cheek pressed to his chest, skin still warm, damp, real. His arm is draped around you—loose now, heavy with exhaustion—but his fingers keep moving anyway, absentminded, tracing slow patterns over your back like he can’t quite stop touching you yet.
Like he doesn’t want to.
You draw lazy shapes over his shoulder, connecting freckles you already know by heart, like it’s something you’ve done a hundred times—because you have.
“I love baseless temptations,” you murmur.
Jack lets out a quiet laugh, the sound low in his chest, vibrating under your cheek. “Yeah,” he says, voice rough but easy. “Me too.”
There’s something softer in it now. Not the edge from before. Just… him.
You shift slightly, listening to his breathing settle, feeling the way his body gives into the mattress—finally. Like he’s been holding himself upright all day and only now gets to stop.
“Fourteen hours,” you mumble, almost to yourself, remembering your insane schedules. “And you still managed to—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” he cuts in, dry.
You grin against his skin. “I was gonna say ‘impress me.’”
“Sure you were.”
“I was,” you insist, lifting your head to look at him properly. “Honestly, I thought you’d pass out.”
He cracks one eye open at that. “Have a little faith.”
“I do,” you say, brushing your thumb over his jaw, softer now. “I also have eyes. You look like you got hit by a truck.”
“Feel like it,” he mutters.
“Mm.” You lean down, press a brief kiss to his chest—nothing urgent, just there. “Still did good.”
He exhales a quiet laugh at that, head tipping back. “Christ. It’s alright, I’ll probably crash in twenty minutes. Took tomorrow off, at least.
You watch him for a second—really watch him. The lines of tension finally easing out of his face, the way his shoulders have dropped, the way he looks… settled. Not asleep, not yet. Just here. With you.
It hits you again, softer this time, how much of him is usually in motion—pulled in a hundred directions, needed everywhere at once—and how rare it is to have him like this. Still. Letting himself be here, with you, without reaching for the next thing.
You smooth your hand over his chest, slower now, grounding.
“You gonna keep up the meditation thing?” he asks, voice rough with the edge of sleep.
You huff quietly. “Probably not.” A beat. “Unless you’re suddenly interested.”
“Mm. I think I’ll stick to therapy,” he murmurs. Then, after a second, a little more awake—“You still think I need other hobbies?”
You glance at him, mouth curving. “No. I’m actually very supportive of your current hobby.” You lean in, kiss him soft. “Big fan. Please continue exclusively.”
He laughs into it, low and tired, something easy settling back into him.
“I’ll be right back,” you add, brushing your thumb along his jaw. “Gonna clean up, check the spaghetti. You’ll eat something, then we’ll watch Housewives in bed. Deal?”
“I can help, I’ll—”
“—Stay,” you cut in gently, pressing him back into the pillows. “I’ve spent a stupid amount of money while I was out this morning, this is more for me than it is for you, trust.” You tell, already slipping out from under the sheets.
You move around the room in one of his old shirts, easy, familiar—tidying, grabbing what you need, the quiet domestic rhythm of it settling everything back into place. It’s almost meditative, in a way that none of the actual meditation ever was. This is the version that works for you: him in the bed, you in the room, the soft comedown of it all.
When you come back, he hasn’t moved much. One arm over his eyes, breathing slower now, like he’s finally letting himself drop. You sit beside him, brush your hand over his chest again, then pass him a bowl.
“Eat, quick, before it gets cold,” you say.
He obeys, because of course he does, getting through a few bites before setting it aside with a quiet exhale.
You keep going, perched cross-legged beside him, the normalcy of it comforting after a month of physically pushing him away to be cleansed, when ironically, you feel more cleansed than ever to be near him.
There’s a pause.
“So,” you begin. “What was that thing you said? Earlier? About a third?”
He chuckles. “I was just kidding, hon,” he says, a little rough, like he’s not fully back yet. He presses a lazy kiss to your head. “Why?”
You tilt your chin up slightly, watching him. “I don’t know.” Your head ring vaguely with Santos’ words from the other day. He reads pretty quickly where your train of thought is going.
“Hypothetically. If you had to pick someone.” You ask.
He looks at you properly now, narrowing his eyes just a fraction like he’s trying to read the angle. Like there’s definitely a wrong answer here and he’d quite like to avoid it.
You just hold his gaze, completely neutral.
A beat passes. Something unspoken flickers between you—quick, familiar.
Who would you pick?
Who do you think I’d pick?
Are we about to say the same name?
“…Robby,” you both say at the same time.
There’s a pause. Then Jack lets out a quiet, disbelieving huff of laughter, shaking his head against the pillow. “Jesus Christ.”
You grin a little, unable to help it. “I mean—objectively—”
“He’d be… fucking insufferable about it,” Jack cuts in immediately. “You know he would.”
You refrain from commenting, leaving your spaghetti aside, as you open your computer. Jack groans, dragging a hand over his face. “He’d give me notes or something.”
You’ve got Housewives on your computer. It’s obviously the New York one, still early days - Season 4.
“So what happened in the mid-season finale again?” You ask as you settle against him.
“I barely remember, honestly,” He sighs. “Ramona’s being difficult, someone brought the wrong wine, it’s a mess. Cindy is great, though.”
His arm tightens around you again, a quiet, grounding squeeze.
The episode keeps playing. His commentary gets more frequent—dry, half-interested, pretending he’s above it while very clearly tracking every single detail.
You let it happen, tucked into him, warm, fed, a little tired in the best way.
Cleansed, in a way none of the yoga or herbal tea ever managed. Just this—him, you, the low hum of something ridiculous on screen, and the easy, familiar weight of being exactly where you’re meant to be.
a/n: i love this song! I got this though from when i watched a robby x abbot tiktok edit to my man on willpower, and if im desperate for inspo i go to my tiktok edits and see if i can spur some ideas, and i was like, oh maybe abbot like not fucking you or something because of some self care thing and i was like, god he’d never do that. he’s fucking whenever, life is short, he would want to treat his partner as much as he can mentally and physically handle i think. And then i was like. Wait, lets switch the beat…. anyway i had to restrain myself from writing more orlike writing everyday and unpacking different interactions. i wrote a scene where'd try to seduce you with his "slutty pyjamas" (his army uniform) and you gaf or something but i felt too much 2nd hand embarrasment. im so tired i have triivia to go to now i have no idea if this is good i just want it done so i caan study and work on the lawyer series!
squirting on sneaky link!toji >< | cw: afab reader
Toji’s got you bouncing on his cock in his car. No tinted windows. No privacy. Just raw-dogging it.
He’s been fucking into you for about almost an hour now, his stupid fat cock rubbing against your insides, making you see stars.
"T-toji, I'm feeling weird," you stutter out.
“Hm?” Is all Toji says before he takes your clit between his fingers and starts rubbing it.
You let out something between a sob and a moan as he does so.
“Toji! I really can’t—something weird's happening, please—" Your body tenses up and you start rapidly shaking.
Toji continues to fuck you once more until you spray your juices all over him.
Toji moans at the sight. “Fuck.” Is all he says before pulling you into a messy kiss. Toji does one more mean thrust into you before spilling his hot, warm seed inside you.
After a while he pulls out of you. A second later he realizes that you completely soaked his seats.
He’d die before admitting it to anyone else, but with you? He doesn’t even try to hide it. The second you tie his wrists behind his back with his own blindfold, his pants are ready to burst. Right now he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, naked, breathing a little too fast. His cock is standing up thick and flushed, leaking all over his stomach. Well, no wonder, he’s been edged for hours.
You’re straddling his thigh, one hand slowly jerking him off while the other is tangled in his messy white hair. You kiss him deep, mixing your spit with his. And every time he moans into your mouth you squeeze his needy cock a little tighter.
“S-shit.. baby.” he gasps against your lips. Gojo tries to thrust up into your fist but the way his arms are tied behind him makes it hard. He just ends up twitching helplessly. You smirk and stroke him faster, thumb swirling over his leaking tip, spreading the mess around. The wet, filthy sound of your hand pumping his slick cock is loud in the quiet room.
“You’re so fucking hard,” you murmur, biting his bottom lip. “Look at you.. legs spread and leaking everywhere like a slut.”
Gojo lets out a shaky laugh that turns into a groan when you twist your wrist just right.
“Only for you,” he breathes, trying to sound in control of the situation but failing miserably. His hips jerk again. “Fuck… your hand feels too good.”
You keep making out with him messily, while you jerk him off nice and tight. Long strokes from base to tip, then quick, nasty ones focused on the head. Gojo’s thighs start trembling under you. His breathing is fucked up, little whimpers slipping out between kisses. You pull back just enough to watch his face. His cheeks are flushed, his eyes glassy and his lips swollen. God, he's beautiful.
“Gonna cum already?” you tease, speeding up your hand. Gojo bites his lip, trying to hold it together, but his cock is throbbing hard in your grip.
“Don’t stop- fuck.. please don’t stop,” he whines, forehead pressed to yours. The cocky bastard is actually begging now.
You kiss him again, swallowing every sound as you stroke him faster. Gojo’s whole body suddenly goes rigid. His abs flex hard and he lets out this desperate moan right into your mouth.
He squirts.
Hard.
Clear fluid shoots out of his cock in messy, pulsing jets, splashing all over your hand, his own chest and your thigh. It just keeps coming while you keep jerking him through it, milking every drop. Gojo is shaking, moaning like he’s losing his mind, hips jerking uncontrollably as he makes a complete mess.
You don’t stop until he’s twitching and oversensitive, whimpering softly against your lips.
When you finally slow down, he’s panting, face buried in your neck, body still trembling from the aftershocks.
“Fuck…” he rasps, voice hoarse. A weak, breathless laugh escapes him. “I made such a fucking mess.”
You kiss the side of his head, still slowly stroking his spent cock.
“Yeah, you did,” you whisper. “And we’re not even done yet.”
Gojo shivers, but there’s a lazy, satisfied grin on his face when he looks up at you.
When he's a golden retriever in public but anything but that in bed
He's always had a personality in the public of oh he's too sweet and charming, the golden retriever, cutie who helps old ladies cross the street, the one who crams his girlfriend's family members names and birthdays, the one who carries all your shopping bags and never let's you lift a finger, who takes you out on dates to celebrate any achievement, who drives you everywhere. He's the perfect text book golden retriever boyfriend in public but in private it's a whole different story
When he has you face down in the bed sheets crying from over stimulation as he plows back and forth into you whilst you're shaking and barely staying up on your knees if not for his hands keeping you on your knees and arching your back perfectly so he can fuck your cunt just how he wants.
"S'too much" you slur out whilst squeeze the sheets beneath you to get a sense of stability "sorry love it's just that you look so good today─ and everyone kept looking at you and nngh fuck" he rasps when you squeeze around his swollen cock, the compliments going from your head all the way to your cunt.
Nobody would think that it's your boyfriend who couldn't hurt a fly that has his hand squeezing the fat of your hips and fucking up into your ass and rearranging your guts.
"S─shit right t─there" you whine while he pistons into your with his balls slapping against your clit driving you crazy, every thrust sending closer and closer over the edge.
The sheer size of him overwhelming you backed with how many times he's made you cum has tears running down your face and ruining your makeup
"S──so tight, all mine fu─ck... No one else mine mine MINE nghh" he's so fare gone after going about this for hours his cock twitching inside you.
"I'm gonna, I'm c─cum─" you cry into the pillow body shuddering all over, eyes rolling back hips snapping back into his cock, spasming and gushing all over his cock. Finally you felt his cum flowing deep into you fill you up to the brim the frothy mix of both of your releases forming a ring at the bottom of his dick.
Still recovering from the high you notice he hasn't stopped moving in you, his cock is still going at that punishing pace, like he doesn't even realize he's still fucking you and talking to himself in a daze "ah fuck so good baby , too good your pussy feels too aghh"
Aerion Targaryen x wife!reader - A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
Summary: Dunk accidently mistakes Aerion's lady wife in his tent for a common whore because she did not arrive with the rest of the Targaryen party to the Ashford tourney. This is a oneshot, not related to any series.
Warnings: SMUT 18+ p in v, unprotected sex, possessiveness, power imbalance, dubiously consensual situations, Aerion wants to roleplay, pregnancy mention, talks about killing, Aerion has insane ideas, breeding.
The morning of the tourney had dawned bright over Ashford Meadow, the kind of morning that promised glory and broke that promise before the sun reached its zenith. You had watched the Targaryen party arrive from the shade of the pavilion, your hands folded, your spine a straight line of practiced composure. The three-headed dragon of House Targaryen, red on black, snapped in the wind, a sight that still made your stomach tighten.
Dunk, Ser Duncan, now, though it sat awkwardly on his broad shoulders, stood near the lists with his squire, a small, shaven-headed boy with sharp eyes. The hedge knight watched the procession with a wariness that bordered on rude, his great height making him impossible to miss among the crowd of lords and ladies and smallfolk alike. He had heard the whispers, same as everyone else. Prince Aerion Targaryen was coming to Ashford. Prince Aerion Brightflame, they called him. Some called him other things, though not to his face. This one, he had heard, was cut from different cloth entirely.
The prince was fair to look upon, all the Targaryens were, with hair like spun silver and eyes the color of violets, a sharp jaw and a mouth that seemed perpetually on the verge of a sneer or a smile, and it was difficult to tell which was which. He wore black riding leathers chased with silver thread, a cloak of deep crimson slung over one shoulder, and he did not look at the smallfolk who gathered to gawk. He looked through them, as if they were made of glass and of no consequence.
Duncan watched him dismount with an easy grace, handing his reins to a squire without a word of thanks. The prince stretched, rolled his shoulders, and cast a lazy glance across the meadow toward the rows of tents and pavilions that had sprouted like colorful mushrooms overnight.
“I am for my tent,” Aerion announced to no one in particular, though his voice carried well enough. It was a pleasant voice, cultured and smooth, with an undercurrent of something that made the hairs on Duncan’s arm prickle. “Tell them to bring wine. Something red, from the Arbor, if they have it. None of that Dornish swill.” He paused, and a slow, private smile curved his lips. “I, myself, shall be finding a pretty woman to share it with.”
Chuckles followed. A couple of Kingsguards shared a knowing look. Duncan frowned. He had heard, somewhere in the jumble of heraldry and gossip that accompanied any great tourney, that prince Aerion was married. To some lady of a lesser house, a match that had raised eyebrows among the high lords but had been pushed through by the prince’s father, Maekar, for reasons Duncan did not pretend to understand. A wife. And here the prince was, speaking of finding a pretty woman as if he were a knight with nothing but a horse and a sword to his name. Duncan’s sense of honour, simple and stubborn as an ox, bristled at the casual dismissal. A man wed was a man wed. He ought not speak so.
But Duncan was no fool, not entirely. He kept his frown to himself and watched the silver-haired prince stride off toward the largest of the black-and-crimson pavilions, his cloak billowing behind him, and he thought, not for the first time, that the blood of the dragon was a strange and unsettling thing.
You heard the commotion before you saw him. The Targaryen encampment was a hive of activity, servants hurrying with trunks and tapestries, grooms leading horses to the picket lines, guards taking up their posts. You had arrived a day earlier, traveling with your family, separately from your husband despite his insistence. The roads are dusty, he himself had said, after all, with that faint curl of his lip that might have been concern or might have been disdain. You will arrive fresh and rested. I will not have my wife looking like a Dothraki crone at her first great tourney. So you had come ahead with a small retinue, and you had waited.
Now he was here.
You remained in your chair within the pavilion, a book open on your lap that you had not read a single word of in the past hour. Your heart was beating too fast, a traitorous thing that had never learned to be calm around him. It was not fear, not precisely. It was something more complicated, something that knotted in your belly and made your breath come shorter and your skin feel too warm.
You heard his voice outside, giving orders, and then the flap of the pavilion was thrown back and he stepped inside, bringing with him the smell of horse and leather and something else, something that was just him.
“Wine,” he said to the air, not looking at you. He shrugged off his cloak and tossed it over a chest. “I told them to bring wine. If it is not here by the time I have removed my boots, I will have someone flogged.”
You said nothing. You watched him sit on the edge of the camp bed and work at his boots, his long fingers deft on the buckles. His silver hair fell forward. He was beautiful. You had thought so the first time you saw him, standing in your father’s hall with that faint, mocking smile and those impossible violet eyes, and you thought so now, even knowing what lay beneath the beauty. Perhaps because of what lay beneath it. You had never been able to untangle that knot.
A servant appeared, breathless, bearing a silver tray with a flagon of wine and two goblets. Aerion waved a hand dismissively. “Leave it. Go.”
The servant went. Aerion poured himself a goblet of deep red wine, swirled it, inhaled, and took a long drink. Only then did he seem to notice you, though you knew he had been aware of you from the moment he stepped into the tent. He was always aware of you. It was one of the things that made him so unsettling.
His violet eyes traveled over you slowly, from the crown of your head to the tips of your slippers, and you felt the weight of that gaze like a physical touch. You wore a gown of pale blue silk, cut low enough to be pleasing but not so low as to be vulgar, your hair dressed simply but becomingly. You were not a great beauty, you knew. You were pretty enough, with good skin and kind eyes and a mouth that smiled easily, but you were no silver-haired Targaryen princess. You were just you. And he was Aerion Brightflame.
“Well,” he drawled, setting down his goblet. His smile curved slowly, lazily, like a cat stretching in the sun. “How very fortunate. A pretty wench has finally found her way to my tent.”
Your spine stiffened. Your hands tightened on the book in your lap. “Aerion.”
“I wonder,” he continued, as if you had not spoken, “what brings you here. Looking to earn some silver for your services, perhaps?” He leaned back on his hands, his legs spread slightly, his entire posture one of indolent amusement. “I am told I am generous. When the service pleases me.”
Heat flooded your cheeks. It was anger, you told yourself. Only anger. Not the other thing, the thing that made your thighs press together beneath your skirts. “You are my husband.”
“Am I?” He tilted his head, feigning surprise. “I had forgotten. You must remind me. Wives and whores are so easily confused, are they not? Both warm. Both willing.” His smile sharpened. “Both so very eager to please their prince.”
You rose from your chair, the book sliding forgotten to the cushion. “If you wish to play games, Aerion, find someone else. I am not in the mood.”
“Oh, but you are.” His voice dropped, losing some of its mocking edge and gaining something darker, something that vibrated in the air between you. “You are always in the mood for me. I can see it in your eyes. I can smell it on your skin.” He inhaled deeply, theatrically, his nostrils flaring. “Like honey. Like summer. Come here.”
Your feet carried you forward before your mind could catch up. You hated that. You hated how easily he commanded your body, how your legs moved to his voice as if pulled by strings. You stopped a few feet from him, close enough to see the small scar on his jaw from some childhood mishap, the way his pupils had swallowed the violet of his irises.
“I am your wife,” you said again, quieter this time.
“Yes.” He reached out and caught your wrist, his grip warm and firm but not painful. He tugged, gently, and you stumbled forward until you were standing between his spread knees. “You are. And yet here you are, in my tent, dressed unbefitting your station, looking at me with those eyes. What is a prince to think?”
He released your wrist and patted his thigh. The gesture was casual, but his eyes were fixed on your face with an intensity that made your breath catch. “Come. Sit. Show me what a pretty wench does when she wants to earn her silver.”
You hesitated. The game was cruel, you knew. It was like him, to push and push until you did not know whether you wanted to slap him or kiss him, until the lines between anger and desire blurred into something indistinguishable. But beneath the cruelty, beneath the mockery, there was something else. You had learned to see it, over two years of marriage. A flicker in his eyes, a slight softening around his mouth. He wanted this game, yes, but he wanted you. He wanted you to play it with him, to meet him in this strange space he had created, where you were both more and less than husband and wife.
You lowered yourself onto his lap.
His hands came up immediately, settling on your hips, fingers pressing into the silk of your gown. “There,” he murmured, his breath warm against your throat. “That was not so difficult, was it?”
“I am not a whore,” you said, your voice steadier than you felt.
“No,” he agreed, and his lips brushed the curve of your jaw, feather-light. “You are not. A whore would know what to do. A whore would have her hands in my hair by now, or her fingers on my laces. A whore would be rocking against me, seeking her own pleasure as much as mine.” His teeth grazed your earlobe. “You, my sweet wife, are sitting on my lap like a startled doe. It is charming. It is also, I confess, somewhat frustrating.”
You turned your head and met his eyes. They were so close, those violet eyes, and they were laughing at you. But there was warmth there too, a heat that had nothing to do with mockery. “Then teach me.”
Something shifted in his expression. The lazy amusement remained, but beneath it something kindled, something hungry and intent. “Oh,” he breathed. “I intend to.”
His hands slid from your hips to the laces of your gown. He did not fumble, did not hesitate. His fingers worked the knots with practiced ease, loosening the silk until the bodice gaped and cool air kissed your skin. You shivered, and his smile widened.
“First,” he said, his voice a low murmur against your collarbone, “a whore does not sit still and wait to be undressed. She participates. She wants the business concluded quickly, so she may move on to the next customer. She is efficient.” He tugged the gown down over your shoulders, baring your breasts to the warm air of the tent. “She does not blush like a maiden on her wedding night.”
You could feel the heat spreading down your chest. But you lifted your hands and began to work at the laces of his tunic, your fingers less deft than his, trembling slightly. He let you struggle for a moment, watching your face with those intense violet eyes, before he covered your hands with his own and guided them.
“Like this,” he said, and his voice had gone rough at the edges. “Slowly. There is no rush. The customer will pay for your time regardless.”
“You are the customer,” you pointed out, your voice breathless.
“I am.” He shrugged out of his tunic, letting it fall to the floor of the tent. His chest was lean and pale, dusted with fine silver hair, the muscles shifting beneath his skin as he moved. “And I am a generous man. I will pay for every moment.”
His hands found your breasts, cupping them, thumbs brushing over your nipples until they tightened into hard peaks. You gasped, your hips jerking forward instinctively, and he laughed, a low, pleased sound.
“There,” he said. “Now you are beginning to understand. A whore knows her own pleasure. She takes it where she finds it, because the night is long and there are many customers. She does not wait for permission.”
He shifted beneath you, and you felt the hard length of him pressing against your thigh through his breeches. Your breath caught. You rocked against him, experimental, and his eyes fluttered half-closed.
“Yes,” he breathed. “Like that.”
His hands slid down your body, gathering your skirts, pushing them up until they bunched around your waist. The air was cool on your bare thighs, and you shivered again, but it was not from cold. His fingers found the waist of your smallclothes and tugged, and you lifted your hips to help him, your body moving without conscious thought now, driven by a need that had been building since the moment he stepped into the tent.
“Now,” he said, his voice a dark purr, “you will take what you want. I am merely a customer. A paying customer. Do you understand?”
You did not understand, not entirely, but you nodded anyway. His hands settled on your hips again, guiding you, positioning you. You felt the blunt head of him pressing against your entrance, and you were slick and ready, your body traitorously eager. You sank down onto him, taking him inside you in one slow motion, and the sound he made, a low, guttural groan that seemed torn from somewhere deep in his chest, made your inner muscles clench around him.
“Gods,” he muttered. His head fell back, his throat exposed. “You are...you are...”
You did not let him finish. You began to move, rocking on his lap as he had instructed, finding a rhythm that made pleasure spark up your spine. His hands tightened on your hips, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise, but you did not care. You were watching his face, watching the way his composure cracked and crumbled, watching the mocking prince dissolve into something rawer, something more honest.
“Look at you,” he said, his voice strained. “My pretty little whore. Taking what she wants. Riding me like a...like a...”
His words broke off into a groan as you shifted your angle, finding a spot that made you both gasp. You braced your hands on his shoulders, your fingers digging into the pale skin, and moved faster. The tent was warm, filled with the scent of wine and sex and the faint sweetness that always clung to him. Outside, you could hear the distant sounds of the tourney grounds, horses, voices, the clash of practice swords, but they seemed very far away, from another world entirely.
He was watching you now, his violet eyes wide and dark, his lips parted. The mockery was gone. The game was forgotten. There was only this, the slide of your bodies together, the wet sounds of your joining, the way his hips bucked up to meet your downward strokes.
You leaned forward and kissed him. He kissed you back with equal ferocity, one hand leaving your hip to tangle in your hair, holding you close as his tongue swept into your mouth.
When you broke apart, gasping, he pressed his forehead to yours. His eyes were squeezed shut, his brow furrowed as if in pain. “I cannot...you are too...I need...”
You did not know what he needed. You were too far gone yourself, the pleasure building and building like a wave preparing to crash. Your rhythm faltered, became erratic, and you buried your face in the curve of his neck, breathing in the scent of him.
His arms came around you, crushing you against his chest. One hand splayed across your bare back, holding you close, while the other gripped your hip, guiding your movements. His mouth found your shoulder, and he kissed the skin there.
You shattered. The pleasure broke over you in waves, making you cry out against his throat, your body clenching around him rhythmically. He followed a moment later, his hips jerking up into you, a low groan tearing from his lips as he spilled inside you.
But Aerion, being Aerion, did not let up.
His grip on your hips tightened before you could catch your breath, holding you firmly in place atop him. You were still trembling, still gasping, your forehead pressed to his shoulder, when his voice came again: that same lazy, mocking drawl, as if nothing at all had happened between you.
"What a pretty girl you are," he murmured against your hair, and you could feel his lips curve into a smile. "So eager. So willing. If you please me well enough, I may take you back to Summerhall as my paramour."
You stiffened in his arms. He was still playing the game. Even now, with his seed still warm inside you, with your bodies still joined, he could not simply be your husband. He had to be this: this infuriating, impossible creature who needed to twist everything into something strange and sharp.
"Aerion..." you started, but he cut you off, his hand sliding up your spine to cup the back of your neck.
"I'll even put a babe in you," he continued. His other hand pressed against your lower belly, where his seed was taking root, if the gods willed it. "I would wager you would give me a beautiful child. Silver hair, violet eyes. A true dragon." His thumb traced a slow circle on your stomach. "A son. You would like that, would you not? To give a prince a son?"
Your breath caught. The words were part of the game, they had to be, but there was something in his voice, some thread of genuine yearning, that made your heart clench. He wanted a son. He had always wanted a son. It was the reason he had married you, or so he claimed. A wife to give him heirs. A warm body to fill with dragon seed. Nothing more.
But his hands on you were gentle now, even as his words remained cruel.
"You are so soft," he breathed, his lips brushing your temple. "So supple. I would wager you make good coin at tourneys. Rotating through tents, spreading your legs for any knight with silver in his purse." His hips shifted beneath you, a small, lazy movement that made you gasp. "But I would keep you for myself. I am a jealous man. I do not share what is mine."
You pulled back enough to look at his face. His violet eyes were half-lidded, his lips curved in that familiar mocking smile, but there was a tension around his jaw, a tightness that betrayed him. He was waiting for something. Waiting to see if you would play along, or if you would break the game and demand he be your husband instead of this strange, cruel stranger he pretended to be.
"A prince's paramour," you said slowly, finding your voice. "That is a generous offer. But I have heard the prince of Summerhall already has a wife."
Something flickered in his eyes. Satisfaction, perhaps. Or something softer.
"His wife," Aerion said, and his voice changed, the mockery falling away like a cloak dropped to the floor, "is a vexing creature who does not know her place."
There it was. The shift. You were his wife again, and he was your husband, and the game was over. Or so you thought.
"She came to Ashford days ago," he continued, and now there was a genuine edge to his voice, a sharpness that had nothing to do with play. "With her own house. Her own retinue. As if she were not a Targaryen. As if she were not mine."
You opened your mouth to protest, but he was not finished.
"I arrived today and found my wife already ensconced in my pavilion, wearing a gown of pale blue silk that any merchant's daughter might own." His fingers plucked at the fabric pooled around your waist, his lip curling. "Plain. Unadorned. No jewels. No finery. As if I had not bought her a dozen gowns finer than this. As if I had not given her rubies and sapphires and pearls enough to drown a lesser woman."
"I thought..."
"You thought wrong." His hand came up to cup your face, his thumb tracing your lower lip. His touch was gentle, but his eyes were hard. "You are a Targaryen now. My wife. When we travel, you travel with me. Not ahead, not behind, not separately. With me. At my side. Where you belong."
"I did not want to slow you down," you said quietly. "You said the roads were dusty. You said..."
"I said many things." He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the corner of your mouth, brief and fierce. "I am your husband. It is my right to complain about dusty roads while you ride beside me. It is my right to be irritated by your presence and comforted by it in equal measure. You do not get to escape me so easily."
You stared at him, your heart beating too fast. He was impossible. He was infuriating. He was looking at you with those violet eyes, and beneath the irritation, beneath the princely arrogance, there was something that looked almost like hurt.
"You were lonely," you realized aloud. "You arrived and I was not with you, and you were lonely."
His jaw tightened. "I was bored. There is a difference."
"Is there?"
His hand slid from your face to your throat, not squeezing, just resting there, a reminder of his strength, of the power he held over you. "Do not presume to know my mind, wife."
But you did know. Marriage had taught you to read him, to see past the barbs and the mockery to the man beneath. A man who did not know how to say I missed you without wrapping it in thorns. A man who had been raised to believe that wanting someone was a weakness, and so he pretended he wanted no one at all.
"And this gown," he continued, his thumb stroking the column of your throat. "You will not wear it again. Not in public. I have bought you silks and velvets. I have given you the jewels to wear. You will wear them. All of them. At once, if you must. I will not have the realm whispering that prince Aerion cannot care for his wife."
"No one would think that," you said.
"They would." His voice dropped, and for a moment, the mask slipped entirely. "And what if someone had seen you, dressed like this? What if some knight or lord had mistaken you for a common wench, a camp follower, and dragged you to his tent?" His grip on your throat tightened fractionally. "What would I have done then? Burned the entire tourney to ash? Killed every man who looked at you? You are mine, and you walk about looking like anyone might have you, and I cannot..."
He stopped. His breath was coming faster, his chest rising and falling beneath your hands. His eyes were wide, wild, and you realized with a start that he was genuinely afraid. Not of losing you to another man, Aerion Targaryen feared very little, but of the rage that would consume him if anyone tried. Of what he might do.
"Aerion," you said softly. You lifted your hand and touched his face, your fingers tracing the sharp line of his jaw. "I am sorry. I did not think."
"No," he agreed, but some of the tension bled out of him. "You did not."
He turned his face into your palm and pressed a kiss there, his lips warm and surprisingly soft. Then he kissed your wrist, the inside of your elbow, the curve of your shoulder. His hands slid down your body, over your ribs, your waist, settling once more on your hips.
"I will wear the gowns," you promised, your voice breathless as his mouth found the hollow of your throat. "And the jewels. All of them. I will look like a Targaryen princess."
"You are a Targaryen princess." His teeth grazed your collarbone. "My princess. My wife."
"And I will ride with you," you continued, your fingers tangling in his silver hair. "Always. I will not go ahead again."
"See that you do not." He lifted his head and looked at you, and the mockery was gone from his eyes, replaced by something fiercer and far more dangerous. "I will not be parted from you again. I find I do not care for it."
Before you could answer, his hands tightened on your hips and he guided you into motion again. You gasped, your body still sensitive from your first release, but he did not stop. He moved you slowly, rocking you against him in a rhythm that made pleasure spark up your spine all over again.
"Aerion," you managed, your voice unsteady. "I am...your breeches...I am drenching them..."
"Let them be drenched." His voice was rough, his breath coming in short pants against your throat. "I have other breeches. I have a hundred breeches. I will ruin them all if I must."
You could not argue. You could barely think. He was moving you faster now, his hips rising to meet yours, and the wet sounds of your joining filled the tent. His hands roamed your body: your breasts, your waist, the curve of your backside, touching you everywhere, as if he could not get enough of the feel of you.
"You are prettier than any wench," he panted, the words tumbling from his lips like a confession. "Prettier than any woman I have ever seen. My pretty wife. My sweet wife. You are always so...so warm...so perfect for me..."
His words dissolved into a groan as you clenched around him, your own pleasure building again. You buried your face in his neck and let him move you, let him take what he needed, because you needed it too. You needed this: this fierce, consuming thing between you, this fire that burned away all pretense and left only the raw truth of your wanting.
"I am going to..." he started, but he did not finish. His body arched beneath you, his hands gripping your hips hard enough to bruise, and he spilled inside you with a broken cry. The sensation pushed you over the edge after him, your body milking him greedily, drawing out every last drop of his seed.
For a long moment, you simply breathed together, your bodies still joined, your hearts pounding in tandem. You expected him to release you, to let you slide off his lap and find your feet. Instead, his arms tightened around you, holding you in place.
"Aerion," you said, shifting slightly. "I should..."
"No." His voice was firm, though still roughened with pleasure. "Stay."
"But I am..."
"Stay." His hand pressed against your lower back, keeping you flush against his chest. "I like you here. Warm and soft and full of me. You will stay until I say you may move."
You squirmed, and his grip tightened. A small, cruel smile curved his lips, the first hint of the old Aerion, the one who liked to push and test and see how far you would go for him.
"Uncomfortable, my love?" he asked, his voice a lazy drawl once more. "Good. Think of it as penance. For leaving me to ride alone. For wearing that plain little gown. For making me worry."
"I did not know you worried."
"I did not know either." He said it lightly, but there was something raw beneath the words. "It was a most unpleasant discovery. I do not recommend it."
He leaned back on the camp bed, pulling you with him, so that you were sprawled across his chest. His hands roamed your back in slow, idle strokes, tracing the curve of your spine, the dip of your waist. His eyes were half-closed, his expression one of sated contentment, but there was an expectation in the set of his mouth, a silent demand.
You leaned down and pressed your lips to his throat, just below his jaw, where his pulse beat slow and strong. He made a small sound, not quite a sigh, not quite a groan, and tilted his head back, offering you more of his neck. You kissed your way along the elegant line of his throat, feeling the vibration of his hum of approval against your lips.
"That is better," he murmured, his fingers tangling in your hair. "My sweet wife. My dutiful wife."
You dragged your tongue along his skin, tasting salt and the faint sweetness that always clung to him. He shivered, and you felt a surge of power. He might command you, might order you about and mock you and play his cruel games, but here, in this, you had power too. You could make him shiver.
You kissed his jaw, the corner of his mouth, the high curve of his cheekbone. His eyes had fallen fully closed now, his lips parted, his breathing slow and deep. He looked almost peaceful. Almost gentle. You knew better than to believe it entirely, Aerion Targaryen was never entirely peaceful, never entirely gentle, but in these moments, after he had spent himself inside you, when your body was still wrapped around his, he came close.
He smiled, a real smile, not the mocking curve he showed the world, and pulled you down for a kiss. It was slow and deep and thorough, his tongue sliding against yours, his hand cradling the back of your head as if you were something precious.
When he finally released you, his eyes had sharpened again, a new hunger kindling in their violet depths.
"Now," he said, and his voice was a dark promise. "Let us see how sturdy this makeshift bed truly is."
Before you could respond, he rolled, taking you with him, and suddenly you were on your back on the camp bed, staring up at him. His silver hair fell around his face like a curtain, his eyes burning down at you, his body still joined with yours.
"Aerion..."
"Quiet," he said, but there was no cruelty in it. Only want. Only need. "You owe me. For the lonely ride. For the plain gown. For every moment I spent wondering where you were and whether you were safe."
He began to move, slow and deep, and you forgot how to speak.
The bed creaked beneath you, a rhythmic sound that matched the thrust of his hips. He braced himself on his forearms, his face inches from yours, his eyes never leaving your face. He watched every flicker of pleasure that crossed your features, every gasp, every moan, as if he were memorizing them.
You reached up and pulled him down for a kiss, and he groaned into your mouth. His rhythm faltered, became more urgent, and you wrapped your legs around his waist, pulling him deeper.
The bed creaked louder. Neither of you cared.
"Give me a son," he gasped against your lips. "Give me a son, and I will give you anything. Everything. Just...give me..."
The bed gave way with a splintering crack that echoed through the tent like a thunderclap.
One moment you were beneath him, your back pressed into the thin mattress, your legs wrapped around his waist as he drove into you with that single-minded intensity that only Aerion Targaryen possessed. The next, the wooden frame splintered and collapsed, sending you both tumbling to the ground in a tangle of limbs and furs and broken slats.
You gasped, more from surprise than pain, your hands flying to grip his shoulders. Aerion barely paused. He grunted as the bed gave way beneath him, catching himself on his forearms before he could crush you, and then he kept moving.
"Aerion," you managed, your voice breathless and startled. "The bed..."
"I noticed." His voice was strained, his hips never slowing their relentless rhythm. The furs beneath you provided some cushion against the hard ground, but you could feel the broken slats of the bed frame pressing into your back through the layers. He shifted, adjusting his angle, and a broken moan escaped your lips.
"You are..." you started, but the words dissolved into a gasp as he hit that spot deep inside you, the one that made your vision blur.
"I am what?" His voice was a dark purr, his violet eyes gleaming down at you in the dim light of the tent. Sweat gleamed on his brow, and his silver hair hung in disheveled strands around his face. He looked wild. He looked beautiful. He looked like a dragon in human form, all fire and hunger and terrible grace. "I am your husband. I am a prince. And I am not going to let a poorly constructed camp bed prevent me from taking what is mine."
Your laughter surprised you, a breathless, slightly hysterical sound that bubbled up from somewhere deep in your chest. "The bed is in splinters."
"Then I will have lord Ashford pay for a new one." His hips snapped forward, hard and deep, and your laughter turned into a moan. "He should have provided sturdier accommodations for a prince of the realm. It is his own fault if his furniture cannot withstand proper use."
Proper use. As if this was proper. As if anything about Aerion Targaryen could ever be called proper.
Aerion did not slow. If anything, he seemed to find new vigor in the destruction, his pace increasing until you were gasping and clutching at his shoulders, your nails leaving crescents in his pale skin.
"That is it," he breathed, his forehead dropping to yours. His eyes were squeezed shut, his brow furrowed in concentration. "That is...yes...you feel..."
He did not finish the thought. His rhythm stuttered, became erratic, and then he was spilling inside you. You cried out, your back arching off the furs, your body clenching around him as wave after wave of pleasure crashed through you.
You lay there, tangled together on the ruined bed, your chests heaving, your bodies still joined. Aerion's weight pressed you into the furs, and you could feel the hard edges of broken wood beneath you, but you could not bring yourself to care.
Finally, he stirred. He lifted his head and looked down at you, and there was something soft in his violet eyes, something that only ever appeared in these private moments, when the mask slipped and the real Aerion peered through.
He pulled out of you slowly, and you winced at the loss, at the sudden emptiness. But before you could mourn it, he was moving down your body, pressing kisses to your skin as he went. Your throat. Your collarbone. The valley between your breasts. Your ribs. And then, when he reached your belly, he stopped.
His hands framed your hips, his thumbs tracing slow circles on the soft skin there. He pressed his lips to the curve of your stomach, just below your navel, the place where, if the gods were kind, a child might one day grow.
"This," he murmured against your skin, "will surely have a babe put in your body."
Your breath caught. You lifted your head to look at him, at the silver hair spilling across your stomach, at the reverence in his touch. He was not mocking now. There was no cruelty in his voice, no sharp edge of humor. Only want. Only hope.
"A son," he continued, his lips brushing your skin with each word. "A strong son. A dragon. I will fill you every night of this tourney, and every night after, until your belly swells with my child. Until the maesters confirm what I already know, that you were made for this. Made to carry my heirs."
Your hand found his hair, your fingers threading through the silver strands. He kissed your belly once more, lingering and soft, and then he lifted his head. His eyes met yours, and for a moment, you saw everything: the loneliness, the fear, the desperate need to prove himself, to leave a legacy, to be more than just a second son with a dangerous reputation. You saw the man beneath the prince, and your heart ached for him.
Then the moment passed. He sat up, stretching with the lazy grace of a cat, utterly unbothered by his nakedness or the wreckage surrounding him.
"We will sleep in lord Ashford's castle tonight anyway," he said, waving a dismissive hand at the ruined bed. "This was merely for the afternoon. A place to rest between the lists and the feast. It matters not if it is broken."
You looked at the splintered wood, the torn mattress, the furs scattered across the ground. "The servants will talk."
"Let them talk." He rose to his feet in one fluid motion, utterly unconcerned with his nakedness. His body was lean and pale, muscled in the way of a man who trained daily with sword and lance, and there was a fine sheen of sweat still glistening on his skin. He looked like something from a tapestry: a warrior, a prince, a creature of myth made flesh. "Let them whisper about the passion of prince Aerion and his lady wife. Let them wonder what we do behind closed tent flaps. I care not."
He found his breeches, miraculously intact, unlike the bed, and pulled them on. Then he turned back to you, still sprawled on the furs, and something flickered in his eyes.
"You should dress," he said. "I am going to find more wine. The servants here are incompetent, and I will not suffer dry throat because of their laziness."
He crossed to you, leaned down, and pressed a kiss to your lips, brief but thorough. Then his hand found your hip, and he pinched, just hard enough to make you yelp.
"That," he said, straightening with a smirk, "is for breaking the bed."
"I did not break the bed. You broke the bed."
"The bed broke because of your..." He gestured vaguely at your body, still disheveled from his attentions. "Your enthusiasm. Your movements. Your inability to lie still while your husband takes his pleasure."
You stared at him, incredulous. "You were the one..."
But he was already gone, sweeping out of the tent with the arrogance of a man who had never been forced to finish an argument he was losing.
You lay there for a moment longer, staring at the tent ceiling, your body still humming with the aftershocks of pleasure. Then, slowly, you sat up and began to put yourself to rights.
The gown was a lost cause, crumpled and stained and likely unwearable until it could be properly laundered. You found a simple shift in one of the trunks and pulled it on, then a robe of soft grey wool to ward off the afternoon chill. You combed your fingers through your tangled hair, doing your best to tame it without a proper brush, and splashed water on your face from the basin in the corner.
When you emerged from the tent, the afternoon sun was warm on your face. The tourney grounds sprawled before you, a sea of colorful pavilions and snapping banners, of knights and squires and smallfolk milling about. The sounds of the lists drifted on the breeze: the clash of practice swords, the shouts of men, the whinny of horses.
You found a camp chair just outside the tent flap and settled into it, careful not to stray far. Aerion's words echoed in your mind. You will not leave my side. You will stay where I can see you. You had promised, and you meant to keep that promise, even if he was not here to enforce it.
The sun was warm. The chair was comfortable. You let your eyes drift half-closed, your body still pleasantly sore from the afternoon's activities. A small, secret smile curved your lips.
Footsteps approached: heavy, hesitant footsteps, the tread of a man who was very large and trying very hard to be quiet. You opened your eyes and found yourself staring up at a veritable giant of a man.
He was tall, taller than any man you had ever seen, easily seven feet, with broad shoulders and thick arms and hands the size of dinner plates. His face was plain and honest, with a strong jaw and kind eyes and a thatch of unruly brown hair. He wore a simple tunic of green and brown, well-made but not fine, and he carried himself with the careful awkwardness of a man who had never quite grown accustomed to his own size.
He was also staring at you with an expression of profound discomfort.
"Begging your pardon, my lady," he said, and his voice was deep and rumbling, like distant thunder. "I did not mean to disturb you. I was looking for...that is, I was trying to find..."
He trailed off, his brow furrowing. He looked at the tent behind you, the black-and-crimson Targaryen pavilion, and then back at you, and something like confusion flickered across his honest face.
"You are the hedge knight," you said, because you had noticed him earlier. Everyone at Ashford had noticed him, if only for his size. He towered over every other man in the camp, a great shambling giant with a boy squire at his heels and a look of perpetual bewilderment on his plain, earnest face. "The tall one. I saw you near the lists this morning."
"I am," he confirmed, and he seemed surprised that you had noticed him at all. "Ser Duncan, if it pleases my lady. Though most call me Dunk." He hesitated. "I was looking for...there was a knight I knew once, Ser Arlan of Pennytree. I thought someone here might remember him. I have been asking at the tents, but I fear I have lost track of which ones I have visited and which I have not."
"I am sorry," you said gently. "I do not know the name."
His shoulders slumped, just slightly. "No one does. It has been many years. I thought perhaps...but it does not matter." He made to leave, then stopped, his brow furrowing again.
"My lady," he said slowly, "are you…are you well?"
You blinked. "I am perfectly well, Ser Duncan. Why do you ask?"
He shifted his weight from foot to foot, his big hands opening and closing at his sides. "It is only...I saw prince Aerion enter this tent some hours ago. And I heard him say...that is, I could not help but hear..."
"I am well," you said quickly. "Truly. There is no cause for concern."
But Ser Duncan was not a man who let things go easily. His honest face was troubled, his brow deeply furrowed. He took a half-step closer, lowering his voice as if afraid of being overheard.
"Was he...did he hurt you?" The words seemed to cost him something. His jaw was tight, his eyes earnest and worried. "The prince. I know his reputation. I know what they say about him. If he was too rough with you, if he forced you..."
"Ser Duncan." You held up a hand, stopping him. Understanding was dawning, slow and strange and almost amusing. He did not know you. Aerion had most likely said something vulgar, and then he had seen you - a woman in a plain gown, no jewels, no finery, enter that same tent. And he had drawn the obvious, if incorrect, conclusion.
He thought you were a whore. He thought you were a camp follower, a woman paid for her services, and he was concerned, genuinely, deeply concerned, that the prince had been cruel to you. That he had hurt you. That you might need help.
It was so earnest. So kind. So utterly, completely mistaken.
"The prince did not hurt me," you said, and you could not quite keep the amusement from your voice. "I assure you, Ser Duncan, I am quite unharmed."
He did not look convinced. "If you are afraid to speak, my lady, I understand. Princes are...they have power. They can do things. But I would not let him harm you further. I would..."
"Ser Duncan." You leaned forward slightly, your voice gentle. "What do you think I am doing here?"
He hesitated. His face flushed a deep, ruddy red. "I...that is...it is not my place to judge, my lady. A woman must do what she must to survive. I know that. I have known many good women who..." He stopped, clearly floundering. "I only meant that if the prince was cruel, if he did not pay you what you were owed, I would speak to him. I would make it right."
You stared at him for a long moment. Then, despite yourself, you laughed.
It was not a mocking laugh, you did not have it in you to mock this earnest, well-meaning giant of a man. It was a laugh of genuine, surprised delight. He thought you were a whore awaiting payment. He thought Aerion had used you and cast you aside. And he, a poor hedge knight with nothing but his honour and his size to his name, was offering to confront a prince of the realm on your behalf.
"You are a good man, Ser Duncan," you said, wiping your eyes. "Truly."
He looked confused, and faintly wounded. "I do not understand. If you are not...then why are you..."
Before you could answer, a familiar voice cut through the afternoon air like a blade.
"What is this?"
Aerion emerged from between two neighboring pavilions, a flagon of wine in one hand and two goblets in the other. His silver hair was still disheveled, his tunic only half-laced, and his violet eyes swept over the scene before him with a sharpness that belied his casual posture. He took in you, seated in your camp chair in your plain grey robe. He took in the enormous hedge knight looming over you, his big hands raised in an awkward, abortive gesture.
"I leave my wife alone for a handful of minutes," Aerion said, his voice soft and dangerous, "and I return to find some great lumbering stranger hovering over her like a vulture over carrion. Explain yourself."
Ser Duncan went pale. He took a hasty step back, nearly tripping over his own feet, and raised his hands higher in a gesture of surrender. "Your Grace, I meant no harm. I was only...I did not realize...that is, I thought she was..."
Your mind raced. You saw the path this conversation was about to take: the hedge knight's earnest confession, Aerion's cold fury at being thought the kind of man who would pay for a whore when he had a wife, the potential for humiliation and violence that would follow. Ser Duncan did not deserve that. He had been kind. He had been concerned. He had offered to help a woman he believed to be in need.
"He was lost," you said quickly, rising from your chair and stepping between the two men. You placed a hand on Aerion's chest, feeling the tension coiled in his muscles. "He was looking for a tent, someone he knew once, a Ser Arlan of Pennytree, and he lost his way. He stopped to ask me for directions. Nothing more."
Aerion's gaze flickered from the hedge knight to you. His eyes narrowed. "Directions."
"Yes." You kept your voice light, pleasant. "He is new to tourneys of this size, I think. The camp is a maze. Anyone might lose their way."
Ser Duncan, to his credit, was not a complete fool. He latched onto the lie with the desperate gratitude of a drowning man seizing a rope. "Yes," he said quickly. "Yes, that is it exactly. I was lost. I asked the lady for directions. Nothing more, Your Grace, I swear it. I would never...I did not mean..."
"You should be grateful to even gaze upon her," Aerion interrupted, his voice dripping with bored disdain. He did not look at the hedge knight. He looked at you, and some of the tension bled from his shoulders, though his posture remained rigid with proprietary pride. "Let alone speak to her. She is a princess now, by marriage if not by birth. Her face is not for the likes of you."
"I am grateful," Ser Duncan said, and he sounded it. "Truly, my prince. The princess was most kind. Most generous with her time. I thank her. I thank you both."
"Yes, yes." Aerion waved a dismissive hand, already bored with the interaction. "You have gazed. You have spoken. You have been granted more than you deserve. Now fuck off."
Ser Duncan did not need to be told twice. He sketched a hasty bow, awkward and unpracticed, the bow of a man who had never quite learned the proper forms, and retreated with impressive speed for a man of his size. You watched him go, disappearing between the pavilions, and felt a small pang of sympathy. He had meant well. He had been kind. And you had lied to protect him from your husband's wrath.
Aerion's hand closed around your wrist. "Inside."
He did not wait for your response. He tugged you back into the tent, letting the flap fall closed behind you. The ruined bed still lay in splinters on the ground, the furs scattered, the evidence of your afternoon's activities plain for anyone to see. Aerion ignored it. He set the wine and goblets on a chest and turned to face you, his arms crossed over his chest.
"A hedge knight," he said flatly. "A great lumbering hedge knight, looming over my wife, making her laugh."
"He was lost," you said again, keeping your voice soft. "Nothing more."
"He was looking at you." Aerion's jaw tightened. "The way men look at things they want."
"Aerion." You stepped closer to him, reaching up to smooth the collar of his unlaced tunic. Your fingers brushed his throat, and you felt his pulse leap beneath your touch. "He was a poor hedge knight who lost his way. He asked for directions. I gave them. He was grateful. That is all."
"He wanted you," Aerion said again, but some of the sharpness had faded from his voice. "I saw it in his eyes."
"He wanted to know if I was well." You rose on your toes and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. "He heard sounds from the tent. He was concerned. That is all."
Aerion's hands found your waist, pulling you closer. "Concerned. About my wife. As if I would ever harm what is mine."
"You play rough games, husband. You cannot blame a stranger for misunderstanding."
"I can blame anyone I like. I am a prince."
You laughed, and the sound seemed to ease something in him. His grip on your waist gentled, his thumbs tracing slow circles through the wool of your robe.
"This gown," he said. "This grey wool thing. You look like a septa. A very pretty septa, but a septa nonetheless. I will not have it."
"It was the first thing I found. My other gown was..."
"I know what your other gown was." His smile curved, sharp and satisfied. "I remember removing it. I remember every moment of removing it." He leaned down and pressed a kiss to your throat. "But you cannot wear this to lord Ashford's castle. You cannot wear this to the feast tonight. You cannot wear this anywhere that anyone might see you and think I do not dress my wife as befits her station."
"Then take me to the castle," you said, your voice soft and coaxing. "Lord Ashford has given us chambers. Let us go there now. You can rest properly before the tourney tomorrow, on a real bed, not this splintered mess." You gestured at the ruined camp bed. "And I will try on every gown I brought. Every jewel. You can choose which one you would like to see me in for the feast."
His eyes darkened. "Choose?"
"Choose." You reached up and traced the line of his jaw with your fingertips. "I am your wife. I should dress to please you. Should I not?"
He stared at you for a long moment. Then, slowly, his lips curved into that familiar, dangerous smile. "You are playing me."
"I am pleasing you. There is a difference."
"Is there?"
You smiled and said nothing.
He kissed you and then released you. "Very well. To the castle. But if I am to rest properly, wife, you will be resting beside me. I did not travel all this way to sleep alone."
"I would expect nothing less."
a/n: You can donate on Ko-fi, your support helps me write more: https://ko-fi.com/catbayunthestoryteller <3
a/n: Aerion is not as nice here as in Growing Strong series because nobody can train him quite like lady Tyrell!reader.
